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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

Top Stories

Airports warned about terror dry runs
WASHINGTON - Airport security officers around the nation have been alerted by federal officials to look out for terrorists practicing to carry explosive components onto aircraft, based on four curious seizures at airports since last September.

General: Al-Qaida making new cells in US
WASHINGTON - A top U.S. military commander said Tuesday he believes there are al-Qaida cells in the United States — or people working to create them — and the military needs to triple its response teams to counter a growing threat of attack.

The Illustrated Daily Scribble

The World

U.S., Iran call for stability in Iraq but disagree on how to achieve it
BAGHDAD — U.S. and Iranian diplomats harshly criticized each other's policies during "full and frank" talks here Tuesday but agreed to set up a security committee to carry on the discussions, the top U.S. envoy in Iraq said.

Lebanese troops bombard militants in refugee camp
NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon (Reuters) - Lebanese troops bombarded a Palestinian refugee camp with tank and artillery shells on Wednesday, trying to force al Qaeda-inspired militants ensnared in the camp to surrender.

10 Dead As Pakistan Bombings Intensify
Assailants fired into a city in northwestern Pakistan, killing 10 and wounding 35. Militant violence has spiked after a bloody raid on a radical mosque and the redeployment of the army to North Waziristan, the tribal region closest to Bannu.

Survey: Muslim support for violence against civilians drops
WASHINGTON — Support for suicide bombings and other violence against civilians dropped sharply in recent years in five Muslim countries, according to polls released Tuesday.

India's cabinet approves civil nuclear deal with US
NEW DELHI (AFP) - India's cabinet approved a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation accord with Washington, the first in a series of approvals required before the deal can be implemented.

Australian legal group derides terror cases as surreal
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's top legal body Tuesday described the treatment of a former Guantanamo Bay inmate and an Indian doctor on terror charges as surreal, saying both cases had an "Alice in Wonderland" quality.

The Nation

Dems taking all-or-nothing view on Iraq
WASHINGTON - Democratic leaders are taking an all-or-nothing approach on Iraq, a tack that leaves its members empty-handed for now but keeps the party in lockstep with demands by anti-war groups.
Actually, it keeps the party in lockstep with a large majority of Americans. See below.—Caro

Poll Finds Democrats Favored On War
As the president and Congress spar over war policy, both receive negative marks from the public for their handling of the situation in Iraq. But by a large margin, Americans trust Democrats rather than the president to find a solution to a conflict that remains enormously unpopular. And more than six in 10 in the new poll said Congress should have the final say on when to bring the troops home.

Panel urges changes for injured veterans
WASHINGTON - After three months of investigation, a presidential panel on troop care is promising some answers to a government problem: how to cut through the red tape facing thousands of injured Iraq war veterans.

Special prosecutor weighed for Gonzales
WASHINGTON - Angry senators suggested a special prosecutor should investigate misconduct at the Justice Department, accusing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday of deceit on the prosecutor firings and President Bush's eavesdropping program.

TPM Muckraker’s highlights on Gonzales’ testimony yesterday:
Gonzales: NSL Abuses Weren't Really Abuses
Gonzales: I Only Visited Ashcroft's Hospital Bed Because Congress Wanted It
Gonzales Unsure of How Many USAs He Fired
Gonzales: "Not So Clear" That Waterboarding Violates Geneva Common Article 3
Gonzales: Witness Tampering? No, It Was Witness Consolation.
Gonzales Stonewalls on Bush's Involvement in Hospital Visit
Gonzales Memo Widened Cheney's Office Access to DoJ Case Info

2 Bush aides to face contempt citations
WASHINGTON - Heading toward a separation-of-powers showdown, House Democrats prepared contempt of Congress citations against two White House aides who have refused to comply with subpoenas for information on the abrupt firings of federal prosecutors.

Diplomats Received Political Briefings
White House aides have conducted at least half a dozen political briefings for the Bush administration's top diplomats, including a PowerPoint presentation for ambassadors with senior adviser Karl Rove that named Democratic incumbents targeted for defeat in 2008 and a "general political briefing" at the Peace Corps headquarters after the 2002 midterm elections.

Botulism case is biggest in 30 years
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday directed stores and consumers nationwide to immediately discard more than 80 brands of canned meat made at Castleberry's Food Company's Augusta, Ga., plant because they could be contaminated with the deadly bacteria. Several types of pet food, which Castleberry's packages for Natural Balance, are also being recalled.

Media

Permanent link to MTA daily media news

If you are coming to YearlyKos and want to get together, let me know. I won’t be attending the convention, but I live in downtown Chicago, and would love to meet you.

I will be a guest today on the Tony Trupiano Show, at 1:00 PM ET. Listen to Tony’s show every day between noon and 3:00 PM ET on listener supported RadioPower.org.

Master Control
CNN seemed … unsure about when to let go and when to hold on during its much-ballyhooed ‘YouTube Debate.’ Its MSM mania for ‘filtering’ the questions, coupled with moderator Anderson Cooper’s failure to control the candidates and push them actually to answer the questions asked, marred what was otherwise an interesting and even laudable experiment in participatory democracy.

Get Me Out of Gitmo
(T)he vast majority of the detainees at Guantánamo are willing and able to go home (or at least willing to risk going home rather than stay at Guantánamo). Why isn’t the media talking about them? Once again the corporate media is being suckered by the Bush spin.

CNN ignored evidence of GOP obstructionism, allowed McConnell to attack Dems
(I)n airing the GOP claim that the Democratic leadership "isn't getting anything done" -- which (CNN congressional correspondent Dana) Bash did not challenge – she ignored the Republicans' record of blocking legislation proposed by the Democratic majority in the Senate. Indeed, as McClatchy Newspapers reported on July 20: "This year Senate Republicans are threatening filibusters to block more legislation than ever before."

Social Security Scare Stories: If 2046 Looming?
It Is when the NYT is talking about Social Security's projected shortfall. While the Congressional Budget Office says that Social Security can pay all benefits with no changes whatsoever through the year 2046, the NYT says that it faces a "looming" shortfall.

"Home Prices Are Falling Like Almost Never Before"
Those are the words of Angelo Mozilo, the Chairman and Chief Executive of Countrywide Financial, the nation's largest mortgage lender, according to the NYT. As they say at the Federal Reserve Board and all the other places where the growth of the housing bubble was ignored over the last five years, "who could have known?"

Bloggers inevitably will influence local politics, policymaking
The number of them keeping an eye on local politicians is growing, writes Jonathan Abrams. Bloggers tell him they started their sites because their community didn't receive enough coverage from the traditional media. Abrams writes that some of these muckraking blogs are anonymous, "others are scurrilous and, on occasion, possibly libelous. And to local politicians, most are a royal pain in the tuchis."

Technology & Science

San Francisco power outage knocks out major Web site
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Sporadic power outages cascaded across San Francisco for two hours on Tuesday, causing minor disruptions in the downtown business district, but knocking out Craigslist, the world's most popular local site.

The New Wireless Playing Field
Cell-phone makers and outsiders like Google want to break free from carriers' rigid controls and gain direct access to subscribers

Oregon Implements Facial Recognition on Drivers Licenses
Oregon officials are creating a biometric database of every motorist in the state that will ease a future transition to automated tracking and identification of residents. By July 2008, the state DMV plans to meet a deadline set by the legislature in completing the process of using facial recognition software to scan all existing driver photographs.

MySpace deletes 29,000 sex offender profiles
Popular Internet social network MySpace said on Tuesday it detected and deleted 29,000 convicted sex offenders on its service, more than four times the figure it had initially reported.

Three-million-year old mammal remains found in Greece
THESSALONIKI, Greece (AFP) - A group of paleontologists have discovered the tusks and petrified remains of a mastodon, or large mammoth-like mammal, that lived some three million years ago, the head of the team told AFP Monday.

Scientists' galaxy quest yielding hundreds of new planets
WASHINGTON — It's boom time for planet hunters. Astronomers are bagging new worlds at an average rate of more than two a month. As of July 20, the latest available date, 246 extrasolar planets had been detected circling other stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Among them are 25 alien "solar systems" consisting of two, three or four bodies orbiting single suns.

Environment

U.S., Canada, Mexico Vow Energy Tech Cooperation
Canada, the United States and Mexico pledged to co-operate on developing energy technology Monday in an agreement that could reduce trade barriers to alternative energy development.

Beijing to Build Windmills for 2008 Olympics
Beijing has started work on a 580 million yuan ($76.69 million) project to build 33 windmills to supply clean energy in time for the 2008 Olympic Games, state media said on Tuesday.

World Bank Sees Support for $250 Million Forest Fund
A planned $250 million World Bank fund to encourage developing countries to stop deforestation in return for access to carbon credits has attracted strong international support, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Toyota unveils plug-in hybrid, to test on roads
TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp. unveiled a "plug-in" hybrid car based on its popular Prius model on Wednesday, saying it would test the fuel-saving vehicle on public roads -- a first for the industry.

For more headlines, visit MakeThemAccountable.com.