Tuesday 920P Eastern Time:  Stephen Moore, WSJ, in re: op-ed, "Laffer and Moore: Obama's Real Spending Record."  Also: Gov. Jerry Brown is betting California's fiscal future that his tax increase ballot initiative will bail out Sacramento. There is no plan B.

 

Tuesday 935P Eastern Time:  Jon Hilsenrath, in re:  Bernanke cites  significant risks to the U.S. economic recovery and said the Fed stands ready to act if necessary, but  doesn't signal action.

 

Tuesday 950P Eastern Time:  Larry Kudlow, in re: the Clinton Coalition pulls back from supporting the Obama re-elect narrative.  POTUS Obama blame-shifts the Europeans and the Republicans in Congress.

 

Tuesday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):  Lara Brown, Villanova, and Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review,  in re:  Mr Obama is not sensitive to the concerns of Americans else he would not have made that simple mistake last week.

 

Tuesday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):  Lara Brown, Villanova, and Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, in re:  Does Mr Romney hear the interests and fears of Americans?  I mean - yes, he's rich, but can he listen?  SZ: Yes, beginning a bus tour in a few days to listen and [consult]. Ohioans are holding on to  every penny for children's education or retirement, not putting any of it into the economy.  

 

Tuesday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):  Stephen Cohen, NYU, in re:  "Russia will be free!"  A veteran of Afghanistan: "Those who fought  in Afghanistan are beyond being scared; let those behind the red-toothed walls of the Kremlin be afraid."  June 12, 1991, Yeltsin declared Russia to be sovereign, post-Soviet Union.  Today, Putin used it for a celebratory awarding of state medals. Protestors took to the streets and parades all across the country.  One of my former students covered the protests; she was enormously grateful that it all went on smoothly; no violence; the police were professional and polite and the protestors did not try to provoke the police.  A very good day for Russia. Recall in the early '90s:  600,000 people in Moscow chanting "Down with the Soviet Union! Down with the KGB!" More important: the Parliament has begun to participate in that the cries from the street are taken into Parliament and legislation is being enacted.

 

In 2004 or 2005, Putin proposed to monetize pensions:  subsidize goods; pensioners protested vigorously. Dangerous to Putin, and he swiftly earned.  Many, many pensioners across Russia - "the silent majority"; the people of the heartland -  and Putin, using currently-high oil prices, has raised wages of state workers (of whom there are many many) and of pensioners. When these see TV images of young Muscovites frolicking [in effect] in the streets wearing trendy clothes they can't afford, they think,, "Putin's my man."  At the protest today, a great many well-organized, neo-Nazi at the demos. "Russia for Russians" - based largely on racial criteria.

 

In 2004 specialists at the Memorial Society, a widely respected Russian historical and human rights organization founded in 1988 on behalf of victims and survivors of Stalin's terror, were contracted by Figes to conduct hundreds of interviews that form the basis of The Whisperers, and are now archived at Memorial. In preparing for the Russian edition, Corpus commissioned Memorial to provide the original Russian-language versions of Figes's quotations and to check his other English-language translations. What Memorial's researchers found was a startling number of minor and major errors. Its publication "as is," it was concluded, would cause a scandal in Russia.  

 

(Reuters) - Thousands of Russians chanted "Russiawill be free" in a march through Moscow on Tuesday to protest against President Vladimir Putin, shrugging off his tough new tactics intended to quash any challenge to his rule. Protesters streamed down a leafy central boulevard in the first major rally since Putin was sworn in on May 7, saying they would not be deterred by police raids on opposition leaders' homes and a new law stiffening fines for public order offences. "Those who fought are beyond being scared," said Valery Zagovny, a 50-year-old who served for the Soviet army in Afghanistan and was wearing the medals to prove it. "Let those behind the red-toothed walls of the Kremlin be scared."

 

Tuesday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):  continued.  Breaking news: Russia may be selling war materiel and eqpt to Syria: a Russian company's export arm - which also does bz with the Pentagon - is sending arms to Syria. The nuclear, arms, and energy industries are how the Kremlin makes its money.  The Russian positin on Syria today derives from Russia's interests: naval base there, sells a lot of weapons, has a long-established foothold. However, a strong motivation here is that they feel they were betrayed about Libya - what was promised to them as a simple no-fly zone was against their will turned into a full-scale war.  They  were lied to by Washington.   Lavrov said: "We sell Syria parts, but they're not used against the opposition." (Absurd.) Why has Secy Clinton suddenly charged Putin with betrayal when everyone's known about Russian arms sales to Syria for decades?  Because the antagonism between Russia and the US is heating up. Btw, someone is supplying the opposition forces with weapons. It's not the US  - but the US is organizing it and supplying help. For Russia, Iran is the real problem. They don't want Iran to have  nuclear weapon, but also do not want to lose good relations with Teheran, which is a nearby neighbor and has avoided stirring up Russian Muslims.   Putin is much more interesting and complicated than the media portray him - for better or worse - but he's in a pretty foul mood now just before the upcoming Obama-Putin meeting.

 

AP -- The Obama administration says Russia is sending attack helicopters to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime and is warning about a dramatic escalation in the Arab country's 15-month conflict. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the delivery represents the "latest information." She says the US is concerned as the helicopters "will escalate the conflict quite dramatically." She is calling instead for Moscow to help the US push forward a political transition plan for Syria. Clinton was speaking Tuesday at the Brookings Institution, a liberal-oriented research and policy organization. Russia has consistently said it would not condone the use of outside forces to end the conflict and has said that it would not supply arms that would aid the government in quelling the uprising.

 

Tuesday 1105P (805P Pacific Time):  David Grinspoon, Denver Museum of Science, in re: Transit of Venus in June, and Mars Curiosity landing in August.

 

Tuesday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):  Chuck Blahous, Hoover, in re: CO and escape velocity; long-ternm vs short-term in federal spending.

 

Tuesday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):  Steven Erlanger, NYT, in re: the French elections, and intrigue in the palace between the new first lady and the president's ex-companion. "Francois - good  luck, guy!"

 

Tuesday 1150P (850P Pacific Time):  Nicholas Wade, NYT, in re: the tomato is tougher than the dinosaur.

 

Tuesday/Wed 1205A (905 Pacific Time):  William Henry Harrison: The American Presidents Series: The 9th President,1841 by Gail Collins, Arthur M. Schlesinger and Sean Wilentz, 1 of 2

 

Tuesday/Wed  1220A (920 Pacific Time):  William Henry Harrison: The American Presidents Series: The 9th President,1841 by Gail Collins, Arthur M. Schlesinger and Sean Wilentz, 2 of 2

 

Tuesday/Wed  1235A (935P Pacific Time):  Jon Hilsenrath, in re:  Bernanke cites  significant risks to the U.S. economic recovery and said the Fed stands ready to act if necessary, but  doesn't signal action.

 

Tuesday/Wed  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Sid Perkins, in re: the Dead Sea.

 

..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..

 

Music

 

Hour 1

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by Alberto Iglesias

Snow White and the Huntsman by James Newton Howard

 

Hour 2

Frost/Nixon by Hans Zimmer

Eastern Promises by Howard Shore

 

Hour 3

A.I. by John Williams

The Artist by Ludovic Bource

 

Hour 4

Mark Twain by Various Artists

Snow White and the Huntsman by James Newton Howard

Antarctica by Vangelis