Sep 01 2010

Prime Time

Well, the good news is that tonight’s speech means we won’t have to deal with lying Lawrence O’Donnell.  The bad news is that unless you get Speed so you can watch Monster Truck Jam there’s just not a lot of alternate programming to pick and choose from.

Frankly, as bad a night of TV as I can remember.

Later-

  • SciFi– Haven (repeat of this week’s)

Dave hosts Michael Douglas and Merle Haggard.  Michael will no doubt be whoring his sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.  Jon and Stephen are in repeats until next Tuesday despite TV Guide’s lying listing (and Yahoo is worse than ever, almost unusable).

Alton does casseroles.  The Revenge Society is another Venture Brothers episode that really advances the story arc.  If you can stay up late enough I highly recommend it.

Sep 01 2010

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Iraq hails sovereignty as U.S. ends combat mission

By Serena Chaudhry and Khalid al-Ansary, Reuters

Tue Aug 31, 12:43 pm ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq celebrated its sovereignty as the U.S. military formally ended combat operations on Tuesday, despite political deadlock and persistent violence, and warned other countries not to interfere as U.S. troops depart.

U.S. troop levels were cut to 50,000 before the partly symbolic deadline of August 31 set by President Barack Obama as he seeks to fulfill his pledge to end the war launched by his predecessor George W. Bush.

The six remaining U.S. brigades will turn their focus to training Iraqi police and troops as Iraq takes charge of its own destiny ahead of a full U.S. withdrawal by the end of next year.

2 Obama: No Iraq victory lap as combat mission ends

By Caren Bohan, Reuters

1 hr 16 mins ago

FORT BLISS, Texas (Reuters) – President Barack Obama declared the U.S. combat mission in Iraq officially over on Tuesday but said he would not take a “victory lap” because a lot more work remained to be done inside the country.

Obama, thanking troops in Texas before delivering an evening address to the nation, said Iraq now had the opportunity to create a better future for itself, and the United States, as a result, was more secure.

“I wanted to come down to Fort Bliss mainly to say thank you. And to say, welcome home,” he told troops, who shouted the traditional Army “Hooah” back to him in greeting.

3 France proposes EU commodities markets regulation

By Sybille de La Hamaide and Marc Joanny, Reuters

Tue Aug 31, 9:37 am ET

PARIS (Reuters) – France has sent detailed proposals to the European Commission calling for common action to regulate volatile commodities markets before it is due to head the Group of 20 economic powers, ministry officials said.

President Nicolas Sarkozy said last week that regulating commodity derivatives would be one of the priorities of France’s presidency of the G20 starting in November for a year.

France’s economy, energy and agriculture ministers sent a letter to three European commissioners on August 27 stressing that current European regulation was not enough and calling for coordinated and cross-sector EU action.

4 Republican leads Senate race in Pennsylvania

By John Whitesides, Reuters

1 hr 21 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican Pat Toomey has opened a 10-point lead over Democrat Joe Sestak among likely voters in a Senate race in Pennsylvania dominated by economic worries, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday.

Toomey, a conservative former congressman, leads Sestak, a former admiral elected to Congress in 2006, by 47 percent to 37 percent barely two months before the November 2 election to replace Democrat Arlen Specter.

Toomey’s lead was smaller, 40 percent to 37 percent, among a larger pool of registered voters.

5 Afghan withdrawal won’t be a "hand-off": Petraeus

By Paul Tait, Reuters

2 mins ago

KABUL (Reuters) – The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan from next July will begin with a general “thinning out” of forces rather than any large-scale drawdown, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces said on Tuesday.

Critics say U.S. President Barack Obama’s strategy to begin pulling out troops has backfired, sending a signal to the Taliban that the United States was preparing to wind down at a time when U.S. and NATO forces were suffering record casualties. Five U.S. soldiers were killed on Tuesday, capping a bloody four days.

It has also alarmed Afghan leaders, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai last week saying the Taliban threat has not been eliminated and any timeline for withdrawal would only “invigorate” the Islamist insurgents.

6 Gun rampage leaves eight dead in Slovakia

by Tatiana Bednarikova, AFP

Mon Aug 30, 3:26 pm ET

BRATISLAVA (AFP) – A man armed with an assault rifle shot seven people dead, wounded 15 and then turned the gun on himself in a Monday morning rampage on a street in the Slovak capital Bratislava, the police said.

“A man in his fifties shot six people dead and eventually killed himself after the police cornered him as he tried to escape the crime scene,” police commander Jaroslav Spisiak told reporters at the scene.

The shooting spree started shortly after 10:00 am (0800 GMT) in a flat inhabited by a Roma family in a prefab housing estate in Devinska Nova Ves, an otherwise quiet north-western district of the city.

7 US ends Iraq combat mission with Biden in Baghdad

by Arthur MacMillan, AFP

Tue Aug 31, 6:04 am ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) – The US military was preparing to end its Iraq combat mission on Tuesday as Vice President Joe Biden met the war-torn nation’s leaders in Baghdad after seven years of fighting that cost thousands of lives.

A major troop pullout in past months has left less than 50,000 American soldiers in Iraq while a simultaneous surge in car bombings and shootings, many of which have targeted local security forces, has raised security concerns.

President Barack Obama was due to mark the symbolic end of combat operations in a speech from the Oval Office at 8:00 pm (0000 GMT), after visiting a base in Texas where he was scheduled to meet recently returned Iraq veterans.

8 Iraq speech will not claim victory, Obama vows

by Stephen Collinson, AFP

1 hr 49 mins ago

FORT BLISS, Texas (AFP) – President Barack Obama said Tuesday his speech marking the end of US combat operations in Iraq would not be a victory lap, as Iraqi leaders vowed their forces could defend the country.

“Our combat phase is over,” Obama told American troops on a sprawling Texas military base before his solemn Oval Office address to the nation to mark the end of combat in Iraq seven years after the US-led invasion.

But the US commander-in-chief warned “there is still a lot of work to do” and he insisted his speech at 8:00pm (0000 GMT) Tuesday would not be “a victory lap, it is not congratulatory.”

9 Pakistan authorities close ranks around accused

by Shahid Hashmi, AFP

Tue Aug 31, 9:15 am ET

KARACHI (AFP) – Pakistan authorities on Tuesday closed ranks around the country’s top cricketers accused of match-fixing, as British police continued to probe the sensational newspaper allegations.

Pakistan’s cricket board said it would not suspend the four named players under investigation by Scotland Yard detectives over claims they deliberately bowled no-balls against England as part of a lucrative gambling scam.

Three other unnamed players are part of the British police inquiry.

10 Iraq says it’s independent as US ends combat

By LARA JAKES and REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press Writers

3 mins ago

BAGHDAD – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the end of American combat operations Tuesday leaves his country independent and an equal to the United States and he assured his people their own security forces will protect them.

But the extent of U.S. influence in Iraq was still palpable. Vice President Joe Biden, presiding over the transition of the American role in Iraq, held a round of meetings with political leaders and pushed them to break a half-year impasse that has held up formation of a new government after inconclusive elections in March. He said Iraq was much safer than before.

Al-Maliki spoke ahead of President Barack Obama’s address Tuesday night from the Oval Office to outline the withdrawal of combat forces.

11 Obama: End of Iraq combat mission not victory lap

By JULIE PACE, Associated Press Writer

5 mins ago

FORT BLISS, Texas – Hours before addressing the nation, President Barack Obama told U.S. troops just back from Iraq that his speech outlining the withdrawal of combat forces “is not going to be a victory lap” nor a cause for celebration.

“There’s still a lot of work that we’ve got to do to make sure that Iraq is an effective partner with us,” Obama said on Tuesday of his decision to end the nation’s combat mission in a war he once strongly opposed.

“The main message I have tonight, and the main message I have to you, is congratulations on a job well done,” Obama said.

12 Deja vu: 5 ex-governors in comeback bids

By SHANNON McCAFFREY, Associated Press Writer

50 mins ago

ATLANTA – In an election year of the angry electorate, former governors in five states are hoping that a deja vu appeal sells better than the anti-establishment pitch.

The candidates – some a little grayer, others a little balder – say they want a second chance after taking a hard look at the seemingly intractable challenges their state was facing and concluding they were the best qualified to take them on. If elected, they would inherit states hemorrhaging jobs and staring down massive budget gaps.

The former governors in California, Georgia, Iowa, Maryland and Oregon are betting that a dose of nostalgia for better economic times, combined with a desire among some voters for a steady, experienced hand, will help them prevail in November.

13 Montana drinking and driving culture at crossroads

By MATT GOURAS, Associated Press Writer

53 mins ago

HELENA, Mont. – Montana has long had a reputation as a place where you could crack open a beer while driving down the interstate just about as fast as you liked.

Until 2005, when the state came under heavy duress from the federal government, it was legal to drink and drive in many places. And a few years before that there wasn’t even a speed limit on major highways and in rural areas.

But spurred by the high-profile death of a highway patrolman at the hands of an intoxicated driver, Montana’s Old West drinking and driving culture is retreating. Judges are rejecting lenient plea deals and law enforcement leaders are exploring different ways of keeping track of repeat offenders.

14 5 more American troops die in Afghan fighting

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer

Tue Aug 31, 12:45 pm ET

KABUL, Afghanistan – Five more American troops were killed in action in Afghanistan on Tuesday, ending the month with a spike in bloodshed that has claimed the lives of 19 U.S. service members in only four days.

The U.S. death toll for August stood at 55 – three-quarters of them in the second half of the month as the Taliban fight back against U.S. pressure in southern and eastern strongholds. American losses accounted for more than 70 percent of the 76 fatalities suffered by the entire NATO-led force.

NATO said four of the Americans were killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan, while a fifth died in a gunfight with insurgents in the country’s south. No other details were released.

15 AP-GfK Poll: Most attuned voters tilt toward GOP

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer

Tue Aug 31, 10:02 am ET

WASHINGTON – Americans with the strongest opinions about the country’s most divisive issues are largely unhappy with how President Barack Obama is handling them, an ominous sign for Democrats hoping to retain control of Congress in the fall elections.

In nine of 15 issues examined in an Associated Press-GfK Poll this month, more Americans who expressed intense interest in a problem voiced strong opposition to Obama’s work on it, including the economy, unemployment, federal deficits and terrorism. They were about evenly split over the president’s efforts on five issues and strongly approved of his direction on just one: U.S. relationships with other countries.

In another danger sign for Democrats, most Americans extremely concerned about 10 of the issues say they will vote for the Republican candidate in their local House race. Only those highly interested in the environment lean toward the Democrats.

16 Chile rescuers begin work of drilling to miners

By BRADLEY BROOKS, Associated Press Writer

Tue Aug 31, 8:32 am ET

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile – Thirty-three men stuck far underground are now the longest-trapped miners in recent history as a huge drill begins digging a planned escape route.

The men were trapped Aug. 5 when a landslide blocked the shaft down into the San Jose copper and gold mine in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert. Last year, three miners survived 25 days trapped in a flooded mine in southern China, and the Chileans surpassed that mark Tuesday.

While doubts and extreme challenges remain, experts said rescuers have the tools to get the job done – though the government still says it will take three to four months to reach the miners.

17 Bear attack highlights lax Ohio exotic pet laws

By JULIE CARR SMYTH, AP Statehouse Correspondent

2 hrs 6 mins ago

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The bear that recently killed a caretaker in a Cleveland suburb was the latest example of animal violence in a state that has some of the nation’s weakest restrictions on exotic pets and among the highest number of injuries and deaths caused by them.

After a standoff between the Humane Society and agriculture interests, state officials are crafting restrictions on the ownership of dangerous wild pets. But the killer beast and others owned by former bear-wrestling entrepreneur Sam Mazzola, who had lost his federal license to exhibit exotic animals, would have been grandfathered out of them.

“It’s just a free-for-all in Ohio, and Sam Mazzola is just an example of that,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States. “Tigers, wolves, bears in a suburban Lorain County community: It is a disaster waiting to happen.”

18 Clemens, in court, tells judge: ‘Not guilty’

By EDDIE PELLS, AP National Writer

Tue Aug 31, 4:28 am ET

WASHINGTON – Roger Clemens put his right hand on the lectern, leaned down toward the microphone and made what might be the most important pitch of his life: “Not guilty, your honor.”

Those words, uttered Monday in a strong, confident voice by the seven-time Cy Young Award winner sporting a black blazer and blond highlights in his hair, marked the official beginning of a court case that could taint baseball even further and land the “Rocket” in jail.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton presided over an arraignment hearing that lasted less than 14 minutes in the ceremonial courtroom at the federal courthouse, across the street from the Capitol.

19 US grapples with bedbugs, misuse of pesticides

By MATT LEINGANG, Associated Press Writer

Mon Aug 30, 11:40 pm ET

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A resurgence of bedbugs across the U.S. has homeowners and apartment dwellers taking desperate measures to eradicate the tenacious bloodsuckers, with some relying on dangerous outdoor pesticides and fly-by-night exterminators.

The problem has gotten so bad that the Environmental Protection Agency warned this month against the indoor use of chemicals meant for the outside. The agency also warned of an increase in pest control companies and others making “unrealistic promises of effectiveness or low cost.”

Bedbugs, infesting U.S. households on a scale unseen in more than a half-century, have become largely resistant to common pesticides. As a result, some homeowners and exterminators are turning to more hazardous chemicals that can harm the central nervous system, irritate the skin and eyes or even cause cancer.

20 Aging vets’ costs concern Obama’s deficit co-chair

By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Writer

19 mins ago

RALEIGH, N.C. – The system that automatically awards disability benefits to some veterans because of concerns about Agent Orange seems contrary to efforts to control federal spending, the Republican co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s deficit commission said Tuesday.

Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson’s comments came a day after The Associated Press reported that diabetes has become the most frequently compensated ailment among Vietnam veterans, even though decades of research has failed to find more than a possible link between the defoliant Agent Orange and diabetes.

“The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess,” said Simpson, an Army veteran who was once chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

21 NY Imam: Mosque fight about Muslim role in America

By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer

21 mins ago

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The imam leading plans for an Islamic center near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York said Tuesday that the fight is over more than “a piece of real estate” and could shape the future of Muslim relations in America.

The dispute “has expanded beyond a piece of real estate and expanded to Islam in America and what it means for America,” Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told a group that included professors and policy researchers in Dubai.

Rauf suggested that the fierce challenges to the planned mosque and community center in lower Manhattan could leave many Muslim questioning their place in American political and civic life.

22 New data: Many fewer US kids in foster care

By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer

1 hr 1 min ago

NEW YORK – The number of U.S. children in foster care has dropped 8 percent in just one year, and more than 20 percent in the past decade, according to new federal figures underscoring the impact of widespread reforms.

The drop, hailed by child-welfare advocates, is due largely to a shift in the policies and practices of state and county child welfare agencies. Many have been shortening stays in foster care, speeding up adoptions and expanding preventive support for troubled families so more children avoid being removed from their homes in the first place.

The new figures, released Tuesday by the Department of Health and Human Services, show there were 423,773 children in foster care as of Sept. 30. That’s down from 460,416 a year earlier and from more than 540,000 a decade ago.

23 Officials probe 10 infant deaths at NC Army base

By TOM BREEN, Associated Press Writer

1 hr 18 mins ago

FORT BRAGG, N.C. – The mysterious deaths of two infants at the same home within three months of each other has prompted a probe into eight other unexplained infant deaths at the Fort Bragg Army base since January 2007, the military said Tuesday.

At a news conference at the base, military leaders say they don’t suspect foul play in any of the deaths, and are conducting tests of the air, building materials and other elements at the on-base housing where the deaths occurred.

So far, though, investigators have not found any link between the deaths since the probe was ordered earlier this summer, according to Christopher Grey, spokesman for the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command.

24 Casino proposed near battlefield splits Gettysburg

By MARC LEVY, Associated Press Writer

Tue Aug 31, 8:37 am ET

GETTYSBURG, Pa. – The town where the Civil War’s tide-turning battle was waged is fighting dissension in its own ranks, with even hard-core preservationists split over a proposed casino that would rise near the historic battlefield and be named for the line that divided North and South.

It’s the second time in five years that Gettysburg has fought over a plan to build a casino. This time it’s the Mason Dixon Resort & Casino, proposed on a hotel and conference center site within a mile of the southern boundary of Gettysburg National Military Park.

“No Casino” and “Pro Casino” signs pepper shop windows in the quaint streets of Gettysburg, where more than a million tourists shop, dine or sleep each year.

25 Developer behind NYC mosque talks about his vision

By CRISTIAN SALAZAR, Associated Press Writer

Tue Aug 31, 12:51 am ET

NEW YORK – The developer behind an Islamic cultural center and mosque planned near ground zero says it never occurred to him that building it near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks would stir up so much debate.

Sharif El-Gamal told CBS News in an interview broadcast on Monday it hadn’t even crossed his mind once because he didn’t hold himself or Islam “accountable for that tragedy.”

He said the center, which would include a health club, exhibition space and a Sept. 11 memorial, should be “universally known as a hub of culture, a hub of coexistence, a hub of bringing people together.”

26 Private colleges ‘act local’ with financial aid

By ERIC GORSKI, AP Education Writer

Tue Aug 31, 12:00 am ET

Hoping to portray themselves as more affordable and all-around better neighbors, private colleges from Appalachia to Boston are sweetening financial aid packages for students from their own backyards.

The latest and most prestigious example is Northwestern University. By targeting local students in financial need, Northwestern is seeking to boost minority enrollment, strengthen local ties and stay competitive in the college admissions race at a time when many private schools are increasing aid based on student merit instead of financial circumstances.

“You may be thinking globally about your education curriculum,” David Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, said of such efforts. “But you’re increasingly acting locally with respect to students.”

27 NY groups seek DC order blocking targeted killings

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer

Mon Aug 30, 9:31 pm ET

NEW YORK – Two civil liberties groups sued the federal government on Monday to try to block its targeted killing overseas of a U.S.-born cleric believed to have inspired recent attacks in the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for the father of cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who’s believed to be hiding in his parents’ native Yemen. Defendants were President Barack Obama, CIA Director Leon C. Panetta and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.

The groups, both based in New York, said it was unconstitutional to intentionally try to kill al-Awlaki unless he presents a specific imminent threat to life or physical safety and only killing him will eliminate the threat. The Obama administration cited al-Awlaki’s growing role with al-Qaida when it placed him on the CIA’s list of targets.

28 Group sues Ill. police over Muslim chaplain flap

By SOPHIA TAREEN, Associated Press Writer

Mon Aug 30, 8:41 pm ET

CHICAGO – A Muslim advocacy group filed a federal discrimination lawsuit Monday over an Illinois State Police decision to revoke the appointment of the agency’s first Muslim chaplain.

Kifah Mustapha, a Chicago-area imam, was named a chaplain in December along with chaplains of other faiths. He underwent training, passed a background check and was issued state identification. But shortly after, the appointment was criticized by the Washington-based Investigative Project on Terrorism, which said Mustapha was a “radical fundraiser” and alleged he had links to Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Mustapha hasn’t been charged with any crimes and denied wrongdoing.

29 Fire at site of future Tenn. mosque troubles city

By LUCAS L. JOHNSON II and TRAVIS LOLLER, Associated Press Writers

Mon Aug 30, 6:32 pm ET

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – A suspicious fire that damaged construction equipment at the site of a future mosque in Tennessee has some local Muslims worried that their project has been dragged into the national debate surrounding Manhattan’s ground zero.

Authorities told leaders of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro that four pieces of heavy construction equipment on the site were doused with an accelerant and one set ablaze early Saturday morning. The site is now being patrolled at all hours by the sheriff’s department.

Federal investigators have not ruled it arson, saying only that the fire was being probed and asked the public to call in tips. Eric Kehn, spokesman for the Nashville office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said arson is suspected.

30 Benefits seen for high-risk women in ovary removal

By CARLA K. JOHNSON, AP Medical Writer

6 mins ago

CHICAGO – Surgery to remove healthy ovaries gives a triple benefit to high-risk women: It lowers their threat of breast and ovarian cancer, and boosts their chances of living longer, new research suggests.

The study is the largest to date to find advantages for preventive surgery for women who carry BRCA gene mutations. Women with the faulty genes have a dramatically higher cancer risk than other women – five times greater for breast cancer and at least 10 times greater for ovarian cancer.

The study, appearing in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association, found benefits for women with two different BRCA gene variants whether they had previously had breast cancer or not.

Aug 31 2010

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Bob Herbert: We Owe the Troops an Exit

Wars are not problems that need managing, which suggests that they will always be with us. They are catastrophes that need to be brought to an end as quickly as possible. Wars consume lives by the thousands (in Iraq, by the scores of thousands) and sometimes, as in World War II, by the millions. The goal when fighting any war should be peace, not a permanent simmer of nonstop maiming and killing. Wars are meant to be won – if they have to be fought at all – not endlessly looked after.

One of the reasons we’re in this state of nonstop warfare is the fact that so few Americans have had any personal stake in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no draft and no direct financial hardship resulting from the wars. So we keep shipping other people’s children off to combat as if they were some sort of commodity, like coal or wheat, with no real regard for the terrible price so many have to pay, physically and psychologically.

Not only is this tragic, it is profoundly disrespectful. These are real men and women, courageous and mostly uncomplaining human beings, that we are sending into the war zones, and we owe them our most careful attention. Above all, we owe them an end to two wars that have gone on much too long.

Eugene Robinson: The Iraq war leaves a fog of ambiguity

Now that the Iraq war is over — for U.S. combat troops, at least — only one thing is clear about the outcome: We didn’t win.

We didn’t lose, either, in the sense of being defeated. But wars no longer end with surrender ceremonies and ticker-tape parades. They end in a fog of ambiguity, and it’s easier to discern what’s been sacrificed than what’s been gained. So it is after seven years of fighting in Iraq, and so it will be after at least 10 years — probably more, before we’re done — in Afghanistan.

Stanley Fish: We’ve Seen This Movie Before

In the first column I ever wrote for this newspaper (“How the Right Hijacked the Magic Words”), I analyzed the shift in the rhetoric surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing once it became clear that the perpetrator was Timothy McVeigh, who at one point acknowledged that “The Turner Diaries,” a racist anti-government tract popular in Christian Identity circles, was his bible.

In the brief period between the bombing and the emergence of McVeigh, speculation had centered on Arab terrorists and the culture of violence that was said to be woven into the fabric of the religion of Islam.

But when it turned out that a white guy (with the help of a few of his friends) had done it, talk of “culture” suddenly ceased and was replaced by the vocabulary and mantras of individualism: each of us is a single, free agent; blaming something called “culture” was just a way of off-loading responsibility for the deeds we commit; in America, individuals, not groups, act; and individuals, not groups, should be held accountable. McVeigh may have looked like a whole lot of other guys who dressed up in camouflage and carried guns and marched in the woods, but, we were told by the same people who had been mouthing off about Islam earlier, he was just a lone nut, a kook, and generalizations about some “militia” culture alive and flourishing in the heartland were entirely unwarranted.

This switch from “malign culture” talk to “individual choice” talk was instantaneous and no one felt obliged to explain it. Now, in 2010, it’s happening again around the intersection of what the right wing calls the “Ground Zero mosque” (a geographical exaggeration if there ever is one) and the attack last week on a Muslim cab driver by (it is alleged) 21-year-old knife-wielding Michael Enright.

Dahlia Lithwick: The Mother of All Grizzlies

Ruth Bader Ginsburg shows how feminism is done. Again.

Anyone who didn’t already believe Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be fashioned of pure steel was reminded of the fact Friday night as she delivered a speech  to a group of lawyers and judges that was meant to have been delivered by her husband. Martin Ginsburg had been invited to deliver his remarks at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ conference in Colorado Springs, Colo., but he died in late June  of metastatic cancer. As Ginsburg explained Friday evening, “He had his speech all written out.” And so she read it-with a handful of interpolations-in its entirety to several hundred rapt listeners.

The speech, “How the Tenth Circuit Got My Wife Her Good Job,” described the only case the Ginsburgs ever worked on together-a 1972 tax case called Moritz v. Commissioner, challenging the denial of a dependent-care deduction allowed to women, widowers, or divorced men but denied to a single man who was caring for his ailing mother. According to Martin Ginsburg, as read by his widow, in the 1960s, while he worked as a New York tax lawyer, she toiled as a law professor at Rutgers. And when he entered her adjoining study in their apartment one night-“her room was bigger”-with a report on the Moritz case and the excited suggestion that she might represent the pro se litigant on appeal, his bride apparently retorted, “I don’t read tax cases.” She read it, and they took the case.

David Swanson: Comparing Democratic and Republican Blood

This coming March 19th we’ll have two occasions to mark. One will be the start of the ninth year of occupying Iraq. And, if my math is correct, within a few days of that anniversary we’ll reach the point at which the Democratic House of Representatives and Senate have funded more days of occupying Iraq than those chambers did when they had a Republican majority. In funding days of occupying Afghanistan, the Democrats already have a big lead in the Senate but trail far behind in the House.

It’s true that the Republicans started these wars. Or rather, it would be true if it weren’t false. The Democrats had a majority in the Senate for both of those catastrophic decisions, while the Republicans had a majority in the House. But it is true that the vast bulk of the blood spilled has been Iraqi blood spilled while the Republicans had majorities in both houses. However, there is an ongoing crisis for millions of Iraqi refugees that cannot be solved while the occupation continues, and the Democrats have just funded an escalation in Afghanistan.

When it comes to the kind of blood that congress members and the U.S. corporate media care about, namely American blood, the Democrats have already overseen 70 percent of the official U.S. fatalities in Afghanistan and a third of those in Iraq . . . and rising.

Joe Conason: Is Glenn Beck mobilizing the religious right for November?

Beck’s vacuous but pious rally may have served to inaugurate a pre-election bid for power by the evangelical right

If Glenn Beck’s Washington extravaganza seemed strangely empty of political content, filled with vacuous pieties and fetishes rather than protest, then perhaps it should be seen as the opening act in a renewed campaign to assert the power of the religious right. A series of four mass prayer events, featuring many of the most prominent figures in the Republican Party’s theocratic wing, will occur between Labor Day and Election Day, starting with an arena rally in Sacramento, Calif., and ending with perfect symmetry on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Behind these events, under the rubric “Pray and A.C.T.,” is Newt Gingrich’s organization, Renewing American Leadership, although the frontmen for this particular initiative are former Watergate conspirator Charles Colson and evangelist Jim Garlow, who now works for Gingrich. Endorsers include top evangelical and political leaders such as Focus on the Family’s Jim Daly, who took over from James Dobson; Princeton University professor Robert George; Fox News host and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee; Cindy Jacobs of the Generals of Intercession; Southern Baptist leader Richard Land, who attended the Lincoln Memorial rally at Beck’s invitation; Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council; and Tim Wildmon, who is taking over the American Family Association from his father, Don. Also among the endorsers of Pray and A.C.T. or Renew America are Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., who was featured at the Beck rally, and David Barton, the pseudo-academic who argues that America was founded as a “Christian nation” and is often touted by Beck on television (and who headlined Beck’s “Divine Destiny” pre-rally Friday evening at the Kennedy Center in Washington).

Aug 31 2010

It’s only a Nobel Prize…

in Economics.

This is one of the untold tales of the mess we’re in. Contrary to what you may have heard, there’s very little that’s baffling about our problems – at least not if you knew basic, old-fashioned macroeconomics. In fact, someone who learned economics from the original 1948 edition of Samuelson’s textbook would feel pretty much at home in today’s world. If economists seem totally at sea, it’s because they have carefully unlearned the old wisdom. If policy has failed, it’s because policy makers chose not to believe their own models.

On the analytical front: many economists these days reject out of hand the Keynesian model, preferring to believe that a fall in supply rather than a fall in demand is what causes recessions. But there are clear implications of these rival approaches. If the slump reflects some kind of supply shock, the monetary and fiscal policies followed since the beginning of 2008 would have the effects predicted in a supply-constrained world: large expansion of the monetary base should have led to high inflation, large budget deficits should have driven interest rates way up. And as you may recall, a lot of people did make exactly that prediction. A Keynesian approach, on the other hand, said that inflation would fall and interest rates stay low as long as the economy remained depressed. Guess what happened?

On the policy front: there’s certainly a real debate over whether Obama could have gotten a bigger stimulus. What we do know, however, is that his top advisers did not frame the argument for a small stimulus compared with the projected slump purely in political terms. Instead, they argued that too big a plan would alarm the bond markets, and that anyway fiscal stimulus was only needed as an insurance policy. Neither of these arguments came from macroeconomic theory; they were doctrines invented on the fly. Samuelson 1948 would have said to provide a stimulus big enough to restore full employment – full stop.

Aug 31 2010

On This Day in History: August 31

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

August 31 is the 243rd day of the year (244th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 122 days remaining until the end of the year.

I am very hesitant to make the death of Princess Diana the prominent story of the day but her death was a tragedy on so many levels that it is not surprising that the world nearly stood still for 6 days until her funeral. There are many things that we remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when they happened. Of course, recently 9/11 and, for those of us old enough, JFK’s assassination.

I was living in Paris then not far from the site of the accident. I had been out to dinner that evening with my then ex-husband, Dr. TMC, when we heard the crash, it was that loud, and shortly after the sirens of emergency vehicles. Not unusual in Paris, so, we continued on to our destinations. It wasn’t until very early that I heard that the Princess had died and where. Paris was stunned. The site became a instant memorial.

We all sat glued to the TV for days waiting for the Queen to say something. The Queen badly underestimated the admiration that was held her former daughter-in-law.  The day of her funeral Paris froze, the only time I have ever seen the city this quiet was on 9/11.

After being criticized for failing to satisfactorily match the grief of the British people, the royal family arranged for a state funeral to be held for Diana at Westminster Abbey on September 6. Diana’s coffin was taken from Kensington Palace to the Abbey on a horse-drawn gun carriage, and an estimated one million mourners lined the route. Diana’s sons, William, 15, and Harry, 12, joined their father, Prince Charles; grandfather Prince Philip; and uncle Charles, the Earl of Spencer, to walk the final stretch of the procession with the casket. The only sound was the clatter of the horses’ hooves and the peal of a church bell.

The service, watched by an estimated two billion people worldwide, sacrificed royal pomp for a more human touch. Workers associated with Diana’s various charities represented 500 of the 2,000 people invited to attend the funeral. Elton John, a friend of Diana, lent a popular touch to the ceremony when he sang “Candle in the Wind,” accompanying himself on piano. After the service, Diana’s body was taken by hearse to her family’s ancestral estate near Althorp, north of London. In a private ceremony, she was laid to rest on a tree-shaded island in a small lake, securely beyond the reach of the camera lens.

Since the death of Princess Diana, Althorp, which has been in the Spencer family for over 500 years, is now a popular tourist attraction that offers tours to the general public.

I still light a candle in her memory on this day.

Blessed Be.

                                                       

 1056 – Byzantine Empress Theodora becomes ill, dying suddenly a few days later, without children to succeed the throne, ending the Macedonian dynasty.

1218 – Al-Kamil becomes Sultan of Egypt, Syria and northern Mesopotamia on the death of his father Al-Adil.

1314 – King Hakon V Magnusson moves the capital of Norway from Bergen to Oslo.

1422 – Henry VI becomes King of England at the age of 9 months.

1803 – Lewis and Clark start their expedition to the west by leaving Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at 11 o clock in the morning.

1813 – At the final stage of the Peninsular War British-Portuguese troops capture the town of Donostia-San Sebastian, resulting in a rampage and eventual destruction of the town.

1864 – During the American Civil War, Union forces led by General William T. Sherman launch an assault on Atlanta, Georgia.

1876 – Ottoman sultan Murat V is deposed and succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid II.

1886 – An earthquake kills 100 in Charleston, South Carolina.

1888 – Mary Ann Nichols is murdered. She is the first of Jack the Ripper’s known victims.

1897 – Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector.

1907 – Count Alexander Izvolsky and Sir Arthur Nicolson sign the St. Petersburg Convention, which results in the Triple Entente alliance.

1914 – Ecuador becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.

1915 – Brazil becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.

1920 – First radio news program broadcast by station 8MK in Detroit, Michigan.

1939 – Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on Gleiwitz radio station, creating an excuse to attack Poland the following day, starting World War II in Europe.

1940 – Pennsylvania Central Airlines Trip 19 crashes near Lovettsville, Virginia. The CAB investigation of the accident was the first investigation to be conducted under the Bureau of Air Commerce act of 1938.

1943 – The USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after a black person, is commissioned.

1945 – The Liberal Party of Australia is founded by Robert Menzies.

1948 – Actor Robert Mitchum is arrested in a Hollywood drug raid. He would later be found guilty of criminal conspiracy to possess marijuana and sentenced to 60 days in prison.

1949 – The retreat of the Greek Democratic Army in Albania after its defeat in mountain Grammos marks the end of the Greek Civil War.

1957 – The Federation of Malaya (now Malaysia) gains its independence from the United Kingdom.

1958 – A parcel bomb sent by Ngo Dinh Nhu, younger brother and chief adviser of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, failed to kill Sihanouk of Cambodia.

1962 – Trinidad and Tobago becomes independent.

1965 – The Aero Spacelines Super Guppy aircraft makes its first flight.

1978 – William and Emily Harris, founders of the Symbionese Liberation Army, plead guilty to the 1974 kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.

1991 – Kyrgyzstan declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

1992 – Pascal Lissouba is inaugurated as the President of the Republic of the Congo .

1993 – HMS Mercury closes after 52 years in commission.

1994 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army declares a ceasefire.

1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales, her companion Dodi Al-Fayed and driver Henri Paul die in a car crash in Paris.

1998 – North Korea reportedly launches Kwangmyongsong, its first satellite.

1999 – The first of a series of bombings in Moscow, killing one person and wounding 40 others.

1999 – A LAPA Boeing 737-200 crashes during takeoff from Jorge Newbury Airport in Buenos Aires, killing 65, including 2 on the ground.

2005 – A stampede on Al-Aaimmah bridge in Baghdad kills 1,199 people.

2006 – Stolen on August 22, 2004, Edvard Munch’s famous painting The Scream is recovered in a raid by Norwegian police.

Aug 31 2010

Morning Shinbun Tuesday August 31




Tuesday’s Headlines:

Why failure of climate summit would herald global catastrophe: 3.5°

Advances Offer Path to Shrink Computer Chip

USA

Obama speech on Iraq has risks

Filthy conditions found at egg producers

Europe

Libyan leader’s unique brand of diplomacy has Italy spellbound

The man who first saw Belsen

Middle East

Iraqis want American to stay

Fayyad: State organs within a year

Asia

Attack on China whistleblower shows risk of unveiling corruption, fraud

Occupation politics stymie Afghanistan  

Africa

How Nigeria’s plan to privatize its electricity company could light up Africa

Southern Sudan to purge child soldiers from army

Latin America

Chilean miners await rescue as drilling begins

Why failure of climate summit would herald global catastrophe: 3.5°



By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor Tuesday, 31 August 2010

The world is heading for the next major climate change conference in Cancun later this year on course for global warming of up to 3.5C in the coming century, a series of scientific analyses suggest. The failure of last December’s UN climate summit in Copenhagen means that cuts in carbon emissions pledged by the international community will not be enough to keep the anticipated warming within safe limits.

Two analyses of the Copenhagen Accord and its pledges, by Dr Sivan Kartha of the Stockholm Environment Institute, and by the Climate Action Tracker website, suggest that, with the cuts that are currently promised under Copenhagen, the world will still warm by 3.5C by 2100.

Advances Offer Path to Shrink Computer Chip

 

By JOHN MARKOFF

Published: August 30, 2010

Scientists at Rice University and Hewlett-Packard are reporting this week that they can overcome a fundamental barrier to the continued rapid miniaturization of computer memory that has been the basis for the consumer electronics revolution.

In recent years the limits of physics and finance faced by chip makers had loomed so large that experts feared a slowdown in the pace of miniaturization that would act like a brake on the ability to pack ever more power into ever smaller devices like laptops, smartphones and digital cameras.

USA

Obama speech on Iraq has risks



By Anne E. Kornblut

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, August 30, 2010; 11:25 PM

President Obama is promoting the decision to end the U.S. combat mission in Iraq on Tuesday as a fulfillment of his campaign promise to draw the war to a close. But some of the president’s detractors are using the same moment to question the wisdom of doing so – noting that Iraq is still afflicted with violence and has yet to form a government.

Obama will mark the occasion by flying to Fort Bliss, Tex., to meet with veterans. He will also deliver a prime-time Oval Office speech – only his second since taking office.

Filthy conditions found at egg producers

Federal investigators report seeing chickens and rodents crawling up massive manure piles and flies and maggots ‘too numerous to count’ at two Iowa poultry farms that have recalled 550 million eggs.

By Andrew Zajac and P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times

August 31, 2010

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles –

Federal officials investigating conditions at the two Iowa mega-farms whose products have been at the center of the biggest egg recall in U.S. history found filthy conditions, including chickens and rodents crawling up massive manure piles and flies and maggots “too numerous to count.”

Water used to wash eggs at one of the producers tested positive for a strain of salmonella that appears to match the variety identified in eggs that have sickened at least 1,500 people, according to preliminary Food and Drug Administration reports of inspections at facilities operated by Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms of Iowa Inc.

Europe

Libyan leader’s unique brand of diplomacy has Italy spellbound



By Peter Popham in Milan  Tuesday, 31 August 2010

Could Colonel Gaddafi, who is now 68, be planning to retire to Italy? The visit by the Libyan tyrant, which climaxed yesterday in a meeting – in his sleeping tent – with Silvio Berlusconi, and a demonstration by the 27 Berber horses he brought with him, was his fourth to the former colonial master in a little over a year.

And although he continues to look and behave like a walk-on character in an opera buffa, there are sneaking hints that he enjoys hanging out in Rome quite as much as any other tourist. On Sunday he threw his entourage into confusion when he decided on a whim to visit Campo de’ Fiori for a cappuccino.

The man who first saw Belsen

Capt John Webster is still trying to make sense of what he saw at the camp, he tells James Gillespie .  

By James Gillespie

Published: 7:00AM BST 31 Aug 2010

As Captain John Webster’s Jeep approached a small German town in 1945, he ordered his driver to turn down an unmade track. The officer had glimpsed some white buildings which, he recalls, “just didn’t look right”.

Capt Webster, senior liaison officer with Lowland Brigade HQ of the 15th Scottish Division, had been sent to find an armoured column that had failed to make contact with his unit in the British advance into north Germany in April 1945.

He told his driver to proceed cautiously – he didn’t want to blunder into Germany in April 1945.

Middle East

Iraqis want American to stay

Six years ago, Sheikh Mohammed Naji led his tribe in Iraq’s greatest battle against the Americans. Now they are leaving, and he would much prefer that they were not.

By Richard Spencer, Fallujah  

“I fought the Americans, and I consider that a matter of dignity,” he said.

“They orphaned our children and turned our women into widows.

That is the paradox of Fallujah, the city that saw the bitterest fighting of America’s seven years in Iraq. Its inhabitants regard the Americans with hatred, but say they represent their only insurance against the enemies by whom they are surrounded: al-Qaeda, the Iraqi government, and Iranian agents.

Other areas, by contrast, loyal to government, have the opposite problem.

Fayyad: State organs within a year

Palestinian Authority PM pledges to create viable institutions for a state by 2011.

Aljazeera

Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, has vowed to finish creating the institutions of a Palestinian state “within one year”.

Fayyad made the comments at a news conference in Ramallah on Monday, two days before Israeli and Palestinian officials are scheduled to meet in Washington for their first direct talks in more than 18 months.

The prime minister spoke little about the talks, focusing instead on his year-old state-building programme, which has been credited with helping to improve security and the economy in the West Bank.

“We urge our people to start working extra hard to achieve this vision in the second year of our government programme,” Fayyad said.

“The programme we have set seeks to transform Palestine from the idea of the establishment of a state to a reality on the ground that cannot be ignored.”

Asia

Attack on China whistleblower shows risk of unveiling corruption, fraud

China whistleblower Fang Zhouzi was mugged after his criticism of a Chinese hospital. ‘I’ve had threatening phone calls and e-mails before, but this was the first time I have been attacked,’ he says.

By Peter Ford, Staff writer / August 30, 2010

Beijing

A bungled attack on a whistleblower famous for his exposés of fraud and pseudoscience has drawn fresh attention to the vexed issues of academic dishonesty and popular gullibility in China.

Fang Zhouzi, a popular science writer and blogger, was assaulted by two men as he walked to his Beijing home Sunday evening; one sprayed a chemical in his face, the other beat him with a hammer. He was only slightly injured and was released from hospital later Sunday night.

“I’ve had threatening phone calls and e-mails before, but this was the first time I have been attacked,” Mr. Fang said in a telephone interview.

Occupation politics stymie Afghanistan  



By Sreeram Chaulia  

Fresh revelations from unnamed quarters of the United States government that Mohammad Zia Salehi, an allegedly corruption-tainted aide of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, is a recipient of payments from the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have turned the spotlight on the gap between the rhetoric and the realities of foreign military occupation.

While Washington has made “good governance” in Afghanistan a pillar of its revamped war strategy, it is evident that the needs of prosecuting a highly unpopular war are defeating this objective.

According to a report in the New York Times, Salehi – the administrative head of Afghanistan’s National Security Council who is said to have leveraged connections to the president and escaped anti-corruption proceedings – has been on the CIA payroll “for many years”.

Africa

How Nigeria’s plan to privatize its electricity company could light up Africa

Privatization isn’t easy, however. Nigerians need look no further than neighboring Cameroon. While an American company brought cash and expertise, they were initially stymied by the endemic corruption in the electricity network.

By G. Pascal Zachary, Guest blogger / August 30, 2010

OK, Nigeria isn’t for sale, not all of it at least, only the national electric power company.

In a country where most people lack reliable electricity to their homes and workplaces, the government’s declaration of an intention to sell of its pathetic state-owned electricity company is cause for celebration – and also reflection on what private-ownership will bring if the government manages to sell even a controlling stake to outsiders.

The government said Aug. 26 it wants foreign investors to put $10 billion into its ailing electricity company, Power Holding Company of Nigeria.

Southern Sudan to purge child soldiers from army

U.N. Children’s Fund estimates that about 900 children serve as soldiers

By MAGGIE FICK

JUBA, Sudan – The government of Southern Sudan said Monday it will purge child soldiers from the ranks of its former rebel army by year’s end, a policy change that could see thousands of young troops pushed out of the military.

The Sudan People’s Liberation Army launched a new “Child Protection Department” intended to help the army fulfill an agreement it signed with the United Nations in November. The agreement commits the army to release all children in its ranks by the end of the year and to end the use of child soldiers across Southern Sudan.dan.

Latin America

Chilean miners await rescue as drilling begins

31-tonne drill bores 50 feet into rock as rescue mission to save 33 trapped miners begins

Jonathan Franklin in Santiago

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 31 August 2010 07.20 BST

Drilling began on Monday to rescue the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground, as it emerged that they have spoken for the first time to family members waiting for them on the surface.

A 31-tonne drill bored 50 feet into the rock, the first step in the week-long drilling of a “pilot hole” to guide the way for the rescue. Later, the drill will be fitted with larger bits to widen the bore and eventually pull the men through, a process that could take three to four months.

Ignoring Asia A Blog

Aug 31 2010

Stopping Obama’s Targeted Assassinations

I will fight targeted assassinations even if a Democratic is President. I am a purity troll.

Glenn Greenwald: Lawsuit challenges Obama’s power to kill citizens without due process

Three weeks ago, I wrote about a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, based on the Treasury Department’s failure to grant a “license” to those groups to represent U.S. citizen Anwar Awlaki in his efforts to obtain a court order barring the U.S. Government from assassinating him without due process.  In response, Treasury officials issued the license (those groups are nonetheless proceeding with that lawsuit in an attempt to have the entire licensing scheme declared unconstitutional on the ground that the Federal Government has no authority to require its permission before American lawyers can represent American citizens, even if the citizen in question has been accused of being a Terrorist).

With the license now issued, the ACLU and CCR this afternoon filed a lawsuit on behalf of Anwar Awlaki, with Awlaki’s father as the named plaintiff, to prevent the Obama administration from proceeding with Awlaki’s due-process-free assassination.  Awlaki is unable to file the lawsuit on his own because the U.S. government’s threats to kill him, as well as its prior unsuccessful attempts, cause him to be in hiding and thus make it infeasible for him to assert his legal rights directly.

ACLU and CCR Sue to Stop Targeted Killings

   

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) today filed a lawsuit challenging the government’s asserted authority to carry out “targeted killings” of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone.

   The authority contemplated by the Obama administration is far broader than what the Constitution and international law allow, the groups charge. Outside of armed conflict, both the Constitution and international law prohibit targeted killing except as a last resort to protect against concrete, specific and imminent threats of death or serious physical injury. An extrajudicial killing policy under which names are added to CIA and military “kill lists” through a secret executive process and stay there for months at a time is plainly not limited to imminent threats.

   “The United States cannot simply execute people, including its own citizens, anywhere in the world based on its own say-so,” said Vince Warren, Executive Director of CCR. “The law prohibits the government from killing without trial or conviction other than in the face of an imminent threat that leaves no time for deliberation or due process. That the government adds people to kill lists after a bureaucratic process and leaves them on the lists for months at a time flies in the face of the Constitution and international law.”

   The groups charge that targeting individuals for execution who are suspected of terrorism but have not been convicted or even charged – without oversight, judicial process or disclosed standards for placement on kill lists – also poses the risk that the government will erroneously target the wrong people. In recent years, the U.S. government has detained many men as terrorists, only for courts or the government itself to discover later that the evidence was wrong or unreliable.

   According to today’s legal complaint, the government has not disclosed the standards it uses for authorizing the premeditated and deliberate killing of U.S. citizens located far from any battlefield. The groups argue that the American people are entitled to know the standards being used for these life and death decisions.

   “A program that authorizes killing U.S. citizens, without judicial oversight, due process or disclosed standards is unconstitutional, unlawful and un-American,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “We don’t sentence people to prison on the basis of secret criteria, and we certainly shouldn’t sentence them to death that way. It is not enough for the executive branch to say ‘trust us’ – we have seen that backfire in the past and we should learn from those mistakes.”

(emphasis by Marcy Wheeler)

Source: here or here.

h/t Marcy Wheeler @ FDL

Aug 31 2010

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.  

Aug 31 2010

Prime Time

No more prison documentaries.  Yahoo TV Listings is really bad at the moment, so a very short list.

I want you to know that I’ve been Captain of this ship for 22 years.

22 years, eh? If you were a man, you’d go in business for yourself. I know a fellow started only last year with just a canoe. Now he’s got more women than you could shake a stick at, if that’s your idea of a good time.

Hey, what’s-a matter, you no understand English? You can’t come in here unless you say, “Swordfish.” Now I’ll give you one more guess.

…swordfish, swordfish… I think I got it. Is it “swordfish”?

Hah. That’s-a it. You guess it.

Pretty good, eh?

Later-

Alton does whole fish.  Return to Malice.

Let me tell you a little story? I once knew a guy who could have been a great golfer, could have gone pro, all he needed was a little time and practice. Decided to go to college instead. Went for four years, did pretty well. At the end of his four years, his last semester he was kicked out… You know what for? He was night putting, just putting at night with the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Dean… You know who that guy was Danny?

No.

Take one good guess.

Bob Hope?

Ha ha… No, that guy was Mitch Comstein, my roommate. He was a good guy.

Aug 31 2010

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

48 Top Story Final.

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 UN climate panel ordered to make fundamental reforms

AFP

30 mins ago

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – An international review panel on Monday called on the UN global climate change body to carry out fundamental reforms after embarrassing errors in a landmark report dented its credibility.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was caught in an international storm after it admitted its landmark 2007 report exaggerated the speed at which Himalayas glaciers were melting.

The review panel said the IPCC has been “successful overall” but called for leadership changes, stricter guidelines on source material and a check on conflicts of interest.

2 Biden in Iraq as US winds up combat mission

by Arthur MacMillan, AFP

2 hrs 2 mins ago

BAGHDAD (AFP) – Vice President Joe Biden landed in Baghdad on Monday to mark the official end of the US combat mission in Iraq and to urge the conflict-torn country’s squabbling leaders to end a political impasse.

Biden arrived in the capital one day before a speech by President Barack Obama will signal the end of the American military’s combat operations after seven years of fighting, which have seen more than 4,400 US soldiers killed.

The vice president’s three-day visit also comes as politicians wrestle with political animosities that have seen no new government formed since a general election almost six months ago ended in deadlock, causing alarm in Washington.

3 Gun rampage leaves eight dead in Slovakia

by Tatiana Bednarikova, AFP

2 hrs 9 mins ago

BRATISLAVA (AFP) – A man armed with an assault rifle shot seven people dead, wounded 15 and then turned the gun on himself in a Monday morning rampage on a street in the Slovak capital Bratislava, the police said.

“A man in his fifties shot six people dead and eventually killed himself after the police cornered him as he tried to escape the crime scene,” police commander Jaroslav Spisiak told reporters at the scene.

The shooting spree started shortly after 10:00 am (0800 GMT) in a flat inhabited by a Roma family in a prefab housing estate in Devinska Nova Ves, an otherwise quiet north-western district of the city.

4 Sweden’s HQ Bank in liquidation after licences revoked

by Rita Devlin Marier, AFP

Mon Aug 30, 12:46 pm ET

STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Swedish investment bank HQ Bank said Monday it was forced into involuntary liquidation after the financial supervisory authority revoked all its licences for breach of banking regulations.

HQ Bank, which manages around 60 billion kronor (6.3 billion euros, 8.1 billion dollars) from some 20,000 depositors, said efforts to find a way to keep the bank operating had failed after its licenses were revoked on Saturday

“As a consequence of the decision by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FI) to revoke all HQ Bank’s licences, the board of HQ Bank has during the weekend actively sought a private solution with a party holding an existing banking licence that would allow the operations to continue,” said the bank, one of Sweden’s smallest.

5 Pakistan on ‘war footing’ to save city

by Hasan Mansoor and Emmanuel Duparcq, AFP

Sun Aug 29, 1:16 pm ET

THATTA, Pakistan (AFP) – Pakistani troops and workers were on a “war footing” Sunday as they battled to save the southern city of Thatta after most of the population of 300,000 fled advancing flood waters.

Torrential monsoon rains have triggered massive floods that have moved steadily from north to south over the past month, engulfing a fifth of the volatile country and affecting 17 million of its 167 million people.

Southern Sindh is the worst-affected province, with 19 of its 23 districts ravaged as flood waters swell the raging Indus river to 40 times its usual volume.

6 Flood spares Pakistan city as waters recede

by Hasan Mansoor, AFP

Mon Aug 30, 8:42 am ET

SUJAWAL, Pakistan (AFP) – A torrent of water threatening to deluge a city in flood-hit Pakistan has begun to recede, officials said Monday, as emergency workers plugged a breach in defences against the swollen Indus river.

Pakistani troops and workers were on a “war footing” over the weekend battling to save the southern city of Thatta after most of the 300,000 population fled the advancing waters.

“The breach near Thatta has been half-plugged and fortunately the flood has also changed its course and is moving away from the city and populated areas,” senior city official Hadi Bakhsh Kalhoro told AFP.

7 Obama hails New Orleans ‘resilience’ five years post-Katrina

by Tangi Quemener, AFP

Sun Aug 29, 7:47 pm ET

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – President Barack Obama, marking the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans Sunday, praised the city’s resilience and pledged support for rebuilding “until the job is done.”

He acknowledged that the famed jazz city, where at least 1,500 people died in the storm and its aftermath, was still in need of support, but said community efforts had ensured “New Orleans is blossoming once more.”

“Together, we are helping to make New Orleans a place that stands for what we can do in America, not just for what we can’t do,” he said in a speech at the city’s Xavier University.

8 Trapped miners get messages of hope as big drill is readied

by Moises Avila Roldan, AFP

Sun Aug 29, 6:33 pm ET

COPIAPO, Chile (AFP) – Chile’s 33 trapped miners received messages of hope Sunday from the pope and relatives, who were promised a chance speak to the men for the first time in weeks, as a big drill was readied for a months-long rescue operation.

Out of sight of family and media at the San Jose gold and copper mine, engineers finished assembling a powerful Strata 950 drill to bore through more than 700 meters (2,300 feet) of rock and earth to reach the miners, now 24 days underground.

A delay in the arrival of a missing part set back the schedule by several hours but “drilling will begin on Monday,” Mining Minister Laurence Goldborne told reporters.

9 Sport chiefs vow swift action in cricket ‘fixing’ scandal

by Robin Millard, AFP

49 mins ago

LONDON (AFP) – Cricket’s world governing body on Monday vowed to take swift action if betting scam allegations against Pakistan were proven as damaging claims threatened the sport’s credibility.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) said corruption would not be tolerated and anyone found guilty of “spot-fixing” would be punished as the allegations of bowling pre-arranged no-balls engulfed top Pakistan players.

The world of cricket, a sport that prides itself on “fair play”, reacted with shock and dismay to claims huge sums of money had changed hands in alleged fixing schemes at international level, linked to shadowy betting rings.

10 Pakistan continue tour despite match fixing claims

by Julian Guyer, AFP

Mon Aug 30, 11:47 am ET

LONDON (AFP) – Pakistan set off on Monday for the next leg of their tour of England despite increasing pressure to call it off amid damaging allegations that top players were caught up in a match-fixing scandal.

The cricket world has reacted with shock and dismay to claims that hundreds of thousands of pounds had changed hands in match-fixing schemes at Test level linked to betting rings, while fans in Pakistan responded with fury.

Ex-England captain Michael Vaughan said any further matches against the tourists would have “no credibility” in the light of the damaging allegations.

11 Cool Hamilton wins chaotic Belgian Grand Prix

by Gordon Howard, AFP

Sun Aug 29, 6:54 pm ET

SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium (AFP) – Lewis Hamilton regained the initiative in the drivers’ world championship in emphatic style on Sunday when he won a dramatic and incident-filled Belgian Grand Prix.

McLaren’s 2008 champion took the lead at the start and then controlled the 44-laps race through two safety car periods and some perilous weather conditions on his way to a well-deserved victory.

It was the Briton’s first win in Belgium, his third win this season and the 15th of his career in his 64th Grand Prix.

12 Joy and tears greet US Army troops back from Iraq

by Dan De Luce, AFP

Sun Aug 29, 6:41 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Mothers cried and children squealed with delight as a company of US troops arrived back from Iraq on Saturday, after a year-long tour marked by desert heat and monotony.

A crowd of families roared as 124 soldiers from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, arrived marching in formation, part of a wave of homecomings as President Barack Obama scales back the US role in Iraq.

The welcoming ceremony at Fort Myer, outside Washington, was a joyous event for the soldiers and their loved ones after 12 months of separation, even if the legacy of the US invasion of Iraq remains a subject of bitter debate at home and abroad.

13 Thousands flee Indonesian volcano

by Atar, AFP

Mon Aug 30, 11:53 am ET

KABANJAHE, Indonesia (AFP) – An Indonesian volcano spewed a vast cloud of smoke and ash high into the air on Monday, disrupting flights and sending thousands more people into temporary shelters.

Airlines were warned to avoid remote Mount Sinabung in northern Sumatra as it erupted for a second day after springing to life for the first time in four centuries.

“It erupted again at 6:30 am (2330 GMT) and lasted about 15 minutes. The smoke and ash reached at least 2,000 metres (6,600 feet),” government volcanologist Agus Budianto said.

14 Seven US soldiers killed in Afghan bomb attacks

by Lynne O’Donnell, AFP

Mon Aug 30, 11:49 am ET

KABUL (AFP) – Seven US troops were killed in two Taliban-style bomb attacks Monday in southern Afghanistan, the area hardest hit by the insurgency nearing the end of its ninth and most deadly year, NATO told AFP.

One attack killed five soldiers, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.

With the latest deaths, 478 foreign soldiers, including 315 Americans, have been killed in the Afghan war so far this year, according to a tally based on that kept by the icasualties.org website. Seven US soldiers were killed in a wave of attacks at the weekend.

15 Libyan leader courts controversy in Italy

AFP

Mon Aug 30, 9:37 am ET

ROME (AFP) – Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi’s visit to Rome to mark the second anniversary of a friendship treaty with former coloniser Italy stumbled into controversy Monday after he said Europe should convert to Islam.

Kadhafi made the comments on Sunday during a lecture to 500 young women hired and paid by an agency to attend his lecture.

“Islam should become the religion of all of Europe,” one of the women quoted Kadhafi as saying in the Italian press.

16 Time takes its toll on Latvia’s ‘Old Believers’

by Aleks Tapinsh, AFP

Mon Aug 30, 9:33 am ET

SLUTISKI, Latvia (AFP) – There are little more than a dozen residents left in as many wooden homes in this hamlet tucked away from civilisation in eastern Latvia. Most are Old Believers, a faith struggling to survive.

“The young people are leaving,” said Aleksejs Zilko, newly elected head of the Latvian Old Believer Church. “To whom shall we pass on our faith?”

Followers of the Christian denomination that split from the Russian Orthodox Church in the 17th century migrated to escape persecution, building tight-knit ethnic Russian communities around the world, secluded from the mainstream.

17 Anger at German banker’s comments on Jews, Muslims

AFP

Mon Aug 30, 7:44 am ET

BERLIN (AFP) – A member of Germany’s central bank whose remarks about Jews and Muslims have prompted outrage sparked fresh protests Monday as he unveiled a new book amid calls for his resignation.

Several hundred people, some waving banners reading “stop far-right populism” braved the Berlin drizzle to protest against Thilo Sarrazin, 65, whose book “Germany is doing away with itself” hit the stands earlier Monday.

After several controversial comments about Muslims, Sarrazin’s latest remarks about Jews resulted in fury across the political spectrum and were featured on most of the country’s front pages on Monday.

18 Drama series ‘Mad Men’ wins at Emmy awards

by Romain Raynaldy, AFP

Mon Aug 30, 7:14 am ET

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – The television series “Mad Men” won the best drama series award at the 62nd annual Emmy Awards late Sunday while “Modern Family” was named the best comedy show.

“Mad Men,” which tells the story of an advertising agency in the 1960s, won the award for the third year in a row.

ABC’s “Modern Family,” which makes fun of the everyday life of three American families, dethroned “30 Rock” in the category for outstanding comedy series.

19 U.S. ends combat in Iraq but instability lingers

By Michael Christie, Reuters

1 hr 52 mins ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The U.S. military formally ends combat operations in Iraq on Tuesday as President Barack Obama seeks to fulfill a promise to end the war despite persistent instability and attacks that kill dozens at a time.

U.S. troop numbers were cut to 50,000 in advance of the August 31 milestone in the 7-1/2-year-old war launched by Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, whose stated aim was to destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons was found.

The six remaining U.S. military brigades will turn their focus to training and advising Iraqi police and troops as Iraq takes on responsibility for its own destiny ahead of a full withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of next year.

20 As U.S. withdraws, Iraqis still live in crisis

By Serena Chaudhry and Khalid al-Ansary, Reuters

Mon Aug 30, 10:44 am ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Kareem Hassan Abboud’s family of seven share a two room house in a makeshift squatter camp in the mainly Shi’ite district of Chukook in northwestern Baghdad. Sewage muddies the dirt road outside.

The 59-year-old fisherman and his family were forced to move there four years ago when sectarian violence between majority Shi’ites and once dominant Sunnis raged in Iraq, set off after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

As U.S. combat operations come to a close on Tuesday 7-1/2 years after the invasion, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis like Abboud, who fled mixed-sect neighborhoods at a time when bodies were piling up in the streets overnight, are living in squalor.

21 U.S. election skews NY Muslim center debate: imams

By Erika Solomon and Michelle Nichols, Reuters

2 hrs 24 mins ago

DUBAI/NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. debate over plans for an Islamic center near New York’s World Trade Center site has been politicized ahead of the congressional election, the Muslim cleric heading the project and other city imams say.

Kuwait-born Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is touring Gulf Arab countries to speak about religious radicalism, said his plan for a $100 million cultural center and mosque in Lower Manhattan had become a campaign issue for the November 2 vote.

President Barack Obama and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg support the right of Muslims to build the center.

22 Biden visits Iraq as troops withdraw

By Rania El Gamal, Reuters

2 hrs 18 mins ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Vice President Joe Biden flew into Iraq on Monday to assure Iraqis the United States is not abandoning them as it stops combat operations, a milestone in the 7-1/2 year war the Obama administration is trying to end.

Biden will hold talks with Iraqi leaders amid a political deadlock almost six months after an inconclusive election in March over forming the next government, the White House said.

The impasse has turned the August 31 end of the U.S. combat mission, and accompanying reduction in the U.S. troop levels in Iraq to 50,000, into something of a gamble as political tensions simmer and attacks by insurgents persist.

Umm… there is no August 31.  See you tomorrow, September 1st

23 Senator Kerry warns of instability in Pakistan

By Chris Allbritton, Reuters

Mon Aug 30, 9:12 am ET

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Flood-stricken Pakistan urgently needs more international aid to combat potential instability and extremism, Senator John Kerry said, as hunger and disease threaten millions of victims.

In a commentary in the International Herald Tribune, Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the international community was not meeting its responsibilities toward Pakistan, where floods have killed more than 1,600 people and left at least 6 million homeless.

“The danger of the floods extends beyond a very real humanitarian crisis,” Kerry wrote in Monday’s edition.

24 Senator Kerry warns of instability in Pakistan

By Chris Allbritton, Reuters

Mon Aug 30, 9:12 am ET

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Flood-stricken Pakistan urgently needs more international aid to combat potential instability and extremism, Senator John Kerry said, as hunger and disease threaten millions of victims.

In a commentary in the International Herald Tribune, Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the international community was not meeting its responsibilities toward Pakistan, where floods have killed more than 1,600 people and left at least 6 million homeless.

“The danger of the floods extends beyond a very real humanitarian crisis,” Kerry wrote in Monday’s edition.

25 Drilling begins in effort to free Chilean miners

By BRADLEY BROOKS, Associated Press Writer

25 mins ago

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile – An enormous drill began preliminary work Monday on carving a half-mile chimney through solid rock to free the 33 men trapped in a Chilean mine, their ordeal now having equaled the longest known survival in an underground disaster.

The 31-ton drill bored 50 feet into the rock, the first step in the weeklong digging of a “pilot hole” to guide the way for the rescue. Later the drill will be outfitted with larger bits to expand the hole and pull the men through – a process that could take four months.

The men were trapped Aug. 5 in the San Jose mine in Chile’s northern Atacama Desert. Before rescuers dug bore holes to reach them, they survived 17 days without contact with the outside world by rationing a 48-hour supply of food and digging for water in the ground.

26 Blasts kill at least 7 US troops in Afghanistan

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer

26 mins ago

KABUL, Afghanistan – Roadside bombs killed seven American troops on Monday – including five in a single blast in Kandahar – raising to more than a dozen the number who have died in the last three days.

The spike in deaths comes as President Hamid Karzai has publicly raised doubts about the U.S. strategy in the war, saying success cannot be achieved until more Afghans are in the front lines and insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan are shut down.

NATO gave no details of the Monday blasts except that they occurred in the south, the main theater of the conflict, and that five were killed in a single blast.

27 US grapples with bedbugs, misuse of pesticides

By MATT LEINGANG, Associated Press Writer

27 mins ago

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A resurgence of bedbugs across the U.S. has homeowners and apartment dwellers taking desperate measures to eradicate the tenacious bloodsuckers, with some relying on dangerous outdoor pesticides and fly-by-night exterminators.

The problem has gotten so bad that the Environmental Protection Agency warned this month against the indoor use of chemicals meant for the outside. The agency also warned of an increase in pest control companies and others making “unrealistic promises of effectiveness or low cost.”

Bedbugs, infesting U.S. households on a scale unseen in more than a half-century, have become largely resistant to common pesticides. As a result, some homeowners and exterminators are turning to more hazardous chemicals that can harm the central nervous system, irritate the skin and eyes or even cause cancer.

28 NC farm produces emerald shaped into massive gem

By EMERY P. DALESIO, Associated Press Writer

28 mins ago

RALEIGH, N.C. – An emerald so large it’s being compared with the crown jewels of Russian empress Catherine the Great was pulled from a pit near corn rows at a North Carolina farm.

The nearly 65-carat emerald its finders are marketing by the name Carolina Emperor was pulled from a farm once so well known among treasure hunters that the owners charged $3 a day to shovel for small samples of the green stones. After the gem was cut and re-cut, the finished product was about one-fifth the weight of the original find, making it slightly larger than a U.S. quarter and about as heavy as a AA battery.

The emerald compares in size and quality to one surrounded by diamonds in a brooch once owned by Catherine the Great, who was empress in the 18th century, that Christie’s auction house in New York sold in April for $1.65 million, said C.R. “Cap” Beesley, a New York gemologist who examined the stone.

29 NYC community board head wants interfaith center

By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer

2 mins ago

NEW YORK – The chairwoman of the community board that voted for an Islamic center and mosque near ground zero said she believes adding an interfaith dimension would help unite people, saying a nondenominational chapel built at the Pentagon as part of a Sept. 11 memorial did just that.

Julie Menin, of Manhattan Community Board 1, reiterated Monday that she supports the project going up in the proposed location two blocks north of the World Trade Center site and that it contain a mosque as developers plan. But she suggested another section of the community center be turned into an interfaith, nondenominational area for people of all religious backgrounds.

“What it could do is it could really get to the heart of the matter of making this project one that brings people together,” she said.

30 Clemens, in court, tells judge: `Not guilty’

By EDDIE PELLS, AP National Writer

20 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Roger Clemens put his right hand on the lectern, leaned down toward the microphone and made what might be the most important pitch of his life: “Not guilty, your honor.”

Those words, uttered Monday in a strong, confident voice by the seven-time Cy Young Award winner sporting a black blazer and blond highlights in his hair, marked the official beginning of a court case that could taint baseball even further and land the “Rocket” in jail.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton presided over an arraignment hearing that lasted less than 14 minutes in the ceremonial courtroom at the federal courthouse, across the street from the Capitol.

31 Roger Clemens pleads not guilty to charge of lying

By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

1 hr 23 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Seven-time Cy Young winner Roger Clemens pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of lying to Congress about whether he used steroids or human growth hormone.

When asked for a plea by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, the retired Major League Baseball pitcher said in a clear voice: “Not guilty, your honor.”

Clemens and another of baseball’s premier stars sullied by steroid accusations, all-time home run leader Barry Bonds, could both begin their day in court next spring, turning the spotlight back on major league baseball’s long-running drug scandal just as it opens the 2011 season.

32 Biden says US won’t abandon war-battered Iraq

By LARA JAKES and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writers

1 hr 43 mins ago

BAGHDAD – Vice President Joe Biden sought Monday to reassure Iraq that America is not abandoning it as the U.S. military steps back and a stalemate over who will run the war-battered nation’s next government approaches its sixth month.

Biden flew into Baghdad a few days before a military ceremony formally marking the end of U.S. combat operations seven years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. He will also try to spur the nation’s leaders to forge a power-sharing agreement to bring some much-needed political stability to Iraq after March parliamentary elections failed to produce a clear winner.

Biden tried to reassure Iraqis that America’s transition to more of a diplomatic mission in Iraq than a military one would be smooth.

33 Indonesian volcano erupts after 400 years of quiet

By BINSAR BAKKARA and MALCOLM RITTER, Associated Press Writers

Mon Aug 30, 3:44 pm ET

TANAH KARO, Indonesia – Tens of thousands of people packed emergency shelters Monday after a long-dormant volcano in western Indonesia spewed clouds of hot ash and smoke more than a mile (several kilometers) into the air – an eruption that caught scientists off-guard.

The eruption of Mount Sinabung put the region on the highest alert level, and some domestic flights had to be diverted because of poor visibility.

Villagers living along Sinabung’s fertile slopes in North Sumatra province started heading down the 8,000-foot (2,400-meter) volcano after it began rumbling during the weekend.

34 India BlackBerry ban averted for 60 more days

By ERIKA KINETZ, AP Business Writer

Mon Aug 30, 12:03 pm ET

MUMBAI, India – India said it withdrew a threat Monday to ban BlackBerry services for at least two more months after the device’s maker, Research In Motion Ltd., agreed to give security officials “lawful access” to encrypted data.

The Ministry of Home Affairs, which wants real time access to encrypted corporate e-mails and instant messaging, said in a statement it would review RIM’s security proposals over the next 60 days after the Department of Telecommunications studies the feasibility of routing BlackBerry services through a server in India.

It remains unclear precisely what concessions Research In Motion agreed to in order to avert the ban.

35 Split personality for Emmy Awards

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer

Mon Aug 30, 1:11 pm ET

Emmy had a split personality this year. Television’s annual awards show honored hot new broadcast comedies “Modern Family” and “Glee,” while sticking with more familiar favorites from cable in drama.

“Modern Family” won the Emmy for best comedy in its rookie season. The sweetly uproarious sitcom knit together a gay couple and their adopted daughter, a more traditional bumbling dad and his uptight wife, and a world-weary patriarch with his hot young Latin wife – and became an instant favorite on ABC.

“We are so grateful, we are so thrilled that families are sitting down together to watch a television show,” said Steven Levitan, the show’s co-creator. “We just want you to know, we just wanted to say we are so happy that you have let us into your families.”

36 DOJ’s elite Public Integrity unit gets new leader

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

Mon Aug 30, 6:54 am ET

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section has a storied 34-year history of pursuing corruption in government and safeguarding the public trust.

That trust was breached, however, when some of the unit’s prosecutors failed to turn over evidence favorable to the defense in their high-profile criminal trial of Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who died earlier this month in a plane crash.

Now Jack Smith, a 41-year-old prosecutor with a love for courtroom work and an impressive record, has been brought in to restore the elite unit’s credibility.

37 Teen’s death prompts review of safety measures

By MICHAEL MAROT, AP Sports Writer

1 hr 31 mins ago

INDIANAPOLIS – The U.S. Grand Prix Racers Union is promising a review of its motorcycle racing safety rules, conceding it will never be able to eliminate the dangers in a high-speed sport where teenage competitors are the norm.

One day after a 13-year-old rider was killed in Indianapolis, the union’s chief steward, Stewart Aitken-Cade, said series officials will review all safety measures, including new age limits.

A formal investigation, however, is not planned.

38 Questions loom over drug given to sleepless vets

By MATTHEW PERRONE, AP Health Writer

Mon Aug 30, 10:27 am ET

WASHINGTON – Andrew White returned from a nine-month tour in Iraq beset with signs of post-traumatic stress disorder: insomnia, nightmares, constant restlessness. Doctors tried to ease his symptoms using three psychiatric drugs, including a potent anti-psychotic called Seroquel.

Thousands of soldiers suffering from PTSD have received the same medication over the last nine years, helping to make Seroquel one of the Veteran Affairs Department’s top drug expenditures and the No. 5 best-selling drug in the nation.

Several soldiers and veterans have died while taking the pills, raising concerns among some military families that the government is not being up front about the drug’s risks. They want Congress to investigate.

39 ER visits for concussions soar among kid athletes

By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer

Mon Aug 30, 3:31 am ET

CHICAGO – Emergency room visits for school-age athletes with concussions has skyrocketed in recent years, suggesting the intensity of kids’ sports has increased along with awareness of head injuries.

The findings in a study of national data don’t necessarily mean that concussions are on the rise. However, many children aren’t taken for medical treatment, so the numbers are likely only a snapshot of a much bigger problem, doctors say.

“It definitely is a disturbing trend,” said lead author Dr. Lisa Bakhos, an ER physician in Neptune, N.J.

40 Fire at site of future Tenn. mosque troubles city

By LUCAS L. JOHNSON II and TRAVIS LOLLER, Associated Press Writers

1 hr 19 mins ago

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – A suspicious fire that damaged construction equipment at the site of a future mosque in Tennessee has some local Muslims worried that their project has been dragged into the national debate surrounding Manhattan’s ground zero.

Authorities told leaders of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro that four pieces of heavy construction equipment on the site were doused with an accelerant and one set ablaze early Saturday morning. The site is now being patrolled at all hours by the sheriff’s department.

Federal investigators have not ruled it arson, saying only that the fire was being probed and asked the public to call in tips. Eric Kehn, spokesman for the Nashville office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said arson is suspected.

41 Arts student sues over Pittsburgh police beating

By JOE MANDAK, Associated Press Writer

2 hrs 32 mins ago

PITTSBURGH – A black teen who attended the city’s performing arts high school claims three white Pittsburgh police officers wrongfully assumed he was involved with drugs when they beat him, then allegedly conspired to file false charges against him and concoct a cover story for their actions, according to a federal lawsuit filed Monday.

Jordan Miles said he had his face pushed into the snow and his gums impaled on a piece of wood, as officers kicked and punched him Jan. 12, a day after his 18th birthday. Thinking he was being kidnapped by the plainclothes officers, who set upon him saying, “Where’s your money? Where’s the drugs? Where’s the gun?” Miles recited “The Lord’s Prayer,” prompting police to twice choke him and slam his face into the snowy ground, the lawsuit said.

Miles’ allegations were reviewed by the FBI and remain under investigation by the civil rights division of the Justice Department, spokeswoman Xochitl (ZOH’-shee) Hinojosa said Monday.

42 Private colleges ‘act local’ with financial aid

By ERIC GORSKI, AP Education Writer

Mon Aug 30, 4:41 pm ET

Hoping to portray themselves as more affordable and all-around better neighbors, private colleges from Appalachia to Boston are sweetening financial aid packages for students from their own backyards.

The latest and most prestigious example is Northwestern University. By targeting local students in financial need, Northwestern is seeking to boost minority enrollment, strengthen local ties and stay competitive in the college admissions race at a time when many private schools are increasing aid based on student merit instead of financial circumstances.

“You may be thinking globally about your education curriculum,” David Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, said of such efforts. “But you’re increasingly acting locally with respect to students.”

43 Burning Man fans say cops too heavy-handed

By MARTIN GRIFFITH, Associated Press Writer

Mon Aug 30, 6:15 am ET

RENO, Nev. – David Levin represents entrepreneurs, investors and developers in his legal practice. As an aside, he’s a Burning Man barrister – offering free legal advice to those who run afoul of the law at the annual counterculture festival on the Nevada desert.

The Palo Alto, Calif., attorney maintains law enforcement has become so heavy-handed at the eclectic art and music gathering that he was compelled to form a legal defense team known as Lawyers for Burners to help participants who were cited or arrested.

He and other Burning Man fans accuse overzealous officers of destroying the quality of an otherwise peaceful celebration of radical self-expression to be held Monday through Sept. 6. Some 50,000 people are expected to gawk at offbeat artwork, wear bizarre costumes or nothing at all and torch the event’s 40-foot signature effigy on the Black Rock Desert, about 110 miles north of Reno

44 NYC mosque debate will shape American Islam

By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer

Mon Aug 30, 12:07 am ET

NEW YORK – Adnan Zulfiqar, a graduate student, former U.S. Senate aide and American-born son of Pakistani immigrants, will soon give the first khutbah, or sermon, of the fall semester at the University of Pennsylvania. His topic has presented itself in the daily headlines and blog posts over the disputed mosque near ground zero.

What else could he choose, he says, after a summer remembered not for its reasoned debate, but for epithets, smears, even violence?

As he writes, Zulfiqar frets over the potential fallout and what he and other Muslim leaders can do about it. Will young Muslims conclude they are second-class citizens in the U.S. now and always?

45 Wright criticizes those who think Obama is Muslim

By ANDREW DeMILLO, Associated Press Writer

Sun Aug 29, 9:31 pm ET

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor, accused people who wrongly believe Obama is Muslim of catering to political enemies during a fiery speech Sunday in Arkansas.

In his sermon at New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Wright criticized supporters of the Iraq war and defended former state Court of Appeals Judge Wendell Griffen for speaking out against it. Griffen serves as the church’s pastor.

Wright’s only reference to Obama came when he compared Griffen’s opponents to those who incorrectly think Obama is Muslim. The president, whose full name is Barack Hussein Obama, is Christian.

46 Obama commits to revival of Gulf Coast

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer

Sun Aug 29, 7:58 pm ET

NEW ORLEANS – Five years after Hurricane Katrina’s wrath, President Barack Obama sought to reassure disaster-weary Gulf Coast residents Sunday that he would not abandon their cause.

“My administration is going to stand with you, and fight alongside you, until the job is done,” Obama said to cheers at Xavier University, a historically black, Catholic university that was badly flooded by the storm.

The president said there are still too many vacant lots, trailers serving as classrooms, displaced residents and people out of work. But he said New Orleanians have shown amazing resilience.

47 Imam behind NYC mosque faces divisions over center

By CRISTIAN SALAZAR, Associated Press Writer

Sun Aug 29, 7:52 pm ET

NEW YORK – Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has long worked to bridge divisions, be they fissures between interfaith husbands and wives or political chasms separating the United States and the Muslim world. The 61-year-old clergyman is now in the midst of a polarizing political, religious and cultural debate over plans for a multistory Islamic center that will feature a mosque, health club and theater about two blocks north of ground zero.

He is one of the leaders of the Park51 project, but has largely been absent from the national debate over the implications of building a Muslim house of worship so close to where terrorists killed more than 2,700 people.

Though Rauf has said the center, which could cost more than $100 million, would serve as a space for interfaith dialogue, moderate Muslim practice and peaceful prayer, critics say it will create a base for radical, anti-American Islam. Some critics have also asked where the funding for the center might originate and whether it may come from sources linked to Muslim extremists.

48 5 years after Katrina, a revival not yet complete

By CAIN BURDEAU and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press Writers

Sun Aug 29, 5:33 pm ET

NEW ORLEANS – Gulf Coast residents tried to put Hurricane Katrina behind them on Sunday, marking its fifth anniversary by casting wreaths into the water to remember the hundreds killed. But part of the catastrophe lives on, in abandoned homes still bearing spray-painted circles indicating they had been searched and whether bodies were found inside.

President Barack Obama joined those hailing the recovery made so far in New Orleans, which he said has become a “symbol of resilience and community.” In a neighborhood that has seen little of that recovery, the Lower 9th Ward, it was the failures that seemed more apparent to residents.

“It don’t seem like much is getting done,” said Charlene LaFrance, a 42-year-old teacher who watched commemoration events on Claiborne Avenue. Brass bands played dirges and marches and politicians spoke about the nation’s failure to do enough to rebuild New Orleans, in particular the Lower 9th Ward.

Load more