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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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Friday
Dec032010

The Commentariat -- December 4

Mark Trumbull of the Christian Science Monitor: "... some prominent Nobel Prize winners [-- Joseph Stiglitz, Robert Solow & Paul Krugman --] argue for higher federal deficits – as a means of stimulating economic growth – rather than for quick steps on deficit reduction. Even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke appears sympathetic to this position." ...

... Meanwhile, David Dayan of Firedoglake: 14 Democratic senators, plus Dems Dick Durbin & Kent Conrad, rally round deficit reduction. "... the Catfood Commission, while 'failing' in the technical sense, did its job. It created a report that people can label 'bipartisan' moving forward, and it put deficit reduction – when there are 15 million Americans out of work – at the top of the agenda.... And it’s a self-inflicted wound, as this was a Presidential commission."

Alan Grayson goes out with a bang, not a whimper. Recommended viewing!

They can pretend giving the rich tax breaks creates jobs, but we know it doesn’t. If that were the case, the economy would be booming.
-- Harry Reid ...

... David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "In a last-ditch effort to control the political messaging in the tax fight, Democrats accused the Republicans of favoring the rich over the middle class, of cruelly holding up an extension of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed, and of pursuing bad economic policies that contributed to the recent recession." ...

... Jay Newton-Small of Time has more on today's Senate votes.

John Amato of Crooks & Liars: "... the CBO released a study that shows if Congress does pass the DREAM Act, it would save us $1.4 billion over ten years.... Why does this matter? Because Republicans are screaming that they won't vote for any legislation that doesn't cut the federal deficit." Amato provides a call list of Senators we should lobby. The CBO report is here.

Super PACs provide a means for the super wealthy to have even more influence and an even greater voice in the political process.
-- Meredith McGehee, of the Campaign Legal Center ...

... T. W. Farnam of the Washington Post: "The newly created independent political groups known as super PACs, which raised and spent millions of dollars on last month's elections, drew much of their funding from private-equity partners and others in the financial industry, according to new financial disclosure reports. The 72 super PACs, all formed this year, together spent $83.7 million on the election. The figures provide the best indication yet of the impact of recent Supreme Court decisions that opened the door for wealthy individuals and corporations to give unlimited contributions."

"Death by Budget Cut." Gail Collins writes of an Arizona man in need of a liver transplant who was literally prepped for surgery when "the Arizona state government, which is totally controlled by Republicans, got between him and his doctor." AND here's the backstory by Marc Lacey of the Times. The comments to Collins' column are pretty good, too.

Michael O'Brien of The Hill: "Democrats hoping to move forward with legislation other than tax cuts shouldn't look to centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to break the logjam. Collins said again on Friday that, while she would vote with Democrats to end the military's 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy, she wouldn't do so until a debate over tax cuts has been resolved." CW: assuming Harry Reid can keep all the Democrats in line, Collins' "after-tax" vote is the 60th vote needed to break a filibuster. ,,,

... Daniel Drezner in Foreign Policy in his "one post on repealing DADT: "... the status quo is undermining national security far more than any change. The rigorous enforcement of DADT is preventing competent and patriotic soldiers from serving their country, particularly in high-demand positions like, say, Arabic translators.... I therefore really and truly don't give a s**t why John McCain's position has shifted. I just want to know why the ranking minority member of the Senate Armed Services committee is throwing national security, civilian control of the military, and the hierarchical chain of command under the f***ing bus." ...

... Matt Yglesias: "I really wonder what’s happening, subjectively, inside the heads of people who oppose repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Do any of them think they’re on the right side of history here? That people are going to look back from 2040 and say 'if only we’d listened to John McCain thirty years ago?'"

Steve Benen on Sen. Bob Menendez's (D-NJ) comparing negotiating with Republicans to negotiating with terrorists. Republicans are having hissy-fits, but, Benen asks, after citing examples, "what about when Republicans compare themselves to terrorists?"

Ron Brownstein in the National Journal on why Dick Luger is the lone Republican Senator to openly back the New START treaty.

Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "A small stockpile of spent nuclear fuel destined for disposal in Russia remained behind in a lightly guarded research center, apparently because of a fit of pique by Libya’s mercurial leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. In a frantic cable back to Washington, American officials in Tripoli warned of dire consequences unless the carefully brokered deal to remove the 5.2 kilograms (11.4 pounds) of highly enriched uranium stored in seven five-ton casks was quickly resurrected."

Scott Shane of the New York Times: "Diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks ... offer the most intimate view to date of the wily, irreverent and sometimes erratic Yemeni autocrat [Ali Abdullah Saleh], who over the past year has become steadily more aggressive against Al Qaeda. But he appears determined to join the fight on his own terms, sometimes accommodating and other times rebuffing American requests on counterterrrorism." ...

... In the National Journal, Matthew Dowd, a former Bush strategist, writes, "... we’re mired in a political environment where much of the public distrusts the federal government and despises both parties.... If we want to restore trust in our government, maybe we can start by telling the truth, keeping fewer secrets, and respecting the privacy of average citizens a little more." Dowd castigates the media for not "defending WikiLeaks and doing some soul-searching of their own about why they aren’t devoting more resources to the search for the truth."

... Chris Cillizza (who is high on my list of village idiots) of the Washington Post says WikiLeaks made for a ruinous week for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. BUT Glenn Kessler of the Post sees a silver lining: "Arab angst about Iran's nuclear ambitions has been exposed, perhaps giving the United States greater leverage in international talks scheduled for next week."

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