A Good Monday Morning

Zero Demands An “Unconditional" Cease-Fire

The Hill

"President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone on Sunday as a ceasefire with Hamas broke apart. Negotiations to extend a 12-hour truce broke down over the weekend. Israel says it offered to extend the ceasefire for another 24 hours, only to see new rocket fire from Gaza. Israel then resumed its own military actions in Gaza.

"Hamas has broken five cease-fires that we accepted," Netanyahu said on Fox News Sunday. "They rejected all of them, violated all of them, including two humanitarian cease-fires in the last 24 hours."

The Israel Defense Forces said 28 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel on Sunday. Two more rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome missiles defense system, the IDF said.  

Middle Finger Theater Presents: 2 Min. Conspiracy Theory

The Secret Link Between Sputnik, Rush Limbaugh and Jane Fonda

It's Not Flying Well in Liberal La La Land Either

Bostonians Rise up in Protest Against Obama's Immigration Policies  

"President Obama appears poised to take executive action that would legalize as many as 5 million illegal immigrant parents of U.S.-born children, a prospect that riles local immigration critics and adds a new dimension to concern about swelling immigrant populations in states like Massachusetts eyed as hosting sites for thousands of children who crossed the border unaccompanied.

The Associated Press reported yesterday White House officials are laying the groundwork for an executive order that would automatically legalize roughly 5 million of an estimated 11 million people who have entered the country without legal authorization or overstayed their visas."

KEEP READING 

Did Sex-Crazed Geckos Take Over Russian Satellite Mission

There is a lizard sex satellite floating in space

and Russia is no longer in control

Washington Post

At this very moment, a Russian satellite full of geckos -- (possibly) having sex -- is floating around in space -- and mission control has lost the ability to control it.

The Foton-M4 research satellite launched on July 19 with five geckos on board. The plan: To observe their mating activities in the zero-gravity conditions of Earth orbit. Several other earthly creatures, including plants and insects, were also placed on board for experiments.

But shortly after the satellite made its first few orbits, it stopped responding to commands from mission control. The equipment on board, however, is still sending scientific data back to earth, a spokesman for Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems said.

"The biological experiments started as soon as the satellite was launched," Institute press secretary Oleg Voloshin told RIA Novosti on Thursday. "The scientific equipment used for the experiments operates properly. We receive the telemetry data from the spacecraft and analyze it. … The current tasks have so far been fulfilled."

Teams of experts are working to reestablish a connection to the satellite, according to the company that built Foton-M.

"Specialists of the main mission control group are currently working to establish sustainable contact with the satellite and implement the planned program for the flight," the Progress company said on its Web site, according to Interfax.

In the meantime, those lizards are being left more or less alone, to do as nature intended for the rest of the 60 days mission.

NOTE: Russians scientist believe the sex experiment is successful, as a stream of cigarette smoke has been observed trailing the satellite through orbit. 

Fishnet Friday

The White House Soviet Style Control of Media Coverage

Paul Farhi of The Washington Post writes  about a trend at the White House—and throughout journalism—that threatens the quality and credibility of news-gathering: Public-relations "minders" are injecting themselves into our interviews with politicians, CEOs, and other policymakers.

Minder madness joins the surge of "background briefings" and the decline of access to decision-makers as evidence that the White House is manipulating the press. It's that, but it's also something worse: It's evidence that journalists are ceding control when they should be seizing it, accepting canned news rather than breaking it.

Farhi writes: 

"Almost every officially sanctioned exchange between reporters and the proverbial 'senior administration officials' is conducted in the presence of a press staffer, even when the interview is 'on background,' meaning the source will not be identified by name."

Journalists tend to view minders with suspicion, if not outright alarm. A third party can alter any interaction in unforeseen ways. One White House reporter notes with irritation that minders have sometimes cut off contentious questioning or otherwise interrupted the flow of conversation.

More broadly, journalists see it as part of a larger official effort to shape their coverage, similar to demands to approve quotes before they're published or to keep even the most mundane information off the record.

If you have a minder there, it sits in [a source's] brain that they're supposed to stay on message," said Peter Baker, who covers the White House for the New York Times. "They're less likely to share something other than the talking points." Having minders around, Baker says, "is obviously intended to control the message. Let's put it this way: It's not intended to increase candor."

Anonymous sources are a crucial way to uncover news that governments, corporations, and other institutions seek to cover up.  Briefings with anonymous sources ("on background") arranged by these entities can occasionally be revealing. Not all stories require access to a decision-maker, and conducting an interview with a PR "minder" in the room doesn't have to curb the journalistic experience.

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