Top Items:
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
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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.
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.
Discussion:
Daily Pundit
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
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.
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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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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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
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, Michelle Malkin, alicublog, The Anchoress, The Project … and bRight & Early
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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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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.
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.
Discussion:
Dan Gillmor's blog
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
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
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 …
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
