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Wall Street Journal:
Storm News Tracker — Updated regularly with news on the hurricane. All times EDT. — 5:25 p.m.: WSJ.com's Scott Patterson reports from New York. The Dow industrials fell 103.49 points, or 1%, to 10378.03, a three-week low, under pressure from higher crude-oil prices as Rita moved into the Gulf of Mexico.
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MSNBC:
Rita strengthens to Category 5 hurricane — Storm on a course to Texas with wind speeds now up to 165 mph — Galveston residents wait to board buses to evacuate as Hurricane Rita heads for the Texas Gulf Coast Wednesday. — FREE VIDEO — • Houston warning
Smash / The Indepundit:
Uh-Oh — UPDATE: Rita is now a CATEGORY FIVE hurricane, with winds in excess of 165mph. — HURRICANE RITA is now a category four storm, with winds in excess of 140 mph. This is roughly the same strength as Katrina when she made landfall. Most projected tracks have Rita making landfall somewhere west …
Discussion:
StormTrack, The Moderate Voice, Happy Furry Puppy Story …, Classical Values, BLACKFIVE and Secular Blasphemy
Reuters:
Rita may be 'national disaster': oil CEO — SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Valero Energy Corp. (VLO.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Greehey said Hurricane Rita's impact on U.S. crude oil production and refining could be a "national disaster."
ww2.scripps.com:
OIL FIRMS APPLY FOR FEDERAL PERMITS, LOOK TO SIMPLIFY EXTRACTION — Page: 1B — Memo: chakrabartyg@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2976 — Banner p.1A - OIL SHALE HEATS UP / 23 years after boom went bust, eight companies seek Colorado leases. — SEE END OF TEXT FOR INFOBOX — Edition: Final
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Jesse J. Holland / Associated Press:
Roberts Picks Up Democratic Support — WASHINGTON - Chief Justice-nominee John Roberts, his confirmation secure, picked up support from fractured Senate Democrats on Wednesday as President Bush met lawmakers to discuss a second vacancy on the Supreme Court.
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nationalenquirer.com:
BUSH'S BOOZE CRISIS — Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal. — Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.
Discussion:
Brilliant at Breakfast, PoliPundit.com, Wonkette, media girl (mediagirl.org) and THE NEWS BLOG
mars.jpl.nasa.gov:
Orbiter's Long Life Helps Scientists Track Changes on Mars — New gullies that did not exist in mid-2002 have appeared on a Martian sand dune. — That's just one of the surprising discoveries that have resulted from the extended life of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, which this month began its ninth year in orbit around Mars.
Discussion:
Power Line, Bradford Plumer, The All Spin Zone, IMAO, GOP Bloggers, MaxedOutMama, Wizbang, The Bad Hedgehog and Gut Rumbles
Dr. Sanity:
ABLE DANGER HEARINGS UPDATE — I spent several hours following the hearings today and will attempt to summarize some of the more interesting aspects. Here are my rough notes: — Curt Weldon's opening comments: — Able Danger existed in 1999. It amassed a tremendous amount of data …
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The MinuteMan / JustOneMinute:Able Danger - The Pentagon Won't Play
Discussion:
The Corner on National …, Michelle Malkin, alicublog, The Strata-Sphere, The Anchoress, The Project …, SoCalPundit and bRight & Early
Reuters:
Indonesia says bird flu outbreak an epidemic — JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia called an outbreak of bird flu in its teeming capital an epidemic on Wednesday as health and agricultural experts from around the world converged on Jakarta to help control the virus.
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Rebecca MacKinnon / Global Voices Online:
It's Out! Handbook for Bloggers & Cyberdissidents — Reporters Without Borders has given Global Voices a sneak peak at the Handbook For Bloggers and Cyberdissidents before its official Thursday release. Click here to download the full PDF booklet. Thanks to Julien Pain for his hard work on this project.
Tony G / milkriverblog:
ENV: The Tangled Bank #37 — After a couple weeks in the school cafeteria, so to speak, delighting in cardboard-textured academic pizza, the fizz of student potential soda and, for dessert, creamy white celebrity yogurt (is that a fungus growing on my bacterial culture?) …
Rebecca Traister / Salon:
Attack of the listless lads — Passionless and confused, they swim torpidly about in the dating pool, driving me and my single girlfriends to despair. I asked Benjamin Kunkel, author of the hit novel "Indecision," to explain to me what's wrong with young American men.
Dwight / Hurricane Rita:
Bloggers: Riding the storm out? Tell us what you see — Do you have a blog, live in the Houston-Galveston area and plan to ride the storm out? — If so, we'd like your help with an experiment in citizen journalism. — We're launching a blog this afternoon called Stormwatchers.
