REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments

The Ledes

The Wires

The Ledes

Sunday, September 29, 2024

Washington Post: “Towns throughout western North Carolina ... were transformed overnight by ... [Hurricane Helene]. Muddy floodwaters lifted homes from their foundations. Landslides and overflowing rivers severed the only way in and out of small mountain communities. Rescuers said they were struggling to respond to the high number of emergency calls.... The death toll grew throughout the Southeast as the scope of Helene’s devastation came into clearer view. At least 49 people had been killed in five states — Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. By early counts, South Carolina suffered the greatest loss of life, registering at least 19 deaths.”

Help!

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

Link Code: <a href="URL">text</a>

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.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

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."

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.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Page Links

Friday

Apr062012

The Commentariat -- April 7, 2012

Here's my rap on Brooks in NYTX.

President Obama's Weekly Address:

... The transcript is here.

... Stephanie Condon of CBS News: "Amid continued Democratic charges that Republicans are waging a "war against women," President Obama's re-election campaign is zeroing in on Mitt Romney for allying with Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin -- who just repealed an employment discrimination law." The Romney campaign isn't talking to CBS News re: the new Wisconsin law. ...

... Justin Sink of The Hill: "Obama's campaign team said Friday that Walker's move was evidence Republicans are willing to 'undermine not only women's health care, but also their economic security,' and demanded that presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney comment on Walker's move." The Romney camp didn't respond to Obama -- or to The Hill.

Charles Blow on the stark differences between white and black views of the Trayvon Martin killing, and what good might come from reaction to his killing.

Andy Rosenthal decides to skip the Masters golf tournament. CW: glad he's finally getting around to it. The Augusta National club has continued to ban women decades after other all-male clubs dropped their penis requirement.

Not entirely germane to politics, but interesting: Amy Schalet in a New York Times op-ed: "... there is reason to believe that teenage boys are becoming more careful and more romantic about their first sexual experiences." Schalet attributes this partly to young men's new concerns about the consequences of unprotected sex -- a well-documented view -- but she says that it's also a consequence of boys' letting their romantic side rule. CW: Schalet has written a book on teen sexual practices, so maybe she mentions something in the book she doesn't mention here. The "something" is pressure from religious fundamentalists. I have personal knowledge that these believers are still telling men & women in the 20s, even engaged couples, to "wait until marriage." Because this is biologically "unnatural"; that is, we're built to have sex in our teens -- I find this "ideal" ridiculous.

Right Wing World

Gail Collins got hold of the Republican to-do list. Quite funny.

Liar, Liar. Dana Milbank: Mitt Romney is still making up stuff. Milbank reports that a speech, Romney began with “'Good morning,' ... though it was already afternoon. The accuracy of his statements went downhill from there." Milbank details some of what Romney said next, then calls it "Incorrect, wrong, false and fictitious. And that was just a sample from one Romney speech on one day." CW: Milbank, who is probably a moderate Republican, thinks Romney is capable of doing better. That's generous. ...

... Volume XII of Steve Benen's Chronicle of Romney Lies is the longest episode yet. ...

... Benen points to this post by David Corn, who blames the mainstream media for letting Romney get away with his non-stop campaign of lies. He calls it "one of the fundamental problems of American politics."

Andy Rosenthal again on why Mitt Romney's "state-based" "healthcare plan" won't work. CW: I would add to Rosenthal's post that state legislators have known about the healthcare crisis just as long as members of Congress have, & with a few notable exceptions -- including Massachusetts -- they have done little or nothing to abate the problem. Rosenthal argues it's because they can't; I'd say in most cases it's because they won't.

Local News

Sorry, I kept meaning to post this yesterday. I first intended to post it on my own; then intended to post it when contributor Janice reminded me of it; well, here it is: U.S. dictatorships:

News Ledes

AP: Thomas Kinkade, painter of popular schmaltz, died yesterday. He was 54.

Reuters: "The chief executives of General Motors, AIG, and Ally Financial had their 2012 compensation packages frozen for a second year in a row by the Treasury Department after they got 'exceptional' bailout help during the financial crisis. The Treasury said on Friday that all three were making progress at repaying the taxpayer funds given to them to keep them from collapsing during the 2007-2009 financial crisis but their pay practices remain under scrutiny of a 'special master' until they do pay it back."

Comments Off

Permalink

Email Article

Friday

Apr062012

The Commentariat -- April 6, 2012

CW: I'm half-back, which is not to say I've become a ball-carrier in my old age, although I do look as if the other team got the best of me. Thanks for all the well wishes. Despite the description of my appearance, I'm doing okay; my sight keeps coming & going, though, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to read today. I just "approved" a passel of comments on the April 4 and 5 Commentariat. I haven't read them yet, but the ledes (which is all I've seen) makes it appear that the comments my system held up for approval are substantive & interesting, & I'll be reading them as soon as I can. In the meantime, I'd say they are well-worth your reading, too.

** "Embarrass the Future." Linda Greenhouse's most recent post is an absolute must-read -- she dissects the Supremes' antics in the ACA hearings & offers some possible reasons the strip-search decision came down when & as it did.

Florida, Where Jim Crow Never Died. Erika Wood in the New York Times: "Last spring, Florida made some changes to its election law.... Cloaked as technical tweaks, the new laws have the potential to swing the 2012 election [to Republicans].... There is a long and troubled history of voter discrimination in Florida." Naturally, America's Worst Governor, Rick Scott, is a major culprit in the latest disenfranchisement scandal. CW: We may be looking at at 2000 all over again. Gee, wonder what president the Five Supremes would elect this time?

War on Caterpillars. Karen Tumulty & David Nakamura of the Washington Post on Democrats' outreach to women & Republican denials that they have been waging a "war on women."

Paul Krugman: "... the ... reason the attacks on [Fed Chair Ben] Bernanke from the right are so destructive is that they’re an effort to bully the Fed into doing exactly the wrong thing. The attackers want the Fed to slam on the brakes when it should be stepping on the gas; they want the Fed to choke off recovery when it should be doing much more to accelerate recovery.... I think that Fed officials, whether they admit it to themselves or not, are feeling intimidated — and that American workers are paying the price for their timidity."

Send in the Clowns. Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "The man at the center of the scandal embroiling the General Services Administration — the one who insisted that the infamous Las Vegas planning conference had to be 'over the top' — was trying to supplant what previous hosts of the biennial conference had achieved. Jeffrey E. Neely initially approved a $300,000 budget for the October 2010 conference, but later authorized spending up to about $823,000. ...

... Gail Collins: "I will refrain from pointing out that there were much worse G.S.A. stories during the Bush administration, one involving the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.... In the present, the Republican chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee announced plans to hold hearings on clown-and-cheesegate. The chairman, Representative John Mica of Florida, did acknowledge that no one in the administration had tried to impede the inspector general’s work or keep the results quiet. Perhaps he was thinking back on Lurita Doan, the Bush G.S.A. head, who claimed that attempts to examine contracts for fraud and waste were 'eroding the health of the organization' and compared the auditors to terrorists."

... Jon Stewart calls the GSA scandal a "disgrace to corruption":

... Here's the full video of the video that won a GSA-sponsored contest at the Las Vegas "conference." It's appalling:

Michael Rapaport of the Wall Street Journal: "Critics of the JOBS Act [which President Obama signed into law yesterday], which stands for Jumpstart Our Business Startups, say that easing regulations will lead to more financial problems and fraud, and make it more difficult for investors to detect those issues." ...

New York Times Editors: "Citing 'unsafe and unsound' foreclosure practices, the Federal Reserve said recently that it plans to penalize eight financial firms — HSBC’s United States bank division, SunTrust Bank, MetLife, U.S. Bancorp, PNC Financial Services, EverBank, OneWest and Goldman Sachs.... If recent history is any guide, regulators are more likely to offer the banks a way to avoid fines for harmful and egregious behavior. That means there will be no deterrent against future misbehavior."

"The Violence Card." Khalil Gibran Muhammad, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public, in a New York Times op-ed: "To play the violence card — as many criminal-justice advocates have done since the Rodney King police brutality case of the early 1990s — is to suggest that black people should worry more about the harm they do to themselves and less about how victimized they are by others. The national outrage over the Trayvon Martin case has prompted some recent examples.... Racial criminalization ... stigmatizes black people as dangerous, legitimizes or excuses white-on-black violence, conflates crime and poverty with blackness, and perpetuates punitive notions of 'justice' — vigilante violence, stop-and-frisk racial profiling and mass incarceration — as the only legitimate responses."

Right Wing World *

Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, whose wealth has become a central issue in the 2012 campaign, has taken advantage of an obscure exception in federal ethics laws to avoid disclosing the nature and extent of his holdings.... Several outside experts across the political spectrum ... say Romney’s disclosure is the most opaque they have encountered, with some suggesting the filing effectively defeats the spirit of disclosure requirements." CW: It is really up to the press to hound Romney on his finances. & the less he discloses the more this should be an issue.

What's Good for Me Is a Disqualifier for Thee. Benjy Sarlin of TPM: "Romney told an audience [in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania] that [Barack] Obama may have spent 'too much time at Harvard,' according to NBC. Obama, who has a law degree from Harvard, spent three years there. Romney, who earned both a Harvard law degree and business degree, spent four years at the university and was by all accounts a motivated student who was happy with the institution during his time there. Three of his sons attended Harvard and he has donated over $50,000 to the university. His campaign lists over a dozen advisers with Harvard ties...." ...

... Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed posts this video of the 2006 version of Willard talking about the "terrific" Harvard program that allowed him to get two degrees at once:

* Where opacity is a last refuge of scoundrels. (In Right Wing World, the scoundrels have many refuges.)

Local News

Daniela Altimari & Jon Lender of the Hartford Courant: "Connecticut is poised to become the 17th state to abolish the death penalty after the Senate passed a bill early Thursday morning repealing capital punishment. The 20-16 vote came at 2:05 a.m., after more than 10 hours of debate. The measure now moves to the House of Representatives, where it has broad support. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has pledged to sign the bill once it reaches his desk." ...

... CW: I just watched (or, actually, mostly listened to) the 2010 film "Conviction," starring Hillary Swank as a blue-collar worker without a high-school diploma who gets her GED, then puts herself thru college & law school to save her ne'er-do-well brother from life imprisonment for a murder the Swank character believes he did not commit. Based quite closely on the true story of Betty Anne & Kenny Waters, the murder & conviction occurred in Connecticut's neighboring state of Massachusetts. One of the heavies in the true story: Martha Coakley, who as the state's new AG, refused to overturn Kenny's conviction, despite DNA evidence showing he was not the perp. I won't be a spoiler, but the afterword, which appears right before the credits roll, speaks to the death penalty. Here's the trailer:

... Here's a 2010 New York Times profile by Robin Pogrebin of Betty Anne Waters. If you want to know what happened to Kenny, the answer is here. ...

... AND here's a profile of Betty Anne by Nina Burleigh of Elle.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Emergency crews searched the charred remains of a Virginia Beach apartment complex Friday after a fighter jet crashed into it just after takeoff in what Navy officials called a 'catastrophic mechanical malfunction.' Two Navy pilots — a student and an instructor from nearby Naval Air Station Oceana — ejected just before the jet careened into the apartment complex, demolishing sections of some buildings and engulfing others in flames. Some 40 apartment units were damaged or destroyed in the crash, but hours later no fatalities had been reported." Photos here.

New York Times: "Tuareg rebels who overran much of northern Mali after disaffected soldiers toppled the government in the south declared an independent state called Azawad on Friday, cementing the division of the former French colony as its neighbors began drawing up plans for military action to tackle the twin crises of the coup and the apparent secession."

New York Times: "The United States expressed concern about the future of the impoverished African nation of Malawi on Friday after a swirl of reports that its heart-attack stricken president [Bingu wa Mutharika] had died, suggesting that the delay in an official announcement reflected possible succession problems."

New York Times: "... analysts predict that when the first-quarter reporting season starts in earnest next week, American companies will show the slowest rate of growth in operating earnings in three years."

Washington Post: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Thursday defended President Obama’s comments urging the Supreme Court to uphold the health-care law, telling a panel of federal judges that courts should show 'deference' to the 'legislative judgements of Congress.'Holder, responding to an unusual demand for his views on whether federal judges have the authority to strike down federal laws, affirmed that they have such authority."

Reuters: "Payrolls rose far less than expected in March, keeping the door open for further monetary policy support from the Federal Reserve, even as the unemployment rate fell to a three-year low of 8.2 percent. Employers added 120,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, the smallest increase since October." ...

... New York Times: President Obama & Mitt Romney disagree about the meaning of a weaker-than-expected jobs report.

AP: "A Marine who criticized President Barack Obama on his Facebook page has committed misconduct and should be dismissed, a military board recommended late Thursday. The Marine Corps administrative board made the decision after a daylong hearing at Camp Pendleton for Sgt. ."

Reuters: "Coca-Cola Co is dropping its membership in a conservative national advocacy group that supports 'Stand Your Ground' laws such as the one being used as a defense in the Florida killing of an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin. The move by the world's biggest soft drink maker comes as corporate America faces increased scrutiny from consumers and shareholder activists over lobbying and political spending."

AP: "United Arab Emirates authorities temporarily detained members of a U.S.-funded democracy group as they tried to leave the country after their office was ordered closed, U.S. officials said Thursday."

AP: "A U.S. Coast Guard cutter poured cannon fire into a Japanese ghost ship that had been drifting since the last year’s tsunami, sinking the vessel in the Gulf of Alaska and eliminating the hazard it posed to shipping and the coastline."

Comments Off

Permalink

Email Article

Wednesday

Apr042012

The Commentariat -- April 5, 2012

The Constant Weader Is Out Sick Today

If you want to post links to articles you find interesting, please do. Because your comment might get stuck in my annoying Approval Limbo, you might not want to bother to write long, thoughtful comments; if I malinger for days, your thoughts could linger for days unread.

Comments Off

Permalink

Email Article