Month: September 2011

“I Have Never Seen Europe’s Policymakers As Scared” Ctd

Dreher weighs in as Europe teeters on the brink of chaos:

All things considered, I’d rather see the euro collapse and see Europe have to deal with the grave fallout than to see European particularities steamrolled by a pan-European bureaucracy administered from Brussels. As an American, I should probably want whatever is going to provide for the most stability in the global economy. But as someone who values European particularity and localism, I think surrendering to the European superstate would amount to nations selling their souls and their liberty.

Many Germans feel differently – but the Greeks are slowly changing their minds. Ezra Klein connects Europe with Obama's re-election chances:

At the moment, Greece is teetering on the edge, and so things could get very bad, very quick. And if they do, our economy is going to get very bad, very quick — and so will President Obama's reelection chances. If Europe somehow vastly exceeds the market's expectations and emerges with the strong fiscal union that everyone knows they can form but no one thinks they will create, it could do more to restore global confidence and kickstart an economic recovery than any single piece of legislation we can pass here, and that could do more to secure Obama's reelection than any message David Plouffe can think up.

The Happy Drip

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health have determined that regular coffee drinking protects against depression in females:

Academics behind the venture discovered that women who have two to three cups of caffeinated java a day were 15 percent less likely to get depression over a ten-year span than those who nursed one or fewer cups each week. … One of the biggest women’s health studies in the country, the research sampled 50,000 participants for a decade and corresponds with earlier research that coffee consumption may lower suicide risk…[C]offee also reduces the possibility of developing Dementia or Alzheimer’s disease later in life.

Bachmann’s Latest

A Hezbollah missile crisis, or something:

Eric Kleefeld:

As Think Progress notes, it appears that the sole source of Bachmann’s allegation is an unconfirmed report in an Italian newspaper, about Hezbollah setting up a cell in Cuba, in order to have a base of operations for targeting Israeli targets in Latin America. Thus Bachmann’s logic appears to be: 1) Hezbollah are bad; 2) Hezbollah has missiles; 3) Hezbollah are trying to set up shop in Cuba; and therefore 4) Hezbollah could imminently set up missile sites in Cuba to target the United States. So when does Kevin Bacon get dragged into this?