The Ledes

Thursday, September 26, 2024

The New York Times:' live updates of Hurricane Helene developments today are here. “Hurricane Helene was barreling through the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday en route to Florida, where residents were bracing for extreme rain, destructive winds and deadly storm surge ahead of the storm’s expected landfall. The storm could intensify to a Category 4, if not higher, before making landfall late Thursday, and forecasters warned Helene’s anticipated large size could make its impacts felt across an extensive area. Areas as distant as Atlanta and the Appalachians are at risk for heavy rains.... Many forecast models show the storm making landfall late Thursday near Florida’s Big Bend Coast, a sparsely populated stretch....” ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post has forecasts for some cites in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina & Tennessee that are in or near the probable path of Helene. ~~~

     ~~~ This morning, an MSNBC weatherperson said Tallahassee (which is inland) would experience wind gusts of up to 120 m.p.h. and that the National Weather Service said expected 20-foot storm surges near the coast would be “unsurvivable.”

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The Ledes

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

The New York Times is live-updating developments in the progress of Hurricane Helene. “Helene continued to power north in the Caribbean Sea, strengthening into a hurricane Wednesday morning, on a path that forecasters expect will bring heavy amounts of rain to Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula and western Cuba before it begins to move toward Florida’s Gulf Coast.” ~~~

~~~ CNN: “Helene rapidly intensified into a hurricane Wednesday as it plows toward a Florida landfall as the strongest hurricane to hit the United States in over a year. The storm will also grow into a massive, sprawling monster as it continues to intensify, one that won’t just slam Florida, but also much of the Southeast.... Thousands of Florida residents have already been forced to evacuate and nearly the entire state is under alerts as the storm threatens to unleash flooding rainfall, damaging winds and life-threatening storm surge.... The hurricane unleashed its fury on parts of Mexico’s Yucátan Peninsula and Cuba Wednesday.“

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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
Jun242011

The Commentariat -- June 25

President Obama's Weekly Address:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on passage of the same-sex marriage bill:

... Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "The story of how same-sex marriage became legal in New York is about shifting public sentiment and individual lawmakers moved by emotional appeals from gay couples who wish to be wed. But, behind the scenes, it was really about a Republican Party reckoning with a profoundly changing power dynamic, where Wall Street donors and gay-rights advocates demonstrated more might and muscle than a Roman Catholic hierarchy and an ineffective opposition. And it was about a Democratic governor, himself a Catholic, who used the force of his personality and relentlessly strategic mind to persuade conflicted lawmakers to take a historic leap." ...

... Jessica Dye of Reuters: "When New York became the sixth and by far the largest state to legalize same-sex marriage..., it immediately transformed the national debate over the issue, legal experts said. With a population over 19 million -- more than the combined population of the five states that currently allow gay marriage, plus the District of Columbia, where it is also legal -- New York is poised to provide the most complete picture yet of the legal, social and economic consequences of gay marriage."

I've added a comments page for Charles Blow's column on Off Times Square. Karen Garcia & I have posted comments.

Charles Blow: "Until more politicians understand — or remember — what it means to be poor in this country, we are destined to fail the least among us, and all of us will pay a heavy price for that failure."

Dana Milbank: "... the breadth of [President] Obama’s fights with his political base is striking. Compounding the feeling of betrayal is the progressive lawmakers’ belief that Obama was one of them – not some centrist, Clintonian character. I’m sympathetic to Obama’s instincts to keep to the political center, but the routine spurning of his political base does seem extravagant."

Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy: the Administration is putting lipstick on a pig by claiming partial victory on the Libyan votes today. The only reason the 70 members of progressive caucus voted against the funding bill proposed by Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) was that it authorized the Libyan intervention. They would have voted for a stronger bill defunding the Libyan effort. ...

I believe that this administration has handled [the Libyan campaign] so badly, that if they had come to Congress, I think they would have done more of their homework. They have not done a full assessment of their mission, its scope, or the consequences if they're successful. Congress would have required that. Now it's a little late.
-- Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio)

... ALSO from Josh Rogin: Rep. Turner says that in a closed-door briefing by Adm. Samuel Locklear, commander of the NATO Joint Operations Command in Naples, Italy, Locklear admitted that the goal of NATO was to kill Muammar al-Qaddafi. Locklear also claimed, in conformity to President Obama public statements, that "regime change" is not a NATO goal. CW: since Qaddafi is the regime, I guess the Administration is counting on his corpse to run Libya. That should work. 

Paul Krugman: If the GOP is "so deeply, deeply concerned about the budget deficit," how come they walked out of the debt ceiling talks? "The answer, of course, is that the GOP never cared about the deficit — not a bit. It has always been nothing but a club with which to beat down opposition to an ideological goal, namely the dissolution of the welfare state. They’re not interested, at all, in a genuine deficit-reduction deal if it does not serve that goal." Krugman also points out, with a chart! that a refusal to raise taxes is ludicrous inasmuch as "federal tax receipts as a percentage of GDP are near a historic low." ...

... CW: Talk about bipartisanship -- I agree with Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions of Alabama! Daniel Strauss of The Hill reports that Sessions, "the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, says President Obama needs to bring the negotiations over increasing the debt ceiling out into the open." Public hearings! Sunshine! Oh, Jefferson, darlin,' you are my sunshine! (Never mind the rest of what Sen. Jeff says.)

Bill Maher & panel assess the Obama presidency:

Former car czar Steven Rattner in a New York Times op-ed: "Thanks to Washington, 4 of every 10 ears of corn grown in America — the source of 40 percent of the world’s production — are shunted into ethanol, a gasoline substitute that imperceptibly nicks our energy problem. Larded onto that are $11 billion a year of government subsidies to the corn complex.... Reports filtering out of the budget talks currently under way suggest that agriculture subsidies sit prominently on the chopping block. The time is ripe."

What's the Matter with Kansas? Con'd. A. G. Sulzberger & Monica Davey of the New York Times: "One in a series of abortion limits approved in Kansas since Republicans took full control of the state government this year — a new license law — is raising uncertainty about the future of all abortion providers in the state.... The licenses ... newly dictate requirements for the size of rooms at abortion clinics, the stocking of emergency equipment, medications and blood supplies, and ties to nearby hospitals..." ...

These requirements range from the impossible to the absurd. They’re not designed to protect patient safety; they’re designed to shut down abortion providers. -- Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Fernanda Santos of the New York Times: "... in [school] districts across the country, many school officials said they had little choice but to eliminate librarians, having already reduced administrative staff, frozen wages, shed extracurricular activities and trimmed spending on supplies."

Oh, hooray. The Times has hired another white male columnist. Veteran investigative reporter James Stewart examines a case of bribery at Tyson Foods. After top executives learned of the bribery of Mexican veterinarians who were certifiying Tyson poultry, the execs conspired to both continue the bribes & hide them for several years. Finally, on the advice of counsel, they came clean. The DOJ & SEC levied fines against the company, but did not press criminal charges against the executives, leaving shareholders to pay for the crimes & executives to beat the rap. But, hey, Tyson emphasizes that no one died!

Marc Lacey & Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "A cache of internal documents released online on Thursday by hackers who gained access to the computer system of the Arizona Department of Public Safety revealed the array of potential outlaws on the state police’s radar screen, from international terrorists to Mexican drug smugglers to motorcycle gang members.... The Arizona police agency shut down its e-mail system on Thursday and Friday to allow computer forensics experts time to investigate the intrusion, which was orchestrated by Lulz Security, a group of hackers who have previously gained access to a number of government and private Web sites." CW: this might be fun & games, but the hackers dumped everything & revealed sensitive information, including the names & addresses of officers & undercover officers.

Joe Klein: Tim Pawlenty is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief.

Right Wing World *

Zaid Jilani of Think Progress: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker plans to sign his infamous budget bill "at a business owned by Greg DeCaster, a convicted tax evasion felon." ...

     ... BUT. Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Gov. Scott Walker has called off plans to sign the 2011-'13 budget bill at a private Green Bay-area company run by an executive with eight felony convictions, a spokesman announced today. The announcement came less than an hour after the Journal Sentinel contacted the governor's office to ask about the executive's criminal history."

* Where reality occasionally sneaks up & kicks you in the ass.

News Ledes

The Hill: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), "the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is crafting a bill that would temporarily freeze the Obama administration’s power to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. The measure is in response to a memo issued by the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last week that approved a broader breadth of discretion for agency officials when considering whether to deport someone through the Secure Communities program."

The Hill: "House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will demand a seat in the table for the final talks on the national debt limit, putting a strong liberal voice in the room. Pelosi and House Democrats were left out of the negotiations between President Obama and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last year that extended nearly all of the Bush tax rates though 2012. Pelosi didn’t participate in the final high-level talks over fiscal 2011 spending levels either. But now she’s demanding her say at a time when many of her House Democratic colleagues are disappointed in Obama’s level of consultation with their caucus."

AP: "With a threat of still more rain looming, Minot, [North Dakota,] was bracing Saturday for the Souris River to cascade past its already unprecedented level and widen a path of destruction that had severely damaged thousands of homes and threatened many others."

AFP: "The US Air Force has grounded its entire fleet of F-22 fighters, the most sophisticated combat aircraft in the world, after problems emerged with the plane's oxygen supply, officials said Friday. The radar-evading F-22 Raptors have been barred from flying since May 3 and Air Force officials could not say when the planes would return to the air."

AP: "A suicide attacker blew up his sport utility vehicle packed with explosives outside of a small medical clinic in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing at least 25 people, Afghan authorities said. Some reports put the death toll as high as 60."

Reuters: "The trustee seeking money for Bernard Madoff's victims is now demanding $19 billion in damages from JPMorgan Chase & Co, more than tripling what he hopes to recover from what had been the main bank for the now-imprisoned Ponzi schemer."

Space: "A small asteroid the size of a tour bus will make an extremely close pass by the Earth on Monday, but it poses no threat to the planet The asteroid will make its closest approach at 1:14 p.m. EDT (1714 GMT) on June 27 and will pass just over 7,500 miles (12,000 kilometers) above the Earth's surface, NASA officials say. At that particular moment, the asteroid — which scientists have named 2011 MD — will be sailing high off the coast of Antarctica...."

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