News Nuggets 945

DAYLEE PICTURE: A porcelain crab in the Komodo National Park in Indonesia.  From the Daily Mail of the UK.

Fear Itself: Americans Believe Iran Threat On Par With 1980s Soviet Union (Max Fisher) from the Atlantic
"A new poll shows that Americans today are more afraid of Iran than they were of the USSR in 1985, a peak of the Cold War."
I see polls like this and I thank God Obama is in the White House -- and not some craven foreign policy panderer from the GOP!  Obama is count-on-able to not let polls railroad him into war.

China's A Broken String of Pearls (Stefano Casertano) from The European 
A short must-read defense policy nugget! A big excerpt is in order.
"In 2004, the consultancy firm Booz Allen Hamilton coined a term for China’s energy supply strategy, terming it a “String of Pearls.” Loading barrels in the Middle East, Chinese tankers travel half of the globe to their home ports and are escorted by Chinese vessels along the way. A complex network of alliances provides for supplies and happy sailors’ nights out. The “pearls” are all those countries that are adjacent to the tankers’ sea lanes, such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives, and Burma. ... The string has never been a full-fledged structure but rather a “strategic model” to be pursued through progressive actions that ranged from financial assistance to navy maneuvers and the construction of military bases abroad. ... China is revamping its energy supply: Away from global trade routes, and towards regional cooperation with Russia."
Make sure you get the picture here: China's big bad navy (you know, the one that will overtake the US in a couple of months or whenever) has had up until now (at best) ports-of-call for their navy that have extended from China to the Persian Gulf.  But now, because they haven't been playing nice with their neighbors, they are losing even some of those ports-of-call!  Here they just recently launched (to great fanfare and neo-conservative handwringing) their one and only super carrier (a thirty-year-old used-up soviet model)  -- and what do they really have?  A ship they can't even sail past Thailand before they have to turn around and go back for lack of pro-Chinese ports-of-call.  Maybe they'll have better luck heading towards Vladivostok.

Jobs Jackpot: 20 Occupations Expected to Grow the Most Through 2020 from the Washington Post
"Here’s a look at the wide-ranging occupations expected to have “the most job growth” between 2010 and 2020, according to the Bureau Labor of Statistics."
Check out this list.  What's striking about it is the astonishingly low pay people receive for most of these jobs -- which (supposedly) there will be high demand.  The question is: will there really be a high demand for these jobs -- or just a high demand for people willing to accept the low wages these jobs pay?  My bet: the latter.

In Nothing We Trust: Americans are Losing Faith in the Institutions that Made this Country Great (Ron Fornier and Sophie Quinton) from National Journal
"Whitmire is an angry man. He is among a group of voters most skeptical of President Obama: noncollege-educated white males. He feels betrayed—not just by Obama, who won his vote in 2008, but by the institutions that were supposed to protect him... Whitmire is a story of Muncie, and Muncie is the story of America. In this place—dubbed “Middletown” by early 20th-century sociologists—people have lost faith in their institutions. Government, politics, corporations, the media, organized religion, organized labor, banks, businesses, and other mainstays of a healthy society are failing."

Who Ruined Real America? (Alex Pareene) from Salon
"The crumbling of once-great institutions isn't to blame for middle-class decline and anger. Politicians are."

Secret Service Supervisors Involved in Colombia Scandal Identified from the Washington Post
"One of the Secret Service supervisors ousted from the agency this week for their involvement in the Colombia prostitution scandal made light of his official protective work on his Facebook page, joking about a picture of himself standing watch behind Sarah Palin. ... “I was really checking her out, if you know what i mean?” Chaney wrote in the comments section after friends had marveled at the photo. He is married and has an adult son."
With ample justification, Sarah Palin this morning has let some choice comments fly in this guy's direction.  But you've got to ask yourself: what the hell does a secret service agent have a facebook page from where he chats about the people he is supposed to be guarding!?  Something is way off here.

Murdoch's News Corp Facing Growing Legal Threat in US from the Guardian [of the UK]
"Lawyer Mark Lewis reveals at press conference he has taken on fourth case of alleged phone hacking on American soil."

Romney Trails Obama Big Time With Small Donors from Talking Points Memo 
"President Obama ended March with a 10:1 cash advantage over Mitt Romney, powered largely by a dominant edge with small donors, a dynamic that’s cropped up throughout the campaign."

Mitt Romney’s Challenge: Convincing GOP He Can Win from Politico
"Poll after poll indicates the presidential campaign is a dead heat, but you wouldn’t know it from talking to many Republican professionals. If you gave them truth serum, they would tell you they think Mitt Romney will lose. ... there is pervasive pessimism among Republicans about Romney’s prospects this fall. It’s apparent in rampant discussions about which Republicans will run in 2016 - talk that obviously presupposes a loss in November - and it’s downright glaring in private conversations with GOP officials on Capitol Hill and in consulting shops across Washington."

Democratic Illinois Economically Outpaces Scott Walker's Wisconsin (Markis Moulitsas) from Daily Kos
"Republicans had a great deal of fun back in early 2011 taunting Illinois for (surprisingly) electing a Democratic governor, Pat Quinn. The theory was that Quinn's tax increases, designed to close a huge budget gap, would lead to a business exodus to Gov. Scott Walker's Wisconsin conservative utopia. ... In reality, turns out that Wisconsin was the only state in the entire country to lose jobs in 2011, while Illinois had better than average growth."
Check out the map in this article: Wisconsin and Alaska -- dead last!!

Sheriff Joe’s World Crumbles (John Dougherty) from Salon
"The controversial Arizona cop is prepping for a possible trial. But already, his closest allies have fallen."
This is the first (and perhaps the last) posting on this blog relating to the obnoxious Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  This type of figure usually falls into the unpostable wing-nut flavor-of-the-month basket, figures I usually give zero space to on this blog.  But this story actually heralds the prospect that we will be seeing the backside of the Sheriff soon -- and that IS newsworthy!  The emerging details of this case show an extraordinary level of corruption and abuse of power.

A Journey to Obama’s Kenya (Joshua Hammer) from Smithsonian Magazine 
"The dusty village where Barack Obama’s father was raised had high hopes after his son was elected president. What has happened since then?"

EUROPEAN SEX & RELIGION NUGGET!!
The Missionary's New Position: Former Pastor Opens Sex Shop For Christians (Alexander Krex) from Der Spiegel [of Germany in English]
Boy, they sure don't grow evangelicals in Europe the way they grow them in the US!!
"While lust might be considered a deadly sin by many Christians, one former Dutch pastor is on a crusade against lust "phobia." He has opened an online sex shop for Christians in the hope of improving their private lives and helping them to embrace sexuality."

ASTONISHING GORILLA VIDEO NUGGET!!
Many of you may recall Koko, the sign-language gorilla from National Geographic in the 1980s.  She has her own YouTube channel HERE -- but the following clip is absolutely amazing.  Koko is watching a movie and, at the sad part, Koko is so clearly moved by what she sees!!  Amazing!  Check it out!
Koko Responds to a Sad Movie from kokoflix on YouTube
"Koko watches intently a DVD movie on her TV that she has seen several times before. It is called Tea with Mussolini. When it comes to a sad part, where the boy has to say goodbye to all of his relatives and waves goodbye on the train, Koko turns away from the TV. She then proceeds to sign: "Frown, sad, cry, bad, trouble, mother and Koko-love." Her eyes also look very watery. (Gorillas cry too.)."