News Nuggets 573

A view of Chikuminuk Lake in Alaska.  From National Geographic.

UP-FRONT TERRIFYING VIDEO NUGGET!!
What it looked like when the tsunami came in.

Reactor Fuel Rods Fully Exposed: Coolant Failure Now Reported in No. 2 Unit from the Japan Times
"The radioactive fuel rods at the No. 2 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 power station were fully exposed at one point Monday, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said, raising the possibility that it suffered a partial core meltdown."

Tsurvival: What to Do if a Tsunami Hits (Christopher Beam) from Slate
"A tsunami hit the Japanese coastline north of Tokyo Friday, triggered by a massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake. The official death toll is more than 300. How do you survive a tsunami?"

Nuclear Contamination: What to Do from Discovery News
"Find out the best ways to protect civilians from nuclear fallout."

Four Ways the U.S. Can Help Japan, Also Itself (Amity Shlaes) from Bloomberg News Service
"This week of horror has generated record good will in the U.S. toward Japan."

U.S. Military Joins in Quake-Relief Effort from the Wall Street Journal
"Marines stationed on Okinawa dispatched a high-speed military ferry to Japan Monday morning to assist in the operations, according to the U.S. military. The fast logistics craft, based on a commercial passenger ferry, is to deliver supplies, communications equipment, personnel and equipment for a refueling base."

Memories, Washed Away (Marie Mutsuki Mockett) from the New York Times
"ON Aug. 9, 1945, my great-uncle was out fishing in the Pacific, far enough away from Nagasaki, Japan, that he missed the immediate impact of the atomic bomb dropped by the Americans that day. My great-aunt was in their new house outside Nagasaki; the entire family had only a few days earlier fled the city because my great-uncle feared a repeat of the bombing of Hiroshima. I heard this story many times during my childhood. Back then, it made me feel that my great-uncle was a clever man. As an adult, I realized he was also very lucky, because cleverness alone cannot keep you safe."

The Ike Phase (David Brooks) from the New York Times
"The Obama administration has tried to emulate both impulses. During the first two years, it hewed to Kennedy’s seize-the-moment style. Now it seems to be copying the Eisenhower mood."

Iraq Then, Libya Now (Ross Douthat) from the New York Times
"… it’s striking how quickly the bipartisan coalition that backed the Iraq invasion has reassembled itself to urge President Obama to use military force against Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi."
Indeed.

The Fourth Wave (Carl Gershman) from the New Republic
"Where the Middle East revolts fit in the history of democratization—and how we can support them."

China’s Gradual Revolution (Guobin Yang) from the New York Times
"That’s how the Chinese “Jasmine Revolution” has turned out so far. But while it’s true that sudden, radical change is not likely to happen in China, that’s no reason for despair: change has been under way in China for years, but in forms more subtle than most people outside the country understand."

The Note: GOP Losing Ground In Battle Over Deficit from ABC News
"What's more, by a 9-point margin Americans now see Obama as better able to handle the deficit than GOP lawmakers in Congress. That represents an 11-point drop for the GOP since December -- a period when Republicans have made cutting federal spending a centerpiece of their agenda. And here’s another interesting fact, according to ABC polling analyst Gary Langer: “The drop in trust to handle the economy has occurred chiefly among independents, now drawing away from the GOP after rallying to its side."

Chuck Schumer: House GOP Acting Like 'Scott Walker Republicans' from the Huffington Post
"The extent to which Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) has, for Democrats, become emblematic of conservative overreach was evident on Tuesday as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) invoked Walker in an effort to tarnish the bargaining posture of congressional Republicans engaged in negotiations over the federal budget."
Normally, I don't post articles on whatever the daily partisan talking point is -- but it has to be said: this is a REALLY GREAT talking point!  It is just this kind of 'branding' short-hand that the Dems have been missing in most of their clashes with the GOP in Congress.

Further Analysis Finds Deceptive Editing In Sting Tape, As NPR Gains An Unlikely Defender from the Huffington Post
"Glenn Beck-branded website The Blaze may seem an unlikely defender of NPR, but when the site's editor, Scott Baker, and video production specialist, Pam Key, examined the raw footage, they found "questionable editing and tactics" and reported them all out. The observations they make in their analysis include the following:"

WI State Recall Movement Stands Alone in U.S. History (Editorial) from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"Number of state lawmakers removed from office by recall in all of American history: 13. Number of state lawmakers currently facing recall campaigns in Wisconsin: 16.  Those figures hint at the oddity and immensity of what’s going on in the Badger State."

Nearly Half of Signatures Collected for Recall of Wisconsin GOP State Senators, Dems say (Greg Sargent) from the Washington Post
"In another sign that the Wisconsin GOP’s quick passage of the bill to roll back bargaining rights is only causing the fight to escalate, Dems have now collected over 45 percent of the signatures necessary to hold recall elections for eight GOP state senators, the Wisconsin Democratic Party tells me."

Wisconsin Recall: 3 GOP State Senators Trail Generic Dem, More at Risk from Daily Kos
"We asked our pollster, Public Policy Polling, to test the waters in all eight Republican-held state Senate districts in Wisconsin which are currently the target of recall efforts. PPP went into the field over the weekend, and the numbers we got back are very interesting. I've summarized the key results in the table below."

Michigan’s GOP Gov. Slashes Corporate Tax Rate by 86 Percent, Hikes Taxes for Working Poor from ThinkProgress
"As we’ve been documenting, several conservative governors have proposed placing the brunt of deficit reduction onto the backs of their state’s public employees, students, and middle-class taxpayers, while simultaneously trying to enact corporate tax cuts and giveaways. Govs. Rick Scott (R-FL), Tom Corbett (R-PA), and Jan Brewer (R-AZ) have all gone down this road.  Following suit, Gov. Rick Snyder (R-MI) has proposed ending his state’s Earned Income Tax Credit"
This is a classic example of legislative class warfare.  It is my sense that voters across the country are beginning to wise up on this score.

Sen. Judd Gregg: Sadly, the Primary Process Might Help Sarah Palin from The Hill
"All this leads one to conclude that the Democratic Party’s nomination process of 2008, which was the most extended and competitive contest of recent times, might look like child’s play compared to the Republican enterprise of 2012. It is plausible that the most likely scenario will be that this could be the first convention since 1952 in which no one really knows who is going to be the nominee going into the hall."

OH-Gov: Brutal numbers for Kasich, SB 5 from Public Policy Polling
"In a rematch of last fall's election, Ted Strickland (D) would crush Gov. John Kasich (R), 55% to 40%."
Here as elsewhere, these poll numbers won't alter the GOP's course.  They are supremely confident that voters will forget about all this in six months.  Like the Dems with health care, I think they're way off base.  Only time will tell.  This is good news for Obama for next year though.

Rush's Presidential Standard (And Palin) (Andrew Sullivan) from the Atlantic
"This is a fascinating moment. Rush Limbaugh tries to fathom just why any leading Repubican would trash Sarah Palin as the Al Sharpton of the right. Part of this, to my mind, has to be Limbaugh's deeply ingrained racism. To compare a Republican white woman with a Democratic black man prompts this kind of response:"
As Andrew Sullivan points out, in the context of today's GOP, Sarah Palin would rather have Rush Limbaugh on her side than George Will.

TRAVEL NUGGET!!
Traveling to Europe this Year? Five Things You Need to Know from the Los Angeles Times
"Southern and Eastern Europe are a bargain; high-speed trains make traveling quick and easy; the euro's good exchange rate; all eyes are on London; and travel apps at your fingertips."

LITERARY ADVENTURE NUGGET!!
A True Adventure at Sea and on Shore from the Wall Street Journal
"Nowhere can you take the measure of a man more accurately than at sea. That's not something Richard Henry Dana Jr. knew when he set off from Boston as an ordinary seaman in 1835 on the brig Pilgrim, bound for California via Cape Horn."

PET NUGGET!!
The Creature Connection (Natalie Angier) from the New York Times
"Our love for animals can be traced to our capacity to infer the mental states of others, which archaeological evidence suggests emerged more than 50,000 ago."

NOT-SOMETHING-YOU-SEE-EVERYDAY NUGGET!!
Penguins Waddling Down the Aisle of a Plane En Route to SeaWorld from Huffington Post
"On a Southwest flight from San Francisco to San Diego on March 12th, a group from SeaWorld was transporting penguins to a convention in the southern California city and decided to let them have a little free time while mid-air."