News Nuggets 1377

DAYLEE PICTURE:  A polar bear in Hudson Bay.  From National Geographic.

Tuesday will be a travel day for the Nuggetsman -- so look for the next posting on Wednesday at the earliest.

UP-FRONT GLOBAL ECONOMICS NUGGET!!
Emerging Markets Spook Investors from Marketplace
""It's been a pretty gloomy start to 2014, and I guess to sum it up in a nutshell, two reasons: less Fed, and less China," he says. "I think in particular, it's the less China that we should focus on, and the real worry is that Chinese growth is slowing. And that's why many analysts believe we're seeing the sea of red across the trading boards.""
A fairly innocuous headline masking a big story.  The nut of this story: analysts are beginning to question whether the economic numbers China has been reporting are accurate or not.  Regular readers here know we've been tracking this story for several years now -- and China's numbers are not accurate and often they have been substantially off!  To me, that any analysts are only now beginning to wonder about this is STUNNING!

Harry Reid Earns an Assist on Iran: The Nevada Senator Staved Off New Sanctions — for Now (Doyle McManus) form the Los Angeles Times
"The problem is that Iran has said it would consider passage of the bill as a violation of the agreement the U.S. signed in November, which promised no new sanctions while negotiations were underway. ... By last week, it was clear that Reid had prevailed; the Senate isn't likely to vote on new sanctions any time soon."

The Populist Imperative (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"If, as has been widely reported, President Obama devotes much of his State of the Union address to inequality, everyone should be cheering him on. They won’t, of course. Instead, he will face two kinds of sniping. The usual suspects on the right will, as always when questions of income distribution come up, shriek “Class warfare!” But there will also be seemingly more sober voices arguing that he has picked the wrong target, that jobs, not inequality, should be at the top of his agenda. Here’s why they’re wrong."

A Nation of Redistributionists and Class Warriors (Greg Sargent) from the Washington Post
"With inequality and economic populism expected to be central to Obama’s State of the Union speech and Dem campaigns in the midterms, expect Republicans to argue Dems are wielding a familiar “class warfare” weapon to distract from the failure of the ”Obummer economy.” But a new Pew poll digs into public opinion on inequality in a way I haven’t seen before, and it suggests Dems are on solid political ground with this focus."

Who Says Liberal Arts Majors Can't Make a Good Living? from Marketplace
"A new study from the Association of American Colleges and Universities says liberal arts majors eventually close the earnings gap with workers who chose a “professional” major like accounting. Who knew? Given all the focus and support for STEM education, do the liberal arts need a campaign to fill prospective students and parents in on the facts? "

New Report Shows Few Finish Free Online Courses from Marketplace
"In a new report from Harvard and MIT faculty involved with the online learning programs there, researchers find that only about 5 percent of the more than 800,000 people signed up for the free courses through the online platform edX actually finished enough coursework to obtain a completion certificate."
Gee -- I'm so surprised.  It is my observation that online courses (even those you pay for) are the next step down from community colleges -- even if they are from MIT and Harvard.  Good learning happens in an active environment, not a passive one.  What's next?  Learn while you sleep.

Moral Mondays Rekindle the Civil Rights Movement (Jim Hightower) from the Progressive
I almost never post anything from this predictable knee-jerk progressive talking head -- but this is interesting.
"Steadily building broad grassroots coalitions of civil rights groups, labor, church leaders, students, teachers, environmentalists, retirees, and others, this movement is literally moving through southern states. It is gaining popular support by directly confronting the immorality of extremist governors, legislators, and corporate lobbyists who're denying health care to poor families, preventing both the elderly and students from voting, gutting state funding for public education, and generally legislating a permanent state of inequality and injustice for millions of people."

Democratic Candidates for Governor Unite Against Corbett, UPMC in Debate from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"UPMC was nearly as prominent a pinata as Gov. Tom Corbett as UPMC's employee relations and its standoff with Highmark were repeatedly denounced during a debate Sunday among eight Democratic candidates for governor. In the 90-minute forum at Carnegie Mellon University, the candidates were united in criticizing the Republican administration's education policies. Most voiced support for easing prohibitions against marijuana use in the state, and for stricter regulation and taxing of natural gas fracking. But some of the more affecting moments of the encounter came as the hopefuls were asked to describe failures in their lives."

FBI Questioning Witnesses Over Claims Chris Christie Threatened To Withhold Sandy Relief: Report from the Huffington Post
"The FBI has started questioning witnesses about whether New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's (R) administration threatened to withhold Hurricane Sandy relief money unless Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer (D) agreed to support a billion-dollar development project backed by the governor's office, reports Michael Isikoff at NBC News."

Painting Wendy Davis as a Bad Mother is Political Sexism at its Worst (Jessica Luther) from the Guardian [of the UK]
"Davis is a Democrat running for governor of Texas. Opponents are trying to smear her life story, and the media isn't helping."

Old Democratic Name (Nunn) Stakes Bid on Shifting Georgia from the New York Times
"Two of his closest Republican friends, former Senators John W. Warner of Virginia and Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, are now donors to Ms. Nunn. Mr. Warner attended the breakfast, he said, and walked away impressed. So did Mr. Nunn; watching his daughter tackle military policy questions changed his view of her race..."That morning," he said, "was when I said to myself, 'Hey, she's got as good a shot as anybody in this race, maybe better.' ""

Dinesh D’Souza’s Series of Unfortunate Events from the Daily Beast 
"Author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza was indicted for encouraging fraudulent campaign donations—just the latest in a spiral that has all but sunk his career in the conservative movement."

ORGANIZED RELIGION NUGGET!!
Justin Bieber and Other Celebs You Didn't Know were Religious from CNN 
Yes, religious -- a surprising number of these folks are Buddhists.