Top Items:
Daniela Deane / Washington Post:
Former FEMA Chief Blames DHS — Michael Brown, the embattled former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, testified before a Senate committee today that he told a top White House official on the day Hurricane Katrina struck that "our worst nightmares" had come true in New Orleans.
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CNN:
Brown says he's been made Katrina scapegoat — Ex-FEMA chief blames Homeland Security for slow response — WASHINGTON (CNN) — Former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown told a Senate panel Friday that he feels he's been made a scapegoat for the government's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina.
New York Times:
Brown Asserts He Alerted White House Quickly on Katrina — Michael D. Brown, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, testified today that he let senior White House staffers know as soon as he had heard that flooding had begun in New Orleans on the day Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
Stephen Brook / Guardian:
Political magazine pulls cartoon after police warning — Politics magazine the Liberal has followed the Spectator in publishing then hastily withdrawing from its website one of the controversial Danish cartoons featuring the prophet Muhammad. — The independent title …
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Washington Post:
Steele Apologizes for Holocaust Remarks — Compared Stem Cell Research to Nazi Medical Experiments — Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele apologized this morning for telling a Baltimore Jewish group yesterday that he believes stem cell research could be comparable to Nazi medical testing on Jews during World War II.
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Jennifer Skalka / Baltimore Sun:
Steele's words at meeting faulted … Discussing his position on embryonic stem cell research with Baltimore Jewish leaders yesterday, Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele said he is "concerned about the destruction of human life" and made a comparison between the controversial science and experiments done on Jews during the Holocaust.
Discussion:
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Anthony Loyd / Times of London:
Murder of sheikh provokes Sunnis to turn on al-Qaeda — Ramadi, stronghold of the insurgents, has turned against al-Zarqawi — REGARDED as untouchable by the Sunni populace, Sheikh Naser Abdul Karim al-Miklif believed that he had no need for bodyguards. — Leader of the huge al-Bu Fahad tribe …
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Paul R. Pillar / Foreign Affairs:
Intelligence, Policy,and the War in Iraq — Summary: During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, writes the intelligence community's former senior analyst for the Middle East, the Bush administration disregarded the community's expertise, politicized the intelligence process …
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Arthur Silber / Once Upon a Time:
The Irrelevance of Intelligence, and "Rational Actors" — At the end of an entry I wrote over two years ago (and which is excerpted in Part I of my Iran series), I wrote: … Numerous examples from history, including from our own most recent history, amply prove these statements.
Max Blumenthal / The Huffington Post:
Ann Coulter at CPAC on "Ragheads" and Assassinating Bill Clinton (and Dr. Bill Frist's Diagnosis) — On Friday, February 10, the rock star of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was none other than Ann Coulter. Before an overflow crowd of at least 1000 young right-wing activists …
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Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
Curse of the Moderates — As much of the Islamic world erupts in a studied frenzy over the Danish Muhammad cartoons, there are voices of reason being heard on both sides. Some Islamic leaders and organizations, while endorsing the demonstrators' sense of grievance and sharing their outrage …
Joseph Carroll / Gallup:
Bush Approval Steady at 42% — Approval ratings show essentially no change since late November 2005 — PRINCETON, NJ — President George W. Bush's State of the Union address on Jan. 31 did little to move his overall job approval rating, according to a new Gallup Poll.
Deborah Hastings / Associated Press:
Turin Games Kick Off With Surreal Ceremony — This gritty city below the Alps gave a heartfelt "benvenuto" Friday night to the Winter Games, a fiery opening ceremony dedicated to passion and to igniting the competitive spirits of more than 2,500 of the world's best athletes.
tcsdaily.com:
Stop Worrying About the Trade Deficit — America's trade deficit — in December reaching a near-record $64.7 billion — is unfortunate, right? — Wrong. Contrary to popular opinion, this so-called "deficit" is a blessing. — Consider that if Americans export lumber, sheetrock …
Rebecca MacKinnon / RConversation:
Microsoft's new Chinese blog censorship policy cranks into gear — Roland Soong at ESWN reports that Chinese blogger Wang Ning is one of the first targets of Microsoft's new and improved Chinese blog censorship policy. If you visit Wang Ning's MSN Spaces blog from the U.S. or anywhere else outside …
Jennifer Loven / Associated Press:
Update 19: Bush Reveals Rationale Behind Surveillance — President Bush defended his warrantless eavesdropping program Friday, saying during what he thought were private remarks that he concluded that spying on Americans was necessary to fill a gap in the United States' security.
Atlas Shrugs:
THE MOHAMMAD CARTOON TEE SHRT BROUHAHAHA — It's funny, when I saw this tee shirt on metro spy earlier in the week, I ordered it immediately. Little did I know that it too would create a brouhaha (love that word). I even used it as a graphic in a prior post here.
Jan Olsen / Guardian:
Cartoons editor sent on leave — The Danish editor at the centre of the prophet caricature furore has been sent on indefinite leave after a disagreement with management about whether their newspaper should also print cartoons of the Holocaust. — Flemming Rose, the culture editor …
keloland.com:
SD House Approves Abortion Ban — The South Dakota House has passed a bill that would nearly ban all abortions in the state, ushering the issue to the state Senate. — Supporters are pushing the measure in hopes of drawing a legal challenge that will cause the US Supreme Court to reverse its 1973 decision legalizing abortion.
Captain Ed / Captain's Quarters:
Freedom's Just Another Word At Yahoo! — Internet giant Yahoo! joins Microsoft and Google in bending to the Chinese autocracy, only this time they helped jail an activist for freedom in the nominally Communist nation. The London Times reports that Yahoo! coughed up records used to send a dissident to prison for ten years:
alternet.org:
A Journalism Manifesto — By G. Pascal Zachary, Dvorak Uncensored. — A Time and Wall St. Journal vet says it's time to admit to biases, dump the 'objectivity' and start getting it right. — Tools — Mainstream journalists are being torn apart. Conservatives long have accused reporters …
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