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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
Dec092010

The Commentariat -- December 9

Reuters: "Another 17 U.S. billionaires, including Facebook co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, have pledged to give away at least half their fortunes in a philanthropic campaign led by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. A total of 57 billionaires now have joined The Giving Pledge, which was launched by Microsoft founder Gates and investor Buffett in June."

New York Times: " The Senate has turned down the attempt to move ahead with a defense bill that would repeal the ban on gay troops serving openly in the military. The vote was 57-40, three short of the 60 needed." Washington Post: "A Senate procedural vote to move forward with debate on a bill ending the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' law failed Thursday to earn the 60 votes necessary to proceed.... Senators fighting to end the ban said they would introduce a separate bill to end it. The bill will be cosponsored by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), and they said it will have bipartisan support." The Advocate story here. ...

... Ezra Klein: "The bill repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell didn't fail: The Senate did. The bill got 57 votes, not 49.... A procedural failsafe that's theoretically meant to protect the rights of minorities was just used to restrict the rights of minorities.... The diffusion of responsibility that comes from deciding law through complex parliamentary gamesmanship rather than simple majority-rules votes is the problem. What happened today is that a majority of the Senate voted for a bill that the majority of Americans support. The bill did not pass. Neither Harry Reid nor Susan Collins are ultimately responsible for that. The rules of the Senate are."

Ed Vogel of the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "Harry Reid won re-election because he got of a lot of Republican votes.

New York Times: "In a closed door caucus meeting on Thursday morning, House Democrats voted to reject the tax cut deal between the White House and Congressional Republicans 'as currently written.' The internal party vote is not necessarily binding on Speaker Nancy Pelosi ... as she decides whether to bring the measure to the floor.... With strong Republican support, the tax plan could easily pass the House with two-thirds or more of Democrats opposing it." Washington Post: "By voice vote, the rank-and-file Democrats passed a resolution that said the tax package should not come to the floor of the House for consideration." ...

     ... ** Reuters Update: "... Speaker Nancy Pelosi will not bring President Barack Obama's current proposed tax plan up for a vote in her chamber, an aide said on Thursday." ...

... David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "... many Congressional Democrats are furious both about the prospect of continuing the Bush-era tax cuts, even on the highest incomes, and about the way they were cut out of the negotiations. House Democrats on Thursday voted to block the bill from getting a vote unless changes were made. One change that Democrats are seeking is the extension of a Treasury grant program for renewable energy projects.... Supporters say the program has generated big growth in American clean energy industries. The program is set to expire on Dec. 31."

Setting Social Security up for a Fall. Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "President Obama’s Treasury secretary and budget director met at the White House with members of his bipartisan debt-reduction commission Thursday morning and agreed that the administration should lead an effort in the coming year to press for the sort of long-term spending cuts and revenue increases that a commission majority recommended last week. Participants said the discussion centered on the need for a deficit-cutting agreement before mid-2011...."

Paul Krugman: because the good stuff in Obama's tax deal runs out in December 2011 & the Republican stuff runs to December 2012, "the tax cut deal makes Obama less likely to win in 2012.... Obama may be buying off the hostage-takers by … giving them more hostages." ...

... Dana Milbank: Congressional Democrats' rebellions against Obama's tax deal lasted about 24 hours. ...

... E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post: President Obama doesn't care about liberal people. ...

Republicans really did use the unemployed as hostages. It's disgusting. -- Chris Hayes, trans. by Steve Benen from the original Twitterese

We're talking about a party that is literally refusing to do anything other than fight tooth and nail to protect unpopular tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, at the expense of middle-class families. -- Steve Benen, in his own words

CW: Bob Williams of TaxVox explains how the Obama-GOP deal is a huge boon for the rich but raises taxes on the working poor. "The agreement turns on its head [President Obama']s repeated argument that we need to give more to the poor and ask more of the wealthy. No wonder Democrats in Congress are mad." ...

... Austan Goolsbee on the Obama tax-cut deal. Funny, he doesn't mention raising taxes on the working poor:

Carol Lee & John Bresnahan of Politico: "With Capitol Hill increasingly hostile territory for President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden seems ready to take the place of the departed Rahm Emanuel as the one senior administration official who can deliver the White House’s position — good news or bad — to members and senators of both parties."

Brian Beutler of TPM: Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) holds DADT repeal hostage over stupid conditions. ...

... David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: Harry Reid is bringing four test votes to the floor to demonstrate Republican obstruction of popular programs: "[1] A bill that would send $250 checks to Social Security recipients.... The Senate voted 53 to 45 - seven short of the needed 60 votes - on a measure to bring the bill to the floor for debate. [2] A bill that would require states to give police and firefighters' unions 'adequate' collective bargaining rights.... That proposal failed ... on a 55 to 43 vote. [3] The DREAM Act, a proposal that would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who came to this country as children and grew up to attend college or serve in the military.... [Thursday vote] [4] A bill that would provide long-term medical care for" 9/11 responders. Thursday vote.

Your Tax Dollars Wasted. Eric Lipton of the New York Times: for-profit colleges (i.e., fake on-line "universities") are raking in federal dollars under the post-9/11 GI Bill. "Some members [of Congress] say they want to place tighter limits on how much these colleges can collect in military benefits, a move certain federal officials say they would welcome.... The Department of Education [is] proposing regulations that would cut off federal aid to colleges whose graduates have extremely low loan repayment rates. Amid this debate, the industry’s powerful lobbying forces are pushing for even more...."

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court sounded conflicted Wednesday about whether Arizona's attempt to revoke the licenses of businesses that knowingly employ illegal immigrants intrudes on federal law or complements it. The case pits Arizona against an unusual coalition of challengers that includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, civil rights groups, labor unions and the Obama administration. But that high-powered group faced a barrage of skeptical questions from the court's conservatives." ...

... Dahlia Lithwick has more.

Mideast Peace Process, Illustrated:

Ashlee Vance & Miguel Helft of the New York Times: "On Wednesday, anonymous hackers took aim at companies perceived to have harmed WikiLeaks.... MasterCard, Visa and PayPal, which had cut off people’s ability to donate money to WikiLeaks, were hit by attacks that tried to block access to the companies’ Web sites and services. To organize their efforts, the hackers have turned to sites like Facebook and Twitter. That has drawn these Web giants into the fray and created a precarious situation for them. ...

... Glenn Greenwald debates WikiLeaks critic-twins John Burns of the New York Times & Jamie Rubin, formerly of the State Department. Print & audio. ...

... The Letterman Files -- "David Letterman: Agent of Influence." Robert Booth of the Guardian: "Satellite broadcasts of the US TV shows Desperate Housewives and Late Show With David Letterman are doing more to persuade Saudi youth to reject violent jihad than hundreds of millions of dollars of US government propaganda, informants have told the American embassy in Jeddah. Broadcast ... on Saudi Arabia's MBC 4 channel, the shows are being allowed as part of the kingdom's 'war of ideas' against extremist elements." ...

... The New York Times' complete coverage of the latest WikiLeaks dumps is here. ...

... Jon Stewart struggles to characterize Julian Assange:

... Guardian: "Russia has suggested that Julian Assange should be awarded the Nobel peace prize, in an unexpected show of support from Moscow for the jailed WikiLeaks founder."

Justin Elliot of Salon: "Money-hungry" Newt uses Christmas, Pearl Harbor disaster, run for presidency -- whatever-- to hawk his wares. As an example, "In the past few days, Gingrich has been using his Twitter account to promote what he calls 'Gingrich Productions 12 Days of Xmas Presents.'"

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