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Sunday, January 22, 2012

News Good Morning, News!

Posted by Nathan Gilles on Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 10:19 AM

Newt Gingrich won last night’s South Carolina primary, adding yet another surprise to the funhouse ride that will determine whom the Republicans will pit against President Obama.

So now the circus heads to Florida, and it's all so much uglier for Romney, who also learned this weekend that maybe he didn't actually win/tie in Iowa. And, now, well, the very excellently wealthy candidate is finally going to release his tax returns. On Tuesday. (Which sounds familiar.)

And, hey, if the carnival-like atmosphere of the Republican debates isn’t enough for you, that congregation of very flexible people in colored spandex known as Cirque Du Soleil will be coming to town.

Rain, rain, go away! The previous week’s heavy rains and snow are still causing sporadic flooding around the state—and there's more to come.

Speaking of flooding, activist group MoveOn.org has been deluging the Obama administration with petitions in the hopes that the pesident will open a full investigation into the role major banks played in the housing crisis that kickstarted the current recession.

Joe Paterno is dead? No he isn't. Stupid internet. Wait! No, seriously, Joe Paterno is dead. The college sports icon lived long enough to ensure that every single one of his obituaries contains the words "sex-abuse scandal."

“Those jobs aren’t coming back.” That was Steve Jobs' answer when Barack Obama asked what it would take to produce iPhones (or any similar gadget) in the United States. Seriously, why would Apple pay a living wage to obese, entitled American hillbillies who demand consecutive weekend days off and eight-hour workdays when, instead, Apple can wake up 8,000 Chinese workers living in a dormitory, at midnight, and march them out on zero-notice 12-hour shifts to assemble those very same consumer electronics?

"We have developed a new upper class with advanced educations, often obtained at elite schools, sharing tastes and preferences that set them apart from mainstream America. At the same time, we have developed a new lower class, characterized not by poverty but by withdrawal from America's core cultural institutions."

You know how Pakistan complains about all those drone strikes by the U.S. military? That's a fair amount of theater. Secretly, it's soldiers have been cooperating with the program.

A bull with its horns set ablaze fatally gored a man in Spain.

Twenty-first century Homo sapiens arer getting a glimpse of the world they're leaving behind. The NASA Earth Observatory has completed a six-year project that provides the best-ever snapshot of today’s existing forests. So as deforestation continues apace in the coming decades, we'll be able to look back some day and know for certain just how bad things have gotten.

NASA visualization of forest cover in U.S.
  • Image from NASA.
  • NASA visualization of forest cover in U.S.

 

Comments (6) RSS

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1
I leave for a couple of weeks and suddenly someone I've never heard of is doing GM,N! And Newt Gingrich is winning a primary election! And it's still raining! Looks like I got back just in time.
Posted by Todd Mecklem on January 22, 2012 at 10:59 AM · Report
2
That Wall Street Journal article kind of encapsulated lots of the arguments that I have with cultural conservatives I know. Cultural conservatives generally see economic issues as symptomatic of cultural change and nebulously-defined social erosion.

Liberals such as myself, though, see it the other way around- economic issues drive a lot of social problems. That is, to the extent that things like declining marital rates are even problematic- I don't think they are at all. In other words, Murray thinks that if we fix social issues, the economy will get better, and liberals like me (and probably you, if you read the Mercury) think that fixing the economy will make social issues better.

Reading that essay, I kept thinking "well, you've just defined issues of inequality in such a way that don't need much in the way of economic reforms or regulation." In fact, Murray just hand-waves them away. I find that thinking horribly frightening- it says that no, we don't need to actually change any laws, reform any bad financial systems, or anything else like that. Instead, if we all clap our hands, believe in fairies, and invest ourselves in old social systems like marriage and family, things will magically get better.
Posted by The Right Reverend Rocktimus Prime on January 22, 2012 at 12:50 PM · Report
3
I see at least 750 million trees on that map. If you give people the land security to invest the 30-50 years to tend and harvest them there will be a billion trees on that map.
Posted by Rosy on January 22, 2012 at 1:06 PM · Report
4
If there is ever a freestyle bull event in the summer Olympics, the Spaniards are going to be tough to beat.
Posted by Benjo The Unique on January 22, 2012 at 1:28 PM · Report
5
@2, agree. Monitoring or attempting to dictate "ethics" or "morality" are poor mechanisms for economic growth.
Posted by The Showstopper on January 22, 2012 at 8:30 PM · Report
6
Obama is smart guy. I expect his question to Steve Jobs was rhetorical. But I'm glad Steve got to give at least one obvious and terse answer to a President before he died.
Posted by Fruit Cup on January 22, 2012 at 11:14 PM · Report

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