News Nuggets 460

The Fiordland National Park in New Zealand.  From National Geographic.

Blood On Our Hands from Foreign Policy Magazine
"Newly released war documents show how the U.S. military, in cable after grim cable, painstakingly chronicled Iraq's descent into bloody Shiite-on-Sunni violence. So why did top officials deny the obvious?"

US Operations in Kandahar Push out Taliban from the Washington Post
"With 2,000-pound bombs, 12,000 troops, and one illiterate but charismatic Afghan border police commander, the American military has forced insurgents to retreat from key parts of this strategically vital region, according to U.S. and Afghan commanders."

Will China Keep Rising or Succumb to its Paranoia? (David Ignatus) from the Washington Post
"This new China is at once cocky and scared -- anxiously looking over its shoulder even as it races ahead. Chinese officials keep reminding you how poor the country is, while also boasting of its success."

Turkey Steps Out (Roger Cohen) from the New York Times
"Davutogluism is a mouthful. It’s not going to make Fox News any time soon. But if I could escort Sarah Palin, Tea Partiers and a few bigoted anti-Muslim Europeans to a single country illustrating how the world has changed, it would be the home of the D-word, Turkey."

Former Chairman of Joint Chiefs Hugh Shelton: Bush officials pushed Iraq war ‘Almost to the Point of Insubordination’ from Raw Story
"Gen. Hugh Shelton, who served as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1997 to 2001, told ABC's Christiane Amanpour on Sunday that top officials in the Bush Administration pushed for war in Iraq "almost to the point of insubordination.""

Falling into the Chasm (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"The tragedy here is that if voters do turn on Democrats, they will in effect be voting to make things even worse. The resurgent Republicans have learned nothing from the economic crisis, except that doing everything they can to undermine Mr. Obama is a winning political strategy. Tax cuts and deregulation are still the alpha and omega of their economic vision."

What Health Care Reform Means for African Americans from The Root
"Many of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act are just starting to be implemented -- and black people may benefit more than most."

The Myth of Consensus Politics (Sam Tenenhaus) from the New York Times
"Democrats and Republicans seem destined to move even farther apart than they are now. How, then, will they forge the compromises that are the foundation of effective governance? The answer is: They may not need to. For most of the past century, consensus in American politics has been more phantom than fact, especially when it comes to staking out ideological ground."

The Tea Party and Immigration Reform: Obama's Ace in the Hole from El Universal [of Mexico in English]
"Anyone who thinks that Obama is another Carter is badly mistaken. The mulatto will use every lever of presidential power to look beyond the current situation. And that means, of course, advocating comprehensive immigration reform from the presidency. This would put Republican backs to the wall."

BOOKS NUGGET!!
That Seventies Show: A Review of Books on the 1970s (Rick Perlstein) from the Nation
"The sense that a decade of sheer uneventfulness had just passed was suggested by the conclusions arrived at in a 1978 book by the public opinion expert Everett Carll Ladd. The title—Where Have All the Voters Gone?—spoke to a widespread sense among opinion elites that the most eventful "thing" that "happened" in the 1970s was apathy."

ANCIENT (AND MODERN?) EGYPT NUGGET!!
Egypt's Plans for Luxor: Vegas on the Nile? from Time Magazine
"Luxor has long been Egypt's prize possession. It was here that the ancient Egyptians at one time built their capital of Thebes; where Pharoahs dedicated massive temples to their gods; and where Howard Carter unearthed the world-famous boy King, Tutankhamen, in his tomb full of riches in 1922. … In an effort to preserve the riches — and beef up the number of tourists they attract — local authorities have been pressing an ambitious project to reinvent and revive Luxor; rehabilitating tombs, and expanding the city's tourist infrastructure at a dizzying pace to the tune of hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars."

POLITICAL HISTORY NUGGET!!
Top 10 Historic Midterms Elections from Smithsonian Magazine
"While not as memorable or studied as presidential campaigns, the midterm elections also stand as pivotal moments in U.S. history."

OUTER SPACE NUGGET!!
Humans to Asteroids: Watch Out! (Op-Ed) from the New York Times
"Thanks to telescopes that can see ever smaller objects at ever greater distances, we can now predict dangerous asteroid impacts decades ahead of time. We can even use current space technology and fairly simple spacecraft to alter an asteroid’s orbit enough to avoid a collision. We simply need to get this detection-and-deflection program up and running."