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Friday, September 17, 2010

News Nuggets 437

A crowd of baby round-tailed squirrels emerge from their den in Tucson, Arizona.  From National Geographic.

GOOD NEWS NUGGET!!
"Rescuers achieved a key breakthrough in efforts to rescue 33 trapped miners on Friday, reaching the caverns where they are imprisoned with a bore hole that will now be widened so that they can be pulled to freedom."

Let's Make a Deal (Editorial) from the National Interest
"Netanyahu and Abbas know how an agreement would look. Will it fly?"

The Tax-Cut Racket (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"Mr. McConnell, who was self-righteously denouncing the budget deficit just the other day, now wants to blow that deficit up with big tax cuts for the rich. But he doesn’t have the votes. So he’s trying to get what he wants by pointing a gun at the heads of middle-class families, threatening to force a jump in their taxes unless he gets paid off with hugely expensive tax breaks for the wealthy."

"Obama is letting Elizabeth Warren shape how a large part of the economy will be regulated without confirmation by Congress. How financial reform lets the president do it."

Gen X: The Boomer Clean-Up Crew (Lisa Chamberlain) from the Atlantic
"Baby Boomers will not be rushing to raise taxes on themselves, as Michael Kinsley proposes they do to save America's fiscal future, but sooner or later they are going to be out of the picture and the reality of today's economy will have to be dealt with—and that reality is much more familiar to Generation X than the Boomers. "
OUCH!!  And I thought Kinsley was being a little hard on his generation.  I wouldn't be surprised if Chamberlain is correct here though.

Terry Jones: A Muslim Maturity Test (editorial) from Liberation [of France in English]
"The Catholic religion in the West has withstood vexing attacks more or less gracefully. Islam could move forward if it would learn to be indifferent or even tolerant of its critics and enemies, including the most stupid, like the sinister Reverend Jones."

The Un-Reluctant Fundamentalist (Michelle Goldberg) from Democracy: A Journal of Ideas
"Ayaan Hirsi Ali: brave critic of Islam on the grounds of its illiberalism—and champion of illiberal means to “crush” it."

"Nearly two years into his presidency, 51% of Americans say President Barack Obama bears little to no blame for U.S. economic problems, while 48% assign him a great deal or moderate amount of blame. More Americans now blame Obama than did so a year ago, but a substantially higher percentage, 71%, blame former President George W. Bush."

"Ted Kennedy, the iconic senator from Massachusetts who passed away last year, was responsible for the failure of then-President Jimmy Carter's health reform plan in the 1970s, the result of a personal rivalry between the two politicians, Carter says."
Knowing the bad blood that existed between Kennedy and Carter, this is not surprising -- especially after Kennedy refused the deal offered by Nixon in the early 1970s.  Having said that, however, Carter's pronouncement strikes me as being in bad form (to say the least) given Kennedy's still recent death.  

"Tea Party wins in November could deeply divide the Republican Party in self-destructive ways not seen since Barry Goldwater's landslide loss to Lyndon Johnson. "

Republicans Serve the Devil His Tea (Robert Shrum) from The Week
"The GOP's Faustian bargain with the Tea Party will cost it dearly in 2012 — or sooner"

Unsweet Tea (Hendrik Hertzberg) from the New Yorker
"New York Republicans have driven off the cliff."

"Republicans, who are modest favorites to take over the House from Democrats, still have a chance to do the same in the United States Senate. But their odds have dropped significantly: from a 26 percent chance last week to 15 percent today, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecasting model."

Here's why:
"By pulling off arguably the biggest upset of the primary election season Tuesday, Christine O'Donnell shocked the Republican establishment and political pundits who didn’t think her campaign for the Delaware GOP Senate nomination had a chance. But none were more surprised then the staffers who worked for O’Donnell in 2008, when she made the second of two prior unsuccessful bids for the Senate."

And there's more:
"Christine O’Donnell is the motherlode of bad craziness. It’s almost unbelievable how much insanity is being uncovered; it seems like every 15 minutes another loony, paranoid statement pops up."

CONSTITUTION DAY NUGGET!!
"Teachers looking to enliven the proceedings might turn to the illustrator and calligrapher Sam Fink’s exuberant rendition, “The Constitution of the United States of America,” out now in a trade edition from Welcome Books."

CHINA HISTORY NUGGET!!
"Speaking at The Independent Woodstock Literary Festival, Frank Dikötter, a Hong Kong-based historian, said he found that during the time that Mao was enforcing the Great Leap Forward in 1958, in an effort to catch up with the economy of the Western world, he was responsible for overseeing "one of the worst catastrophes the world has ever known"."

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