News Nuggets 763

A seal strolling along the shore of Sandfly Bay in Dunedin, New Zealand. From the Atlantic Magazine.

The Petraeus Projection: The CIA Director's Record Since the Surge (Fred Branfman) from Salon
"Hero worship hides the military failures of the CIA director's "global killing machine""
I have long-suspected that Petraeus's post-surge "golden boy" reputation was unwarranted and that he used it to buffalo Obama into staying in Iraq and Afghanistan way beyond the "sell-by" dates of those conflicts.  I don't think history will be kind to the general.

Why China Won't Conquer the World (Xué Xinran) from the Daily Telegraph [of the UK]
"Its young are incapable, its old are exhausted, and box-ticking bureaucrats make life hell. China, a superpower? First it needs to grow up, says acclaimed author Xué Xinran."

Obama's 'Class Warfare' Strategy Finds Broad Appeal with Voters (Juan Williams) from The Hill
"The Republican counterattack is to label Obama a failed leader resorting to class warfare. ... But a Fox News poll out last week said the president and fellow Democrats are gaining with voters by calling attention to the nation’s class divide."

What Does 'Occupy Wall Street' Want? (Ezra Klein) from the Washington Post
"The Occupy Wall Street protests are explicitly inspired by, and modeled on, the Tahrir Square protests in Egypt. And though that's a tough act to follow, it's clear the Occupy Wall Street protests are catching a fire all their own. The question now is what they do with it. "

The University of Wherever (Bill Keller) from the New York Times
"Two recent events at Stanford University suggest that the day is growing nearer when quality higher education confronts the technological disruptions that have already upended the music and book industries, humbled enterprises from Kodak to the Postal Service (not to mention the newspaper business), and helped destabilize despots across the Middle East."

Can the Left Stage a Tea Party? (E.J. Dionne) from the Washington Post
"Why hasn't there been a tea party on the left? And can President Obama and the American left develop a functional relationship? That those two questions are not asked very often is a sign of how much of the nation's political energy has been monopolized by the right from the beginning of Obama's term."

The Rick Perry Hustle (Larry McMurtry) from the New York Review of Books
"Clearly the GOP has a problem. Except for those aging sinners Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, all its candidates seem synthetic. It’s become the party of stale air; and now who should come bounding in but another slicked up trashmouth, Governor Perry of Texas, a man whose only salient principle seems to be that all attention is good."

BRITISH HISTORY/CULTURE NUGGET!!
What Empire Did for Britain (Jeremy Paxman) from the Daily Telegraph [of the UK]
"For hundreds of years, Britain shaped the history of the world. Yet it is shocking, says Jeremy Paxman, how little we appreciate the enduring effect of the colonial spirit on all our lives in this country."