ABC/Wash Post Consumer Comfort Index hits 2-yr low
NEW YORK, Nov 27 (Reuters) – American consumers’ confidence hit a two-year low in the latest week as concerns about credit and housing markets as well as high fuel costs and stock market volatility cast a shadow over the holiday season, according to a poll released on Tuesday.

US stock futures point to higher open
NEW YORK – Stock futures indicated a higher open to trading Wednesday as investors awaited key readings on the economy, including orders for big-ticket manufactured goods and existing home sales.

Orders for big-ticket goods drop
WASHINGTON – Orders to factories for big-ticket manufactured goods fell in October for a third straight month, the longest stretch of weakness in nearly four years.

Home price drop largest on record
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Prices of existing U.S. single-family homes in the third quarter slumped 4.5 percent from a year earlier, matching a record decline from the previous period as the housing downturn deepened, according to a national home price index on Tuesday.

Report: Foreclosures to hit metro areas
Rising foreclosures will lead to billions of dollars in lost economic activity next year in the nation’s major metropolitan areas, but homeowners and financial institutions have the ability to work together to contain the effects, according to a report compiled for the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Oh, you mean those “little people” who were so royally screwed by the new rules for bankruptcy a couple of years ago?  Will the financial industry want to help them?  When all they have to do is to buy a few politicians?  See below.

Wall Street leads surge in corporate political giving
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Big business is shoveling more money than ever into U.S. political campaigns, with Wall Street donations way up, a watchdog group said on Tuesday. The securities and investment industry — which includes brokerages, hedge funds and private equity firms — registered the sharpest increase in giving since 2004 among all industry sectors studied by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Media: Pelosi’s Syria Diplomacy = ‘Foolish’; Bush’s Syria Diplomacy = ‘Victory’
When Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi traveled to Syria to visit President Bashar al-Assad last spring, the right wing immediately excoriated her diplomatic efforts… Now that the Bush administration has come to its senses and invited Syria to become part of the solution in the Middle East, the media has missed the administration’s reversal, instead praising Bush’s “victory” in securing Syria’s attendance.

Media Lavishes Attention On Bogus Internet Poll Showing Hillary Losing To Repubs — And Ignores Reputable Poll Finding Opposite (by Greg Sargent at TPM Horse’s Mouth)
[Monday] two polling firms — Zogby and Gallup — released surveys of the presidential race that offered strikingly different conclusions. The Zogby poll found that Hillary is trailing five leading GOP candidates in general election matchups. The Gallup Poll, by contrast, found that Hillary, and to a lesser degree Obama, has a slight to sizable lead over the top GOP contenders… I don’t need to tell you which poll got all the media attention. Do I?

Right-Wing Magazine: Veco Oil Scandal Contributed To Lott’s Resignation
[T]he right-wing American Spectator magazine speculates that brewing corruption scandals may have contributed to [Sen. Trent] Lott’s decision [to leave the Senate]: “…Lott, Stevens, as well as Rep. Dennis Hastert all have ties to Bill Allen, a larger than life Alaskan businessman who owned Veco, an oil-field services company, and who was a huge benefactor of Republican politicians.” Allen has pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska legislators.

Fox Business’s so-called ‘online shopper’ unmasked.
In honor of Cyber Monday, Fox Business did a segment yesterday on online shopping. A Fox reporter went to ESPN Zone in Washington, DC and interviewed Peter Perweiler, who was identified only as an “online shopper.” Perweiler told Fox Business that he is planning to shop on Cyber Monday and is looking at “big-ticket items this year.”… It’s no surprise that Perweiler was boosting online shopping. As Silicon Alley Insider uncovered, Perweiler is actually the marketing manager at the National Retail Federation. The NRF has blamed Fox Business’s sloppy reporting for the incident.
Click through to watch the video of the Fox interview with Perweiler.

O’Reilly ‘Bitches’ And ‘Whines’ For Military Charity To Send Dr. Laura To Meet With U.S. Troops
[Monday] night on his show, O’Reilly hosted USO CEO and President Edward Powell, sharply criticizing him for not sending more high-caliber celebrities — the “big guns” — to Afghanistan… O’Reilly told Powell that “Dr. Laura wants to go, you get her butt over there, sir.”… In May 2007, before appearing at Fort Douglas in Utah, Schlessinger disparaged “lonely” military wives, saying that they were “bitching” and “whining”…It’s not all together surprising that the USO may not be too enthusiastic about bringing such a divisive public personality to entertain the troops.
Click through to watch the Monday night interview.

Today’s Tweety Moment (by digby )
“Matthews: Let’s go back to women with needs. Women with needs are Hillary’s great strength. Women who don’t have a college degree, women who don’t have a lot of things going for them. May not have a husband, may have kids, have all kinds of needs with day care, education, minimum wage.”… “Women with Needs” doesn’t have quite the same ring as “Welfare Queens” but it does the trick.

Holt turns up the heat on Klein.
Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) sets the record straight, after Time magazine columnist Joe Klein ignorantly claimed the Democrats’ FISA reform legislation “would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans.” Holt explains the Restore Act “explicitly states that no court order is required to listen to the conversations of foreigners that happen to pass through the U.S. telecommunications system. It does not grant Constitutional rights to foreign terrorists.”

Boehlert: ABC’s Nightline walks away from Iraq
As for the daily or weekly events of the war itself, for 18 straight weeks (or one-third of the calendar year), Nightline effectively walked away from Iraq. What took its place? Lots of Nightline reports on pets and pop music.

Hide The Bunnies (by digby)
[Washington socialite and wife of former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee Sally Quinn:] “Since Hillary has been here in the Senate for the last eight years, I think I’ve seen her twice. Otherwise, she is at fund-raisers. She entertains constantly, but it is all political. It is people who work for her or raise money for her.” Sally doesn’t like being ignored… DC is America, through and through — America, ca. 1690. The Reverend Broder sentences the heretics to the stake while Sally Goodwyfe runs around screaming “burn them, burn them!”

FACT CHECK: U.S. Health Care Resources Not Burdened By Undocumented Immigrants (by Dave de Give, guest posting at Think Progress, Center for American Progress)
Not only are undocumented immigrants not a burden on the U.S. health care system, but as Alexander N. Ortega, an associate professor at UCLA’s School of Public Health and the study’s lead author points out, they “seem to be underutilizing the system, given their health needs.”
This post was submitted through our Blog Fellows program. Make your own contribution — and get paid for it — by clicking here.

Media Matters for America headlines

CNN’s Moos ridiculed proposed GOP YouTube debate questions, but ignored “diamonds or pearls” question CNN chose for Dem debate

Buchanan: “America [is] committing suicide” while “Asian, African, and Latin American children come to inherit the estate”

O’Reilly accused NY Times of “rooting for a recession”

CNN’s King reported that Giuliani “supports the constitutional right” to abortion without noting that he said “[i]t would be OK to repeal” Roe v. Wade

CNN suggested Dems’ support for writers’ strike compromised by media moguls’ money

CNN pledges no Dem “gotchas” in Republican YouTube debate — so why did CNN allow partisan “gotchas” in Dem debate?

Carlson: If Al Gore were president, “[w]e’d … be living in yurts in the dark”

Contrary to researchers’ views, Hume touted stem-cell breakthrough as “virtually eliminat[ing]” debate

On Tucker, Bob Franken resurrected false stories about childhoods of Bush, Gore

APer’s crime was taking photos US didn’t want citizens to see
That’s what Associated Press chief Tom Curley believes. The US military has sent out a flurry of ever-changing claims against photographer Bilal Hussein, he says, but “every claim we’ve checked out has proved to be false, overblown or microscopic in significance.”

Cable Wins Compromise on F.C.C. Plans
The F.C.C. chief’s decision to scale back a plan to more tightly regulate cable television was a significant, though not total, victory for the industry.

Minorities and females shut out of media ownership.
FCC chair Kevin Martin is currently pushing to allowing a media company to own both a television and a radio station in the same city… One of the most troubling consequences of lifting the ban is that it would likely crowd out local and minority voices in the media. A new report by Free Press highlights the disparity: – “Women comprise 51 percent of the entire U.S. population, but own a total of only 80 stations, or 5.87 percent of all full power commercial television stations.” – “Minorities comprise 34 percent of the entire U.S. population, but own a total of 43 stations, or 3.15 percent of all full-power commercial television stations.” That percentage decreased between Oct. 2006 and Oct. 2007.
Click through for more highlights, and for a link to the study.

NBC host Carson Daly to defy writers strike
NBC’s after-hours star Carson Daly is poised to become the first U.S. late-night television talk show host to cross the picket lines of striking Hollywood writers… “He wanted to go back to support his staffers,” [a] network spokeswoman said. The General Electric Co.-owned network had informed the non-writing staff of Daly’s show, as well as “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” that they face layoffs at the end of this week unless they returned to the airwaves.
Way to go, GE!  Use threats to get those suckers back to work.

Net Neutrality Coming to Congress (by Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins at Mashable)
Instead of enacting more laws, Congress should work to rid the broadband and network operator world of its gross and counter-productive subsidies. This will in turn allow more competition, solving naturally the problem of net neutrality without costing taxpayers.

US Media Owners Substituting ‘Pennies for Dollars’ Online? (paidContent.org)
Are new online business models just substituting “pennies for dollars” for media owners? That was the woeful conclusion of Mort Zuckerman, publisher of the New York Daily News and US News and World Report, according to the detailed minutes of a recent inquiry into media ownership by the UK House of Lord’s Communications Committee released Friday.

As many as 60% of online newspaper visitors are “fly-bys”
Those are people who use the site briefly and irregularly. The news industry’s continuing challenge is to turn “visitors into residents,” says washingtonpost.com editor Jim Brady. Some of the declines at newspaper sites may be due to increased competition from local TV stations, says Harvard’s Thomas E. Patterson. “A lot of papers are close to maxing out their local audiences. It’s hard to know where more readers will come from… They have to figure out how to deal with a pretty difficult future.”

An Important Lesson About Grassroots Media (by Steve Outing at Editor & Publisher)
I learned — the hard way — some truths about grassroots content and online community. This is my attempt at preventing you from going through similar business heartache… As destination sites, I don’t think that Backfence or YourHub work. My company’s sites didn’t work, which is why in hindsight I realize that a much higher level of professional content needed to be added into the mix. Quality matters… [M]y message is that you need to leverage citizen content appropriately.

Storming the News Gatekeepers
Mitchell Stephens, who teaches media history at New York University, says citizen journalism harks back to the days of spoken news, when communities gathered in open-air markets and town squares. It can be traced to Thomas Paine and the pamphleteers of the 18th century, and to the antiwar, counterculture alternative press that prospered in the 1960s… “The publishing tools — digital cameras, blogging software — are at the people’s disposal,” Gillmor continues. “And for a lot of them, the underlying motivation is frustration with the traditional media.”

Newspaper sites still in the figure-it-out stage with videos
In the past 12 to 18 months, news video has grown from a significant trend into a near stampede. Much of the video on newspaper websites is disappointing, says Charles Layton, “but a small proportion is excellent by any standard.” Chet Rhodes of washingtonpost.com tells him: “How to tell really powerful stories on the Web, nobody knows how to do that yet in what I would call a sustainable way. To do that every day is really hard. It’s going to be awesome, though.”

News Corp Acquiring LinkedIn: Rumors Confirmed? (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
The rumors of News Corp’s possible acquisition of LinkedIn appear to be substantiated. The two companies have been in serious talks about a deal. Further, Venturebeat speaks of reports also hinting at how News Corp. may be looking to integrate LinkedIn into its larger company–it may be fit in somehow with other online publications such as the Wall Street Journal, for both regaining (and retaining) users, and working out some sort of advertising revenue as well.

Google Maps Gets Wiki With It (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
Google maps has updated its My Maps tool to incorporate some wiki-like functionality. Collaborative mapping, if you will… Do maps need wikis, though? Considering the amount of love geeks out there have for their maps, mapping tools, map mashups, geo-tagging, and real time activity shown on a map, of course maps need wikis. It’s only natural. Everything is being wikified these days. Music collaboration, slide show collaboration, website collaboration, office work collaboration, podcasting collaboration, book collaboration… and now maps too.

Kevin Rose: Mobile Web Is The Next Big Thing (by Stan Schroeder at Mashable)
In an interview with SiliconRepublic, Kevin claims that although devices like the iPhone take a lot of the credit for the upcoming mobile web expansion, one need not forget the impact of search, RSS, blogs, and social networks, which are acting as catalysts. Of course, in Kevin’s mind, Digg is the way to sift through the overabundance of information.

Yahoo Apologizes for Cyber Monday Blunder (by Adam Ostrow at Mashable)
In a posting to its company blog, Yahoo has apologized for an approximately 12-hour outage that effected its small business merchant customers [Monday]… While typically a system outage is just a mild inconvenience, for it to happen on Cyber Monday is a serious blunder that likely cost merchants millions of dollars. Yahoo owes customers more than an apology; they should provide some sort of financial reprieve

Eve: An Understanding Virtual Teacher
Easy with Eve is a new virtual teaching system developed by researcher Hossein Sarrafzadeh and his development group from the Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences in Auckland, New Zealand. Eve’s Final Fantasy-like facade hides the real engineering; Eve is designed to be a one-to-one system that constantly monitors a student better than a living teacher.

Cell phone college class opens in Japan
TOKYO – Japanese already use cell phones to shop, read novels, exchange e-mail, search for restaurants and take video clips. Now, they can take a university course.

Verizon Wireless to Open Its Network
Verizon Wireless now plans to give customers more choice in what phones they can use on its network.

Keep your shoes on: T-rays can see right through
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Imagine a trip to the airport without having to slip off your shoes. 

Cancer-resistant Mouse Developed By Adding Tumor-suppressor Gene
A mouse resistant to cancer, even highly-aggressive types, has been created. The breakthrough stems from a discovery in radiation medicine and researchers who found a tumor-suppressor gene called “Par-4″ in the prostate.

News – Nanoparticles Enable Surgical Strikes against Cancer
Microscopic instruments that target only cancerous cells could replace less precise methods that also kill healthy tissue In a bid to progress beyond the shotgun approach to fighting cancer—blasting malignant cells with toxic chemicals or radiation, which kills surrounding healthy cells in the process

FDA Panel Backs Tougher Warning for Tamiflu
Advisers say current labeling doesn’t reflect reports of bizarre behaviors and sudden deaths

Lack of Sleep Tied to Weight Gain in New Moms
But a cause for the connection is still being sought.

Cell Protein Might Help Treat ALS
Hsp70 extended the lifespan of mice that had the neurological disease, researchers say

High-Carb Diet Raises Women’s Diabetes Risk
But boosting fiber intake can help lower the odds, researchers say

First Americans All from Siberia, Study Confirms
Humans somehow made their way into the Americas from distant lands, but knowing precisely when and from where they made the journey are matters of heated scientific debate. New genetic evidence, however, backs up a chilly northwestern arrival to North America from Siberia about 12,000 years ago, via a temporary land bridge spanning the Bering Strait.

“Teenage” galaxies give hints of early Milky Way
LONDON (Reuters) – The young building blocks of galaxies similar to the Milky Way have been spotted for the first time by astronomers, giving a tantalizing glimpse of how our stellar backyard may have formed.

Spain to get ‘African’ climate, report says
Madrid – Spanish experts have painted an alarming picture of the impact of global warming in the country, predicting droughts, flooding, new diseases and economic problems, press reports said Wednesday.

Drought Exacerbates Carbon Dioxide Problem
In North America alone, human activity—from driving cars to generating power in factories—releases about two billion tons (1.85 billion metric tons) of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide every year. Natural carbon sinks such as forests, grasslands, crops and soil absorb about one-third of those emissions, scientists estimate. But droughts seem to hamper the ability of these sinks to suck up the greenhouse gas.

Google Wants Cheap, Renewable Energy. Like, Now. (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
Google’s getting greener than ever. And setting up more initiatives to find those smart people out there that can take care of the brainiac side of things… It will focus on advanced solar thermal power, wind power, geothermal systems and other potential technologies that will save our planet.

Sweet fuel supply
A new type of fuel cell powered with glucose derived from biomass is described in the latest issue of the Inderscience Publication International Journal of Global Energy Issues. The experimental device works by using sunlight to convert the glucose into hydrogen to power the cell, which produces several hundred millivolts.

Brown outlines four sites for nuclear power stations
Four sites were earmarked for the new generation of nuclear power stations yesterday as Gordon Brown gave the clearest signal so far that he will give the go-ahead in the New Year for a major expansion of Britain’s nuclear power output.

EPA, Supermarkets Want to Put the Chill on Fridge Emissions
OAKLAND, Calif., Nov. 28, 2007 — The Environmental Protection Agency and supermarkets have formed the GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration Partnership, an alliance aimed at reducing greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances caused by refrigeration.

Indonesia to plant 79 million trees
JAKARTA, Indonesia – Indonesia, which is losing its forests at a faster rate than any other country, launched a campaign Wednesday to plant 79 million trees ahead of a critical climate change conference on the resort island of Bali.

Penguins at risk from oil-spill in Antarctic shipwreck
Santiago, Nov 28 – About 2,500 penguins and other marine species have been endangered from the fuel oil spill off the coast of Antarctica where the cruise ship Explorer sank last week, the Chilean navy said.

Antarctic Geological Drilling Program has exceeded all expectations
One week ago (Nov. 21), the drilling team passed the 1,000-meter mark in rock core pulled from beneath the sea floor in McMurdo Sound, and with a remarkable recovery rate of more than 98 percent. The end of drilling is scheduled for this weekend, and only a few tens of meters of core remain to be recovered for an expected final total of more than 1,100 meters (3,600 feet).

The Hill’s Pundits Blog

November 27, 2007

Tucker Carlson Says Al Gore Is Like George Bush

Brent Budowsky

It had to be the most preposterous segment in the history of cable television to witness Tucker Carlson say Al Gore and George Bush have much in common.

Granted, Tucker’s comments were sandwiched between the expressions of sneering contempt that he holds for Gore. Sadly, the guests on the show either lacked the intellectual firepower or minimal courage necessary to rebut this incredibly bizarre and laughable analysis from the host…

On what matters, Al Gore and George Bush have zero in common, and in fact, Gore is the exact antithesis of everything Bush stands for and does…

General Electric has now embarked on a major policy that bears a close relationship to what Al Gore has been advocating for decades. In fact NBC and its cable properties have done outstanding work recently on climate change and global warming, from “The Today Show” traveling the world to CNBC profiling green businesses.

When I hear Tucker sneering and leering with contempt for Gore, it reminds me of JFK’s famous line during the Cuban Missile Crisis: “There is always somebody who does not get the word.”

Budowsky serves on the Advisory Council of the Intelligence Summit and is a contributing editor to Fighting Dems News Service. He handled intelligence issues for Sen. Lloyd Bentsen when the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was originally passed, and was legislative director to Bill Alexander, then the chief deputy whip of the House. He can be read on The Hill’s Pundits Blog and reached at brentbbi@webtv.net.

[Click the title, above, to read more and to post a comment that may be read by your congressman and senators!  Also, it's possible that Carlson's show may soon be canceled.  Click here for the story and for information about how to tell MSNBC what YOU think of the show.—Caro]

Iraq to Seek Long-Term US Presence
Iraq’s government, seeking protection against foreign threats and internal coups, will offer the U.S. a long-term troop presence in Iraq in return for U.S. security guarantees as part of a strategic partnership, two Iraqi officials said Monday. Preferential treatment for U.S. investors could provide a huge windfall if Iraq can achieve enough stability to exploit its vast oil resources.
And “oil” is the operative word, with “windfall” a close second.  You don’t think Maliki coordinated this announcement with the White House, do you?

White House’s new benchmark: ‘enduring’ presence.
The New York Times recently reported that the Bush administration has “scaled back” its benchmarks for political progress in Iraq, instead “focusing their immediate efforts on several more limited but achievable goals.” [Monday], the administration announced one of its goals: an endless, unqualified, “enduring” presence in Iraq.
David Kurtz, at Talking Points Memo, says, “The White House has gone from moving the goalposts in Iraq to just quietly taking them down altogether.”

Left Wing Conspiracy

US roadblock shootings in Iraq kill 5
BAGHDAD – American troops fired on vehicles trying to drive through roadblocks, killing at least five people, including one child, in two separate incidents, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

American-backed killer militias strut across Iraq
Members of the Baghdad Brigade receive $300 a man each month from the Americans, who also provide vehicles, uniforms and flak jackets. In return the brigade ‘keeps out’ Al-Qaeda, dismantles roadside bombs and patrols the area, a task performed with considerable swagger by many of its 4,000 recruits.

Iran builds new longer-range missile: report
Iran has built a new longer-range missile named “Ashura” with a range of 2,000 kilometres, (1,240 miles), the defence minister announced on Tuesday, the Fars news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad offers to be an observer at US presidential election
He denounces it as the “Great Satan” and frequently dismisses its power, but the overtures of the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to the US seem to grow ever more extravagant. Having failed to win a response with an 18-page letter to President George Bush or to a request to visit the site of the September 11 2001 attack on New York, Ahmadinejad has offered himself as an observer in next year’s presidential election.

Suicide blast in Kabul kills 2 civilians
KABUL, Afghanistan – A suicide car bomber triggered a huge blast Tuesday near two armored vehicles used by U.S.-led coalition troops in Kabul, killing at least two civilians and destroying the wall of a nearby house, witnesses and officials said.

Azerbaijan defense minister hints at war
ASTANA, Kazakhstan – The long-standing dispute over the Armenian-controlled territory of Nagorno-Karabakh could spark a new war if it remains unresolved, Azerbaijan’s defense minister said Tuesday.

Putin accuses U.S. of meddling in Russia vote
President Vladimir Putin accused Washington on Monday of plotting to undermine December parliamentary elections seen widely as a demonstration of his enduring power in Russia. Putin, drawing on resurgent nationalist sentiment ahead of Sunday’s poll, also said Russia must maintain its defences to discourage others from “poking their snotty noses” in its affairs.

Peace with Sri Lanka govt impossible: Tamil Tiger chief
COLOMBO (AFP) – The leader of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels declared in an annual speech Tuesday that peace with the island’s “genocidal” government was impossible.

Malaysia threatens crackdown on protests
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Malaysia’s prime minister warned Tuesday he may invoke a law that allows for indefinite detentions without trial to curb street demonstrations after two violent protests stunned the normally peaceful country.

New Australian PM pledges quick apology to Aborigines
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia’s prime minister elect Kevin Rudd on Monday pledged his government would make an early formal apology to Aborigines for the “stolen generation” of indigenous children snatched from their parents.

Ministers sneaked out missile plan, say MPs
[London] Ministers were accused by MPs yesterday of manipulating parliament to sneak out a decision to allow an RAF base to be used by the US for its ballistic missile defence system.

Air firm accused of rendition flights role
The US government is attempting to halt a lawsuit that could establish whether any of the Central Intelligence Agency’s so-called rendition flights have been partly planned on British soil. Lawyers representing a number of men who have been held at Guantánamo are suing Jeppesen Dataplan, a subsidiary of the Boeing Corporation, accusing Jeppesen of involvement in the flights that took the men to secret prisons around the world. Once there, the men say, they were tortured.

New riots rock Paris suburbs
VILLIERS LE BEL, France (AFP) – A second night of riots by youths in a Paris suburb left more than 80 police injured, buildings gutted and France on Tuesday facing heightened tensions in towns ringing the capital.

Iceland best place to live, Africa worst: U.N.
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Iceland has overtaken Norway as the world’s most desirable country to live in, according to an annual U.N. table published on Tuesday that again puts AIDS-afflicted sub-Saharan African states at the bottom.

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Bush to open Mideast conference, but won’t stay for discussion
WASHINGTON — President Bush, who’s largely ignored the risky business of Middle East peacemaking throughout his nearly seven years in office, will take center stage Tuesday at the international peace conference he’s hosting in Annapolis, Md. He won’t remain there for long, however. Bush plans to head back to the White House after delivering his opening speech to the diplomats and dignitaries at the U.S. Naval Academy, and while surprises are always possible, White House aides said he wasn’t planning to offer new American proposals to resolve the conflict.

Bush welcomes Gore to Oval Office
Al Gore finally won his place in the Oval Office on Monday — right next to George W. Bush. Forever linked by the closest and craziest presidential race in history, the two men were reunited by, of all things, White House tradition. Gore was among the 2007 Nobel Prize winners who were invited in for a photo and some chatter with the president; Gore got the recognition for his work on global warming… The two also had a 40-minute meeting in the Oval Office, part of Bush’s effort to show some outreach to his longtime rival.

Blackwater weapons-smuggling probe stifled by conflicts
The State Department’s acerbic top auditor wasn’t happy when Justice Department officials told one of his aides to leave the room so they could discuss a criminal investigation of Blackwater Worldwide, the contractor protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq. The episode reveals the badly strained relationship between Bush administration officials over the probe into whether Blackwater smuggled weapons into Iraq that could have gotten into insurgents’ hands. As a result of the bureaucratic crosscurrents between State’s top auditor and Justice, the investigation has been bogged down for months.
They wouldn’t be slowing down the process on purpose, or anything like that, would they?

Cheney’s Heart Restored to Normal Rhythm
Doctors administered an electrical shock to Vice President Dick Cheney’s heart and restored it to a normal rhythm during a 2 1/2 hour hospital visit Monday. Cheney, 66, went home from George Washington University Hospital and was expected back at work on Tuesday.

Levin Says Democrats Won’t Block Iraq Troop Funding
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said Democrats won’t cut funding for U.S. troops in Iraq even as attempts to set a goal for a withdrawal are blocked by Republicans. “We’re going to fund the troops,” Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said today on the “Fox News Sunday” program.
I’d like to play poker with you, Sen. Levin.  Will you tell me what you have in your hand before I bet?  Thank you so much.  Meanwhile, let the Republicans do your job for you.  See below.

Republicans threaten to cut aid to Iraq
Two Republican senators said Monday that unless Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki makes more political progress by January, the U.S. should consider pulling political or financial support for his government.

Court declines Mich. faith-based case
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday declined to get involved in a dispute between Michigan officials and a faith-based program for troubled youths.

Lott’s Departure Fuels Democratic Chances to Gain Senate Seat
The unexpected retirement of Mississippi Republican Trent Lott gives Democrats another opportunity to expand their one-vote Senate majority in next year’s elections.

Clinton slips against Republicans, Obama attacks
WASHINGTON (AFP) — A new poll Monday showed Hillary Clinton losing a general election to all potential Republican White House foes, in a new sign that fierce political attacks may be harming her 2008 campaign… Clinton’s top Democratic challengers Obama and John Edwards however would still beat their hypothetical Republican rivals in potential 2008 contests, the poll showed.

Misdirection (by digby)
[N]not everyone who is concerned about illegal immigration are racists. But it is clear that the ones who claim “illegals” are dirty, diseased and depraved to make their argument are. I don’t think the vast majority of Americans are comfortable with that kind of talk and if it’s exposed, they might just wise up and realize they are being played — and not want to be associated with such people. And it certainly would reassure our Latino brothers and sisters that the Democratic party is not a party that welcomes people who believe such things.

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Report: Black Friday Online Shopping Up 10 Percent
The numbers are in for Black Friday holiday shopping, and once again web sites specializing in consumer electronics showed the biggest surge. Overall, traffic to e-commerce sites was up 10 percent over last year to 21.2 million unique visitors.

Stock futures point to higher open
NEW YORK – Stock futures rose sharply Tuesday after the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority said it will invest $7.5 billion in Citigroup Inc. — a vote of confidence for the nation’s largest bank, which has suffered losses amid the ongoing crisis in the mortgage market.

Citigroup Plans New Round Of ‘Massive’ Job Cuts
Citigroup, Wall Street’s largest financial services firms, is planning its second round of large-scale layoffs in less than a year, CNBC has learned… [P]eople with knowledge of the matter have described the pending job reductions as “massive” and “large.” The total number could reach as high as 45,000, these people estimate… In April, Citigroup cut nearly 5% of its workforce, or 17,000 employees.

Cheney on predatory lending: ‘the markets are working.’
In a new interview with Fortune magazine, Vice President Cheney says that the government shouldn’t intervene to curb predatory lending practices because it would interfere with the “working of the markets“:

Minorities hit hardest by housing crisis
In September, the Federal Reserve released a study that found 52.8 percent of African-Americans got a high-cost home loan when they refinanced in 2006, compared to 37.7 percent of Latinos and just 25.7 percent of whites in the same year. A similar study by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known by its acronym ACORN, in September found the same pattern even when income was equal.

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Permanent link to MTA daily media news

The new key question: How happy are you?
WASHINGTON — Is it time to offer day care for ailing older parents to give their care-giving children a break? Time for much bigger incentives for carpooling? Time to extend maternity and paternity leave substantially? The answer’s yes to all three if you accept the findings of a new kind of public attitude polling that’s gaining influence with corporate leaders and in government policy circles worldwide… [I]ts pioneers intend that quantified self-assessments of satisfaction will someday be as powerful as the gross domestic product and other economic measures.
Part of the problem with the bill of goods that has been sold to Americans—greed is good, freedom means choosing what to buy, owning things will make you happy—is that significant human needs aren’t just ignored or given short shrift. We’re taught that we’re bad for having those needs.  It’s all in the service of making us automaton cogs in the economic machine. I’d write a book about it, if I could ever find a publisher.  Democrats could take advantage of this anomaly, if they hadn’t been as bamboozled by the same 35-year PR campaign as most of the rest of America.

FoxNews.com headline of the day: (Talking Points Memo)
“Bush to Act as Key Negotiator at Mideast Peace Talks in Annapolis”
But McClatchy says, “Bush to open Mideast conference, but won’t stay for discussion”.  I heard part of his welcoming speech this morning on the radio, and it sounded completely apathetic.  He’s obviously just giving Condi her way, and doesn’t give a damn about it himself.

Perino: Bush wouldn’t lie to McClellan.
“[Monday] at the off-camera briefing, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said she has discussed Scott McClellan’s forthcoming book with the president, and Perino said President Bush ‘has not and would not knowingly pass false information.’”
But if he is a liar, he wouldn’t lie about this, now would he?

Lieberman Falsely Suggests Dems Never Acknowledged Any Progress In Iraq
Lieberman just went on Fox and gave an extended interview in which he repeatedly suggested that Dems won’t acknowledge any progress of any kind in Iraq. “It’s time that everybody including Democratic candidates get off this storyline,” Lieberman said. Lieberman is lying about the Dem position — and the evidence is no further away than…the front page of [Sunday’s] New York Times. In an article [Sunday], the leading Dems are on record reiterating what’s been their position for weeks now: They see some military progress, but note that this progress hasn’t produced the political reconciliation that was the original goal of the surge. Dems have said this again and again and again in recent weeks.

Good for the Jews (by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo)
When I was thinking about Will Saletan’s essay on the supposed innate mental inferiority of Africans, I thought about this comment from behavorial geneticist Eric Turkheimer over at Cato’s blog … “If I may address my fellow Jews for a moment, consider this. How would you feel about a line of research into the question of whether Jews have a genetic tendency to be more concerned with money than other groups? Nothing anti-semitic, mind you, just a rational investigation of the scientific evidence…” And as long as it’s just free inquiry we’re interested in, can we move ahead with that study into the Jewish propensity to dominate host nations and guile them into hopeless wars for their own enrichment? Or at least suss out the implications if the theory turns out to be true?

What Do Conservatives Spend Their Time Thinking About? (by Ian Welsh at The Agonist)
One answer is provided by Conservapedia’s most viewed list:
1. Main Page‎ [1,897,388]
2. Homosexuality‎ [1,488,013]
3. Homosexuality and Hepatitis‎ [516,193]
4. Homosexuality and Promiscuity‎ [416,767]
5. Homosexuality and Parasites‎ [387,438]
6. Homosexuality and Gonorrhea‎ [328,045]
7. Homosexuality and Domestic Violence‎ [325,547]
8. Gay Bowel Syndrome‎ [314,076]
9. Homosexuality and Syphilis‎ [262,015]
10. Homosexuality and Mental Health‎ [249,14]

For Neocons Like Power Line, Lying is a Feature, Not a Bug (by Mona at Unqualified Offerings)
Power Line’s Paul Mirengoff comes right out and admits he figured candidate W lied, and is glad the lies turned out to be such. (No, Mirengoff doesn’t use the word “lie,” but that’s what his euphemistic BS reduces to.) The dumb schmucks who took Bush seriously about the “compassionate conservatism”* thing, well, they are no longer useful (idiots), and thus not worth Mirengoff’s time. For they don’t realize that the compassion blather was a necessary peddling of false fodder to the electorate. To, you know, get a warmongering, neocon-friendly Republican elected.

People Do What People See (by John C. Maxwell)
One of the concepts I included in the new edition [of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership] is something I call “The Law of the Picture: People Do What People See.” It deals with the importance of the examples leaders give to their people. You see, good leaders must communicate vision clearly, creatively, and continually. However, the vision doesn’t come alive until the leader models it.
When leaders are corrupt, corruption reigns.  And the only way the leaders will stop being corrupt is to Make Them Accountable.

Banks Gone Wild (by Paul Krugman)
How did things go so wrong [with subprime lending]? Part of the answer is that people who should have been alert to the dangers, and taken precautionary measures, instead blithely assured Americans that everything was fine, and even encouraged them to take out risky mortgages. Yes, Alan Greenspan, that means you. But another part of the answer lies in what hasn’t happened to the men on [the recent] Fortune cover — namely, they haven’t been forced to give back any of the huge paychecks they received before the folly of their decisions became apparent.

FLASHBACK: As Halliburton CEO, Cheney Evaded U.S. Law To Do Business With Iran
In an interview with Fortune Magazine’s Nina Easton, Dick Cheney conceded that as Halliburton CEO he opposed unilateral sanctions on Iran, even though he now strongly supports them. Cheney explained that as a private sector official, he didn’t have any responsibility to be concerned about the impact of his company’s dealings with Iran:

Brooks Pushes Nonsense on Trade (by Dean Baker)
[T]he most serious inaccuracy in the [David] Brooks piece [Tuesday] is the claim that “once there was a bipartisan consensus behind free trade.” This is not true. The bipartisan consensus was behind trade policies that put less educated workers in competition with low-paid workers in the developing world. There has never been support for measures that would put our investment bankers, our lawyers, our doctors and our columnists in direct competition with workers in the developing world. (Perhaps Brooks does not know that if I opened a newspaper, and staffed it with foreign reporters and columnists who I quite explicitly paid one-half the wage of their comparably qualified U.S. counterparts, I would be arrested.)

How the Media Fuel Class Warfare
Media outlets aren’t just giving short shrift to organized labor. The avoidance extends to unorganized labor, too.

Marriott reportedly blocking AMERICAblog because of word “lesbian” (by John Aravosis at AMERICAblog)
Other than gay issues, what political issue do we write about that could be perceived as “porn”?… It’s also an issue that could adversely affect the discussion of Democratic politics online, to the extent that these companies have any political allegiances. Democrats, are you listening?

Media Matters for America headlines

NY Times claimed Bush is addressing “kitchen table issues,” but ignored Bush’s objections to Congress’ “kitchen table” efforts

Wash. Post article highlighted review of Post columnist Gerson’s book but omitted specific plagiarism allegation

Kornblut claimed Clinton change in rhetoric on health care plan, but offered no evidence

Wash. Post’s Hiatt distorted Obama’s education remarks, touted McCain’s “principles”

Ignoring his own history, Matthews asserted, “Huckabee has got the biggest free ride from the liberal media”

NPR aired without challenging GOP misrepresentation of CA electoral college initiative’s effect

Al Qaeda media wing says it will soon air new message from bin Laden
CAIRO, Egypt: Al-Qaida’s media wing announced Monday that it would soon release a new message from the terror network’s leader Osama bin Laden. As-Sahab said bin Laden would address European countries in the message. It did not elaborate.

Gunmen slaughter 11 relatives of Iraqi journalist
An Iraqi journalist said on Monday gunmen went on a killing spree in his Baghdad home, murdering seven children and four adult relatives in the latest assault on media staff in the war-scarred country. Dia al-Kawwaz, editor of Internet website Shabeqat Akhbar al-Iraq (Network of Iraqi News), said [Shiite] militiamen sprayed his relatives with bullets after storming into his house on Sunday.

Probe finds other DHS fake briefings
The fake October news conference held by the Federal Emergency Management Agency was not the first time a Homeland Security public affairs official has acted like a reporter by asking questions during a briefing. In January 2006, an official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement asked a question during a news conference in San Antonio, Texas, according to an investigation by the Homeland Security Department — the parent agency of both FEMA and ICE.

Publisher Gets Web Readers to Fill the Pages of Its Magazines
[I]n 2006 [Halsey Minor, founder of CNet.com] met Paul Cloutier and Derek Powazek, Web-publishing veterans who were publishing a user-generated on-demand photo magazine called JPG. One issue took e-mail submissions and used a self-publishing service to sell downloads or print copies with the founders’ favorites… Online readers vote on their favorite submissions appearing at JPGmag.com. Then a tiny staff of 10 designs a layout for the winners and about 50,000 high-quality slick-looking magazines are printed six times a year. They are sold through $25 annual subscriptions and on newsstands for $6 each.

Kindle may help solve newspaper industry’s revenue problem
Dan Kennedy says Amazon.com’s new device has flaws, but “Kindle does offer a possible alternative to the free, Web-based regime that has been such a boon to consumers and a bane to publishers,” he writes. With Kindle, you can subscribe to newspapers such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post for considerably less than it would cost to get the print editions. “I hope the Kindle is at least enough of a success so that we can arrive at some judgments over the next few years.”

MediaNews uses Topix for online newspaper comments
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. newspaper publisher MediaNews Group Inc has enlisted Topix.com to run the online forums and comments sections that people use to discuss articles they read in its papers, Topix said on Tuesday.

Report: Online Real Estate Ad Revenue to Eclipse Newspapers by 2012
No doubt the collapsing housing market has played a huge role in the downturn of real estate classified advertising. But for those who think this is all cyclical, a new report from Borrell Associates suggests that once the spending flows again, it’s going to the Internet.

On Bad Day For Newspaper Stocks — Sun-Times Media Group Sinks 23%
CHICAGO The share price for Sun-Times Media Group (STMG) hit a 52-week low Monday on a bad day generally for newspaper stocks. The 4 p.m. closing price of $1.10 was off 33 cents, or 23.08%, from its opening.

F.C.C. Chief Seeks Votes to Tighten Cable Rules
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 — The head of the Federal Communications Commission is struggling to find enough support from a majority of the agency’s commissioners to regulate cable television companies more tightly… One of the Democrats, Jonathan S. Adelstein, recently joined with one of the Republican opponents of the measure to try, unsuccessfully, to postpone the vote, commission officials said. Mr. Adelstein complained that Mr. Martin has been unfairly rushing other commissioners to complete the finding.

Save Tucker?
“Rumors have been flying recently that Tucker Carlson could soon be on the way out at MSNBC.” Tucker’s show is “in real danger of being canceled,” according to an NBC official, but the right won’t let him go down without a fight. TVNewswer reports that a few of Tucker’s die-hard fans have launched a petition drive to “save Tucker.”… Contact MSNBC here and tell them what you think of Tucker’s show.

Top 9 gifts for online journalists
Tis the season for gratuitous gadget ogling. OJR staffer Noah Barron gives you a seasonal roster of the year’s hottest toys for techno-savvy reporters.

ABC News + Facebook = Epic Fail (by Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins at Mashable)
We noted this weekend that ABC would be joint venturing with Facebook on the politics section of the site, showcasing ABC News’ political coverage of the campaign. I assumed (incorrectly, it would appear) that Facebook would be the big winner in the partnership, as ABC wouldn’t be getting any ad revenue for their work. As it turns out, the big losers in the deal are both of them. An overwhelming majority of Mashable! readers have pledged that they’d never use the US Politics/ABC News application on Facebook.

MySpace News Feeds, Coming to a Profile Near You (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
Newsfeeds. Everybody’s got them, and MySpace wants them too. You’ll find them added to your account in the next month or so, alerting you to all of your friends’ activities. This isn’t the only time MySpace has moved to better emulate Facebook, which seems to have all the right moves when it comes to engaging users and promoting useless information.

News Corp’s Expanding Ad Network (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
Weeks after announcing the FIM ad network for MySpace and other sites included in the News Corp. umbrella, the ad network is being extended even further into Murdoch’s empire… What started out as an ad network for News Corp, being specific to MySpace, it will be expanded to incorporate more of the company’s media sites, and perhaps even further beyond that. The ad network is not expected to conflict at all with MySpace’s existing relationship with Google.

Google and Other People’s Content
The eternal story line in media is “Google is moving into [fill in the blank].” In recent weeks, Google announced its Android operating system for mobile phones and its OpenSocial standard, which will link applications across major social-networking sites, so long as (for now, at least) they’re not named Facebook. As several blogs discovered, in November the company filed a patent application for a Google magazine of sorts, which would allow users to collate Web content around which Google would wrap targeted ads. It’s also launching a job ads initiative.
News Corp goes after ads and Google goes after content.  What kind of battle of Titans is this going to be?

Strike-Bitten TV Sellers Fear Coughing Up Cash
If Dispute Isn’t Settled by Q1, Buyers Will Look for More Than Make-Goods

NBC in pact to use TiVo’s viewership data: report
NEW YORK (Reuters) – General Electric Co unit NBC Universal has reached an agreement with TiVo Inc to become the first major broadcaster with the right to use the digital recorder company’s research and interactive advertising products, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday in its online edition.

NewsFlash: Online Video Ads Work (by Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins at Mashable)
As it turns out, the outlook might not be bleak for online video after all. VC Dennis Miller said that it was a few weeks back, but network websites like ABC, NBC and CBS that stream online their network TV shows are having a hard time selling advertisements to keep up with their inventory… The news is vindication for the Writer’s Guild, but is even more major vindication for independent online content producers, who have been evangelizing this stuff for years.

Google plans service to store users’ data: report
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Google Inc is preparing a service that would enable users to store data from their personal hard drives on its computers, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday in its online edition.

Auto Grocery Shopping On Amazon (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
Subscribe & Save is a new option being offered by Amazon… [I]nstead of waiting until [you’re] halfway through that last roll of toilet paper, Amazon can send it out to you and you don’t have to give it a second thought. Convenient, right?… Many have tried this method for offering Internet-savvy consumers an alternative to the laborious chore of trekking to the grocery store and doing their own shopping. But with Amazon’s track record and widespread appeal, this new program really could draw a lot of supporters from users out there.

In-Store Wi-Fi Is Free, but Not Commercial-Free
AnchorFree, a company in Sunnyvale, Calif., has introduced a service that lets merchants offer free advertising-supported Wi-Fi to customers on store premises.

Disabled could think their way around Second Life
TOKYO (Reuters) – People with severe paralysis could find new opportunities from shopping to doing business or making new friends in the virtual world of Second Life by just thinking about it, if experiments being conducted by a Japanese university bear fruit.

Fake photos can alter real memories
Some researchers are worried that digitally altered photos could alter our perceptions and memories of public events — and they have the pictures to prove it.
Yes, but the ability to change memories can be a good thing, too.  It can help reduce the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, for example.

Bad Behavior in Youth Linked to Career Problems Later
Young children who behave badly in school can do just fine academically, new research suggests. But if the bad behavior persists until age eight, education can be compromised, and professional success later in life is less likely.
Not only that, kindergarten teachers can tell which kids are the most likely to be so compromised.  Why can’t we develop family intervention programs for those kids?

Depression Linked to Bone Loss in Younger Women
Finding could aid efforts to prevent osteoporosis, researchers say.

Non-White Women More Prone to Breast Cancer Pain
It may be undertreated compared to white patients, research suggests

Special MRI Shows Secondhand Smoke Damages Lungs
Researchers say their study is the first to prove a connection

Drug Combos Effective Against Rheumatoid Arthritis
Older and newer medicine together often bring relief, study finds

Low Levels of ‘Good’ Cholesterol May Slow Stroke Recovery
A meat-linked compound may also hinder progress, study finds

The Dance of Evolution, or How Art Got Its Start
What is the evolutionary value of art and why do we humans spend so much time at it?

In the Dark, Plants Prepare for Light
Every grade-schooler knows that plants need light to grow, but just how plants respond to light is a deceptively complex process that has long puzzled scientists. A new study sheds light on this enigma by showing that plants actually get ready to respond to light (by growing, flowering or straining toward the light) while it’s still dark.

Evolutionary ‘Big Bang’ Created Florist’s Paradise
From the ubiquitous daisy to the fantastical orchid, flowering plant species are as diverse as they are numerous. Turns out, these bloomers went through an evolutionary “Big Bang” of sorts some 130 million years ago, a brief era of explosive floral diversification at a time when dinosaurs walked the Earth.

Has first evidence of another universe been seen?
Astronomers announced in August 2007 the discovery of a large hole at the edge of our universe. Since then, theoretical physicist and cosmologist Laura Mersini-Houghton and colleagues have claimed it is an “unmistakable imprint of another universe beyond the edge of our own.”
So much for those scientists who have said for years that the universe is the same in all directions.  Which I always thought had to be wrong. (Thanks to AMERICAblog)

Winter forecast a mild one as temperatures get toastier
The Northern Hemisphere is the warmest this year since record-keeping started 127 years ago, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

World must fix climate in less than 10 years: UNDP
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Unless the international community agrees to cut carbon emissions by half over the next generation, climate change is likely to cause large-scale human and economic setbacks and irreversible ecological catastrophes, a United Nations report says on Tuesday.

Rising sea disrupts flights in Indonesia
JAKARTA, Indonesia – Indonesia’s environment minister said Tuesday that global warming was to blame after the capital of Jakarta was partially flooded, forcing thousands of people to flee homes and cutting off a highway to the international airport.

EU says on track for Kyoto if more measures taken
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The 15 European Union countries that committed to cut greenhouse gas emissions collectively by 8 percent in 2008-2012 are on track to reach that goal provided they implement extra measures, the EU executive said on Tuesday.

Canadian PM under fire for not fighting climate change
Ottawa, Nov 27 (Xinhua) Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s stance on climate change at the Commonwealth meeting came under fire with opposition accusing the government of ‘sabotaging’ world environmental efforts.

Chicago Puts Plans in Motion to Green 1,900 Miles of Alleys
CHICAGO, Nov. 27, 2007 — The city, which says it has the most alleys of any city in the world, will have refurbished 46 of its back streets to conserve water and reduce summer heat by the end of this year, and will gradually improve the rest of the city’s alleys.

Air Pollution on Google Earth. Erin Brockovich Would’ve Loved This. (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has created a Google Earth map mashup that shows air quality across the nation… There’s even a 3-D map overlay that lets you view the level of air pollutants that are coming from specific businesses. You can see this if you tilt your map, and it’s most useful when used with 3D map renderings, complete with business buildings and all.

British business chiefs demand ‘greener’ companies
LONDON (AFP) – Britain’s leading employers’ body, the CBI, on Tuesday urged the business sector to tackle climate change, but its ideas drew a lukewarm response from environmental pressure groups.

Ancient trees to be cloned for ‘living library’
Scientists have launched a project aimed at solving the mystery of the giant redwood tree: What allows it to grow so tall and live so long?

Dinosaur find dries Australian water project
CANBERRA (Reuters) – A hoard of dinosaur bones has been discovered at the site of a planned desalination plant meant to deliver Australia’s second biggest city from drought, forcing a re-think of the A$3 billion ($2.7 billion) project.

‘Ultrasound’ of Earth’s Crust Reveals
Research announced this week by a team of U.S. and Japanese geoscientists may help explain why part of the seafloor near the southwest coast of Japan is particularly good at generating devastating tsunamis, such as the 1944 Tonankai event, which killed at least 1,200 people. The findings will help scientists assess the risk of giant tsunamis in other regions of the world.

US plans GPS satellite navigation upgrade to rival EU
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US military is working on super-powerful updates to its GPS satellite navigation technology to try to trump the rival European Galileo project which just received key funding, experts say.

Food pantries nationwide are running short amid higher costs for gas, utility and health care
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual hunger survey released Wednesday showed that more than 35.5 million people in the United States were hungry in 2006. While that number was about the same as the previous year, heads of food banks and pantries say many more people are seeking their assistance.

Eating out is getting lonelier
Restaurants are feeling the pinch as people cut back on their spending in the face of tightening household budgets.
But then again, see below.

Conspicuous Consumption
In New York City, the price of Zagat’s average restaurant meal didn’t change at all–up just 0.1%–while at the most expensive 20, it was up 11.1%. In Washington, it’s 2.1% vs. 7.6%; Chicago, 3.3% and 6.7%; Atlanta, 3% and 7.8%… “Nobody ever complains about it,” says Eric Ripert, chef of Le Bernardin, Zagat’s No. 3 top rated restaurant in New York City, where the average price of a dinner is $129, up 7% from last year. “The clients tell us we can raise our prices even more,” he says.

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Left Toon Lane

U.S. blames Shiites in new Iraq violence
BAGHDAD – Four members of an Iranian-backed Shiite cell confessed to bombing a public market in central Baghdad, a U.S. spokesman said Saturday. He also blamed Shiites for recent attacks on U.S. bases, raising fears that a three-month truce by the most feared Shiite militia may be at an end.

‘Wave Of Violence’ Against Women In Iraq Undercuts White House’s Claims Of Success
[Thursday] night, NBC Nightly News aired a segment about a “wave of violence that’s gone largely unreported lately against women in Iraq.” The report noted that Iraqi women, once “the most emancipated in the Arab world,” are increasingly unable to walk around without a hijab, wear cosmetics, or work.
Click through to watch the video.

Political crisis deepens in Lebanon
BEIRUT, Lebanon – Prime Minister Fuad Saniora assured his country Saturday that the military was in control of the streets while lawmakers struggled to overcome a political crisis that has left the country without a president.

Skeptical Arab leaders agree to attend Mideast peace conference
CAIRO, Egypt — Arab countries reluctantly agreed Friday to attend next week’s U.S.-sponsored Middle East conference in Annapolis, Md., a scaled-down meeting for which there are scaled-down expectations… Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arranged the conference, scheduled for Tuesday at the Naval Academy in Annapolis.

Hamas Shocked By Arab Peace Summit Backing
Hamas said it was shocked Arab countries have decided to attend next week’s U.S.-backed Mideast peace summit and underlined its opposition with a threat to launch deadlier rocket attacks on Israel.

Iran says it made nuclear fuel pellets
The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said Saturday that the country had produced its first nuclear fuel pellets for use in a heavy water reactor, which is still under construction.

Iran: No smoking gun but strong evidence
The accusations come almost every day from U.S. officials: Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon. Sponsoring terrorism. Killing Americans in Iraq. Intent on Israel’s destruction. Yet, some officials add, its government will collapse if only given a push.
Uh huh.  We’ve heard this song before, U.S. officials.

Iran warns of domino effect of nuclear attack
Iran warned [on Saturday] that an attack on its nuclear facilities would trigger a “domino” effect across the Middle East as deeply divided world powers met to review Teheran’s co-operation with United Nations resolutions. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has endorsed Iranian promises that access to suspected nuclear facilities will increase in the months ahead.

Suicide attacks kill dozens in Pakistan
Militants struck at the heart of Pakistan’s security establishment Saturday, killing up to 35 people in suicide attacks on a checkpoint outside army headquarters and a bus carrying intelligence agency employees, officials said.

Pakistan Alerted U.S. to Emergency Rule
As his government battled democracy protesters and an Islamist insurgency, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf startled his countrymen this month by imposing emergency rule and jailing thousands of opponents. The move wasn’t a surprise to the U.S. In the days before the Nov. 3 announcement, the general’s aides and advisers forewarned U.S. diplomats in a series of meetings in Islamabad, according to Pakistani and U.S. officials.

Kasparov Jailed After Anti-Putin Protest
[Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov], one of President Vladimir Putin’s harshest critics, was charged with organizing an unsanctioned procession of at least 1,500 people against Putin, chanting anti-government slogans and resisting arrest, court documents said. His assistant said he was beaten during the demonstration. At the hastily organized trial, two police testified that they had been ordered before the rally to arrest Kasparov.

Former US President in bid to save Nepal’s peace process
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AFP) – The former US president Jimmy Carter Saturday proposed a compromise between Nepal’s government and former Maoist rebels to break the deadlock in a stalled peace process here.

Malaysian police fire water cannons on demonstrators
Malaysian police fired tear gas and water cannons Sunday to disperse thousands of ethnic Indians who tried to stage a rally that had been banned amid government fears it would stir racial hatred.

Australian Premier, an Ally of Bush, Is Defeated
Prime Minister John Howard, one of President Bush’s staunchest allies in Asia, suffered a resounding loss after 11 years in power.

Canadian police Tasers kill third man in five weeks
A Canadian man died Saturday, four days after police used a Taser stun-gun on him because he reportedly was acting erratically in a store, police said. He was the third person to die in recent weeks in Canada after being shocked by the handheld weapon.

Poll: Chavez’s charter changes opposed
CARACAS, Venezuela – An independent poll released Saturday showed voters balking at President Hugo Chavez’s proposed changes to the constitution ahead of a referendum next weekend.

15-year-old girl jailed with 20 men
A 15-YEAR-old girl was put in a Brazilian jail cell with more than 20 men, and for a month was raped relentlessly and forced to have sex for food, human rights groups say.
So don’t go thinking it’s only in Muslim countries that women are mistreated.

Bolivian troops, students clash; 1 dead
SUCRE, Bolivia – Soldiers clashed with students protesting Bolivia’s constitutional assembly on Saturday, leaving one student dead in a second day of unrest against the pending legal overhaul.

PM: Poland to end Iraq mission in 2008
WARSAW, Poland – Poland’s new prime minister outlined ambitious plans for the next four years in his inaugural address Friday, saying he plans to withdraw troops from Iraq next year but also push for stronger relations with NATO.

Croats vote with eye to EU, jobs, graft
ZAGREB (Reuters) – Croats started voting in a tightly contested national election on Sunday, expecting their new leaders to root out corruption, overhaul the economy and take the country into the European Union in the next four years.

Can Rice save her legacy with ‘Hail Mary’ pass on Mideast?
As the one top foreign-policy official who’s worked for Bush since he became president, first as national security adviser and then as secretary of state, [Condoleeza] Rice’s record is intertwined with her boss’s. That includes the failure to destroy al Qaida, the invasion of Iraq based on bogus intelligence, the fumbled postwar reconstruction and the halfhearted American effort to rebuild Afghanistan, all of which have eroded America’s standing in the Muslim world, Europe and elsewhere.

US marines assist stepped up relief effort in Bangladesh
DHAKA (AFP) – US marines were on the ground in cyclone-hit southern Bangladesh Sunday as the military-led relief operation was stepped up and international aid continued to pour in.
THIS is how you win friends and influence people, as opposed to using our troops to kill people.

U.S. Starts First Major Pullout From Iraq, Beginning With Brigade Members
The first members of a brigade in Diyala Province have started to leave, but because of continuing violence, another brigade that is already in Iraq will take its place.

U.S. Scales Back Political Goals for Iraqi Unity
The Bush administration does not expect quick progress on major goals like regional elections and a plan to share oil revenues.

Richard Perle: ‘I Don’t Believe I Was Wrong’ About Iraq
Appearing on BBC’s Hardtalk with Stephen Sackur this weekend, Iraq war architect Richard Perle [said] “Well, I don’t believe I was wrong. Let me be very clear about that. What I think happened is that a successful invasion was turned into an unsuccessful occupation. I didn’t favor the occupation strategy. I think the occupation was a mistake.”
Click through to watch the video.

White House Afghanistan report: Goals unmet
A White House assessment of the war in Afghanistan has concluded that wide-ranging strategic goals that the Bush administration set for 2007 have not been met, even as U.S. and NATO forces have scored significant combat successes, according to U.S. officials.

20,000 vets’ brain injuries not listed in Pentagon tally
At least 20,000 U.S. troops who were not classified as wounded during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found with signs of brain injuries, according to military and veterans records compiled by USA TODAY. The data, provided by the Army, Navy and Department of Veterans Affairs, show that about five times as many troops sustained brain trauma as the 4,471 officially listed by the Pentagon through Sept. 30.

Concern over firefighters’ anti-terror role
WASHINGTON – Firefighters in major cities are being trained to take on a new role as lookouts for terrorism, raising concerns of eroding their standing as American icons and infringing on people’s privacy. Unlike police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel don’t need warrants to access hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings each year, putting them in a position to spot behavior that could indicate terrorist activity or planning.

Just Off Insular Senate Floor, Life of the Uninsured Intrudes
Sergio A. Olaya, [who] runs the Capitol elevators on which the senators ride…, is struggling with $255,000 of medical bills incurred by his mother before she died in April from an aggressive form of brain cancer… Senators have access to a wide range of insurance options through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Congress has its own “attending physician”… For more serious problems, they can use nearby military hospitals.

$52M-plus payday for Christie’s old boss
When U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie announced a $311 million settlement to end a probe into kickbacks by leading manufacturers of knee and hip replacements, he touted the agreement as a groundbreaking development for consumers and the industry. The deal also proved to be lucrative for Christie’s old boss. Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft was one of five private attorneys whom Christie hand-picked to monitor the implant makers. Now Ashcroft’s D.C.-based firm is poised to collect more than $52 million in 18 months, among the biggest payouts reported for a federal monitor.

SEC Opens Investigation of Company Headed by Key Supporter of Clintons
The Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an investigation into InfoUSA, a Nebraska company that used corporate funds to fly Hillary Rodham Clinton around the country, and one of only two companies to put Bill Clinton on its payroll after he left the White House. The firm, a major provider of database-processing services, disclosed little about the nature of the probe in a filing to shareholders released yesterday.
Has the SEC been politicized, too?  The question has to be asked whenever Democratic donors are investigated.  See the damage you’ve done, right wingers?

Court to consider investor’s 401(k) suit
WASHINGTON – James LaRue says he lost $150,000 when his instructions to his employer on where to invest money in his retirement plan were ignored.

Social Security to become key issue
WASHINGTON – Three years after the collapse of President Bush’s plan for private Social Security accounts, Republican presidential contenders are eager to try again. Not so the Democrats, who gravitate toward increasing payroll taxes on upper-income earners to fix the program’s finances.
IT’S MEDICARE, NOT SOCIAL SECURITY, that needs fixing.  How many times do we have to scream it before the Beltway insiders acknowledge that fact?

Giuliani, Romney shade their records on immigration
WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney share a big problem as barnstorm across American trying to act like tough guys on immigration: their past. Each ran a jurisdiction that’s arguably among the nation’s most tolerant, where cracking down on illegal immigrants wasn’t good politics.

Calif. GOP Struggles With Money Woes
On the verge of a presidential election year, California Republicans are slashing funds for key operatives as the party struggles to overcome lackluster fundraising and lingering debt. “I don’t know how to sugarcoat this,” one official said.

Obama touts health care plan
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa – Democrat Barack Obama, seeking to distance from his leading rivals, touted his health care expansion package as doing more to cut costs and deal with root problems facing consumers “than any other proposal in this race.”

Edwards offers heating oil plan
CONCORD, N.H. – Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards will outline a plan Sunday to provide immediate relief to families struggling with high heating oil bills and to ensure affordable prices in the future.

Abortion foes’ strategy advances
The campaigns to grant “personhood” to fertilized eggs, giving them the same legal protections as human beings, come as the nation in January marks the 35th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. During those three decades, abortion foes have succeeded in imposing a variety of restrictions, such as waiting periods and parental notification for minors. But there are still about 1.3 million abortions a year in the U.S.

Decriminalizing Pot Will Reduce Prison Population, Have No Adverse Impact On Public Safety, Study Says
Washington, DC:  Decriminalizing so-called ‘victimless’ crimes, particularly those related to drug use, can reduce the US prison population without adversely affecting public safety, according to the findings of a study published this week by the JFA Institute, a Washington, DC criminal-justice think tank.
Good luck trying to break up the prison industrial complex, NORML.

US leads world in jailing children for life
THE United States has far more juveniles serving life terms than any other country — 2387… [L]ife terms have fallen disproportionately on non-white children, who are 10 times more likely than white children to be given life without parole, the report found.

Subprime Mess to Worsen
Interest rates will rise, or “reset,” on $362 billion of adjustable-rate subprime mortgages in 2008, adding to housing woes. The reset peak will likely add to political pressure to help borrowers who can’t afford to pay the higher interest rates.

Foreclosures hit wealthier areas hardest
[T]he problems are worse for homes in the $400,000-to-$450,000 range because many speculators bought in those neighborhoods, some families moved up beyond their means, and the recent credit crunch has made getting mortgages for more than $400,000 tougher.

Bear Stearns taking additional writedown
NEW YORK – Investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. will take a $1.2 billion writedown in the fourth quarter related to weakness in its credit portfolios, and investor relief at the size of the writedown drove shares sharply higher Wednesday.

New York Manhole Covers, Forged Barefoot in India
NEW DELHI — Eight thousand miles from Manhattan, barefoot, shirtless, whip-thin men rippled with muscle were forging prosaic pieces of the urban jigsaw puzzle: manhole covers… Safety precautions were barely in evidence; just a few pairs of eye goggles were seen in use on a recent visit. The foundry, Shakti Industries in Haora, produces manhole covers for Con Edison and New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, as well as for departments in New Orleans and Syracuse.

EU officials to talk tough on trade in China
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Top European Union officials will talk tough in Beijing next week about China’s snowballing trade surplus and its reluctance to open its booming economy further to European business.

Permanent link to MTA daily media news

I will be a guest on Tony Seton’s America Back on Track today at 3:30 PM ET.  Listen to Tony from 3:00 to 4:00 PM ET every weekday on the Quality News Network.

Bland Menu if Cable Goes à la Carte
As appealing as à la carte cable may sound, there is a reason that Congress has not taken the bait: it would be a consumer disaster… [E]ven if you pick as few as a dozen channels, à la carte will almost surely cost more than your current “exorbitant” cable bill. The reason is that unmoored from the cable bundle, individual networks would have to charge vastly more money per subscriber.
And as I have said for years, we have this exact same problem with subscriptions for other media outlets, including blogs.  We could be much more powerful if we banded together to bundle contributions.

On Friday, we got the news that BuzzFlash has lost the bit of subsidy it had been receiving, and now has to be completely funded by contributions and by sales through its Progressive Marketplace.  If you have a website or a blog, you can become an affiliate to sell BuzzFlash items.  Since BuzzFlash stocks its items, it’s able to buy wholesale and share the profits with other progressive websites.  I’ve signed up, and I hope you will, too.  We can help ourselves by helping each other, if we only get creative about it, as BuzzFlash has.

Memo To New York Post: The Bush Administration Was Warned About 9/11
New York Post reporter Andy Soltis writes of the latest Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll that finds a great majority of Americans believe the government failed to heed warnings about 9/11. Soltis writes that this poll shows increasing support for 9/11 “conspiracy theories”… The alarming nature of the Scripps poll is not that 62 percent of Americans believe the government ignored warnings of 9/11; it’s that nearly 40 percent still aren’t aware of that fact.
Does Soltis read his own newspaper?  See below a front page of the New York Post from May of 2002.  Click here, here, and here for excerpts of articles that I collected after 9/11 documenting the many warnings that the administration received.  Many of the links no longer work, but each excerpt contains enough information to find it on Lexis-Nexis.

Howard election campaign hit by dirty tricks scandal
The election strategy of the Australian prime minister, John Howard, was in turmoil today after members of his Liberal party were caught red-handed in an inept dirty tricks campaign. Bogus flyers from a fake organisation called the Islamic Australia Federation were distributed through the letterboxes of voters in a marginal seat, claiming the Labor opposition sympathised with Islamic terrorists.
Has Karl Rove been to Australia lately?

Racist science for choads (by Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon)
[I]t looks like Michael Medved is going to be a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute… Medved is no scientist, just a dedicated culture war soldier. Which of course means that the Discovery Institute is less interested in discovery than in squelching any perceived threat to the cultural dominance of white Christians of a fundamentalist stripe. Medved no doubt was hired because of his willingness to lie, deceive, conceal, and distract from any realities that clash with his and the Discovery Institute’s culture war goals.

Silly New Wingnut Meme: Democrats Are The “Party Of The Rich” (by Greg Sargent at The Horse’s Mouth)
The winger bloggers and commentators are starting to push a silly new meme: That Democrats, not Republicans, are the “party of the rich.” The basis for this? A new “study” done by the Heritage Foundation… The key data point backing up the claim is that Dems “now represent the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional districts.”… [But the] chief data point just doesn’t support the claim.
Here’s what I wrote to one of my right wingers who tried to taunt me with this information: So you’re helping them get richer, which helps them donate more to liberal causes.  And they don’t even want your help! Stupidest of the stupid.

The Clinton campaign’s lesson for the Democrats: How to fight back (by John Aravosis at AMERICAblog)·
Like her or hate her, Hillary Clinton’s people know how to fight back. It’s a lesson that Democrats should take to heart and replicate. I’m still not convinced that Hillary is proactive enough on issues that matter to her, on things she actually believes in rather than things her pollster has come up with, but when they’re attacked they know how to fight back.

Fred Thompson Attacks Fox News
[O]n Fox News Sunday, … [a]fter Fox aired clips of Fred Barnes and Charles Krauthammer attacking [Fred] Thompson’s candidacy, Thompson responded, “This has been a constant mantra of Fox, to tell you the truth.” “I don’t know that Fox has been going after you,” host Chris Wallace asserted. Thompson told Wallace, “You have the right to put in your one side, and put in the Fox side, and I have the right to respond to it.”
Click through to watch the video.

Janitorum: Cleaning up after the elephant at Thanksgiving dinner (by Will Bunch at Attytood)
The apparent purpose of [former Senator Rick Santorum’s Thanksgiving Day] column, after a mystifying detour into Catholicism, is to tout something that the ex-senator calls “‘common-good’ conservatism” that he doesn’t really explain… I’d remind readers of two things: 1) … [The] charity that Santorum either founded or inspired … was pretty much a boondoggle… 2) Santorum’s scattered legislative efforts while in office to help the poor were swamped by the Republican movement that he led — which aided America’s businesses and its executives at the expense of both middle-class Americans and the poor, the movement that led to the biggest divide between haves and have-nots in modern U.S. history.

Williams Responds to Complaints About Marriage Commentary (by Melissa McEwan at Shakesville)
After noting in his newscast that marriage is “under attack,” Brian Williams has issued a statement of clarification on his blog: “… My meaning? Our national divorce rate, which is currently somewhere between 40 and 50 percent. Others took it upon themselves to decide that I was somehow attacking gay marriage…” [I]t isn’t the prevention of divorce about which a constitutional amendment has been repeatedly introduced. It isn’t divorcees who have been routinely, publicly accused of undermining the sanctity of marriage.

Ricks of ‘Wash Post’: Don’t Celebrate Turnaround in Iraq Just Yet
NEW YORK Thomas Ricks of The Washington Post has been one of the level-headed, and accurate, reporters on the Iraq war since its inception. His book “Fiasco” was one of the best on the subject. Just back from Baghdad again, he sat for a www.washingtonpost.com online chat this week, in which he frequently warned that, despite gains, no one should get too excited about the “turnaround” in U.S. fortunes in Iraq.

Pressure for Results: The Politics of Tallying the Number of Iraqis Who Return Home
By all accounts, Iraqi families who fled their homes in the past two years are returning to Baghdad. The description of the scope of the return, however, appears to have been massaged by politics. Returnees have essentially become a currency of progress. Under intense pressure to show results after months of political stalemate, the government has continued to publicize figures that exaggerate the movement back to Iraq and Iraqis’ confidence that the current lull in violence can be sustained.

Red tide rising (by Paul Krugman)
The fall in the federal deficit since 2003 has been widely used by conservatives — including the Bush administration and all the leading candidates for the GOP presidential nomination — as proof that tax cuts actually increase revenue.  So here’s a heads-up: the good times are about to stop rolling. The key factor in rising revenue hasn’t been a growing economy — it has been a surge in corporate taxes as a share of GDP. But now profits are falling. Revenue will follow — and the deficit is about to get bigger again.
It will be Bill Clinton’s fault.

NPR Thinks That Medicare Is Socialized Medicine (by Dean Baker)
That is the only possible conclusion that one can draw from its report this morning on the health care proposals of the presidential candidates. It asserted that Dennis Kucinich explicitly supports “socialized medicine.” Kucinich has openly supported a universal Medicare plan that would extend a Medicare-like insurance program to the entire population… Is NPR really unable to find a reporter who recognizes this distinction or did it feel a need to slur (“socialized medicine” is a slur in the current political context) Dennis Kucinich for some reason?

High Empathy (Mostly Women), Low Empathy (Mostly Men) and the Movies
New research suggests that producers of emotional films can increase their male audience by emphasizing the films’ disconnection from reality.
Gosh! Do we really need MORE disconnection from reality?

Syria blocks Facebook in Internet crackdown
DAMASCUS (Reuters) – Syrian users of Facebook said on Friday the authorities had blocked access to the social network Web site as part of a crackdown on political activism on the Internet.

Internet ‘Rush Hour’ Assessed
Growth in Internet traffic, especially from burgeoning video Web sites and peer-to-peer usage, will put more pressure on network managers to handle the explosion and on private sector investors, and they should be allowed to do so in unrestricted ways, a Washington think tank said last week… A group supporting Net Neutrality, Free Press in Washington, called the NMRC report “an industry-funded report designed to scare lawmakers away from their duty to protect an open communications system for all Americans”.
Sounds like a backdoor way to encourage implementation of preferential treatment for certain content providers, (ones that pay extra, that is) leaving the rest of us out in the cold.

“Balanced Talk” Doubles Down in Southern California
The newest “balanced” talk radio station KGIL/1260, which features Michael Jackson, the highest rated liberal talk show host in the 1990s, will make a significant move to increase it’s coverage and hopefully its ratings when XESURF/540 flips from country to talk on Tuesday. Combined the two stations offer reasonably good daytime coverage in the two largest radio markets in the Southern California region – Los Angeles and San Diego.

Advertisers Take Wait-and-See Approach to Imus
GM and Other Big Names Want to Evaluate the New Show Before Committing

Don’t Download Illegally in France Anymore (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
Through a 3-way pact between French ISPs, the French government and content owners, those who frequently download music or films illegally may lose Internet access all together… While this is in part to protect the artists (really, the monetary aspects of the music industry), one possible good thing about this new system appears to be the regulated obligations of content owners to make their material available online more quickly, and remove technical barriers to make content more available across platforms.

In Suicide’s Wake, City Bans Online Harassment
DARDENNE PRAIRIE, Mo. — City officials have passed a measure making online harassment a crime, days after learning that a 13-year-old girl killed herself last year after receiving cruel messages on the Internet. The six-member Board of Aldermen unanimously on Wednesday made Internet harassment a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $500 fine and 90 days in jail. Mayor Pam Fogarty said the city had proposed the measure after learning about Megan Meier’s death.

On the Media: Open up (by Jeff Jarvis)
On the Media should open up the process of making its show. When they decide to make an entire episode about one media topic — which I encourage to forestall the show’s slide into becoming just another politics and public affairs show — why shouldn’t they tell the audience — media-savvy, by definition — and ask them who they know and what they want to know. They could tell us what they’re thinking of making and we could beat that. If the BBC can publish its rundown for a daily news show to ask for input, why can’t OtM?

ABC News and Facebook in Joint Effort to Bring Viewers Closer to Political Coverage
A partnership between ABC News and Facebook allows Facebook members to electronically follow ABC reporters, view reports and video and participate in polls.

Diller’s online conglomerate expanding
BEIJING – Media mogul Barry Diller said Friday his Internet conglomerate, IAC/InterActiveCorp, will invest $100 million to expand in China by creating services designed for local users.

Torvalds On Where Linux Is Headed In 2008
The creator of Linux is excited about solid-state drives, expects progress in graphics and wireless networking, and says the operating system is strong in virtualization despite his personal lack of interest in the area.

Keep Selling the Cheap Laptop, Supporter Urges
As commercial sales of One Laptop Per Child’s XO laptop close Monday, a user tracking the nonprofit effort said continued commercial availability of the laptop could benefit OLPC’s nonprofit effort, the XO manufacturer and children using it as a learning tool.

School to track pupils with radio chips sewn into their uniforms
Children are to be tracked in school via radio chips sewn into their uniforms. The manufacturer is marketing the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) surveillance system nationwide, following a trial with 19 pupils at Hungerhill School in Doncaster this year. The chip is embroidered into school uniforms using conductive ‘smart threads’. A teacher can then scan these to view the pupil’s identity, photo, whether they misbehaved in lessons and their school attendence record.

You Can Fix Your Own Pix
Taking a perfect picture doesn’t have to take a $2,500 camera. With some new software that’s available to everyone, common problems that crop up with the click of a shutter can be resolved with just the click of a mouse.

Small World: Quantum Identity Crisis Observed
A quantum enigma has been put to the test once again, but this time physicists have made the experiment smaller than it has ever been… The results, detailed in the Nov. 9 issue of the journal Science, give some insight into how a future quantum computer might work as it relies on the phenomena of “superposition” and “entanglement” to perform operations on data stored in units called quantum bits.

Germany to double funding for stem cell research: minister
BERLIN (AFP) – The German government will double its funding for stem cell research, the research minister announced Saturday.

Teen Boys at Growing Risk for Eating Disorders
Decade of data shows increase in weight-control behaviors across cultures

Saline Irrigation Eases Chronic Nasal Symptoms
Salt water rinse of the airway beats saline sprays at providing relief, study finds

Many Treatments Can Ease Chronic Pain
More often than not, chronic pain is untreated or undertreated, but it does not have to be this way.

Sleep Problems Plague the Older Set
But they don’t have to be an inherent part of aging, experts say

Amateurs Unravel Russia’s Last Royal Mystery
A discovery may have finally put to rest rumors that two of the children of Czar Nicholas II had escaped execution.

Newfound Sea Anemones Really Get Around
Sea anemones normally anchor themselves to the seafloor. But new species found lurking in the waters surrounding the windswept Aleutian Islands near Alaska swim and walk across the sea floor.

Can Airplanes Fly into Outer Space?
According to NASA, any vehicle hoping launch into orbit has to travel about seven miles per second (11 kps), or about 25,000 mph (40,000 kph). [Your] average sub-sonic airliner, of course, doesn’t fly near that fast. There’s also fuel problem too.

Spacewalkers Wire up Space Station’s New Room
Two spacewalking astronauts wired up the International Space Station’s (ISS) newest room Saturday, capping a month-long marathon of work to prepare for the December arrival of a new European laboratory.