Top Items:
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
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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
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.
CNN:
Rita grows to Category 4 hurricane — Evacuations ordered ahead of major storm — MIAMI, Florida (CNN) — Authorities in Texas and along the storm-shattered coast of Louisiana braced Wednesday for Hurricane Rita, as the powerful Category 4 storm picked up strength in the Gulf of Mexico.
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."
weather.com:
Hurricane Central — Hurricane Rita now a category 5 — Tim Ballisty, Meteorologist, The Weather Channel — Hurricane Rita's rapid intensification cycle that began Tuesday afternoon continues. Top winds are up to 165 mph, now a category 5 hurricane.
Pam Easton / Associated Press:
Rita, Now Category 4, Heads for Gulf Coast — GALVESTON, Texas - Residents of this island city packed up mementoes and pets and started evacuating Wednesday as Hurricane Rita intensified into a Category 4 storm with 135 mph winds and threatened to devastate the Texas coast or already-battered Louisiana by week's end.
Discussion:
NewsHog, The Moderate Voice, The Mahablog, media girl (mediagirl.org), PunditGuy and Don Surber
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.
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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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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
Jonathan M. Katz / Associated Press:
Senator Sold Stock Before Price Dropped — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, sold all his stock in his family's hospital corporation about two weeks before it issued a disappointing earnings report and the price fell nearly 15 percent.
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.
Revere / Effect Measure:
Indonesia: international experts converge — The Indonesian health authorities seem scared and close to panic, even as they reassure everyone not to panic. Health Minister Siti Fadila Supari is now retracting an earlier statement that the country was experiencing an epidemic, saying only that …
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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.
Petula Dvorak / Washington Post:
Battle Lines Behind the Battle Lines — Protest to Make D.C. A Flash Point for Rift Among Military Families — FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — In military communities across the United States, a debate over the Iraq war is being waged by reluctant, neophyte activists.
Discussion:
Don Surber
