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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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Monday
Mar282011

The Commentariat -- March 29

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "The Obama doctrine he presented Wednesday night was frustratingly nondoctrinal. Where Bush was all bright lines and absolute morality, Obama dwelled in the gray area, outlining a foreign policy that is ad hoc and situational.... In the Obama doctrine, there is a tension between bear-any-burden aspirations and the constraints of an overstretched superpower.... As a doctrine, Obama’s is maddeningly subtle. Cost-weighting can’t compete with 'smoke ‘em out' and 'dead or alive.' But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong." ... CW: see video of the President's full speech in yesterday's Commentariat.

... Robert Kagan of the Washington Post: "The president ... deserves credit for showing, once again, how bold and effective U.S. leadership can pave the way for multilateral efforts. He has been right to insist that others take their fair share of the burden, but he has also made clear that American leadership was essential, even indispensable. This was a Kennedy-esque speech." ...

... Tom Malinowski of The New Republic: "Here is one lesson we can draw from the mostly negative media commentary about the Obama administration’s actions in Libya: Presidents get more credit for stopping atrocities after they begin than for preventing them before they get out of hand." ...

... Greg Jaffe & Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "The U.S. military dramatically stepped up its assault on Libyan government ground forces over the weekend, launching its first missions with AC-130 flying gunships and A-10 attack aircraft designed to strike enemy ground troops and supply convoys.... A mission that initially seemed to revolve around establishing a no-fly zone has become focused on halting advances by government ground forces in and around key coastal cities."

Brian Beutler of TPM: federal budget negotiations are not going well. Late yesterday Harry Reid issued a statement saying, "... Tea Party Republicans are scrapping all the progress we have made and threatening to shut down the government if they do not get all of their extreme demands." He said the House leadership needed to rein in their extremist members. ...

... Ezra Klein: not only are Republicans demanding deep cuts, they are demanding the cuts come from their menu. Klein says, "It's beginning to look like a shutdown." ...

... Jonathan Chait of The New Republic on why there will be a government shutdown: because the vast majoritiy of teabaggers believe President Obama is "destroying the country"; ergo, any deal that he agrees to is inherently evil. Chait uses polling data to make his case.

... Jackie Calmes & Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Already resigned to a final budget for this year that cuts deeply into domestic spending, Democrats in the White House and Congress are struggling to regroup behind a strategy to limit the reductions — or to set up House Republicans for blame if the current standoff shuts down the government." ...

... Alexander Bolton & Molly Hooper of The Hill with an update: "Democrats are deploying a divide-and-conquer strategy in their negotiations with House Republicans over spending cuts. After being put back on their heels earlier in the budget message battle, Senate Democrats are now trying to drive a wedge between Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Tea Party freshmen." ...

... AND Melanie Starkey of Roll Call: "The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee slammed more than 50 House Republicans on Monday, the 32nd anniversary of the Three Mile Island disaster, for voting to reduce nuclear security spending. The targeted statements distributed to the Members’ districts accuse the lawmakers of supporting 'a dangerous plan to drastically reduce the security of nuclear facilities across the nation.'”

Stephen Colbert spars with Michael Moore on the role of unions:

 

"Ordinary Wisconsinites" make the case for recall of GOP state senators. CW: actually, I think these activists are extraordinary:

Tony Pugh of McClatchy News: "Across the country, taxpayers jarred by cuts to government jobs and services are reassessing the risks and costs of a variety of tax reductions, exemptions and credits, and the ideology that drives them. States cut taxes in hopes of spurring economic growth, but in state after state, it hasn't worked." CW: surprise, surprise.

Karen Garcia: right-wing Rep. Wally "Herger [R-Calif.] is co-chair of an investigative joint House Oversight and Health subcommittee 'looking into' AARP - the American Association of Retired Persons. According to Herger and his sidekick, Louisiana Republican Charles Boustany, the purpose of Friday's go-fish game hearing will be to see if AARP is profiting unfairly from selling Medicare supplement insurance policies to its members." Funny, Herger's & Boustany's top campaign contributors are other insurance companies.

Unforced Error, Revisited. A. G. Sulzberger of the New York Times on Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill's (D) charging taxpayers for her use of her own airplane & her failure to pay about $300,000 in property taxes on it. The controversy, on which Republicans have capitalized, has put retention of her Senate seat in serious jeopardy.

Andrew Higgins of the Washington Post: "Masataka Shimizu..., the president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, the company that owns a haywire nuclear power plant 150 miles from the capital, is the most invisible — and most reviled — chief executive in Japan. Amid rumors that Shimizu had fled the country, checked into a hospital or committed suicide, company officials said Monday that their boss had suffered an unspecified “small illness” because of overwork...."

Rob Stein of the Washington Post: "a drug to prevent babies from being born too early won federal approval in February," but "the list price for the drug, Makena, turned out to be a stunning $1,500 per dose. That’s for a drug that must be injected every week for about 20 weeks, meaning it will cost about $30,000 per at-risk pregnancy.... What really infuriates patients and doctors is that the same compound has been available for years at a fraction of the cost — about $10 or $20 a shot." The company that's selling Makena, KV Pharmaceutical, claims the price is justified by the costs associated with R&D, but critics say "the main study used to demonstrate the drug’s effectiveness was a $5 million project conducted by the National Institutes of Health — paid by taxpayers."

CW: I am running this story by James McKinley & Erica Goode of the New York Times only because it's sort of a do-over for the Times. The first story, by McKinley, was roundly criticized by Times readers and even by the Times' excuse-maker in-chief public editor Arthur Brisbane for its blame-the-victim posture, the victim being an eleven-year-old girl who was repeatedly gang-raped. Tellingly, the Times does not link to the first story, as they normally do with follow-up pieces.

Right Wing World

I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American. -- Newt Gingrich ...

... Michael Crowley of Time comments.

Research data suggest many teabaggers are nuts. Okay, that's not exactly the way C. S. Parker of Washington University phrased it, but that's kinda what his results show. Oh, and for best results, "sound white" when you phone-poll them.

Is the Donald an American Citizen? Entrepreneur, self-promoter & fake Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has stoked the zombie birther movement recently by calling for President Obama to produce his birth certificate. With video. As part of the attack on Obama, Trump released his own birth certificate to the loony, lying right-wing Website Newsmax. But, as Ben Smith reports, the document Trump produced was not a birth certificate but a certificate of live birth from Jamaica (Queens) Hospital. Smith writes, and this is even funnier:

Trump's mother, it should be noted, was born in Scotland, which is not part of the United States. His plane is registered in the Bahamas, also a foreign country. This fact pattern -- along with the wave of new questions surrounding what he claims is a birth certificate -- raises serious doubts about his eligibility to serve as President of the United States. ...

... The Smoking Gun: "So, what is Trump trying to conceal? On a possibly related note, Jamaica Hospital has been the recipient of significant financial largesse from the Trump family." CW: OR maybe that "Jamaica Hospital" on the certificate of live birth is in, you know, Jamaica. ...

... Adam Serwer of the American Prospect provides a "birther lexicon" to identify all the kinds of birthers there are, from the totally nuts to the cravenly opportunistic "pseudo-birthism."

News Ledes

** Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "For the second time in less than two weeks, a Dane County judge [Maryann Sumi] Tuesday issued an order blocking the implementation of Gov. Scott Walker's plan to curb collective bargaining for public workers.... She warned that those who violate her order could face court sanctions." Republicans plan to continue implementation of the law anyway.

New York Times: "Barack Obama ... returned [to Harlem] on Tuesday evening as the nation’s first African-American president, and for a $30,800-a-person fund-raiser.... Afterward, Mr. Obama attended an invitation-only reception at the Studio Museum in Harlem for past Democratic donors.... Since being elected this was Mr. Obama’s first visit to Harlem...."

Washington Post: "Even Supreme Court justices who sharply questioned Wal-Mart’s pay and promotion policies regarding female employees expressed concern at Tuesday’s oral argument about how the largest gender discrimination class-action suit in history might proceed."

Washington Post: "Sen. Richard Durbin’s Capitol Hill hearing Tuesday on Muslim civil rights featured the same partisan sparring and many of the same arguments as Rep. Peter King’s hearing on Muslim radicals just three weeks ago. The hearing of the Judiciary subcommittee chaired by Durbin (D-Ill.) was a relatively low-key affair that saw witnesses and lawmakers in accord on the issue of protecting the civil rights of American Muslims...."

AP: "Moammar Gadhafi's forces hammered rebels with tanks and rockets, turning their rapid advance into a panicked retreat in an hourslong battle Tuesday. The fighting underscored the dilemma facing the U.S. and its allies in Libya: Rebels may be unable to oust Gadhafi militarily unless already contentious international airstrikes go even further in taking out his forces." ...

... New York Times: "The westward advance of rebels seeking the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi faced new resistance from loyalist forces on Tuesday as an array of diplomats and public figures prepared for a gathering in London to shape their political vision of a post-Qaddafi era." ...

... AP: "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met Tuesday with a representative of the Libyan opposition fighting Moammar Kadafii's regime as the Obama administration looked to expand ties with rebel leaders seeking an end to four decades of dictatorship."

New York Times: "Yemen’s political crisis deepened Monday when an explosion tore through a crowd of looters at an abandoned government weapons factory in the south, killing at least 110 people and underscoring an ominous collapse of authority after six weeks of rising protests."

New York Times: "The political crisis in Syria deepened on Monday as the armed forces in the restive southern city of Dara’a fired live ammunition in the air to disperse hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators who had taken to the streets."

New York Times: "The Taliban seized control of a district in eastern Nuristan Province on Tuesday, chasing the governor and police from the district capital, according to Afghan officials and a spokesman for the Taliban.... While the Taliban are present in a majority of districts in Afghanistan, the capture of administrative centers in the districts is relatively rare."

Washington Post: "Foreign nationals who are married to U.S. citizens of the same sex may apply for spousal green cards and other benefits, immigration authorities announced Monday, but it remains to be seen whether the government will issue them. In the past, foreign same-sex spouses who sought the immigration benefits granted to heterosexual married couples were automatically rejected.... But the agency has stopped that practice, at least temporarily, in light of last month’s decision by the Obama administration to no longer defend" DOMA.

AP: "Japan's prime minister insisted Tuesday that the country was on 'maximum alert' to bring its nuclear crisis under control, but the spread of radiation raised concerns about the ability of experts to stabilize the crippled reactor complex. Prime Minister Naoto Kan told parliament that Japan was grappling with its worst problems since World War II."

Bloomberg News: "Federal prosecutors are considering whether to pursue manslaughter charges against BP Plc (BP/) managers for decisions made before the Gulf of Mexico oil well explosion last year that killed 11 workers and caused the biggest offshore spill in U.S. history, according to three people familiar with the matter. U.S. investigators also are examining statements made by leaders of the companies involved in the spill -- including former BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward -- during congressional hearings last year to determine whether their testimony was at odds with what they knew...."

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