News Nuggets 899

DAYLEE PICTURE: A Hmong child on a water buffalo in Vietnam.  From National Geographic.

Another Bogus Argument for War with Iran (Stephen M. Walt) from Foreign Policy Magazine
"... the big historical howler comes in the middle of the piece, where he attempts to deal with the counter-argument that an attack would only delay an Iranian program, and probably not for all that long. He writes: "After the Osirak attack and the destruction of the Syrian reactor in 2007, the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear programs were never fully resumed.""

Four Fiscal Phonies (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"All four Republican presidential candidates still in the race warn about the dangers of government debt, yet their proposals would add to the debt by helping the rich."

To Residents of Another Washington, Their Cherished Values are Under Assault from the Washington Post
"Oklahoma hosts its GOP primary on Super Tuesday, bringing the cultural debate over the heart of conservatism straight to the conservative heartland. As the state prepares to vote, the residents of a small farming town called Washington are doing battle on their own front of the culture wars."

That Presidential Voice (Todd S. Purdum) from Vanity Fair
"It’s one thing to look like a president—the right genes and the right coiffure can do the trick. But sounding like a president? So far, that’s something that no one in the G.O.P. field has come close to doing."

GOP Mulls Contraception Strategy from Politico
"Fresh off their defeat on the Senate floor Thursday, congressional Republicans pledged to move forward with their efforts to broaden the exemptions from the Obama administration’s contraception coverage rule. But they were left without a clear strategy for moving ahead, and the fight seemed to have energized Democrats, who welcomed the debate as a chance to win over independent women during an election year."

Same Sex, Opposite Impact (Thomas Schaller) from Salon
"Marriage equality always seemed a losing issue for the left. That's all changed. Just ask Ken Mehlman."

Democrats Given Reason To Cheer Their 2012 Senate Chances from Talking Points Memo
"Up to now, the 2012 battle for Senate control has promised to be tough for Democrats, with more held seats on the ballot this year than Republican ones. But all of a sudden, Democrats have reason to feel a little better about their prospects of holding on to the chamber." Up to now, the 2012 battle for Senate control has promised to be tough for Democrats, with more held seats on the ballot this year than Republican ones. But all of a sudden, Democrats have reason to feel a little better about their prospects of holding on to the chamber."
I had heard that Olympia Snowe was not running for re-election because of the "my-way-or-the-highway" attitude of those in her own caucus -- but I had NOT realized what a clear "f*** you" she was sending to Mitch McConnell specifically and her party in general.

Why the GOP Won’t Win the Senate (Eleanor Clift) from the Daily Beast  
"Olympia Snowe’s resignation is the latest sign of disarray within the party."

The Cruelest Month (Ronald Brownstein) from National Journal
"Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum won primaries in February, but the real winner was Barack Obama."

The Danger of Mitt Being Mitt (Eugene Robinson) from the Washington Post 
"Romney’s “gaffes” look unmistakably like glimpses of the real Romney — not a bad person but a man with no ability to see beyond the small, cosseted world of private equity and great wealth that he inhabits. He has to be reminded that most voters live in a world where people drive their Cadillacs one at a time."

Santorum Pushes Back Against Michigan 'Election Scandal' from the Daily Kos
"For one delegate, the Michigan Republican Party is pulling third-world voting shenanigans. For one delegate, the Romney camp is confirming the narrative that he's a rick prick bully. That one delegate will be worth more to Santorum than his or her single vote at the convention would've been."

Andrew Breitbart, 1969-2012 (David Frum) from the Daily Beast
"“Of the dead, speak nothing but what is good.” It’s an ancient rule and a wise one, but one that does not do justice to the life and career of Andrew Breitbart, dead today aged 43. It is impossible to speak nothing of a man who traced such a spectacular course through the contemporary media. But to speak only “good” of Andrew Breitbart would be to miss the story and indeed to misunderstand the man. ... it is wrong to see Breitbart as racially motivated. Had Breitbart decided he hated a politician whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower, Breitbart would have been just as delighted to attack that politicians with a different set of codes. The attack was everything, the details nothing."
Frum is so on the money here.  I've often observed that, for some time now, the right has been going through the strangest metamorphosis -- one where the clearest indicator of where hard-right conservatives stand on any given issue is to simply look to see where Obama stands on the same issue -- and then take the opposite position.  Right winger talkers would then slather their new position with a thin veneer of barely plausible conservative doggerel and charge into mortal combat.  In this regard, the contraception debate has been just classic.  For years states and companies had embraced the substance of the Obama rule -- and courts and many conservative judges have already ruled on this.  But, lo and behold, once Obama issues a rule on it, it suddenly becomes ground zero for cultural warriors, quickly sending Congress and right-wing lawmakers across the nation and at all levels of government into paroxysms of bad law-making and bizarre 1950s-era sexual nostalgia.  One can easily locate dozens of other examples where conservatives have had to say stupid, thoroughly inconsistent things -- simply to ensure that everything Obama was advocating and standing for could be properly understood as bad, evil, and socialist/communist/fascist/muslim (circle one).  The intellectual and/or ideological incoherence of the right is manifest for all to see.  One suspects that the GOP has reached a point where the only thing that unites them is their misguided hatred of the President.  Sad.

INTERNATIONAL FILM NUGGET!!
Iran and Pakistan at the Oscars (Steve Coll) from the New Yorker
"The Oscars last Sunday celebrated nostalgic, self-referential, willfully irrelevant films such as “The Artist” and “Hugo.” There were a few fleeting moments of inspiration, though; they came from filmmakers from Pakistan and Iran—two countries that bedevil, befuddle, provoke, and frighten the United States—who slipped in through the Academy’s carefully policed side doors for documentaries and international writers and directors."

NPR NUGGET!!
Bravo, NPR! from Daily Kos
"Instead of focusing on reporting the truth, for too long many news outlets have taken their job to be telling the competing sides of any given story, no matter how unsupported by science and facts one side may be. In a positive move, National Public Radio recently issued new editorial guidelines rejecting this false balance."

TRAGIC BOOK NUGGET!!
Shadid's 'House Of Stone' Is A 'Sweep Of History' (Renee Montagne) from NPR's Morning Edition
A moving -- and heartbreaking -- interview on Anthony Shadid's book that just came out.
"Just weeks after New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid died in Syria, his latest book has been released. House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East, tells of the year he spent restoring a family home in Lebanon. Renee Montagne talks about the book with Rajiv Chandrasekaran of The Washington Post and Shadid's wife, journalist Nada Bakri."

AMAZING DESERT NUGGET!!
How the Wonders of the Camel Nostril Inspired Audacious Plan to Plant Man-made Forest in the Sahara Desert from the Daily Mail [of the UK] 
"Scientists inspired by a camel's nostrils are set to achieve the impossible and grow a man-made forest in the Sahara Desert. The £3.3 million giant open-air greenhouse in Qatar will bring plantlife to one of the most inhospitable spots on earth and it is all thanks to the humped mammal's nose."

AMAZING NATURE NUGGET!!
Tree Lobster Thought to be Extinct for 80 Years Found Alive Clinging 500ft up on Remote Pacific Rock from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"A narrow and forbidding rock that stands higher than the Empire State Building, it does not look like the most welcoming place to set up home. But that did not stop an insect which was thought to be extinct for 80 years from building its last known colony on the 1,844ft high Ball’s Pyramid."

Ah!  There's no place like home!