The Commentariat -- September 2

I've posted a comments page on Paul Krugman's column on Off Times Square.

CW: President Obama must have blindsided EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson with his brilliant directive to the EPA to withdraw its proposed ozone limits (see today's Ledes). Here's Jackson, less than 48 hours ago,  touting the health benefits of the Clean Air Act & the regulations it applies to keep air clean:

     ... As a political tactic, Obama's move is decidedly bone-headed, & not just because it's another unnecessary cave to the GOP. As Al Sharpton & Jackson point out in the segment, the EPA is extremely popular with the American public. Not only that, Jackson argues that the EPA is actually a jobs-creator. (She doesn't elaborate on this.) So the question we must repeatedly post about this President is "What was he thinking?"

"Oh, Grow Up." New York Times Editors: "The contemptuous reaction from the House speaker, John Boehner, to the president’s request to address a joint session next Wednesday ... was appalling.... There can be no excuse for [Mr. Boehner's] lack of respect for the office, to which he is second in the line of succession. And it was distressing to watch President Obama fail, once again, to stand up to an opposition that won’t brook the smallest compromise.... The political spectacle and the final result only served to further underscore the president’s weakness.... Human rights groups ... say the CIA now functions as a military force beyond the accountability that the United States has historically demanded of its armed services." ...

... Peter Nicholas & Kathleen Hennessey of the Los Angeles Times: "An unexpected dust-up between the White House and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) about when the president could address a joint session of Congress touched off angry sniping and recriminations Thursday and raised fresh doubts about whether Obama can forge the political consensus he needs to jump-start the economy." CW: this straight news report, of the he-said/he said genre, still offers a perspective of how this trivial "issue" fits into the general pattern of the Obama-Boehner dynamic.

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "Despite Republican opposition to spending measures or tax cuts to spur job creation and economic growth, the president is under pressure to fight for a significant stimulus program. The demands come not only from Democrats, but also from many economists, financial analysts and executives who fear a relapse into recession. But as administration officials are well aware, another display of partisan gridlock this fall could again provoke a downgrade of the United States’ credit and market upheavals that would further batter consumer confidence." CW: it's worth reading the whole article, which has an on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand ring that so Obama & so dismaying. ...

... Writer Ian Mount in a New York Times op-ed: Argentina's "economy has grown by over 6 percent a year for seven of the last eight years, unemployment has been cut to under 8 percent today from over 20 percent in 2002, and the poverty level has fallen by almost half over the last decade.... Argentina has regained its prosperity partly out of dumb luck.... But it has also prospered thanks to smart economic measures. The government intervened to keep the value of its currency low, which boosts local industry by making Argentina’s exports cheaper abroad while keeping foreign imports expensive. It then taxed those imports and exports, using the money to pay for a New Deal-like public works binge, increasing government spending to 25 percent of G.D.P. today from 14 percent in 2003.... The stark difference between Argentina's] austere policies and low growth of the late 1990s and the pro-government, high-growth 2000s offers a test case for how to get an economy moving again. Washington would do well to pay attention."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) in a Washington Post op-ed: "The president has nominated Richard Cordray, an able, experienced and thoughtful former state attorney general who has a record of achievement in protecting individuals against financial abuse, to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And the Republican minority in the Senate has announced that it intends to deny any consideration of the individual whom the president has nominated pursuant to his constitutional prerogative. They will do that by blatantly distorting the Constitution, substituting a refusal to allow the constitutionally mandated nomination process for the legislative process in which they simply do not have the votes to accomplish what they want. Cordray is just the latest capable, dedicated public servant to fall victim to a Republican mugging."

Tim Egan compares Prohibition to today's radical conservative movement "to dictate the private actions of citizens." Egan writes,

... the temperance cause became a grand vehicle for the loosely organized loathing that was widespread at the time, from the Ku Klux Klan to viciously anti-immigrant groups. Those who hated, or distrusted, Roman Catholics, new arrivals from Italy, Greece..., blacks, the teeming urban mass of the working poor — they made common cause with high-minded liberals and evangelical Protestants. The bigots thought if they could deprive the disenfranchised of drink they would take away their gathering houses and political wards — the neighborhood saloons. The purists thought people would raise their eyes to God, or spend more time at home. ...

... As if to make Egan's point, Philip Rucker & Amy Gardner of the Washington Post write, "Polls may not suggest it, and the candidates may not be catering to it, but immigration is an issue that voters won’t let the GOP White House hopefuls escape. Republican primary voters keep bringing immigration up as the candidates campaign in back yards, opera houses and recreation halls across Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. To a sizable chunk of those who will pick the GOP’s presidential nominee, immigration is an urgent issue, even a litmus test." CW: so you don't think a huge chunk of Republican voters is racist?

     ... Jill of Brilliant at Breakfast writes, "Republicans hated Clinton too, but you never saw this level of contempt. And good for [Richard] Wolffe for pointing out what's been obvious since January 20, 2009 -- that this country elected a black president and there are a sizable number of people, some of them Federal legislators, who simply can't deal with that." ...

You’ve taken an agency that was chugging along and turned it into one hell of a killing machine. --  Former CIA Official, on the current CIA ...

... Greg Miller & Julie Tate of the Washington Post: "In the decade since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the [CIA] has undergone a fundamental transformation. Although the CIA continues to gather intelligence and furnish analysis on a vast array of subjects, its focus and resources are increasingly centered on the cold counterterrorism objective of finding targets to capture or kill.... The drone program has killed more than 2,000 militants and civilians since 2001, a staggering figure for an agency that has a long history of supporting proxy forces in bloody conflicts but rarely pulled the trigger on its own."

Nicholas Kristof: "Thank you, America":

When I ran for this office, I pledged to make government more open and accountable to its citizens. That’s what the new We the People feature on WhiteHouse.gov is all about – giving Americans a direct line to the White House on the issues and concerns that matter most to them. -- Barack Obama ...

... ** Matt Negrin of Politico: "The White House on Thursday announced a new way it will keep in touch with public concerns — by promising to consider online petitions that get at least 5,000 supporters. The idea behind “We the People” — as the program will be called — is that anyone with an idea or cause can go to the White House website and make a public pitch for support. If the idea gets 5,000 backers within 30 days, said White House spokeswoman Sandra Abrevaya, a “working group of policy officials” will respond. Here's the White House We the People Webpage.

Right Wing World

Eric Cantor Is "Literally" an Idiot

The national debt at the time was under $8 trillion and was $8.67 trillion when Nancy Pelosi became Speaker, Today the debt stands at $14.625, meaning that while Democrats controlled the purse string, the national debt literally exploded. We are living in different times. -- Eric Cantor's spokesperson

CW: Have you ever seen a debt "literally" explode? What does it look like? Greenback confetti?

So circumstances have indeed changed since 2004 — but they have changed in a way that makes offsetting disaster relief with spending cuts elsewhere a much worse idea. Cantor’s changing line has moved in exactly the wrong direction. -- Paul Krugman, who explains the changed circumstances in this blogpost

In his regular column, Krugman writes, "Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, wants any aid for Hurricane Irene victims to be offset by cuts in other spending. He had other ideas in 2004 when Gaston hit his state.... Eric Cantor ... has done more than anyone else to make policy blackmail — using innocent Americans as hostages — standard operating procedure for the G.O.P."

News Ledes

New York Times: "A grim report on the job market and news that major banks are facing federal lawsuits hit Wall Street on Friday, sending the broader market lower as crucial financial and industrial stocks spiraled down by more than 3 percent."

Guardian: "Julian Assange could face prosecution in Australia after publishing sensitive information about government officials amongst the 251,000 unredacted cables released this week. WikiLeaks published its entire cache of US diplomatic cables without redactions to protect those named within, a move condemned by all five of the whistleblowing website's original media partners."

New York Times: "A federal judge ruled Friday that Roger Clemens, one of baseball’s greatest pitchers, will face a new trial on charges that he lied to Congress about using performance enhancing-drugs."

The Obama administration is caving to big polluters at the expense of protecting the air we breathe. This is a huge win for corporate polluters and a huge loss for public health. -- Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters ...

... Hack. Cough. Cave of the Day.* Bloomberg News: "President Barack Obama said he’s directed the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw proposed rules to limit ozone emissions that lead to smog, the costliest new regulation being considered by the administration. The draft rules were faulted by Republicans and business leaders who said the regulations would be too expensive to implement. Obama said in a statement he is seeking to reduce regulatory burdens as the economy recovers." New York Times story here.

Bloomberg News: "Employment in the U.S. unexpectedly stagnated in August as employers became less confident in the strength of the recovery. The jobless rate held at 9.1 percent. Payrolls were unchanged last month, the weakest reading since September 2010, after an 85,000 gain in July that was smaller than initially estimated, the Labor Department said today...." New York Times story here.

A Big Fucking Deal. New York Times: "The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation. The Federal Housing Finance Agency suits, which are expected to be filed in the coming days in federal court, are aimed at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, among others...." CW: note that this suit was not brought by the look-forward-not-backward Obama Administration -- i.e., the Justice Department -- but Fannie and Freddie, which are independent agencies over which the Administration has minimal control.

New York Times: "By Wednesday night, crews [in Vermont] had completed makeshift roads into all of the isolated towns, state officials said.... But the roads, some of which pass through treacherous mountain landscape, are accessible only by all-terrain vehicles and four-wheel-drive trucks and cannot support regular traffic, officials said."

Talking Points Memo: "President Obama's mid-session budget review confirms what most private and government projections have recently concluded -- that the economy is considerably weaker than earlier forecasts held, and won't fully recover from the Great Recession for years. Most troubling, both for the country and for Obama politically, is that near-term unemployment is expected to remain significantly higher than expected, averaging 9 percent in fiscal year 2012."

Up to Its Old Tricks. Washington Post/Bloomberg News: "Standard & Poor’s is giving a higher rating to securities backed by subprime home loans, the same type of investments that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, than it assigns the U.S. government. S&P is poised to provide AAA grades to 59 percent of Springleaf Mortgage Loan Trust 2011-1, a set of bonds tied to $497 million lent to homeowners with below-average credit scores and almost no equity in their properties."

Washington Post: "Maryland ended its budget year solidly in the black, with a surplus of $344 million, thanks largely to higher-than-expected personal income tax payments, the state’s tax collector reported Thursday. Comptroller Peter Franchot (D), however, warned lawmakers not to spend the money given economic uncertainty and the specter of additional federal budget cuts thatcould exacerbate a projected gap for Maryland next year."

Al Jazeera: "World leaders have called for a tougher stance over Syria's bloodly crackdown on protesters, demanding new international sanctions on President Bashar al-Assad and his regime. In a round of talks on the sidelines of Thursday's 'Friends of Libya' summit in Paris, the US, Britain and France discussed plans to escalate international action aimed at halting violence which the United Nations estimates has seen 2,200 people killed since mid-March." (CW Note: the Al Jazeera links didn't work for me in Firefox this morning, but worked in I/E. I'll try again later.) ...

... New York Times: "The attorney general of the central Syrian province of Hama has announced his resignation to protest the killings and arrests of demonstrators and the accusations of torture against President Bashar al-Assad’s government. The attorney general, Mohammed Adnan al-Bakkour, is the highest-level official to quit over the brutal crackdown during the five months of protests."

Al Jazeera: "Libyan opposition leaders must deal with the case of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has said. Clinton's comments came amid growing calls from US politicians and leading Republican presidential candidates for al-Megrahi's return to prison or even extradition."

Washington Post: "Yoshihiko Noda, the new Japanese prime minister, on Friday assembled a Cabinet designed to calm political in-fighting as the government tries to guide the massive reconstruction of its disaster-hit coastline. Noda handed key Cabinet posts to those with both ties to rival factions in the ruling party and ties to the leading opposition party."

AP: "The anticipated publication Friday of a U.N. report on violence aboard a Gaza-bound protest flotilla last year has led to a further souring of the key Mideast relationship between Israel and Turkey, after Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador. Turkey on Friday expelled the envoy and suspended military cooperation after insisting on an Israeli apology by the time the report is published." Al Jazeera story here.

* But not necessarily the Cave of the Week. This is disgusting.

Washington, D.C., as Art Form

If the characters in Washington seem all-too-familiar to you, maybe it's because you've seen them before. Here's an excerpted e-mail exchange among some friends & me:

A: You're back just in time to see Obama bitch-slapped yet again by Boehner over this stupid appearance before Congress. Fuck them, Obama should just tell the networks he wants to address the nation. They have no interest in what he says anyway. Does he never get tired of playing Pedrolino to Boehner's Il Capitano? It's like Commedia dell'Arte where he (Obama) comes, the naif of the world, bouncing by hoping to have a wonderful day and is hit in the face with a bat by the cowardly, stridently militant Capitano. Again, and again, and again. Day in, day out. This might be comedy to the Italians but it's tragedy to Americans. But I suppose it depends on what kind of American you are. If you are the kind who hopes and believes in the ideal of the American experiment, the Constitution, Bill of Rights, separation of powers and separation of church and state, and a balanced concept of the role and limitation of governments, you might find it tragic. If you're the other kind, a Teabagging Republican, you're convulsed. As Mel Brooks once said, defining comedy "If I cut my finger, that's a tragedy. If you fall into an open manhole and die, THAT's comedy."

Marie: Ha! Commedia dell'Arte is a great metaphor for the whole damned Washington show. And how about Candide? Of course, Candide finally gave up on optimism, or did so at least partially. I guess it's Barack Pangloss Obama.

A: Funny you should mention Candide, I'm reading it currently. It has quite a few eerie connections with current events. For instance, at one point, Candide and his troop, including the above mentioned, eternally and stupidly optimistic Pangloss, enter Lisbon, where the undergo natural disasters of an earthquake, a tsunami, and a fire. Sound familiar? Of course the local theologians proclaim, a la Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, that it's all God's plan and he's clearly pissed at someone, whom they determine to be Candide. He and Pangloss are readied to be sacrificed so morality can return to Lisbon ... and so it goes. He goes on about political 'philosophers' who maintain their course no matter what the facts or world conditions dictate.

It all sounds quite modern.

But Washington is too Commedia dell'Arte for all that. Voltaire, even at his broadest, is still too subtle for such as Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor, who would probably want him hanged for treason. Or something.

(Dr. Pangloss's lecture on "The Best of All Possible Worlds" from Leonard Bernstein's "Candide":)

B: I just re-read Candide myself recently. The part about the Lisbon earthquake and auto de fe was quite timely and compelling. Voltaire was a comedic version of Orwell. Best of all possible worlds, my ass.

The Commentariat -- September 1

I've posted another Open Thread for today's Off Times Square. And I do plan to read what-all you've written over the past several days. What I did get to was terrific, as usual.

Gene Lyons in Salon: "This just in: Americans really don't care about Libya.... Every poll, however, shows how badly the White House's rope-a-dope strategy has damaged Obama politically.... People ... divide 49 percent to 47 percent about whether he's a strong leader at a time when the nation definitely needs one who can spell J-O-B-S. The wonder is that anybody thinks so." ...

... A Show about Nothing. Ezra Klein in Bloomberg News: "Obama’s speech will achieve nothing.... A speech can rally the base, and maybe even temporarily change the topic in the news. But it can’t change the fundamental fact of politics right now, which is that the two parties disagree on the most profound question in Washington. It’s not: How do we fix the economy? It is: Who should win the next election?"

Nicholas Kristof: "Libya, for the time being, has become a shining example of successful humanitarian intervention. Well played, President Obama."

Simon Denyer & Leila Fadel of the Washington Post: The "rapid disintegration [of pro-Gaddafi forces] Aug. 20 and 21 suggests that support for Moammar Gaddafi was far more shallow than the government had portrayed over the course of the six-month uprising. But the way many of Gaddafi’s supporters just melted away into the night also prompts concern about whether some die-hard loyalists are simply lying low, waiting for the day they can regroup and launch their own insurgency."

Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "Dick Cheney is living proof that if we are not brave enough to enforce our laws, we will forever be at the mercy of a handful of men." ...

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! talks to Lawrence Wilkerson, Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief-of-staff about Dick Cheney's memoir. The transcript is here. Here's the interview:

... Here's the Glenn Greenwald post discussed in the interview. The lede: "Less than three years ago, Dick Cheney was presiding over policies that left hundreds of thousands of innocent people dead from a war of aggression, constructed a worldwide torture regime, and spied on thousands of Americans without the warrants required by law, all of which resulted in his leaving office as one of the most reviled political figures in decades. But thanks to the decision to block all legal investigations into his chronic criminality, those matters have been relegated to mere pedestrian partisan disputes, and Cheney is thus now preparing to be feted -- and further enriched -- as a Wise and Serious Statesman with the release of his memoirs this week: one in which he proudly boasts (yet again) of the very crimes for which he was immunized." ...

... Dana Milbank provides the CliffsNotes of Cheney's memoir. Short form: Cheney never did anything wrong, but everybody else did.

Peter Finn & Julie Tate of the Washington Post: "For all the secrecy that once surrounded the CIA [rendition] program, a significant part of its operation was entrusted to very small aviation companies whose previous experience involved flying sports teams across the country." Some of the story is coming out in a billing dispute case being heard in Upstate New York.

Patrick McGeehan of the New York Times: "One of the most frustrating and stubborn aftereffects of Tropical Storm Irene has been the inability to restore electricity to swaths of the Northeast, especially in Connecticut, where roughly 300,000 customers were still without power on Wednesday night. Some whole towns in New England were cut off, while almost every home and business in New York City had been running on full power for days. The slow restoration of the connections ... prompted a lot of grumbling from elected officials and their constituents, most of it aimed at big utility companies."

Right Wing World *

CW: Living in Know-Nothing World, as I have been for several days, I missed Paul Krugman's Monday column. It's a must-read: "Jon Huntsman Jr. ... has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the 'anti-science party.' This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.... Now, we don’t know who will win next year’s presidential election. But the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge." ...

... A Case on Point. Tanya Somanader of Think Progress: "Ever resilient against the onslaught of facts, [Michele] Bachmann doubled down on her call to drill the Everglades yesterday, stating 'Let’s access this wonderful treasure trove of energy that God has given us in this country.' And for those inconvenient truthers who point out there’s no actual evidence of oil under the Everglades, Bachmann told Tampa Bay’s 10News that they’re nothing more than 'radical environmentalists.'“ CW: so is god a radical environmentalist who forgot to give us that "wonderful treasure trove of energy" under the Everglades? As far as I know, the only oil in the Glades comes from swampbuggy spills. ...

... This whole hurricane thing, the earthquake -- these were just god's way of telling Washington politicians to quit wasting money on poor people. Or so sez Bachmann, more or less. CW: So. What? The iPhone didn't work for god either? Surely god can think up a better way to communicate than via earthquakes & hurricanes.

Karen Garcia really has the goods on House Majority Leader Eric Cantor; a terrific read about the guy whose "trifecta of heartless rebuffs to victims of a tornado, an earthquake and a tropical storm all in the space of just a few months ... even made New Jersey Governor Chris Christie mad. One of the nastiest GOP governors who ever lived thinks Cantor is way beyond mean and nasty." Read the whole post. ...

... CW: See the video below to get a good look at the no-account rabble-rousing unemployed lazy bums purporting to be constituents whom Leader Cantor's staff labelled as "suspicious" and called the cops on to have them removed from his office. I do think the polite, measured way these women spoke to everyone on Cantor's staff was likely a subversive ploy. (Their Blue Virginia blogpost on the incident is here.)

Does the Congressman consider disagreement or requests for action as suspicious? -- One of the "suspects" in the video below

... CW: This incident reminds me to thank all of you who take the trouble to go to townhall meetings (Cantor didn't hold any during the recess) and otherwise make yourselves a presence in the political arena. That includes commenter E Adams and daughter who attended "a town hall meeting for Tom McClintock, a Repug congressman representing the 4th district in California." Adams recounts their experience in the August 31 Off Times Square Open Thread.

Update: here's the news report by Joe Brines of the Placer Herald Correspondent re: Rep. McClintock's town hall. Its headline: "Locals on the Attack...."

Elizabeth Adams, before Rep. Tom McClintock's (R-Calif.) townhall meeting. Photo by the Herald Correspondent.

With protesters waving signs outside, Congressman Tom McClintock defended his voting record to a standing-room only crowd packed into the Sunset Center.... Prior to the meeting, McClintock was greeted by a dozen protest signs addressing various issues....

Marysville resident Elizabeth Adams displayed a sign reading 'Oligarchy Sucks,' a reference to a power structure led by a small number of people. 'I’m here to meet other like-minded people so that we can realize that we’re not alone,' Adams said. 'There are other voices than the tea party.' And the Tea Party was represented by about a dozen people wearing the trademark tea party T-shirt.

* Where those of us in Know-Nothing World fit right in.

Local News

Maria Recio of McClatchy News: "Six years after Hurricane Katrina, a relative of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour was found by a federal court to have masterminded a massive fraud against the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the inspection of the legendary trailers that housed storm refugees along the Gulf Coast. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims found last week that Rosemary Barbour's company ... had engaged in a fraudulent billing scheme as part of a $100 million, five-year maintenance contract with FEMA.... In often colorful language, the judge described the testimony of Rosemary Barbour during an eight-day trial in May in Jackson as 'exasperating' and 'bumble-headed.' ... The judge also criticized FEMA for its 'inexcusable mismanagement' of the contract.... Rosemary Barbour is a controversial figure in North Mississippi who received millions of dollars in often no-bid federal contracts after Katrina to provide showers, tents and laundry facilities.... Her company is still operating and is listed as being 'in good standing' by the Mississippi secretary of state." Thanks to reader Bob M. for the link.

Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times: "Florida has long been the nation’s center of the illegal sale of prescription drugs: Doctors here bought 89 percent of all the Oxycodone sold in the country last year. But with the help of tougher laws, officials have moved aggressively this year to shut down so-called pill mills and disrupt the pipeline that moves the drugs north. In the past year, more than 400 clinics were either shut down or closed their doors.... New laws are also cutting off distribution.... As a result, doctors’ purchases of Oxycodone fell by 97 percent...." No thanks to the worst governor in America: "Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, and State House Republican leaders opposed the creation of [a] database [used in a majority of states to track drug-shopping], saying it raised too many privacy concerns and was not the most effective way to curb the problem."

News Ledes

New York Times: "A long-awaited United Nations review of Israel’s 2010 raid on a Turkish-based flotilla in which nine passengers were killed has found that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is both legal and appropriate. But it said that the way Israeli forces boarded the vessels trying to break that blockade 15 months ago was excessive and unreasonable."

New York Times: "News organizations in dozens of countries are panning for nuggets in the latest and largest dump of diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, which last week suddenly accelerated its posting of the confidential State Department documents. Over a few days, the group made public nearly 134,000 cables — more than six times the total number published by WikiLeaks and many news organizations over the past nine months."

Los Angeles Times: "... The [California] state Senate approved a bill that for the first time would give them access to public financial aid. Part of a two-bill package known as the California Dream Act, the measure would allow undocumented students who qualify for reduced in-state tuition to apply for Cal Grants, community college waivers and other public aid programs.... The measure passed 22-11 on a party-line vote, with Democratic support and Republican opposition. It is expected to return this week to the Assembly, which previously approved it, for concurrence on Senate amendments. If approved, it will be sent to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature."

New York Times: "As world leaders gathered on Thursday for a major conference to try to consolidate international support and reconstruction aid for Libya, Russia recognized the fledgling rebel government despite its opposition to the NATO bombing campaign." ...

... New York Times: "A top official of Libya’s transitional government said Wednesday that its fighters had cornered Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in a desert redoubt 150 miles from the capital and were exhorting him to give up, in what would bring a sense of finality to the prolonged uprising that routed him and his family from Tripoli a week ago.  But one of Colonel Qaddafi’s fugitive sons, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi..., said ... in an audio statement..., 'Our leadership is fine.... We are drinking tea and coffee.'" ...

     ... Update: "The Libyan rebels’ transitional government on Thursday extended by a week its ultimatum demanding the surrender of the loyalists of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi who control his hometown, Surt. Also on Thursday, the fugitive Libyan leader released an audio recording proclaiming that Surt was now the Libyan capital."

AP: "The headless remains of Australia's most infamous criminal, Ned Kelly, have been identified, officials said Thursday, ending a decades-long mystery surrounding the whereabouts of the folk hero's body. Kelly, who led a gang of bank robbers in Australia's southern Victoria state in the 19th century, was hanged in 1880. His final resting place was unknown...."

Los Angeles Times: "Amazon.com Inc. is offering to build at least two distribution centers [in California] and hire as many as 7,000 workers if lawmakers back away — at least temporarily — from trying to force the Internet giant to collect sales taxes on purchases made by California customers."