REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- July 21, 2013

The Ledes

Monday, October 7, 2024

Weather Channel: “Hurricane Milton has rapidly intensified into a Category 3 and hurricane and storm surge watches are now posted along Florida's western Gulf Coast, where the storm poses threats of life-threatening storm surge, destructive winds and flooding rainfall by midweek. 'Milton will be a historic storm for the west coast of Florida,' the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay said in a briefing Monday morning.”

CNN: “This year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their work on the discovery of microRNA, a fundamental principle governing how gene activity is regulated. Their research revealed how genes give rise to different cells within the human body, a process known as gene regulation. Gene regulation by microRNA – a family of molecules that helps cells control the sort of proteins they make – ... was first revealed by Ambros and Ruvkun. The Nobel Prize committee announced the prestigious honor ... in Sweden on Monday.... Ambros, a professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, conducted the research that earned him the prize at Harvard University. Ruvkun conducted his research at Massachusetts General Hospital, and is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School.”

The Wires

The Ledes

Sunday, October 6, 2024

New York Times: “Two boys have been arrested and charged in a street attack on David A. Paterson, a former governor of New York, and his stepson, the police said. One boy, who is 12, was charged with second-degree gang assault, and the other, a 13-year-old, was charged with third-degree gang assault, the police said on Saturday night. Both boys, accompanied by their parents, turned themselves in to the police, according to Sean Darcy, a spokesman for Mr. Paterson. A third person, also a minor, went to the police but was not charged in the Friday night attack in Manhattan, according to an internal police report.... Two other people, both adults, were involved in the attack, according to the police. They fled on foot and have not been caught, the police said. The former governor was not believed to have been targeted in the assault....”

Weather Channel: “Tropical Storm Milton, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, is expected to become a hurricane late Sunday or early Monday. The storm is expected to pose a major hurricane threat to Florida by midweek, just over a week after Helene pushed through the region. The National Hurricane Center says that 'there is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge and wind impacts for portions of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula beginning late Tuesday or Wednesday.'”

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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

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.”

Page Links

Saturday

Jul202013

The Commentariat -- July 21, 2013

** Rick Hertzberg of the New Yorker on what Alexander Hamilton would have thought of the filibuster. In this short post, Hertzberg dissects & discards every single speech & remark about the "wisdom of the Founders" in creating a Constitution in which a minority compromises majority rule....

... CW: Our government would be functioning in a much different -- and more liberal -- way if we had true representative government. (And before you say, "Oh, yeah; look at the House," let me remind you that more Americans voted for Democrats than Republicans in the last Congressional election AND the Constitution does not contemplate the "Hastert Rule," in which a majority of the majority party must favor a bill before the speaker will bring it to the floor for a vote, an invention which gives a small minority of the House veto power over majority preferences. So, ferinstance, the Senate's immigration bill would likely pass the House today, but Speaker Boehner is bowing to the Tea Party nativist racist bloc & refusing to move on it.)

The Half-Life of the Religious Right. Steve Benen: a new Brookings Institution study "document[s] an important trend: religious social conservatives represent about 28% of the population, but they're slowly being eclipsed by a younger, diverse group of religious progressives.... It's a similar demographic issue that's facing the Republican Party: among Americans 66 and older, 47% self-identify as religious conservatives and only 12% consider themselves religious progressives. Among Americans 33 and younger, religious conservatives not only trail religious progressives, the right also finds itself outnumbered by secularists."

Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times has the backstory on the Obama administration's aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers & leakers.

CW: Driftglass has a fine post on the hypocrisy of Glenn Greenwald & the Outrage Caucus. "even the slightest, actual debate style-pushback against anything that flows from the keyboard of Mr. Greenwald is instantly shredded and dismissed by the Outrage Caucus as a 'vicious and vehement' attack by the obedient slaves of imperial power." Read the whole post. For some while, I thought I was alone in being sick of Glenn, but Greenwald's recent celebrity has brought attention to "his stampeding ego and petty grudges," which many liberals -- including those he attacked -- have ignored in the past. Thanks to James S. for the link. ...

... P.S. It should go without saying (but unfortunately I have to write special messages to Glennbots) that left-leaning critics of Greenwald's particular sociopathy still appreciate the useful facts & issues he brings to light.

The Corporate Person Prevails Again. Elise Viebeck of the Hill: "A key plaintiff against the Obama administration's birth control mandate won a temporary court injunction Friday allowing it not to provide birth control as part of its employee health plan. Hobby Lobby, a national, for-profit chain of arts and crafts stores, was granted the preliminary injunction by U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton." Via Steve Benen.

Lauren French of Politico: "For J. Russell George, Thursday was about damage control. Testifying before the deeply divided House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the Treasury inspector general responsible for penning the report that fueled the IRS scandal went to great lengths to defend his findings -- and his credibility." ...

... One great way for George to regain credibility is to investigate whether or not Tea Partier Christine I-Am-Not-a-Witch O'Donnell was the victim of an IRS campaign of "political intimidation."

Maureen Dowd is covering the Whitey Bulger trial.

Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker on the history of "stand your ground" a/k/a "no duty to retreat," a peculiarly-American, pro-violence cultural tradition. ...

... President Polyanna Experiences a Moment of Clarity. Charles Pierce on the President's "breaking the redemptive covenant." CW: Pierce hits the right notes here, & he writes them into a riff that explains pretty much every Obama failure. ...

... Biographer David Maraniss of the Washington Post on Barry Obama & his experiences as a young black man. ...

... Scott Keyes of Think Progress: "Conservatives didn't even wait for President Obama to finish his deeply personal remarks on Trayvon Martin's killing and the role of race in America to go ballistic, accusing the president of being a 'Racist in Chief' who is 'trying to tear our country apart.'"

Missed this one. Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post (July 17): "An unprecedented federal review of old criminal cases has uncovered as many as 27 death penalty convictions in which FBI forensic experts may have mistakenly linked defendants to crimes with exaggerated scientific testimony, U.S. officials said. The review led to an 11th-hour stay of execution in Mississippi in May. It is not known how many of the cases involve errors, how many led to wrongful convictions or how many mistakes may now jeopardize valid convictions."

Gubernatorial Race

Katie Glueck of Politico: "Virginia's gubernatorial hopefuls bashed each other for 90 minutes Saturday over jobs, the ethics scandal that has consumed Gov. Bob McDonnell and social issues as they faced off in their first debate of the most closely-watched election of 2013. Republican state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli depicted Terry McAuliffe, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, as a Washington insider with a business record that's much less impressive than the Democrat has claimed. McAuliffe painted Cuccinelli as an ideologue on social issues who should not be believed when he says his priority is jobs. ...

... Robert McCartney of the Washington Post writes that McAuliffe -- who's never held elective office -- managed to look "mostly gubernatorial" in the debate.

Presidential Race

Jonathan Bernstein argues in Salon that Ted Cruz could beat Hillary Clinton. CW: Bernstein doesn't say so, but I think the major reason Cruz would be a viable candidate is that -- unlike Michele Bachmann & Herman Cain, fer instance (both of whom Bernstein compares unfavorably with Cruz), Cruz is not stupid. So far he hasn't seen any reason to pretend to be a mainstream politician, but I'll bet he knows how.

News Ledes

AP: "Searchers rummaging through vacant houses in a neighborhood where three female bodies were found wrapped in plastic bags should be prepared to find one or two more victims, a police chief said Sunday.... A 35-year-old registered sex offender in custody is a suspect in the deaths...."

Guardian: "Two American fighter jets dropped four unarmed bombs into Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park last week, when a training exercise went wrong, the US Navy said, angering environmentalists."

New York Times: "Chris Froome, the lanky Kenya-born Briton who has dominated professional stage-race cycling all year, rode to victory in the 100th Tour de France on Sunday, cheered by thousands who gathered near the Arc de Triomphe in the race's first-ever twilight finish."

New York Times: "Japanese voters appeared to hand a decisive victory on Sunday to the governing Liberal Democratic Party in upper house elections, restoring the once-discredited party to a virtual monopoly on political power for the first time in six years."

Guardian: "King Philippe I has become Belgium's seventh monarch after the abdication of his father, Albert II, amid uncertainty about the power of the monarchy to heal the fractured country."

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Reader Comments (3)

Interesting piece in Roll Call re Dems flexing muscles I thought had atrophied.

http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/democrats-try-hardball-on-the-vanilla-issues-of-legislating/

July 20, 2013 |

James Singer

And then there's Driftglass on Greenwald:

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2013/07/near-top-of-greenwaldians-long-list-of.html

July 20, 2013 |

James Singer

The death of Helen Thomas really shines a light on the politics of reporting unpopular positions. I'm sure David Brooks and Tom Friedman both prefer their entre into the halls of power, as opposed to the "we don't care what you did the last 50 years" ostracism when Thomas was kicked to the curb.
Helen Thomas' demise is why to support alternative journalism. Even if you don't agree with everything they say, at least someone is saying it.

July 21, 2013 |

citizen625

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