Mexico: The other United States. Mexico's lame-duck president Felipe Calderon announced he will attempt to formally change the country’s name by taking “United States” out of it.
Egypt: Morsi's decree triggers new protests. Egypt's first democratically elected president asserted nearly unlimited powers, as rival crowds of demonstrators poured into the streets of Cairo. Egyptian opposition activists have vowed to stage a sit-in in Cairo in a protest against the president's move to grant himself extensive new powers.
UK: Girl, 11, victim in brutal sex assault. An 11-year-old schoolgirl was subjected to a "brutal" sex attack in a north London park after getting off her bus.
Israel / Hamas: UK officer says terrorists on the run. Israel achieved the goals it set for itself in Gaza, causing Hamas leaders to “run for their lives”, Britain's Colonel Richard Kemp told Arutz Sheva this week.
USA: Distributed costs, concentrated benefits favor Democrats nationally - analysis. John Hinderaker at Power Line:
At the national level, however, you can’t bring about good governance anyway, so you might as well elect Democrats who will bring home the bacon. Such thinking explains why the solidly-red Dakotas, among other states, have contributed a depressing number of Democrats to the Senate and, to a lesser degree, the House.
This is not to deny that the liberal media have a huge influence on national elections; of course they do. And it is also true, as Glenn says, that state and local issues don’t tend to be demagogued as relentlessly as national ones. But I think that what is mainly going on is that many voters are more concerned about fiscal responsibility at the state and local level than the national level, for the simple reason that the states can’t print money, and rely on sales and property taxes, along with, in most cases, relatively flat income taxes. Therefore, voters know that if they vote for more state spending, they will have to pay for it.
At the national level, we have seen an increasing disconnect between spending and payment. This is partly because most people pay either no, or very modest, federal income taxes, and partly because 40% of all federal spending is borrowed, so that our children will have to pay for it. To the average voter, federal money must seem to appear almost magically. ...
