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The Ledes

Friday, June 14, 2024

CNN: “Heavy rainfall that’s caused unrelenting flooding in South Florida since Tuesday will continue for a fourth consecutive day after turning roads into canals and forcing some residents to stand on the roofs of their cars or trudge through waist-deep waters. Even as the robust tropical moisture fueling the soaking storms slowly starts to shift out of the area, Friday marks yet another drenching day for South Florida and multiple cities could see more than 2 feet of rain Tuesday through Friday.... Flood watches remain in effect for over 7 million people across South Florida, including in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, through Friday evening. An additional 2 to 4 inches or more of rainfall is expected through Friday night but thunderstorm activity is expected to subside by the weekend. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for Broward, Collier, Lee, Miami-Dade and Sarasota counties, and officials have urged locals to stay at home instead of walking or driving through the floodwater....”

The Wires
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The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705

New York Times: Explorer “Ernest Shackleton was sailing for Antarctica on the ship called the Quest, when he died in 1922. Researchers exulted over the discovery of its wreckage, 62 years after it sank in the Labrador Sea [off the coast of Canada. The Quest] ... was carrying him back to Antarctica when he had a heart attack and died in 1922. The Quest sailed on for another 40 years until it sank on a seal-hunting voyage off Canada’s Atlantic coast in 1962.... The expedition to find the Quest was led by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society..., and cost 500,000 Canadian dollars, or about $365,000.... The Quest was the last missing artifact from the 'heroic age of Arctic exploration,' said Martin Brooks, a Shackleton expert....”

Liberals Are No Fun at All: ABC News: "Eight climate protesters were arrested on Wednesday [June 12] after being tackled on the field during the Congressional Baseball Game, U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement. The self-described 'youth-led group,' Climate Defiance, took credit for the protest and shared videos on X of protesters rushing the field, calling the 'Chevron-sponsored' game 'unconscionable.' During the second inning, over half a dozen protesters hopped the fence to the field, wearing shirts stating, 'END FOSSIL FUELS.'" MB: Not sure why it took five ABC News reporters (including one contributor) to write this report. Maybe they all volunteered to be on the silly ball game beat.

"Countless studies have shown that people who spend less time in nature die younger and suffer higher rates of mental and physical ailments." So this Washington Post page allows you to check your own area to see how good your access to nature is.

Spam on a Plane. Some people just have, well, different fetishes. He's got the meats (or whatever Spam is). WashPo link.

Band of Lovers. Washington Post: In "the Battle of Tegyra in 375 B.C., a thousand Spartan soldiers, trained for combat from the age of 7, were returning from an expedition when they stumbled on a much smaller force from the rival city of Thebes. Rather than retreat, the Theban infantry charged, pulling into a close formation and piercing the Spartan lines like a spear. The Spartans turned and, for the first time ever in pitched battle, fled. The most fearsome military force of its day had been defeated by the Sacred Band of Thebes, a shock troop of 150 gay couples.... [The Theban commander] Gorgidas recruited 150 couples skilled in martial combat for his elite corps. This Sacred Band, 300 strong, became Greece’s first professional standing army, housed and fed by the city.... In the end, it took none other than Alexander the Great to bring [The Sacred Band] to heel."

New York Times: "It was only the second spell-off in the history of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and Bruhat Soma rattled off a head-spinning 29 correctly spelled words in 90 seconds, including heautophany, nachschläge and puszta. Bruhat’s spell-off sprint on Thursday night won him the competition’s trophy, the Scripps Cup, and a grand prize of $50,000. He far surpassed his competitor, Faizan Zaki, a sixth grader from Dallas who correctly spelled 20 words, and also the bee’s previous spell-off record of 22 correct words in 2022, according to Bee officials."

Washington Post: Coastal geologist Darrin Lowery has discovered human artifacts on the tiny (and rapidly eroding) Parsons Island in the Chesapeake Bay that he has dated back 22,000 years, when most of North America would still have been covered with ice and long before most scientists believe humans came to the Americas via the Siberian Peninsula.

Marie: BTW, if you think our government sucks, I invite you to watch the PBS special "The Real story of Mr Bates vs the Post Office," about how the British post office falsely accused hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of subpostmasters of theft and fraud, succeeded in obtaining convictions and jail time, and essentially stole tens of thousands of pounds from some of them. Oh, and lied about it all. A dramatization of the story appeared as a four-part "Masterpiece Theater," which you still may be able to pick it up on your local PBS station. Otherwise, you can catch it here (for now). Just hope this does give our own Postmaster General Extraordinaire Louis DeJoy any ideas.

The Mysterious Roman Dodecahedron. Washington Post: A “group of amateur archaeologists sift[ing] through ... an ancient Roman pit in eastern England [found] ... a Roman dodecahedron, likely to have been placed there 1,700 years earlier.... Each of its pentagon-shaped faces is punctuated by a hole, varying in size, and each of its 20 corners is accented by a semi-spherical knob.” Archaeologists don't know what the Romans used these small dodecahedrons for but the best guess is that they have some religious significance.

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Page Links
Saturday
Oct162010

The Commentariat -- October 17

President Obama & the First Lady at a rally at Ohio State University today. The President & First Lady come on stage at about 8 min. in:

Nicholas Kristof travels to Afghanistan to talk with local people, & comes away with explanations of "why America's strategy in Afghanistan isn’t working." ...

... Carlotta Gall of the New York Times paints the same picture, with a broader brush. ...

... BUT Joshua Partlow in the Washington Post: "... top U.S. military and civilian officials in Afghanistan have begun to assert that they see concrete progress in the war against the Taliban, a sharp departure from earlier assessments that the insurgency had the momentum." ...

... Meanwhile, in Our Excellent Adventure in Iraq ... Timothy Williams & Duraid Adnan of the New York Times: "Members of United States-allied Awakening Councils have quit or been dismissed from their positions in significant numbers in recent months, prey to an intensive recruitment campaign to rejoin the Sunni insurgency.... Security and political officials say hundreds of the well-disciplined fighters — many of whom have gained extensive knowledge about the American military — appear to have returned to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Beyond that, officials say that even many of the Awakening fighters still on the government payroll, possibly thousands of them, covertly aid the insurgency." ...

... More Casualties of War. Aaron Glantz in the New York Times: California statistics reveal "a surge in the number of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans who have died not just as a result of suicide, but also because of vehicle accidents, motorcycle crashes, drug overdoses or other causes after being discharged from the military.... The figures ... underscore how veterans ... engage in destructive, risky and sometimes lethal behaviors."

Sebastian Rotella of ProPublica in the Washington Post: "Three years before Pakistani terrorists struck Mumbai in 2008, federal agents in New York City investigated a tip that an American businessman was training in Pakistan with the group that later executed the attack. The previously undisclosed allegations against David Coleman Headley, who became a key figure in the plot that killed 166 people, came from his wife after a domestic dispute that resulted in his arrest in 2005."

Robert Reich: the Fed's plan to goose the economy by reducing long-term interest rates won't work because businesses know consumers can't afford to buy stuff. ...

     ... Here's the underlying story from the New York Times: "The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, sent a clear signal on Friday that the central bank was poised to take additional steps to try to fight persistently low inflation and high unemployment." You can watch the speech here.

Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times on the SEC's $67.5 million settlement on its fraud case against Angelo Mozilo, the former head of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial: the "gulf between Mr. Mozilo’s private views and his public proclamations went to the heart of the S.E.C.’s case against him." Here's the Times' story on the SEC settlement.

It Isn't What's Illegal that's Scandalous; It's What's Legal. Jill Abramson of the New York Times: the secret donors are back, mostly on the Republican side, but unlike the piles of money that figured into the Watergate scandal, this time the secret campaign donations are legal. ...

... Michael Luo & Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: the Republican Governors Association, "led by its chairman, Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, out-raised its Democratic counterpart by more than three to one from July 1 to Sept. 30. With $31.5 million in the bank, the group had more than twice as much cash available for the final stretch of the midterm campaign." ...

... This Los Angeles Times article by James Oliphant suggests secret donors will be a or the primary factor in a Republican takover of Congress. ...

... CW: I don't do polls, BUT Nate Silver, who's never wrong, writes, "FiveThirtyEight’s projection for the U.S. House shows little change from last week. Republicans are given a 73 percent chance of taking over the House, up incrementally from 72 percent last week. During an average simulation run, Republicans finished with 227 seats, up from 226 last week; this would suggest a net gain of 48 seats from the 179 they hold currently. However, there is considerable uncertainty in the forecast because of the unusually large number of House seats now in play."

Shades of the Tea Party & the Weimer Republic. BBC News: in a speech in Potsdam, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said multiculturalism was not working in Germany & more had to be done to integrate foreign-born workers -- many of whom are Turks & Arabs -- into Germany's mainstream. Especially since the economic downturn, anti-immigrant feelings have increased among the native-born population. With video.

Vox Populi. Frank Rich: "Don’t expect the extremism and violence in our politics to subside magically after Election Day — no matter what the results. If Tea Party candidates triumph, they’ll be emboldened. If they lose, the anger and bitterness will grow. The only development that can change this equation is a decisive rescue from our prolonged economic crisis. Not for the first time in history — and not just American history — fear itself is at the root of a rabid outbreak of populist rage against government, minorities and conspiratorial 'elites.'”

David Neiwert of Crooks & Liars examines the physical threats against Democratic Sen. Patty Murray & recounts instances of incendiary language by tea partiers & pundits which has inspired the mentally-ill to try to attack Murray & her supporters. It's a short, chilling piece.

Maureen Dowd has been doing a lot of traveling lately, & on this trip she stopped in to visit two "mean girls" who are running for elective office: the accidental governor Jan Brewer of Arizona & the accident-waiting-to-happen Sharron Angle of Nevada.

Holy Shit! Jack Conway Gets Down & Dirty:

Francis X. Clines of the New York Times: Newt Gingrich has been encouraging Republicans to run against food stamps, & some Democrats are doing so also. Clines points out that "Unlike the upper-income tax cuts Republicans furiously protect, food stamps, minimalist as they are, are antirecession sparks that generate $9 in economic activity for every $5 spent, according to federal statistics."

Catholicism is clearly superior. Don't believe me? Name one Protestant denomination that can afford a $660 million sexual abuse settlement. -- Stephen Colbert

Kimberly Winston in the Washington Post: Stephen Colbert may play Catholicism for laughs, "but his thoughtful Catholicism still shows through."

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