|
Morning headlines brought to you by Carolyn Kay MakeThemAccountable.com On VacationMakeThemAccountable will be on vacation until Wednesday, July 18.
Top StoryDisregard subpoenas, Justice Dept. says
WASHINGTON — In a broadly worded legal opinion, the Justice Department has concluded that President Bush's former top lawyer, and possibly other senior White House officials, can ignore subpoenas from Congress to testify about the firings of U.S. attorneys. The three-page opinion raises questions about whether the Justice Department would prosecute senior administration officials if Congress voted to hold them in contempt for not cooperating with the investigation into the firing last year of eight top prosecutors.
We have a full-blown constitutional crisis on our hands, folks.—Caro The World200 explosive belts seized in Iraq
BAGHDAD - Iraqi security forces seized 200 explosive belts along the Syrian border Wednesday, a police spokesman said, reinforcing Baghdad's claims that its western neighbor isn't doing enough to stop the flow of fighters and weapons to al-Qaida in Iraq.
Lebanese Army pounds Islamic militants
TRIPOLI, Lebanon - The Lebanese army pounded a Palestinian refugee camp with artillery fire on Thursday, but the military denied reports that the action was part of a final assault on the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic militants barricaded inside.
Al-Qaida has rebuilt, U.S. intel warns
WASHINGTON - A new threat assessment from U.S. counterterrorism analysts says that al-Qaida has used its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border to restore its operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before Sept. 11, 2001.
Oil aid heads to North Korea, nuclear talks set
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea sent oil to the North on Thursday, part of a deal by which the communist state is to shut its nuclear reactor, and Beijing said big powers would meet next week for talks to push Pyongyang to scrap its atomic arms program.
Brazil: $540M for nuclear program
SAO PAULO, Brazil - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that Brazil will budget about $540 million over eight years to complete its nuclear program, including uranium enrichment and possibly building a nuclear-powered submarine.
French parliament encourages overtime
PARIS - French legislators approved a measure championed by President Nicolas Sarkozy that would encourage people to work beyond the 35-hour workweek by cutting taxes on overtime pay.
Yeah, you should be as rushed and harried and sleep deprived as Americans, French people.—Caro The NationFox Military Analyst: Chertoff’s ‘Gut Feeling’ Is More About ‘Politics Than Terrorism’
Yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said that the nation is “entering a period this summer of increased risk.” When asked for how he knows this information, he said his remarks were based on his “gut feeling.” Today, Fox News military analyst Col. David Hunt swiftly attacked Chertoff’s remarks, stating, “I understand he’s got feelings. The problem is, the states and cities, who have to react to the Department of Homeland Security guidance, can’t do squat on his feelings. … It seems more politics, John, than terrorism.”
Sen. Olympia Snowe 2nd Republican to Back Troop Withdrawal Bill
Sen. Olympia Snowe on Wednesday became the second Republican to embrace a bill ordering troops out of Iraq as President Bush's national security adviser tried to stop defections from the White House war policy.
Republican unity fraying on Iraq war
WASHINGTON - Republican unity is fraying on the long war in Iraq, not to mention civility.
But we have to watch what they DO, not what they say. See below.—Caro
Republicans Kill Webb's Troop-Protection Amendment
Senate Republicans succeeded in a filibuster in which they refused to end debate on Virginia Democrat Jim Webb's S. 2012, which would have placed strict limits on National Guard and reserve deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as mandating more downtime at home before active-duty combat troops are returned to battle.
GOP Senate leader McConnell says he will filibuster any and all amendments about Iraq. Media spins story for GOP.
The true colors of the Republican party come through. Nothing can be done about Iraq - NOTHING - or they will filibuster it. We're staying in Iraq forever, all thanks to the Republicans.
Boehner: Senators favoring withdrawal are ‘wimps.’
In an attempt to bring “solidarity among House Republicans,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) called the Senate Republicans favoring withdrawal “wimps” at a caucus meeting today. Boehner was then criticized by Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM), who said discussions of war “should always be taken seriously.”
Govt Website: Abortions Make Women Feel ‘Sad,’ Resort To ‘Drugs’ And ‘Alcohol’
Yesterday, NARAL discovered that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had revised a government website, 4parents.gov, with biased and misleading ideological claims about abortion.
Surgeon General Sees 4-Year Term as Compromised
Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona … said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.
Leahy: Taylor’s Testimony ‘Undercuts’ White House Claims To Executive Privilege
In his closing comments, Leahy noted Taylor’s admission that she did not discuss the U.S. attorney firing plan with the President, saying it “seriously undercuts his claim of executive privilege if he was not involved.” “And that really shows, again, that the White House counsel’s broad instruction is not only unprecedented, but it’s unsound,” added Leahy.
Vitter has long history with prostitutes
Disgraced Louisiana Republican Conservative Senator David Vitter not only liked high-priced call girls in Washington, DC, but frequented a pricey brothel in his hometown of New Orleans and had a "Tuesdays and Thursdays" fling with another prostitute in the 1990s. But Republican officials in Louisiana helped cover up Vitter's dalliances with prostitutes, saying "it's very sleazy, and it's illegal. But, OK, it doesn't apply to senators. They're an elite group." Economy & FinanceThe Pirates’ Code
(P)irate ships developed models that in many ways anticipated those of later Western democracies. First, pirates adopted a system of divided and limited power. Captains had total authority during battle, when debate and disagreement were likely to be both inefficient and dangerous. Outside of battle, the quartermaster, not the captain, was in charge—responsible for food rations, discipline, and the allocation of plunder. On most ships, the distribution of booty was set down in writing, and it was relatively equal.
So our captains of industry are worse than pirates. Maybe if we hung a few of them from a yardarm, they’d all change their tunes.—Caro
In Economics Departments, a Growing Will to Debate Fundamental Assumptions
Most efforts to intervene in the markets — like setting a minimum wage, instituting industrial policy or regulating prices — are viewed askance by mainstream economists, as are analyses that do not rely on mathematical modeling. That attitude, the critics argue, has seriously harmed the discipline, suppressing original, creative thinking and distorting policy debates. MediaPermanent link to MTA daily media news
Al Qaeda cell may be in US ready to attack at any moment... so Bush is scheduling an emergency meeting... in a few days, or so
Yeah, no rush. They may be about to attack, so the meeting is for Thursday because, you know, today or tomorrow would have been, uh, too early. The White House leaked (a) report to ABC in order to influence the Iraq debate in this Congress this week. Does anyone really believe that Bush is having a super secret counter terror meeting and it just happens to leak out by accident?
Santorum Suggest New Terror Attacks Will Change View Of War
In an alarming display of fearmongering, former Republican Senator Rick Santorum has suggested that a series of "unfortunate events," namely terrorist attacks, will occur within the next year and change American citizen's perception of the war… Last month, the new chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party Dennis Milligan said that there needed to be more attacks on American soil for President Bush to regain popular approval.
Washington's Current Debate on Iraq Echoes the Rhetoric of Vietnam Era
Parallels emerge sharply in the documentary, "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." Striking footage of Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush presents similar patterns of spin aimed at maintaining basic war policies in the face of mounting public opposition.
Dear AP, do you actually read the legislation you write about?
(F)or AP to suggest that (Sen. Salazar's bill) somehow implements the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group is absurd. AP could have read just page 3 of the bill, the one where it says that the Iraq Study Group did NOT set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. That directly contradicts AP's own assertion that the Group did in fact call for such a withdrawal by next March. The legislation not only has no teeth, it doesn't even correspond to the Iraq Study Group's own recommendations.
Sanjay Gupta Says Medicare Is Going Bankrupt
CNN’s health care analyst is now telling people that Medicare is going bankrupt… Is Congress going to be likely to scrap Medicare a decade from now when beneficiaries are going to be a far larger share of the voting population than they were in the past? That doesn’t seem likely. So the idea that Medicare will actually run out of money, as Dr. Gupta’s claim that Medicare is going bankrupt would seem to imply, is just not plausible.
'10 That Do It Right' No. 3: 'The Onion'
Every summer, E&P selects its "10 That Do It Right" from the nation's daily and weekly newspapers. Today's pick: The Onion? Hey, don't laugh. Well, actually, do laugh -- because that's what they want. But the paper that bills itself as "America's Finest News Source" is far from a joke.
A Different Type of Porn
A piece of hard criticism from the usually fluffy (USA Today) takes on the Four F's of porn—Food, Fashion, Fitness and Finances. They are insidious because they masquerade as news you can use while crowding out the genuine information we need to make informed decisions.... As F-Porn expands across the shelf, the information we need to know about the political process, the conduct of the war, the state of the environment, health care and education becomes harder and harder to find. Now, isn't that obscene?
The Sundance Channel Adds Social Networking for a Green Cause
The Sundance Channel’s online component is looking to integrate more social features, and it doing so with the Eco-mmunity Map. This interactive map will mark and help you find others that are interested in bettering the environment and living a more green lifestyle. You can find businesses, special attractions and action points on this eco-mmunity map as well, which is powered by Google. Technology & ScienceSensitive military files readily available online
Detailed schematics of a military detainee holding facility in southern Iraq. Geographical surveys and aerial photographs of two military airfields outside Baghdad. Plans for a new fuel farm at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
New Supercomputer is Fastest Yet
Running about 100,000 times faster than a high-end desktop PC, IBM has unveiled the world’s fastest computer. Already, it's not fast enough. The new king of the supercomputers is the IBM Blue Gene/P running at a speed of at least one petaflop per second, meaning it can solve one quadrillion floating point math problems per second.
iPod Helped Lightning Jolt Jogger
(HealthDay News) -- It wasn't playing his swan song, but the iPod a Canadian runner wore during a thunderstorm may have worsened his lightning-related injuries, physicians say.
The Secret to More Useful Robots: Tai Chi Training
More graceful robots could better handle boring household chores that require smooth, coordinated movements, just like the robotic maid Rosey helped the cartoon TV-series Jetsons dust tables, clean windows and vacuum floors.
Breast tumor genes no hinder to cancer survival
BOSTON (Reuters) - Women who develop breast cancer because they carry one of three defective genes are no less likely to survive over the long term than other breast cancer patients, Canadian and Israeli researchers said on Wednesday.
Kids Living Near School Rarely Walk There: Study
WEDNESDAY, July 11 (HealthDay News) -- Even though one out of three American children live within a mile of their school, barely half of those students regularly bike or walk to class, researchers report. Children who live in the South, in rural areas or who have college-educated parents are among those least likely to bike or walk to school, notes the report.
Uninsured Americans Raise Medicare Expenditures
WEDNESDAY, July 11 (HealthDay News) -- Americans who weren't insured before they reached age 65 and gained access to Medicare cost the program a lot more than those who did have health insurance, a new study finds.
Study: Women Are in Charge at Home
Men might throw their weight around at the office, but at home, women are the bosses. A study, which was just released, finds that wives have more power than their husbands in making decisions and dominating discussions.
Supposedly Albert Einstein once said that he and his (second) wife had agreed that he would make all the big decisions and she would make all the little ones, but that in many years of marriage there had never been a big decision to make.—Caro
Clever Apes Recreate an Aesop Fable
Orangutans are bright enough to use water as a tool, a finding that researchers say is straight out of Aesop's Fables. Five orangutans at the Leipzig Zoo in Germany were each shown shelled peanuts. The nuts floated out of reach inside a clear 10-inch-high plastic tube quarter-filled with water. All of the orangutans collected water from a drinker and spat it inside the tube to float the peanuts high enough to grab them, averaging three mouthfuls before success.
Found, a perfect baby mammoth
A baby mammoth has been uncovered in the permafrost of north-west Siberia. The six-month-old frozen female calf is so well preserved that it looks as if it died only days ago, reviving hopes that the hairy beasts could one day walk the Earth again. The creature, 4ft 3in tall and 110lb, is likely to be more than 9,000 years old - around the time they were vanishing from the grassy plains of the northern hemisphere at the end of the last ice age. The eyes are still intact, the trunk has a notch at the end that is rarely seen, and some fur remains on the body.
Click through to see the photograph. It’s amazing.—Caro
Volunteers requested to sort galactic census
Scientists want Internet users to help them sort through an unusual digital photo album: pictures of about 1 million galaxies. EnvironmentScientists Detail Cost of Global Warming
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Wilting heat, deadly storms, flash floods, coastal erosion, more days with unhealthy air - those are just some of the effects of rising temperatures on the Northeast, a group of scientists reported Wednesday. They urged governments and citizens to take steps now to avoid the most devastating consequences of global warming.
Solar Variations Not Behind Global Warming
The sun's changing energy levels are not to blame for recent global warming and, if anything, solar variations over the past 20 years should have had a cooling effect, scientists said on Wednesday. For more headlines, visit MakeThemAccountable.com. |
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
