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[Caro]

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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

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Abizaid: World could abide nuclear Iran
Every effort should be made to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but failing that, the world could live with a nuclear-armed regime in Tehran, a recently retired commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said Monday.

Pablo on Politics

The World

Bush's fall Mideast meeting may be in trouble
JERUSALEM — As U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prepares to return to Jerusalem this week for her fifth visit this year, new divisions between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators could undermine, or even derail, Bush administration plans for a meeting on Middle East peace this fall. Palestinian leaders, along with Saudi Arabia, are threatening to boycott the event unless it ends with a detailed framework and specific timetable for establishing a Palestinian state.

Iraq expels American security firm
BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government Monday ordered Blackwater USA, the security firm that protects U.S. diplomats, to stop work and leave the country after the fatal shooting of eight Iraqi civilians following a car bomb attack against a State Department convoy.

Iran condemns French warning over a possible war
The state-run news agency made an angry attack on the French government Monday after the French foreign minister said the world should brace for war against Iran over its nuclear program, although he did not believe war was imminent.

Lawyer: Musharraf will give up army post
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - President Gen. Pervez Musharraf will step down as army chief and restore civilian rule to Pakistan, but only after he secures re-election as president, a government lawyer said Tuesday.

N. Korea denies nuclear ties with Syria
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea strongly denied Tuesday that it has provided Syria with secret nuclear cooperation, claiming the charge was fabricated to block progress in the North's relations with the United States.

Bolivia once again engulfed by angry divisions
SUCRE, Bolivia — When Evo Morales became Bolivia's first indigenous president, he promised to heal years of bitter social divisions and give poor Bolivians, and especially the indigenous majority, a greater say in how the country was run. Twenty months later, those high hopes have collapsed, Morales is struggling to stay in control and this landlocked country of 9 million people once again is teetering on the brink of disintegration.

The Nation

Greenspan admits Iraq was about oil, as deaths put at 1.2m
The man once regarded as the world’s most powerful banker has bluntly declared that the Iraq war was ‘largely’ about oil… Greenspan’s damning comments about the war come as a survey of Iraqis, which was released last week, claims that up to 1.2 million people may have died because of the conflict in Iraq - lending weight to a 2006 survey in the Lancet that reported similarly high levels.
Bush has wasted all these lives and disrupted millions of others, for nothing. Because we don’t have the oil, anyway.—Caro

Democrats to try again to rein in Bush's war plan
WASHINGTON — Now that President Bush has said he'll start to withdraw the extra forces he sent to Iraq by next summer, Senate Democrats likely will roll out legislation this week that would require deeper troop cuts much sooner. In the spotlight will be about 10 Republican senators who are frustrated with Bush's war policy but haven't yet voted against it.

Source: Republican Senators Eyeing Support For Webb Troop Measure (Election Central | Talking Points Memo)
We hear from a source familiar with ongoing Senate discussions that a few Republican Senators are considering breaking ranks with their leadership and supporting Jim Webb's troop-readiness bill, which would give troops as much time off as they spend in the war -- a measure that would slow the war down in a big way. The source tells us that three Republicans who voted against the measure last time are now considering backing it: Senators George Voinovich, Lisa Murkowski, and Elizabeth Dole.

Dodd, Leahy reintroduce Habeas Corpus Restoration Act.
In an e-mail to supporters, Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced that they were reintroducing the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act as an amendment to a defense authorization bill today. Last fall’s Military Commissions Act stripped detainees charged as enemy combatants of their right of habeas corpus.
Click through to watch the video of Dodd introducing the measure.—Caro

Bush Pulls the Ol' Switcheroo (by David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo)
President Bush tucked it in at the end of his announcement (Monday) morning. The new acting attorney general will be Peter Keisler, an assistant attorney general who had just announced his own resignation and whose nomination to the D.C. Court of Appeals has been held up for months by Senate Democrats. So it will be Keisler, a diehard conservative and controversial figure, who occupies the DOJ top spot until a new AG is confirmed… Presumably, Bush wants to keep the heat on Dems to confirm Mukasey, by making them face the prospect of a long Keisler tenure if the Mukasey nomination is held up.

Rove investigation in jeopardy due to funding.
In April, the Office of Special Counsel launched a six-member task force examining “the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities.” The task force is in now jeopardy. “Without a last-minute infusion of nearly $3 million, the special task force may be unable to pay its staff and buy the kind of technical equipment it needs” for the investigation, according to Jim Mitchell, the office’s spokesman. But the funds may be hard to come by.
Aw, gee, too bad. We’d just LOVE to investigate Mr. Rove, but we just can’t find any money to do it.—Caro

GAO report says SEC failing to close cases, distribute funds to harmed investors
WASHINGTON (Thomson Financial) - The Securities and Exchange Commission has failed to distribute about 80 pct of the funds set up in a 2002 program aimed at compensating investors injured due to violations of US securities laws, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released today.

Intel chief pushes new spy law
WASHINGTON — Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell heads to Capitol Hill this week seeking to extend the government's power to read e-mails, listen to telephone calls and carry out other surveillance within the USA in national security cases. Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are criticizing McConnell's proposals. They say judges should oversee such surveillance.
Never enough power. Never, ever enough.—Caro

Media

Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Times deselected (by Jeff Jarvis)
TimesSelect is dead. It was a cynical act doomed from the start. With it goes any hope of charging for content online. Content is now and forever free… TimesSelect represented the last gasp of the circulation mentality of news media, the belief that surely consumers would continue to pay for content even as the internet commodified news and — more important — even as the internet revealed that the real value in media is not owning and controlling content or distribution but enabling conversation.
I still believe that people can be made aware of how advertising skews news coverage, and could be persuaded to contribute or subscribe to multiple sources. They just don’t want to have to subscribe to each of them separately.—Caro

President makes conservative bloggers weep (by Paul McLeary)
(Last week) the White House extended its first ever invitation to a group of bloggers to sit down with the president for a little Q&A… These guys got some face time with the President of the United States, and the best they can do is titter about is how cool he is, and that he has the power to make a “Illinois farm kid” cry? Give me a break. In case we needed a reminder, this is why the blogworld is not yet a viable substitute for actual journalism.
Sorry, Paul, but I don’t see any difference between these bloggers and Peggy Noonan or Chris Matthews or any of the other Bush swooners in the so-called mainstream media.—Caro

El Baradei Fights Off Drumbeat For Iran War, Warns Pre-War Iraq Failures Are Being Repeated
By all accounts, there is an increasing clamor in recent weeks from the right-wing for military action against Iran. U.S. News writes that calls for “stronger actions are intensifying, including among some U.S. officials.” Last week, Fox News reported that German officials were giving up on new sanctions against Iran, helping push the U.S. closer to a decision on a military strike.

Sen. Reed’s Democratic Response Beats Bush Speech In Cable Ratings On Fox And CNN
In what was billed as major televised address on Iraq, President Bush last week “recycled tired rhetoric” and “mumbo jumbo” about staying the course. Sen. Jack Reed delivered a direct response, pledging the Democratic leadership would “exercise our Constitutional duties and profoundly change our military involvement in Iraq.”
Click through to see a table with the numbers.—Caro

Greenspanspeak and the Bush Tax Cut (by Dean Baker)
Greenspan knew that there was a stock bubble, and presumably by January of 2001 he recognized that it was finally bursting. This meant that he could not have really believed at the time that there was a risk that the government actually would see the large surpluses that were projected, and therefore he could not have really been concerned that the debt would be paid off too quickly. In short, the line about paying off the debt too quickly was simply an excuse that Greenspan gave for supporting President Bush’s tax cut. It would be appropriate to mention this fact in the accounts of Greenspan’s book.

Media Matters for America headlines

CNN aired Romney attack on Clinton health care plan without noting his reversal

Mark Levin reports role in Giuliani attack on Clinton

CNN displayed Giuliani attack ad against Clinton, while reporting on Cheney criticism of MoveOn ad

Kurtz responds to criticism of claim that Fox is "entitled" to misinform

Newsday repeated misleading claim from 2006 NY Times article about Clinton's contributions from "health care industry"

NY Times: Schumer's praise of Mukasey shows Dems have "little appetite for fight" -- but he was Schumer's suggestion

ABCNews.com uncritically quoted Romney's attack on Clinton health plan

Couric described soldiers' war-zone deaths as "ironic()"

http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2007/09/17/lohan-hilton-spears-the-medias-insatiable-appetite-for-celebrity-addicts/">Lohan, Hilton, Spears: The Media's Insatiable Appetite For Celebrity Addicts
Tabloid entertainment media makes young female celebrities with drug problems seem chic while trivializing the depth of the addictions that they, along with thousands of other women, face.

'NYT' Posts Filmmaker's Video 'Letter to Editor' on Bremer Op-Ed
For the first time ever, The New York Times has posted a video letter to the editor. The opinion is from Charles Ferguson, the anti-war filmmaker, who responded critically to L. Paul Bremer's recent Op-Ed concerning the dismantling of the Iraqi Army.

Technology & Science

Digital 'Smiley Face' Turns 25
PITTSBURGH (AP) - It was a serious contribution to the electronic lexicon. :-) Twenty-five years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman says, he was the first to use three keystrokes - a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis - as a horizontal "smiley face" in a computer.

Extinction Is at Hand for Paper Airline Tickets
Replacing paper tickets with electronic ticketing will save airlines $3 billion annually on the roughly 400 million tickets sold outside of the United States alone.

I.B.M. to Offer Office Software Free in Challenge to Microsoft’s Line
The company plans to announce the creation of I.B.M. Lotus Symphony, free programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations.

Google Expands Online Software Suite
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) - Google Inc. has expanded its online suite of office software to include a business presentation tool similar to Microsoft Corp.'s popular PowerPoint, adding the latest twist in a high-stakes rivalry.

Man in China dies after three-day Internet session
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese man dropped dead after playing Internet games for three consecutive days, state media said on Monday as China seeks to wean Internet addicts offline.

The Greatest Threat to Children: Parents
While rare incidents of children being abused and killed by sex offenders grab headlines, in fact parents are a far greater threat to children. Studies show that if a child is abducted or killed, the perpetrator is most likely a parent, guardian or close friend. Each year, hundreds of infants and children are killed by one of their parents, and over all age groups, mothers kill more often than fathers.

Don't Eat That, or Your Child May Grow Up Fat
Nearly all pregnant women know that they have to take prenatal supplements and stop smoking and drinking to protect the health of their unborn baby. But does it really make a difference to Baby if you gorge on ice cream and skimp on fruit, grilled chicken, and brown rice? Actually, yes.

Aerobic, Weight Training Combo Best Against Diabetes
Exercise is always good, but combining two approaches brings better results, study finds.

Mouthpiece Could Help Ease Snoring
'Dental splint' an alternative to masks, surgery, researchers say

Depression Pushes Middle-Aged Workers to Retire
Study finds it's often a key factor in the decision

Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village
LIMA (AFP) - Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.

Discovery Changes Understanding of Neutrons
The neutron has been found to have a negative charge both in its inner core and its outer edge, with a positive charge sandwiched in between to make the particle electrically neutral… The discovery changes scientific understanding of how neutrons interact with negatively charged electrons and positively charged protons. Specifically, it has implications for understanding the strong force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature

Environment

Second warmest August ever.
The National Climatic Data Center, a division of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, reports that last month was the second warmest August on record. Moreover, at the end of August, drought affected approximately 83% of the Southeast and 46% of the contiguous US.

Scientists study Fla. coral reef changes
A nine-day mission that began Monday in the world's only permanent working undersea laboratory is like living in a fishbowl in more ways than one: Anyone with an Internet connection can watch the researchers work and hang out 60 feet below the surface.

Unusual warming signal: Prehistoric dung
For millennia, layers of organic matter left behind by the creatures that used to roam the Arctic tundra have been sealed inside the frozen permafrost. Now climate change is thawing the permafrost and could release this prehistoric ooze and its greenhouse gases.

Group Asks SEC To Force Climate Risk Disclosure
WASHINGTON - A group of institutional investors, state officials and environmental groups called on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday to force publicly-traded companies to disclose climate-related risks along with other factors that affect their business.

The Potential For Energy Efficiency Among Industrial Giants
In the face of an increasingly industrialized world -- and a world facing unknown threats from climate change -- the importance of driving up energy efficiency across sectors becomes crystal clear.

Calif. Suit On Car Greenhouse Gases Dismissed
SAN FRANCISCO - A U.S. federal judge tossed out a lawsuit by California's attorney general on Monday seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from six automakers for damaging the state with climate-changing greenhouse gases. Martin Jenkins, a federal judge in the Northern District of California, said the issue of global warming should be decided in the political rather than legal arena.

For more headlines, visit MakeThemAccountable.com.

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