From the always dependable Reuters:

Analysis: Obama among the winners in Iowa

By Tim Reid and Sam Youngman
January 4, 2011

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) – After a dramatic, confusing night of suspense in the Republican Party’s Iowa caucuses, the big winner may well have been a Democrat: Barack Obama.

The president’s re-election campaign had reason to smile early Wednesday, as Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum battled to a virtual dead heat in the caucuses that kicked off the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

[Romney's] razor-thin margin over Santorum – a social conservative who ran a low-budget campaign with little advertising – reinforces persistent doubts about Romney’s ability to win over his party’s conservative base.

It also increases the chances that Romney’s still-likely march to the Republican nomination will not be the quick kill Romney has hoped for, analysts and strategists said on Wednesday.

We will soon see who these analysts and strategists are.

For an Obama campaign that has long operated on the assumption that it will face Romney in the November 6 election, that is good news.

"Democratic heavyweights are quietly celebrating tonight," David Gergen, a former adviser to two Republican and two Democratic presidents, told Reuters. "They see the presumed (Republican) nominee, Mitt Romney, unable to close the deal and a Republican electorate not only uncertain, but lacking great enthusiasm." …

Well, if David Gergen says it, it must be true.

HAS ROMNEY ‘FLATLINED’?

That is really the Reuters sub-headline here.

When he finished second to Huckabee in Iowa in 2008, Romney won 25 percent of the vote in the state.

On Tuesday he received roughly the same percentage of the vote. Despite being the front-runner in the Republican race, Romney has not risen above 25 percent in national Republican polls.

Many Republican strategists say that is a problem.

"Mitt Romney has flatlined," said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist. "Obviously, he emerges as the odds-on favorite to win the nomination. But (Tuesday) was a good night for him, not a great night." …

"Many Republican strategists" say this?

"What comes out of Iowa is not a clear picture," said Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist. "Romney is a guy who got 25 percent of the vote four years ago. There is a lot of incentive for the (other Republicans) to keep going."

So, all told, Reuters ‘analysts and strategists’ consists of two Democrats and some Republican nobody has ever heard of.

By the way, note that while Reuters deems Obama a clear winner in Iowa, they don’t see any Republican winners.

Isn’t that odd? But typical.

From the New York Post:

Columbia offers ‘Occupy 101’

By ANNIE KARNI
January 1, 2012

Does getting pepper-sprayed count as extra credit?

Columbia University is offering a new course on Occupy Wall Street next semester — sending upperclassmen and grad students into the field for full course credit.

The class is taught by Dr. Hannah Appel, who boasts about her nights camped out in Zuccotti Park.

As many as 30 students will be expected to get involved in ongoing OWS projects outside the classroom, the syllabus says.

The class will be in the anthropology department and called “Occupy the Field: Global Finance, Inequality, Social Movement.” It will be divided between seminars at the Morningside Heights campus and fieldwork.

On her blog, Appel defends OWS, arguing that “it is important to push back against the rhetoric of ‘disorganization’ or ‘a movement without a message’ coming from left, right and center.”

Addressing the safety risks of fieldwork among protesters, she writes on the syllabus, “I can say with absolute certainty that there is no foreseeable risk in teaching this as a field-base class.”

Let’s hope this assurance makes her and Columbia legally responsible for any problems these students might experience.

She said her allegiance won’t keep her from being an objective teacher.

“Inevitably, my experience will color the way I teach, but I feel equipped to teach objectively,” Appel told The Post. “It’s best to be critical of the things we hold most sacred.”

You just know if the young Obama was still there he would sign up. And if he was a little older, he would want to teach a similar course.

By the way, it costs more than $57,000 a year to attend Columbia. Which has driven many a poor student into lifelong debt for worthless degrees.

Speaking of which, here is Ms. Appel’s Columbia bio:

2011 Research Scholar — Hannah Appel

Post-doctoral Research Scholar

Committee on Global Thought
Columbia University

Hannah Appel earned her Ph.D. in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University. With research interests in the daily life of capitalism and the private sector in Africa, in particular, Hannah’s work draws on critical development studies, economic anthropology, and political economy. Her current project – Futures – is baded [sic] on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in the transnational oil and gas industry in Equatorial Guinea. The project explores the considerable work required to lubricate the passage of oil to market – not only of labor (whether manual, managerial, or domestic,) but also of material infratstructures [sic], contracting regimes, and forms of governance and regulation. What combinations of technopolitics, labor, infrastructure, contracts and subcontracts, corporate enclaves and corporate social responsibility programs are required to convert Equatorial Guinea’s hydrocarbon from subsea deposit to spot price on the New York Mercantile Exchange? And to what effect?

Yes, we must find that out.

From CNN’s Money.Com:

Iowa’s economy: Not issue No. 1?

By Charles Riley @CNNMoney
January 2, 2012

DES MOINES, Iowa (CNNMoney) — If there is one state where the economy might not be issue No. 1, it’s Iowa.

That’s because the first state to begin presidential candidate selection has emerged relatively unscathed from the housing bubble and financial crisis that wreaked havoc on other parts of the country.

Today, unemployment is relatively low. Farmland — and its edible bounty — are in high demand. Home prices are stable… Compared to those other early-voting states, Iowa’s economy is in good shape.

Only five states have lower unemployment than Iowa’s 5.7% rate. (New Hampshire, which holds its primary a week after Iowa’s caucus, is one of them.) Florida and South Carolina, for example, have rates near 10%, while Nevada sports a whopping 13% unemployment rate.

One key reason for Iowa’s relative success in recent years is a sharp increase in demand for agricultural products. Fueled by increased global demand, livestock prices have rebounded and farm incomes are on the rise.

As a consequence, farm and land prices have spiked. Since 2004, Iowa land values have increased by 93%, according to a report produced by Iowa’s Labor Market and Workforce Information Division.

Farmers are doing so well that capital investments are on the rise, a trend that bolsters in-state equipment manufacturers such as John Deere (DE, Fortune 500)…

Even if Iowa’s economy is relatively good, candidates playing to a wider audience would be wise to keep harping on the economy.

According to a recent CNN/ORC International poll, the economy is the top concern for Americans, a trend that is unlikely to change before Election Day.

Fifty-seven percent of the nation says the economy is the most important issue facing the country now, with the deficit listed a distant second at 16%. To top of page

Besides, Iowans do not have a very good record on voting in these caucuses anyway.

After all, the last time around they picked Mike Huckabee.

From an elated New York Times:

Egyptians Vote in Final Round of Parliamentary Elections

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
January 3, 2012

CAIRO — The Muslim Brotherhood worked to stretch its lead Tuesday as Egyptians returned to the polls in the final phase of the first parliamentary elections since the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak..

As the polls opened, some analysts suggested that the party founded by the Brotherhood, Egypt’s mainstream Islamist group and best-organized political force, could come away with a clean majority of the seats in the full parliament instead of the plurality indicated by previous results.

Some estimates indicated that the Brotherhood’s party, Freedom and Justice, started the day with nearly 50 percent of the seats awarded in the first two rounds of the vote. It won roughly 40 percent of the seats allocated by party voting, and a higher percentage of the seats contested by individual candidates. And the final nine governorates voting on Tuesday included the historic Brotherhood strongholds of Gharbiya and Daqahliyya in the Delta, where a number of the group’s best known candidates are running, including the former Member of Parliament Mohamed Beltaggi…

The Brotherhood has said repeatedly that it intends to form a coalition or unity government, in part to avoid unnerving Egyptian liberals or Westerners who may fear an Islamist takeover. It may also wish to share the responsibility for what is expected to be a difficult period of adjustment for the Egyptian state and economy.

But winning a clear majority would enable the Brotherhood’s party, if it chose, to govern without forming a coalition. And removed the necessity of such a coalition government would diminish the power of the partners in any alliance as well as any other parties outside the coalition.

That would reduce the clout of the ultraconservative Islamists who have so far come in second-place in the first two rounds of the voting, winning as much as 25 percent of the seats by most estimates.

And it would also reduce the voice of the various liberal parties, led by the business-friendly Free Egyptians and the left-leaning Social Democrats, who have won most of the remainder of the seats.

The Brotherhood has so far sought to ally itself with the liberals rather than the most conservative Islamists and it has reiterated that it has no plans to form an all-Islamist government. The strength of the ultra-conservatives, known as Salafis, has been the biggest surprise of the voting so far. Many espouse hard-line views seeking sharp reductions in the sale of alcohol, opposing women’s participation in political leadership or public life, and potentially restricting arts and popular culture deemed profane or sacrilegious…

What a laugh. There is not a dime’s worth of difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and the supposedly more hardline Salafis in the Al-Nour party.

The Salafis are just a little more open about their intentions.

If the Brotherhood wins a clear majority there will be no stopping them. Because ‘this is how democracy works.’

From a cheering (for Iran) Reuters:

Iran threatens U.S. Navy as sanctions hit economy

By Parisa Hafezi
January 3, 2011

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran threatened on Tuesday to take action if the U.S. Navy moves an aircraft carrier into the [Persian] Gulf, Tehran’s most aggressive statement yet after weeks of saber-rattling as new U.S. and EU financial sanctions take a toll on its economy.

The prospect of sanctions targeting the oil sector in a serious way for the first time has hit Iran’s rial currency, which has fallen by 40 percent against the dollar in the past month.

Queues formed at banks and some currency exchange offices shut their doors as Iranians scrambled to buy dollars to protect their savings from the currency’s fall.

They are buying dollars from Satan?

Army chief Ataollah Saleh said the United States had moved an aircraft carrier out of the Gulf from because of Iran’s naval exercises, and Iran would take action if the ship returned.

Why did we ever move it in the first place?

It did not name the carrier, but the USS John C Stennis leads a task force in the region, and the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet website pictured it in the Arabian Sea last week.

"Iran will not repeat its warning … the enemy’s carrier has been moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill. I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf," army chief Salehi said.

"I advise, recommend and warn them over the return of this carrier to the Persian Gulf because we are not in the habit of warning more than once." …

Gosh they are tough.

After years of sanctions that had little impact, the latest measures are the first that could have a serious effect on Iran’s oil trade, 60 percent of its economy.

New sanctions signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama on New Year’s Eve would cut off any financial institutions that work with Iran’s central bank from the U.S. financial system, blocking the main path for payments for Iranian oil.

Unfortunately but typically Obama watered down these sanctions. On his insistence a national security waiver was put into this bill, which allows him to withhold sanctions if they could cause the price of oil to rise.

Which, unless the law of supply and demand has been repealed, they will.

The EU is expected to impose new sanctions by the end of this month, possibly including a ban on oil imports.

Sure, that will happen.

Even Iran’s top trading partner China – which has refused to back new global sanctions against Iran – is demanding discounts to buy Iranian oil as Tehran’s options narrow. Beijing has cut its imports of Iranian crude by more than half for January and, paying premiums for crude from Russia and Vietnam to replace it…

Oh, those high-minded Chinese. They are just trying to force Iran to lower their prices, since their customer base is (supposedly) shrinking.

From a selectively reporting Associated Press:

24-year-old arrested in Los Angeles arson spree

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD
January 3, 2012

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It was another night of firefighters scrambling across the nation’s second largest city to snuff out a series of arson attacks when a tip came in about a German man who matched the description of someone with a shoulder-length ponytail captured on a surveillance video near where a car fire was reported.

Five hours later Harry Burkhart was pulled over by a reserve sheriff’s deputy who works for $1 a year and later booked for investigation of arson of an inhabited dwelling. Since the arrest, firefighters have not responded to any other suspicious fires…

Police declined to reveal any motive for more than 50 fires that have occurred since Friday in Hollywood, neighboring West Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley, causing about $3 million in damage.

However, the 24-year-old who told officers he’s from Frankfurt may have been upset about his mother’s legal woes. When asked at a news conference about reports that an immigration problem with Burhkart’s [sic] mother may have been a factor, authorities declined to comment…

Why the reticence? The police don’t seem to be reluctant to speculate on motives when they can be attributed to bias.

But more importantly, why doesn’t the AP report what they know about the suspect? Other media outlets have the information.

For instance, we have this from the Los Angeles Times:

Federal officials’ tip leads to arson suspect

Harry Burkhart, a German national, is arrested by a reserve deputy after authorities received word about a man who erupted in a tirade in Immigration Court. The fires caused about $3 million damage.

By Richard Winton, Ari Bloomekatz and Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times
January 2, 2012

… [F]ederal officials alerted authorities that a Los Angeles man might be the suspect they were looking for, according to law enforcement sources.

The man had recently made a scene at a Los Angeles Immigration Court hearing, the sources said. An official involved in that court case recognized him when police Sunday night released images of a "person of interest" seen on a surveillance tape after a car fire at the Hollywood & Highland shopping center…

Police later said [Harry] Burkhart was … a 24-year-old German national who carried travel papers from Chechnya.

Chechnya, huh? Why would he have travel papers from Chechnya?

He had spent time in Germany, they said, but had lived in Southern California for the last several years. They weren’t clear on his alleged motives but speculated that he might have been furious over his mother’s pending deportation.

A senior LAPD official said the suspect had attended a recent immigration hearing regarding his mother’s case and erupted in a tirade, spewing angry anti-American statements.

It was this incident that eventually led police to Burkhart. Several sources said the tip came from an official at the State Department…

Let’s hope this official doesn’t lose his job.

L.A. detectives were also investigating reports that either Burkart or a family member was connected to an arson case in Germany, said the senior LAPD official.

TV footage showed Burkhart after his arrest, dressed in black, wearing his hair in a ponytail and grinning…

And some additional detail from LA Weekly:

Harry Burkhart, L.A. Arson Fires Suspect From Germany, Says ‘I Hate America’

By Dennis Romero
Jan. 2, 2012

The man who terrorized L.A. for three nights with a series of 53 arson fires turned out to be a 24-year-old from Germany identified as Harry Burkhart, at least according to authorities.

"I hate America" were the words he reportedly uttered after he was pulled out of his car during a traffic stop at Sunset Boulevard near Fairfax Avenue shortly after 3 this morning following another outbreak of fires in nearby West Hollywood…

Burkhart had his hair in a ponytail during the stop this morning and seemed to smirk as bystanders snapped shots of him…

KCAL9/CBS2′s Serene Branson found out from neighbors living adjacent to Burkhart’s apartment at 7274 Sunset Boulevard indicated his mother lived with him until recently…

So let’s review. The suspect is a foreign national, probably an illegal alien, who somehow has papers from the Muslim extremist hotbed of Chechnya. He is also a man who says he hates America.

But remember, the Associated Press merely described Mr. Burkhart as a 24 Year old "German man" who may have been "upset about his mother’s legal woes."

From the always eager to jump to conclusions Associated Press:

N.Y. Islamic center firebombed

By COLLEEN LONG and VERENA DOBNIK
January 3, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) — Police kept watch over a globally prominent Islamic cultural center that was firebombed as they investigated other possibly linked attacks that also could be bias crimes.

Although structural damage to the Imam Al-Khoei Foundation building was minimal, the incident Sunday has left the community emotionally shaken, said its assistant imam, Maan Al-Sahlani.

On Sunday evening, the entrance to the foundation in Queens was struck by two Molotov cocktails, the types of bombs usually made of glass bottles filled with flammable liquid and corked with rags.

A private house that is used as a Hindu house of worship also was hit. A videotape from a surveillance camera shows a car pulling up to the house Sunday night. Someone suddenly appears, lifts his right arm high and hurls a lit object that strikes the house and explodes into flames.

Besides the private house and the Islamic center, the other targets in the suspected arson attacks were a corner store and another house.

No one was injured in any of the incidents and no suspects have been arrested. Police have released a sketch of a suspect in the bombing of the Hindu worship site…

In releasing the security videotape of the bombed private home, police said they were looking for a man, 25 to 30 years old, about 5-foot-8 and weighing about 200 pounds. They said he fled the scene in a light-colored, four-door sedan with a sunroof. They were offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction…

Note the artful description. Even though the police sketch is clearly of a black man. (See above.)

Meanwhile, there is the breathless lead from the New York Times:

Four Attacks in Queens With Homemade Firebombs

By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS
Published: January 2, 2012

A Fire Department official on Monday said it was fortunate that the damage was minimal from a series of arson attacks across eastern Queens on Sunday night that the police were investigating as a possible bias crime against Muslims…

But leave it to the muckraking New York Post to uncover some inconvenient details:

Man caught on tape firebombing Qns. Hindu temple, Islamic center

By JULIA MARSH, ANDY CAMPBELL and LARRY CELONA
January 3, 2012

The fire fiend wanted for a series of terrifying Molotov-cocktail attacks on New Year’s Day had earlier threatened workers at a Queens bodega that was among his targets, The Post has learned.

“You’re gonna get it!” he shouted to workers at the 179th Street Deli in Hillside after he was caught trying to steal milk and a bottle of Starbucks Frappucino on Tuesday.

All the bombs were made with Frappucino bottles…

For the record, Starbuck Frappucino bottles are 9.5 fluid ounces. That isn’t really a lot of gasoline.

Officials also released a sketch of the suspect, a black man 25 to 30 years old, about 5-foot-8 and weighing 200 pounds. He wore a black jacket and a baseball cap…

Then how can it be a bias crime?

At the 179th Street deli, cashier Ahmed Abdulla said that the shoplifting incident wasn’t reported to police but that the man returned to make good on his threat Sunday evening.

“He came . . . and got a bottle of gas and threw it through the kitchen,” said Abdulla.

After that, he struck the Jamaica home and then the Imam Al-Khoei Islamic Center on Van Wyck Expressway — where he tossed two firebombs…

The bottle bombs aimed at the Elmont home and the Hindu temple did not break. Cops recovered them intact, filled with a flammable liquid, possibly gasoline, with wicks made of toilet paper.

So it would seem that rather than this being a bias crime, it was a protest against being stopped from shoplifting.

But we are sure to see the corrections from the AP and the New York Times.

Here is our usual weekend discussion thread, where comments on the general topics of the day are welcome.

But please remember to post and comment on specific news items in the ‘News Selected By Our Correspondents’ thread below or via the link found in the sidebar.

Thanks!

This thread is for the busy bees of S&L to post news articles that may not warrant their own thread.

Posting Guidelines

To make the articles as readable as possible, please:

• Only post ‘hard news’ from establishment media outlets.
• Avoid editorials and ‘thought pieces’ unless they are truly newsworthy.
• Eschew major news items that most people will likely have seen elsewhere.
• Post articles that fit under the topic of a recent thread as a comment there.
• Always spell out the name of the source and post a link to it.
• Always post less than one quarter of the original article.

Posts of articles that do not follow these guidelines may be edited or deleted.

Thanks!

From the Las Vegas Sun:

Dismantling of Righthaven appears under way with loss of website

By Steve Green
Thursday, 22 December 2011

The court-authorized dismantling of Las Vegas copyright company Righthaven LLC appeared to be under way Thursday, with the company losing control of its website to a receiver…

Records at Network Solutions, which tracks domain names, showed control of Righthaven’s website domain name was transferred Wednesday to Randazza Legal Group, which represents Righthaven creditor Wayne Hoehn…

Righthaven since March 2010 has been suing websites and website users over unauthorized uses of Las Vegas Review-Journal and Denver Post material, alleging copyright infringement.

Several defendants including Hoehn fought back and defeated Righthaven in court.

After federal Judge Philip Pro in Las Vegas found Righthaven lacked standing to sue Hoehn and that Hoehn was protected by fair use in his posting of an R-J column on a website message board, Hoehn was awarded his legal fees.

Righthaven has refused to pay those $63,720 in fees, causing the same judge to allow a receiver to auction Righthaven’s intellectual property including its copyrights and website name.

The loss of its copyrights could cripple Righthaven’s ability to sue over the copyrights it obtained from the newspapers — and to prosecute appeals of its courtroom defeats involving those copyrights in Nevada and Colorado…

Merry Christmas!

Here is our usual weekend discussion thread, where comments on the general topics of the day are welcome.

But please remember to post and comment on specific news items in the ‘News Selected By Our Correspondents’ thread below or via the link found in the sidebar.

Thanks!

This thread is for the busy bees of S&L to post news articles that may not warrant their own thread.

Posting Guidelines

To make the articles as readable as possible, please:

• Only post ‘hard news’ from establishment media outlets.
• Avoid editorials and ‘thought pieces’ unless they are truly newsworthy.
• Eschew major news items that most people will likely have seen elsewhere.
• Post articles that fit under the topic of a recent thread as a comment there.
• Always spell out the name of the source and post a link to it.
• Always post less than one quarter of the original article.

Posts of articles that do not follow these guidelines may be edited or deleted.

Thanks!