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Monday, February 11, 2013

News Nuggets 1180



DAYLEE PICTURE: Marabou Storks in a tree in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania.  From Smithsonian Magazine.

UP-FRONT CREDIT BUREAU NUGGET!!
40 Million Mistakes: Is Your Credit Report Accurate? from CBS's 60 Minutes 
"A new study indicates as many as 40 million consumers have a mistake on their credit report and Steve Kroft finds it's hard to get them fixed. ... "The problem is that it's not really within the power of the average person using this system to fix the mistakes," says Kroft. "You feel like you're up against this machine, and there's no way to break through."
In case you missed it, everyone must see the segment of "60 Minutes" from last night that focused on the three credit agencies, Transunion, Equifax and Experian.  As Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (a Republican) notes, what these agencies do to resolve disputes is CRIMINAL!  A stunning, eye-opening news story.

In China, a Vast Chasm Between the Rich and the Rest (Sim Chi Yin) from the New York Times
"The gulf between China’s booming cities and its poor countryside has become a major source of social unrest."

In Nigeria, You’re Either Somebody or Nobody (Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani) from the New York Times
"When I started to treat domestic workers as “somebodys” it just confused them; they knew how society worked."

Avoiding Defeat: A Review of The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, and My Share of the Task: A Memoir by Stanley McCrystal (Andrew Bacevich) from the New York Times
"Future historians may well classify the surge as a myth concocted to perpetuate a fraud. The myth centers on the claim that a strategy devised in Washington and implemented by a brilliant general saved the day. The fraud is that a 20-year military effort to determine the fate of Iraq yielded something approximating a positive outcome."

David Petraeus Was Brought Down After Betrayal by Vengeful CIA Agents and his Own Bodyguards Who Made Sure his Affair was Exposed, Claims New Book from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
Brandon Webb, a former Navy SEAL, and Jack Murphy, a former Green Beret, reveal the new claims in their book 'Benghazi: The Definitive Report.  Petraeus was humiliated after a 'palace coup' by high-level intelligence officers who did not like the way he was running the CIA, authors say. The book also claims that Petraeus and Ambassador Chris Stevens were caught off guard by Benghazi consulate attack because they weren't briefed about on-going U.S. military operations in Libya."

Poll: Hillary Clinton 'Easily The Most Popular' Political Figure (Ariel Edwards-Levy) from the Huffington Post
""Hillary Clinton ends her term as Secretary of State and the bruising inquiry into the Benghazi murders as easily the most popular actor on the American political stage today," said Quinnipiac's assistant polling director, Peter A. Brown."

Can Liberals Get a Witness? (Claude S. Fischer) from the Boston Review 
"The left’s estrangement from religion is a problem for the left and for religion. ... Churches are meddling in politics. Ministers are leading social movements, backing and attacking candidates, campaigning from the pulpit. That was the complaint in the 1950s and ’60s, when clergy pushed for civil rights legislation, nuclear disarmament, and withdrawal from Vietnam. ... Today, however, religion is associated strongly with the right. The transformation is evident not only in headlines, but also in white Americans’ behavior."

Strapped: My Eight Years with a Gun (Hal Stucker) from the Boston Review 
"I carried a gun on the streets of New York for eight years to protect myself from crime. It wasn’t worth it."

Rubio Emerges as GOP’s Star, but Is He the Party’s Solution? (Karen Tumulty and Manuel Roig-Franzia) from the Washington Post
"Rubio is indeed a politician of unusual gifts. But the spotlight that has fallen on this relatively new arrival to the national scene says as much about the state of the Republican Party as it does about the 41-year-old senator."

Skeptical about Rubio (Joy-Ann Reid) from the Miami Herald
"Sure, the media loves him. He’s the Latin Ronald Reagan who will save an easily bored and distracted press corps from a future presidential race that seems destined to be dominated by yet another Clinton. ... So why the skepticism?  Rubio has issues ... my main source of doubt has been the notion that Jeb Bush, Rubio’s political mentor, is very likely running for president himself."

A Small W (James Moore) from the Huffington Post
"George P. Bush is burning with ambition, not ideas but lots of ambition. The latest Bush to sprout on the Texas political landscape is long on pedigree and short on ideology. Of course, that never stops a Bush from running for public office."

SILENT HOLLYWOOD NUGGET!!
Dawn of the Age of Color Movies: Actresses Pose and Preen for the Camera as They Test Out the New Kodachrome Moving Full Color Film in 1922 from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"One of the earliest examples of color motion picture has been unearthed in a mesmerizing film where actresses from the 1920s pose and preen in the exciting new medium."

BRAZILIAN NUGGET!!
Samba Time! Brazil’s Carnival Erupts in an Explosion of Colour as Millions Thunder Through the Streets for the Start of the Five-day Fiesta from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Brazil's Carnival celebrations opened with a bang yesterday as hundreds of thousands took to the streets to enjoy the start of the country's famous parades and street parties."


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