Tuesday Morning News Bucket

17 Comments

1. 

   ask on July 31, 2007 at 9:22 am

   Some good news:

   News Corp’s Dow bid now faltering

   Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has admitted it is now “highly unlikely” it will proceed with its $5bn (£2.5bn) offer for the Dow Jones media group.

   It said this was because of the reported present level of opposition from the Bancroft family, which owns 64% of Dow Jones’ voting shares.

   With the Bancrofts expected to make a statement later on Tuesday, reports say less than a third are backing the deal.

   The news came as Brad Greenspan said he had financial support for a rival bid.

   Mr Greenspan, the founder of the MySpace social network, said he had now gained the backing of five investor groups interested in buying a stake in Dow Jones to thwart News Corp’s bid.

   • 

     dada on July 31, 2007 at 12:41 pm

     this just in:

     NEW YORK (Reuters) – Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. is expected to reach a definitive agreement to buy Dow Jones & Co. Inc. on Tuesday evening, capping his three-month pursuit of the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, a source familiar with the matter said.

     […]

     “The Bancroft family has accepted,” John Prestbo, editor and executive director of Dow Jones Indexes, told reporters in Chicago. He said Dow Jones “will be part of News Corp.” Prestbo said the information came from an internal company memo.

     The Bancrofts own 64 percent of Dow Jones voting stock and have been deliberating over whether to accept Murdoch’s $60-per-share bid, first announced in early May.

     As of late Monday, Bancrofts holding about 29 percent of Dow Jones voting stock had voted in favor of the deal, according to The Wall Street Journal.

     News Corp.’s board of directors is expected to discuss the deal at 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT) Tuesday, one source said. The Dow Jones board is expected to meet at 7 p.m., another source familiar with the discussions said.

     Dow Jones is discussing a plan to have News Corp. cover the legal fees incurred by the Bancroft family, amounting to at least $30 million, the Journal reported on Monday.

     “After all the high-minded concerns about editorial interest and journalistic excellence, it gets down to who pays the legal fees for the Bancrofts,” Benchmark & Co. analyst Ed Atorino said. “And some of the trustees bailed, fearing they’d get sued by some of the younger trust beneficiaries if they voted against the deal — so much for principles.”

     […]

     link

     greed triumphs, yet again, over principles.

     not that it’ll be all that great a change at the wsj….watercarriers  that they are.

     lTMF’sA

     

     • 

       ask on July 31, 2007 at 12:54 pm

       OK, looks like I counted the chickens too fast.

2. 

   ask on July 31, 2007 at 9:30 am

   Rice defends Middle East arms sales plan

   The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, today said plans to sell billions of dollars of weapons to the Middle East would shore up friendly regimes against al-Qaida and Iran.

   Ms Rice, who was visiting Egypt with the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, denied the arms sales were a move to ensure the support of states including Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

   “This is not an issue of quid pro quo,” she said. “We are working with these states to fight back extremism. We all have the same interest in a stable Iraq that can defend itself … and be unified.”

   …

   A green light to oppression

   In a move supposedly intended to counter Iranian influence, the US has announced a series of arms deals with Middle Eastern countries.

   Apart from Israel, which will receive $30bn in military aid, Egypt will get $13bn. Five Gulf states – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE – will also be sold weaponry to the tune of $20bn, with the lion’s share going to the Wahhabi regime in Riyadh.

   Thus, in the name of “working with these states to fight back extremism” (as secretary of state Condoleezza Rice put it), the US is arming two of the Arab world’s leading human rights abusers: Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

   The reaction from Tehran was predictable. US policy “is creating fear and concerns in the countries of the region and trying to harm the good relations between these countries”, foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters in Tehran. And he’s absolutely right.

   If the Bush administration’s goal was to inflame Sunni-Shia tensions across the region and to spread the sectarian strife in Iraq to neighbouring countries, it would be hard to imagine a more effective way of going about it.

   …

3. 

   ask on July 31, 2007 at 9:38 am

   Iraqi parliament adjourns in blow to Bush

   BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s parliament went into summer recess for a month on Monday after political leaders failed to agree on a series of laws that Washington sees as crucial to stabilising the country.

   Lawmakers said the government had yet to present them with any of the laws. The parliament had earlier signalled its intention to go into recess in August after cutting short its summer break that normally starts in July.

   “We do not have anything to discuss in the parliament, no laws or constitutional amendments, nothing from the government. Differences between the political factions have delayed the laws,” Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman told Reuters.

   The parliament is due to reconvene on September 4, just two weeks before the top U.S. general in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and Washington’s envoy to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, are due to report to Congress on the success of U.S. President George W. Bush’s new Iraq strategy and make recommendations.

4. 

   CabinGirl on July 31, 2007 at 9:43 am

   About that cell phone and laptop…

5. 

   ask on July 31, 2007 at 9:57 am

   Must read!

   Attorney recalls what Gonzales can’t

   The man presently accused of lying while attorney general of the United States strode into a Texas courtroom back in 1996 as the opposing sides were poised to try a drunken-driving case. The defendant was a woman who worked at a topless bar called Sugar’s.

   “Alberto Gonzales came in the courtroom, asked to approach the bench,” defense lawyer David Wahlberg recalled yesterday. “He introduced himself as the governor’s lawyer.”

   The governor of Texas at the time was George Bush, who had announced to the press some days before that he had been summoned to jury duty. Bush had pledged to report as ordered.

   “He gave a presentation about how that’s every citizen’s duty,” Wahlberg said. “He actually did a real good job of that.”

   Bush had also suggested what kind of juror he would be.

   “Hang ’em high,” Wahlberg said. “That was his exact phrase.”

   […]

   Wahlberg remembered the incident so differently you almost had to conclude that Gonzales was simply lying. The Senate went ahead and confirmed him, and he has had a standard response as he has gotten into one jam after another.

   “I was really struck, watching his several performances recently, how many times he said, ‘I don’t remember,'” Wahlberg said yesterday.

   Now, you almost have to conclude that the nation’s top lawman has committed perjury again and again.

   “It seems to be a pattern of behavior,” Wahlberg said.

   • 

     idredit on July 31, 2007 at 11:09 am

     Specter’s Showdown Gives Bush until Noon today

     From Thinkprogress

     “Following a classified briefing with the White House today, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, “gave the Bush administration 18 hours to resolve the controversy over apparent contradictions in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s congressional testimony”:

         Specter aides released a statement late Monday that suggested a bombshell to come on Tuesday afternoon.

         “Given the difficulty of discussing classified matters in public, I think it is preferable to have a letter addressing that question [of Gonzales’ veracity] from the administration … by noon tomorrow, which will be made available to the news media,” Specter wrote in the statement. “The administration has committed to producing such a letter.”

         Specter expects the letter clarifying the attorney general’s testimony to be addressed to himself and Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who declined to comment on the matter.

         Specter was equally cagey, telling reporters to wait until Tuesday for any further comment from him.”

     Yeah, we’ll not hold our breath waiting for ‘cagey’ Specter. He has a track record of blinking real fast – 100x per sec.

     • 

       dada on July 31, 2007 at 2:18 pm

       as of 1:18 pmedt:

       …In today’s White House press briefing, Tony Snow provided precious little information. He only said that the letter, which will come from the Justice Department, is still forthcoming, probably in the next several hours….

       via tpm

       yeah, sure; and the check’s in the mail too, right tony?

       lTMF’sA

       

       • 

         idredit on July 31, 2007 at 3:02 pm

         Yep, as at 2.54 PM ET, all he got was a Snow job.

         Watch it!  (via *Thinkprogress).  DO READ the comments.

         OMG, was Specter holding his breath?  

         • 

           dada on July 31, 2007 at 5:50 pm

           so response comes from “sing along with” mitch mcconnell, dir of nat’l intelligence [an oxymoron if ever one existed], and now the ball’s in arlen’s court.

           via think progress @ 4:40 PM EDT:

           The key line in this letter says one particular aspect of these activities, and nothing more, was publicly acknowledged by the President and described in December of 2005. That is what Gonzales says was the Terrorist Surveillance Program. So what other program are they talking about? Again, they say it’s classified. It’s top secret. The third line in the letter is key: This is the only aspect of the NSA activities that can be discussed publicly. So what they’re saying is everything else is secret but what he was talking about specifically was the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

           obfuscation and more…bullshit!

           another kabuki act.

           maybe someone can explain to me, in simple terms ’cause l’m obviously too dense to get it, why the WH was even asked to respond to something the AG testified/lied to under oath…and why this isn’t just another “go fuck yerself” from Bu$hCo™.

           lTMF’sA

           

         • 

           dada on July 31, 2007 at 6:08 pm

           that the response was bing prepared by DoJ that it came from mconnell, guess they couldn’t find anybody at DoJ to sign it…probably unable to hide behind the war on terra stuff, or didn’t want to perjure themselves for abu

           lTMF’sA

           

6. 

   Oui on July 31, 2007 at 10:19 am

   .

   Japan accepts IAEA checks, nuclear policy on track

   TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan will work with United Nations inspectors to check the world’s biggest nuclear power plant after a powerful earthquake last week caused radiation leaks, but a fundamental shift in its nuclear energy policy is unlikely despite renewed fears about nuclear safety.

   Japan’s nuclear industry — which supplies about one-third of the country’s electricity needs and is central to its efforts to battle global warming — has been tarnished by cover-ups of accidents and fudged safety records.

   Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said joint studies on nuclear safety would help other quake-prone countries as well as Japan.

   Leak At Japanese Nuclear Plant After Quake

   
   Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear facility  

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

7. 

   Oui on July 31, 2007 at 10:45 am

   .

   South Korea asks U.S. for ‘flexibility’ in hostage crisis

   SEOUL: Shocked by the killing of a second South Korean hostage in Afghanistan and weary of the 13-day-old crisis, South Korea urged the U.S. and Afghan governments to show “flexibility” over Taliban demands to exchange its remaining 21 Christian aid workers for imprisoned militants.

   
   Afghans moving the body of Shim Sung-Min. (AFP)

   The government appeal – coupled with a growing frustration among South Koreans over what they perceive as a lack of cooperation from the United States – came hours after the Afghan police found the bullet-ridden body of a second South Korean hostage slain by the Taliban.

   “The government is well aware of how the international community deals with these kinds of abduction cases,” Cheon Ho Seon, a spokesman for President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea, said in a statement. “But it also believes that it would be worthwhile to use flexibility in the cause of saving the precious lives of those still in captivity, and is appealing to the international community to do so.”

   Ever since the Taliban kidnapped the 23 aid workers on July 19, Roh’s government has been caught between two uncompromising forces. The Taliban have been insisting on a hostage-and-prisoner swap, while the U.S.-backed Afghan government counters that bowing to the militants’ demands will only lead to more kidnappings.

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

8. 

   dada on July 31, 2007 at 12:46 pm

   now that the price of Oil Rises Above $78 to New One-Year High, and energy companies are posting quarterly profits greater than most of the worlds gnp’s combined, loyal bushie, pete domenici [nm] snuck one into the energy bill…without debate…and of course it’s going to cost the tax payer a lot more money:

   Energy Bill Aids Expansion of Atomic Power

   July 30 — A one-sentence provision buried in the Senate’s recently passed energy bill, inserted without debate at the urging of the nuclear power industry, could make builders of new nuclear plants eligible for tens of billions of dollars in government loan guarantees.

   […]

   Power companies have tentative plans to put the 28 new reactors at 19 sites around the country. Industry executives insist that banks and Wall Street will not provide the money needed to build new reactors unless the loans are guaranteed in their entirety by the federal government.

   […]

   The little-noticed provision in the Senate bill subtly refines and expands the loan guarantee program that Congress passed in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

   As before, the Department of Energy would be allowed to guarantee 100 percent of the loans and up to 80 percent of the total cost to build a reactor.

   But the bill essentially allows the department to approve as many loan guarantees as it wants for both new reactors and plants that use other “clean” technologies.

   That is a big change. Under current law, the government is only allowed to guarantee a volume of loans authorized each year by Congress. Last year, Congress limited the government to awarding just $4 billion in loan guarantees for clean energy projects during the 2007 fiscal year.

   […]

   more nyt reg req’d

   if l understand this correctly, the free-market ideals of the ratpuglicans, don’t extend into the energy realm…not that they ever did.

   lTMF’sA

   

9. 

   dada on July 31, 2007 at 12:53 pm

   DING! round 2

   sfgate reported that late last friday is was disclosed that a team of hackers  tasked by cal sec state debra bowen, with examining the security, accuracy, reliability, and accessibility of all the electronic voting machines in use, were able to break thru the security of every model. this break-in, allowed them to change results or take control over some of the systems’ electronic functions.

   today, they report that the Makers of voting machines are ready to battle critics over UC study:

   County election officials and makers of voting machines squared off Monday against Secretary of State Debra Bowen and critics of electronic voting in a hearing that could determine how the Feb. 5 presidential primary election is run

   […]

   Monday’s hearing, along with the UC report, are part of the “top to bottom review” of electronic voting that Bowen promised when she was running for secretary of state last year. She said she will decide whether any vulnerabilities can be fixed in time for the February election or “whether the problems are so significant that the voting systems should not be used.”

   Bowen faces a tight deadline. By law, she can’t decertify a voting system if the election is less than six months away, which means she has until Friday to study the information and decide what, if anything, must be done to the voting systems.

   […]

   Bowen has been a longtime critic of the handful of companies that make the voting machines used in California. During her campaign for secretary of state last year, she criticized Republican incumbent Bruce McPherson for certifying a number of electronic voting systems.

   She still has an Internet ad on her campaign site called “The Midnight Adventures of a Diebold Voting Machine,” which slams McPherson and shows a pair of burglars hacking into a Diebold machine and laughing about how easy it is.

   sfgate

   as one commenter put it: “The issue isn’t hackers. The issue is the folks who make the machines, and can put any code they want in it, and who have had free access to the machines after the elections to tamper with them.”

   what’s that old adage about california being ahead of the rest of the nation…amen to that hope.

   lTMF’sA

   

10. 

    Oui on July 31, 2007 at 6:18 pm

    .

    UN backs new Darfur peace force

    The United Nations Security Council has voted in favour of sending peacekeepers to Sudan’s troubled Darfur region. Up to 26,000 troops and police will make up the world’s largest peacekeeping force, under a joint UN and African Union mandate. The resolution will allow peacekeepers to use force to defend civilians and aid workers in Darfur from any attack.

    At least 200,000 people are thought to have died in Darfur and some 2m have fled their homes since 2003.

    UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the mission as “historic and unprecedented”.

    "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."