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[Caro]

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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

Top Story

Al-Qaeda In Iraq Reported Crippled
The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.
Great! Let’s bring our troops home!—Caro

The Heretik

The World

Car bombing in Iraq kills 6
BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded near an Iraqi army checkpoint in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least six people and sending black smoke billowing into the sky, officials said.

Turkey warns Iraq over Kurd rebels amid incursion threat
ANKARA (AFP) - Turkey on Tuesday warned Iraq that its patience has run out over the handling of Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq, ahead of a parliamentary vote that could authorize cross-border strikes.

Iraq's vice president visits Turkey
ANKARA, Turkey - Iraq's Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi arrived in Ankara on Tuesday in an apparent attempt to convince Turkey not to stage a cross-border offensive to fight separatist Kurdish rebels based in Iraq.

Putin visits Iran, sends warnings to US
TEHRAN, Iran - Russian leader Vladimir Putin met his Iranian counterpart Tuesday and implicitly warned the U.S. not to use a former Soviet republic to stage an attack on Iran. He also said nations shouldn't pursue oil pipeline projects in the area if they weren't backed by regional powers.

West cranks up pressure on Myanmar
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan cut aid to Myanmar on Tuesday, a day after the European Union stiffened its sanctions and President George W. Bush threatened to follow suit in response to the junta's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

U.N. force to remain in Haiti
UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Monday to extend the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti for a year, noting significant improvements in security in recent months but saying the situation remains fragile.

The Nation

Baby Boomer No. 1 applies for Social Security
One down, 79,999,999 to go. The "first Boomer" applied for Social Security benefits today. The honor goes to retired Maryland teacher Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, born at 12:00:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 1946.

The Real Iraq We Knew (by 12 former Army captains)
There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition.

Law center: Little evidence of jihadists in the U.S.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Six years of investigations and prosecutions have turned up little evidence of Islamic jihadists at work in the United States, according to a study released Monday… "The vast majority of cases turn out to include no link to terrorism once they go to court," the report found. The analysis "suggests the presence of few, if any, prevalent terrorist threats currently within the U.S."

Abizaid: ‘We’ve Treated The Arab World As A Collection Of Big Gas Stations’
During a round table discussion …, Gen. John Abizaid (Ret.), the former CENTCOM Commander, said that “of course” the Iraq war is “about oil“: “’Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that,’ Abizaid said of the Iraq campaign early on in the talk. ‘We’ve treated the Arab world as a collection of big gas stations,’ the retired general said.”

Detentions to be top topic for Mukasey
As the chief federal trial judge in Manhattan, Michael Mukasey approved secret warrants allowing government roundups of Muslims in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks. Six years later, the man President Bush wants to be attorney general acknowledged that the law authorizing those warrants "has its perils" in terrorism cases and urged Congress to "fix a strained and mismatched legal system."

Verizon Says It Turned Over Data Without Court Orders
Verizon Communications, the nation's second-largest telecom company, told congressional investigators that it has provided customers' telephone records to federal authorities in emergency cases without court orders hundreds of times since 2005. The company said it does not determine the requests' legality or necessity because to do so would slow efforts to save lives in criminal investigations.

Lawyers: New law makes child-porn defense tougher
WASHINGTON — As the Justice Department steps up an aggressive crackdown on Internet child pornography, a little-noticed provision of a sex offender law is making it harder for defense attorneys to review some of the most important evidence against its suspected purveyors and consumers.
Do you see how totalitarianism creeps into our lives? None of us is in favor of child porn or its creators or purveyors. Taking away their right to discovery may sound okay, but when a right is taken from them, it’s taken from all of us.—Caro

The man who knew too much
He was the CIA's expert on Pakistan's nuclear secrets, but Rich Barlow was thrown out and disgraced when he blew the whistle on a US cover-up. Now he's to have his day in court.

Banks plan fund to revive market
The three largest US banks have announced a plan to buy up billions of dollars of troubled investments that lost value in the global credit crunch. The unusual move aims to boost confidence in the market for short-term and sub-prime debt, preventing a further sell-off of such investments. The fund, facilitated by the US Treasury, was announced by Citigroup, Bank of America and JP Morgan. The size of the fund was not disclosed, but reports put it at about $80bn.

Are we heading towards a 1929-like economic crash?
There are some alarming signals and trends that are making economists very nervous that we are hurtling towards another economic crash. On Friday’s Bill Moyers Journal, guests Robert Kuttner and William H. Donaldson spoke on the parallels they see, especially as it relates to the giant inequities brought on by under-regulated hedge funds.
Click through to watch the video.—Caro

Media

Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Randi Rhodes is the Victim of a Violent Attack
Randi Rhodes was mugged on Sunday night on 39th Street and Park Ave, nearby her Manhattan apartment, while she was walking her dog Simon. According to Air America Radio late night host Jon Elliott, Rhodes was beaten up pretty badly, losing several teeth and will probably be off the air for at least the rest of the week. At of late Monday night we have not able to locate any press accounts of the attack and nothing has been posted on the AAR website.
There are discussions on the Randi Rhodes Message Board and Democratic Underground where you can wish Randi well. I no longer have an email address for her.—Caro

Microsoft’s Ballmer kicks off ANA show with claim that all media will be digital in 10 years
Phoenix—In his opening keynote presentation at the Association of National Advertisers’ annual conference, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer said that in 10 years, all media will be digital, with tremendous ramifications for marketers, agencies and publishers.

Paying for investigative journalism (by Jeff Jarvis)
I think that if we analyze the staffing and production devoted to investigation in American journalism, we’ll find that it’s a pretty damned small proportion of news budgets. And I suspect we’ll find that if it is not supported by large media organizations, it could be supported by foundations and public donation. That could come from independent organizations like Pro Publica and other… It also could come from independent journalists like Josh Marshall. There is one caution to this: These organizations can be backed by and run by people with axes to grind. And so we may find an imbalance in investigation. That’s why the role of the editor, the journalist upholding public standards, remains important.
You mean like the editors of the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post editorial pages, Jeff?—Caro

Getting it wrong, letting it slide (by Edward Wasserman)
Why is it that the mightier the news organization, the likelier it will stand by ethical blunders that would shame a first-year reporter? Apparently, along with industrial mastery comes the right to deny, evade, whine and nitpick instead of owning up to what you did wrong and making sure you don't do it again.

MARK GREEN TELLS THE TRUTH:
On Friday evening, Air America’s Mark Green did something astounding. Breaking every known modern pundit convention, he actually told the truth! Green actually blamed the mainstream press corps for its disgraceful conduct toward Candidate Gore!... If other liberals had spoken this way in the course of the past seven years, we’d be living in a vastly different political country… Green was speaking with Hardball’s Chris Matthews—and no one trashed Candidate Gore in quite the way that Matthews consistently. No one lied about Gore so incessantly. No one was uglier, ruder, more insulting.

General Advocating Victory Declaration Over Al Qaeda Pushed Bogus Storyline About Pat Tillman (by Greg Sargent)
(Monday’s) Washington Post reports that some generals believe that Al Qaeda in Iraq has been vanquished and want the U.S. to publicly declare that we have defeated the terror group. The leading general urging such a declaration of victory over AQI is Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal… But some interesting facts are dribbling out about General McChrystal. As Think Progress notes, he declared "major combat over" -- way back in 2003… (And i)t turns out that General McChrystal also got into trouble for pushing the bogus storyline that now-legendary former NFL player Pat Tillman had been killed by enemy fire in Afghanistan.

The Murdoch Media Service Obliges GOP Lies (by Marcy Wheeler)
Gosh, what a remarkable coinkydink. This morning, Roll Call comes out with this story: “Specifically, Republicans are planning to use the kidnapping and subsequent murder of three U.S. soldiers in Iraq earlier this year to put a ‘human face’ on the (FISA) issue”… And on the very same day, Murdoch's rag comes out with this story. “U.S. intelligence officials got mired for nearly 10 hours seeking approval to use wiretaps against al Qaeda terrorists suspected of kidnapping Queens soldier Alex Jimenez in Iraq earlier this year, The Post has learned.” (But) those soldiers died because (no Justice Department official was available to sign the warrant,) not because of any laws on our books. But god forbid the Republicans would actually leak the truth to compliant media outlets to accomplish their agenda.

Welfare as We Should Know It (by Dean Baker )
The NYT reports that the Treasury Department is coordinating the creation of a bailout fund that will be financed by several major banks, which will act to support the market in some of the exotic investment vehicles that they developed over the last decade. This should be reported as what it is, a bailout by the nanny state for the big boys who lack the ability to get by on their own in a free market.

Digital deal nudging music into living rooms
DENVER (Billboard) - For Real Networks' Rhapsody digital music service, there's no place like home. The company has teamed with TiVo to bring subscription-based on-demand streaming music into the living room directly from Internet-connected TiVo digital video recorders. For subscription music services and Internet radio outlets, the deal serves as a blueprint for how Internet-based music can crawl out of obscurity and into the mainstream.

Google Reader Stats are Bullshit (With Proof) (by Pete Cashmore at Mashabel)
Google Reader stats, in case you don’t know, are bullshit. In fact, all Feedburner stats for most top blogs are bullshit due to the effect of default feeds. Want 80,000 free subscribers? How about 200K or more? Read on.

Technology & Science

Palm Lowers The Bar On Smart Phone Prices
Not long ago, folks were standing in line ready to shell out $600 for an iPhone. Today, the iPhone and its competitors can be had for a lot less. Palm's new smart phone, the Centro, goes for $99 plus a service contract.

Singapore gives phones a tryout for contactless payments
San Francisco (IDGNS) - Taking a cue from mobile operators in Japan, Singaporean operator Starhub Mobile is dipping its toes into the waters of contactless payment, with plans to allow some subscribers to use their cell phones to pay for bus rides, subway trips, and purchases at convenience stores.

Love Hormone Improves Mother-Child Bond
The hormone oxytocin is related to familial bonding in animals and is tied to love and friendship in humans. Species that have more of it tend to develop stronger bonds. Oxytocin is considered a key hormone for monogamy in the animal kingdom. One study of humans found that just sniffing a little oxytocin made people more trusting of others. Now scientists find that mothers with high levels of oxytocin during pregnancy bond better with their babies.
Oxytocin can be good for the economy, too.—Caro

Childbirth: Position of Woman’s Body Could Ease Delivery
Women who go onto their hands and knees while in labor may be able to reduce the pain of childbirth, researchers say.

Nicotine, Chili Peppers Offer Post-Surgery Pain Relief
Findings could bring new treatment options for patients, researchers say

Fruit compound fights head and neck cancer
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Lupeol, a compound in fruits like mangoes, grapes and strawberries, appears to be effective in killing and curbing the spread of cancer cells in the head and neck, a study in Hong Kong has found.

Obesity genetics
New evidence that genetics plays a key role in obesity is published today… (O)besity is thought to be linked to a thrifty metabolism that allowed (certain people) to metabolize food more efficiently in times when little was available but causes problems when food is in abundance.
You can count on it. I can eat little to nothing, and still not lose weight.—Caro

Heart deaths, suicides up after weightloss surgery
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Among people who have undergone so-called bariatric surgery for obesity, death rates are higher than seen among other people of the same age, new research shows. In particular, deaths due to suicide and coronary heart disease are higher than might be expected normally.
You know, I’ve wondered. This surgery is such a radical step.—Caro

Study Seeks DNA Clues on Homosexuality
CHICAGO (AP) - Julio and Mauricio Cabrera are gay brothers who are convinced their sexual orientation is as deeply rooted as their Mexican ancestry. They are among 1,000 pairs of gay brothers taking part in the largest study to date seeking genes that may influence whether people are gay.

Volcanic moon’s gassy mystery solved
Pictures of the aurora at Io, a pizza-faced moon of Jupiter, help scientists figure out the moon's volcanoes contribute to its thin atmosphere of sulfur dioxide.

Environment

Alps' future heading downhill as climate warms
Innsbruck -- home to two Winter Olympics -- is hosting a conference on how to cope with the warm winters and lackluster snowfall caused by global warming.

To Catch the Wind, Bigger is Better
The only people who should consider small wind systems (less than 100 kilowatts) are those who have to because they aren't connected to the power company, (wind energy expert Paul) Gipe said… "With wind energy, size does matter," … He's thinking million dollar turbines with 100-foot or more wingspans—out of reach for individual homeowners, but a possibility for businesses and communities. Gipe wishes more Americans would do as some Europeans and pool their resources together to buy large turbines that could supply 500 homes or more. "Americans are raised on the mythology of individual action," Gipe said. "But not everyone can put a windmill in their backyard."

Corporate America's "Green" Push Continues
In a world of $80-a-barrel oil, saving energy makes business sense, despite a lagging economy. Even if the economy continues downward, analysts expect the trend toward greater environmental consciousness to continue.

Kyoto approach on climate is "bad policy": Bush
President George W. Bush said on Monday his administration's approach of emphasizing voluntary approaches to address climate change was working and he denounced Kyoto-style mandatory caps as "bad policy."

Radio goes green.
The radio industry has begun tapping into the growing environmental trend. And more dollars. It’s not just special on-air programming, but overall station branding.

Genetically modified plants vacuum up toxins
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Scientists have figured out a way to trick plants into doing the dirty work of environmental cleanup, U.S. and British researchers reported on Monday.

For more headlines, visit MakeThemAccountable.com.

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