NATIONAL & WORLD DIGEST - September 16, 2008

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

-Officials Try to Stem Crisis; Fed to Meet
Shares Drop in Europe and Asia
Speculation is building in the market that the Fed will move Tuesday to lower its crucial benchmark interest rate from its current level of 2 percent.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/business/worldbusiness/17markets.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

-Wall Street Casualties
The nation needs to look beyond the current financial crisis to the flaws of the anti-regulatory ideology.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16tue1.html?ref=opinion

-McCain's Radical Agenda
John McCain's health plan is a monumental change in the way coverage would be provided to millions of people. Why aren't we paying more attention?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16herbert.html?ref=opinion

-Why Experience Matters
Governance, the creation and execution of policy, is hard. It requires prudence. How is prudence acquired? Through experience.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16brooks.html?ref=opinion

-Ms. Pelosi's Compromise
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's energy plan, which allows for offshore drilling in exchange for investment in alternative energy, deserves support. [...] The situation, briefly, is this: The Republicans have been bludgeoning the Democrats with the claim that Democratic opposition to offshore drilling is to blame for high fuel prices and that drilling is the answer, or one answer, to the country's dependence on foreign oil. We find it hard to imagine that they really believe what they say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16tue2.html?ref=opinion

-In Candidates, 2 Approaches to Wall Street
John McCain pointed to greed on Wall Street, and Barack Obama linked problems to lax regulation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/us/politics/16record.html?hp

-Mugabe Signs a Deal to Share His Power
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/world/africa/16zimbabwe.html

-As Skies Clear, Galveston Copes With Worsening Sanitary Conditions
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/us/16ike.html

-Rangel, Pressured, Meets With Leaders
Representative Charles B. Rangel met behind closed doors with House leaders on Monday evening, as he faced increasing pressure to relinquish his position as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/nyregion/16rangel.html

-Weather History Offers Insight Into Global Warming
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/science/earth/16moho.html


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

-Oil plunges to $92 in Asia on US credit fears
OPEC's production cut of 520,000 barrels a day earlier this month has failed to stem the decline. The 13-nation group said oil demand in the U.S. fell by 800,000 barrels a day last month due to the slow economy and high retail prices.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/16/AR2008091600247.html?hpid=topnews

-The Ugly New McCain
He has become the sort of politician he once despised. [...]
The precise moment of McCain's abasement came, would you believe, not at some news conference or on one of the Sunday shows but on "The View," the daytime TV show created by Barbara Walters. Last week, one of the co-hosts, Joy Behar, took McCain to task for some of the ads his campaign has been running. One deliberately mischaracterized what Barack Obama had said about putting lipstick on a pig -- an Americanism that McCain himself has used. The other asserted that Obama supported teaching sex education to kindergarteners. "We know that those two ads are untrue," Behar said. "They are lies." Freeze. Close in on McCain. This was the moment. He has largely been avoiding the press. The Straight Talk Express is now just a brand, an ad slogan like "Home Cooking" or "We Will Not Be Undersold." Until then, it was possible for McCain to say that he had not really known about the ads, that the formulation "I approve this message" was just boilerplate. But he didn't. "Actually, they are not lies," he said. Actually, they are.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091502406.html

-Running on a Lie
Eugene Robinson
Palin believes that truth is nothing more than what she says it is.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091502471.html

-Whose Elitism Problem?
E. J. Dionne Jr.
The foolishness of our financial geniuses now threatens to bring sorrow to Main Street.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091502472.html

-Standing Up to Angler
A group of administration officials took on the vice president to defend the rule of law on surveillance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091502704.html

-Bolivia on the Brink
Evo Morales leads his country toward disintegration or civil war.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091502702.html

-Fannie, Freddie's Former CEOs to Lose $12.6 Million in Severance Pay .... but keep $9.43 million in retirement and pension benefits under a Federal Housing Finance Agency plan to block their severance payments.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091502853.html?hpid=topnews

-BANK OF AMERICA
A Play for Wall Street
Merrill Lynch Deal Is Ultimate Test of Bank's Ambition
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091500806.html?hpid=topnews

-Photos: Hurricane Ike Pounds Texas
http://www.washingtonpost.com/

-Video: Ike's destruction
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2008/09/16/VI2008091600954.html?hpid=topnews

-Odierno Takes Over as U.S. Commander in Iraq
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/16/AR2008091600419.html?hpid=moreheadlines

-Obama Seeks to Regain Traction
Campaign accuses McCain of running "disgraceful, dishonorable campaign" in new advertisement.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091503000.html?hpid=topnews

-Who's More Realistic: McCain or Obama?
by Fareed Zakaria
There is some truth to both visions, but in my view the reality is much closer to Obama's -- more so than most U.S. politicians seem willing to admit. We live in remarkably peaceful times. A University of Maryland study shows that deaths from wars of all kinds have been dropping dramatically for 20 years and are lower now than at any point in the past half century. A study from Simon Fraser University finds that casualties from terrorism have been steadily declining since Sept. 11, 2001. It is increasingly clear -- look at their voting from Indonesia to Iraq to Pakistan -- that very few Muslims anywhere support Islamic fundamentalists. More countries than ever before now embrace capitalism and democracy.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/fareed_zakaria/2008/09/whos_more_realistic_mccain_or.html


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

-Stocks drop: What it means
With bombshell after bombshell coming their way, how much more bad news can investors handle? And how should they respond?
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/topic/economy-business-finance/american-international-group-ORCRP000791.topic

-Simpson's Las Vegas trial interrupted as alleged victim becomes ill on witness stand
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-0916-ap-oj-simpson,0,779886.story

-Can't solve energy woes out of thin air
The media and blogosphere are full of references to environmental Not-In-My-Back-Yard types who call for the creation and promotion of new and miraculous energy sources while simultaneously demanding that they not be produced "here." On the instantly acceptable side of the ledger is a proposed wind farm using a renewable source - South Florida's ubiquitous winds - along with a thermal-solar facility.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-sorensen11forumpnsep15,0,5351444.story


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

-PANAMA: Country should not take up arms again
Panama is about to rebuild its armed forces. To do so is a dangerous blunder. In December 1989, after the U.S. invasion to end the bloody narco-dictatorship of Gen. Manuel Noriega, the Panamanians decided to renounce the possession of an army. It was a display of common sense. If any country did not need armed forces, it was Panama. Within its borders, there were no subversive forces. Its neighbor to the north is Costa Rica, a peaceful nation that disarmed itself voluntarily 60 years ago and does not represent the slightest danger. Its neighbor to the south is Colombia, a country 15 times larger and 14 times more populated, with a sizeable military. with which Panama maintains the best possible relations.
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/other-views/story/687990.html


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

-Sarah Palin's powerful "First Dude"
Todd Palin has exerted unusual influence on his wife's Alaska government. In Washington, their methods would do Bush and Cheney proud. Not long after Sarah Palin was sworn in as Alaska's governor in December 2006, her husband, Todd, started showing up in the state capitol in Juneau. He'd hang around her office, or he'd sit in on meetings with Cabinet officials or legislators. He'd leave for a few weeks to go work his $100,000-a-year oil job on the North Slope, then come back to Juneau (or Anchorage, depending on where Palin was spending her time). At some point, the "First Dude" became enough of a fixture in the statehouse that people just sort of figured he belonged there.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/16/todd_palin/index.html

-The High Cost of Racial Hype
Sometimes you don't know when you are lucky. Certainly I did not consider myself lucky when I left home at seventeen and discovered the hard way that there was no great demand for a black teenage dropout with no experience and no skill. In retrospect, however, those days of struggling to earn money to pay the room rent and buy food left little time or energy for navel-gazing over things like "identity."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/the_high_cost_of_racial_hype.html

-Wall Street crisis is culmination of 28 years of deregulation
No one cog in the federal government's machine of financial regulation let down the country by failing to prevent the latest shakeout on Wall Street. The entire system did. "They just haven't done a particularly good job," said James Barth, a senior finance fellow at the Milken Institute, a nonpartisan research group based in Los Angeles.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/52559.html

-McCain's Stump Speech More About Palin Than Self
Anatomy Of A Stump Speech: McCain Enthuses More About Palin Than Himself, Adds Change Theme
Two things jump out from John McCain's standard campaign speech: Sarah Palin and change. Mostly Sarah Palin bringing change.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/16/ap/politics/main4451853.shtml

-Five Ex-secretaries Of State Urge Talks With Iran
Advising The Next President, 5 Former Secretaries Of State Say Talking To Iran Is Essential
Five former secretaries of state, gathering to give their best advice to the next president, agreed Monday that the United States should talk to Iran.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/15/ap/politics/main4451553.shtml

-Former GOP House leader says Cheney misled him on Iraq
The vice president told Dick Armey, who in 2002 spoke against going to war, that Saddam Hussein had direct ties to Al Qaeda and would soon have a suitcase nuclear weapon, a new book says.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-na-cheney16-2008sep16,0,6816973.story?track=rss


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From the Blogs: Comparing the McCain/Palin's with Obama

..If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're exotic,different. Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.
If your name is Barack you're a radical,unpatriotic Muslim.

..Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick. Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

..Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

..If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the First Black President of the Harvard Law Review,create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people,become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
..If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
..If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian. ..If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian. If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
..If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.
..If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
..If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now !!

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