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Public Service Announcement

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

"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.

Marie: If you don't like birthing stories, don't watch this video. But I thought it was pretty sweet -- and funny:

If you like Larry David, you may find this interview enjoyable:


Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs at the 2024 Grammy Awards. Allison Hope comments in a CNN opinion piece:

~~~ Here's Chapman singing "Fast Car" at the Oakland Coliseum in December 1988. ~~~

~~~ Here's the full 2024 Grammy winner's list, via CBS.

He Shot the Messenger. Washington Post: “The Messenger is shutting down immediately, the news site’s founder told employees in an email Wednesday, marking the abrupt demise of one of the stranger and more expensive recent experiments in digital media. In his email, Jimmy Finkelstein said he was 'personally devastated' to announce that he had failed in a last-ditch effort to raise more money for the site, saying that he had been fundraising as recently as the night before. Finkelstein said the site, which launched last year with outsize ambitions and a mammoth $50 million budget, would close 'effective immediately.' The New York Times first reported the site’s closure late Wednesday afternoon, appearing to catch many staffers off-guard, including editor in chief Dan Wakeford. As employees read the news story, the internal work chat service Slack erupted in what one employee called 'pandemonium.'... Minutes later, as staffers read Finkelstein’s email, its message was underscored as they were forcibly logged out of their Slack accounts. Former Messenger reporter Jim LaPorta posted on social media that employees would not receive health care or severance.”

Washington Post: “The last known location of 'Portrait of Fräulein Lieser' by world-renowned Austrian artist Gustav Klimt was in Vienna in the mid-1920s. The vivid painting featuring a young woman was listed as property of a 'Mrs Lieser' — believed to be Henriette Lieser, who was deported and killed by the Nazis. The only remaining record of the work was a black and white photograph from 1925, around the time it was last exhibited, which was kept in the archives of the Austrian National Library. Now, almost 100 years later, this painting by one of the world’s most famous modernist artists is on display and up for sale — having been rediscovered in what the auction house has hailed as a sensational find.... It is unclear which member of the Lieser family is depicted in the piece[.]”

~~~ Marie: I don't know if this podcast will update automatically, or if I have to do it manually. In any event, both you and I can find the latest update of the published episodes here. The episodes begin with ads, but you can fast-forward through them.

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Wednesday
Sep082010

The Commentariat -- September 8

 

Along with tax cuts for the wealthy, the other party's main economic proposal is that they'll stop government spending. ... But ... when these same Republicans – including Mr. Boehner – were in charge, the number of earmarks and pet projects went up, not down. These same Republicans turned a record surplus that Bill Clinton left into a record deficit. Just this year, these same Republicans voted against a bipartisan fiscal commission that they themselves proposed. And when you ask them what programs they'd actually cut, they usually don't have an answer. -- Barack Obama

If I'm an independent voter ... I sure as heck am worried about people who want to do away with the 14th amendment. I'm sure as heck worried about people who don't think the president was born in the United States of America. I sure as heck am worried about people who think that workers are staying home because of unemployment benefits. They are nuts. They are flat-out crazy. -- Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, on Republican Congressional candidates

Torture Training, U.S. Style. Adam Goldman of the AP: "A former CIA officer accused of revving an electric drill near the head of an imprisoned terror suspect has returned to US intelligence as a contractor training CIA operatives. The CIA officer wielded the drill, which was bitless, and an unloaded handgun — unauthorized interrogation techniques — to menace suspected USS Cole bombing plotter Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri inside a secret CIA prison in Poland in late 2002 and early 2003...."

Mark Thompson of Time: in case you didn't notice, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen met with President Obama Tuesday. Thompson gives an account of Rasmussen's discussions with reporters -- his meeting with President Obama was hush-hush. ...

... What We're Fighting For. New York Times: "Kabul Bank sits at the center of a financial crisis that has exposed the shadowy workings of the country’s business and political elite, and how such connections shielded the bank from scrutiny. The panic surrounding Kabul Bank is threatening to pull down the Afghan banking system and has drawn in the United States."

In an extraordinary New York Times op-ed, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf invokes the Love Commandments. ...

How did '9/11 victim' become sloppy shorthand for 'white Christian'? -- writer Alissa Torres, whose husband Eddie died in the World Trade Center attack

"Fuck the UAW!" Michael Moore writes an open letter, in which he gives an economics lesson, to Rahm Emanuel.

There is so seldom good news coming out of the White House that this item came as a welcome surprise. Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "President Obama on Wednesday will make clear that he opposes any compromise that would extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy beyond this year, officials said, adding a populist twist to an election-season economic package that is otherwise designed to entice support from big businesses and their Republican allies." Here's Lori Montgomery's entry in the Washington Post. CW: Oh, let it be Veto Time!

When the Solution is Worse than the Problem. Ken Dilanian in the Los Angeles Times: "...the Border Patrol is grappling with a spate of misconduct cases in its ranks, which have expanded from 4,000 agents in the early 1990s to 21,000 today. In the last 18 months, five Border Patrol agents have been accused or convicted of sex crimes.... Another agent ... is jailed in San Diego on $10-million bail, awaiting trial on attempted murder charges in a hatchet attack that paralyzed a man."

Robert Reich: President Obama's cynical corporation tax cut proposal sends the wrong message & is a big mistake -- especially if Republicans call the President's bluff & pass it.

Charity Begins in Congress. Eric Lipton: "A review by The New York Times of federal tax records and House and Senate disclosure reports found at least two dozen charities that lawmakers or their families helped create or run that routinely accept donations from businesses seeking to influence them. The sponsors — AT&T, Chevron, General Dynamics, Morgan Stanley, Eli Lilly and dozens of others — contribute millions of dollars annually in gifts ranging from token amounts to a check for $5 million." ...

... New York Times Editorial Board: "...charities set up by a score of lawmakers from both parties have become an important — and completely unregulated — way for corporations and lobbyists to get their voices heard and to curry favor on Capitol Hill.... The real purpose [of the "donations"] is to make lawmakers look good while skirting limits on campaign contributions and open another door to Washington’s pay-to-play culture."

Dave Clarke of Reuters: "President Barack Obama is expected to announce as soon as this week his nominee to lead the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau], a position which requires Senate confirmation." But, especially if Elizabeth Warren is the nominee, Republicans may make the confirmation process "protracted," which could cause a "setback in establishing the authority of the" agency.

"Wall Street Buys Some New Friends." In Salon, Andrew Leonard argues that Wall Street is backing Republicans now, not because the boys on the Street are disappointed in Democrats but because, as usual, they're going with the winners.

On Leno, Valley Girl Meghan McCain disses everybody, including Sarah Palin. McCain is a complete ditz, but she's more entertaining & thoughtful than most well-known Republicans:

     ... Here's a related CNN story.

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