memeorandum: Don't Call Me, I Won't Call You — NOBODY calls me anymore — and that's just fine. (Pamela Paul/New York Times)

3:25 PM ET, March 19, 2011

Top Items:

Obama Takes Hard Line With Libya After Shift by Clinton — WASHINGTON — In a Paris hotel room on Tuesday night, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton found herself juggling the inconsistencies of American foreign policy in a turbulent Middle East. She criticized the foreign minister …

Discussion: Power Line, Left Coast Rebel, Washington Post, Althouse, The Nation, Swampland, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, National Review, The Atlantic Online, Pundit & Pundette, American Power and JustOneMinute

New York Times:

Allies Open Push in Libya to Block Qaddafi Assaults — PARIS — American, European and Arab leaders began the largest international military intervention in the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq on Saturday, in an effort to stop Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's war on the Libyan opposition.

Discussion: The Hill, Washington Post, New York Magazine, NO QUARTER, Runnin' Scared, Mediaite and Booman Tribune

Ann Althouse / Althouse:

A feminist milestone: Our male President has been pulled into war by 3 women. — It's the opposite of the Code Pink idea that women bring the peace. How long have I heard this feminist plaint: If only women had the power, we would have peace, not phallocratic war. — But no:

Discussion: New York Times and Taylor Marsh

CNN:

French fighter jets deployed over Libya — Tripoli, Libya (CNN) — French fighters jets soared over Libya on Saturday to counter Moammar Gadhafi's military forces who were intent on destroying the opposition as they pushed into the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

Discussion: Sense of Events, The Moderate Voice, Gothamist, Clusterstock, The Jawa Report, ABCNEWS, Next Big Future and Foreign Policy

David Wood / The Huffington Post:

Anti-American Extremists Among Libyan Rebels U.S. Has Vowed To Protect … WASHINGTON — In 2007, when American combat casualties were spiking in the bloodbath of the Iraq War, an 18-year-old laborer traveled from his home in eastern Libya through Egypt and Syria to join an al Qaeda terrorist cell in Iraq.

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Times of India:

‘To my Dear Obama, our son’, says Gaddafi, defending attack on rebels — CAIRO: Calling Barack Obama as “our son”, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi sent a message to the US President defending his decision to attack the rebels fighting to overthrow him. — Gaddafi (68) also wrote a letter …

Discussion: Michelle Malkin, Fausta's Blog, Weasel Zippers and Guardian

BBC:

French military jets over Libya — Watch: French President Nicolas Sarkozy announces military action against Col Gaddafi's forces in Libya — French military jets are preventing forces loyal to Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi from attacking the rebel-held city of Benghazi, French President Nicolas Sarkozy says.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice and Truthdig

McClatchy Washington Bureau: Defying U.N., Gadhafi's forces attack Benghazi

Washington Post:
Gaddafi's forces enter Benghazi as U.S., allies prepare military action against Libya

Discussion: BBC and National Review

Guardian:
Military action begins against Libya - live updates

Discussion: The Daily Dish, Global Voices in English and Prairie Weather

New York Times:

Japan Finds Tainted Food Up to 90 Miles From Nuclear Sites — TOKYO — As Japan edged forward in its battle to contain the damage at its ravaged nuclear power plants on Saturday, the government said it had found higher than normal levels of radioactivity in spinach and milk at farms …

Discussion: Kyodo News, Ecocentric, Firedoglake and Boing Boing

CNN:
Food from farms near nuclear plant radioactive

Discussion: New York Magazine and The Jawa Report

Guardian:
Radioactive material detected in Tokyo water

Discussion: Mercury Rising and Truthdig

James Fallows / The Atlantic Online:

Warren Christopher, 1925-2011 — Let me break into the sequence of guest voices here to express sadness at news that Warren Christopher has just died, at age 85. — He is best known as the first Secretary of State during the Clinton Administration, and his public image was of a very careful, even colorless person.

Discussion: The Talking Dog and Gawker

Robert D. Hershey Jr / New York Times:
Warren Christopher, Ex-Secretary of State, Dies at 85

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, Althouse, Mediaite and Guardian

NPR:
Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher Dies

Discussion: Politics Daily

CNN:
Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher dies

Discussion: New York Magazine

NASA Science:

Super Full Moon — March 16, 2011: Mark your calendar. On March 19th, a full Moon of rare size and beauty will rise in the east at sunset. It's a super “perigee moon”—the biggest in almost 20 years. — “The last full Moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of 1993,” …

Discussion: Making Light

Yahoo! News:
‘Supermoon’ Rises: Biggest Full Moon in 18 Years Occurs Saturday Night

Discussion: The Raw Story and Outside the Beltway

Jordan Fabian / The Hill:

Palin rips Obama's energy policy, handling of Middle East — During her first foreign trip in 2011, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) slammed President Obama's green energy policy as a “social engineering” project that hurts the U.S. economy. — She also accused Obama of “dithering” …

Discussion: The Politico

Pamela Paul / New York Times:

Don't Call Me, I Won't Call You — NOBODY calls me anymore — and that's just fine. With the exception of immediate family members, who mostly phone to discuss medical symptoms and arrange child care, and the Roundabout Theater fund-raising team, which takes a diabolical delight in phoning …

Discussion: Outside the Beltway

Kerry Picket / Washington Times:

DOJ to white male bullying victims: Tough luck — The viral video sensation showing a bullying incident at an Australian school has brought the issue of bullying back into the spotlight. Here in the United States, the Obama administration has made school bullying a federal issue.

Discussion: The Jawa Report, Weasel Zippers, The Volokh Conspiracy and Instapundit

Matthew Rothschild / The Progressive Magazine Feed:

Wisconsin Teacher in Apparent Suicide, “Distraught” Over Walker's Cuts — Jeri-Lynn Betts, an early childhood teacher in the Watertown, Wisconsin, school district, died on March 8 of an apparent suicide. — A colleague says she was “very distraught” over Gov. Scott Walker's attacks on public sector workers and public education.

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, MAL Contends and Suburban Guerrilla

Associated Press:

Giuliani mocks Obama as foreign policy weakling … MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose drive-by approach to campaigning in New Hampshire drove his 2008 presidential campaign into the ground, is setting the stage for a do-over.

Discussion: The Politico, Scared Monkeys, Cubachi, Alan Colmes' Liberaland and Weasel Zippers

Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:

The Imperial President — The president's speech was disturbingly empty. There are, it appears, only two reasons the US is going to war, without any Congressional vote, or any real public debate. The first is that the US cannot stand idly by while atrocities take place.

Discussion: democracyarsenal.org, Eunomia, UrbanGrounds and Gawker