REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- Nov. 10, 2013

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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.”

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Nov092013

The Commentariat -- Nov. 10, 2013

Juliet Eilperin & Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "The White House is increasing its reliance on insurers by accepting their technical help in efforts to repair the problem-ridden online health insurance marketplace and prioritizing consumers' ability to buy plans directly from the carriers. The Obama administration's broader cooperation with insurers is a tacit acknowledgment that the federal insurance exchange ... might not be working smoothly by the target date of Nov. 30, according to several health experts familiar with the administration's thinking. White House officials reject the idea that the strategy represents a contingency plan in the event that the online system continues to falter." ...

... Jessica Silver-Greenberg & Susanne Craig of the Washington Post: "To the list of problems plaguing President Obama's health care law, add one more -- fraud."

Mark Felsenthal of Reuters: "White House national security adviser Susan Rice on Saturday urged Congress to allow the United States to regain its vote at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, which it lost for not paying dues."

** Eli Saslow of the Washington Post: The food stamp diet will make you sick before it kills you. Legislators & lobbyists are making sure it stays that way.

Maureen Dowd interviews comedian Sarah Silverman. Silverman has interesting things to say. Here's the voter ID video Silverman cut last year:

Mark Sherman of TPM: SCOTUSblog wants a Supreme Court press pass.

Nate Raymond & Jonathan Stempel of Reuters: "The U.S. government urged that Bank of America Corp pay $863.6 million in damages after a federal jury found it liable for fraud over defective mortgages sold by its Countrywide unit. In a filing late Friday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the government also asked for penalties against Rebecca Mairone, a former midlevel executive at the bank's Countrywide unit who the jury also found liable, 'commensurate with her ability to pay.'"

Dylan Byers of Politico has a damning piece on Lara Logan's Benghaaaazi! report, which Logan & others worked on for "more than a year," according to CBS "News" chairman Jeff Fager. ...

... Phony "Reporting" Has Consequences. Sort of. Leigh Munsil of Politico: "Sen. Lindsey Graham [R-S.C.] says he still plans to use Senate holds on President Barack Obama's nominees until he gets answers on the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.... Despite his hold threat following a CBS '60 Minutes' report based on an eyewitness account that proved to be false, Graham wouldn't take it back when pressed by CNN host Candy Crowley." CW: So the basis for his holds is fake, but he's still going with them to jerk around the administration. Seems reasonable.

The Plagiarist, a/k/a the Cookie Monster. CW: Friday I got an e-mail from Sen. Rand Paul titled, "This Week in News for Senator Rand Paul." In it I learned that Paul had introduced some legislation, met with some constituents & been on the teevee. Oddly enough, there was not one word in "This Week in News for Senator Rand Paul" about the several incidences of Paul's plagiarism which bloggers uncovered this week. There was nothing in it about the Washington Examiner firing him or about his moving his excellent borrowed copy to Breitbart.com. There was nothing in it about the "haters & hacks" picking on him. The only teevee appearance linked in "This Week in News for Senator Rand Paul" was one in which he bashed Healthcare.gov. No mention of the Real News of the Week for Senator Rand Paul -- the only news that put him on the front pages of his home-state papers and the New York Times. Funny that. ...

... You might wonder how it happens that I got on Rand's mailing list. I didn't sign up for it. I didn't give him my e-mail address. But I did go to his official Website to check out those speeches he suddenly footnoted. Lo & behold, Senator Libertarian -- who says that the right to privacy comes from God -- grabbed my little cookies & used them to access my e-mail account & send me unsolicited mail. If the right to privacy comes from God, Sen. Aqua Buddha is on Satan's side.

Local News

New York Times Editors: "For what may be the first time on record, a former prosecutor in Texas is going to jail for failing to turn over exculpatory evidence in a murder trial. The 10-day jail sentence for the prosecutor, Ken Anderson, is insultingly short -- the victim of his misconduct, Michael Morton, spent nearly 25 years in prison. But because prosecutors are so rarely held accountable for their misconduct, the sentence is remarkable nonetheless.... In addition to receiving the jail sentence, [Anderson] was disbarred and stripped of his law license." The underlying AP story is here. The Innocence Project's page on Michael Morton's case is here.

Black Like Me. Doug Miller of KHOU Houston: "As a conservative white Republican running in a district whose voters are overwhelmingly black Democrats, the odds seemed overwhelmingly against [Dave Wilson]. Then he came up with an idea, an advertising strategy that his opponent found 'disgusting.' If a white guy didn't have a chance in a mostly African-American district, Wilson would lead voters to think he's black. And it apparently worked. In one of the biggest political upsets in Houston politics this election season, Wilson -- an anti-gay activist and former fringe candidate for mayor -- emerged as the surprise winner over 24-year incumbent Bruce Austin. His razor thin margin of victory, only 26 votes, was almost certainly influenced by his racially tinged campaign." ...

... Speaking of a white former fringe candidate, Dan Amira of New York has listened to all 4-1/2 hours of the audio tape of Sarah Palin's new theological treatise on the annual war on Christmas: "The book is part tribute to the joys of Christmas, part how-to guide for oppressed Christians looking for ways to fight back against whiny and litigious secularists, and part manifesto on the general superiority of Christianity over atheism. Palin, throughout, appears incapable of fathoming why a business catering to people from all walks of life may prefer to use inclusive holiday-season language in promotional items, or why a non-Christian may not appreciate a government institution expressing a preference for Christianity over other religions." The magazine made a dandy little interactive graphic allowing you to click on "some of the books more memorable lines." CW: Recommended for a laugh. Via Steve Benen.

President Kennedy Assassination

Meghan Keneally of the Daily Mail: "John Kerry has revealed that he does not believe that President Kennedy's assassin worked alone as the government claimed in their official finding.... 'To this day, I have serious doubts that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone,' Kerry told NBC's Tom Brokaw in an interview...."

News Ledes

Reuters: "Rescue workers struggled to reach ravaged towns and villages in the central Philippines on Monday as they tried to deliver aid to survivors of a powerful typhoon that killed an estimated 10,000 people and displaced more than 600,000. The United Nations said some survivors had no food, water or medicine. Relief operations were hampered because roads, airports and bridges had been destroyed or were covered in wreckage...." ...

... AP: "Corpses hung from trees, were scattered on sidewalks or buried in flattened buildings -- some of the thousands believed killed in one Philippine city alone by ferocious Typhoon Haiyan that washed away homes and buildings with powerful winds and giant waves." ...

... AFP: "Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in Vietnam early Monday, meteorologists said, days after it left thousands feared dead and widespread devastation in the Philippines."

AFP: "Conservative US leaders, fond of finger-pointing at France in recent years, lavished praise on Paris Sunday for blocking an agreement between Western powers and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program. 'Vive la France!' tweeted Senator John McCain, an outspoken voice on national security issues."

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Really didn’t need to know that about Kerry. Realizing that one’s secretary of state is at one with the surfeit of kooks in the land of the free is not comforting.

November 9, 2013 |

James Singer

This is a response to a comment PD made on Friday. I typed up the first version of this response ( quite a bit shorter, I might add) and tried to post it but the Web God decided otherwise. No prayers to that sum'bitch.

PD,

Your anecdote about a rude guest who made tossed salad of a Thanksgiving dinner with her insistence on a lengthy prayer belonged in an Updike story. Or maybe something by T.C. Boyle.

In one way, it's an object lesson in how not to be a good guest. First, since the woman demanding a Christian prayer at the gathering wasn't the owner of the house, nor was she in any way a co-hostess of the event, she should have done one of two things before forcing everyone else to listen in silence while she gave extended voice to her beliefs, with no consideration as to whether or not a single person, besides her PW husband, was the least bit interested. She should have either asked the actual hosts whether it would be okay, or, upon realizing that her fervent religiosity might not be shared universally, asked those assembled if they would bear with a SHORT prayer. In the spirit of the day I can't imagine anyone would have voted nay, as long as the thing was done with respect and dispatch, neither of which obtained.

It's pretty clear that she considered herself the savior (and moral superior) of a group of heathens and she felt no compunction (neither did her PW hubbie) in subjecting all present to a barrage of religious sentiments, neither requested nor desired.

This is, as you suggest, an example of the way too many Christians, especially those of the fundamentalist stripe, behave in the public sector. Their attitude is "Fuck all you infidels. I'm praying, at the top of my voice, mind you, to Jesus, and you can all go to hell."

A nice way to start a Thanksgiving dinner.

This woman's blank intolerance for those who might not share her beliefs and her arrogance at imposing them on the group are a microcosmic version of what far-right Christians are trying to force onto the country as a whole.

They really don't care, nor do they have any concern for the beliefs or feelings of anyone else. I would wager that 50 years ago, only the truly fanatical would attempt such bald-faced rudeness.

Now, I'm pretty fanatical about a lot of things but I don't feel it necessary to inflict my obsessions on a captured audience (my wife might disagree, but I tend to back down when I see the open mouths). Events like this should be approached like poker games. Everyone abides by House Rules. If your game is Jacks Pro but the host wants to play Six Card High-low With a Blow, or Mexican Sweat, or Night Baseball with a Rainout, or Jumping Anaconda, you play and you don't complain. That's what it means to join a specific group. People who show up at house games and try to enforce their own vision on the other players are either told to shut the fuck up and sit down, or go find another game.

This is pretty much what should be said to the fanatics who are trying to inflict their own particular belief system on the rest of us.

Either get with the program or go the fuck home.

Assholes.

And that's what I wanted to say.

November 10, 2013 |

Akhilleus

Akhilleus, I completely agree with your comment but I think you may be a tiny bit unfair by singling out the behavior of Christians since I noticed in yesterdays news that the Muslims are after the Christians, the Buddhists are after the Muslims, the Hindus and Muslims are after each other and on and on. And that was just yesterdays news.
"They really don't care, nor do they have any concern for the beliefs or feelings of anyone else." Actually that sentence is kind. They hate everyone else.

November 10, 2013 |

Marvin Schwalb

Oh, I forgot one. The Muslims are after the Muslims.

November 10, 2013 |

Marvin Schwalb

Marvin,

You're a funny guy.

You're also correct. Religious fanaticism is pretty much the same wherever you go. It just happens that most of the fanaticism in the US is Christian based.

November 10, 2013 |

Akhilleus

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