Morning News Round-Up

We read the news so you don't need to and have your head explode.

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There are reports that Martha Coakley will run for governor of Massachusetts.  The big question though is whether this time she will actually campaign.

Ms. Coakley, you may recall, is the Democratic candidate who was far out ahead of Republican Scott Brown in her race for the U.S. Senate when she pretty much disappeared from the campaign trail, apparently taking her victory for granted.  That's what made Scott Brown the U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.

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Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers officially withdrew his name from consideration to be chair of the Federal Reserve Board.  Therefore, regardless of what the calendar says, it's not September 21, but now Summers over.

Much as the president has defended Summers when his name seemed to be the leading candidate, Summers said that were he to be nominated, the process would turn acrimonious and be bad for the Fed.  I don't know all that much about the high end of such money issues, but my perception is that not only his nomination but Summers himself would have been bad for the Fed.

Best article title of the year.  By Joan Walsh in Salon:  "Why Larry Summers Was Not Too Big to Fail."

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Miss New York won the Miss America contest on Sunday.  I think.  I wasn't even aware that the Miss America contest was on tonight, until I happened to be flipped through the channels.  And no, there is no truth to the rumor that when I came upon it I said, "There she is..."

Side Note:  Year's ago, I was invited to a friend's parents' house for dinner to break the Yom Kippur fast.  After dinner, to make the meeting more lively, several people entertained a bit.  One was Grace Kahn, whose husband Gus, had written (among many legendary songs) the classic "Makin' Whoopie."  At the age of 85, when she sang the song, it was the most slyly sensuous version of the song I'd ever heard.  And also performing was a fellow named Bernie Wayne, who sat at the piano and sang his best known song -- "There She Is, Miss America."

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Last night, Bob Newhart won his first-ever Emmy, for a guest-star role on The Big Bang Theory.  It was his sixth nomination (one was for writing).  But that's not the remarkable thing.  The remarkable thing is that of his six Emmy nominations -- none were for The Bob Newhart Show.

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The rains have not abated in Colorado, and over 1,200 people are now missing, with several thousand people having been rescued by the U.S. Army and National Guard.  To put a sense of perspective on the amount of rain that has been falling, the previous record for the wettest day ever in the city of Boulder was 4.8 inches of rain.  Usually when records are broken, it's incremental.  On September 12, however, the city got almost double that, with 9.08 inches.  But further, the average rainfall in Boulder for September is 1.63 inches.  This year, though, the city has had nearly nine times that (!) -- 14.62 inches.  However, that's not for the whole month of September, that's only for just four days!!

At some point, climate deniers will get their heads out of certain dry, protected orifices and quit laughing about "global warming" and realize that the phrase is "climate change" and that the climate is changing.

By the way, a massive typhoon is about to hit Japan and 260,000 people have been evacuated.  But that doesn't count because they're not Americans.  Though if they were Americans, it probably wouldn't count for climate change deniers either.  Because science isn't real.