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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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Page Links
Friday
May132011

The Commentariat -- May 14

This whole page is turning into links to stories about the denizens of Right Wing World, where facts never intrude, although I'll admit in a number of the stories linked, outside forces have imposed facts upon the wingers' little universe; for example, that persistent Senate Ethics Committee sure blew John Ensign's cover, and they didn't do much to bolster Sen. Tom Coburn's apparent prevarications, either. -- CW

Gail Collins continues her Presidential Primary Book Club tour with a look at some family values advice from newly-minted presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. She also takes a gander at another of Newt's many tomes from his publishing empire: "The tone of 'To Save America' is a lot like that of the anti-Communist screeds of the 1950s. ('The secular-socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did.') In fact, Gingrich refers to the cold war so often you begin to suspect he’s nostalgic for Stalinism." ...

... I've opened an Off Times Square page for Collins or what-have-you. Karen Garcia and I have posted our comments on Collins, and -- speaking of literature, as we are -- Garcia's is a blockbuster. Update: more great comments here, including an of Garcia, Kate Madison and me, which in the interests of objectivity and semi-free speech (half a First Amendment right is better than none), I have elected not to jettison. ...

... Justin Elliott of Salon: "Jackie Gingrich Cushman has decided to resurface the most damaging anecdote of her father's political career: that Newt Gingrich demanded his first wife hash over details of their divorce while she was stricken with cancer in a hospital bed. Cushman suggests in a new column that the story is false. But Cushman's column, titled 'Setting the Record Straight,' is directly at odds with the testimony of her mother from just a few years after the 1980 incident." ...

... Still, Newt Gingrich Is Not Cool:

... NEW. It appears that Driftglass has found the original draft of a letter from 43 Republican Tea Party Congressmen to President Obama asking Obama to get his troops to stop picking on them. Since Driftglass is a modest fellow, he buries this scoop in a paean to his favorite presidential candidate. You'll want to read the whole post, but here's the text of the draft letter:

Deer Preznit Kenyun ,
Please make the Dum-o-craps to stop saying how we voted for to gut Medicare!
The past is the past!
Yors in Christ,
the Party of God

My Money's on the Kid. Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent: "A high school sophomore from New Jersey is challenging Rep. Michele Bachmann to a debate on civics and the U.S. Constitution. In an open letter to to Bachmann, Amy Myers of Cherry Hill, N.J., said, 'I have found quite a few of your statements regarding The Constitution of the United States, the quality of public school education and general U.S. civics matters to be factually incorrect, inaccurately applied or grossly distorted.'”

New York Times Editors: "The Senate Ethics Committee acted responsibly in referring the sordid case of former Senator John Ensign to federal authorities for possible criminal violations. Rather than let the matter fade with the Nevada Republican’s hurried resignation before his scheduled deposition, the panel stressed that there was 'substantial credible evidence' he violated the law.... The committee has now asked Justice and the F.E.C. to investigate further. Both had previously declined to take action in their inquiries of the senator. The election commission, which is particularly dysfunctional, rebuffed its own staff’s findings that the $96,000 payment violated election law." ...

... Eric Lichtblau & Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "... the Senate’s harsh report [on John Ensign] — contrasted with the Justice Department’s inaction — provided further evidence for those who complain that the agency has seemed skittish about taking on public officials following the fiasco that resulted from the 2008 corruption case against the late Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, which was ultimately dropped amid charges of prosecutorial misconduct." The only person Justice is prosecuting is the cuckolded husband, Doug Hampton, tho lawyers the reporters cite say the Senate committee report demonstrates that a case against Ensign would be an easy one to make. ...

... Might as well pile on:

... Ryan Reilly of TPM: "Sen. Tom ... Coburn (R-OK)'s role as an intermediary between his friend and former roommate [Sen. John] Ensign and Doug Hampton, the husband of the woman Ensign was having an affair with, has been pretty well established [in the Senate Ethics Committee report]. Coburn has denied playing the role of negotiator over the amount of money Ensign should pay the Hamptons. But other people involved told investigators ... Coburn, whose name is mentioned 46 times in the Ethics Committee's report, played a pretty crucial role. And the report indicates that Coburn might not have given investigators the whole story.... Coburn's cooperation with the investigation did not come after a grant of immunity from prosecution." ...

... Here's more from Maddow on Ensign's parents & on Sen. Coburn:

Alex Pareene of Salon: Five Signs Your Republican Governor Wants to Be President (the whole post is pretty funny, but sadly, true):

(1) Develops doubts about evolution
(2) Is suddenly agnostic on or openly hostile to climate science
(3) Suddenly has opinions about foreign policy
(4) No longer thinks the government has the right to
        collect revenue on anyone by any means
(5) No longer likes transportation projects

Steve Kornacki of Salon writes a little history lesson on how the Republican party became the party of unreality in which the underlying philosophy is that "deficits are one of the chief threats to America -- but they can never be tackled by raising taxes; in fact, taxes must be lowered." With videos.

Republican Presidential Candidate Firing Square Gazette: Condaleezza Rice wants you to have an abortion and Mitch Daniels would pick that radical leftist degenerate to be Vice President. Ben Smith of Politico: Jon Huntsman backer Rob Wasinger sends out an e-mail under the title "Mitch Daniels Would Pick Pro-Abortion Vice President."

Trump in Name Only. I've brought this story forward from yesterday's Commentariat, where I linked it fairly late in the day. Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Over the last few years, according to interviews and hundreds of pages of court documents, the real estate mogul [Donald Trump] has aggressively marketed several luxury high-rises as 'Trump properties' or 'signature Trump' buildings, with names like Trump Tower and Trump International — even making appearances at the properties to woo buyers. The strong indication of his involvement as a developer generated waves of media attention and commanded premium prices. But when three of the planned buildings encountered financial trouble, it became clear that Mr. Trump had essentially rented his name to the developments and had no responsibility for their outcomes, according to buyers. In each case, he yanked his name off the projects, which were never completed."

How can we be sure Obama is serious about fighting terrorism if he's not willing to place the tarred severed heads of terrorists on pikes outside the White House? -- Adam Serwer ...

... In response to this Washington Times editorial (via Media Matters), which expresses concern about

... President Obama's knee-jerk habit of kowtowing to Islam. By constantly emphasizing how bin Laden's sea burial was in 'conformance to Islamic requirements,' Obama officials communicated that the president is more concerned about placating the feelings of Muslim extremists than securing closure for the American people.

Citizens United Gone Wild -- Stephen Colbert gets serious about Colbert-PAC:

     ... Ken Vogel of Politico has more here, plus more video here.

Oh, whoopty-do. Evan McMorris Santoro of TPM: "Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) ... says he's considering making a run for the U.S. Senate [seat] being vacated by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI)." ...

... BUT. Eric Kleefeld of TPM: "Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman Mike Tate predicted that the party would have one or more strong candidates in the race to succeed Dem Sen. Herb Kohl, who announced his retirement earlier on Friday.... Chief among the names that Tate listed were former Sen. Russ Feingold, who lost re-election in the 2010 Republican wave after three terms in office, and seven-term Rep. Tammy Baldwin from Madison and the surrounding counties."

Presidential candidate Ron Paul, who is old enough to remember the civil rights movement, has forgotten all about it. He says segregation would have ended on its own, because, I guess, that's what magically happens when you ignore all-pervasive, hardcore racial discrimination:

... Although racial discrimination has been unlawful in the U.S. since the mid-1960s, if you think it's over in the hearts and minds of white Americans, listen to a few leading Republicans, like Sarah Palin with her "real America," Donald Trump with "the blacks," Peter King with the "Islamic extremism," and every single effort to delegitimize President Obama. Ron Paul's Republican party has done everything it can in wink-wink mode to foster white fear and hatred of non-white Americans. There's a reason Trump was only popular among the party faithful when he delivered his overriding message in bigot-code.

Okay, here are a few bones for our ConservaDem and Republican Light friends:

Karen Garcia on The Two Obama Campaigns, one for us little people and one for the $50K-a-plate crowd. See also Kate Madison's reply to Little People Manager Jim Messina here on Off Times Square and also on Garcia's blog. ...

... Ben Smith & Byron Tau of Politico: "President Barack Obama and his allies in two big industrial unions appear poised to make the auto bailout — begun under President George W. Bush in 2008 — a central issue of the 2012 campaign. With General Motors back on its feet — it announced $2 billion in new investments at 18 GM plants Tuesday — and losses from the government’s intervention shaping up to be minimal, Democrats hope to punish Republican presidential candidates for their early opposition.

Peter Wallsten of the Washington Post: behind closed doors, ConservaDems are arguing against taxing the put-upon rich. CW: one of those ConservaDems is my own Senator, Bill Nelson, who is up for re-election next year. Within the next five minutes, he will have a letter from me telling him he won't get my vote unless he backs a huge increase in taxes on the rich. Lily-livered loon.

NEW. Finally, a dash of realism. Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: Pitzer College in Southern California will inaugurate a Department of Secular Studies.

News Ledes

 

President Obama's Weekly Address:

Los Angeles Times: "President Obama will open Alaska's national petroleum reserve to new drilling, as part of a broad plan aimed at blunting criticism that he is not doing enough to address rising energy prices. The plan ... also would fast-track environmental assessment of petroleum exploration in some portions of the Atlantic and extend the leases of oil companies whose work in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean was interrupted by the drilling moratorium after last year's BP oil spill." AP story here.

        ... Update: the New York Times story is here.

Welcome to Obamaland, a declining empire in Right Wing World.

News Ledes

** New York Times: "The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was taken off an Air France plane at Kennedy International Airport minutes before it was to take off for Paris on Saturday and arrested in connection with the sexual attack of a maid at a Midtown Manhattan hotel, the authorities said. Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, who was widely expected to become the Socialist candidate for the French presidency, was apprehended by detectives of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the first class section of the jetliner, and immediately turned over to detectives from the Midtown South Precinct...."

New York Times: "Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, said late Saturday that he would not seek the Republican nomination for president next year in an announcement that was eagerly anticipated in part because of contradictory hints he had given over the last few days."

Also, see news reports linked under today's presidential weekly address.

New Orleans Times-Picayune: "Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh has instructed officials to open the Morganza Floodway within the next 24 hours to reduce the flow of the Mississippi River past Baton Rouge and New Orleans, a corps spokesman said." With maps. The paper's home page currently has links to several flood-related stories. AP story here.

Politico: "Shirley Sherrod, the U.S. Department of Agriculture employee who was forced out after a videotape misleadingly showed her making racially insensitive remarks, will start working for the USDA again.... Sherrod will be a contract employee leading one of three field programs designed to bolster relations between the USDA and minority farmers and ranchers. Support for the programs is among several recommendations contained in a sweeping, two-year study released Wednesday that examined decades of discrimination claims by African Americans, Latinos, women and Native Americans. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack commissioned the study shortly after taking office in 2009 — and well before he signed off on Sherrod’s dismissal in July 2010."

New York Times: "In an unusual, and apparently heated, closed-door session of Parliament, Pakistan’s spy chief issued a rousing denunciation of the United States on Friday for its raid that killed Osama bin Laden and denied that Pakistan maintained any links with militant groups, according to lawmakers." Washington Post: "Pakistan’s spy chief offered to resign Friday amid public outrage over the U.S. operation that killed Osama bin Laden, an incident that humiliated the nation’s army and cast doubt on the capabilities of an intelligence network long believed to be nearly mnipotent."

Al Jazeera: "More than 8,000 people are attending the funeral in Homs of one of three protesters killed by Syrian security forces in the restive city, an eyewitness told Al Jazeera. Mourners for Fouad al-Rajoub, who was killed on Friday, gathered near Bab al-Dreib and began making their way through the city chanting for an end to the siege on Homs, Baniyas and Deraa, the major flashpoints in the uprising."

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