Flamingos on a cold morning in southern Brazil. From National Geographic.
The Story that Killed Saleem Shahzad (Suhasini Haidar) from The Hindu [of India in English]
"The Pakistani journalist had been reporting on jihadism in the Pakistani military."
The Ayatollah and the Witches in Iran (Mehdi Khalaji) from Project Syndicate
"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has now made the mistake that all Iranian presidents make: he has challenged the authority of the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He is doomed to fail. The challenge posed by Ahmadinejad is such a predictable part of Iranian politics that it has come to be known as “the president’s symptom.”"
The Spanish Are Having Their Own Arab Spring (Adrian Hamilton) from the Independent [of the UK]
"While President Obama was in London extolling the Arabs for seeking the kind of democracy enjoyed in the West, the Spanish were occupying the main square in Madrid demanding the same things as the Arab protesters."
The Roots of Europe's Cultural Masochism (Frits Bolkestein) from the Wall Street Journal
"How did we come to lose confidence in our own civilization?"
Give Obama a Victory Lap for Auto Rescue (Ron Klain) from the Bloomberg News Service
"To describe the results of this multifaceted policy as a success is like saying the cars at Indianapolis are fast. The turnaround has been breathtaking. Skeptics scoffed at the plan’s goal of returning GM to profitability by 2014; as it turned out, the company was profitable by mid-2010. GM’s sales are up by almost a third, and the new Chevy Volt leads the way in innovation among electric cars."
Federal Workers, Feeling Threatened, Unionize from the Huffington Post
"From 2007 through 2010, the American Federation of Government Employees saw its number of active, dues-paying members swell from 216,000 to more than 268,000, according to figures provided by the union. What's more, officials there say they've witnessed a significant spike in workers' interest in unionizing over the last few months as the salaries and benefits of public-sector employees have come under heavy fire from the right."
No surprise here. As I've noted here before, the Great Depression saw an enormous spike in union organizing, much in response to the passage of the Wagner Act. But in addition, almost counter-intuitively, the more desperate people are for work, the more it creates incentives for those who HAVE JOBS to do what they can to protect those jobs. Initially, they will make concessions -- but if enough workers feel they are being abused and/or that they are simply being treated like s@#% they will act ... and unionize.
A related item:
10-Year Real Wage Gains Worse Than During Depression from the Investors Business Daily
"The increase in total private-sector wages, adjusted for inflation, from the start of 2001 has fallen far short of any 10-year period since World War II, according to Commerce Department data."
No surprise here at all. The sad part is that in DC and in state houses across the country, no one gives a rat's a#%. This article has a useful graph.
Pelosi: Dems. "Very Good Chance of Winning" House in 2012, Aided by GOP’s Agenda (Joe Sudbay) from Americablog
"Many of the members to whom I spoke seemed upbeat. During recent town hall meetings, many found their constituents, particularly seniors, are enraged about the GOP plan to destroy Medicare. The Minority Leader spoke to ABC News -- and thinks Democrats can take back the House in 2012:"
Democratic Insiders: Romney, Huntsman Biggest Threats to Obama from the National Journal
"...some Democrats also thought Romney might just be the best of a weak Republican field. "Romney is their alternative [to Obama]--they don't have a good alternative," said one Democratic Insider. Democratic Insiders could list several reasons why Huntsman might be Obama's biggest threat."
The GOP's Dueling Delusional Campaign Ads (David Frum) from The Week
"Slick ads attacking Jon Huntsman and Tim Pawlenty as reasonable moderates show just how divorced from reality today's Republican Party is."
New Hampshire: Mitt Romney’s Must-Win State from Politico
"Mitt Romney couldn’t be more different than John McCain. But as he begins his long-anticipated presidential campaign in New Hampshire Thursday, the similarities there are hard to miss."
The following item comes on the heels of my comment yesterday about the primary focus of Palin's bus tour: look to see what the news is coming from the tour.
Sarah Palin Knocks Mitt Romney Over Individual Mandate Ahead of Romney's 'Official' Announcement (Jed Lewsion) from Daily Kos
"It's pretty obvious that whether or not she's running, Palin intended to throw Romney under the bus with her comments. The fact that she wasn't terribly well prepared for the follow-up question—about state vs. federal mandates—tells us more about her complete lack of interest in studying actual issues and knowing candidates' positions on them"
As I noted yesterday: she is going after the GOP establishment.
A related story:
Mitt Romney: The GOP's Field's Rodney Dangerfield (McKay Coppins) from the Daily Beast
"The Republican frontrunner made his 2012 bid official—just as the press corps left to chase Sarah Palin's bus tour. McKay Coppins reports from New Hampshire."
And this:
How Palin's Winning the Media War (Matt Latimer) from the Daily Beast
"The Alaskan continues her unmatched mastery of the press—getting them to slavishly follow her Tour to Nowhere. Matt Latimer on the roots of her strategy, and why it strikes a deep Republican chord."
Why Going Rogue Won't Work (Joshua Green) from the Atlantic
"Sarah Palin is dominating the political conversation. But if she really wants to be president, she's going about it all wrong."
Fact-Checker: Sarah Palin Collects a Bushel of Pinocchios on Her Bus Tour (Glenn Kessler) from the Washington Post
"She spent half an hour the other day chatting with Fox News’s Greta van Susteren.... Palin responded with her trademark style of making broad assertions with only a shaky command of the facts. We’ll go through the key statements in the order in which she said them, which allows us to begin and end with some absolute whoppers."
Leaked Emails Raise Questions About Original Source of Weiner Tweet from Talking Points Memo
"The ongoing scandal surrounding a lewd tweet sent from Rep. Anthony Weiner's (D-NY) Twitter account took yet another turn for the weird Thursday as alleged e-mails between the person who first noticed the photo and conservative media guru Andrew Breitbart were leaked."
I have found it interesting that the image of Weiner's weiner appeared on his twitter account only briefly -- and yet THIS GUY was all set there to screengrab the image.
OBAMA FAMILY NUGGET!!
A White Woman From Kansas (Roger Cohen) from the New York Times
"...she was also a pioneering advocate of microcredit in the rural communities of the developing world, an unrivaled authority on Javanese blacksmithing, and a firm voice for female empowerment in an Indonesia “of ‘smiling’ or gentle oppression” toward women, as she wrote in one memo for the Ford Foundation. Unbound by convention, Dunham the anthropologist was nonetheless the anti-hippie with her cache of can-do Kansan wisdom: “You’re not okay, I’m not okay, and I know how to fix it.”"
BRITISH MI-6 HUMOR NUGGET!!
MI6 attacks al-Qaeda in 'Operation Cupcake' from the Daily Telegraph [of the UK]
"British intelligence has hacked into an al-Qaeda online magazine and replaced bomb-making instructions with a recipe for cupcakes."
This is SO James Bond circa 1977!
BIZARRE CROSS-CULTURAL NUGGET!!
Confederates on the Rhine (Yoni Applebaum) from the Atlantic
"Why are so many Germans participating in Civil War reenactments—and siding with the South?"
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