U.S. House Results

By 2:00 pm ET Saturday, the AP had called 213 seats for Democrats & 220 seats for Republicans. (A majority is 220 218.)

Trump is removing some members of the House & Senate to serve in his administration, which could -- at least in the short run -- give Democrats effective majorities.

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Mashable: "Following the 2024 presidential election results and [Elon] Musk's support for ... Donald Trump, users have been deactivating en masse. And this time, it appears most everyone has settled on one particular X alternative: Bluesky.... Bluesky has gained more than 100,000 new sign ups per day since the U.S. election on Nov. 5. It now has over 15 million users. It's enjoyed a prolonged stay on the very top of Apple's App Store charts as well. Ready to join? Here's how to get started on Bluesky[.]"

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

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To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

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OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

New York Times: “Chris Wallace, a veteran TV anchor who left Fox News for CNN three years ago, announced on Monday that he was leaving his post to venture into the streaming or podcasting worlds.... He said his decision to leave CNN at the end of his three-year contract did not come from discontent. 'I have nothing but positive things to say. CNN was very good to me,' he said.”

New York Times: In a collection of memorabilia filed at New York City's Morgan Library, curator Robinson McClellan discovered the manuscript of a previously unknown waltz by Frédéric Chopin. Jeffrey Kallberg, a Chopin scholar at the University of Pennsylvania as well as other experts authenticated the manuscript. Includes video of Lang Lang performing the short waltz. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The Times article goes into some of Chopin's life in Paris at the time he wrote the waltz, but it doesn't mention that he helped make ends meet by giving piano lessons. I know this because my great grandmother was one of his students. If her musical talent were anything like mine, those particular lessons would have been painful hours for Chopin.

New York Times: “Improbably, [the political/celebrity magazine] George[, originally a project by John F. Kennedy, Jr.] is back, with the same logo and the same catchy slogan: 'Not just politics as usual.' This time, though, a QAnon conspiracy theorist and passionate Trump fan is its editor in chief.... It is a reanimation story bizarre enough for a zombie movie, made possible by the fact that the original George trademark lapsed, only to be secured by a little-known conservative lawyer named Thomas D. Foster.”

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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Saturday
Dec312011

The Commentariat -- January 1, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is Part 1 of a grim retrospective of 2011: "The Year You Lost Your Civil Rights." The NYTX front page is here. Also, please consider donating to NYTX, which I think is a really worthwhile publication. You can do so here.

CLICK ON THE CARTOON TO GO TO BARRY'S REVIEW. Art by Drew Friedman for the Washington Post.... It was the kind of year that made a person look back fondly on the gulf oil spill. -- Dave Barry

Here's a pdf of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Robert's full "Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary." The New York Times story by Adam Liptak is here.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft, in a New York Times op-ed, on the "unknown knowns": bad stuff that's going on which people in authority choose not to acknowledge. 

Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "Medicines to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are in such short supply that hundreds of patients complain daily to the Food and Drug Administration that they are unable to find a pharmacy with enough pills to fill their prescriptions. The shortages are a result of a troubled partnership between drug manufacturers and the Drug Enforcement Administration, with companies trying to maximize their profits and drug enforcement agents trying to minimize abuse by people, many of them college students, who use the medications to get high or to stay up all night."

"Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!" For friends with small children -- Alexandra Horowitz & Ammon Shea, in a New York Times op-ed, debunk a few anthropomorphic children's stories. (It might be best if you don't tell the kids.)

Right Wing World

** Frank Rich of New York magazine: "What Republican aristocrats in denial like Karl Rove can’t bring themselves to recognize is that 'the most unpredictable, rapidly shifting, and often downright inexplicable primary race' they’ve ever seen is not just a conservative revolution but one that has them in its sights."

Maureen Dowd: Mrs. Willard, Mrs. Newt & Mrs. The Donald tell their husbands only they can save the country. Obviously, at least two three of the wives are wrong.

Frank Bruni: "The run-up to the Iowa caucuses, like the rest of the primary season thus far, has underscored just how much general nuttiness and moral extremism the party has come to accommodate, with Iowa serving as a theater of the conservative absurd."

When You Think They Can't Get Worse, Think Again. Pema Levy & Benjy Sarlin of TPM: Ron "Paul’s Iowa chair, Drew Ivers, recently touted the endorsement of Rev. Phillip G. Kayser, a pastor at the Dominion Covenant Church in Nebraska who also draws members from Iowa.... Kayser’s views on homosexuality go way beyond the bounds of typical anti-gay evangelical politics and into the violent fringe: he recently authored a paper arguing for criminalizing homosexuality and even advocated imposing the death penalty against offenders based on his reading of Biblical law." ...

... John Heilemann of New York magazine: even if the crazy coot bigoted conspiracy theorist bombs in Republican primaries, don't count him out of Election 2012: there's always the Third Party Option, and Ron Paul defintiely hasn't ruled it out.

News Ledes

Here's what you had the wisdom to miss last night while doing something better with your time:

New York Daily News: "Protesters occupied New Year’s Eve inside Zuccotti Park late Saturday, creating a steel mountain of NYPD barricades in its plaza as thousands of cops were busy protecting Times Square. Scuffles erupted between demonstrators and police, with one protester busted after an officer was slightly injured with a pair of scissors, police said." ...

... New York Times: "Occupy Iowa protesters had a successful day -- of arrests -- yesterday."

Des Moines Register: "The Des Moines Register’s latest Iowa Poll shows a surprise three-way match-up in contention to win the Iowa Republican caucuses: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Santorum, who has been largely invisible in the polls throughout the campaign season, is now beating the other evangelical choices and has a clear shot at victory Tuesday night." ...

... "Ghost from Romney's Past." CNN: "Democrats aren't missing a chance to take aim at their favorite target: Republican presidential frontrunner and former Bain Capital executive Mitt Romney. Randy Johnson, a worker laid off when Bain bought American Pad and Paper Company, will arrive in Des Moines on Sunday to hold a press conference, according to the Democratic National Committee.... The DNC said that along with a press conference, Johnson will talk to reporters and travel throughout Iowa 'to discuss Romney's decades long record of putting profits before people.'"

AP: "Iranian scientists have produced the nation’s first nuclear fuel rod, a feat of engineering the West has doubted Tehran capable of, the country’s nuclear agency said Sunday."

Washington Post: "The Vatican is set to launch a structure Monday that will allow Anglican parishes in the United States — and their married priests — to join the Catholic Church in a small but symbolically potent effort to reunite Protestants and Catholics, who split almost 500 years ago. More than 1,300 Anglicans, including 100 Anglican priests, have applied to be part of the new body, essentially a diocese."

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