News Nuggets 696

 Storms hitting Chicago and Lake Michigan.  From the Daily Mail of the UK.

Rupert Murdoch's Empire Must be Dismantled – Ed Miliband from the Guardian [of the UK]
"Labour leader urges for new media ownership rules saying News Corporation chief has too much power in the UK."
A threat to Murdoch's empire from a different angle here.  Miliband is getting *a lot* of support in Parliament for this argument.

Brooks: Rupert’s Red Menace from Newsweek
"London police arrested Rupert Murdoch protégée Rebekah Brooks on Sunday, before later releasing her on bail. Who is the woman at the heart of the scandal that has rocked the world's most powerful media empire? In this week's Newsweek, Lloyd Grove and Mike Giglio chronicle her extraordinary rise and fall."

Murdoch’s American Scandals (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"With Rupert Murdoch’s empire engulfed in scandal in the UK, Michael Tomasky asks whether the trail of wrongdoing could end up consuming the mogul’s many holdings in the U.S."

The 9/11 Hacking Investigation: Should Rupert Murdoch be Worried? from The Week
"The FBI launches an inquiry into allegations that News Corp. employees tried to illegally hack the phones of Sept. 11 victims."

News Corp Scandal Divides US Along Party Lines from the Guardian [of the UK]
"Claims of illegal attempt to gain 9/11 victims' numbers bring outrage from Democrats and caution from Republicans."
A partisan response in the US!? I'm so shocked!

A New York Times trifecta of important (and negative) assessments of the US's situation right now.
(1) The Clash of Generations (Thomas Friedman) from the New York Times
"If there is one sentiment that unites the crises in Europe and America it is a powerful sense of “baby boomers behaving badly” — a powerful sense that the generation that came of age in the last 50 years, my generation, will be remembered most for the incredible bounty and freedom it received from its parents and the incredible debt burden and constraints it left on its kids."

A very different (but related) sentiment expressed here:
(2) We're Spent (David Leonhardt) from the New York Times
"We are living through a tremendous bust. It isn’t simply a housing bust. It’s a fizzling of the great consumer bubble that was decades in the making."

With another different (but related) view expressed here:
Our Broken Escalator (Nicholas Kristof) from the New York Times
"THE United States supports schools in Afghanistan because we know that education is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to build a country. Alas, we’ve forgotten that lesson at home."

Debt Ceiling Fight May Help Obama Win Independent Voters In 2012 from the Huffington Post
"It's possible the debt-ceiling debate will turn out badly for President Barack Obama. For now, however, it may be helping his image with a vital group: independent voters, who have decided the last several elections. He's certainly playing to them."

The Republican Retreat (Ross Douthat) from the New York Times
"In the space of a few days, a party that once looked capable of pressing the White House into a deal that would have left liberals fuming found itself falling back on two less-palatable options instead: either a procedural gimmick that would try to pin the responsibility for raising the ceiling on President Obama, or a stand on principle that would risk plunging the American economy back into recession. What went wrong?"

Edmund Burke Against Grover Norquist (Garry Wills) from the New York Review of Books
"There is no reason other groups should not issue their own pledges, given the success of Norquist’s. This signals a return to what was known in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as governmental “instruction.” ... The obvious objection to this is that it makes office holders impervious to changed conditions, new evidence, the learning experience of exchanges with his fellows, personal growth, or crises of one sort or another."
I would certainly describe many among the Tea Party as impervious to learning.

5,000 Poor Dallas Residents Stampede Each Other In Race For Scarce Housing Vouchers from Think Progress
"Thursday morning, 5,000 Dallas residents in need of housing assistance showed up at the Jesse Owens Memorial complex early in the morning, hoping to be one of the lucky few to get a coveted spot on a waiting list for housing vouchers. Only 100 vouchers were available."

CULTURAL HAPPINESS NUGGET!!
What Makes Scandinavia Such A Happy Place? (Charles Recknagel) from Radio Free Europe
"A group of economists and sociologists recently gathered near London to discuss how to better understand what makes people consider their own countries as successful and their own lives as happy."