Via the WSJ, a new Brookings study (PDF) says the Chinese currency will become an international reserve currency within the next decade, "eroding but not displacing the dollar’s dominance."
The release of Apple's computer-based textbooks last month had the usual technology triumphalists buzzing. "Apple And The Coming Education Revolution," blared the headline at Fast Company magazine. "Apple puts iPad at head of the class," screamed MacWorld. And Time magazine declared the announcement the "debut (of) the holy grail of textbooks." It sounds exciting & ...
WEDNESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits: * Bahrain: "Tens of thousands of demonstrators poured into Pearl Square here late into the night as Shiite opposition leaders issued assurances they were not being influenced by Tehran and were not interested...
washingtonpost.com - David S. Broder -- Washington Post Politics Writer
Last evening I had an interesting chat with Lawrence O'Donnell, host of MSNBC's The Last Word, considering how President Obama has done answering the "3 am call" versus how Mitt Romney might answer the crisis call.
As promised, here is the clip.
The Atlantic's Steve Clemons speaks to Lawrence O'Donnell about the "3 am call"
And yes, I know that I should 'never' use sports metaphors when talking politics.
In the clip above, I mention Obama's nuanced use of the clock with Iran, comparing it to "that football game we just saw. . .uh, the Superbowl."
We use what we have in our experience to communicate -- and for the first time in many years, I watched the big game and got obsessed with the clock and those final plays.
I bet something like this shows up in President Obama's White House Correspondent's Dinner speech.
I'm sorry to see that the Giant Mouth That Eats Everything has gotten the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska. She just died in Krakow at age 88.
Szymborska somehow won a Nobel Prize for writing poetry that non-professors can enjoy, such as "Reality Demands." I hope you will read it all, but here's the ending of it:
Where Hiroshima had been
Hiroshima is again,
producing many products
for everyday use.
This terrifying world is not devoid of charms,
of the mornings
that make waking up worthwhile.
The grass is green
on Maciejowice's fields,
and it is studded with dew,
as is normal with grass.
Perhaps all fields are battlefields,
those we remember
and those that are forgotten:
the birch forests and the cedar forests,
the snow and the sand, the iridescent swamps
and the canyons of black defeat,
where now, when the need strikes, you don't cower
under a bush but squat behind it.
What moral flows from this? Probably none.
Only the blood flows, drying quickly,
and, clouds.
On tragic mountain passes
the wind rips hats from unwitting heads
and we can't help
laughing at that
Someday I hope to write a book partly inspired by "Reality Demands," which will be about the places on earth where the most concentrated evil has occurred. If you glance at the cover of this imaginary book quickly, it will look like the title is "HELLO EARTH!" Only if you look closely will you see that there's a narrow space after "HELL" and a very small n after the letter O.
(Thanks to Tristero, who set one of her poems to music, for the news.)
Amazon is planning to launch a retail store in Seattle in the coming months, according to reports published by Bloomberg and Good E-Reader. The endeavor is meant to serve as a pilot project for a possible chain of stores that would sell Amazon Exclusive books, as well as its Kindle Fire tablet, line of e-readers, and related accessories.
Earlier this morning, we wrote that President Obama and his campaign would be taking heat from good-government groups, the media, and liberals on their decision to encourage donors to give money to a pro-Obama Super PAC.
Mitt "No Birth Control for You!" Romney (Jim Young/Reuters)
This probably has more to do with the fact that Rick Santorum is expected to do well in tonight's caucuses as anything, but Mitt Romney has decided to join the rabid pack of Republicans attacking President Obama for making family planning just a little bit easier and more affordable for Americans. He's joining forces with the bishops and has added an attack on the administration's new birth control rule to his stump speech.
“Just this last week, this same administration said that in churches and the institutions they run, such as schools and let’s say adoption agencies, hospitals, that they have to provide for their employees, free of charge, contraceptives, morning-after pills — in other words abortive pills and the like at no cost,” Mr. Romney said. “Think what that does to people in faiths without sharing those views. This is a violation of conscience.”
(Side note: Republicans are supposed to pretend science and biology and stuff is all a matter of interpretation, but for the record, contraception is not abortion, even emergency contraception. Romney's not an idiot. He knows this. What he's doing right there, he's lying, deliberately.)
The new rule simply requires employers and insurers to include prescription contraceptives without cost-sharing, carving out an exemption for religious institutions. It exempts churches that are actually functioning houses of worship from. It exempts religious non-profit organizations whose primary mission is to serve people of faith. Twenty-eight states already have this insurance requirement. It's just smart policy that makes the lives of millions of Americans just a little bit simpler.
But for a tiny sliver of the population whose primary goal in life is seeing women punished for having sex, it's the end of the world. And Mitt Romney wants their votes! He's gonna have a bit of a problem with that, because as with everything else, there's a moderate Mitt in the wings. When he was governor, he "required all Massachusetts hospitals, including Catholic ones, to provide emergency contraception to rape victims." That's not forgotten.
“The initial injury to Catholic religious freedom came not from the Obama administration but from the Romney administration,’’ said C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts. “President Obama’s plan certainly constitutes an assault on the constitutional rights of Catholics, but I’m not sure Governor Romney is in a position to assert that, given his own very mixed record on this.’’
Romney isn't going to be able to out-Santorum Santorum when it comes to the crazy on birth control, and he sure as hell isn't going to be able to make hard-line Catholics and evangelicals forget that he's a Mormon. In fact, by joining in this attack and highlighting religion, he's reminding them that he's Mormon. And in the course of all of this, he's opening himself up to yet more charges of flip-flopping. So, good luck with this one, Mitt.
