Lawmakers Describe 'Being Slimed in the Green Zone'

By Jonathan Weisman

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 31, 2007; Page A13

The sheets of paper seemed to be everywhere the lawmakers went in the Green Zone, distributed to Iraqi officials, U.S. officials and uniformed military of no particular rank. So when Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) asked a soldier last weekend just what he was holding, the congressman was taken aback to find out.

In the soldier's hand was a thumbnail biography, distributed before each of the congressmen's meetings in Baghdad, which let meeting participants such as that soldier know where each of the lawmakers stands on the war. "Moran on Iraq policy," read one section, going on to cite some the congressman's most incendiary statements, such as, "This has been the worst foreign policy fiasco in American history."

Milking a church cash cow

The strange saga of the United Methodist Church's $20 million and Surgeon General Nominee James Holsinger

Dr. James W. Holsinger, President George W. Bush's nominee for Surgeon General has been a controversial figure in the United Methodist Church (UMC) for decades. He was elected through the efforts of a well-organized group of activists, along with two other conservatives, to the church's Judicial Council ("supreme court") in May, 2000, which gave the Council a rightwing majority. Holsinger has been the President ("chief justice") of the Judicial Council since 2004. During the years that Holsinger has been on the Council, a number of unprecedented and divisive rulings have been made.

Why do the poor so rarely make the news?

E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington post Writers Group

Friday, August 31, 2007

WHO COULD NOT guffaw over the news that Leona Helmsley left her dog "Trouble" a $12 million trust fund while cutting two of her grandchildren out of her will? The queen of mean, as the tabloids called her, commanded that when "Trouble dies, her remains shall be buried next to my remains in the Helmsley mausoleum."

But maybe Helmsley's obsessions aren't as different from our own as we'd like to think. Consider the contrast between the extravagant coverage afforded NFL quarterback Michael Vick for his guilty plea on a federal dog fighting charge and the scant attention given a new Census Bureau finding that the number of Americans without health insurance had risen by 2.2 million, to 47 million. The number of Americans under age 18 without health insurance rose to 8.7 million.

Time Mag Slams Media For Edwards Coverage; Says Reporters Making "A Dumb Argument"

Two weeks ago, I asked a pretty simple question: What is real-life hypocrisy, and what is faux hypocrisy manufactured by the political Punditburo in lieu of actual reporting? I asked this question in the wake of right-wing Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi screaming from the ramparts about how John Edwards is supposedly a hypocrite for having an ownership stake in an investment fund that has ownership stakes in some subprime lenders. I asserted that just because a candidate wants to change the laws that govern the land (in this case, lending laws) doesn't mean they don't live in the current world as it is, and certainly doesn't mean they are a hypocrite. It doesn't mean they've made a smooth political move - but again it doesn't even come close to meaning they are a hypocrite.

U.S. Military Censors ThinkProgress

ThinkProgress is now banned from the U.S. military network in Baghdad.

Recently, an avid ThinkProgress reader — a U.S. soldier serving his second tour in Iraq — wrote to us and said that he can no longer access ThinkProgress.org.

[...]

Not surprisingly, both the National Review and Fox News are still accessible.

Test Marketing

If there were a threat level on the possibility of war with Iran, it might have just gone up to orange. Barnett Rubin, the highly respected Afghanistan expert at New York University, has written an account of a conversation with a friend who has connections to someone at a neoconservative institution in Washington. Rubin can’t confirm his friend’s story; neither can I. But it’s worth a heads-up:

They [the source’s institution] have “instructions” (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don’t think they’ll ever get majority support for this—they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is “plenty.”

True? I don’t know. Plausible? Absolutely.

Oil markets explained

Big movements in the oil price have significant ramifications around the world. But just what makes the price move and how do the oil markets work? BBC News Online takes a closer look.

Crude oil, also known as petroleum, is the world's most actively traded commodity.

The largest markets are in London, New York and Singapore but crude oil and refined products - such as gasoline (petrol) and heating oil - are bought and sold all over the world.

A Guide to Media Manipulation, Republican Style

In recent years the GOP has turned the technique of making hay from their opponents' words into a reliable formula for success -- with a few distortions and a little help from the media, of course.

Paul Waldman | August 29, 2007 | web only

After he lost the 2004 presidential election, it looked as though, like many who had been in his position before -- Adlai Stevenson, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey -- John Kerry might take one more shot at reaching the Oval Office four years after falling short. But then on Monday, October 30, 2006, the local NBC affiliate in Los Angeles aired a story on Kerry's appearance that day at a campaign event. The story included a clip of Kerry delivering what quickly came to be known as the "botched joke," in which what was intended as a dig at President Bush's history as an inattentive student and all-around nincompoop came out sounding like an allegation that American troops are uneducated.

One hour later, a popular conservative talk show host in Los Angeles played the clip on his show, complete with the absurd yet predictable allegation that Kerry was intentionally maligning America's brave troops. At 2:34 a.m. Eastern time the next morning, a link to the clip appeared on the Drudge Report. At noon that day, Rush Limbaugh led his show with a discussion of the botched joke. That evening, ABC, NBC, and CBS all led their national newscasts with the story. The next day, Kerry announced that he wouldn't be doing any more campaign appearances before the midterm elections. Whatever slim chance he had at becoming his party's presidential nominee a second time had vanished completely.

Michael Kinsley: Workin' Private Equity

Goin' down, down, down.

By Michael Kinsley
Posted Thursday, Aug. 30, 2007, at 10:32 AM ET

"Most private-equity firms are about hard work, not just financial engineering."
—David Rubenstein, founding partner of the Carlyle Group, interviewed in the Wall Street Journal, Aug. 24

Dear Diary:

Whatever possessed me to go into private equity? I was so naive. I thought it was just about financial engineering. That certainly is the impression they give you in the media. But turns out that it's actually about hard work! Who'd a thunk it? Here we are in the last week of summer, and everybody is in the Hamptons or in some villa in Tuscany. Everyone, that is, except for me, Private-Equity Man. I'm working hard. In fact, I'm here in a coal mine. It's about 110 down here, you can't see a darned thing, and everything from my lungs to my blue pinstripe suit is drenched in sweat and covered with coal dust.

Deceptive ads at bottom of sub-prime mortgage crisis

Posted on Fri, Aug. 31, 2007

Deceptive ads at bottom of sub-prime mortgage crisis

Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: August 30, 2007 04:05:44 PM

WASHINGTON — Patricia Clemons had a serious heart condition and she was living on a $1,094-a-month disability check when she answered a letter from a Florida mortgage broker in 2004. It promised what sounded like easy money and cash-back refinancing of her small home in St. Petersburg.

Financial planners warn against taking home loans whose monthly payments exceed 40 percent of income. Yet Clemons, 62, later learned that she'd signed up for a new loan whose costs exceeded 62 percent of her fixed income. To her horror, the loan from Advanced Funding didn't even have an escrow account to include taxes and insurance in her monthly payment.

Leading lender likens US credit crisis to Great Depression

Andrew Clark in New York
Friday August 31, 2007
The Guardian

The US financial industry displayed fresh signs of distress from the credit crunch afflicting global money markets yesterday, with one mortgage provider describing lending conditions as the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Leading accountancy firm H&R Block revealed huge losses at its up-for-sale mortgage arm, Option One, and said it was considering a halt on new loans. Reporting a quarterly loss of $302m (£150m), Mark Ernst, chief executive, said: "The loan originations market is in the midst of the most severe dislocation it has seen in years, maybe the most severe since the 1930s."

Paul Krugman: Katrina All the Time

Two years ago today, Americans watched in horror as a great city drowned, and wondered what had happened to their country. Where was FEMA? Where was the National Guard? Why wasn’t the government of the world’s richest, most powerful nation coming to the aid of its own citizens?

What we mostly saw on TV was the nightmarish scene at the Superdome, but things were even worse at the New Orleans convention center, where thousands were stranded without food or water. The levees were breached Monday morning — but as late as Thursday evening, The Washington Post reported, the convention center “still had no visible government presence,” while “corpses lay out in the open among wailing babies and other refugees.”

Is George Bush Restarting Latin America's 'Dirty Wars'?

By Benjamin Dangl, AlterNet
Posted on August 31, 2007, Printed on August 31, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/58605/

Two soldiers in Paraguay stand in front of a camera. One of them holds an automatic weapon. John Lennon's "Imagine" plays in the background. This Orwellian juxtaposition of war and peace is from a new video posted online by U.S. soldiers stationed in Paraguay. The video footage and other military activity in this heart of the continent represent a new wave of U.S.-backed militarism in Latin America.

It's a reprise of a familiar tune. In the 1970s and 1980s, Paraguay's longtime dictator, Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, collaborated with the region's other dictators through Operation Condor, which used kidnapping, torture and murder to squash dissent and political opponents. Stroessner's human rights record was so bad that even Ronald Reagan distanced himself from the leader. Carrying on this infamous legacy, Paraguay now illustrates four new characteristics of Latin America's right-wing militarism: joint exercises with the U.S. military in counterinsurgency training, monitoring potential dissidents and social organizations, the use of private mercenaries for security and the criminalization of social protest through "anti-terrorism" tactics and legislation.

TPM: New Surge Meme: Gas to $9

Is this outside their area of expertise?

Rep. Jon Porter (R-NV) just got back from Iraq and he says that Petraeus, Crocker and the chieftains of the Iraqi government told him not only that there would be genocide if the US left but that gas prices would go to $8 or $9 a gallon.

Rewritten surveillance law passed by Congress could give Bush more power for domestic wiretaps

08/30/2007 @ 10:30 am

Filed by Jason Rhyne

The recently passed law which allows President Bush to continue wiretapping Americans' telephone calls overseas may allow for domestic spying as well, according to a new report commissioned by Congress.

A recently-acquired Congressional Research Service report of the controversial Protect America Act, which formally legalized communications surveillance where one party is overseas, offers nebulous language which is broadly open for interpretation, according to Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News.

Weird 'Engine of The Reef' Revealed

A team of coral researchers has taken a major stride towards revealing the workings of the mysterious ‘engine’ that drives Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and corals the world over.

The science has critical importance in understanding why coral reefs bleach and die, how they respond to climate change – and how that might affect humanity, they say.

Scientists at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University and the University of Queensland have compiled the world’s first detailed gene expression library for Symbiodinium, the microscopic algae that feed the corals – and so provide the primary energy source for the entire Reef.

NASA study predicts more severe storms with global warming

NASA scientists have developed a new climate model that indicates that the most violent severe storms and tornadoes may become more common as Earth's climate warms.

The Frank Luntz effect

Often affable and self-effacing, Luntz hopes to transition from GOP political operative to a non-partisan political commentator

Whether he eventually winds up backing a particular candidate or not, when the story of Election 2008 is told, Frank Luntz intends to have his name writ large over that history. These days, Luntz, a corporate and Republican Party political consultant/pollster, is all over the media; he's running focus groups during many of the political debates where he declares winners and losers, he's being quoted in various media outlets about all things political, and he's a regular contributor to the Fox News Channel, where he pontificates at will.

In addition, he has given marketing advice to the BBC, political advice to British politicians, and was hired by Ireland's RTE's "The Week in Politics."

Neoliberalism Dismantles Services to Make Elites Even Richer

By George Monbiot, Comment Is Free
Posted on August 28, 2007, Printed on August 30, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/61002/

For the first time the UK's consumer debt exceeds the total of its gross national product: a new report shows that we owe £1.35 trillion. Inspectors in the United States have discovered that 77,000 road bridges are in the same perilous state as the one which collapsed into the Mississippi. Two years after Hurricane Katrina struck, 120,000 people from New Orleans are still living in trailer homes and temporary lodgings. As runaway climate change approaches, governments refuse to take the necessary action. Booming inequality threatens to create the most divided societies the world has seen since before the first world war. Now a financial crisis caused by unregulated lending could turf hundreds of thousands out of their homes and trigger a cascade of economic troubles.

These problems appear unrelated, but they all have something in common. They arise in large part from a meeting that took place 60 years ago in a Swiss spa resort. It laid the foundations for a philosophy of government that is responsible for many, perhaps most, of our contemporary crises.

The Rip-off in Iraq: You Will Not Believe How Low the War Profiteers Have Gone

By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com
Posted on August 30, 2007, Printed on August 30, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/60950/

How is it done? How do you screw the taxpayer for millions, get away with it and then ride off into the sunset with one middle finger extended, the other wrapped around a chilled martini? Ask Earnest O. Robbins -- he knows all about being a successful contractor in Iraq.

You start off as a well-connected bureaucrat: in this case, as an Air Force civil engineer, a post from which Robbins was responsible for overseeing 70,000 servicemen and contractors, with an annual budget of $8 billion. You serve with distinction for thirty-four years, becoming such a military all-star that the Air Force frequently sends you to the Hill to testify before Congress -- until one day in the summer of 2003, when you retire to take a job as an executive for Parsons, a private construction company looking to do work in Iraq.

Greenhouse gases likely drove near-record US warmth in 2006

Greenhouse gases likely accounted for over half of the widespread warmth across the continental United States in 2006, according to a new study that will be published 5 September in Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. Last year's average temperature was the second highest since recordkeeping began in 1895. The team found that it was very unlikely that the 2006 El Nino played any role, though other natural factors likely contributed to the near-record warmth.

When average annual temperature in the United States broke records in 1998, a powerful El Nino was affecting climate around the globe. Scientists widely attributed the unusual warmth in the United States to the influence of the ongoing El Nino. El Nino is a warming of the surface of the east tropical Pacific Ocean.

Katrina: Haley's Come-on

Submitted by Rick Perlstein on August 29, 2007 - 10:14am.

UPDATED

I've written about the "golden opportunity" right-wing ideologists spied in the landfall of Hurricane Katrina for forcing what they could never accomplish through the democratic process. Now it's time to call out the Republicans who also saw the hurricane as a golden opportunity to line their and their cronies' pockets.

Don't Cry for the Hedge Fund Managers

By Sarah Anderson, AlterNet
Posted on August 29, 2007, Printed on August 29, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/60833/

You've probably been staying up nights worrying about how hedge fund managers are going to weather the credit crunch stemming from the subprime mortgage storm. These men are expected to really suffer since they borrow so heavily to finance their gambling in global financial markets. Many were also stuck with piles of mortgage-backed securities when these paper assets plunged in value. A few funds have already stumbled, and Moody's credit raters have warned of a 50-50 chance that one of the big ones will crash soon.

What the Dutch Can Teach Us About Weathering the Next Katrina

Cow pastures in the Netherlands have better storm protection than the city of New Orleans—or New York. What do the Dutch know that we don't? Part two of a three-part series. John McQuaid, Mother Jones

Katrina: The "federalist pause"

Submitted by Rick Perlstein on August 27, 2007 - 1:45pm.

That fatal gap between Katrina's landfall and the arrival of federal assistance? Conservatives defended it—on principle.

In her September 1, 2005 Financial Times column she simultaneously implored the nation to foreswear partisanship, and gushed worshipfully about Bush's manful preparation and immediate response to the disaster.

Neck Deep Secret: Gore Was Right

By Robert Parry
August 27, 2007

Having written several books that span periods of years, I’m often surprised how patterns emerge that aren’t apparent to me in day-to-day news coverage. In Neck Deep, our new book about George W. Bush’s presidency, one of those surprises was how often former Vice President Al Gore turned up making tragically prescient comments.

Gore, whose admirers sometimes call him “the Goracle,” comes across more as a Cassandra, warning the nation of looming disasters and finding himself either ignored or mocked by the dominant politicians and media pundits.

Time and again – from Campaign 2000 to the post-9/11 “war on terror” to the invasion of Iraq to Bush’s expansion of presidential powers – Gore pointed to grave dangers when nearly all other national political leaders and media bigwigs were either running with the herd or keeping silent.

The Great Iraq Swindle

How Bush Allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors to Invade the U.S. Treasury
--From Issue 1034

Posted Aug 23, 2007 8:51 AM

How is it done? How do you screw the taxpayer for millions, get away with it and then ride off into the sunset with one middle finger extended, the other wrapped around a chilled martini? Ask Earnest O. Robbins -- he knows all about being a successful contractor in Iraq.

You start off as a well-connected bureaucrat: in this case, as an Air Force civil engineer, a post from which Robbins was responsible for overseeing 70,000 servicemen and contractors, with an annual budget of $8 billion. You serve with distinction for thirty-four years, becoming such a military all-star that the Air Force frequently sends you to the Hill to testify before Congress -- until one day in the summer of 2003, when you retire to take a job as an executive for Parsons, a private construction company looking to do work in Iraq.

Review Exposing Fake US History Fraud Wiped From Amazon

by Troutfishing

Mon Aug 27, 2007 at 04:58:32 AM PDT

Last week, in a recommended post entitled Your 2 Minutes Can Fight Christian Right's Fake US History, I noted a book review historian Chris Rodda, author of Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version Of American History had posted, on the Amazon.com book page for one of David Barton's works of falsified American history, "Original Intent".

In response, hundreds from the Daily Kos recommended Chris Rodda's review, which quickly became the most highly rated review of Barton's book. Rodda spelled out, quite plainly in her review, how Barton employed his very own definitions of what history revisionism is.

Several days ago, Chris Rodda informed me that her review had disappeared from Barton's Amazon.com page for "Original Intent".

Big Brother Democracy: How Free Speech and Surveillance Are Now Intertwined

By Naomi Klein, The Nation
Posted on August 28, 2007, Printed on August 28, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/60877/

Recently, as protesters gathered outside the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) summit in Montebello, Quebec, to confront US President George W. Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderón and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Associated Press reported this surreal detail: "Leaders were not able to see the protesters in person, but they could watch the protesters on TV monitors inside the hotel ... Cameramen hired to ensure that demonstrators would be able to pass along their messages to the three leaders sat idly in a tent full of audio and video equipment ... A sign on the outside of the tent said, 'Our cameras are here today providing your right to be seen and heard. Please let us help you get your message out. Thank You.'"

On the Right, Public Healthcare for Children is a Socialist Plot

By Paul Krugman, The New York Times
Posted on August 27, 2007, Printed on August 28, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/60817/

Suppose, for a moment, that the Heritage Foundation were to put out a press release attacking the liberal view that even children whose parents could afford to send them to private school should be entitled to free government-run education.

They'd have a point: many American families with middle-class incomes do send their kids to school at public expense, so taxpayers without school-age children subsidize families that do. And the effect is to displace the private sector: if public schools weren't available, many families would pay for private schools instead.

Big Fall Reported in 2Q Home Prices

Tuesday August 28, 8:08 pm ET
By Vinnee Tong, AP Business Writer S&P Says Housing Prices Fell in 2Q by Steepest Rate Since Its Index Was Started in 1987

NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. home prices fell 3.2 percent in the second quarter, the steepest rate of decline since Standard & Poor's began its nationwide housing index in 1987, the research group said Tuesday.

Digby: Civility

I'm sure most of you have heard the latest words of wisdom from Ted Nugent by now. You know, where he calls Barack Obama a piece of shit and says Obama and Hillary Clinton should suck on his machine gun? Where he calls Diane Feinstein a worthless whore? Right.

Anyway, on the heels of last week's opus by a writer for a prestigious neocon and conservative think tank calling for Bush to declare himself emperor and then the mass enslavement, or execution, of the invaders [Mexicans], which must be followed by an American invasion of Mexico to enforce American language and values upon the Mexicans, and Rush Limbaugh saying that the Democrats are going to buy the black vote by invading Darfur, it's been quite a week for racist and eliminationist talk from mainstream right wing sources.

Study Shows Adverse Effects of Air Pollution on Births in Los Angeles County

FINDINGS:

Women who lived in regions with high carbon monoxide or fine-particle levels — pollution caused mainly by vehicle traffic — were approximately 10 to 25 percent more likely to have a preterm baby than women who lived in less polluted areas. This was especially true for women who breathed polluted air during the first trimester or during the last months and weeks of pregnancy.

US could be heading for recession

Last Updated: 12:05am BST 28/08/2007

Ex-Treasury Secretary Summers warns of risks 'greater than any since aftermath of 9/11', reports Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Subprime crisis in full

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Prepare for the crunch

Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warned that the United States may be heading into recession as the biggest victim to date of the sub-prime mortgage debacle was humiliatingly sold for a token sum in Germany.

Traders are braced for another week of turmoil after the near breakdown of America's $2,200bn (£1,100bn) market for commercial paper.

Hydrogen fuel goes liquid

Nitrogen unlocks the possibility of convenient clean fuels.

Katharine Sanderson

Forget trying to shove gaseous hydrogen into porous materials for safe storage: the future of the clean-fuel economy lies in carrying hydrogen in a liquid, argues Robert Crabtree of Yale University, New Haven.

This means that cars running on fuel cells, which run on hydrogen and oxygen and produce only water as a byproduct, could fill up at stations using roughly the same liquid-fuel infrastructure that already exists. High-pressure gaseous hydrogen, which is potentially dangerous, could be taken completely out of the public sphere. And there would be no need for totally new distribution networks and fuel-delivery systems.

Daily Kos: War Profiteering: All Roads Lead to Cheney

by mikepridmore

Sun Aug 26, 2007 at 01:56:51 PM PDT

A recent article in Rolling Stone (link) added new infuriating information to a theme already advanced by Robert Greenwald’s Iraq for Sale. The article stopped short of telling us something that Greenwald concluded: Cheney is behind most if not all of the war profiteering. Even before Greenwald advanced this theme, Jane Mayer, who recently exposed a network of secret CIA prisons (link) had written in the New Yorker about Cheney’s background and history and had one quote that seems to sum it all up: ‘One businessman with close ties to the Bush Administration told me, "Anything that has to do with Iraq policy, Cheney’s the man to see. He’s running it, the way that L.B.J. ran the space program." ’

Edwards Goes After the 'Corporate Democrats' -- Is This a Turning Point for His Campaign?

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on August 26, 2007, Printed on August 27, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/60748/

Last week, John Edwards fired a broadside against corporate America and, more significantly, "corporate Democrats," the likes of which hasn't been heard from a viable candidate with national appeal in decades.

Edwards is en fuego right now, and if he keeps up the heat, his candidacy will either be widely embraced by the emerging progressive movement or utterly annihilated by an entrenched establishment that fears few things more than a telegenic populist with enough money to mount a credible campaign.

Home Sales Hit Slowest Pace in 5 Years

Monday August 27, 5:24 pm ET
By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer Existing Home Sales Drop in July to Slowest Pace in Nearly 5 Years WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sales of existing homes dropped for a fifth straight month in July while the number of unsold homes shot up to a record level.

Many analysts said the worst slump in housing in 16 years is likely to deepen in coming months, reflecting the recent turmoil in credit markets, which has caused lenders to tighten their standards.

The National Association of Realtors reported Monday that sales of existing homes dipped by 0.2 percent in July, compared to June, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.75 million units.

Gonzales departure won't end probes

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
39 minutes ago

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' resignation Monday after months of draining controversy drew expressions of relief from Republicans and a vow from Democrats to pursue their investigation into fired federal prosecutors.

President Bush, Gonzales' most dogged defender, told reporters he had accepted the resignation reluctantly. "His good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons," Bush said.

The president named Paul Clement, the solicitor general, as a temporary replacement. With less than 18 months remaining in office, there was no indication when Bush would name a successor — or how quickly or easily the Senate might confirm one.

Into Thin Air

He's still out there. The hunt for bin Laden.

By Evan Thomas
Newsweek

Sept. 3, 2007 issue - The Americans were getting close. It was early in the winter of 2004-05, and Osama bin Laden and his entourage were holed up in a mountain hideaway along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Suddenly, a sentry, posted several kilometers away, spotted a patrol of U.S. soldiers who seemed to be heading straight for bin Laden's redoubt. The sentry radioed an alert, and word quickly passed among the Qaeda leader's 40-odd bodyguards to prepare to remove "the Sheik," as bin Laden is known to his followers, to a fallback position. As Sheik Said, a senior Egyptian Qaeda operative, later told the story, the anxiety level was so high that the bodyguards were close to using the code word to kill bin Laden and commit suicide. According to Said, bin Laden had decreed that he would never be captured. "If there's a 99 percent risk of the Sheik's being captured, he told his men that they should all die and martyr him as well," Said told Omar Farooqi, a Taliban liaison officer to Al Qaeda who spoke to a NEWSWEEK reporter in Afghanistan.

Talking Points Memo: O'Hanlon strikes back

Brookings' Michael O'Hanlon's support for the war in Iraq came under quite a bit of scrutiny a month ago with the publication of his now-infamous NYT op-ed, and today he tries to defend himself with a follow-up in the Washington Post.

There's not much to it, I'm afraid. O'Hanlon noted that he and Ken Pollack did leave the Green Zone, despite several assertions to the contrary. He added that his perspective on the war is not based just on "dog-and-pony shows," but rather "observations," "years of study," and solid military sources.

Robert Fisk: Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11

Published: 25 August 2007

Each time I lecture abroad on the Middle East, there is always someone in the audience – just one – whom I call the "raver". Apologies here to all the men and women who come to my talks with bright and pertinent questions – often quite humbling ones for me as a journalist – and which show that they understand the Middle East tragedy a lot better than the journalists who report it. But the "raver" is real. He has turned up in corporeal form in Stockholm and in Oxford, in Sao Paulo and in Yerevan, in Cairo, in Los Angeles and, in female form, in Barcelona. No matter the country, there will always be a "raver".

His – or her – question goes like this. Why, if you believe you're a free journalist, don't you report what you really know about 9/11? Why don't you tell the truth – that the Bush administration (or the CIA or Mossad, you name it) blew up the twin towers? Why don't you reveal the secrets behind 9/11? The assumption in each case is that Fisk knows – that Fisk has an absolute concrete, copper-bottomed fact-filled desk containing final proof of what "all the world knows" (that usually is the phrase) – who destroyed the twin towers. Sometimes the "raver" is clearly distressed. One man in Cork screamed his question at me, and then – the moment I suggested that his version of the plot was a bit odd – left the hall, shouting abuse and kicking over chairs.

Smart soap can save water

SOAP bubbles that collapse once clothes are clean could reduce the water needed during washing.

Normal detergents contain surfactant molecules, which are oil-friendly at one end to capture dirt and water-friendly at the other to pull it away. They also tend to form bubbles, however, which require extra rinse water.

Drop Foreseen in Median Price of U.S. Homes

By DAVID LEONHARDT and VIKAS BAJAJ
Published: August 26, 2007

The median price of American homes is expected to fall this year for the first time since federal housing agencies began keeping statistics in 1950.

Economists say the decline, which could be foreshadowed in a widely followed government price index to be released this week, will probably be modest — from 1 percent to 2 percent — but could continue in 2008 and 2009. Rather than being limited to the once-booming Northeast and California, price declines are also occurring in cities like Chicago, Minneapolis and Houston, where the increases of the last decade were modest by comparison.

The secret Hammer of Wall Street

With the markets in trouble, US Treasury Secretary Henry 'Hank' Paulson is keeping a low profile as he works the phones to restore confidence. James Doran reports from New York

Sunday August 26, 2007
The Observer

On Wall Street they still call him Hank The Hammer, but US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has refrained from striking blows in attempts to solve America's worsening financial problems. Rather, the 6ft 1in former Ivy League American football champ has walked softly to chart an unusually quiet path of diplomacy, leaving it largely up to others to speak out in an effort to ease panic and restore order to global markets.

Another UMC Conference Condemns IRD

IRD's own website is reporting that the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist church has done the same. In what consumes the better part of six pages, the resolution (PDF) passed at the Annual Conference in the second week of June.

The resolution recounts a litany of open attacks by the IRD leveled against the United Methodist Church, including the IRD's Mark Tooley calling Methodist Bishops "Flower children and chronic demonstrators who never grew up;" another claim that "one of the strongest regiments of the godless army (the `secular left') is America's maintstream protestant leaders;" and "irreconcilable differences on essentials are dividing culture-conforming liberals... from faithful United Methodists."

Sic 'em With the Rally Squad

And other tips for dealing with demonstrators from the Presidential Advance Manual.

By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Monday, Aug. 20, 2007, at 6:36 PM ET

Late last week, the federal government settled a lawsuit with a pair of Texans who were arrested in 2004 for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts at a Fourth of July event in Charleston, W.Va. That's right, friends, $80,000 (of your taxpayer dollars) will be paid out to Jeff and Nicole Rank, whose suit against Gregory J. Jenkins—former deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Presidential Advance—has been dismissed.

White House spokesman Blair Jones managed to turn lemons into lemonade with the statement last week that "the parties understand that this settlement is a compromise of disputed claims to avoid the expenses and risks of litigation and is not an admission of fault, liability, or wrongful conduct." This is, of course, vintage Bush, gloriously reminiscent of that Simpsons episode in which Homer arrives late to collect Bart in the pouring rain after soccer practice, then lectures: "I know you're mad at me right now, and I'm kinda mad, too. I mean, we could sit here and try to figure out who forgot to pick up who till the cows come home. But let's just say we're both wrong, and that'll be that."

TPM Muckraker: Allawi Lobby Contract Just One Among Many

By Spencer Ackerman - August 24, 2007, 5:44 PM

It's not just Barbour Griffith & Rogers, and it's not just Ayad Allawi. Ten different U.S. firms are registered through the Department of Justice's Foreign Agents Registration Act database as having active contracts with various Iraqi factions.

BGR isn't even making most of its Iraq-related money off Allawi: for the six-month period between January 1 and May 31, the Kurdistan Regional Government -- the political entity ruling the three Kurdish provinces of Iraq -- paid the firm $381,487.71 for its various services, which, from its mandatory reporting, includes a lot of phone calls to BRG President Bob Blackwill's old friend at the National Security Council, Meghan O'Sullivan.

Bird by bird, the avian population is shrinking

The songs of tens of millions of birds have been silenced. It feels as if the lights are dimming.

By Nathaniel T. Wheelwright
Brunswick, Maine

Forty-three years ago, when I reached what my grandfather imagined to be the eve of puberty, I was summoned to spend the weekend with him at his house in rural Connecticut.

I knew what to expect because my four older brothers had undergone the same rite of passage. The climax of the weekend would be the ceremonial presentation of a double-barreled shotgun, followed by sober instruction on firearm safety and general manliness. Next, my grandfather would take me on an excursion into the woods and we'd fire off a few rounds.

How our seedy, corrupt Washington establishment operates

Over the past several weeks, there has arisen a palpable and coordinated shift among the Washington establishment to blame Iraq's problems on Prime Minister Maliki and to suggest that salvation lies in his replacement. The only real alternative ever identified is former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

Fred Hiatt turned his Op-Ed page over to Allawi two weeks ago to argue -- in the most establishment-pleasing tones -- that "Responsibility for the current mess in Iraq rests primarily with the Iraqi government" and that "Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has failed to take advantage of the Iraqi people's desire for peaceful and productive lives and of the enormous commitment and sacrifices made by the United States and other nations." In other words, our wise Washington Leaders have done the Right and Good thing in Iraq, but that scoundrel Maliki is the key impediment preventing Success.

Let's Face It: The Warfare State Is Part of Us

By Norman Solomon, AlterNet
Posted on August 23, 2007, Printed on August 26, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/60500/

The USA's military spending is now close to $2 billion a day. This fall, the country will begin its seventh year of continuous war, with no end in sight. On the horizon is the very real threat of a massive air assault on Iran. And few in Congress seem willing or able to articulate a rejection of the warfare state.

While the Bush-Cheney administration is the most dangerous of our lifetimes -- and ousting Republicans from the White House is imperative -- such truths are apt to smooth the way for progressive evasions. We hear that "the people must take back the government," but how can "the people" take back what they never really had? And when rhetoric calls for "returning to a foreign policy based on human rights and democracy," we're encouraged to be nostalgic for good old days that never existed.

Bush and Napoleon Both Believed Their Own Propaganda About a "Greater Middle East"

By Juan Cole, Tomdispatch.com
Posted on August 25, 2007, Printed on August 26, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/60652/

French Egypt and American Iraq can be considered bookends on the history of modern imperialism in the Middle East. The Bush administration's already failed version of the conquest of Iraq is, of course, on everyone's mind; while the French conquest of Egypt, now more than two centuries past, is all too little remembered, despite having been led by Napoleon Bonaparte, whose career has otherwise hardly languished in obscurity. There are many eerily familiar resonances between the two misadventures, not least among them that both began with supreme arrogance and ended as fiascoes. Above all, the leaders of both occupations employed the same basic political vocabulary and rhetorical flimflammery, invoking the spirit of liberty, security, and democracy while largely ignoring the substance of these concepts.

The French general and the American president do not much resemble one another -- except perhaps in the way the prospect of conquest in the Middle East appears to have put fire in their veins and in their unappealing tendency to believe their own propaganda (or at least to keep repeating it long after it became completely implausible). Both leaders invaded and occupied a major Arabic-speaking Muslim country; both harbored dreams of a "Greater Middle East"; both were surprised to find themselves enmeshed in long, bitter, debilitating guerrilla wars. Neither genuinely cared about grassroots democracy, but both found its symbols easy to invoke for gullible domestic publics. Substantial numbers of their new subjects quickly saw, however, that they faced occupations, not liberations.