News Nuggets 931

DAYLEE PICTURE: A melting stream in Finland.  From National Geographic.

Germany Set to Tax Young from the Sydney Morning Herald [of Australia] 
"GERMANY is proposing to levy extra taxes on the young to pay for the costs of the country's growing numbers of old people, under government plans for a ''demographic reserve'' levy."
They must be watching how American lawmakers handle these fiscal problems.

Hello, Cruel World: What the Fate of One Class of 2011 Says About the Job Market from the New York Times
"The 1.7 million members of the Class of 2011 witnessed, within the four-year span of their college careers, one of the greatest bull markets in United States history and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Last spring, they shed their caps and gowns and joined a kind of B.A. bread line. ... Though the statistics still show that a college degree correlates with both higher income and lower unemployment in the long run, diplomas didn’t seem very valuable when they were handed out last May."

Are Liberal Arts Degrees Useful? from the New York Times
"Nathaniel Penn’s article on the fate of recent college graduates in today’s job market inspired responses from readers over whether liberal arts degrees are useful, whether accruing college debt is a wise choice and whether attending college is truly worth it in the end."

Paul Ryan’s Risky Ideas (Fred Kaplan) from Slate
"Does the chairman of the House Budget Committee know anything about how a military budget gets made?"

Obama Has Aggressive Internet Strategy to Woo Supporters from the Washington Post
"The Obama campaign, and to a lesser extent its GOP rivals, have fully embraced the potential of the Internet age to reach possible supporters this campaign season. The president’s campaign has bought Google advertising space next to all sorts of searches, including “Warren Buffett,” “Obama singing,” “Obama birthday” and, for basketball fans, “Obama bracket.”"

Romney’s SWAT Team Closes Out The Primaries from BuzzFeed
"A handful of staffers moved from state to state in the final weeks, dogging Santorum and whipping local Republicans into shape. The downside: They’re not leaving much behind."

Foreign Policy's Big Bang: Reviews of Books by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Kagan (Jonathan Freedland) from the New York Times
"New books by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Kagan address the subject of America’s decline from opposite sides of the political aisle but find much room for agreement."

Mitt Romney Won. And Now He's Going to Lose (Robert Shrum) from The Week 
"The all-but-certain GOP nominee swung so far to the right to please the conservative base that he stands next to no shot of beating President Obama."

TAX NUGGET [of a sort]!!
What’s the Easiest Way to Cheat on Your Taxes? from the New York Times
"And eight other important questions you always wanted to ask an accountant."

WWII & HOLLYWOOD NUGGET!!
Intriguing Stories of How Those Who Went on to Become Famous Survived the Last Dreadful Days of the War from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
This book sounds quite interesting.
"...a riveting new book tells the story of those tumultuous five days at the end of the war, including the experiences of ordinary people, some of whom would later lead extraordinary and famous lives. ... While Sophia Loren and her family were anxiously wondering what would happen to them after Mussolini’s death, in Arnhem in Holland, another young girl was on the point of starvation. The Allies had tried to take the town in September 1944. But Operation Market Garden had failed, and by April 1945, the Dutch were so starving that they were reduced to frying tulip bulbs, their ragged clothing hanging loose on their gaunt frames. That spring so many died of starvation that they ran out of coffins to bury them.  Fifteen-year-old Audrey Hepburn-Ruston had been hovering close to death for months, sick with jaundice, her legs and feet swollen from oedema caused by malnutrition, so weak with hunger that she could barely climb the stairs in her grandfather’s home, just outside Arnhem.

MICHELLE OBAMA NUGGET!!
Is Michelle Obama Pioneering a New Model For First Ladies? (Simon Meiners, Nick Robins-Early, Perry Stein) from the New Republic
"While it’s customary for the spouse of the president to spearhead a feel-good campaign like literacy promotion or urban beautification, few have used their fame as Michelle has, or brought as much pizzazz to their projects. (It’s tough to imagine Nancy Reagan teaching Americans how to Dougie.)"

BRITISH MONARCHY BOOK NUGGET!!
The First Tudor: A Review of The Winter King: A Portrait of Henry VII from the New York Times
"While Penn’s portrait of the king himself conjures up a figure as compellingly unpleasant as a compound of Hannibal Lecter and Bernard Madoff, the strength of this outstanding book lies in his ability to breathe life into the sorts of ceremonious scenes of court life portrayed in the books of hours belonging to Henry’s great rivals on the Continent."

NOVEL WRITING NUGGET!!
How To Write The Great American Novel (Jim Behrle) from The Awl
This is pretty funny ... and somewhat insightful.
"...maybe you want to make kids forever have to read your book in freshman English classes and struggle with the magnitude of your truth and beauty. An honorable goal, to be sure. Here’s a few tips on how to write a book that ought to be carved into marble, made into a bestselling movie with action figures and make you a much better, much happier person."

SPACE PROGRAM NUGGET!!
NASA's Gemini Program PHOTOS, 50 Years Later: Spacewalks, Earthrises & Space Food from the Huffington Post
"April 2012 marks 50 years since the beginning of NASA's Gemini program. Carried out from 1962-1966, during the feverish middle years of the space race, the Gemini missions achieved a wide range of American firsts, from the earliest space walk to the earliest in-flight docking of two
spacecrafts."