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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

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Bush disagrees with Greenspan on economy
WASHINGTON - President Bush on Tuesday defended his management of the economy and "respectfully" disagreed with former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, whose new book blisters the president for mishandling the nation's spending.
The sun rises in the east. Night follows day.—Caro

Off the Wahl

The World

More delays in shift to Iraqi control
WASHINGTON - In another sign of U.S. struggles in Iraq, the target date for putting Iraqi authorities in charge of security in all 18 provinces has slipped yet again, to at least July.

Maliki blasts Blackwater firm for other incidents
BAGHDAD — Blackwater security guards who protect top U.S. diplomats in Iraq have been involved in at least seven serious incidents, some of which resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said Wednesday. Maliki didn't detail the incidents, which he said add to the case against the North Carolina-based security firm. Blackwater's license to operate here has been revoked while U.S. and Iraqi officials investigate a shooting Sunday that Iraqi officials now say left at least 11 people dead.

Contractors outnumber U.S. troops
While having contractors on and around the battlefield is not new, the situation in Iraq raises questions about whether U.S. troops have become so dependent on contract help they could not function properly in their absence.

Beirut car bomb kills anti-Syrian MP
BEIRUT (Reuters) - A car bomb killed an anti-Syrian lawmaker and at least seven other people in Beirut on Wednesday, less than a week before Lebanon's parliament was due to elect a new president.

Iran: Retaliation for any Israeli attack
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has drawn up plans to bomb Israel if the Jewish state should attack, the deputy air force commander said Wednesday, adding to tensions already heated up by an Israeli airstrike on Syria and Western calls for more U.N. sanctions against Tehran.

Iran leader denied on WTC wreath request
NEW YORK - A request by Iran's president to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site next week has been turned down by police and blasted by U.S. diplomats as an attempt to turn ground zero into a "photo op."

Bin Laden video to declare war on Musharraf-site
DUBAI (Reuters) - An Islamist Web site said on Thursday it would carry a new video from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in which he declares war on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani army.

Congo warlord recruiting children
KINSHASA, Congo - A warlord in eastern Congo is recruiting child soldiers in violation of international law, U.N. and government officials said Wednesday.

The Nation

Poll: Americans unhappy with Bush policy after Iraq speech.
In a new CBS poll released yesterday, most Americans “say the plan President Bush announced last week for troop reductions doesn’t go far enough. … Nearly half want Mr. Bush to remove even more troops by next summer than he proposed in his address. Forty-seven percent say the plan to bring troop numbers down to pre-surge levels next year should go even further.”

Senate rejects giving terror suspects access to federal courts
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday rejected legislation that would have allowed terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to petition federal courts claiming that they're being held in error. The 56-43 vote in favor of the bill fell short of the 60 votes needed under Senate rules to cut off debate, blocking the legislation.
Shame on them. SHAME on them. Not that Bush can abrogate the Constitution anyway, but this is unconscionable.—Caro

Senate blocks Democrats' bid to give U.S. troops more time at home
WASHINGTON — In another defeat for Democrats trying to change President Bush's Iraq policy, the Senate on Wednesday blocked legislation requiring that members of the active-duty military must spend at least as much time in the United States as they've spent in Iraq or Afghanistan before they can be sent back to the war zones again. Democrats plan several more bills in the next few weeks to try to speed troop withdrawals, but the one on "dwell time" was considered their best chance to get the 60 votes needed under Senate rules to shut off debate. It fell four votes short: 56-44.
More shame. And it’s an even worse shame that the Democrats keep trying to convince us that they need 60 votes to get us out of Iraq. All they need is 41 senators willing to risk right-wing attacks to stop any funding bills from going forward unless they include set withdrawal plans.—Caro

Most Corrupt Members of Congress
CREW has released their updated list of the 22 most corrupt members of Congress. The list is comprised of 18 Republicans and 4 Democrats. They added two honorable mention spots for sex scandal-embroiled GOP Sens. Larry Craig and David Vitter.

Congress weighs rules for private security firms in Iraq
WASHINGTON — The deaths of 11 Iraqis during a shooting involving Blackwater security guards pose the kind of quandary that congressional investigators have been worrying about for years: how to oversee and prosecute contractors accused of crimes in a war-torn country. The shooting also renews focus on congressional efforts to bring more oversight to security contractors.

Most Voters Say Election 2008 is Annoying and a Waste of Time
While political junkies have enjoyed the extended pre-season for Election 2008, most voters say that the debates and other campaign activities so far have been annoying and a waste of time. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 56% of Likely Voters hold that view while only 29% say the campaign so far has been interesting and informative. In fact, 72% of voters would favor a proposal to shorten the Presidential campaign season so that no one could begin campaigning more than a year before election day.

Local election officials fear paper-trail bill could bring chaos
WASHINGTON — Local governments that spent millions of dollars on new voting machines two years ago might have to do it again if a bill pending in Congress becomes law. The bill would require ballots nationwide to have paper trails by the November 2008 presidential election.

Media

Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Crooks and Liars (by bluegal)

Mo who? (by Jeff Jarvis)
I realized this morning (Thursday) — as the Times heavily promoted the death of TimesSelect as a new feature (’Free columnists!’ . . . or is that ‘Columnists freed!’?) — that I could link to and quote their opinion purveyors again. But I’m unlikely to, because TimesSelect broke the habit of reading the Times op-ed page. I lived quite well without it, thank you.

Paul Krugman has a blog: What I Hate About Political Coverage
Instead of telling us what candidates are actually saying – and whether it’s true or false, sensible or silly – (political journalists) tell us how it went over, and how they think it affects the horse race… The important problem is that it fails to inform the public about what matters…. (And) this sort of coverage often fails even on its own terms, because the way things look to inside-the-Beltway pundits can be very different from the way they look to real people.

Small La. town gears up for big protest
JENA, La. - Tina Cheatham missed the civil rights marches at Selma, Montgomery and Little Rock, but she had no intention of missing another brush with history… Cheatham was among thousands expected to turn out in support of six black teenagers, known as the Jena Six, jailed for the beating of a white classmate. The event was heavily promoted on black Web sites, blogs, radio and publications.

Hardball: The Assault On Free Speech In America
On Tuesday’s Hardball, Joe Conason from The New York Observer and Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink had a lot to say about Monday’s controversial tasering of a University of Florida student and go in depth about the state of free speech, or lack thereof, in America today. The discussion of free speech zones and political expression took an interesting turn when Benjamin claimed to have been pulled out out of a Hillary Clinton rally for wearing a shirt that read “Troops. Home. Now.”
Click through to watch the video.—Caro

Meet the future savior of journalism: 'FamousWriterMan@aol.com', a/k/a Taserman "The Andrew Meyer" (by Will Bunch)
It figures. He's a journalist. In fact, now 21-year-old University of Florida student journalist Andrew Meyer -- or "The Andrew Mayer," based on his personal Web site, TheAndrewMeyer.com -- was so certain that he would become a famous wordsmith one day that his email address is, indeed, Famouswriterman@aol.com. Laugh if you must, but this is one man whose prophecy has already come true.

Uh, No, Your Tax Cuts Didn't Pay for Themselves (by Mark Thoma at Economist’s View)
The tax cuts paid for themselves? I wish the President and others would quit misleading people about this because it's not true. His own economists don't even believe that. I know some of you are tired of hearing this over and over, but somebody has to try to call them on this or they'll just keep saying it, and the press seems unwilling to do so so.

What’s the Canadian medical system like, anyway?
Canada might as well be on the other side of the moon for as much as the U.S. press tells us about its health care system. Morton Mintz says he could find only one in-depth article on it, and that was published in 1992.

Where Does the Bush-Petraeus Strategy Lead?
The existence of the permanent bases has been something constructed under the radar, without any attention being paid by the press.... We know (of) at least four giant permanent bases, one in each quadrant of Iraq… These are small towns that are essentially being built up.

Dan Rather files $70M suit against CBS
Dan Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and his former bosses Wednesday, claiming they made him a "scapegoat" for a discredited story about President Bush's military service during the Vietnam War.

NBC to Offer Free Downloads of Popular Shows
NBC.com has announced a service called “NBC Direct” which will allow users to download NBC shows such as “The Office,” “30 Rock,” and “Heroes,” to their desktop. The NBC Direct software will allow users to view each episode for up to one week, at which point the license will expire. While free to view the shows, the videos will include advertising. NBC Direct will also include a feature for automatically delivering new episodes of NBC shows to users.

Technology & Science

NYC taxi drivers sue to stop GPS units
NEW YORK - A group of cabbies sued city regulators Wednesday in an attempt to block a new requirement that all taxis be outfitted with global positioning systems and software that will record where they drive.

Want a free phone line? Make rooma for Ooma
Ooma is the latest variation on VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), industry jargon for calls routed through cyberspace. But it is different from better-known Internet phone services such as Vonage or Skype. You can ditch the landline altogether or integrate Ooma with landline service; do so, and you can keep your phone number.

Americans giving up friends, sex for Web life
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Surfing the net has become an obsession for many Americans with the majority of U.S. adults feeling they cannot go for a week without going online and one in three giving up friends and sex for the Web.

More Americans Urged to Get Flu Shots
Vaccine supplies are plentiful this year, but inoculation rates are low, officials say.

Feel Pudgy? There’s a Shot for That
Anti-fat injections are one of the most hotly debated procedures in cosmetic medicine because they are spreading faster than the science behind them.

Stem Cells From Testes Produce Wide Range of Tissue Types
Work with mice might lead to treatments for diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer's

‘Aquanauts’ live in a scientific fishbowl
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.

Human ancestor had mix of primitive, modern traits
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The earliest-known human ancestors to migrate out of Africa possessed a surprising mix of human-like and primitive features, according to scientists who studied remains dug up at a fossil-rich site in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

Environment

Space Based Solar Power Fuels Vision of Global Energy Security
BRECKENRIDGE, Colorado – The deployment of space platforms that capture sunlight for beaming down electrical power to Earth is under review by the Pentagon, as a way to offer global energy and security benefits – including the prospect of short-circuiting future resource wars between increasingly energy-starved nations.

Sunny Outlook: Can Sunshine Provide All U.S. Electricity?
In the often cloudless American Southwest, the sun pours more than eight kilowatts per square meter of its energy onto the landscape. Vast parabolic mirrors in the heart of California's Mojave Desert concentrate this solar energy to heat special oil to around 750 degrees Fahrenheit (400 degrees Celsius). This hot oil transfers its heat to water, vaporizing it, and then that steam turns a turbine to produce electricity. All told, nine such mirror fields, known as concentrating solar power plants, supply 350 megawatts of electricity yearly.

San Francisco to go dark, save energy
SAN FRANCISCO - The Golden Gate Bridge, City Hall, Alcatraz and other parts of the city will go almost completely dark for an hour next month as part of a campaign to conserve energy and fight global warming.

CO2 emissions could violate EPA ocean-quality standards within decades
In a commentary in the September 25, 2007, issue of the Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), a large team of scientists state that human-induced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will alter ocean chemistry to the point where it will violate U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Quality Criteria (1976) by mid-century if emissions are not dramatically curtailed now.

Business Leaders Call for Public Policies that Leverage Forest Carbon Cycle
GENEVA, Sept. 20, 2007 -- A group of World Business Council for Sustainable Development member companies is calling for public policies that make the best use of the forestry sector's carbon profile and carbon cycle.

More Consumers Trading Gas-Guzzlers for Fuel-Sippers: Survey
MIAMI, Sept. 20, 2007 -- Rising gas prices and housing market uncertainty are driving some consumers away from large cars toward smaller, gas-sipping vehicles, according to a recent survey.

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