Top Items:
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.
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Smash / The Indepundit:
Uh-Oh — 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 of Galveston, Texas on Saturday morning — but that is subject to change, as we all know.
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.
Associated Press:
Evacuation orders again — Mayor Ray Nagin estimated that 400 to 500 residents were left in the city. The city plans to start to re-enforce the evacuation order Wednesday, he said. He did not give specifics on how the order will be enforced. — To people who refuse to leave, Nagin had this message: "We're all adults.
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
Discussion:
Pros and Cons
The MinuteMan / JustOneMinute:
Able Danger - The Pentagon Won't Play — The Pentagon will not allow its people to testify at Wednesday's Senate hearing on Able Danger, which shrinks the still-tentative witness list: … Curt Weldon is the Congressman who has been leading this charge; not everyone scores his credibility at 100%.
Discussion:
The Strata-Sphere, alicublog, Michelle Malkin, The Anchoress, The Project … and bRight & Early
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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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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.
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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.
Discussion:
AMERICAblog, David Corn, Big Brass Blog, The Carpetbagger Report, First Draft and Prometheus 6
David Adesnik / OxBlog:
JUST WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON IN NORTH KOREA? I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea. It's all but impossible to interpret North Korean behavior since no one outside of Pyongyang has any real idea of what the NoKo regime sees as its national interest.
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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.
Washington Post:
Words That Will Haunt — IN ANNOUNCING his opposition yesterday to the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to be chief justice of the United States, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) made a remarkable statement: "The president is not entitled to very much deference in staffing …
theonion.com:
Bush Braces As Cindy Sheehan's Other Son Drowns In New Orleans — Issue 41 •38 — WASHINGTON, DC—According to White House sources, President Bush is bracing for intensified criticism following Monday's report that the body of Tyler Sheehan, son of outspoken anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan …
Discussion:
Ace of Spades HQ
Glenn Harlan Reynolds / Tech Central Station:
Is This the Right Way to Return to the Moon? — President George W. Bush has called for Americans to return to the moon by 2020. Now NASA has come out with a more detailed presentation, reported in Space.com, of what they have in mind: — NASA briefed senior White House officials Wednesday …
Discussion:
The Daily Brief
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.
Jack Shafer / Slate:
Media criticism. — Weasel-Words Rip My Flesh! — Spotting a bogus trend story on Page One of today's New York Times. — How many "many's" are too many for one news story? — Like its fellow weasel-words—some, few, often, seems, likely, more—many serves writers who haven't found the data to support their argument.
Washington Post:
Katrina's Cost May Test GOP Harmony — Some Want Bush To Give Details on How U.S. Will Pay — Congressional Republicans from across the ideological spectrum yesterday rejected the White House's open-wallet approach to rebuilding the Gulf Coast, a sign that the lockstep GOP discipline …
