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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

Top Story

White House lists cuts to pay for more troops
President Bush wants to pay for his plan to send 8,200 more U.S. troops to Iraq and Afghanistan by cutting money for agriculture, education and other programs, budget records show.

The Radical Fringe

The World

47 killed in Baghdad; 3 U.S. troops dead
BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber barreled into a flatbed truck packed with Shiite pilgrims Sunday, touching off a giant fireball that left charred bodies strewn through a street in the heart of Baghdad. At least 32 people were killed.

Little progress made at Mideast summit
JERUSALEM - The second summit in a month between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, encouraged by U.S. officials as a way to nurture their fledgling dialogue, produced little progress on Sunday. A Palestinian participant called it "difficult."
At least they’re talking. That’s better than shooting. —Caro

China orders more humane system of justice and punishment
BEIJING (AFP) - China, a frequent target of overseas human rights organisations, has promised to improve the treatment of its prisoners, especially those on death row, state press reported Monday.

Bush appearance sparks Colombia protests
BOGOTA, Colombia - About 150 protesters attacked riot police with rocks and metal barriers and ripped down lampposts in Colombia's capital on Sunday, just moments after President Bush landed for a six-hour visit.

The Nation

GOPer Urged White House To Fire Attorney
The chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party was quoted Saturday as saying he urged presidential adviser Karl Rove and one of his assistants to fire the state's U.S. attorney, David Iglesias.

White House says Rove relayed complaints about prosecutors
WASHINGTON - The White House acknowledged on Sunday that presidential adviser Karl Rove served as a conduit for complaints about federal prosecutors as House investigators declared their intention to question him about any role he may have played in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

Democratic senators say Gonzales should go
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should resign following disclosures of mass firings of federal prosecutors and a report that the FBI improperly obtained information on private citizens, top Democratic senators said on Sunday.

House, Senate Dems realize power limited
WASHINGTON - At first, legislation to raise the minimum wage loomed as a clean, quick triumph for Democrats eager to celebrate their new majority in Congress. Two months later, it stands as an early lesson in the limits of their power.
That means we need a larger majority in the Senate and a Democratic president. —Caro

Media

Oh, how embarrassing.
The Associated Press got completely snookered (Friday) in its coverage of the flap between Rudy Giuliani and the firefighters -- the news org actually quoted someone and identified them as the head of an independent group called "Firefighters for Rudy," without mentioning that he is actually a Rudy aide.

CNN's Ware asserted that Democrats' call for Iraq deadline is "aiding the enemies ... of America"
On the March 8 edition of CNN's Your World Today, Michael Ware, a correspondent based in CNN's Baghdad bureau, asserted that "anyone trying to put artificial deadlines upon this conflict is only aiding the enemies, so-called, of America, Al Qaeda and Iran. ... (I)n terms of the broader strategic framework, it serves only America's enemies." Ware also said that "what the Democrats are saying about timetables may as well be happening on the planet Pluto for all that it counts to the bloodshed and the endless combat" in Iraq. Anchor Jim Clancy responded: "Michael Ware, calling it like it is, laying it on the line."

Beck: Supporters of Dems' Iraq bill "will be just as responsible" for troop deaths as suicide bombers
On the March 8 edition of his CNN Headline News program, Glenn Beck issued the following warning to members of Congress who support the Democratic leaders' plan to set a date certain for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq: "If your bill goes through, I hope you can't go to bed any single night without the images of body bags of our American soldiers coming off those planes. I hope they dance in your head every single night, because you will be just as responsible for their deaths as anyone who has ever strapped a bomb to their chest and screamed, 'Allah Akbar.' "

CNN's Velshi falsely claimed Feb. unemployment rate dropped to "a historic low"
In a March 9 report on the recently released unemployment rate by the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), CNN senior business correspondent Ali Velshi falsely claimed that "(t)he unemployment rate has dropped in the United States to a historic low of 4.5 percent." In fact, not only is the unemployment rate not at a "historic low," but the current 4.5 percent rate is still higher than when President Bush took office in January 2001.

Technology & Science

Cable operators offer wireless contracts
Two months ago, Fred Poteet walked into a Sprint store to resolve some technical problems with his cell phone service. When he walked out, he had a new wireless contract — with Cox Communications Inc., his cable TV operator.

New Technique Stores Data in Bacteria
Artificial DNA with encoded information can be added to the genome of common bacteria, thus preserving the data. The technique was developed at Keio University Institute for Advanced Biosciences and Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus… According to researchers, up to 100 bits of data can be attached to each organism.

Mouse tests show stem cells treat brain disease
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Human stem cells taken from both embryos and fetuses delayed a fatal brain and nerve disease in mice, moving throughout the brain to take on the jobs of damaged neurons, scientists reported on Sunday. They said their study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, could lead to ways to treat a range of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease.

You Can't Travel Back in Time, Scientists Say
Dashing the hopes of anyone who wants to be their own grandpa, some theorists now say this darling of science fiction just isn't possible. There are a handful of scenarios that theorists have suggested for how one might travel to the past, said Brian Greene, author of the bestseller, “The Elegant Universe” and a physicist at Columbia University. “And almost all of them, if you look at them closely, brush up right at the edge of physics as we understand it. Most of us think that almost all of them can be ruled out.”

Environment

Top Scientists Warn of Water Shortages and Disease Linked to Global Warming
Floods will drive tens of millions of people from their homes each year, a new report says, and polar bears will exist mostly in zoos.

Protecting Ozone Layer Also Slowed Global Warming
Global warming would be substantially worse right now if not for an international agreement in the 1980s that banned the use of ozone-destroying chemicals, a new study finds… By curbing their use, the pact has also cut in half the amount of greenhouse warming that would have occurred by 2010 had these substances continued to build unabated in Earth’s atmosphere.

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