memeorandum: The Geography of Fame — WHERE do the most successful Americans come from? (Seth Stephens-Davidowitz/New York Times)

10:05 PM ET, March 23, 2014

Top Items:

FiveThirtyEight Senate Forecast: GOP Is Slight Favorite in Race for Senate Control — When FiveThirtyEight last issued a U.S. Senate forecast — way back in July — we concluded the race for Senate control was a toss-up. That was a little ahead of the conventional wisdom at the time …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, PoliticusUSA, Hot Air, Talking Points Memo, Booman Tribune, CANNONFIRE, Political Capital, American Power, Business Insider, The Raw Story, The Week, Liberaland, Balloon Juice and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Tarnished Silver — Timothy Egan joins the chorus of those dismayed by Nate Silver's new FiveThirtyEight. I sorry, but I have to agree: so far it looks like something between a disappointment and a disaster. — But I'd argue that many of the critics are getting the problem wrong.

Discussion: Balloon Juice, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Washington Monthly

Simon Parry / Daily Mail:

Police hunt mystery woman who made final phone call to doomed jet captain as first picture emerges of his estranged wife and family — The captain of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 received a two-minute call shortly before take-off from a mystery woman using a mobile phone number obtained under a false identity.

Discussion: Jihad Watch and Israel Matzav

Associated Press:

France may have found part of jet — PERTH, Australia — France on Sunday provided Malaysia with satellite images of objects that could be from a passenger jet that has been missing for more than two weeks, the latest word of such images that officials are hoping will help solve one of the world's great aviation mysteries.

Discussion: CNN

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz / New York Times:

The Geography of Fame — WHERE do the most successful Americans come from? I was curious. So I downloaded Wikipedia. (You can do that sort of thing nowadays.) — With a little coding, I had a data set of more than 150,000 Americans deemed by Wikipedia's editors to be notable.

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money and Marginal REVOLUTION

Rebecca Shabad / The Hill:

Obama aide: US sanctions effectively weakening Russia — White House deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken argued Sunday the United States' sanctions are effectively hurting Russia's economy even though they haven't deterred Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Discussion: CNN, Politico and Liberaland

Greg Clary / CNN:
House Intel chair says Putin isn't done in Ukraine

Discussion: Politico

Kevin Liptak / CNN:
Biden links Russia's anti-gay laws to incursion into Ukraine

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit

David A. Fahrenthold / Washington Post:

Deep underground, federal employees process paperwork by hand in a long-outdated, inefficient system — In BOYERS, Pa. — The trucks full of paperwork come every day, turning off a country road north of Pittsburgh and descending through a gateway into the earth.

Discussion: Prairie Weather

Liz Alderman / New York Times:

Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs — Guillaume Santacruz, an aspiring French entrepreneur, brushed the rain from his black sweater and skinny jeans and headed down to a cavernous basement inside Campus London, a seven-story hive run by Google in the city's East End.

Discussion: Hot Air and Right Wing News

New York Times:

Crying Wolf on Religious Liberty — This week, the owners of two secular, for-profit corporations will ask the Supreme Court to take a radical turn and allow them to impose their religious views on their employees — by refusing to permit them contraceptive coverage as required under the Affordable Care Act.

Discussion: Hot Air and ProfessorBainbridge.com

The Hill: Dems ramp up offense on ObamaCare

Elias Isquith / Salon:

Rand Paul's “youth” snow job: Why he'll never, ever, ever win over young voters — With a Chris Christie comeback looking less likely and a Jeb Bush shadow campaign only just now entering its preliminary stages, the political media that isn't tethered to the Hillary Clinton beat …

Discussion: Balloon Juice and Crooked Timber

Ross Douthat / New York Times:

Russia Without Illusions — SINCE the end of the Cold War, America's policy toward Russia has been shaped by two dangerous illusions. — The first was the conceit that with the right incentives, eyes-to-soul presidential connections and diplomatic reset buttons, Russia could become what we think of …

Discussion: Hot Air

New York Times:

N.S.A. Breached Chinese Servers Seen as Security Threat — WASHINGTON — American officials have long considered Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, a security threat, blocking it from business deals in the United States for fear that the company would create “back doors” …

Discussion: Guardian, The Week, Boing Boing, Balloon Juice, Hinterland Gazette, emptywheel, Gigaom and The Verge

Spiegel Online:
NSA Spied on Chinese Government and Networking Firm

Discussion: Guardian, The Intercept and Mashable, more at Mediagazer »

New York Times:

Paul Has Ideas, but His Backers Want 2016 Plan — SAN FRANCISCO — In a ballroom at the Olympic Club, a grand, early-20th-century building at the foot of Nob Hill, Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, pitched a gathering of venture capitalists last week in an effort to show them that he may be the next big thing.

Discussion: Hot Air, EconLog and The Reaction