22 June 2008
News and Comments - 06/22/08
Posted by Joy Bischoff under: What's News .
A little rock and roll for your Sunday enjoyment.
7 Comments so far...
Cameron Says:
22 June 2008 at 9:12 am.
Finally we see pictures of Stumpy!
Mississippi River level rises beyond forecasts
By CHERYL WITTENAUER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 1 minute ago
FOLEY, Mo. - Amid the battle to hold back the swollen Mississippi River, some towns in northeastern Missouri and Illinois got an unwelcome surprise Saturday as river levels rose higher than projected.
Recent levee breaks north of Canton, not far from the Iowa line, had allowed the river level to drop there and at other towns far north of St. Louis.
Officials knew it would rise again to expected crests during the weekend, but the amount of the increase caught them off guard.
The Mississippi reached 26.3 feet Saturday morning at Canton after dipping below 23 feet two days earlier, and it was expected to crest later in the day at 26.4 feet.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080622/ap_on_re_us/midwest_flooding
Matt Says:
22 June 2008 at 9:39 am.
Good one Cameron.
Brokaw to lead ‘Meet the Press’
Tom Brokaw will replace Tim Russert as moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press” through the November presidential election, the network announced today.
NBC News President Steve Capus said: “A lot has been said in recent days about what ‘Meet the Press’ means to NBC News and to the nation. To have someone of Tom’s stature step up and dedicate himself to ensuring its ongoing success is not only a testament to his loyalty to Tim, but his enduring commitment to NBC News and our viewers.”
NBC’s plans for a successor to Russert, who died two weeks ago after collapsing at the network’s Washington bureau, have been the subject of hot speculation. The interim plan gives network executives time to figure out how to preserve the show’s prestige and profitability for the long run.
The show’s executive producer, Betsy Fischer, said: “Some of my best memories from covering the last several presidential elections have included working closely with Tom, so I know just how lucky we are to have him step in as moderator for ‘Meet the Press.’ His intellect, focus and calming presence is exactly what we need to move forward smartly and remain the No. 1 public affairs show on television as we head into one of the most pivotal elections in our nation’s history.”
Matt Says:
22 June 2008 at 9:52 am.
World history helped the founders see how important it was that no cruel and unusual punishment be used. Our government is supposed to fear us, not the other way around. This is a slippery slope that is too easily justified in shows like 24. We are such hypocrites if we don’t apply the same principles for others that we do for Americans. It shows we don’t really believe in the principle at all. Torture is wrong.
Disagreement widespread within US government over 2002 harsh interrogations
Even some military lawyers opposed the techniques, according to congressional testimony this week.
Washington - The Army lawyer’s memo could not have been blunter. It argued that a plan to employ harsh interrogation techniques on prisoners at the US detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, would be legally questionable and morally wrong – and risk a public-relations nightmare.
Plus, there was no evidence that shackling prisoners into stressful positions, disrupting their sleep, or subjecting them to cold would actually work, wrote Army Col. John Ley in a secret 2002 memo to the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“The plan does not adequately lay out how using these techniques will result in our forces getting any useful information,” wrote Colonel Ley in his now-declassified two-page analysis.
Six years on, it is increasingly clear that the Bush administration’s 2002 decision to proceed with harsh questioning of some terror suspects interned at Guantánamo was a matter of tremendous controversy within the United States government itself.
Last month, a Justice Department audit revealed that many FBI agents deployed to the Cuban base refused to participate when military interrogators used harsh techniques and protested the use of those techniques to their superiors.
In recent days a series of congressional hearings also has made plain that some military lawyers shared these concerns. Indeed, a few were aghast that the US was turning to techniques which, depending on their application, might cross the threshold of torture.
Benjamin Says:
22 June 2008 at 3:20 pm.
Iraq to award oil contracts to foreign firms
Iraq will award contracts to 41 foreign oil firms in a bid to boost production that could give multinationals a potentially lucrative foothold in huge but underdeveloped oil fields, an official said on Sunday.
“We chose 35 companies of international standard, according to their finances, environment and experience, and we granted them permission to extract oil,” oil ministry spokesman Asim Jihad told AFP.
Six other state-owned oil firms from Algeria, Angola, Pakistan, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam will also be awarded extraction deals, Jihad said.
The agreements, to be signed on June 30, are expected to be short-term arrangements although the ministry has yet to provide a timeframe.
The deal paves the way for global energy giants to return to Iraq 36 years after late dictator Saddam Hussein chased them out, and is seen as a first step to access the earth’s third largest proven crude reserves.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080622113024.5rfe5v9s&show_article=1
Stumpy Says:
22 June 2008 at 5:41 pm.
Nope Cammy ole boy. Im a pussy cat.
E.E. Says:
22 June 2008 at 5:51 pm.
I agree, Stumpy, you are a pussy cat but sometimes your claws come out too much.
Can McCain claim the Ron Paul votes?
With iconoclast Ron Paul having ended his quixotic bid for the Republican presidential nomination — his platform had called for, among other things, ending the Iraq War, repealing the PATRIOT Act, returning to the gold standard and eliminating taxes on tips — his many dedicated supporters are up for grabs.
Even excluding his support in caucus states, Paul received a few more than a million votes in the Republican primary, finished second in five states including Pennsylvania and Oregon and continued to draw votes well after he’d effectively withdrawn from the race. His campaign also tapped into the potent new vein of online fundraising, punctuated by the so-called “money bomb” day when his supporters, unaided by his campaign, managed to pump $5 million into his coffers in 24 hours.
It’s a support base that could make the difference in a close election, and while there’s no guarantee that his supporters will turn out at the polls for GOP standard-bearer John McCain, one thing seems clear: Despite their overlapping anti-Iraq war positions, Barack Obama will not make major inroads among them.
Hawk Says:
22 June 2008 at 6:12 pm.
Poll: most Britons doubt cause of climate change
The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.
The results have shocked campaigners who hoped that doubts would have been silenced by a report last year by more than 2,500 scientists for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which found a 90 per cent chance that humans were the main cause of climate change and warned that drastic action was needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The findings come just before the release of the government’s long-awaited renewable energy strategy, which aims to cut the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent over the next 12 years.
The poll, by Ipsos MORI, found widespread contradictions, with some people saying politicians were not doing enough to tackle the problem, even though they were cynical about government attempts to impose regulations or raise taxes. In a sign of the enormous task ahead for those pushing for drastic cuts to carbon emissions, many people said they did not want to restrict their lifestyles and only a small minority believe they need to make ’significant and radical’ changes such as driving and flying less.
‘It’s disappointing and the government will be really worried,’ said Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the government’s Sustainable Development Commission. ‘They [politicians] need the context in which they’re developing new policies to be a lot stronger and more positive. Otherwise the potential for backlash and unpopularity is considerable.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/22/climatechange.carbonemissions
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