CNBC: “The U.S. economy added far more jobs than expected in September, pointing to a vital employment picture as the unemployment rate edged lower, the Labor Department reported Friday. Nonfarm payrolls surged by 254,000 for the month, up from a revised 159,000 in August and better than the 150,000 Dow Jones consensus forecast. The unemployment rate fell to 4.1%, down 0.1 percentage point.”
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Public Service Announcement
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."
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.'”
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."
Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”
New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”
Nice outfits, Twisted Sister, but a little less percussion would have been more evocative of the carols we children used to sing in school back in the day schools had Christmas pageants:
This maudlin entry is Newsweek's nomination. The group is NewSong, a Christian "rock" group. One of the singers, Eddie Carswell, wrote the song all by hisself, based on a chain letter. Kevin Fallon of Newsweek has the story for anyone writing a paper on the history of shlock. I could not listen to the song all the way through:
BUT Patton Oswalt listened for me and explains the logic of the song's narrative. He includes this theological exegis: "I died for your sins, but those pumps are unforgivable":
Apparently Lady Gaga is an acquired taste. It's difficult to imagine a more salacious "Christmas carol":
Mariah Carey gives it the old college try, but doesn't come even close. The implied pedophilia is a nice touch, though:
Speaking of kids, in case you thought you were missing something by not knowing squat about boy groups -- this video should reassure you you're way better off. I keep forgetting how totally talentless these kids are. And they told us the lip-syncing Monkeys were bad:
Really, Madonna, how could you? (It's an awful song, but Eartha Kitt at least knew what to do with it):
Somehow I don't think Clarence Carter was really into the spirit of the season (out of an abundance of kindness, I'm not embedding Jon bon Jovi's version of "Back Door Santa":
Bob Dylan's "It Must Be Santa" is so bad I run it every year, & now I've come to enjoy it, albeit in a perverse way:
AND to make up for all that, the best bank commercial in history -- produced by the Banc Sabadell & performed in Plaça de Sant Roc in Sabadell, a town north of Barcelona. Thank you once again, Ludwig:
NEW. Andy Borowitz forwards "A Holiday Letter from John Boehner."
The Deficit Cult. Paul Krugmanequates deficit hawks with doomsday cult members: "... the prophets of fiscal disaster, no matter how respectable they may seem, are at this point effectively members of a doomsday cult. They are emotionally and professionally committed to the belief that fiscal crisis lurks just around the corner, and they will hold to their belief no matter how many corners we turn without encountering that crisis.... They've been hugely, absurdly wrong for years on end, and it's time to stop taking them seriously." ...
... Right on cue, Annie Lowrey of the New York TimesprofilesMaya MacGuineas, the "face of the Campaign to Fix the Debt." Lowrey reports, without so much as a "he said" for all the "she said"s, on MacGuineas & her "all-star cast" of debt & deficit hawks. Lowrey, who was a liberal writer just months ago, is married to Ezra Klein.
Economic Policy Institute: 250 Ph.D. economists & 50 Ph.D. social insurance experts write in a November 20, 2012 statement, "... we oppose proposals to reduce the Social Security COLA by tying it to a chained consumer price index that does not directly measure the actual expenditures of beneficiaries. Such a move would lower the COLA by an estimated 0.3 percentage points per year, translating into a 3 percent benefit cut after 10 years and a 6 percent cut after 20 years. The oldest beneficiaries, who are often the poorest beneficiaries, and persons receiving disability benefits for more than 20 years would see even larger cuts over time." (pdf) ...
... BUT, hey, everybody has to "compromise." Nancy Altman & Eric Kingston in the Huffington Post provide a "how-to" manual for politicians, etc., on the best ways to betray seniors & people with disabilities. The writes note that "Most [politicians], including President Obama and Speaker Boehner, have acknowledged that Social Security has not and cannot contribute a penny to the federal debt. Nearly all are on record as promising that they will never, ever cut the benefits of today's seniors and people with disabilities." CW: Altman & Kingston aren't so smart: I'm pretty sure they copied their "ideas" from actual politicians. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. A lump of coal, you faithless jerks.
E. J. Dionne: "... we know something important: The current Republican majority in the House cannot govern. Only a coalition across party lines can get the public's business done."
Amy Davidson of the New Yorker on why Republicans are attacking former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), whom Obama may nominate for Secretary of Defense: "... what's becoming clearest in this fight isn't anything about Hagel, but the derangement of the Republican Party, to use what may soon be an obsolete term for a movement in a state of sour disorder."
NEW. Robert Parry in Consortium News on the Second Amendment, an attempt to preserve "domestic tranquility" while saving the cost of maintaining a standing army against insurrectionists.
... "Where Have You Been, Mr. President?" Philip Rucker & Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "It took the massacre of 20 children and six adults in a Newtown, Conn., elementary school this month to spur Obama to action. He vowed last week to push for immediate and concrete gun-safety proposals to prevent such carnage." ...
... David Gregorythinks of a few apt questions of ask the NRA's Wayne LaPierre, then actually follows up when LaPierre, unsurprisingly, says stupid stuff. CW: Bad news, Wayne. If you've lost Gregory, you've lost the country. ...
... Cory Booker on the "false debate" on gun control. The ads rotate on YouTube videos, but when I saw this particular video on the YouTube site, it was preceded by a 3-minute-plus ad of a guy showing you how to legally make your very own assault rifle (one that is illegal to purchase or sell) from parts you can buy -- legally again -- on the Intertoobz or elsewhere. He says of one component: "it's just a paperweight." (The same ad came up both times I clicked on the video -- if you run the video here, then click on the YouTube icon in the lower right-hand corner, you too may learn how to become a Ninja):
** Bill Keller: South Africa is way ahead of the U.S. when it comes to institutionalizing gay rights. In the U.S., the Supreme Court "apportions basic rights by putting its finger in the wind." So does the President: "As best I can tell, President Obama's position on same-sex marriage is that it should not be imposed on unwilling states." Eusabeius McKaiser, a gay South African writer asks, "What are the chances of Obama saying, 'Black people should be allowed to vote, ideally, but I'd let the states decide when they are ready.'"
Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: Democrats and Republicans gathered in Honolulu "to pay tribute on Sunday to Senator Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, a Democrat, who died last Monday at 88 after serving in the Senate for five decades." President & Mrs. Obama attended the ceremony; the President did not speak. ...
... Sen. Harry Reid delivers a moving tribute to Sen. Inouye:
Ann Telnaes of the Washington Post with a holiday greeting from the Obamas:
Taylor Berman of Gawker: "Crapo, [a Mormon,] has said in past interviews that he doesn't drink." (See today's Ledes.)
Presidential Race
Why Mitt Lost: He wanted to be president less than anyone I've met in my life. He had no desire to ... run.... If he could have found someone else to take his place . . . he would have been ecstatic to step aside. He is a very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them, but he has deep faith in God and he loves his country, but he doesn't love the attention. -- Tagg Romney, claiming it was he & Ann Romney who convinced Mitt to run
Congressional Race
Hunk v. Hunk? Anjali Sareen of Mediate: in a Sunday show interview, actor Ben Affleck tells Bob Schieffer he hasn't closed the door on a Senate run for the Massachusetts seat John Kerry will almost surely vacate. This could pit him against current Sen. Scott Brown, who -- you might have heard -- lost his bid for re-election. CW: and they said Washington was Hollywood for ugly people. Ha!
News Ledes
AP: "Pope Benedict XVI marked Christmas Eve with Mass in St. Peter's Basilica and a pressing question: Will people find room in their hectic, technology-driven lives for children, the poor and God? The pontiff also prayed that Israelis and Palestinians live in peace and freedom, and asked the faithful to pray for strife-torn Syria as well as Lebanon and Iraq."
AP: "Thousands of Christians from the world over packed Manger Square in Bethlehem Monday to celebrate the birth of Jesus in the ancient West Bank town.... For their Palestinian hosts, this holiday season was an especially joyous one, with the hardships of the Israeli occupation that so often clouded previous Christmas Eve celebrations eased by the United Nations' recent recognition of an independent state of Palestine."
Reuters: "The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Monday to restart negotiations on a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global trade in conventional arms, a pact the powerful U.S. National Rifle Association has been lobbying hard against. U.N. delegates and gun control activists have complained that talks collapsed in July largely because U.S. President Barack Obama feared attacks from Republican rival Mitt Romney before the November 6 election..., a charge U.S. officials have denied."
New York Times: "Jack Klugman, the rubber-mugged character actor who leapt to television stardom in the 1970s as the slovenly sportswriter Oscar Madison on 'The Odd Couple' and as the crusading forensic pathologist of 'Quincy, M.E.,' died on Monday at his home in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles. He was 90."
New York Times: In Webster, New York, a town on Lake Ontario north of Rochester, a gunman shot a volley of bullets that hit four firefighters whom he had apparently called to the scene after setting fire to a car. Two firemen died in the ambush, and "an off-duty police officer from nearby Greece, N.Y., who was on his way to work, was wounded when he and his car were hit by shrapnel." The gunman, William Spengler, 62, later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had "a lengthy criminal record.... In 1981, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter for bludgeoning his 92-year-old grandmother to death with a hammer. He was imprisoned until 1998." CW: if only the policeman had been armed, this would never have happened.
Reuters: "More than 48,000 people have signed a petition that they posted on the White House website demanding that British CNN talk show host Piers Morganbe deported over comments he made on air about gun control. Morgan last week lambasted pro-gun guests on his show, after the December 14 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman shot dead 26 people, including 20 children." CW: never thought I'd say, "I stand with Piers Morgan."
Miami Herald: "PortMiami administrators are on edge as the nation's 14,650 longshoremen threaten to shut down the giant gantry cranes used to ship containers at 15 major East Coast ports at midnight Saturday. The job action portends a potential blow of tens of millions of dollars a day to Miami-Dade County's economy.... Late Friday, Gov. Rick Scott got involved, sending a three-page letter to President Barack Obama asking that he invoke the Taft-Hartley Act if a strike occurs, which would mandate an 80-day cooling off period, and force mediation."
Paul Krugman: a citation in a Wall Street Journal story makes it appear "the president still believe[s] that failure to reach a Grand Bargain will cause an attack by the invisible bond vigilantes, and that this is the reason we should fear the fiscal cliff." Oh, dear. CW: it has been obvious for a long time that Obama listens to the Very Serious People. He is not good at choosing advisors. Tim Geithner. ...
... Brad DeLong: "If it is indeed the case that Obama does not understand the basics of the economic situation he is trying to manage, how likely is it that he can make good decisions? If, as Bob Woodward claims, Tim Geithner really is in there analogizing the U.S. to Greece, things are not good at all…" ...
When You Have a Bad Hand, Play It Badly. Ezra Klein: "... if Boehner had taken the White House's deal in 2011, he could've stopped the tax increase at $800 billion. If he took their most recent deal, he could stop it at $1.2 trillion. But if he insists on adding another round to the negotiations -- one that will likely come after the White House pockets $700 billion in tax increases -- then any deal in which gets the entitlement cuts he wants is going to mean a deal in which he accepts even more tax increases than the White House is currently demanding. Today, Boehner wishes he'd taken the deal the president offered him in 2011. A year from now, he might wish he'd taken the deal the president offered him in 2012." CW: poor people, seniors & anyone else who may rely on government safety-net programs should be mighty glad Boehner is such a poor poker player.
Sometimes Tom Friedman Is Right: "But if Republicans continue to be led around by, and live in fear of, a base that denies global warming after Hurricane Sandy and refuses to ban assault weapons after Sandy Hook -- a base that would rather see every American's taxes rise rather than increase taxes on millionaires -- the party has no future. It can't win with a base that is at war with math, physics, human biology, economics and common-sense gun laws all at the same time." (Italics original.) But Usually He Is Wrong: "... we could have had a grand bargain that would put the country on a sounder fiscal trajectory and signal to the markets, the world and ourselves that we can still do big hard things together."
Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "How [the] Party of Budget Restraint Shifted to 'No New Taxes,' Ever."
CW:contributor James S. recommends this excellent 20/20 segment which demonstrates how & why armed citizens are ineffective lines of defense against armed intruders.
Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "Thousands of criminal cases at the state and local level may have relied on exaggerated testimony or false forensic evidence to convict defendants of murder, rape and other felonies. The forensic experts in these cases were trained by the same elite FBI team whose members gave misleading court testimony about hair matches and later taught the local examiners to follow the same suspect practices, according to interviews and documents." CW: another reason the death penalty is morally criminal.
Molly Worthen, in a New York Times essay on the history of religious practice: "Rates of church attendance have never been as sterling as the Christian Right's fable of national decline suggests. Before the Civil War, regular attendance probably never exceeded 30 percent, rising to a high of 40 percent around 1965 and declining to under 30 percent in recent years -- even as 77 percent still identify as Christians and 69 percent say they are 'very' or 'moderately' religious, according to a 2012 Gallup survey."
News Lede
Al Jazeera: "Italy's president has dissolved parliament following Prime Minister Mario Monti's resignation. President Giorgio Napolitano signed the decree on Saturday after consulting with political leaders. The move formally sets the stage for general elections, now confirmed for February 24-25, in which Monti's participation remains unclear. The date of the election, widely expected to be February 24, will be decided by Monti's cabinet, which remains in office in a caretaker capacity."
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