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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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May232011

The Commentariat -- May 24

I've posted an Open Thread for today's Off Times Square. Brooks was unintentionally hilarious today, so I've posted my comment on his column, and also my comment on Nocera's column. Kate Madison's comment, which is very popular among Times readers, is also posted here.

Today is Election Day in New York Congressional District 26. VOTE!!!

... New York's 26th is usually a solidly Republican District, but Democrat Kathy Hochul, who has emphasized the Ryan/Republican Tea Party Medicare debacle, was ahead by 4 points in the last polling done, and Democrats attribute her potential win to the public's rebuke of the plan. Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post, however, thinks Hochul's good showing is the result of her being the most experienced politician & campaigner in the three-way race.

Prof. Bill McKibben in a tongue-in-chief Washington Post op-ed on why you shouldn't consider the many recent disastrous weather events as even remotely related to climate change: "Better to join with the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted 240 to 184 this spring to defeat a resolution saying simply that 'climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.' Propose your own physics; ignore physics altogether.... If you got upset about any of this, you might forget how important it is not to disrupt the record profits of our fossil fuel companies."

Take the Money and Run. Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Thousands of companies and nonprofits that received funds from the Obama administration’s economic stimulus program owe hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes, according to estimates in a new government report. A Government Accountability Office investigation set for release Tuesday found that at least 3,700 recipients receiving $24 billion in stimulus contracts and grants owe more than $750 million to the government."

Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "Sen. Lisa Murkowski has become the latest Senate Republican to shy away from Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan, saying she may not vote for the House budget later this week because of her concerns about how it might affect Medicare.... She’s the fourth Senate Republican who has either come out against the House Medicare plan or expressed doubts about it. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts have said they won’t support it when it comes up for a Senate vote later this week. Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine has been vocal with her criticism of the Medicare plan, too, but hasn’t said how she will vote." ...

Yes, this is an undoctored photo of self-certified doctor Rand Paul.... AND Manu Raju of Politico: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Monday evening he couldn’t support Ryan’s budget because it would add too much to the national debt.... The conservative tea party favorite joins some moderate Republicans who have voiced concerns with Ryan’s plan for going too far on overhauling Medicare.... But Paul said he actually likes Ryan’s changes to Medicare – and he’ll later unveil his own stand-alone plan to overhaul Medicare." CW: Crazy Randy is write about Ryan's budget adding to the debt -- it would add more than Obama's working proposal -- but you can bet Li'l Randy's Medicare WIP will be good for one special interest only: questionably-certified opthamologists.

Hear yourself. Hear yourself.... You want the government to take care of you, because your employer decided not to take care of you. My question is, ‘When do I decide I’m going to take care of me?'
-- Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) ...

... CW Translation: You're on your own, Sister. (Video here.)

Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu and U.S. right-wing politicians went nuts this week over President Obama's speech in which he said the Israeli-Palestinian settlement should be based on the 1967 lines, with swaps. Bibi rejected the proposal & lectured Obama, while wingers immediately said stuff like this:

Mitt Romney ('President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus.'); Tim Pawlenty ('President Obama’s insistence on a return to the 1967 borders is a mistaken and very dangerous demand.'); and Mike Huckabee ('This is an outrage to peace, sovereignty of Israel, and a stable Middle East.') -- Peter Catapano of the New York Times

... which was all a lot of crap because, as Andrew Sullivan notes, in November 2010, Netanyahu and Hillary Clinton issued a joint statement, which read in part,

The Prime Minister and the Secretary agreed on the importance of continuing direct negotiations to achieve our goals. The Secretary reiterated that 'the United States believes that through good-faith negotiations, the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state, based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps....'

That is, Bibi & his American right-wing enablers have thrown fits over something Bibi himself has already agreed to. What a bunch of phonies. 

Mark Ambinder of the National Journal, who has proved to be a credible Obama Administration mouthpiece, on what the Obama camp thinks of the Republican field of presidential candidates.

Right Wing World *

Glenn Thrush & Jake Sherman of Politico: how the Republican House decided to pass the Ryan plan despite dire warnings from GOP pollsters, political consultants & staffers that it would be a political disaster with no purpose since there was no chance of its becoming law. Bottom line: Boehner can't control the freshman class of teabaggers, who think they have a mandate to run roughshod over entitlements, & Eric Cantor is colluding with the kids.

PolitiFact: "An ad from the Republican controlled campaign group Crossroads GPS [Karl Rove's group] asserts that unions are exempt from the new health care law as a political favor from President Barack Obama.... We don’t see any pattern that would support a case for special treatment." ...

... As Greg Sargent wrote last October,

Here's something important that's getting lost in the firefight over the money funding the ads by the U.S. Chamber and Karl Rove's groups: Many of the ads themselves have been debunked by independent fact checkers as false, grossly misleading, or marred with distortions.

AP Fact-Checker: "'Truth' was Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's buzzword Monday when he announced his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. He said he will tell the truth about hard choices facing the nation while others — President Barack Obama notably among them — do not. A parsing of Pawlenty's opening-day statements shows they were not the whole truth." The Fact-Checker then ticks off seven of the misstatements of fact Pawlenty made in just his announcement speech. ...

... Dana Milbank: so then Pawlenty goes on Limbaugh & lies again about having been an advocate for government that actually governs. CW: not only is Pawlenty a liar, but his "truth-telling" message is a wink-wink to the right-wing: he is contrasting himself with President Obama who has "lied" about his place of birth (Kenya) & religion (Muslim) & preferred form of government (communism/socialism).

... Pawlenty says his having once been a tourist in Europe & the Middle East qualifies as "having the most or as much international experience as anybody in the field." CW: Yeah, snapping those pix of the wife & kids standing in front of the Eiffel Tower probably gave him a lot of insights into the intricacies and nuances of diplomatic negotiations. ...

... AND former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson, a Republican, says Tim Pawlenty was a fiscally-irresponsible governor of his state.

The DNC has a swell ad demonstrating just how wrong the major Republican presidential candidates are on the economy. Message: don't believe what they tell you because they don't know squat and will destroy American industry -- and American jobs -- with their dangerous, unfounded fiscal belief system:

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

President Obama this morning on the devastation in Missouri:

** New York Times: Democrat Kathy Hochul wins in New York's 26th Congressional District.

ABC News: "The United States Department of Justice has green-lighted the prosecution of former presidential candidate John Edwards for alleged violations of campaign laws while he tried to cover up an extra-marital affair, ABC News has learned. A source close to the case said Edwards is aware that the government intends to seek an indictment and that the former senator from North Carolina is now considering his limited options. He could accept a plea bargain with prosecutors or face a potentially costly trial." With video.

New York Times: "A series of tornadoes struck central Oklahoma on Tuesday, wiping out homes and businesses and killing at least four people. Officials said the number could rise as search and rescue teams started to fan out across a state already battered by storms over the weekend."

New York Times: The mysterious, reclusive heiress Huguette Clark died today in New York. She was 104.

AP: "The White House on Tuesday threatened to veto a defense bill, fiercely objecting to provisions limiting President Barack Obama's authority to reduce the nation's nuclear arsenal and decide the fate of terrorist suspects. In a statement, the Obama administration said it generally supported passage of the legislation, which would provide $553 billion for the Defense Department in next year's budget and an additional $118 billion to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the administration identified three provisions that would prompt the president's advisers to recommend that Obama veto the bill."

Guardian: "Egypt referred Hosni Mubarak to court on Tuesday over the killing of protesters and other charges, defying speculation that Egypt's new military rulers would spare the former president public humiliation."

Washington Post: "Speaking before a wildly receptive joint meeting of Congress that showered him with more than two dozen sustained standing ovations, [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu said Israel wants and needs peace but repeated his flat rejection of a return to what he called the 'indefensible borders that existed before the 1967 Mideast war." CW: see today' Commentariat. Liar. C-SPAN has the full speech, with backup from his Republican Likud cheerleading squad, here.

Washington Post: "A top envoy from the U.S. State Department announced Tuesday that Libya’s rebel government would open an office in Washington, the latest indication that the United States views the rebels as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people."

President & Mrs. Obama were in London today.

Los Angeles Times: "President Obama this morning expressed his sorrow about the tornado damage in Missouri, Minnesota and around the Midwest, calling the devastation 'incomparable' and promising a full federal response to help in the recovery. Obama has already dispatched federal officials to the region to survey the damage and talk with local officials, and he said he will visit Missouri personally Sunday." ...

... AP: "Rescue crews worked through the rain-soaked chill of night, ignoring lightning and strong winds to dig through splintered homes, crumpled businesses and crushed cars in this Missouri town walloped by the deadliest single tornado in nearly six decades. Even more ominous: More storms, possibly strong ones, were on the horizon. The death toll in Joplin reached 116 on Monday and was expected to climb. But there were glimmers of hope: Rescuers pulled 17 people from the rubble, and Gov. Jay Nixon vowed that crews would keep searching until everyone is accounted for."

Washington Post: "Libya’s capital shook with at least 15 massive explosions Tuesday morning, as NATO launched its largest airstrike to date on the heart of Moammar Gaddafi’s regime. The strike came hours after French officials said Monday that France and Britain planned to deploy attack helicopters to Libya. Such a move would allow greater accuracy in military action within cities but would probably put their troops at higher risk."

AP: Harold Camping, "a California preacher who foretold of the world's end only to see the appointed day pass with no extraordinarily cataclysmic event, has revised his apocalyptic prophecy, saying he was off by five months and the Earth actually will be obliterated on Oct. 21." CW: I hope this will be the last story I link about this crank.

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