Sunday, April 7, 2013

Sunday Roundup - April 7, 2013


This is the first of what hopefully will become a regular feature of The Left Bank Cafe.  Every Sunday, I'll post links to articles appearing in online versions of newspapers or journals outside the mainstream media. The intent is to provide some insight and background that you may not be getting with your daily dose of US flavor-of-the-week news.

Weather and Climate Change

Drought in the Plains States, superstormss in the Northeast, blizzards in the UK - extreme weather events are becoming the norm throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Meteorologists ae finding it more difficult to predict the weather. In this April 6 article from The Guardian, a researcher traces the reason for the turbulent patterns to the rapid warming of the Arctic and its effect on the jetstream.
 
WTF?
Some of the more egregious policies from the Bush era are being institutionalized. One of the first actions of Obama after taking office was to sign orders to begin the process of closing the prison at Guantanamo. Four years later, there is little to no hope that this will actually occur. In this April 2 article from RollingStone, the author reviews how "Guantanamo Bay and the RDI program are both back in the news now, each for their own unsavory reasons, and their reemergence should be a reminder of how fully the Obama administration has embraced the logic underpinning the Bush regime's response to 9/11. "  Change you can believe in?
Gun Violence and Gun Laws
Gun deaths are projected to exceed deaths due to automobile accidents by 2015. Still, the assault weapons ban has gone down in flames and President Obama is struggling to get universal background checks, supported by 80-90% of the American public, through Congress. The Guardian points out that "the reality is that the majority of gun legislation in the US is enacted at the state level."  This is a link to an interactive Guardian article from Januaryon state gun laws.
What We Didn't Learn from Europe
As the fiscal cliff's "sequestration" begins to put the brakes on the US economic recovery (e.g., just 88,000 new jobs in March), one wonders at how the austerity/deficit reduction ideology maintains support among policy makers. This article from the EU Observeranalyzes the failure of the European austerity measures and argues that growth "is likely to be subdued at best, recessionary at worst."

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