Is American Decline Real? (Robert Lieber) from Salon
"More and more thinkers are warning that our glory days are over, but their arguments are flawed -- and old."
Beware of Chinese Jingoism (Harry Kazianis) from The Diplomat
"In the South China Sea or West Philippine Sea, depending on which party you ask, tensions are being stoked in the form of provocative editorials, reporting, and the actions of Chinese journalists. Such reporting – nothing more than old fashioned jingoism – sets a dangerous precedent in an area of the world that is already rife with tensions. "
Why Gays Did President Obama a Favor by Pushing Him on Gay Marriage (John Aravosis) from the Daily Beast
"Nervous pundits feared that backing same-sex marriage would hurt the president. But John Aravosis says his community gave Obama a chance to show courage—and brought him closer to winning in November."
Mitt Romney’s Foreign-Policy Disarray Reflects GOP Disconnect (Peter Beinart) from the Daily Beast
"The presumptive GOP nominee’s team admits its candidate’s views on foreign policy are unclear—assuming he has some. The problem lies not so much with Romney, but in the GOP’s refusal to recognize that foreign policy is limited by the financial crisis and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars."
Romneyland Springs Leaks on Foreign Policy (Michael Crowley) from Time Magazine
"... almost as interesting is the broader implication of Sanger’s piece, which is that Romney is surrounded by foreign policy experts frustrated enough with him to feed the Times a negative story, to the point of implying that Romney doesn’t thoroughly understand or possibly even even care much about foreign affairs."
Obama Winning Investors by 49%-38% Against Romney in Poll from Bloomberg News Service
"Global investors increasingly prefer President Barack Obama to Republican challenger Mitt Romney and most say they believe the incumbent will remain in the White House for another four years. Asked who would be the better leader for the global economy, 49 percent favor Obama against 38 percent for Romney, according to a quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll. In January, the two candidates tied on the question."
A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College from the New York Times
"With more than $1 trillion in student loans outstanding in this country, crippling debt is no longer confined to dropouts from for-profit colleges or graduate students who owe on many years of education, some of the overextended debtors in years past. Now nearly everyone pursuing a bachelor’s degree is borrowing. As prices soar, a college degree statistically remains a good lifetime investment, but it often comes with an unprecedented financial burden."
Gay Wedding Crasher (John Heilemann) from the New York Magazine
"Joe Biden’s blunder made Barack Obama tie the knot sooner than planned—but he still may get to live happily ever after."
The ESPN Man (David Brooks) from the New York Times
""With all the fundamentals gone haywire, why is Obama staying competitive at the polls? ... The key is his post-boomer leadership style.""
In Film, Walker Talks of 'Divide and Conquer' Union Strategy from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"In the video shot on Jan. 18, 2011 - shortly before Walker's controversial budget-repair bill was introduced and spawned mass protests - Hendricks asked the governor whether he could make Wisconsin a "completely red state, and work on these unions, and become a right-to-work" state. The Republican donor was referring to right-to-work laws, which prohibit private-sector unions from compelling workers to pay union dues if the workers choose not to belong to the union. Walker replied that his "first step" would be "to divide and conquer" through his budget-adjustment bill, which curtailed most collective bargaining for most public employee unions."
Just when I thought Walker might be able to leverage his 25-to-1 funding edge over his Democratic opponent to buy his way to victory, this comes out. If they weren't already, national big labor is going to go whole hog into this race. I've read that Walker opponents are by orders of magnitude more energized than Walker's still energized base. They will need to be to have any chance of taking him down.
NE-Sen: Insurgent Threatens Republican Plans in Nebraska Senate Primary from the New York Times
"Republicans have long salivated over the prospect of capturing Nebraska’s open Senate seat, a triumph that would increase their odds of winning a majority in the Senate and taking full control of Congress. But the party’s effort to defeat Bob Kerrey, the native son and former senator who returned here from New York to bolster Democrats’ hopes, is taking a back seat to a fiercely competitive Republican primary fight that features a familiar tug-of-war between establishment and insurgent candidates that has become a growing theme in Republican contests across the country."
The World According to Arlen (Emily Cahn and John Bicknell) from Roll Call
"Former Sen. Arlen Specter often changed his ideological persona during his lengthy career, shifting left, then right, then left again as political exigencies required. But one thing that never changed was his remarkable ability to annoy on a bipartisan basis. And that peculiar candor abounds, for better and for worse, in the former Pennsylvania Senator’s autobiography, “Life Among the Cannibals: A Political Career, a Tea Party Uprising, and the End of Governing as We Know It,” "
SOLAR SYSTEM NUGGET!!
New Planet Found in Our Solar System? from National Geographic News
"Odd orbits of remote objects hint at unseen world, new calculations suggest."
TECHNOLOGY NUGGET!!
Is 3D Printing the Key to Utopia? (John Naughton) from the Guardian [of the UK]
"The company that made the machine was taken over years ago by another outfit and they no longer supply spares for your ancient machine. Up until now, this story would have had a predictable ending in which you sorrowfully junked your trusty dishwasher and bought a new one. But there’s an emerging technology that could change that. It’s called three-dimensional printing."
GREAT LIBRARY NUGGET!!
In Defense of the New York Public Library (Robert Darnton) from the New York Review of Books
"A petition of less-well-known but equally committed lovers of the library warns that the remodeling “will be ruining a functional element of its architecture—and its soul.” Blogs and Op-Ed pages have been sizzling with indignation. The shrill tone of the rhetoric—“a glorified Starbucks,” “a vast Internet café,” “cultural vandalism”—suggests an emotional response that goes beyond disagreement over policy."
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