NATIONAL & WORLD DIGEST - September 14, 2008

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New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-In the Storm's Wake
Photos and reports from around the region that was hit by Hurricane Ike.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/13/us/20080913-ike-map.html?hp

-Bailout Hide and Seek
By not including the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the federal budget, the regulating officials are poised to benefit, while taxpayers' money is put at risk.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/opinion/14sun1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

-Making America Stupid
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Unless we make America the country most able to innovate, compete and win in the age of globalization, our leverage in the world will continue to slowly erode. Imagine for a minute that attending the Republican convention in St. Paul, sitting in a skybox overlooking the convention floor, were observers from Russia, Iran and Venezuela. And imagine for a minute what these observers would have been doing when Rudy Giuliani led the delegates in a chant of "drill, baby, drill!"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/opinion/14friedman.html?ref=opinion

-The Palin-Whatshisname Ticket
FRANK RICH
The cunning of the Palin choice is that a candidate who embodies fear of change can be sold as a "maverick" because she looks the part.
The question today: What kind of president would Sarah Palin be? It's an urgent matter, because if we've learned anything from the G.O.P. convention and its aftermath, it's that the 2008 edition of John McCain is too weak to serve as America's chief executive. This unmentionable truth, more than race, is now the real elephant in the room of this election. No longer able to remember his principles any better than he can distinguish between Sunnis and Shia, McCain stands revealed as a guy who can be easily rolled by anyone who sells him a plan for "victory," whether in Iraq or in Michigan. A McCain victory on Election Day will usher in a Palin presidency, with McCain serving as a transitional front man, an even weaker Bush to her Cheney.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/opinion/14rich.html?ref=opinion

-U.S. Arms Sales Climbing Rapidly
By ERIC LIPTON
Sales of weapons to foreign governments have risen to more than $32 billion, up from $12 billion in 2005.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/washington/14arms.html?hp

-5 Pioneering Scientists Win Lasker Medical Prizes
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/health/14lasker.html?hp

-In Office, Palin Hired Friends and Hit Critics
Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal. An examination of Gov. Sarah Palin's record finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics contrasts with her carefully crafted public image. So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as one of her qualifications for running the roughly $2 million agency. Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?hp

-In Tangle of Young Lips, a Sex Rebellion in Chile
It is just after 5 p.m. in what was once one of Latin America's most sexually conservative countries, and the youth of Chile are bumping and grinding to a reggaetón beat. At the Bar Urbano disco, boys and girls ages 14 to 18 are stripping off their shirts, revealing bras, tattoos and nipple rings.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/world/americas/13chile.html

-Children in Servitude, the Poorest of Haiti's Poor
Thousands of desperate women pushed and shoved to get at the relief food being handed out on the outskirts of this flooded city last week. Off to the side were the restaveks, the really desperate ones.As woman after woman hauled off a sack of rice, a bag of beans and a can of cooking oil, the restaveks, a Creole term used to describe Haiti's child laborers, dropped to their knees to pick up the bits that were inadvertently dropped in the dirt. [...] In practice, though, the restaveks are easy prey for exploitation. Human rights advocates say they are beaten, sexually abused and frequently denied access to education, since many host families believe that schooling will only make them less obedient.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/world/americas/14haiti.html

-Malaysian Seeks End to Decades of Firm Rule
By the most obvious yardstick, this country of 25 million people is a democracy: Malaysia has held regular elections since independence from Britain five decades ago. Yet during that time power has remained in the hands of one coalition, the media has remained slavishly pro-government, the courts have often hewed closely to the government line and critics of the country's leadership have been detained without trial in periodic crackdowns. Now Malaysia may be on the brink of a liberal, more democratic era.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/world/asia/14malaysia.html

-Active Role for Palin's Husband in Alaska Government
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14todd.html


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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-The Big 'What If'
How will black Americans react if Obama doesn't win?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202414.html

-The Next President's Due Bill
By David S. Broder
Every so often, reality has to intrude on politics. The candidates, ofcourse, resent it and do their damnedest to avoid it. And those of us whomake a living reporting politics are equally determined not to let the harshtruths of the outside world impinge on the "game" being played out on thecampaign trail.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202595.html

-A Baltic Response to the Bear
By Jim Hoagland
Russia is developing a comprehensive strategy of bleeding American power around the globe. The United States must respond not at its point of greatest weakness, as the Bush administration may be tempted to do, but at its points of strength. Russia's leaders have made it clear over the past month that their invasion of Georgia is not an isolated retaliation against a troublesome small neighbor. It is part of a broader effort by the Kremlin to establish new rules for big-power relations on its own terms while U.S. forces are stretched to their limits in the greater Middle East.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202596.html

-Stopping At Nothing To Win
By David Ignatius
In the military culture that shaped John McCain, there is no more important responsibility than the promotion boards that select the right officers for top positions of command. It's a sacred trust in McCain's world, because people's lives are at stake. McCain wrote in his memoir of the officer's responsibility for those who serve under him: "He does not risk their lives and welfare for his sake, but only to answer the shared duty they are called to answer." McCain made the most important command decision of his life when he chose Sarah Palin as his vice presidential nominee. Two weeks later, it is still puzzling that he selected a person who, for all her admirable qualities, is not prepared by experience or interest to be commander in chief. No promotion board in history would have made such a decision.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202594.html

-5 Myths About Oprah, Obama and You
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202411.html

-The War in Pakistan
U.S. attacks on Taliban and al-Qaeda targets are risky -- and necessary.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/13/AR2008091302036.html

-Video: Houston - Ike
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/audio/2008/09/13/AU2008091301558.html?hpid=topnews

-Conflict Over Spying Led White House to the Brink
In late 2003, efforts of Cheney and his counsel to quash legal storm over warrantless eavesdropping pushed the presidency to face a historic test.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/13/AR2008091302284.html?hpid=topnews

-Palin's Mayoral Tenure Criticized
As head of the small town of Wasilla, she limited her official duties and left a trail of bad blood.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/13/AR2008091302596.html?hpid=topnews

-Obama Points to the Issues
Ignore Attacks, Democrat Implores
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/13/AR2008091302544.html?hpid=topnews

-Biden Stumps in Palin's Shadow
Democrats Split on Running Mate's Ability to Energize Base
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/13/AR2008091302456.html?hpid=topnews

-Group With Swift Boat Alumni Readies Ads Attacking Obama
A new group financed by a Texas billionaire and organized by some of the same political operatives and donors behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Sen. John F. Kerry in 2004 plans to begin running television ads attacking Barack Obama, a signal that outside groups may play a larger role than anticipated in the closing days of the presidential race.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/13/AR2008091302270.html?hpid=topnews


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Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Photos: Hurricane Ike damage
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/sfl-0913-hurricane-ike.pg,0,4480935.photogallery


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Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Wake-up time for `real conservatives'
by Leonard Pitts
So it seems George W. Bush is not really conservative. Nor are Mitt Romney, John McCain and, indeed, the vast majority of the Republican Party. Or so I'm told by a number of readers who took exception to a recent column lambasting Romney for his speech at the GOP convention. In it, Romney declared that the way to fix Washington is to turn it over to conservatives. If you didn't know any better, said I, you'd think conservatives had not been in charge most of the last decade. This kind of babblespeak, I argued, has become increasingly characteristic of the political right.
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/columnists/story/684287.html

-Video: 'The flooded city' Gonaives, Haiti
http://video.ap.org/v/Default.aspx?partner=en-ap&g=efca1052-e509-4057-8292-588712f5d1ea&f=FLMIH&mk=en-ap

-Photos: Death in Haiti
http://www.miamiherald.com/photogalleries/gallery/679029.html?number=3

-Cubans caught in the eye of political storm
More than a half-million homes destroyed. Three-hundred bridges collapsed. Six-hundred municipal water wells wiped out. Almost a third of Cuba's population without electricity.
http://www.miamiherald.com/1299/story/685619.html


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Fort Report
http://www.fortreport.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Greenspan: US Can't Afford McCain's Tax Plan
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aKZG._gG2NVI&refer=politics

-New Obama Assault on McCain Lobbyists
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13416.html

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