In The News...

Congratulations to the ShuttleTeam!

New tsunami
JAKARTA, Indonesia - A powerful earthquake sent a 6-foot-high tsunami crashing into beach resorts on Indonesia's Java island Monday, killing at least 86 people, leaving scores missing and sending thousands fleeing to higher ground, officials and witnesses said. Regional bulletins that the 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake was strong enough to send a killer wave steaming toward the country worst hit by the 2004 Asian tsunami did not reach the victims, because the nation's main island has no warning system. http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/indonesia

Gingrich Says World War III Has Begun
World War III has begun, and the nation’s leadership is failing to deal with this reality, former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich concludes.

Lieberman Hopes His Fate Isn’t Sealed With a Kiss
On his increasingly difficult path to re-election, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman keeps getting kissed. And not lovingly.

Quickies:
Several suspected Hezbollah rockets hit the northern Israeli city of Haifa today. The sixth day of the brewing conflict in the Middle East witnessed Israeli ground troops briefly entering southern Lebanon to attack Hezbollah bases on the border.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the deployment of international forces to stop the violence. Meanwhile, G8 leaders “crafted a plan to stop the fighting.”

In one of the bloodiest incidents in Iraq this year, a bomber attacked a market just outside Baghdad today. Officials put the death toll as low as 40 and as high as 70.

Journalist Akbar Ganji, Iran’s “most prominent dissident,” said the war in Iraq has hurt his country’s reform movement by giving its regime an excuse to stifle dissent. “What has happened in Iraq did not support our movement in any significant way,” he said.

Four years after the G-8 nations pledged $20 billion over 10 years to prevent terrorists from obtaining nuclear materials, only $3.5 billion has been donated — and far less has been used to secure enriched uranium, the key ingredient of a nuclear weapon.

A $600 million shortfall at the Department of Housing and Urban Development is hurting local agencies that are already struggling to meet community needs for affordable housing. On top of the shortfall, President Bush has eliminated $1.7 billion in public housing funds since he took office.

A microphone picked up President Bush’s private conversations with other world leaders at the G8 summit.
Bush on Putin’s flight home:
“You eight hours? Me too. Russia’s a big country and you’re a big country. … Russia’s big and so is China.”
Bush on Blair’s departure:
“Yo Blair, what’re you doing? Are you leaving?”
Bush also remarked that some of the speakers at the meeting had the tendency to talk too long.

Shit On 'Em (retitled AP story) :-)
U.S. President George W. Bush expressed his frustration over the situation in the Middle East by using an expletive in comments to British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the G8 summit in St. Petersburg Monday. Not realizing his remarks were being picked up by a microphone at the summit of world leaders, Bush bluntly expressed his frustration with the actions of Hezbollah.
(see video here)

(sources: Newsmax, Wall Street Journal online, White House website, CNN, NYTimes, FOXNews, AP, Yahoo!, Democracy In Action, Drudge, American Progress)