COFFEE BREAK 364

+ The New York Times Op Ed page offers “Come Home America” by Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman. It begins: “EVERYONE talks about getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan. But what about Germany and Japan? / The sequester — $85 billion this year in across-the-board budget cuts, about half of which will come from the Pentagon — gives Americans an opportunity to discuss a question we’ve put off too long: Why we are still fighting World War II?” Another excerpt: "Partisan debates that focus on shaving a percentage point off the Pentagon budget here or there won’t take us where we need to go. Both parties are stuck in a paradigm of costly international activism while emerging powers like China, India, Brazil and Turkey are accumulating wealth and raising productivity and living standards, as we did in the 19th century. The long-term consequences are obvious."| Read it all