Friday Reads: Is this the Zombie Apocalypse?
Posted: October 3, 2014 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Centers for Disease Control, Dallas TX, ebola, zombie apocalypse 40 Comments
Good Morning!!
In March, the Wall Street Journal published this map of the U.S. showing which states are best prepared to deal with zombie hoards on the march.
Real estate brokerage Estately Inc. published an analysis this week ranking each state by its vulnerability in the event of an undead epidemic. The company looked at four criteria, according to spokesman Reid Wegley:
– Is the state’s population knowledgeable about zombies?
– Are they physically capable of evading them?
– Have they been trained to fight them? and
– Do they have guns and shooting skills?
….
Mr. Wegley said each state was ranked 1-50 based on data from several sources: U.S. Census figures on military personnel and veterans; Facebook Inc. searches of interest in martial arts, survival skills, zombies, laser tag, paintball and Ironman triathlons; gun ownership and physical health and obesity rates by state. The ranks were then totaled for each state—the lower the figure, the better-prepared the state.
Okay, so zombies aren’t real. But Ebola has arrived in Texas, and already there have been screw-ups. We have to rely on the CDC to protect the country–the same CDC that just recently was involved in three serious security lapses involving bird flu, smallpox, and anthrax. And did you know that last year a biolab in Texas *lost* a deadly virus from Venezuela? I didn’t. From ABC News, March 25, 2013:
The Galveston National Laboratory lost one of five vials containing a deadly Venezuelan virus, according to the University of Texas Medical Branch, which owns the $174 million facility designed with the strictest security measures to hold the deadliest viruses in the country.
Like Ebola, the missing Guanarito virus causes hemorrhagic fever, an illness named for “bleeding under the skin, in internal organs or from body orifices like the mouth, eyes, or ears,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This is clearly an incident that is very discomforting and embarrassing to the University of Texas Medical Center and their national biosecurity lab that they have there,” said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. “You can be sure there are a lot of sweating people down the chain at that institution.”
These are the folks we are dependent on to protect the country from a major disease epidemic. I’m not ready to panic yet, but I’m sure going to be paying attention from now on.
Governor Goodhair says everything is under control. Now why doesn’t that calm my fears? From the Dallas News: Rick Perry, health officials offer reassurances on Dallas Ebola case.
State and local health officials sought to quiet fears in Dallas after disclosing Wednesday that they are monitoring more than a dozen people, including five schoolchildren, who had close contact with the nation’s first Ebola-stricken victim.
The patient, identified in media reports as Thomas Eric Duncan, a 42-year-old resident of Monrovia, Liberia, remained in Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital as authorities tried to patch together his activities after he became ill here while visiting family members.
Among other key developments in a fast-moving day: Hospital officials said they erred in sending Duncan home when he first sought treatment a week ago; paramedics who later transported him to the hospital tested negative for the virus; and Dallas plans to begin an extensive cleaning of the schools the students attended.
None of those who came into contact with Duncan when he was experiencing active symptoms — meaning the disease was contagious — have shown signs of being infected.
“We’re confident that it’s isolated and it’s being contained, but everyone is working tirelessly to double- and triple- and quadruple-check their work, to make sure that we’ve done an absolutely thorough job of identifying anyone who might be at any risk,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said.
Rick Perry chimed in:
Gov. Rick Perry said the patient was receiving “the very best care” there. Duncan, who is in isolation, was said to be in serious but stable condition. A day earlier, he was described as critically ill. Health officials have declined to disclose his name, citing privacy laws.
Perry praised the hospital and health workers.
“This case is serious, but rest assured that our system is working as it should,” he said. “There are few places in the world better-equipped to meet the challenge this patient poses. The public should have every confidence.”
Yeah, right. That’s why the hospital sent Duncan home with antibiotics–for a virus(!)–so that he could expose up to 100 other people to Ebola. Then on the way back to the hospital, the violently ill man vomited outside.
DALLAS – Two days after he was sent home from a Dallas hospital, the man who is the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States was seen vomiting on the ground outside an apartment complex as he was bundled into an ambulance.
“His whole family was screaming. He got outside and he was throwing up all over the place,” resident Mesud Osmanovic, 21, said on Wednesday, describing the chaotic scene before the man was admitted to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday where he is in serious condition.
Officials ordered everyone who had been in the apartment with Duncan to stay there for 21 days in quarantine. Which was fine, but no one removed the sheets the man had slept on or made provisions for the people inside to have food and other supplies. From CNN: Frustrated woman quarantined with sheets, towels soiled by Ebola patient.
The sweat-stained sheets of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, still on her bed, a woman quarantined in a Dallas apartment said Thursday that she desperately wants her family’s nightmare to end.
“We can’t wait to be over with everything,” the woman, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Louise, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “We can’t wait.”
While Duncan is in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, his partner and three others have been stuck in a Dallas apartment since his diagnosis this week. Louise told CNN that authorities had her sign paperwork stating “if we step outside, they are going to take us … to court (because) we’ll have committed a crime.”
So there she has stayed, along with her 13-year-old son and two nephews in their 20s. But it hasn’t been easy.
She said no one brought food Thursday to four people who can’t leave to get it themselves, at least until later in the day. There was also the matter of their power going out, which was likely related to strong storms that rolled through the area. Then, of course, there’s the idea of living in a place that — just a few days ago — was home to an Ebola sufferer.
Her 35-year-old daughter brought over Clorox to help clean the house, and she sealed up Duncan’s dirty clothes and towels in a bag.
“But (authorities) said we shouldn’t throw anything away until they can get back with me,” Louise said.
That hadn’t happened as of Thursday evening. Men in trucks from Cleaning Guys, a company that specializes in hazmat and biohazard cleaning services, was turned away for lack of the necessary permit to transport hazardous waste on Texas highways, it said.
According to the article, after CNN reported the horrible conditions in the apartment, some local officials are discussing relocating the family to someplace less contaminated.
Here’s the latest on the Ebola story as of this morning.
Associated Press, 8:15AM: Family that hosted Ebola patient confined to home.
DALLAS (AP) — A woman who has been confined to her Dallas apartment under armed guard after a man infected with Ebola stayed at her home, said she never imagined this could happen to her so far from disease-ravaged West Africa.
Louise Troh said Thursday that she is tired of being locked up and wants health authorities to decontaminate her home.
Authorities say the circle of people in the U.S. possibly exposed to Ebola widened after the man, who arrived from Liberia last month, was discharged from a hospital without being tested for the deadly virus.
The confinement order, which also bans visitors, was imposed after the family failed to comply with a request to stay home, according to Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. Texas State Health Commissioner David Lakey said the order would ensure Troh, her 13-year-old son and two nephews can be closely monitored for signs of the disease.
An NBC News cameraman has been diagnosed with Ebola in Liberia, 8:30AM: NBC says cameraman tested positive for Ebola. Entire crew to be flown home.
The network reported the freelancer, identified as Ashoka Mukpo, was just hired Tuesday to be a second cameraman for its medical editor, Nancy Snyderman, a physician. It said the freelancer, who has been working in Liberia for some time, showed symptoms Wednesday, and was feeling “tired and achy” before being tested.
The network said the 33-year old cameraman, who is also a writer, was taken to a Doctors Without Borders treatment center and that the positive result came back 12 hours later.
“Obviously he is scared and worried,” Mukpo’s father Dr. Mitchell Levytold the Today show on Friday. Mukpo’s time in Liberia meant that he was “seeing the death and tragedy and now it’s really hit home for him.” he added, “But his spirits are better today.”
Mukpo’s mother Diane Mukpo said that her son will leave Sunday for the US. “I believe they’re doing things as quickly as they can but that doesn’t take away from the fact that we know he’s going to be in Liberia until Sunday, and I really can only hope and pray that his symptoms don’t worsen too quickly,” she said.
He is the fourth American known to have contracted Ebola in Liberia, according to NBC. Another physician, reportedly American and working for the World Health Organization, was flown back to the United States after testing positive in Sierra Leone.
Now that the horses are out of the barn, so to speak, hospitals will review their procedures for dealing with contagious diseases–in Boston at least. From The Boston Globe, After Ebola error, hospitals review procedures.
The emergence this week of the first Ebola case in the United States — and the mistakes made by a Texas hospital that led to a delayed diagnosis — prompted Boston hospitals and primary care practices to review their emergency plans over the past two days and strengthen weak spots.
“The news in Texas didn’t change our planning, but it got our staff’s attention,” said Dr. Paul Biddinger, vice chairman and medical director for preparedness at Massachusetts General Hospital.
The reassessment of emergency measures comes even as disease trackers emphasize that the likelihood of Ebola striking Boston remains low.
Still, nurses, doctors, and physician’s assistants in Mass. General’s emergency department and clinics have been asking for information about symptoms and for a list of western Africa countries that have experienced more than 7,100 Ebola cases and 3,300 deaths since the outbreak was first reported in March. Some health workers at the hospital have practiced putting protective gear on and off.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital
Presumably hospitals around the country will take similar precautions. However, at the Texas hospital responsible for the “error,” excuse-making is still the order of the day. CBS News: Hospital blames tech glitch for Ebola patient error.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital officials said a flaw in the way the electronic records interacted between the nurse who questioned Thomas Eric Duncan and the doctor who treated him led to the mis-communication that enabled Duncan to go home after his first visit to the emergency room last week.
They said that flaw has now been fixed.
But the fallout from that mistake is far from over.
CBS reports that the apartment has now been “decontaminated by hazmat crews,” and food and other supplies have been provided for the people trapped inside the apartment. But so far, other residents of the apartment complex have not been screened for Ebola infection.
Early this morning, Tom Frieden, the CDC chief, told MSNBC that the only way to stop an Ebola epidemic is to deal with it in West Africa. Politico reports:
CDC Director Tom Frieden on Friday said restricting travel between the U.S. and West Africa would likely “backfire” and put Americans more at risk of contracting Ebola.
Appearing on MSNBC, Frieden was asked about potentially prohibiting air travel between the U.S. and West Africa, where the Ebola outbreak is most widespread. He said that such a restriction would likely be ineffective and would make it harder for health officials to root out the virus.
“The only way we’re going to get to zero risk is by stopping the outbreak at the source” in West Africa, Frieden said.
“Even if we tried to close the border, it wouldn’t work,” the top health official added. “People have a right to return. People transiting through could come in. And it would backfire, because by isolating these countries, it’ll make it harder to help them, it will spread more there and we’d be more likely to be exposed here.”
Finally, for Chris Cillizza of The Fix, even the potential for a deadly epidemic is all about politics: How the Ebola case gives Rick Perry a second chance to make a first impression.
At a press conference Wednesday announcing the details of the case, Perry was front and center — playing the dual role of information provider and, maybe more importantly, calmer of nerves. “This case is serious,” Perry said. “Rest assured, our system is working as it should.”
For Perry, it’s a return to the national spotlight that he left with a whimper in January 2012 when he ended a disastrously bad presidential bid. That candidacy, which began in August 2011 to much fanfare, collapsed, largely, because of Perry’s inadequacies as a candidate. While his “oops” moment during a presidential debate came to epitomize his flailing bid, there were any number of other off — or downright odd — moments during his five months as a candidate.
Perry has spent virtually every minute since he dropped out of the race working to rehab his image. He got glasses. He started traveling to early caucus and primary states (again). He floated the possibility that he would run for president (again). All of it was met, generally, with a collective eye roll by the professional political class who viewed him as yesterday’s news. Donors, activists and the media tend to want new blood in presidential races, not folks who are viewed as having had their chance and blown it. Perry was forever battling the “oh yeah, you’re the guy who forgot the third federal agency you wanted to get rid of” narrative. And it was a fight he wasn’t going to win.
Until, maybe, now. Being at the forefront of the fight against Ebola — the first-ever case in the United States — affords Perry an opportunity to bend the story about him heading into the 2016 presidential election. Rather than Perry as fumbling dunderhead, there is now a chance for a Perry as competent chief executive narrative to emerge. (Before I go any further, let me note: Perry’s high profile on Ebola is not because of 2016 calculations. But, it absolutely impacts how he is perceived — whether he intends it to or not.) There are very few moments that can draw the attention of the entire country anymore — outside of the SuperBowl is there any regularly scheduled event that can? — but this Ebola story can. Fear is a powerful driver.
Bla bla bla . . . F$$k you, Cillizza.
Now, what else is going on in the world? Please post your thoughts and links on any topic in the comment thread.
Tuesday Reads: What’s Wrong With the Secret Service?
Posted: September 30, 2014 Filed under: Barack Obama, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Secret Service 49 Comments
Uniformed Secret Service officers walk along the fence on the north side of the White House on Sept. 20 in Washington. (Susan Walsh / AP)
Good Morning!!
What is going on with the Secret Service? There has been one scandal after another involving the agency during Obama’s presidency. In the past couple of days The Washington Post broke the news that not only did Omar Gonzalez, the Iraq war veteran who jumped over the fence and got into the White House on Friday, September 19 actually get deep into the White House before being apprehended, but also the Secret Service apparently lied about that and a previous White House breach.
Carol D. Leonnig reports: White House fence-jumper made it far deeper into building than previously known.
The man who jumped the White House fence this month and sprinted through the front door made it much farther into the building than previously known, overpowering one Secret Service officer and running through much of the main floor, according to three people familiar with the incident.
An alarm box near the front entrance of the White House designed to alert guards to an intruder had been muted at what officers believed was a request of the usher’s office, said a Secret Service official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The officer posted inside the front door appeared to be delayed in learning that the intruder, Omar Gonzalez, was about to burst through. Officers are trained that, upon learning of an intruder on the grounds — often through the alarm boxes posted around the property — they must immediately lock the front door.
After barreling past the guard immediately inside the door, Gonzalez, who was carrying a knife, dashed past the stairway leading a half-flight up to the first family’s living quarters. He then ran into the 80-foot-long East Room, an ornate space often used for receptions or presidential addresses.
Gonzalez was tackled by a counterassault agent at the far southern end of the East Room. The intruder reached the doorway to the Green Room, a parlor overlooking the South Lawn with artwork and antique furniture, according to three people familiar with the incident.
Below is a diagram of Gonzolez’ pathway through the White House, from The Daily Telegraph.
Leonnig also reported a few days ago on a 2011 incident in which a gunman shot at the White House with a semiautomatic rifle: Secret Service fumbled response after gunman hit White House residence in 2011.
The gunman parked his black Honda directly south of the White House, in the dark of a November night, in a closed lane of Constitution Avenue. He pointed his semiautomatic rifle out of the passenger window, aimed directly at the home of the president of the United States, and pulled the trigger.
A bullet smashed a window on the second floor, just steps from the first family’s formal living room. Another lodged in a window frame, and more pinged off the roof, sending bits of wood and concrete to the ground. At least seven bullets struck the upstairs residence of the White House, flying some 700 yards across the South Lawn.
President Obama and his wife were out of town on that evening of Nov. 11, 2011, but their younger daughter, Sasha, and Michelle Obama’s mother,Marian Robinson, were inside, while older daughter Malia was expected back any moment from an outing with friends.
Secret Service officers initially rushed to respond. One, stationed directly under the second-floor terrace where the bullets struck, drew her .357 handgun and prepared to crack open an emergency gun box. Snipers on the roof, standing just 20 feet from where one bullet struck, scanned the South Lawn through their rifle scopes for signs of an attack. With little camera surveillance on the White House perimeter, it was up to the Secret Service officers on duty to figure out what was going on.
Then came an order that surprised some of the officers. “No shots have been fired. . . . Stand down,” a supervisor called over his radio. He said the noise was the backfire from a nearby construction vehicle.
White House shooter Oscar Ortega-Hernandez
That was just the beginning of the “fumbled response.”
That command was the first of a string of security lapses, never previously reported, as the Secret Service failed to identify and properly investigate a serious attack on the White House. While the shooting and eventual arrest of the gunman, Oscar R. Ortega-Hernandez, received attention at the time, neither the bungled internal response nor the potential danger to the Obama daughters has been publicly known. This is the first full account of the Secret Service’s confusion and the missed clues in the incident — and the anger the president and first lady expressed as a result.
By the end of that Friday night, the agency had confirmed a shooting had occurred but wrongly insisted the gunfire was never aimed at the White House. Instead, Secret Service supervisors theorized, gang members in separate cars got in a gunfight near the White House’s front lawn — an unlikely scenario in a relatively quiet, touristy part of the nation’s capital.
It took the Secret Service four days to realize that shots had hit the White House residence, a discovery that came about only because a housekeeper noticed broken glass and a chunk of cement on the floor.
Four days to figure out that bullets had struck inside the White House?! Unbelievable! And yet the White House came to the defense of the agency after Leonig’s report on the 2011 incident. From the LA Times:
“The men and women of the Secret Service put their lives on the line for the president of the United States, his family and folks working in the White House every single day, 24 hours a day,” deputy national security advisor Tony Blinken said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “Their task is incredible and the burden that they bear is incredible.”
Blinken spoke in the wake of the publication of a story in The Washington Post about the Secret Service’s slow and confused response to the 2011 shooting. The gunman, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, was arrested for firing rifle shots at the White House from a nearby street.
Are officials afraid that Secret Service agents will be even more careless about the President’s safety if they are criticized? (Privately, the WaPo reported, President Obama and his wife Michelle were extremely angry after the shooting incident.) As for the “burden that they bear,” I guess that’s why agents have a history of drinking, carousing, and hiring prostitutes–to deal with all that stress? What if Obama or a member of his family had been wounded or killed during one of these security breaches?
At least some in Congress are taking the problem seriously. NPR reports, Secret Service Chief Faces Questions Over Breaches At White House.
The head of the U.S. Secret Service is in for a likely grilling from lawmakers today when she appears before a House committee to answer questions about the Sept. 19 security breach at the White House in which a man with a knife jumped a fence and made it inside the executive mansion before agents intercepted him.
Secret Service Director Julia Pierson will appear opposite members of the House Oversight Committee just as new information has come to light about the incident: The Washington Post reports that after jumping the fence, Omar Gonzalez made it past the front doors, overpowered a guard and then ran across the East Room before being tackled at the doorway to the Green Room.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday that the president and first family, who were not in the executive mansion at the time of the breach, are “obviously concerned” but have confidence in the Secret Service.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), a member of the House Oversight Committee on Monday told The Associated Press that he’s “worried” that “over the last several years, security has gotten worse, not better.”
NPR’s Giles Snyder says while the fence jumper incident is likely to dominate the hearing, Pierson, who took over as Secret Service chief last year, is also expected to be questioned about a 2011 incident in which shots were fired at the White House.
Secret Service agents with President Obama on his arrival in Columbia in 2012
The Daily Telegraph summarizes previous Secret Service screw-ups under Obama:
The American public first learned the phrase “wheels up party” in 2012. The term refers to agents’ often-drunken celebrations in a foreign country after a successful overseas trip by the President.
But during Mr Obama’s visit to Cartegena, Colombia, his bodyguards didn’t wait until the President had left town. Eleven agents were sent home after some allegedly drank and slept with prostitutes in the week leading up to Mr Obama’s visit. The Secret Service promised reform but a similar incident unfolded in Amsterdam in March when one agent was so drunk they passed out in a hotel hallway.
Less than a year after Mr Obama took office in 2009, he hosted a lavish state dinner for the Indian prime minister, inviting many of Washington’s most notable figures to attend.
But among the dignitaries were Michaele and Tareq Salahi, a Virginia couple who had dressed up for the event but had no invitation. They passed easily through the Secret Service cordon and photos later showed them smiling alongside Mr Obama and his top aides.
The ease with which the “party crashers” entered the White House exposed the Secret Service to ridicule but also raised serious questions about security.
Mr Obama is said to face an unprecedented level of death threats – both from right-wing extremists and Islamist militants – and the misfires by the Secret Service have dented the agency’s projection of invincibility.
Not that any of this irresponsible behavior by Secret Service agents is really all that surprising for those who remember history. There have been numerous reports of similar behavior before and during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Russ Baker wrote about it at his blog “Who What Why” after the Colombia incidents in 2012.
Go back almost half a century, and look at the most shocking dereliction of duty ever—the failures that made it easy for someone (or someones) to assassinate John F Kennedy. The failings are endless, from not insisting that the bubble top go on Kennedy’s car, to having too few Secret Service agents protecting the president, to authorizing a particularly dangerous route that slowed the car way down, to allowing it to go through a canyon of windows—and then not checking or securing the windows or installing spotters or sharpshooters. A grade school kid could have done a more serious job of protecting the president….
And yet we continue to let this agency off the hook. We forgot that even LBJ, a direct beneficiary of the agency’s sloppiness with his former boss, trusted the outfit so little himself that he inquired at one point whether he could have the FBI protect him instead.
No agent on rear bumper of JFK’s limo.
The history of racist attitudes in the Secret Service is also concerning, as Baker argues:
It is foolish to ignore the worldviews and attitudes of people expected to protect presidents. Former Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden has described rampant racism and widespread contempt for Kennedy and his policies among Bolden’s fellow officers.
Now, here are a few salient details about the Secret Service today that go beyond trying to get a little “R&R”: When Washington Post reporters visited the Virginia home of Texas native David R. Chaney, one of the Secret Service supervisors on the Colombia trip, they found a silver pickup truck parked in front. On the vehicle they spotted a bumper sticker with an outline of the state of Texas, and the word “secede.”
It is interesting to note that Chaney’s father served in the Secret Service when Kennedy was in office. As assistant agent in charge of personnel, he was friends with many of the agents who were in Dallas in November, 1963.
There’s much more at the link. Please read the whole thing.
There were also reports of drinking and carousing by Secret Service agents in Dallas the night before the assassination. Vince Palamara has spent years researching the Secret Service and the JFK assassination, and he published a book about it last year, Survivors’ Guilt: The Secret Service and the Failure to Protect President Kennedy.
I know there is lots of other news, but I thought this story was worth a full post. So . . . what other stories are you following today? Let us know in the comment thread, and have a terrific Tuesday.
Lazy Saturday Reads: You People are so Ridiculous! Edition
Posted: September 27, 2014 Filed under: 2016 elections, Barack Obama, Crime, Criminal Justice System, FBI, Foreign Affairs, Fox News, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, morning reads, public education, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Republican politics, science, social media, Syria, U.S. Politics, Violence against women, War on Women, Women's Rights | Tags: Ann Romney, Bill Clinton, Bobby Jindal, Chelsea Clinton, ISIS/ISIL, Jeb Bush, Marc Mezvinsky, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Neil Cavuto, Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Scott Walker, Scott Walker's nameless wife, Ted Cruz, Values Voters Summit, women voters, you people 27 Comments
Morning Coffee in the City, by Michele Byrne
Good Day!!
Hillary and Bill Clinton are grandparents!
From the AP via The Boston Globe:
The couple’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton, has given birth to her first child, a daughter named Charlotte.
Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of the former president and ex-secretary of state, announced the baby’s birth on Twitter and Facebook early Saturday, saying she and husband Marc Mezvinsky are ‘‘full of love, awe and gratitude as we celebrate the birth of our daughter, Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky.’’
Clinton spokesman Kamyl Bazbaz said the child was born on Friday but did not immediately provide additional details. The couple lives in New York City. The Clintons quickly retweeted their daughter’s message on Twitter but did not immediately comment on the baby’s arrival.
Now that the announcement is out of the way, the media demands to know if Hillary will now announce she’s running for president.
The baby has been eagerly anticipated as Hillary Clinton considers her political future — she has called the prospect of becoming a grandmother her ‘‘most exciting title yet.’’ She even has picked out the first book she intends to read to her grandchild, the classic ‘‘Goodnight Moon.’’
She has said she didn’t want to make any decisions about another campaign until the baby’s arrival, pointing to her interest in enjoying becoming a grandmother for the first time. If Clinton decides to run for president, her campaign would coincide with the baby’s first two years.
The Christian Science Monitor even put the demand in their headline to the AP story: Chelsea Clinton now a mom. Will Grandma Hillary announce run for president?
Sigh . . . Yes, I’m sure Hillary is planning to ruin their daughter’s and son-in-law’s celebration by rushing out and the media’s wish come true. Why don’t they hound Mitt Romney instead? He already has so many grandkids he probably can’t keep their names straight; and Ann Romney has been out and about in the past week.
Ann told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that if only Mitt had been elected in 2012, there wouldn’t have been so many problems in Iraq and Syria. According to Ann,
I think he would have had a status of forces agreement on — in Iraq. I don`t believe ISIS would have had the invasion that they have — they’ve had. They wouldn’t have had the ability to — I think he would have tried to arm the moderates in Syria. I think there`s other things that would have happened that would have made the equation a little bit tilted in our favor.
Those people are not going to go away. This is a generational problem. And the sooner we realize, I think, as Americans, that it`s not an easy solution and it`s not going to go away, but to be really aware of how dangerous the situation is — I think Mitt was very aware how — how precarious it was.
As for Mitt giving running for president a third try, Ann hinted that it will depend on what Jeb Bush decides to do.
One scenario out there, Mrs. Romney, is that Jeb Bush doesn`t run after all, and your husband has sized up the landscape and that a lot of his supporters, past and present, said, you have the name recognition, you have the Reagan example of the third time was the charm for him, and that it`s been done before.
[ANN] ROMNEY: Mm-hmm.
CAVUTO: And — and that would be appealing.
ROMNEY: Well, we will see, won`t we, Neil?
I think Jeb probably will end up running, myself. I think, you know, he — people probably are looking at it, that he`s probably looking at it very carefully right now.
CAVUTO: But why would his entrance in the race matter to — to your supporters or not?
ROMNEY: Well, I think, you know, he would draw on a very similar base that we would draw on.
Andrew Prokop at Vox thinks another Romney run could happen: It’s not crazy for Mitt Romney to run for president again. Prokop, reports that according to conservative columnist Bryan York, Jeb is unlikely to run in 2016.
“Romney is said to believe that, other than himself, [Jeb] Bush is the only one of the current Republican field who could beat Hillary Clinton in a general election,” York writes. So there seems to be at least one candidate who would definitively win Romney’s support.
But while there have been several trial balloons for a Jeb Bush candidacy floated recently, there are reasons to be skeptical he’ll actually pull the trigger. First of all, he’s been out of politics for years and focused on making money. For now, Bush has every reason to encourage speculation that he’s running. It gives him increased media attention, perceived clout, and it makes him more valuable as a speaker and rainmaker. But he’s at odds with the GOP base on issues like immigration and Common Core, and he’s suggested that concerns from his family could be an issue. So Bush might well opt against a run, and Romney could feel that he’s the party’s only hope.
After all, writes Prokop, Romney is a known quantity and he’s popular with GOP donors. On top of that, Chris Christie has lost his luster as a candidate.
Read more details at Vox.
But what about Mitt’s problems with women? Ann says that’s nonsense, according to Politico.
Ann Romney on Tuesday skewered Democrats’ claim that there’s a GOP “war on women,” calling the accusation “offensive” and saying it won’t work as a campaign tactic.
“It’s ridiculous, honestly, I mean I don’t think they’re getting very far with that, by the way. It’s not going to work. I think women are a lot smarter than that, and that’s kind of offensive to me, to tell you the truth,” Romney said in an interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox News in response to a question about both the so-called “war on women” and DNC chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s recent comments about Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
“Scott Walker’s a good guy, and he’s got a wonderful wife, and he values women and that just doesn’t fly,” Romney added.
She was responding to Wasserman Schultz’s remarks earlier this month, when the Florida Democrat said Walker “has given women the back of his hand.”
Well that’s the end of that then. Scott Walker’s wife (does she have a name) is “wonderful,” so women should just shut up and deal with having limited access to birth control, abortion, and child care, and lower pay than their male colleagues.
Wonkette responds to the Politico story with appropriate sarcasm: Ladies, Stop Offending Ann Romney With How Stupid You Are.
How many times does Her Royal Horse-Riding Majesty Ann Romney have to explain this to YOU PEOPLE? Sheesh! This so-called “war on women” claptrap Democrats can’t stop blah blahing about is so dumb and so 2012 and so not even real anyway, so why are women — who are so much smarter than Democrats think they are — so stupid as to keep falling for it?
Obviously, talking non-stop about the Republican Party’s non-stop assault on women will never work. Ann knows. She’s an elections expert. That’s why the gender gap in 2012 was only 18 points. Practically a draw! No wonder the whole Romney clan was so very shocked and awed that Ann’s 2012 pitch failed to sway the lady voters:
“Women, you need to wake up,” she urged them. “Women have to ask themselves who’s going to have and be there for you. I can promise you, I know, that Mitt will be there for you. He will stand up for you, he will hear your voices.”
Maybe it had something to do with how some of the things that spilled out of her face hole were kind of … oh, what’s the word? Offensive? Like when she said, “I love the fact that there are women out there who don’t have a choice and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids.” Those hard-working women out there were such an inspiration to her because she also had suffered and struggled and worked really hard at never having a job, scraping by on nothing but her husband’s daddy’s stock portfolio.
How the heck did that not work with voters?!? Especially after she told YOU PEOPLE to stop being so dumb already, jeez, and vote for her hubby. And some of YOU PEOPLE even whispered in her ear that you totally agreed with her (and yet did not vote for Mitt anyway, weird!), and even ladies who usually don’t worry their pretty little heads about important issues — that’s Man’s Work, after all — were finally, for the first time ever, thinking about really important stuff, like the economy and “their husbands’ jobs.”
For heaven’s sake, ladies. Mitt had all those binders full of women, remember? Now get over it and go vote Republican!
Of course Mitt wasn’t included in the Values Voters Summit this weekend. That could mean he’s not running or maybe that he thinks the Tea Party vote won’t matter. The usual suspects were there though.
Despite Ann’s claims that the Democrats are getting nowhere with the “war on women” talk, the “values voters” speakers appeared to tone down the anti-abortion and anti-same sex marriage rhetoric, according to ABC News: Republicans Rallying Behind Religious Liberty.
Fighting to improve their brand, leading Republicans rallied behind religious liberty at a Friday gathering of evangelical conservatives, rebuking an unpopular President Barack Obama while skirting divisive social issues.
Speakers did not ignore abortion and gay marriage altogether on the opening day of the annual Values Voter Summit, but a slate of prospective presidential candidates focused on the persecution of Christians and their values at home and abroad — a message GOP officials hope will help unify a divided party and appeal to new voters ahead of November’s midterm elections and the 2016 presidential contest.
“Oh, the vacuum of American leadership we see in the world,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz declared Friday in a Washington hotel ballroom packed with religious conservatives. “We need a president who will speak out for people of faith, prisoners of conscience.”
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul echoed the theme in a speech describing America as a nation in “spiritual crisis.”
“Not a penny should go to any nation that persecutes or kills Christians,” said Paul, who like Cruz is openly considering a 2016 presidential bid.
The speaking program included such potential 2016 candidates as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Several possible Republican candidates — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush among them — did not attend. The group has positions on social issues across the spectrum — from the libertarian-leaning Paul, who favors less emphasis on abortion and gay marriage, to Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist pastor whose conservative social values define his brand.
Here’s a lovely little homily from Bobby Jindal:
Jindal, who is also weighing a White House bid, seized on what he called Obama’s “silent war” on religious freedom.
“The United States of America did not create religious liberty,” Jindal said. “Religious liberty created the United States of America.”
Anyone know what he means by a “silent war?” I have no clue. What a charlatan Jindal is!
The ABC article didn’t mention Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin, but they were there too.
From Mediaite on crazy Michele’s speech: Bachmann Rouses Values Voters Crowd with Calls to ‘Kill’ ISIS Until They Surrender. See video at the link.
Talking Points Memo notes that Sarah Palin doesn’t know the address of the White House. I wonder who lives at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue?
Palin Goofs: Truth Is Endangered At ‘1400’ Penn Avenue. Watch it:
I wonder if the “values voters” liked Palin’s biker chick get-up?
And, of course, Ted Cruz was his usual loony self. Salon: 5 craziest things Ted Cruz just said at the Values Voters Summit (including the full video of his “deranged” speech.
Morning Coffee, by Carol Bolt
Quick News Headlines:
The Boston Globe, 7 Questions We’d Ask Ferguson’s Chief of Police.
A man set a fire at an air traffic control facility at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, but it’s not being called terrorism–maybe because the guy isn’t an Arab American?
KTLA Channel 5, FBI: Chicago Controller Sent Facebook Message: ‘I Am About to Take Out’ FAA Facility.
NY Daily News, Illinois man charged in fire at Chicago air traffic control center
The Texas State Board of Education is at it again. Now they want teachers to tell kids that Moses is an inspiration for the U.S. Constitution (very interesting and detailed article at The Daily Beast).
AP, via Yahoo News, Police: Woman beheaded at Oklahoma workplace.
Fox News, Four College Sophomores dead in Oklahoma bus-truck crash.
Discovery News, Japanese Volcano Erupts: Hikers Missing.
The New Yorker on the newest social media entry, Ello’s Anti-Facebook Moment.
LA Times, Water on Earth predates the solar system, and even the sun.
Raw Story, Complex life on Earth may have appeared 60 million years earlier than previously thought.
National Geographic, Did the Vikings Get a Bum Rap? A Yale historian wants us to rethink the terrible tales about the Norse.
M.I.T. News, Battling superbugs: Two new technologies could enable novel strategies for combating drug-resistant bacteria.
What else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links on any topic in comment thread.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Thursday Reads
Posted: September 25, 2014 Filed under: Crime, Criminal Justice System, Foreign Affairs, morning reads, psychology, U.S. Politics, Violence against women, War on Women | Tags: "Anti-Islamic State Coalition", Ferguson MO, Hannah Graham, IRAQ, ISIL, Jesse Matthew, John Crawford III, Michael Brown, Mideast quagmire, police brutality, police misconduct, social media, Syria, war 33 Comments
Subway Riders, Francis Louis Mora, 1914
Good Morning!!
I suppose I have to cover the war news, although I’d much prefer to ignore it. So here goes.
First, the good news. According to The Washington Post, more than 60 countries have signed on with the “Anti-Islamic State Coalition.”
In his speech to the United Nations on Wednesday morning, President Obama said, “Already, over 40 nations have offered to join this coalition.”
But on Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry said more than 50 nations have agreed to join the coalition. And in a document released by the State Department on Tuesday, 62 nations (including the European Union and the Arab League) are listed as providing support to the U.S.-led coalition.
The strongest allies in the coalition are those providing air support to the United States, while others are offering delivery services and some are providing humanitarian aid.
Click on the link above to read the list of countries providing air support, military equipment, and humanitarian aid. You can follow the latest developments in the fight against ISIL at The Guardian’s live blog.
Now the not-so-good news: a couple of op-eds that suggest the air war against the Islamic State militants is ineffective and/or counterproductive.
Reuters, Air strikes won’t disrupt Islamic State’s real safe haven: social media.
President Barack Obama has pledged to destroy Islamic State and ensure fighters “find no safe haven.” But even as U.S.-led airstrikes are underway in Iraq and Syria, it is clear that bombs alone will not do the job. For Islamic State hides out in the most perfect haven: the World Wide Web.
In June 2014, the militant group that Obama refers to as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, grabbed the world’s attention after it took over much of northern Iraq in roughly four days. Islamic State accomplished this by building a massive, sophisticated virtual network of fighters in addition to those on the ground. Indeed, its expansion online has been as swift as its territorial gains. It is this virtual power grab that will be most difficult to combat.
The Internet has largely sustained the jihadist movement since 9/11. With this powerful tool, jihadists coordinate actions, share information, recruit new members and propagate their ideology.
Until the rise of Islamic State, extremist activity and exchanges online usually took place inside restricted, password-protected jihadist forums. But Islamic State brought online jihadism out of the shadows and into the mainstream, using social media — especially Twitter – to issue rapid updates on its successes to a theoretically unlimited audience.
In the same way that Islamic State’s land grab proved stunning, the group’s actions online have been deeply troubling. Up until a recent crackdown by Twitter, Islamic State’s presence on the site had grown tremendously — from a small one to a well-organized network with dozens of accounts.
Click the link to read all about it at Reuters’ “The Great Debate” page.
Reading the Newspaper. War News, by Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky
Jamie Dettmer at The Daily Beast argues that Obama’s Arab Backers May Draw the U.S. Deep Into the Mideast Quagmire. Detmer also discusses ISIL’s social media operation.
The backing from Gulf countries for the military intervention against militants of the so-called Islamic State in northern Syria, far from helping the United States in the battle for hearts and minds, may actually be hurting Washington in the region. And the reasons for that suggest just how densely complicated the Mideast quagmire has become.
While the participation of the super-rich Gulf monarchies in a coalition against the group widely known as ISIS or ISIL may help with some moderate Muslims, and may reassure European leaders, among those Islamists inside and outside Syria who are at the core of the opposition to President Bashar al Assad this development is viewed with deep suspicion.
“This has been labeled as a war against ISIS but it is a war against Islamic groups,” Tauqir Sharif, a British Islamist activist based in Idlib, Syria, told British Channel Four news Wednesday.
Already ISIS activists and jihadists sympathizers in the Gulf are leveraging their social media skills to fuel suspicions that the Americans are ready to give Assad a free pass and that the Sunni Muslims of Syria will be sacrificed with the connivance of the Gulf monarchies.
Much more at the Daily Beast link.
Suspect in Alleged Abduction of UVA Student Captured in Texas
I’ve been following the case of missing University of Virginia student Hannah Graham since Janicen posted about it about a week ago. The last person to be seen with Graham on surveillance footage was Jesse Matthew, 32, who worked as a nurses’ aid at the university. After police searched his car and apartment, Matthew came to the police station and asked for an attorney. He then drove away at a high speed and apparently disappeared. Police issued a warrant for his arrest for a traffic violation, but could not locate him. After more searches of his apartment, police upgraded the charge to abduction of Graham.
Last night, news broke that Matthew had been located in Galveston, Texas, and he is currently being held by police there. From the Associated Press, via ABC News, Suspect Captured but UVa Student Still Missing.
Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr. was arrested on a beach in the Texas community of Gilchrist by Galveston County Sheriff’s authorities, Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo announced Wednesday night.
The capture came less than a full day after police announced they had probable cause to arrest Matthew on charges of abduction with intent to defile Hannah Graham, an 18-year-old sophomore who went missing on Sept. 13 in Charlottesville.
Longo said an intense search for Graham continues.
“This case is nowhere near over,” he told a news conference late Wednesday. “We have a person in custody but there’s a long road ahead of us and that long road includes finding Hannah Graham.”
Longo said Thursday on NBC’s “Today” show that the search is focusing on rural and wooded areas around Charlottesville.
Matthew was captured at a beach in the sparsely populated community of Gilchrist around 3:30 p.m. after police received a call reporting a suspicious person, the Galveston County Daily News reported. The newspaper quoted Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset as saying a deputy responding to the call found a man who had pitched a tent on the beach with his car parked nearby. Trochesset said a check of the car’s plates revealed it was the vehicle sought in connection to the case. Authorities were trying to get a warrant to search the car, he added.
Reading the Morning Newspaper, Harry Herman Roseland
ABC News has more on how police located Jesse Matthew, Suspect in UVA Case Seen on Video Buying Bug Spray Before Capture.
Detectives investigating the case of a missing University of Virginia student were headed to Texas today after a man suspected in her disappearance was arrested after being caught on surveillance video there buying mosquito repellent a day before his capture….
The surveillance video from a convenience store in Galveston showed Matthew buying Off!, said the store’s owner, Dave Paresh.
“He asked me the question if it’s safe to stay on the beach, so I told him yeah, it’s good there,” Paresh, told ABC News station KTRK in Houston.
I guess there must be lots of mosquitoes on Galveston beaches right now.
Matthew appeared in court this morning, and was denied bail.
For anyone who thinks I shouldn’t write about “missing white girl” stories, violence against women is endemic in this country. It’s a bloodbath out there, with women being beaten (see the NFL scandal), raped, and/or murdered daily in this country; and I think it should be talked about. There truly is a war against women. Admittedly, the use of violence against women for entertainment should be discussed. Think about how many movies and TV shows center around the rape, torture, and murder of women. It’s important that real-life cases be seen as horrible crimes that involve agonizing suffering for victims, their families and friends.
Police Misconduct in the News
Speaking of violence against women, even police get into the act. Thank goodness they are often caught on video these days.
From The Christian Science Monitor, NYPD under fire for video of pregnant woman hitting ground.
New York City police officers are under investigation this week after a bystander used a smartphone to capture a particularly rough arrest of a Brooklyn woman five months pregnant.
The video shows the arrest of Sandra Amezquita, a Colombian immigrant and mother of four, who fell belly first onto the pavement as officers wrestled her to the ground and cuffed her hands behind her back. The incident occurred during an early morning melee Saturday in Sunset Park – a neighborhood sometimes called Brooklyn’s “Little Latin America,” since more than half its residents are Latino.
The video also shows another officer violently shoving an unidentified woman to the pavement as she stands near the arrest. Police simply issued Ms. Amezquita a summons for disorderly conduct, but the other woman, reported to be a friend, was neither arrested or accused of a crime.
Amezquita suffered vaginal bleeding after the incident. She was arrested for trying to interfere with police who were beating her son after they stopped and frisked him.
“It’s appalling,” said Sanford Rubenstein, Amezquita’s attorney. “It’s clear to me when an incident like this occurs you understand why police-community relations are at an all-time low,” he told The Associated Press.
The scuffle occurred after Amezquita and her husband, Ronel Lemos, attempted to intervene as police arrested and allegedly began to beat their 17-year-old son, Jhohan Lemos, who was accused of carrying a knife and resisting arrest around 2:15 a.m. on Saturday.
The elder Mr. Lemos was also arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer during the arrest of his son. Photos show the younger Mr. Lemos with his eye swollen shut and lacerations to his cheek and forehead following his arrest.
Reading the News at the Weavers’ Cottage, 1673, Adriaen van Ostade
In California, a 51-year-old woman won a lawsuit against the Highway Patrol after an officer beat her and it was caught on tape. Fox News reports:
A woman who was punched repeatedly by a California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer in an incident caught on film earlier this year will receive $1.5M as part of a settlement reached Wednesday.
CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow announced the settlement in an emailed statement and an attorney for 51-year-old Marlene Pinnock confirmed the deal to the Associated Press. The agreement was reached after nine hours of mediation in Los Angeles.
As part of the agreement, the officer who struck Pinnock, Daniel Andrew, will resign. Andrew, who joined the CHP in 2012 and had been on paid administrative leave, could still be charged criminally in the case. The CHP forwarded the results of its investigation of the incident to Los Angeles County prosecutors last month, saying he could face serious charges but none have been filed yet.
There was another demonstration in Ferguson, Missouri on Tuesday Night after someone burned a memorial to Michael Brown, who was shot and killed by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson on August 9. The Christian Science Monitor asks, Who burned Michael Brown memorial? Questions spark new Ferguson unrest.
Fresh unrest in Ferguson, Mo., Tuesday night shows that the embers of the month-old unrest surrounding Michael Brown’s death can be kindled by even tiny sparks.
Detectives are investigating how a makeshift memorial to Mr. Brown, an unarmed black teenager killed by white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9., burned early Tuesday morning. The memorial, which is one of two near where Brown died on Canfield Drive, included mementos and small candles that may have caused the fire.
But some in the area suggested that it’s “naïve” to think the fire was accidental, and about 200 protesters rallied to West Florissant Avenue again Tuesday, squaring off with police and looting for the third time a store called Beauty Town. There were media reports of looters yelling “Burn it down!” and of gun shots in the area near Canfield Drive. Police made five arrests.
Meanwhile, the DOJ is investigating the Ferguson Police Department.
Finally, there will apparently be no charges in the shooting of John Crawford III, who was shot by police while holding a toy gun in a Walmart. From Fox News, Grand jury issues no indictments in man’s fatal shooting at Ohio Wal-Mart.
XENIA, Ohio – Officers’ actions were justified in the fatal shooting of a man holding an air rifle inside an Ohio Wal-Mart store, a grand jury determined Wednesday — using surveillance video the slain man’s family said shows the shooting was completely unjustified.
The Greene County grand jury opted not to issue any indictments in the Aug. 5 death of 22-year-old John Crawford III inside a Wal-Mart in Beavercreek, Special Prosecutor Mark Piepmeier said.
A 911 caller reported Crawford was waving what appeared to be a rifle in the store. Police said he was killed after failing to obey commands to put down what turned out to be an air rifle taken from a shelf.
Since the shooting, Crawford’s family had demanded public release of the surveillance footage, a request denied until Wednesday by the state attorney general, who said releasing it earlier could taint the investigation and potential jury pool.
Video presented at a news conference by Piepmeier in Xenia shows Crawford walking the aisles, apparently on his cellphone, and picking up an air rifle that had been left, unboxed, on a shelf.
Crawford carries the air rifle around the store — sometimes over his shoulder, sometimes pointed at the ground — before police arrive and shoot him twice.
Would a customer have called 911 if Crawford hadn’t been a black man?
At the Miliners, by Edgar Degas, 1882
In Other News . . .
I’m running out of space, so I’ll end with some links to other stories that may pique your interest.
Cleveland Plain Dealer, FBI report shows mass shootings on the rise since 2000. We already knew this, but now there’s hard evidence.
Beta News.com, Five things to hate about the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. It bends!
And the new Apple IOS is messed up. From ComputerWorld, Apple yanks iOS 8 update after crippling iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
Massachusetts GOP candidate for Governor is not endearing himself to women voters. Two op-ed pieces from The Boston Globe:
Charlie Baker needs an intervention on women, by Joan Vennochi
Charlie Baker’s ‘sweetheart’ problem, by Yvonne Abraham
Women, let’s all get out and vote for Martha Coakley. It’s high time Massachusetts had a woman as Governor!
So . . . what else is happening in the world? I’ll see you in the comments! Have a great day!
Tuesday Reads: Autumnal Equinox Edition
Posted: September 23, 2014 Filed under: Barack Obama, Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: ancient graves, Autumnal Equinox, Festival of Mabon, Harvest festival, inversion rules, Jacob Lew, Jeremy Roloff, little people, US Airstrikes in Syria, US Treasury, Wall Street 25 Comments
Good Morning Sky Dancers!!
Today is 2014’s autumnal equinox, when day and night are equal in length. From now on, the days will get shorter and the nights longer, as we approach winter. Actually, autumn officially began in the Northern Hemisphere last night at 10:29 Eastern time.
Astronomically speaking…the fall season…comes to the Northern Hemisphere on Tuesday, September 23rd at 2:29 Universal Time (10:29 p.m. EDT on Monday, the 22nd). At that moment, the Sun shines directly on Earth’s equator, heading south as seen in the sky. For us northerners, this event is called the autumnal equinox….
The apparent position of the Sun in our sky is farther north or farther south depending on the time of year due to the globe’s axial tilt. Earth’s rotational axis does not point straight up and down, like the handle of a perfectly spinning top, but is slanted about 23½° with respect to our orbit around the Sun.
Another way to think of this is that the plane defined by Earth’s orbit around the Sun (called the ecliptic) is tilted with respect to the planet’s equator. From our perspective, the Sun follows the ecliptic in its path through the sky throughout the year. Each day the Sun’s daily arc moves northward or southward, depending on the time of the year. To observers at northern latitudes (in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, for example), the Sun appears to sneak higher in the sky from late December to late June, only to drop down again from late June through late December. The equinox occurs when the Sun is halfway through each journey.
This axial tilt also produces our seasons. When Earth is on one side of its orbit, the Northern Hemisphere is tipped toward the Sun and receives more direct solar rays (and more daylight hours) that produce the familiar climes of summer. Six months later, when Earth is on the opposite side of its orbit, the Northern Hemisphere is tipped away from the Sun. The slanting solar rays heat the ground less and daylight is shorter, producing the colder winter season.
What else happens at the equinox?
Day and night are nearly the same length; the word “equinox” comes from the Latin aequinoctium, meaning “equal night,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. However, a poke around your almanac will show that day and night are not precisely 12 hours each, for two reasons: first, sunrise and sunset are defined as when the Sun’s top edge — not its center— crosses the horizon. Second, Earth’s thick atmosphere refracts the Sun’s apparent position slightly when the solar disk sits very low on the horizon.
The Sun rises due east and sets due west, as seen from everywhere on Earth; the equinoxes are the only times of the year when this occurs.Should you be standing on the equator, the Sun would pass exactly overhead at midday.
Were you standing at the North Pole or South Pole, the Sun would skim completely around the horizon.
Harvesting, by G. Myasoedov
The autumnal equinox marks the pagan festival of Mabon, “when livestock is slaughtered and preserved to provide enough food for the winter.” From Huffington Post,
Mabon is a harvest festival, the second of three, that encourages pagans to “reap what they sow,” both literally and figuratively. It is the time when night and day stand equal in duration; thus is it a time to express gratitude, complete projects and honor a moment of balance.
“Mabon is a time to reflect on the previous year, when we can celebrate our successes (likened to bringing in the harvest) and assess which crops, projects, or dreams didn’t come to fruition,” the Los Angeles-based pagan leader Laurie Lovekraft told HuffPost.
The pagan website The White Goddess explains:
This is the time to look back not just on the past year, but also your life, and to plan for the future. In the rhythm of the year, Mabon is a time of rest and celebration, after the hard work of gathering the crops. Warm autumn days are followed by chill nights, as the Old Sun God returns to the embrace of the Goddess.
The holiday is named after the Welsh God, Mabon, son of Earth Mother goddess Modron.
Some pagans mark the holiday by enjoying rich feasts with seasonal foods like apples, pomegranates and root vegetables. Many also observe rituals honoring the goddess’transition from mother to crone.
Endless War News
The US (and some Arab allies) have carried out airstrikes in Syria. From The Guardian, US confirms 14 air strikes against Isis in Syria.
The most intensive barrage of air strikes launched against Islamic State (Isis) since the US fight against the terror group began last month thundered into northern Syria until after dawn on Tuesday, heralding a new phase of a war that Sunni regional powers have vowed to help lead.
Large explosions were reported in the group’s stronghold of Raqqa, in eastern Syria, as well as in Idlib province. There were unconfirmed reports that attacks had also taken place near Deir Azzor and western Aleppo.
A Pentagon statement said the 14 strikes against Isis targets were carried out with Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Jordan confirmed it its airforce had “destroyed a number of targets that belong to some terrorist groups that sought to commit terror acts inside Jordan” without making explicit reference to Syria.
More details from The New York Times (I’m unable to quote from the article), and from The BBC,
The Pentagon said warplanes, drones and Tomahawk missiles were used in the attacks, which targeted several areas including IS stronghold Raqqa.
Syria’s foreign ministry said its UN envoy was informed about the strikes against IS, which controls large swathes of Syria and Iraq.
Activists say at least 70 IS militants were killed in the strikes….
It said a total of 14 strikes destroyed or damaged IS training compounds, command and control facilities, vehicles and storage sites.
The US military will continue to conduct air strikes against IS targets in Iraq and Syria, it added.
US Gen Martin Dempsey, America’s highest-ranking uniformed military officer, said the strikes were conducted to show IS militants they had no safe haven. “We certainly achieved that,” he told reporters.
Separately, Centcom said US forces also attacked a network of al-Qaeda veterans named Khorasan who had established a safe haven west of Aleppo and were plotting imminent attacks against the West.
Experts say members of the secretive group are believed to co-operate with al-Nusra Front – Syria’s al-Qaeda-affiliate – using its training bases and resources.
President Obama plans to speak about the Syrian strikes this morning at 10AM.
Autumn landscape, by Vincent Van Gogh
Economics News
The U.S. Treasury Department has issued a new tax rules designed to prevent companies from moving operations out of the U.S. Bloomberg Businessweek reports, Lew Tries to Limit Tax-Cut Deals With Inversion Crackdown.
Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew’s crackdown on inversions will get an immediate test as eight U.S. companies with pending deals decide whether to proceed — and other companies contemplating a foreign address now have to think twice.
That’s exactly what Lew had in mind.
“This action will significantly diminish the ability of inverted companies to escape U.S. taxation,” Lew told reporters on a conference call yesterday. “For some companies considering deals, today’s action will mean that inversions no longer make economic sense.”
The Treasury announcement heightened the tension between the government and companies considering obtaining a foreign address to lower their tax bills. Lew and President Barack Obama made clear that they were prepared to use rule-making authority to try stop some deals, even at the risk of a backlash from the companies and from Republicans, who already complained that Lew’s moves went too far.
A wave of inversions caught lawmakers’ attention this year when large companies such as Pfizer Inc. (PFE) andWalgreen Co. (WAG) explored transactions andMedtronic Inc. (MDT), AbbVie Inc. and Burger King Worldwide Inc. (BKW) moved forward with deals.
More from The Wall Street Journal:
Treasury officials took action under five sections of the U.S. tax code to make inversions harder and less profitable, removing some of the appeal that has made the transactions more common in recent years, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry.
In an inversion, an American company reincorporates for tax purposes in a tax-friendlier country such as the U.K. or Ireland, typically while maintaining much of their operations in the U.S. Most recent inversions sprang from mergers of a U.S. firm with a smaller foreign firm after regulatory steps taken during President Barack Obama’s first term curbed other types of inversions.
The Treasury rules will make it harder for companies that invert to use cash accumulating abroad—a big draw in recent deals. In addition, the government has made it more difficult to complete these overseas mergers.
The tax changes took effect immediately, officials said, and applied to all deals that hadn’t closed by Monday.
Autumn Forest, by Thomas Kinkade
And from the AP via Bloomberg, Ahead of the Bell: Inversion rules sting stocks.
Shares of several companies stumbled Tuesday before markets opened and a day after the Treasury Department announced new regulations that aim to make it tougher to pull off overseas mergers and acquisitions that trim U.S. corporate tax bills.
The new measures attempt to keep companies from finding ways to access earnings from a foreign subsidiary without paying U.S. taxes, including “hopscotch” loans, in which companies shift earnings by lending money to the new foreign parent company while skipping over the U.S.-based company. Another rule change would make it harder for merged or acquired companies to benefit from lower foreign taxes by tightening the application of a law that says the American company’s shareholders must own less than 80 percent of the new, combined company.
About 50 U.S. companies have carried out moves known as inversions in the past decade, and more are considering it, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
An inversion happens when a U.S. corporation and a foreign company combine, with the new parent company based in the foreign country. For tax purposes, the U.S. company becomes foreign-owned, even if all the executives and most of its operations remain in the U.S. Inversions can help companies generate significant tax savings over time in part because the United States has the highest corporate income tax rate in the industrialized world, at 35 percent.
Awwwwwwww . . . too bad corporate bigwigs. I so don’t feel sorry for you.
Offbeat News
I have a few offbeat stories for you. The first one is especially for JJ. ABC News reports, ‘Little People, Big World’ Star Jeremy Roloff Is Married.
“Little People, Big World” star Jeremy Roloff, 24, married Audrey Mirabella Botti Saturday afternoon in Oregon.
Autumn Landscape, by Wassily Kadinsky
Jeremy’s twin brother, Zach, was his best man, while the bride wore a gown designed by Lauren Graebner of Eva’s by Reclamation, People magazine reports.
The bridesmaids wore flower crowns and Botti, 23, wore a larger crown designed by Vanessa Schmidt. Roloff wore a suit from ProperSuit, which he shared on social media.
More details, photos, and tweets at the link.
From the Leicester Mercury (UK), Pictures released of two 1,000-year-old skeletons holding hands found in Leicestershire.
Pictures were released today by the University of Leicester, showing two 1,000-year-old skeletons holding hands, which have been discovered.
The pair of skeletons, which are centuries-old and holding hands have been uncovered at a ‘lost’ chapel by archaeologists.
The Mercury reported last week that the remains, of a man and a woman, were found at the Chapel of St Morrell, an ancient site of pilgrimage in Hallaton.
It is believed the pair holding hands are of a similar age.
Whoever they were, the man and woman must have died at the same time.
Leading the project is professional archaeologist Vicky Score, of the University of Leicester, who works on the project during her holidays.
She said carbon-dating on nine skeletons uncovered since the dig began had revealed them to be from the 14th century.
“’We have seen similar skeletons before from Leicester where a couple has been buried together in a single grave. The main question we find ourselves asking is why were they buried up there?” she added.
“There is a perfectly good church in Hallaton. This leads us to wonder if the chapel could have served as some sort of special place of burial at the time.”
See more photos at ABC News.
I found earlier articles about skeletons of couples embracing each other. From NBC News, Prehistoric Romeo and Juliet Discovered.
ROME, Feb. 7, 2007 — They died young and, by the looks of it, in love. Two 5,000-year-old skeletons found locked in an embrace near the city where Shakespeare set the star-crossed tale “Romeo and Juliet” have sparked theories the remains of a far more ancient love story have been found.
Archaeologists unearthed the skeletons dating back to the late Neolithic period outside Mantua, 25 miles south of Verona, the city of Shakespeare’s story of doomed love.
Buried between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago, the prehistoric pair are believed to have been a man and a woman and are thought to have died young, because their teeth were found intact, said Elena Menotti, the archaeologist who led the dig.
“As far as we know, it’s unique,” Menotti told The Associated Press by telephone from Milan. “Double burials from the Neolithic are unheard of, and these are even hugging.”
Autumn Garden, by Vincent Van Gogh
Another one from HuffPo, Skeletons ‘Embracing’ In Death May Represent Gruesome Ancient Siberian Custom.
For years researchers in the Novosibirsk region of Siberia have puzzled over dozens of ancient grave sites containing bodies buried face to face, some seemingly with hands clasped as if in an eternal embrace.
But soon DNA tests may help provide an answer to the key question: Are these the graves of star-crossed lovers, or could the remains be evidence of a gruesome ancient custom?
The bodies are part of a massive burial ground located in the Siberian village of Staryi Tartas, the Siberian Times reported. Altogether, close to 600 tombs have been discovered in the area, dozens of which contain the so-called “embracing” couples.
The graves are believed to belong to the Andronovo culture, which existed in the area during the second and first millennia B.C.E., according to Britannica. Yet many of the bodies in the graves are believed to be from the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries B.C.E., the Siberian Times reported….
“We can fantasize a lot about all this,” Vyacheslav Molodin, an archaeology and ethnography expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the Siberian Times. “We can allege that husband died and the wife was killed to be interred with him as we see in some Scythian burials, or maybe the grave stood open for some time and they buried the other person or persons later, or maybe it was really simultaneous death.”
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