January

Johnson becomes Libertarian candidate.

Iowa Primaries: Romney and Santorum tie (8 votes differences, but recount says otherwise), Paul third.  Bachman gives up.

New Hampshire primaries: Romney wins easily, Paul second, Huntman third. (Paul now second overall.)

South Carolina: Gingrich wins by large margin, Romney second.  (This puts Gingrich first in number of delegates, because South Carolina is a winner-takes-all state.)

Delegate discussion: Republic vs Democracy. caucus vs election. who do your votes elect? vs who's votes elect the president?, How are delegates allocated?  (South Carolina has more delegates than Florida: why? rule 16)  Proportional, winner-take-all, ethically but not legally required to vote as directed.  Superdelegates?!

Huntsman and Perry withdraw after New Hampshire.  Santorum get endorsement from Christian conservatives.

Many Republicans have been calling for greater focus on the far east.  Now even Obama is paying attention.  What is it all about?  China's currency.  North Korea.  what else?

What up with Iran?  IAEA confirms Iran is further enriching uranium (not enough for a bomb yet), but all material is under the agencies surveillance.  Leon Panetta (secretary of defense) is cautious: "Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability. And that’s what concerns us."  Santorum thinks we should bomb their nuclear facility.  Iranian nuclear scientists are being assassinated!

More on the assassinations: "Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a director of Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility, was killed instantly in morning traffic on Wednesday when two men on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to the door of his car and sped off. The bomb was detonated remotely.  ...  This is the fourth assassination of a leading Iranian nuclear scientist in two years and the third using magnetic bombs attached to cars by motorcyclists.  That hallmark says as clearly as anything that there is a sustained, covert campaign to kill Iran's top nuclear scientists."

Israel military budget: $13B. US military aid to Israel: $2.4B (18.4% or about one fifth)

US military budget: $687B  This is 43% of total world military spending of $1.6T.  This is 6 times the second country, China with $114B.  US Military spending graph.

February

Greece is heating up again.  More austerity measures enacted.  MPs who vote against austerity are evicted from their parties.  Austerity takes the form of falling wages, widespread enough that prices are falling too, so it's starting to look like a general deflation, as expected.  This will make the debt even harder to pay off (which is exactly why deflation and austerity are avoided in the USA), unless the deal includes a partial default (or "haircut") where part of the debt is written off.  EU is pledging €130B in new loans and €100B write-off of existing debts to "private investors".  The "troika" negotiating the deal (European Union, European Central Bank, and IMF) are notably exempted from the write-off of debts. 

I had a hard time finding out how owns greek debt.  Articles like this one only account for €250B of Greece's €350B of debt.  Here is a much better accounting.  Looks like the unaccounted for debt is loans from previous bailouts instead of government bonds.  These loans are from the troika negotiating the bailout, and are exempted from write-offs, just like the bonds owned by the troika.

Much uproar in Syria as the government continues to kill its own people for protesting.  Russia and China vetoed a UN resolution for sanctions against Syria.

March

discuss alternate blog styles and how to cite non-internet sources http://citationmachine.net/

Isreal airstrikes kill 23, injure 74 (wikipedia), beginning with the "targetted killing"/assassination of Zohair al-Qaisi, a leader of the PRC.  Palestinians react with rockets, kill none, injure 4.  It is interesting to compare US attitudes toward Syria and Israel.

Koran burning, protests in Afghanistan.  Quartering of troops.

Coup in Mali.

Trayvon Martin killed by volunteer watch while walking in his grandfather's gated community.  Killer not even investigated for charges, resulting in mass protests alleging police racism.

April

Syrian government promises to back off again. (yeah right)  He doesn't.  There is even evidence they are targeting people who have contact with U.N. monitors.

Santorum withdraws, leaving Romney only viable Republican nominee.  (Paul and Gingrich still running far behind.)

Taliban attacks NATO targets in Kabul, Afghanistan for several hours, showing they are still potent, in spite of US claims otherwise.

Buffet rule, imposing a minimum 30% income tax on people with income over one million, defeated in senate.  Good idea or not?

Sudan and South Sudan breaking into war.  Bombs have already been dropped.

Pakistan tests long range missiles.  India already has them of course.

US student debt reaches $1 trillion.

Obama condemns other countries for using high tech tracking of citizens while doing exactly that in America.  http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/24/headlines#4243  New CISPA bill allows unlimited sharing of private information with government.

Obama approves drone assassination on unknown individuals, contradicting his earlier statements.  http://maxilla-asini.blogspot.com/2012/04/another-juxtaposition.html

May

Socialist François Hollande elected president in France.
Greece elections put ruling coalition out of power, radical left gains, even nazis win seats
(reactions to auterity measures)

Greece’s main leftist party has dropped its effort to form a coalition government after failing to convince rival parties to oppose austerity measures demanded by international lenders. Alexis Tsipras of the Coalition of the Radical Left had launched the coalition effort after a strong showing in weekend elections.

Greece’s Socialist party, which supports the austerity package, will now attempt to form a coalition. If no party can pull it off, another round of elections could be held next month.