Some dubious over-development going on in Dubai in the UAE! From National Geographic.
The Online Threat: Should We be Worried About a Cyber War? (Seymour Hersh) from the New Yorker
"In the next few months, President Obama, who has publicly pledged that his Administration will protect openness and privacy on the Internet, will have to make choices that will have enormous consequences for the future of an ever-growing maze of new communication techniques: Will America’s networks be entrusted to civilians or to the military? Will cyber security be treated as a kind of war?"
The Kremlin Resets Russian Foreign Policy (Tina Burrett) from the Japan Times [in English]
"2010 has seen a change in Russia's relations with the West. The Obama administration came to office promising a "reset" in relations with Moscow, and in the past year, this new mood of cooperation has begun to deliver tangible results. Moscow and Washington are working together to reduce their nuclear arsenals, as well as to combat the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other states. And it is not just with the United States that Russia has seen a breakthrough in relations."
Resistance is Futile (Michael Green) from the National Interest
"Until Hillary Clinton’s “smart power” and “return to Asia” strategies, Asia’s future was on the way to becoming Asia’s past: a Sinic system that welcomed China’s rise. That was in November. But in a People’s Daily editorial this week, the theme was how China’s peaceful development and pursuit of harmonious society could create “win-win” relations with the United States in Asia. What happened?"
Holbrooke's Towering Ambition and Achievement from Politico
"Here is a word not always associated with Richard Holbrooke: subtle. But subtlety of sorts was one of the secrets of a man who counted as one of the most accomplished, most flamboyant, most impassioned and — after his death at age 69 Monday evening — most memorable American diplomats of recent decades, whose career was a living timeline that stretched from wars in Vietnam to the Balkans to Afghanistan."
HERE's another look at Holbrooke's influence from the New York Times.
China the Bully (Richard Cohen) from RealClearPolitics
"One of the more frightening aspects of China's persecution of Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned dissident and this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, is that the government never even bothered to frame him. That's the standard method used by totalitarian regimes to justify the unjustifiable, but China feels no need to placate the West or even caricature its system of justice, so it swiftly put his wife under house arrest, vilified the Norwegian Nobel Committee and censored any criticism of its own actions -- a display of ferocious petulance reminiscent of Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany or, in fairy tales, the thwarted Rumpelstiltskin stomping his foot into the ground."
Patronage as a US Force Multiplier from The Hindu [of India in English]
"From scholarships and training programmes for officers to promises of Green Cards and jobs for family members, America is doing whatever it takes to build a lobby for itself in India."
We've Only Got America A (Thomas Friedman) from the New York Times
"Former President José María Figueres of Costa Rica has a saying I like: “There is no Planet B” — so we’d better make Plan A work to preserve a stable environment. I feel the same way about America these days. There is no America B, so we’d better make this one work a lot better than we’ve been doing, and not only for our sake."
Amateur Hour: VA Judge Makes Elementary Error In Health Care Ruling from TalkingPointsMemo
"Legal experts are attacking Judge Henry Hudson's decision on the merits, citing an elementary logical flaw at the heart of his opinion. And that has conservative scholars -- even ones sympathetic to the idea that the mandate is unconstitutional -- prepared to see Hudson's decision thrown out."
Why the Health Care Ruling Doesn't Worry Me (Jonathan Chait) from the New Republic
"If you strike the individual mandate but leave the rest, you have a system that could easily be patched up with a better mechanism to avoid free-riding. The real loser here is the health insurance lobby. "
If Hudson's argument ultimately carries the day, the big winners may not be conservatives but supporters of a single-payer system. Boy, that sure would be ironic -- not that I want it to go there. A bird in hand -- as they say.
Health-Reform Advocates Have Little to Fear from Judge's Ruling (Ezra Klein) from the Washington Post
"The danger was that, in striking down the individual mandate, the court would also strike down the rest of the bill. That's exactly what the plaintiff had asked Hudson to do. But the judge pointedly refused, noting: "The Court will sever only Section 1501 [the individual mandate] and directly-dependent provisions which make specific reference to 1501." That last clause has made a lot of pro-reform legal analysts very happy."
Tax Bill: Now It's the Tea Party's Turn (Howard Fineman) from the Huffington Post
"Some key conservative activists and consultants claim that the bill could fail in the House because of growing grassroots opposition among Tea Party types - the mirror opposite of last week's Democratic concern about liberals torpedoing the same legislation."
Tag-team Smackdown (Clarence Page) from the Chicago Tribune
"His afternoon surprise with the former president gave visual support to a message conveyed by Obama's pending tax-cut compromise with Republican congressional leaders: This president is triangulating, trying to regain independent swing voters in much the same way Clinton did after his own midterm setback in 1994. And who better to deliver that message than Clinton, the great triangulator himself?"
Obama Plans 2011 Staff Makeover from Politico
"At a time when Obama was getting roundly beat up by many of his own supporters for giving in too soon on his signature issue of limiting tax cuts only to those who make less than $250,000 per year, along came Elvis to re-enter the building, bite his lower lip, crank himself up to full empathy and help Obama reach out to the center without losing his liberal Democratic base."
Good news I think.
It's Scary Out There in Reporting Land (David Cay Johnston) from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University
"When I was getting my last haircut, the noon news on the television—positioned to be impossible to avoid watching—began with a grisly murder. The well-educated man in the chair next to me started ranting about how crime is out of control. But it isn’t. I told Frank, a regular, that crime isn’t running wild and his chance of being burglarized today is less than one quarter what it was in 1980. The shop turned so quiet you could have heard a hair fall to the floor. … “So why is there so much crime on the news every day?” Diane, who was cutting Frank’s hair, asked. “Because it’s cheap,” I replied. “And with crime news you only have to get the cops’ side of the story. There is no ethical duty to ask the arrested for their side of the story.”"
POLITICAL BOOKS NUGGET!!
Deeper Looks at the Crisis of ’08 and the Oval Office: A Review of Capital Offense: How Washington’s Wise Men Turned America’s Future Over to Wall Street by Michael Hirsh, and Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House by Richard Wolffe from the New York Times
ENVIRONMENTAL NUGGET!!
Three Views of the Vertical Farm from the Economist [of the UK]
"GROWING crops in vertical farms in the heart of cities is said to be a greener way to produce food. The idea is that skyscrapers filled with floor upon floor of orchards and fields, producing crops all year round, will sprout in cities across the world. As well as creating more farmable land out of thin air, this would slash the transport costs and carbon-dioxide emissions associated with moving food over long distances. But the concept is still unproven."
GLOBALIZATION GRAPHICS NUGGET!!
Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats from BBC Four via Utube.
David Brooks discusses this video clip HERE.
OUTER SPACE NUGGET!!
Spacecraft Reaches Edge of Solar System from Discovery News
"NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached the outside edge of the solar system. Scientists think it will enter interstellar space in about four years."
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