News Nuggets 932

DAYLEE PICTURE: A newborn Royal Antelope, the smallest breed of antelope in the world, at the Lowery Park Zoo in Tampa.  From ZooBorns.

TEN BEST NUGGETS OF THE WEEK!!

1.  Burma: The Land of Lady Liberty (Geoffrey Hiller) from Foreign Policy Magazine
"A photographer returns to Burma to find a nation transformed."

2. America's Pacific Logic (Robert D. Kaplan) from Stratfor Global Intelligence
"From my travels I have seen that this has led to the use of the term "Finlandization" throughout Southeast Asia, whereby China, through the combination of its economic and military power, will undermine the sovereignty of countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, all of which are de facto or de jure U.S. allies."

3. Companies Prepare for a Fossil-Free Future from Der Spiegel [of Germany in English]
"Drivers may hate rising gas prices, but some companies are delighted as they watch the oil price soar. Firms like BMW and Airbus which are leaders in fuel efficiency actually benefit from expensive oil. They are just two of a growing number of companies that are already developing technologies for a post-fossil-fuel world."

4. In Search of Sustainable Swagger (Roger Cohen) from the New York Times 
"The world needs to find a balance between the extremes of developing-world optimism and developed-world moroseness."

5. Hello, Cruel World: What the Fate of One Class of 2011 Says About the Job Market from the New York Times
"The 1.7 million members of the Class of 2011 witnessed, within the four-year span of their college careers, one of the greatest bull markets in United States history and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Last spring, they shed their caps and gowns and joined a kind of B.A. bread line. ... Though the statistics still show that a college degree correlates with both higher income and lower unemployment in the long run, diplomas didn’t seem very valuable when they were handed out last May."

6.  Christianity in Crisis (Andrew Sullivan) from the Daily Beast
"Christianity has been destroyed by politics, priests, and get-rich evangelists. Ignore them, writes Andrew Sullivan, and embrace Him."

7.  In Florida, a Death Foretold (Israel Wilkerson) from the New York Times 
"Americans tend to think of the rigid stratification of caste as a distant notion from feudal Europe or Victorian India. But caste is alive and well in this country, where a still unsettled multiracial society is emerging from the starkly drawn social order that Dollard described. Assumptions about one’s place in this new social order have become a muddying subtext in the case of Trayvon Martin"

8.  The Right’s Stealthy Coup (E.J. Dionne) from the Washington Post 
"Right before our eyes, American conservatism is becoming something very different from what it once was. Yet this transformation is happening by stealth because moderates are too afraid to acknowledge what all their senses tell them. Last week’s Supreme Court oral arguments on health care were the most dramatic example of how radical tea partyism has displaced mainstream conservative thinking."

9.  Obama's Organizational Advantage on Full Display in N.H. (Scott Conroy) from Real Clear Politics
"Almost three months after his resounding victory in the New Hampshire primary launched Mitt Romney toward the Republican nomination, his former campaign headquarters here is empty. ... About a half-mile down the road on Maple Street is another campaign office that has been bustling with activity since it opened in October."

10.  Why Conservative GOP Voters Aren’t Giving Up on Rick Santorum (Michelle Goldberg) from the Daily Beast
"The more the Republican establishment pushes Mitt Romney, the more alienated the religious right becomes. Why the party’s hard-core base isn’t coming around."

Now, for the regular news nuggets of Sunday, April 8th.  Happy Easter everyone!!

HILARIOUS WHITE HOUSE EASTER NUGGET!!
What a howl!! Some people are having way too much fun at the executive mansion these days!
Announcing the 2012 White House Easter Egg Roll Ticket Lottery from the White House
"Bo, The First Dog, announces the 2012 White House Easter Egg Roll Ticket Lottery."

China’s Military Rise: The Dragon’s New Teeth from the Economist [of London]
"A rare look inside the world’s biggest military expansion."

The Other Arab Spring (Thomas Friedman) from the New York Times
"Environmental pressures, not just political and economic ones, stirred change in the Mideast."

U.S. Sees Gains on Iran Intelligence as Boost to Confidence and Access (Joby Warrick and Greg Miller) from the Washington Post
"Hundreds of missions by stealth drones have filled in blanks on Iran’s nuclear program, giving U.S. officials unprecedented insight into Iran’s nuclear efforts."
It has long been my view that US intelligence on Iran's nuclear program has been exceptional.  

Top 50 Things Accomplished by President Barack Obama from Alternet 
"A look back at Obama's first term."

You Can’t Cut Spending Without Cutting Spending (Ezra Klein) from the Washington Post
"Of course, even Ryan’s supporters should see the problem here. If these cuts are too unpopular to detail, then they’re going to be too unpopular to pass. If the only way to defend Ryan’s budget is to beat back any attempts to make it specific, then it’s an empty, useless document."

America Loves a Vigilante. Until We Meet One (Ann Hornaday) from the Washington Post
"Of the countless stories we tell ourselves, the American myth of the solitary enforcer of justice may be the most tenacious, beloved and — as the story of George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin has so grievously demonstrated — distorting."

Republicans Just Don’t Get It (Joan Walsh) from Salon
"As the GOP continues to repel women voters, can you blame President Obama for opening his arms to greet them?"

National Review Fires John Derbyshire (Dylan Byers) from Politico
"The National Review has fired longtime columnist John Derbyshire following an article he wrote for an online magazine that was widely viewed as racist. "[Derbyshire's] latest provocation, in a webzine, lurches from the politically incorrect to the nasty and indefensible,""
It is SO rare that one sees right-wing talkers really come out and condemn one of their own. What's predictable is that hard-core right wingers will now throw fits because this guy was fired.  

Stop Romanticizing the Tea Party Movement (Conor Friedersdorf) from the Atlantic
"In theory, it stands for traditional virtues and against unchecked government. In practice, it elevates absurd charlatans that even GOP primary voters reject."

Why Marco Rubio’s Vice-Presidential Stock Is Overvalued (Michael Crowley) from Time Magazine
"I suspect Rubio may understand that his political stock is overvalued, at least in this context. He’s an impressive young talent. But the assumption that Rubio can have a magic-wand effect over Latinos for the Republican ticket may be simplistic:"

TECHNOLOGY NUGGET!!
Will You Miss DVDs When They're Gone? from the Huffington Post
"The latest indication that a disc-less future is already here comes in a study released last week by trade publication IHS Screen Digest (available behind a paywall here). According to the study, streaming viewing of movies will overtake disc viewing this year."

ANOTHER TECHNOLOGY NUGGET!!
New Device Makes Wheel Chairs Obsolete from wimps.com
Looks like a real breakthrough device!  "Obsolete"?  Maybe not.  They don't show this thing outdoors.

WHITE HOUSE HISTORY NUGGET!!
White House Easter Egg Roll 2012: History Of A Great Tradition (PHOTOS) from the Huffington Post
"More than 35,000 people are expected to take part in the 2012 White House Easter Egg Roll, being held on Monday. This year marks the 134th anniversary of the event, which used to be held on the Capitol grounds until the late 1870s when Congress, worried about damage to the grass, passed a law ending this tradition. President Rutherford B. Hayes moved the roll to the White House lawn in 1878."

News Nuggets 931

DAYLEE PICTURE: A melting stream in Finland.  From National Geographic.

Germany Set to Tax Young from the Sydney Morning Herald [of Australia] 
"GERMANY is proposing to levy extra taxes on the young to pay for the costs of the country's growing numbers of old people, under government plans for a ''demographic reserve'' levy."
They must be watching how American lawmakers handle these fiscal problems.

Hello, Cruel World: What the Fate of One Class of 2011 Says About the Job Market from the New York Times
"The 1.7 million members of the Class of 2011 witnessed, within the four-year span of their college careers, one of the greatest bull markets in United States history and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Last spring, they shed their caps and gowns and joined a kind of B.A. bread line. ... Though the statistics still show that a college degree correlates with both higher income and lower unemployment in the long run, diplomas didn’t seem very valuable when they were handed out last May."

Are Liberal Arts Degrees Useful? from the New York Times
"Nathaniel Penn’s article on the fate of recent college graduates in today’s job market inspired responses from readers over whether liberal arts degrees are useful, whether accruing college debt is a wise choice and whether attending college is truly worth it in the end."

Paul Ryan’s Risky Ideas (Fred Kaplan) from Slate
"Does the chairman of the House Budget Committee know anything about how a military budget gets made?"

Obama Has Aggressive Internet Strategy to Woo Supporters from the Washington Post
"The Obama campaign, and to a lesser extent its GOP rivals, have fully embraced the potential of the Internet age to reach possible supporters this campaign season. The president’s campaign has bought Google advertising space next to all sorts of searches, including “Warren Buffett,” “Obama singing,” “Obama birthday” and, for basketball fans, “Obama bracket.”"

Romney’s SWAT Team Closes Out The Primaries from BuzzFeed
"A handful of staffers moved from state to state in the final weeks, dogging Santorum and whipping local Republicans into shape. The downside: They’re not leaving much behind."

Foreign Policy's Big Bang: Reviews of Books by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Kagan (Jonathan Freedland) from the New York Times
"New books by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Kagan address the subject of America’s decline from opposite sides of the political aisle but find much room for agreement."

Mitt Romney Won. And Now He's Going to Lose (Robert Shrum) from The Week 
"The all-but-certain GOP nominee swung so far to the right to please the conservative base that he stands next to no shot of beating President Obama."

TAX NUGGET [of a sort]!!
What’s the Easiest Way to Cheat on Your Taxes? from the New York Times
"And eight other important questions you always wanted to ask an accountant."

WWII & HOLLYWOOD NUGGET!!
Intriguing Stories of How Those Who Went on to Become Famous Survived the Last Dreadful Days of the War from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
This book sounds quite interesting.
"...a riveting new book tells the story of those tumultuous five days at the end of the war, including the experiences of ordinary people, some of whom would later lead extraordinary and famous lives. ... While Sophia Loren and her family were anxiously wondering what would happen to them after Mussolini’s death, in Arnhem in Holland, another young girl was on the point of starvation. The Allies had tried to take the town in September 1944. But Operation Market Garden had failed, and by April 1945, the Dutch were so starving that they were reduced to frying tulip bulbs, their ragged clothing hanging loose on their gaunt frames. That spring so many died of starvation that they ran out of coffins to bury them.  Fifteen-year-old Audrey Hepburn-Ruston had been hovering close to death for months, sick with jaundice, her legs and feet swollen from oedema caused by malnutrition, so weak with hunger that she could barely climb the stairs in her grandfather’s home, just outside Arnhem.

MICHELLE OBAMA NUGGET!!
Is Michelle Obama Pioneering a New Model For First Ladies? (Simon Meiners, Nick Robins-Early, Perry Stein) from the New Republic
"While it’s customary for the spouse of the president to spearhead a feel-good campaign like literacy promotion or urban beautification, few have used their fame as Michelle has, or brought as much pizzazz to their projects. (It’s tough to imagine Nancy Reagan teaching Americans how to Dougie.)"

BRITISH MONARCHY BOOK NUGGET!!
The First Tudor: A Review of The Winter King: A Portrait of Henry VII from the New York Times
"While Penn’s portrait of the king himself conjures up a figure as compellingly unpleasant as a compound of Hannibal Lecter and Bernard Madoff, the strength of this outstanding book lies in his ability to breathe life into the sorts of ceremonious scenes of court life portrayed in the books of hours belonging to Henry’s great rivals on the Continent."

NOVEL WRITING NUGGET!!
How To Write The Great American Novel (Jim Behrle) from The Awl
This is pretty funny ... and somewhat insightful.
"...maybe you want to make kids forever have to read your book in freshman English classes and struggle with the magnitude of your truth and beauty. An honorable goal, to be sure. Here’s a few tips on how to write a book that ought to be carved into marble, made into a bestselling movie with action figures and make you a much better, much happier person."

SPACE PROGRAM NUGGET!!
NASA's Gemini Program PHOTOS, 50 Years Later: Spacewalks, Earthrises & Space Food from the Huffington Post
"April 2012 marks 50 years since the beginning of NASA's Gemini program. Carried out from 1962-1966, during the feverish middle years of the space race, the Gemini missions achieved a wide range of American firsts, from the earliest space walk to the earliest in-flight docking of two
spacecrafts."

News Nuggets 930

DAYLEE PICTURE: Quite an electrical storm in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  From the Daily Mail of the UK.

Obama’s Signal to Iran (David Ignatius) from the Washington Post
"President Obama has signaled Iran that the United States would accept an Iranian civilian nuclear program if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei can back up his recent public claim that his nation “will never pursue nuclear weapons.”"

America's Pacific Logic (Robert Kaplan) from Stratfor Global Intelligence
"Beijing has been buying smart, investing in subs, ballistic missiles, and space and cyber warfare as part of a general defense build-up. China has no intention of going to war with the United States, but it does seek to impede in time of crisis U.S. military access to the South China Sea and the rest of maritime Asia. From my travels I have seen that this has led to the use of the term "Finlandization" throughout Southeast Asia, whereby China, through the combination of its economic and military power, will undermine the sovereignty of countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, all of which are de facto or de jure U.S. allies."

In Greece, Six Universities at Risk of Closure After Bond Swap from the Athens News [of Greece in English]
Craziness.  This kind of shortsightedness is what will turn an economic downturn into a decades-long decline that almost explicitly undermines the future prospects of Greece's next generation.  Sad.
"Six of the country's universities say they face immediate closure after the recent bondswap reduced their assets to zero. An emergency meeting of university rectors on Tuesday heard that only 33m euros remained of 120m euros that 17 Greek universities had deposited with the Bank of Greece for their operating expenses, while six university accounts were now completely empty meaning they would soon be unable to stay open."

Suicide Rate Jumps Amid European Financial Crisis from CBS News
"When an elderly Greek man killed himself on a busy Athens street Wednesday, he left a note blaming the nation's financial crisis. Tragic acts like this are increasing across Europe, as worsening economies are causing rising rates of suicide."

China is Deeply Flawed. Its Dominance is Not Inevitable (Jonathan Fenby) from the Guardian [of the UK]
"The country's success will continue only if its elites initiate the political and economic reforms it desperately needs."
This has long been my view.  Without major political reform, China will lack the internal stability to be a real long-term threat to the US.

Anti-Bullying Laws Challenged By Christian Groups As Threats To Religious Freedom from the Huffington Post
"The group has been promoting an anti-anti-bullying message for years. When a California school adopted an anti-bullying rule that mentioned gays and lesbians in 2010, backlash ensued."
So much for the meek inheriting the Earth...

White House: Obama Thinks Augusta Should Allow Women from the Wall Street Journal
"Augusta’s longstanding policy of not permitting women as members has upset women’s groups and Democrats for years, and the annual Masters tournament always brings fresh attention to the issue. This year, questions about the policy are being raised because the new CEO of IBM, a longtime sponsor of the Masters, is a woman, Ginni Rometty, and her predecessors have all been admitted to the club."
Can anyone guess why Obama is taking such a public position on this issue? See the following.

Down in a Swing State Poll, Can Mitt Romney Win Women Voters Back? (Patricia Murphy) from the Daily Beast
"He’s dropped 19 percentage points among independent female voters in one poll of swing states. Is it too late for Romney to get past the cultural issues to focus on the economy?"

Then there's this item:
White House Says GOP Budget A Disaster For Women from Talking Points Memo 
"The Obama administration is hoping for a Friday three-fer. Amid a political fight over women’s rights that has caused GOP support among women to collapse; a Friday jobs report expected to show that the economy continues to grow rapidly; and an election year fight over the Republican Party’s controversial budget, the White House will host a forum on women and the economy — to highlight the administration’s accomplishments in the area of women’s rights..."
Obama and company are going to make the GOP pay big time for the Catholic bishops/Limbaugh induced fight over contraception.  

Obama Solidifying Lead Among Independents in Swing States from Gallup 
"Barack Obama has a 48% to 39% advantage over Mitt Romney among independent voters in 12 key swing states. He first moved ahead of Romney among this group in February after being tied in January and trailing last year."

Obama's Organizational Advantage on Full Display in N.H. (Scott Conroy) from Real Clear Politics
"Almost three months after his resounding victory in the New Hampshire primary launched Mitt Romney toward the Republican nomination, his former campaign headquarters here is empty. ... About a half-mile down the road on Maple Street is another campaign office that has been bustling with activity since it opened in October."

Ed Gillespie Hire Indicates the Mitt Romney Campaign Can't Get It Together from Daily Kos
A long excerpt is warranted.  The rest is worth reading.  After Mitt's Florida victory and the firing of his debate coach, I began to seriously question the people surrounding Romney.  This brings it to a new level. 
"You'll note how they've managed to consistently failed to amplify the candidate's message even when he sticks to the script. Or the way they've bungled the primary campaign by allowing Rick Santorum, a used-up big time loser with no money and no organization to give them a run for their money. Or the way they step on their own candidate by leaking to the press how weak a performer Romney is. Or having the campaign manager end up giving the nation a metaphor for the candidate in the form of a child's toy from the 1960s. Or, and this is big, how they've failed to build any significant amount of ground organization for the general election during the primary process despite the candidate traveling around the country for six years."

Has the Tea Party Become a GOP Liability? (Aaron Blake) from the Washington Post
"The tea party may have won Republicans the House of Representatives in 2010. In 2012, it’s looking like it could help Democrats retain the White House. The tea party movement, now nearly three years old, has fallen out of favor with Americans. And Democrats are prepared to use it against Republicans in the 2012 election."

Mitt Romney’s Top Five Vice President Options, From Marco Rubio to Paul Ryan (Ben Jacobs) from the Daily Beast
"Conventional wisdom says Romney will need a running mate who’s not another boring white guy. The betting by Intrade ranges from Latino Sen. Marco Rubio at the top, to budget darling Paul Ryan to firebrand Chris Christie to Ohio’s Rob Portman—a boring white guy."

Handicapping Romney’s Potential Running Mates (Eugene Robinson) from the Washington Post
"Playing second fiddle to Mitt Romney won’t be easy, but somebody has to be his running mate. Let’s handicap the field:"

E-BOOKS NUGGET!!
Pew E-book Survey: 20 Percent of U.S. Is Reading Electronically (Malcolm Johnson) from the Huffington Post
"According to a new report, digital reading has gone viral, with one in five Americans on board last year. Malcolm Jones on the good news for publishers—and the bad news for librarians."

HILARIOUS DOG VIDEO NUGGET!!
Dog All Tangled Up in Window Blinds from YouTube via Americablog

News Nuggets 929

DAYLEE PICTURE: A horned owl in Saskatchewan, Canada.  From National Geographic.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Woos Washington (Vivian Salama) from the Daily Beast
"In a milestone for the Islamist Egyptian group, delegates from its affiliated Freedom and Justice Party are meeting with lawmakers in Washington, talking up “Sharia principles, not Sharia rulings” and the upcoming presidential election."
This COULD be a very important development.  It has long been argued by Obama's critics that support for the Arab Spring uprisings would inevitably lead to Islamist governments (like Iran's), government's deeply hostile to America's interests.  These meetings, however suggest that, while those governments may be Islamist, they may be more amenable and pragmatic.  I view this as a function of having been democratically elected: they are now ON THE HOOK for producing results; they can't just continue to lay all the blame on the US and its allies.  

Job Market Looking Up for New College Graduates: Study from CNBC
"This year's college graduates will find a more active, and potentially lucrative, hiring market, new data show. Employers expect to hire 10 percent more college graduates from the Class of 2012 than they did from last year's crop of grads, according to a study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers."

University of Pittsburgh Bathroom Policy Surprises, Outrages Transgender Faculty, Students from the Pittsburgh City Paper
"On March 20, a university official informed Pitt's Anti-Discriminatory Policies Committee that transgender students and faculty must use bathroom facilities that match the gender on their birth certificate rather than the gender with which they identify. Since news of the controversial policy broke in the Pitt News student newspaper, critics have condemned it as a potentially harmful move that violates the university's anti-discrimination policy, which prohibits discrimination "on the basis of … gender identity and expression.""

How the Supreme Court Ended Up on the Ropes (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"The Supreme Court once enjoyed respect and commanded authority, but now it’s a fully political (and politicized) body. And the justices have no one to blame but themselves."

Conservatives Bristle At Federal Court’s Retaliatory Move At Obama from the Talking Points Memo
"...federal judges are supposed to stay above the political fray. And even conservatives are concerned that the circuit court judges stepped out of bounds Tuesday — and made Obama’s point about judicial overreach for him."

A Kinder Mix of Religion and Politics During Holy Week (E.J. Dionne) from the Washington Post
"... even in the Easter season, it’s hard not to notice that Christianity hasn’t been presented in its own best light during this election year because Christians have not exactly been putting forward their best selves. ... because Christians have a realistic and non-utopian view of human nature, they should be especially alive to the ambiguities and ambivalences of politics."

Rahm Emanuel Has a Problem With Democracy (Rick Perlstein) from Rolling Stone Magazine
"I’d argue that his humbling has been good for the city, and not just because the event would have been a riotous disaster. It’s also good because it’s been clarifying, having flushed out for the public something that reporters covering City Hall have known all along: Rahm Emanuel is no friend of democracy."

Anti-Evolution ‘Monkey Bill’ Poised To Become Law In Tennessee from Think Progress
"Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) announced yesterday that he will “probably” sign a bill that attacks the teaching of “biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning” by giving broad new legal immunities to teachers who question evolution and other widely accepted scientific theories."

Mitt’s ‘Marvelous’ Misjudgment (Matt Miller) from the Washington Post 
"The idea that Republicans were sticking their heads in the noose again had to seem like an unbelievable stroke of political luck. Luck that was only compounded by Mitt Romney’s full-throated endorsement of Ryan’s plan on the campaign trail."

Scarborough: 'No One' In GOP Establishment Thinks Romney Will Beat Obama from Newsbusters
"I have yet to meet anybody in the Republican establishment that worked for George W. Bush, that works in the Republican congress, that worked for Ronald Reagan that thinks Mitt Romney is going to win the general election."

Independents are Abandoning Romney (or Not) (Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake) from the Washington Post
"New numbers from a USA Today/Gallup poll of 12 swing states suggests that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is quickly losing support among independent voters — a voting bloc considered the crown jewel of the 2012 election."

Why Conservative GOP Voters Aren’t Giving Up on Rick Santorum (Michelle Goldberg) from the Daily Beast
"The more the Republican establishment pushes Mitt Romney, the more alienated the religious right becomes. Why the party’s hard-core base isn’t coming around."

News Nuggets 928

DAYLEE PICTURE: The Rubbing Stone on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington Sate.  From National Geographic.  

From Pakistan, Answers Needed about Osama bin Laden (David Ignatius) from the Washington Post
"Let’s see if we’ve got the numbers straight: Osama bin Laden lived in five houses in Pakistan, fathered four children there, kept three wives who took dictation for his rambling directives to his terror network, had two children born in public hospitals — and through it all, the Pakistani government did not know one single thing about his whereabouts? Can this possibly be true? ... But this isn’t a question for Americans, really. It’s a matter for Pakistani officials."

Signs of a New Tiananmen in China ( Minxin Pei) from The Diplomat
"Pervasive corruption, lawlessness among the ruling elites, and a sense of a loss of direction permeating all levels of Chinese society. The conditions for another Tiananmen may be there."
I don't hear anyone predicting that China is about to go through some political upheaval -- but it seems to me that lately political upheaval seem far more prone to come with no warnings.  Based on my readings, the Chinese leadership certainly seem to be taking the prospect of widespread social/political protest quite seriously right now.

In Defense of Drones (Amitai Etzioni) from the National Interest
"If fight we must, drones are the best tool du jour, bar none."

Men in Black (Maureen Dowd) from the New York Times
"How dare President Obama brush back the Supreme Court like that? Has this former constitutional law instructor no respect for our venerable system of checks and balances? Nah. And why should he? This court, cosseted behind white marble pillars, out of reach of TV, accountable to no one once they give the last word, is well on its way to becoming one of the most divisive in modern American history."

Trayvon Martin: The Heart of a Wildfire (Matt Semino) from the Huffington Post
"Spreading like a wildfire, outrage over the shooting death of unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin has ignited an explosive national dialogue about the tumultuous and fractured status of race relations in the United States."

Sanford: The New Selma? (David Weigel) from Slate
"“I have yet to hear him be outraged or even defend ‘his city’ when Ben Jealous, head of the national NAACP, went on Meet the Press this past Sunday and stated that the KKK was alive and well in Sanford. … Sanford was on the precipice of changing its long-standing negative image.” Negative, sure, but never as bad as this. There was the time in the late 1970s when the city responded to an order to desegregate a swimming pool by filling the pool in—it would remain segregated, or nobody would use it."

The City of Sanford's Racist Past (Michael Daly) from the Daily Beast 
"The city of Sanford was named for a man with racist views who helped bring about carnage in the Congo."

Male Birth Control: New Procedure Is 100 Percent Effective, Reversible from the Huffington Post
"The whole procedure takes about 15 minutes and lasts ten years or more and is more easily reversible than a vasectomy."

Must Women “Civilize” Men? (Joan Walsh) from Salon
"At the root of the conservative war on contraception is a deep-seated anxiety about the traditional family."

Is Louisiana About to Allow Discrimination of Gays in Charter Schools? from the Washington Post
"If a bill that passed a Lousiania Senate committee becomes law, charter schools in the state will be able to refuse to accept students based on sexual orientation or English language skills."

Independent Voters Brighten On The Economy from Talking Points Memo 
"Fast forward to April of 2012. Improvement in key economic metrics are having a big political impact, drops in the unemployment rate have made splashes in the media and the stock market has recovered to the level it was at before the Great Recession. And independent voters have started seeing a brighter economic picture."

Calling Radicalism by Its Name from the Editorial Board of the New York Times
"In a blistering speech, President Obama denounced the Republican Party for cruelty and extremism and signaled a tough-minded campaign ahead."

Obama and His Enemies (Amy Davidson) from the New Yorker
"With the results of the Wisconsin, Maryland, and District of Columbia primaries, the choice of a Republican nominee finally looks clear and irrevocable: Mitt Romney. And yet he is the least interesting of the enemies Obama has chosen or will be forced to confront."

Ipsos: 85%-99% Chance of Obama Winning from the Washington Examiner 
"Mitt Romney’s slow but seemingly successful trudge to the GOP nomination aside, President Obama is a virtual lock to win a second term, according to a blockbuster election analysis by Ipsos."

Mitt Romney Wins the Wisconsin Primary — and Reaches for His Etch-a-Sketch (Stephen Stromberg) from the Washington Post
"It is — and here an “of course” is well-deserved — hard to watch Etch-a-Sketch Romney and not think about his long record of pandering to those Jacobins in terms much more disconcerting than those he used Tuesday."
Yup.  Time for Romney to forget everything he said during the primaries.  I suspect he will be especially egregious in saying completely contradictory things in the general -- and barely skip a beat about it.

Republicans Have Lost The Enthusiasm Advantage (For Now) from Talking Points Memo
"The bad news is that at a time when the party is supposed to be rallying around a strong nominee heading into the spring, they seem to be accepting former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as that standard bearer, and the numbers show they aren’t excited about it."

George W. Bush: Barack Obama’s Best Friend in the 2012 Election (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"The GOP wants to erase George W. Bush’s ruinous presidency from the nation’s memory, but the Dems shouldn’t let it happen. Michael Tomasky on the gift that keeps on giving."

Watergate Reporting, the Second Draft: Robert Redford to Produce a Documentary About Watergate from the New York Times
"Commissioned by the Discovery Channel, the project, “All the President’s Men Revisited,” will be a two-hour television documentary about the scandal that doomed Richard M. Nixon’s presidency and will explore its effects on politics and the media in the 40 years since. It will have its premiere in 2013 but will be announced by Discovery this week at its annual presentation for advertisers."

WHITE HOUSE NUGGET!!
Come on in! The First Family throw open the doors of the White House for a virtual tour from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"The First Family have collaborated with Google Art Project to allow people to take a 360-degree tour of 1600 Pennysylvania Avenue from the comfort of their own living rooms. The initiative - where people can take a virtual tour of the building’s public rooms and zoom in on 139 works of art - was launched today as part of the Obamas' efforts to make the White House ‘The People’s House.’"

ARCHITECTURE NUGGET!!
Just don't add a diving board! The incredible apartments that have swimming pools instead of balconies from the Daily Mail [of the UK] 
"Architects have made a splash with a bold design for new towers in Mumbai featuring swimming pools enclosed in glass instead of balconies. Known as Aquaria Grande, the 37-storey skyscrapers were the result of a collaboration between Hong Kong-based architect James Law and Indian real estate company Wadhwa Group."

News Nuggets 927

DAYLEE PICTURE:   Water dark with tannin inspired the river's name, the Rio Negro, in Brazil.  From National Geographic.

Al-Qaeda’s Online Forums Go Dark for Extended Period from the Washington Post
"Al-Qaeda’s main Web forums have been offline for the past 11 days in what experts say is the longest sustained outage of the sites since they began operating eight years ago. No one has publicly claimed responsibility for disabling the sites, but the breadth and the duration of the outages have prompted some experts to conclude the forums have been taken down in a cyberattack — launched perhaps by a government, government-backed organization or hacking group."

Attack On Iran Would Be 'Disastrous' For Middle East, Turkish Prime Minister Warns from the Huffington Post
"Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned over the weekend that an Israeli strike on Iran would have "disastrous" consequences for the Middle East, likely sparking a regional war, Turkish newspapers reported on Sunday. "

In Search of Sustainable Swagger (Roger Cohen) from the New York Times 
"The world needs to find a balance between the extremes of developing-world optimism and developed-world moroseness."

Companies Prepare for a Fossil-Free Future from Der Spiegel [of Germany in English]
"Drivers may hate rising gas prices, but some companies are delighted as they watch the oil price soar. Firms like BMW and Airbus which are leaders in fuel efficiency actually benefit from expensive oil. They are just two of a growing number of companies that are already developing technologies for a post-fossil-fuel world."

How a Grassroots Rebellion Won the Nation's Biggest Climate Victory from Mother Jones Magazine
"Activists have imposed a de facto moratorium on new coal—and beat the Obama EPA to the punch."

Diminishing Returns on Higher Ed (Alfred Lubrano) from the Philadelphia Inquirer 
"Expectations were high — go to college, get a degree, land a good job. But for Generation Y, the payoff has been frustrating, the debt crushing. "

Repealing ‘Obamacare’ Would Explode Debt, Says Government Auditor from Talking Points Memo
"A new report by an independent government auditor concludes that implementing President Obama’s health care law as intended will make a significant dent in the long-term debt forecast."

FBI Questions People in Trayvon Martin Case, Begins 'Parallel Investigation' (Michael Isikoff) from MSNBC
"FBI agents on Monday were questioning potential witnesses in the Trayvon Martin shooting, confirming to NBC News that the agency had begun a "parallel investigation" that focuses on whether the teen's civil rights were violated."

Nancy Pelosi's Fingerprints on Health Care Debate (Carolyn Lochhead) from the San Francisco Chronicle
"If the Supreme Court in June rules the law unconstitutional in whole or in part, the San Francisco Democrat and now House minority leader will have lost not only her speakership but also much or all of her largest legacy. Still, Pelosi did not leave the majority before sprinkling defensive land mines throughout the sprawling legislation that might make Republicans careful what they wish for."

Jane Jacobs and the Republican Radicals (Jason Epstein) from the New York Review of Books
"One of her biographers accurately called her a genius of common sense. She belonged to no faction or party. Her mind was so finely made as T.S. Eliot said of Henry James, that no idea could violate it and none did. She was a skeptical empiricist from head to foot. She would have been disgusted by today’s right-wing Jacobinism which calls itself conservative."

Reid: No Recess Appointments this Time from The Hill
"In return, Republicans allowed passage by unanimous consent of several of President Obama's noncontroversial nominees and allowed Reid to set up a vote on the confirmation of Stephanie Thacker to be a circuit judge for the Fourth Circuit for April 16, the day the Senate returns from its break. "

Conservative Anti-Romney Pundits Struggle to Embrace Mitt (Howard Kurtz) from the Daily Beast
"Will the hard-core anti-Romney pundits come around?"

Related topic ... in a way:
Mitt Romney Can’t Shake Away Impressions He’s Made (Eugene Robinson) from the Washington Post
"In an attempt to foreclose even the remote possibility of a contested convention, the Romney campaign has been trotting out a bevy of prominent Republicans to announce their support. But is it just me, or do these endorsements have all the enthusiasm of a series of hostage tapes?"

Mitt Romney’s Weakness Is Also Strength — or Is It? (Stuart Rothenberg) from Roll Call
"I’m not sure we have ever seen a candidate quite like Mitt Romney. ... Romney won conservatives, while McCain won moderates and liberals. Romney and Huckabee tied to win white evangelicals, while McCain won nonevangelicals. This cycle, Romney has run right again, to establish his conservative credentials, but he has not been successful."

ANOTHER DOG RESCUE NUGGET!!
Here's another great story from Eldad Hagar who rescued Fiona, the dog story from last week's nuggets!
Edie - Rescued an Hour before Euthanasia from YouTube

News Nuggets 926

DAYLEE PICTURE: The Erta Ale volcano in Ethiopia.  From National Geographic.  

UP-FRONT RELIGIOUS NUGGET!!
Christianity in Crisis (Andrew Sullivan) from the Daily Beast
"Christianity has been destroyed by politics, priests, and get-rich evangelists. Ignore them, writes Andrew Sullivan, and embrace Him."
Right on with the first part; not so sure about the second part -- but Sullivan is always worth a close read.

A related story:
The Faith Factor: Religion's New Prominence in Campaign 2012 (Mary Beth McCauley) from the Christian Science Monitor
"Whose beliefs matter? From birth control to taxes, religion is playing an unprecedented role in campaign 2012."

Burma Rejoices on a Long-Delayed Day for Democracy from the Guardian [of the UK]
"Aung San Suu Kyi has won a landmark election, now she faces the challenge of persuading the army to withdraw from politics."

Bin Laden Family Charged and Sentenced in Pakistan from the BBC
"Osama Bin Laden's three widows and two eldest daughters have been charged and sentenced for living in Pakistan illegally, their lawyer has confirmed. They have received a jail term of 45 days in prison and fined 10,000 rupees ($114; £71) each. The women have already served a month of their sentence and are expected to be deported in two weeks."
Deported ... to where?  The way these people have been treated so far, I will be amazed if they get deported to anywhere where they will have anything resembling freedom to talk or move about.

It's an increasingly bad economic scene in Europe:
Eurozone Unemployment Rate Rises in February from the BBC
"Unemployment across countries that use the euro edged higher in February to 10.8%."

Ranks of Working Poor Grow in Europe from the New York Times
"When Melissa Dos Santos leaves her job at the end of each day, she goes home to an unlikely place: a tiny trailer in a campground 30 miles north of Paris, where scores of people who can barely make ends meet are living on a sprawling lot originally designed as a bucolic retreat for vacationers."

How Occupy Wall Street Plans to Spring Back to Action from the Christian Science Monitor
"Occupy Wall Street isn't dead, leaders of the movement say. It's ready to emerge from a winter of hibernation with a spring of renewed activism."

Five Weeks Later, the Eye of a Firestorm in Sanford from the New York Times
"The fateful encounter in Sanford, Fla., above, between a black youth who wanted to go to college and a Hispanic man who wanted to be a judge has polarized the nation."

If Trayvon Martin had been White, and George Zimmerman were Black (Laurence Lewis) from Daily Kos
"If you don't understand how deeply and viciously racist has been the official and right-wing reaction to the murder of Trayvon Martin, all you have to do is consider what would have been the official and right-wing reaction had the races of Martin and his killer been reversed."

Why Rush Limbaugh and the Right Turned on Trayvon Martin (Alex Pareene) from Salon
"A national tragedy became another awful political shouting match, thanks to vile pundits and talk-radio hosts."

Our Pundit-of-the-Day!!
The Right’s Stealthy Coup (E.J. Dionne) from the Washington Post
"Right before our eyes, American conservatism is becoming something very different from what it once was. Yet this transformation is happening by stealth because moderates are too afraid to acknowledge what all their senses tell them. Last week’s Supreme Court oral arguments on health care were the most dramatic example of how radical tea partyism has displaced mainstream conservative thinking."

A Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney (David Javerbaum) from the New York Times 
"... close and repeated study of his campaign in real-world situations has yielded a standard model that has proved eerily accurate in predicting Mitt Romney’s behavior in debate after debate, speech after speech, awkward look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy moment after awkward look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy moment, and every other event in his face-time continuum."

George W. Bush is the GOP's Missing Man (Alex Roarty) from the National Journal
"He was nowhere to be found when Romney met with H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush on Thursday - just as he's been nowhere to be found on the presidential campaign this year. His absence is no accident. The Republican Party has done everything in its power to separate itself from its former leader, who left office with abysmally low approval ratings that helped boost President Obama to a decisive White House win."

What William F. Buckley Would Think of Today’s GOP (Geoffrey Kabaservice) from the New Republic
"“If they think they are being asked to join a movement whose leadership believes the drivel of Robert Welch,” he warned, “they will pass by crackpot alley, and will not pause until they feel the embrace of those way over on the other side, the Liberals.” Buckley consistently maintained that conservatism was the “politics of reality.” Needless to say, it is not a keen grasp of reality that distinguishes the politics of the Tea Party. "

POLL: Women Voters Abandon GOP In Key Battleground States from Talking Points Memo
"President Obama has emerged with an impressive lead in swing states around the country — thanks to women voters abandoning the GOP in droves, according to a new USA Today/Gallup poll showing President Obama leading among women voters in the top dozen battleground states by a whopping 18 points — greater than the 12-point gender gap he won with in 2008."

Democrats Winning Women Across The Board, Polls Show from Talking Points Memo
"It’s one point both Democrats and Republicans agree on: social issues at the top of the ticket are poisoning the well and creating a gender gap across the board — mostly to the benefit of Democrats."

When Gender Gaps Save Presidents (Steve Kornacki) from Salon
"New polling confirms they’re in revolt against the GOP, just like they were in 1996."

SUNKEN TREASURE NUGGET!!
Student Finds Bags Of Sunken Treasure In Oakland's Lake Merritt During School Trash Cleanup from the Huffington Post
"...one 11-year-old girl pulling bags of trash from the water seemed to get a cosmic reward when she spotted two bags sticking out of the lake that ended up being filled with over 100 pieces of antique jewelry, foreign coins, rings, bracelets, and even military medals, the Associated Press "

TREEHOUSE NUGGET!!
Stunning Photos Show TEN-STOREY Tree House that Makes Swiss Family Robinson look like Amateurs from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"The world's tallest treehouse, located in Crossville, Tennessee, makes the Swiss Family Robinsons look like a bunch of amateurs - but that might be because it was commissioned by God."
I don't know about this.  In most states, zoning boards and buildings departments would be all over this!

News Nuggets 925

DAYEE PICTURE: A fascinating graphic from the Book Review section of today's New York Times.

TEN BEST NUGGETS OF THE WEEK!!

1.  The False Debate About Attacking Iran (Nicholas Kristof) from the New York Times
"I WONDER if we in the news media aren’t inadvertently leaving the impression that there is a genuine debate among experts about whether an Israeli military strike on Iran makes sense this year. There really isn’t such a debate. Or rather, it’s the same kind of debate as the one about climate change — credible experts are overwhelmingly on one side. Here’s what a few of them told me:..."

2.  Etching a Foreign Policy (Paul R. Pillar) from the National Interest  
"The choice between Romney and Obama comes down to the choice between a populist and a realist foreign policy."

3.  Natural Gas, Fueling an Economic Revolution from (Fareed Zakaria) from the Washington Post
"The United States now has, at current consumption rates, at least 75 years’ worth of recoverable natural gas. More important, the United States has become the world’s low-cost producer of natural gas. That fact is already changing the future of U.S. manufacturing. Companies such as Dow Chemical and Westlake Chemical are finding that low U.S. energy costs can mitigate the lower cost of labor in Asia..."

4.  Stealing Christianity (Ed Kilgore) from Washington Monthly
"TNR’s Tim Noah wrote yesterday about one of my all-time biggest pet peeves: the constant appropriation of the word “Christian” by conservative evangelicals as exclusive to their distinctive and hardly uncontested point of view. What sent Noah off was an NPR story on “Christian films,” which, of course, turned out to be films by a very particular and not at all representative type of Christians..."

5.  What if Trayvon Martin Was the One Acting in Self-Defense? (Emily Bazelon) from Slate
"... you can flip the premise and see Martin, not Zimmerman, as the person who was acting in self-defense. Jeff writes: “Trayvon saw someone following him, felt threatened, retreated, was still followed, and then was approached by an armed man who had 100 lbs on him. … Because Zimmerman was acting as an aggressor, Trayvon had the right to defend himself by punching, kicking, tackling, etc. Because Zimmerman was acting as the aggressor, his actions cannot be considered self-defense..."

6.  Supremes Won't Save GOP From Itself on Obamacare (David Frum) from the Daily Beast
"Now conservative challengers are hoping the Supreme Court will step in. And who knows? Maybe the justices are feeling bold. Maybe they are ready to expose themselves again to the fiercest partisan criticism since Bush v. Gore, or even fiercer.  I'm not a Court-watcher, and have no expertise to offer, but just going with my gut: I doubt it."

7.  Obama vs. Boehner: Who Killed the Debt Deal? (Matt Bai) from the New York Times
"What emerged from these conversations is a clearer and often surprising picture of exactly how close Obama and Boehner came to finalizing a historic agreement, what exactly was in it and why it ultimately fell apart — including a revelation that illuminates Boehner’s thinking in those final hours and directly contradicts a core element of the version he has told, even to some in his own leadership. The truth here matters for more than its historical value."

8.  Obama 2012: Built to Broadcast (Tim Dickinson) from Rolling Stone Magazine 
"When Obama 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe likened the campaign's email list to a television network in his campaign memoir, it was a rough analogy. But for the revamped Obama 2012 campaign, the meaning is quite literal. ... The Road We've Traveled is remarkable for its glitz and directorial pedigree—the filmmaker is Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim, who directed Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. But the same media strategy is evident throughout the 2012 campaign."

9.  A Daunting Obama Ground Game Awaits Romney from the Los Angeles Times 
"A GOP primary fight devours time and money while the president's campaign pours millions into a national field effort."

10.  Fiona's Amazing Story from YouTube via Americablog
Fiona's amazing story - please share on Facebook & Twitter. Thanks! More on Fiona can be seen here.

Now, to our regular nuggets for Sunday, April 1.

UP-FRONT REFLECTION ON TRAYVON MARTIN CASE!!
In Florida, a Death Foretold (Israel Wilkerson) from the New York Times 
"Americans tend to think of the rigid stratification of caste as a distant notion from feudal Europe or Victorian India. But caste is alive and well in this country, where a still unsettled multiracial society is emerging from the starkly drawn social order that Dollard described. Assumptions about one’s place in this new social order have become a muddying subtext in the case of Trayvon Martin"

Burma: The Land of Lady Liberty (Geoffrey Hiller) from Foreign Policy Magazine
"A photographer returns to Burma to find a nation transformed."

Osama bin Laden in Pakistan from the Editorial Board of the Dawn [of Pakistan in English]
"Is it possible that both civilian and military intelligence were unable to track down one of the world’s most recognised faces as he made his way from one Pakistani town to another? Or does this new information point to something more sinister? Who facilitated his movement and his stops, and were they ordinary citizens or members of law enforcement or intelligence agencies? What is clear is that the judicial commission looking into his presence and the raid in Abbottabad can no longer limit its probe to those topics."

Why Nations Fail (Thomas Friedman) from the New York Times
"I’M reading a fascinating new book called “Why Nations Fail.” The more you read it, the more you appreciate what a fool’s errand we’re on in Afghanistan and how much we need to totally revamp our whole foreign aid strategy. But most intriguing are the warning flares the authors put up about both America and China."

Will Greece Abandon the Euro? Markets Say Yes, Within 3 Years. (Florian Teschner ) from Yahoo News
"Presently, the markets place an 83 percent likelihood on the odds that a country leaves the eurozone by 2015, adopting its own currency instead. Greece is the most likely country to cause this breakup, with Italy ranking a distant second:"

Plenty to Go Around: A Review of Abundance, by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler (John Gertner) from the New York Times
"It seems self-evident that things are getting worse, doesn’t it? Well, maybe. In Silicon Valley, where the locals tend to be too busy starting companies to wallow in gloom, Peter Diamandis has stood out as one of the more striking optimists."

This Week at War: The Navy's Pacific Problem (Robert Haddick) from Foreign Policy Magazine
"Does the U.S. military have the resources for an Asian century?"

Orlando Sentinel: Forensic Voice Identification Expert Says Screaming is Not George Zimmerman's (Meteor Blades) from Daily Kos
"The claim goes to the key issue in the case, the fact that Zimmerman claims he shot the unarmed Trayvon in self-defense because the boy punched him to the ground and smashed his head into a concrete sidewalk. The Orlando Sentinel called in an expert. He says the voice is NOT George Zimmerman's:..."
It should be noted that, accoding to my sources, voice identification software is still pretty sketchy -- look for Zimmerman's attorneys to come up with their own expert saying it was Zimmerman's voice.

Angela Corey, Prosecutor In Trayvon Martin Case, Known As Tough from the Huffington Post
"The special prosecutor leading the investigation into the shooting death of an unarmed black teen by a neighborhood watch volunteer is known for her tough tactics aimed at locking up criminals for long sentences and making it difficult to negotiate light plea bargains."

A Guide To The Night George Zimmerman Killed Trayvon Martin from Talking Points Memo
"...  to try to more clearly present what actually happened on the night of Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla., TPM has put together a guide to the events that reportedly took place before, during and immediately after the killing."

Cruelty: On the Hacking of Travyon Martin's Emails (Ta-Nehisi Coates) from the Atlantic
"...  the attack on the memory of Trayvon Martin began with the exposure of his twitter feed, proceeded apace to the selective posting of pictures, moved with great energy to the faking of pictures, and has now found its natural terminus in unbridled white supremacy:"

Why Do People Bully? A New Documentary Puts the Spotlight on Bullies and the Bullied from Discovery News
"The documentary "Bully," which opens today, shows Alex Libby being pushed, poked and ridiculed. At one point in the film he says, “They push me so far that I want to become the bully." It takes a hard, close look at the bullied and the bullies. Why do people bully?"

The Long-Term Attack on Liberal Legitimacy (Jamelle Bouie) from the Nation 
"... this isn’t the story of a well-functioning political system—it’s an attempt to deny legitimacy to one side of the political spectrum whenever it gains power. Short of forfeiting elections–or passing right-wing legislation—there’s nothing that Democrats can do to satisfy movement conservatives."

ROBOT NUGGET!!
AI robot: How Machine Intelligence is Evolving from the Observer via Raw Story
"No computer can yet pass the ‘Turing test’ and be taken as human. But, says Marcus du Sautoy, the hunt for artificial intelligence is moving in a different, exciting direction that involves creativity, language – and even jazz."

BASEBALL NUGGET!!
Washington Nationals May Finally Meet Expectations — On and Off the Field from the Washington Post
"“I have to say, it’s been for the betterment of the community,” she said. “Our crime seems to be under control. The neighborhood looks 100 percent better. The new housing is a great improvement.” As the Nationals begin their eighth season this week, the team is poised to contend for a playoff berth for the first time."