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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.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Thursday
Dec022010

The Commentariat -- December 3

Having reviewed the Pentagon report, having spoken to active and retired military service members and having discussed the matter privately with Defense Secretary (Robert) Gates and others, I accept the findings of the report and support repeal based on the secretary’s recommendations that repeal will be implemented only when the battle effectiveness of the forces is assured and proper preparations have been completed. -- Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass)

Jim Fallows of The Atlantic remembers a "broad-minded, tolerant" John McCain, & writes, "Seeing him now is surprising not simply because it reminds us: this man could be the sitting president, but also because it again raises the question, how did he end up this way?" ...

... AP: "The top uniformed officers of the Army and the Marines told a Senate panel Friday that letting gays serve openly in the military at a time of war would be divisive and difficult, sharply challenging a new Pentagon study that calculates the risk as low." New York Times story here.

Greg Sargent: Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore) "is working behind the scenes to build support for a rules change that would force Senators to actually filibuster on the floor." Here's a pdf of Merkley's memo to fellow senators.

AP: "An austere deficit-cutting plan by President Barack Obama's budget commission has failed to win the supermajority required to force a quick vote in Congress. The plan won support from 11 of 18 commission members. Fourteen were needed for official approval."

George Zornick of Think Progress: Bush officials are gloating over the "tax-cut trap" they laid when they talked Congress into passing "temporary" tax cuts. ...

... Paul Krugman thinks President Obama should be wearing a "Kick Me!" sign on his backside. CW: I disagree, & if my comment doesn't make the cut, I'll post it. ...

... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones draws a nice little picture of the Obama tax cut plan (blue) v. the GOP plan (red). Drum didn't have enough room on his blog to depict the total GOP tax cut for the richy-richest, but you get the idea. Notice that under the White House plan, everybody, including the super-rich, get some cut. ...

... Sam Stein: Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) says that if Obama caves on tax cuts for the wealthy, he'd better hope Sarah Palin is his opposition in 2012, implying of course that Obama couldn't beat anyone else.

... We Can't Say This Often Enough. Lori Montgomery & Shailagh Murray of the Washington Post: "The private discussions [between the White House & Republicans], which parallel a more public set of talks, have left many Democrats grousing that President Obama is being too quick to accommodate his adversaries, who are still a month away from taking control of the House and expanding their presence in the Senate." ...

... ** Chicken Crap. CBS News: "Republicans have argued that the midterm elections have given them a mandate on ... the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts.... According to a new CBS News poll, however..., 53 percent of Americans want the Bush-era tax cuts extended only for households earning less than $250,000 per year. That roughly matches the proposal put forth by the White House.... Just 26 percent of Americans say they support extending the cuts for all Americans, even those earning above the $250,000 level, which is the GOP proposal." CW: Obama is caving to Republicans on something the public doesn't want & is fiscally disastrous because it's what he wants. ...

My drill sergeant was fond of telling privates that they could 'fuck up a wet dream.' I think that is an apt description of the Democrats handling of the tax issue, unless, like me, you’re slowly coming to the realization that they are equal parts incompetent and equal parts slaves to the money party. -- John Cole of Balloon Juice, who is just catching on to what I've been saying for months

... Jonathan Chait of The New Republic on Paul Ryan: "Ryan's record is mostly (but not consistently) anti-government, consistently opposed to downward redistribution of income, and absolutely rock-solid consistent against anything that reduces the deficit. Ryan favored all the Bush tax cuts and Medicare benefit, favors the unpaid-for permanent extension of those tax cuts, and opposed the Affordable Care Act.... Ryan, like many conservatives, prefers to reside in an alternate universe....  You can negotiate with somebody who has different preferences than you do. But negotiating with somebody who inhabits a different reality is very difficult."

Ed O'Keefe & Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "The Pentagon is increasingly worried that Congress will not act to repeal the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, a scenario that defense officials fear would prompt federal courts to intervene and immediately allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the armed forces instead of giving the military several months or years to prepare.

Washington Post op-ed, Henry A. Kissinger, George P. Shultz, James A. Baker III, Lawrence S. Eagleburger & Colin L. Powell, all of whom served as secretaries of state for Republican presidents, make "the Republican case for ratifying the New START treaty."

Dana Milbank: "To be sure, [Rep. Charlie] Rangel deserved punishment for his wrongs, which included failing to pay taxes on his Dominican beach home and improperly using his office for charitable fundraising. But in the 30 minutes allotted to him for his defense on the House floor Thursday evening, Rangel and his friends made a compelling case that he was being punished for doing things that lawmakers do routinely. ...

... More Milbank: "Republicans gained control of the House last month on a promise to 'restore the Constitution.' So it is no small irony that one of their first orders of business is an attempt to rewrite the Constitution." CW: and what a great name -- they call this first Constitutional Amendment they are proposing the "Repeal Amendment"; its aim is to return power to the states.

Jamie Dimon. New York Times photo.Roger Lowenstein , writing in the New York Times Magazine, profiles Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, calling him "America's Least Hated Banker." "Dimon sees himself as a patriotic citizen who helped his country in a time of crisis.... Critics say that, as a part — even a solvent part — of a failed system, he should be grateful for the government’s assistance rather than stridently critical, as he has been, of some of its reforms. Dimon, they note, took advantage of the crisis to acquire Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, and J. P. Morgan emerged from the crisis as a vastly larger institution." ...

... BUT Simon Johnson calls him "Our Most Dangerous Banker." Johnson lays out why Dimon's dream of an even larger, more interconnected international bank is a disaster waiting to happen.

Ben Smith & Byron Tau of Politico: "... an analysis by POLITICO found that at least $140 million in stimulus money has gone to faith-based groups, the result of an unpublicized White House decision to spend government money, where legal, supporting religiously inspired nonprofit groups."

Scott Shane, et al, of the New York Times: "From hundreds of diplomatic cables, Afghanistan emerges as a looking-glass land where bribery, extortion and embezzlement are the norm and the honest man is a distinct outlier.... The cables make it clear that American officials see the problem as beginning at the top." ...

... Helene Cooper & Carlotta Gall of the New York Times document Hamid Karzai's fall from favor, as reflected in the WikeLeaks cables.

Michael Scherer of Time has the backstory on "why Nigerian authorities are coming after Dick Cheney."

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