"When Obama was elected, everyone was excited about his plans for hope and change and now there actually is change."]]>
What I really want to talk about today is Nancy Pelosi. I have the sense that she's wildly underappreciated: both as a powerful symbol -- she's the first female Speaker of the House, after all -- and for her effectiveness. I don't actually know enough about the history of Congress to say for sure, but I wonder if, before she's done (let's hope that's not after the upcoming mid-term elections), she'll be considered one of the best Speakers in history. This article certainly suggests that if healthcare reform passes she'll deserve an immense amount of credit.]]>
This is hardly the first time unintended casualties have resulted from a Drone strike. Hell, sometimes the unintended casualties are the only casualties. That's what makes this latest kill unfortunate. It's likely that the strike will be regarded mostly as a success which will encourage the continued use of Drones instead of motivating the military to find a more efficient way of killing Al Qaeda operatives, one where people who just happen to be in the area don't die in the process.
For more on this read Jane Mayer's excellent story on Drones in The New Yorker from a while back.
]]>Two of the conservative movement's most vocal and popular figures will appear alongside each other early next month when ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) campaigns with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) in Minneapolis.]]>
With little good will to draw on, disputes between Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Gillibrand have loomed large. He, for example, was infuriated that she voted for a Congressional overhaul of health care that is projected to cost New York State $1 billion in reimbursements.The article goes on note that some of Gilibrand's policy initiatives are nearly identical or completely identical to Bloomberg's. Still, I think the two graphs above are key. Bloomberg is a controlling figure. He's used to doing things his way especially when he's in charge. So what he probably really wants out of Gilibrand is someone who will check with the mayor before she votes for...anything. It's not a very fair stance to make but given Gilibrand's weak prospects for reelection, she might have to start following the mayor very closely.
During a telephone conversation after the vote that was at times tense, Mr. Bloomberg repeatedly pressed Ms. Gillibrand on the issue, reminding her that he faced a $4 billion budget gap next year. She ticked off what she saw as the benefits of the bill to the state. But the mayor was not impressed, and steered the conversation back to the money New York City might lose under the legislation.
The standard answer is economics, as represented by the collapse of print newspapers and of audience share at CBS, NBC and ABC. Some prominent print journalists are now cheering Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp. (which owns the Fox network) for his alleged commitment to print, as evidenced by his willingness to lose money on the New York Post and gamble the overall profitability of his company on the survival of the Wall Street Journal. This is like congratulating museums for preserving antique masterpieces while ignoring their predatory methods of collecting.
Why can't American journalists steeped in the traditional values of their profession be loud and candid about the fact that Murdoch does not belong to our team? His importation of the loose rules of British tabloid journalism, including blatant political alliances, started our slide to quasi-news. His British papers famously promoted Margaret Thatcher's political career, with the expectation that she would open the nation's airwaves to Murdoch's cable channels. Ed Koch once told me he could not have been elected mayor of New York without the boosterism of the New York Post.
[...]
For the first time since the yellow journalism of a century ago, the United States has a major news organization devoted to the promotion of one political party. And let no one be misled by occasional spurts of criticism of the GOP on Fox. In a bygone era of fact-based commentary typified, left to right, by my late colleagues Scotty Reston and Bill Safire, these deceptions would have been given their proper label: disinformation.
This three-layer system is amazingly effective, but no EOD suit is perfect. With every step you take closer to the bomb, the destructive force of its blast increases by an exponent of three. "So the difference between being just a small distance away from the explosive device -- even a few feet -- versus being right next to it, can save your life," Borkar says.
[...]
You can't see it in the film, but underneath all this gear is the EOD tech's best friend: a flame-resistant inner layer that circulates ice water all over the body. (Defusing bombs in 120-degree Iraqi heat is stressful enough without adding risk of heatstroke to the mix. This layer is also similar to the water-cooled garments that NASA astronauts have worn inside their space suits since the Apollo missions.) The cooling suit runs off of the same onboard battery that powers the suit's lamp, fan, and comm link; a pump circulates a liter of ice water (stored in a specially shaped bottle) from head to toe.
[...]
Current suits on the market weigh anywhere from 60 to 70 pounds, and all that armor plating makes moving around pretty difficult. If there's any gripe that Borkar has about in The Hurt Locker's mostly-accurate portrayal of the EOD suit, it's this: "The techs just walk far too easily." That opening scene where Guy Pearce hoofs it away from the exploding bomb? Fat chance: according to Borkar, just walking in these suits feels like carrying an anvil between your legs.
(h/t: Danger Room)
"As she put it, 'They never lifted a finger to help me set the record straight,' " said one of the associates, who insisted on not being identified to avoid alienating the White House. "She didn't get any help from Gibbs, no help from Axelrod, no help from Valerie Jarrett. Nobody came to her defense."
MR. GIBBS: Excellent. I've not heard any of that criticism. I've not read any of that criticism. The President, the First Lady, and the entire White House staff are grateful for the job that she does and think she has done a terrific and wonderful job pulling off a lot of big and important events here at the White House.
In interviews afterward, both the president and first lady praised the State Dinner, with Mrs. Obama calling it "an outstanding success" and dismissing the gate crashers as "a footnote." But she and Mr. Obama bypassed opportunities to defend Ms. Rogers. "I was unhappy with everybody who was involved in the process," the president said. "It was a screw-up."]]>
How many reporters are covering this story? What are the odds that some important fact of Massa's life will go unrevealed if you do not devote your talents and energies to looking into it? Isn't it more likely that you're going to commit useful journalism by looking into something else? Anything else? Like, literally, anything else? It seems to me that at the margin pretty much any use of a journalist's time would have a greater social value than further Massa reporting.
By being the first and, largely, the only publication pursuing the Edwards story through his denials of the affair and of fathering a child out of wedlock, The Enquirer is under consideration for a Pulitzer Prize, and it has strong support for its bid from other journalists. The success has Mr. Levine considering opening a Washington bureau to look for more dirt among politicians.
The country was wracked by a nationwide strike last week as civil servants protested the government's plans to cut spending and freeze wages in the public sector.
But Portuguese bureaucrats were not the only demographic the government is targeting.
Lisbon plans to raise taxes on higher-income brackets and profits taken on the stock market, according to a draft of the austerity plan obtained by Reuters. It also expects to take in about 1.2 billion euros by privatizing state assets this year, the news service said.
Although it may be hard to believe, in the same modern America in which most people appear to be talking on a cellphone or texting/reading/etc on a Blackberry or smart phone on top of whatever else they are ostensibly doing (notably driving), overall "connectivity" really is weak in the U.S. compared with most other places. For reasons examined here.
Thus it is with grateful surprise that I discover, in real time, that Amtrak is offering free (for now) and pretty fast Wi-Fi service on its East Coast corridor Acela trains, like the one in which I am just passing through Baltimore on the way to New York. Last time I made the DC-NY haul I took the BoltBus, as described here, precisely because of its onboard Wi-Fi. Plus, what a bargain! The Acela is pricey but has prided itself on offering a "civilized" way to go from city to city. This is a nice step -- on the whole. That is, it's a good sign for American infrastructure, and for me slightly more good than bad for peace of mind en route. Nonetheless, I will try to make this the last post I ever file from inside a moving vehicle.
It's
a good sign for American infrastructure in the same way that having a
portable t.v. on United or American Airline first-classflights is a good sign for flying in this country. There was no wireless in my plebeian coach Amtrak ride. Let's talk when there is.