This is a moment to seize. The Kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us.

-Tony Blair, October 2nd, 2001.

9/11 remains a day of reflection and remembrance. Here’s overwritten-but’sincere pieces on 9/11 from 2001 and 2002, as well as blog posts from 2005 and 2006.

As I’ve written before, I always knew that eventually 9/11 would be politicized and misappropriated, but I hoped it would take a while and the damage might be minimized. However, this year, even with less blatant demagoguery about 9/11 (so far; Bush will speak later this week), the manipulation feels more present and grating to me. “Rising above it” may be the right response for some people, and they are certainly entitled to it. But this year, for me, that feels irresponsible. It’s impossible for me to not to think of Petraeus and Crocker and their misleading (at the very least, mistaken) testimony to Congress. It’s impossible for me not to think about the shell game going on yet again, the amazing missed opportunities, and the deep moral crime of sacrificing something sacred and profound for personal gain and group greed. In the process of what the Bush administration has wrought, so many have been punished for absolutely no good purpose. I can still feel sad and disappointed, but so far, anger and disgust are frankly winning out.
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Al Green
“How Can You Mend a Broken Heart”

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from MediaBistro.com

Phil Griffin knew it would happen, he just didn’t think it would happen this quickly. On Friday night, MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann was the top-rated cable news show in the 25-54 demo. That means Olbermann beat his cable rival, FNC’s The O’Reilly Factor and its host Bill O’Reilly. That’s a first.

OlbermannA_9.10.jpg “The real insight I had was over the summer,” said Griffin, the NBC News senior VP who manages the Today show as well as MSNBC. Griffin tells TVNewser, Olbermann “maintained his core audience, so when the mass viewers came back after Labor Day…it’s just surprising it happened so quickly.”

O’Reilly and all the FNC primetime programs still dominate the total viewer numbers. So why is the demo win such a big deal? “It’s everything, the demo is everything. It’s where we make our money,” said Griffin.

This is going to be a busy autumn for MSNBC. In a few weeks, the cable net’s employees will move out of their New Jersey offices and move in with their broadcast counterparts in New York City. And the Olbermann bump helps. “For years MSNBC struggled to find someone to be the tent pole and lead the way,” Griffin says. “In 11+ years, I don’t think there has been a better moment.”

Griffin should know, he helped start MSNBC and watched as FNC shot past CNN to #1 where it remains today. And he says Bill O’Reilly rightly gets a lot of the credit. “O’Reilly did it for Fox in 1999, and helped take it to where it is today.” But, he adds, “It’s clear now, it’s a two-person race.”

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ANTI-WAR SIGN A HAZARD?

NEGROPONTE, BOUCHER VISIT TO PAKISTAN COINCIDENTAL

ISRAEL WARNS GAZAN MILITANTS AFTER ROCKET ATTACK

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND…..WELL, THIS ONE WAS

TEXAS ANIMAL CRUELTY CASE PROVOKES WORLDWIDE ATTENTION

VOLUNTEERS COLLECT BAGHDAD’S NAMELESS DEAD

CAN PETRAEUS AND CROCKER SAVE THE NEXT DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT?

GERMAN GENERAL TO LEAVE AFGHANISTAN MISSION AMID DISPUTE

7 YEARS UNDER VA CARE, VET SUCCUMBS TO UNDETECTED CANCER

28 KILLED IN SUICIDE ATTACK AT AFGHANISTAN MARKET

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I listened to Lugar’s opening remarks. He had nothing good to say about Rice, either, and commented on the lack of diplomacy efforts. Of course, this could be for show…..

From Yahoo News:

A prominent Republican on Tuesday said he remains deeply skeptical of the U.S. war strategy in Iraq, comparing the long and bloody military campaign to a farmer risking his savings to plant on a flood plain.

“In my judgment, some type of success in Iraq is possible, but as policymakers, we should acknowledge that we are facing extraordinarily narrow margins for achieving our goals,” Sen. Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the top U.S. military commander and the American ambassador there.

Lugar, R-Ind., has called for a sizable drawdown in coming months, a plan that runs counter to Gen. David Petraeus‘ recommendation. Petraeus says the United States should withdraw the 30,000 extra troops deployed earlier this year, but maintain the approximately 130,000 troops - who would be left there - at least through next summer.

“The surge (in military troops) must not be an excuse for failing to prepare for the next phase of our involvement in Iraq, whether that is partial withdrawal, a gradual redeployment or some other option,” Lugar said.

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By Michael Kahn
Reuters

YORK (Reuters) - When we read our eyes lock on to different letters in the same word instead of scanning a page smoothly from left to right as previously thought, researchers said on Monday.

Using sophisticated eye tracking equipment, the team looked at letters within a word and found that people combined parts of a word that were on average two letters apart, said Simon Liversedge, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Southampton.

The findings could lead to better methods of teaching children to read and offer remedial treatments for those with reading disorders such as dyslexia, said Liversedge, who presented his work at a meeting organized by the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

“What I’m trying to understand is the relationship between the physiological processes that underpin human written language comprehension and their relationship with eye movements people make to read sentences,” he said in a telephone interview.

Over the past 40 years scientists have studied eye movements and reading, with a general consensus that people look at the same letter within a word with both eyes, Liversedge said.

To test this, Liversedge and colleagues measured the reflections of a low-intensity infrared beam shone into a volunteer’s eye when reading. This allowed the researchers to pinpoint exactly where the eye had fixated on a word.

read more HERE

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Round Two…..ding ding ding.

Airing on C-Span.

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from The New York Times

One way the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement was supposed to encourage free and efficient trade was by allowing long-haul trucks from Canada, Mexico and the United States to deliver goods throughout the three countries. Unfortunately, more than a decade later the Teamsters union, the Sierra Club and their allies in Congress are still working to keep Mexican trucks out.

The Teamsters and their environmental allies claim that the trucks aren-t safe and are dirty. A new pilot program, however, would require that any Mexican trucks approved for entry into the United States be inspected for safety every three months. Environmental regulations that apply to American trucks would also apply to Mexican trucks.

That’s not enough to satisfy the Teamsters, which, we suspect, are just trying to stave off the competition. And it’s not been enough for the Sierra Club, which doesn-t trust the Bush administration - or the Clinton administration before that - to enforce environmental standards.

That stubbornness is counterproductive. Keeping Mexican trucks out only keeps transport costs higher, harming American businesses and consumers. It sends Mexico the message that the United States doesn-t stand by its commitments, and it reinforces suspicions that when it comes to free trade, the United States only likes it one way.

Last week, the Department of Transportation gave the first Mexican trucking company permission to operate under a one-year pilot program that would allow roughly 500 trucks from 100 Mexican carriers onto American highways. Congress seems determined to block that progress. Today, the Senate is scheduled to vote on an amendment, filed by Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, that would deny financing for the pilot program next year. The House has already approved the cutoff.

read more HERE

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from an email this morning…

Remembering 9/11

Let us on this day mourn for those who tragically lost their lives on 9/11. And let us commit that their lives not be lost in vain, but become the basis for a new America of peace and justice. America must regain the moral high ground in our efforts to recover from 9/11.

Let us not forget the world was with America in our sorrow on September 11, 2001. The world was prepared to unite with America in a cooperative effort to challenge terrorists who attempt to disrupt civil society. Instead, the Administration used 9/11 as an excuse to attack a nation that did not attack us. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, or with Al Qaeda’s role in 9/11. Iraq did not have the intention or the capability of attacking the United States. Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. Yet the Administration deliberately and falsely conflated 9/11 with Iraq, with the cooperation of an unquestioning media.

As a result, nearly 4,000 of our brave soldiers have lost their lives, and tens of thousands have been permanently injured in combat in Iraq. The subsequent occupation has fueled the insurgency and will continue to result in more troop losses until the United States leaves. Also, nearly one million innocent Iraqis have lost their lives as a result of this war. This violence against an innocent people is a tragedy of immense proportions. It is also a violation of international law, and those who authored this war must be held accountable for their actions.

Americans will spend close to $2 trillion in Iraq by the time the costs of this war are totaled, but the longer term costs have included the undermining America’s moral authority in the world, the separation of America from the nations and the peoples of the world, and the destruction of a domestic agenda which is being deferred while we borrow money from China to fight the war in Baghdad.

We need to call those who used 9/11 to take us into war against Iraq to an accounting under the U.S. Constitution, U.S. law, and international law. We must soon begin a period of truth and reconciliation in our own nation. We must have forums of open dialogue throughout the country where we can come together to remember who we were before 9/11, to share our personal narratives of the times when we felt most secure, most in love with our nation, most trustful of our democratic institutions. We must recover our capacity for civic action. We must reclaim our nation. The only way we can do that is to tell the truth.

- Dennis Kucinich

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from AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A new video purportedly featuring Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden appeared on the Internet Tuesday, the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, CNN reported.

The video shows a still image of Bin Laden with a voice identified as his praising September 11 hijacker Walid al-Shehri, who was aboard American Airlines Flight 11 which crashed into the World Trade Center, it said.

The authenticity of the video was not immediately confirmed, the television network said, adding that the video did not appear to show any moving images of Bin Laden.

Bin Laden appeared on a video on Friday, his first since October 2004, when he threatened new attacks against the United States in a video just days before the US presidential election.

Al-Qaeda’s media arm, As-Sahab, had said Monday that it would release a second video of the group’s leader.

CNN said the video released Tuesday appeared to be purely a eulogy of Shehri, who like Bin Laden hails from Saudi Arabia. There is also no indication of when it was recorded, the US news network said.

But questions over the elusive Saudi extremist’s beard cropped up at a Congressional hearing Monday featuring top US security experts, including Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell.

“First, is this his beard?” Republican Senator Norm Coleman asked the spy chief. “Do we expect that — is it a signal?”

read more HERE

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By Jesse Drucker
The Wall Street Journal

Senate investigators, ratcheting up the pressure on corporate tax-cutting transactions, have sent letters to at least 30 companies seeking details of past tax arrangements.

Companies that have received such letters include Merck & Co., Johnson & Johnson and Wyeth, according to a person familiar with the matter. Representatives for Merck and Johnson & Johnson said the companies were in the process of responding to the Senate request. A Wyeth spokesman wouldn’t comment.

The probe, by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, appears to have been sparked by an accounting rule known as FIN 48, which took effect in January.

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by Jim Swanson
Blue Herald

Yesterday’s long anticipated “Petraeus Report” with an assist from Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, was actually a smokescreen for the Bush Administration.

While Republicans and neo-cons alike no doubt smiled with glee over the General’s claims of progress in the occupation, Democrats sat and probably took the bait.

A recent survey by three world-wide news and poll organizations has now shown that nearly 70% of Iraqis want the United States out of their country. To my dismay, the same survey also showed that 34% of the Iraq population said that attacks on coalition troops were justified.

Petraeus’ remarks about possible drawdowns in troops “around” summer of 2008 is the smokescreen of the century. This drawdown would bring the number of troops back to pre’surge numbers. If you recall, the surge was supposed to help end the war. Instead, it has done it’s job to buy Bush more time and more billions.

When you put your mind to it, what business did we have invading a country that had done nothing to deserve the bombing, the destruction, the suicide bombings, the death squads, the refugees in the millions and our soldiers and their families being tormented with the memories of a “war” brought on by lies from the President of The United States and his lemming followers.

A promise to rebuild the infrastructure has been broken. There is very little clean water that is drinkable, like we promised. There is, maybe, an hour or two of electricity a day. We promised to fix that.

Petraeus is just a puppet on a string for “W” and his mafia style of politics. Contractors are paid enormous sums of money to do things that are never going to be done. The money grubbing war profiteers should be in jail. And so should Petraeus, for lying to get his fourth star as a career apple polisher and ass-kisser for the current administration of thugs.

Democrats will likely roll over and play the submissive puppy when Bush asks for billions more in the “blind walk at midnight through the coal bin” that has no end, and will likely never end.

Take a look at the GAO report on the violence, then look at Petraeus’ report (which was written by the occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) and see just how the numbers don’t match up.

Will we ever see the end of this ridiculous, endless money pit? Probably not. As long as there’s money involved to fatten up Washington career politicians and their corporate donors.

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The New York Times

We at “Blue Herald” have been following this story since we interviewed Dr. Dewey Caron on the June 25th edition of “Blue Herald Radio” If you’d like to hear the original interview with Dr. Caron, click the radio link above and head for the archives. - JS

Last week, scientists reported having found a possible - emphasis on possible - cause of the collapse of honeybee populations reported in the past year. What is interesting isn-t just the virus, called Israeli acute paralysis virus, but the use of new methods of genetic screening to determine what pathogens the bees in collapsed colonies had been exposed to. Researchers were able to quickly screen the DNA from all the organisms present in the bees and compare them with the DNA in genomic libraries, a catalog of known organisms. Bees from collapsed hives had the virus. Healthy bees did not.

Identifying this virus is only a first step in ascertaining the cause of colony collapse disorder, but it is a remarkable first step, a sign of how quickly new tools can be drawn from divergent scientific pursuits to track down and identify potentially global diseases.

Two other factors may also have played a role in this die-off. One is drought, which in some areas has affected the plants that bees draw nectar and pollen from. The other - still unproved - may be the commercial trucking of bees from crop to crop for pollination, a potential source of stress. These may have made bees more vulnerable to the effects of this virus.

In some ways, this newly reported research seems all the more important given all the speculation about what has been killing off the honeybees. These hive losses have inspired a kind of myth-making or magical thinking about their possible environmental origins. The suspected culprits include genetically modified crops and cellphones, to name only two.

read more HERE

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By RICHARD SEVERO
New York Times

Jane Wyman, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of a victimized deaf woman in the 1948 movie “Johnny Belinda,” played a fierce matriarch in the 1980s television series “Falcon Crest” and was the first wife of President Ronald Reagan, died Monday at her home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. She was 90.

Her death was confirmed by Jonathan Bernstein, a family spokesman.

Ms. Wyman started her movie career in the 1930s playing wisecracking chorus girls before winning the Academy Award and three other best-actress Oscar nominations between 1947 to 1955.

She rekindled her star power in her 60s, playing Angela Channing, the domineering owner of a Northern California winery in “Falcon Crest,” which ran from 1981 to 1990.

She had met Mr. Reagan in the late 1930s and appeared with him in the comedy “Brother Rat” (1938). They were married in 1940, had a daughter, Maureen, and then adopted a son, Michael, before divorcing in 1948.

Ms. Wyman’s Oscar came for her sensitive performance in “Johnny Belinda” (1948), in which she played a deaf woman whose pregnancy resulting from a rape causes a scandal. Archer Winston, writing in The New York Post, called her performance “surpassingly beautiful.”

“It is all the more beautiful in its accomplishment without words,” he added.

read more HERE

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By Annika Breidthardt
Reuters

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices surged to near a record high on Tuesday after attacks on oil and natural gas pipelines rocked the world’s fifth-largest crude producer Mexico, ahead of an OPEC meeting to determine production policy.

U.S. light crude rose 37 cents to $77.86 a barrel by 0424 GMT, after gaining 79 cents on Monday to near August 1’s record of $78.77. London Brent crude gained 28 cents to $75.76.

A series of attacks that caused explosions on Mexico’s oil and gas pipelines on Monday will not hit the country’s oil output or exports but cut off a quarter of its natural gas flow, said chief executive Jesus Reyes Heroles of state firm Pemex.

“At this point, it doesn’t seem to be a serious problem but it could potentially pose a longer-term problem, which is why futures reacted so strongly,” said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch & Associates, adding there had been an influx of hedge fund money.

Oil futures had traded weaker for much of Monday’s session on expectations that OPEC, which meets in Vienna later on Tuesday, would either maintain current supply curbs or raise output slightly.

read more HERE

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