REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- January 25, 2012

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.”

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The Ledes

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Washington Post: “Rescue teams raced to submerged homes, scoured collapsed buildings and steered thousands from overflowing dams as Helene carved a destructive path Friday, knocking out power and flooding a vast arc of communities across the southeastern United States. At least 40 people were confirmed killed in five states since the storm made landfall late Thursday as a Category 4 behemoth, unleashing record-breaking storm surge and tree-snapping gusts. 4 million homes and businesses have lost electricity across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, prompting concerns that outages could drag on for weeks. Mudslides closed highways. Water swept over roofs and snapped phone lines. Houses vanished from their foundations. Tornadoes added to the chaos. The mayor of hard-hit Canton, N.C., called the scene 'apocalyptic.'” An AP report is here.

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.'”

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Tuesday

Jan242012

The Commentariat -- January 25, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Tom Friedman's continued spreading of disinformation about how globalization and technology are killing American jobs. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

... The text of the State of the Union address is here. The New York Times' interactive analysis is here. ...

... ABC News fact-checks the SOTU. ...

... So Simple Even a Child Could Get It. Eric Ostermeier of Smart Politics: "For the third consecutive State of the Union Address, Barack Obama spoke in clear, plain terms.And for the third straight Address, the President's speech was written at an eighth-grade level. In Obama's own words: 'My message is simple.'" ...

... Charles Pierce credits the Occupy movement for the SOTU: "Without all the hell-raising, and all the shouting at the right buildings, and all the drum circles, we would have heard a very different State of the Union speech last night." And he has a few things to say about Ohio Gov. Mitch Union-Bustin' Daniels' response. Pierce is right on all counts, I think. ...

... NEW. Paul Krugman: Mitch Daniels is fact-challenged. ...

... Peter Wallsten of the Washington Post: "The president’s address Tuesday served far more as a roadmap for how Obama intends to capitalize on his built-in advantages than a governing blueprint for the next year. Thanks to a gift of timing, Obama was able to draw a stark contrast with Romney." ...

... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Obama did not mention Mitt Romney on Tuesday evening, but he didn’t need to. Mr. Romney, whom the president’s aides still view as his most likely opponent in the fall, was the unspoken adversary in Mr. Obama’s call for a more equitable society — the natural foil for his proposals to level the playing field for middle-class Americans, from taxes to trade policy."

... Lori Montgomery & Jia Lynn Yang of the Washington Post: "With the release of his tax returns Tuesday, Mitt Romney has emerged as Exhibit A in a political battle likely to define the 2012 election: how to tax the rich. To Democrats, Romney is benefiting from an unfair tax code that permits a man who made nearly $21 million last year to pay just 15 percent in federal taxes.... To Republicans, Romney is an exemplar of the capitalist system, a wealthy man who propels the economy through successful investments. Many of them think he should pay even less to the federal government. Indeed, Newt Gingrich, Romney’s chief rival for the GOP presidential nomination, has proposed eliminating taxes on investment income altogether — a move that would push Romney’s tax rate near zero."

Vice President Biden speaks to George Stephanopoulos of ABC News about the Somalia rescue and about the SOTU & Newt:

Right Wing World

Quote of the Day. Banks aren't bad people. -- Mitt Romney, not ten miles from my house, in Lehigh Acres, a mostly lower-middle-class community and one of the nation's areas hardest hit by foreclosures

NEW. Ralph Vartabedian, et al., of the Los Angeles Times write a very worthwhile column on Mitt Romney's tax returns. ...

Traditionally, Republicans say invest in America and buy American. It doesn't bother me in theory, but it suggests something about his view of the tax code or his diversification or his confidence in the U.S. If the president doesn't have confidence in the U.S., how can everybody else? -- Prof. Steven Bank

On Romney's claim that he is barred from communicating with his investment trustee: He could say, 'I want the investments in the U.S.' -- Prof. Edward Kleinbard

Dana Milbank demonstrates why Newt Gingrich is "Obama's best surrogate.... Obama strategist David Axelrod couldn’t have arranged it better: On the very day the president tried to turn the campaign into a contest between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, the Republicans launched an all-out war between the Gingrich haves and the Romney have-mores."

Local News

Scott Bauer of the AP: "Wisconsin's polarizing governor is fighting attempts to recall him with money from out-of-state donors, who helped him bring in more than $12 million since last year. An Associated Press analysis of campaign finance reports Republican Gov. Scott Walker filed Monday showed 61 percent of the $4.1 million he raised during the five-week reporting period came from out of state. Many of the contributions came from big donors...." ...

... Eric Kleefeld of Talking Points Memo has more here.

News Ledes

President Obama spoke today in Iowa:

AP: "In another blow to organized labor in the traditionally union heavy Midwest, Indiana is poised to become the first right-to-work state in more than a decade after Republican lawmakers cleared the way on Wednesday to ban unions from collecting mandatory fees from workers.... [The House] vote came after weeks of protest by minority Democrats who tried various tactics to stop the bill. They refused to show up to debate despite the threat of fines that totaled $1,000 per day and introduced dozens of amendments aimed at delaying a vote. But conceding their tactics could not last forever because they were outnumbered, they finally agreed to allow the vote to take place.

Al Jazeera: "Hundreds of thousands of people have gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square to commemorate the first anniversary of the Egyptian revolution that toppled their long-time ruler, Hosni Mubarak. It is a year since Egyptians, inspired by an uprising in Tunisia, took to the streets to call for reform and to demand the resignation of Mubarak, Egypt's president for 30 years."

New York Times: "The House bade a tearful farewell to Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona on Wednesday as she submitted her resignation and was praised by members of both parties as an inspiring symbol of courage in the aftermath of an assassination attempt against her last year."

New York Times: "The Federal Reserve said on Wednesday that it was likely to raise interest rates at the end of 2014, but not until then, adding another 18 months to the expected duration of its most basic and longest-running response to the financial crisis."

Miami Herald: "Sen. Marco Rubio scolded Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign over a Spanish-language radio ad that accuses rival Mitt Romney of being 'anti-immigrant.' 'This kind of language is more than just unfortunate. It’s inaccurate, inflammatory, and doesn’t belong in this campaign,' Rubio told The Miami Herald when asked about the ad.... By mid-day, Gingrich’s campaign said it would pull the radio ad out of 'respect for the senator’s wishes.'"

New York Times: "The White House plans to propose legislation that could allow a few million homeowners to reduce monthly mortgage payments by refinancing their current loans into new ones guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration."

New York Times: "American commandos raced into Somalia on Wednesday morning and rescued two aid workers, including an American woman, after a shootout with Somali pirates who had been holding them captive for months." Los Angeles Times story here. ...

... ABC News: "Vice President Joe Biden said American worker Jessica Buchanan's failing health was the reason President Obama authorized last night's special operations rescue operation in Somalia." (See video in today's Commentariat.) ...

... AP: "A U.S. official says the Navy SEAL team that rescued two hostages in Somalia was the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden."

Yahoo! News: "President Obama may have delivered the big speech on Tuesday night. But all attention early in the night was focused on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Democrat who survived an assassination attempt more than a year ago. Giffords entered the House chamber to a standing ovation that was unmatched the entire evening. She was accompanied by Rep. Raul Grijalva, a liberal Democrat, on her left, and Rep. Jeff Flake, a conservative Republican, on her right. As she approached her seat, the crowd continued to roar."

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I am not the only one frightened. Newsweek magazine reports on George Soros. "In America, he predicts riots in the streets that will lead to a brutal crackdown that will dramatically curtail civil liberties"
That is about what I said yesterday. It is written.

January 25, 2012 |

Carlyle

What is going on here. For two days I write dreadful forecasts and do not get challenged. Where is every one?
My great fear is that Obama will win this election and the Dems will lose the next one and I will miss being a witness to the decline of western civilization. A second four years of gridlock will certainly bring a Republican President and recovery will be delayed another four years at least. At eighty three I will miss most of the police state and all of the revolution as the police state is probably eight years away. A Republican President in 2013 will bring the disasters four years sooner and I have a chance of witnessing both.

January 25, 2012 |

Carlyle

@ Carlyle. Let's see if you can think of some way to make the end of civilization better fit into your personal entertainment schedule. How about a nuclear Armageddon on Friday? The Rapture on Sunday? This might be the first time in my many years of reading I ever read anyone write he hopes the end comes soon so he'll be sure to be around to say, "I told you so." Schadenfreude gone wild.

You know, if a totalitarian regime takes over, as you predict, the Internet will likely be one of the first things to go. Certainly left-leaning sites that allow anyone to comment will be gone. People who maintain sites like this will be killed as enemies of the state or, at best, hussled off to re-education camps. Then how will you be able to remind the world you saw it all coming?

January 25, 2012 |

Marie Burns

@ Marie... Thank you. I thought maybe the internet had already died when no one responded.

January 25, 2012 |

Carlyle

Mitch Daniels Sees Tax Plans That Do Not Exist.

From his rebuttal...

“It’s absolutely so that everyone should contribute to our national recovery, including of course the most affluent among us. There are smart ways and dumb ways to do this: the dumb way is to raise rates in a broken, grossly complex tax system, choking off growth without bringing in the revenues we need to meet our debts. The better course is to stop sending the wealthy benefits they do not need, and stop providing them so many tax preferences that distort our economy and do little or nothing to foster growth.
It’s not fair and it’s not true for the President to attack Republicans in Congress as obstacles on these questions".

In the real world every GOP tax proposal, including the Ryan plan, and the plans of all the GOP candidates :

First: Cut taxes for the 1%,
Second: Force the 99% to pay for the cuts for the 1% through tax increases and/or lost benefits.
Third: What can not be squeezed out of the 99% to pay for the cuts for the 1%...Will be put on our nation's tab to be paid off by the children of the 99%.

But Mitch Daniels lives in a world of make believe where the GOP has workable plans that cut taxes for everyone, without effectively gutting, Medicare, Medicaid, SS and/or the military. An Imaginary reality is the only place tax plans like the ones Mitch Daniels sees everywhere can exist .

Daniels did not so much offer America a rebuttal, as he shared a delusion.

January 25, 2012 |

Winston Smith

@Carlyle:
Sorry i didn't respond to your end of the world as we know it thing. it was because you kept saying, "it is written," all i could think of was "slumdog millionaire" and its fantastic finale, with the tiny little "it is written" at the veryvery end. he got the girl and they lived happily ever after. the imagery kind of got in the way of any sort of apocalyptical thinking.
it seems to me that entities like "anonymous" and "occupy" represent the beginnings of a new mentality at work, while the fascistic hamhanded bludgeonings that we are seeing are the spasms of mindsets that are dying.
i also think that things may change in a flash. maybe you will know how it all turns out very soon. good or bad.

January 25, 2012 |

Victoria

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