Necessary News

All you need to know to sound brilliant

Afghan Opium Crop Booms, Booms, Booms

• Bad news from The Other War: Opium cultivation in the country grew by 17 percent in 2007, reaching record levels for the second straight year, according to a United Nations report released Monday. [New York Times]
• Antonio Maria Costa, the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes Policy, which issued the report, called the new figures ““terrifying” and “very bad, very big and getting bigger.”
• A $600 million American counternarcotics effort helped increase the number of poppy-free provinces from 6 to 13, the report found, but Afghanistan still produces more than Colombia, Peru and Bolivia combined. It accounts for for 93 percent of the world’s opium, in 2007, up from 92 percent last year.
• And here’s the thing: The drugs are linked directly to the ever-growing Taliban insurgency. Western officials warn that insurgents use the drugs as currency that’s traded for weapons and bombs.
• The UN report notes that 3,000 metric tons of opium appear to not be reaching the world market and may be stockpiled in Afghanistan. Experts warn that the Taliban could be stockpiling the drug and planning to use it as a source of financing for years to come.

We’re betting that when Lindsay Lohan gets out of rehab (again), she books a flight to Kabul.

Anyone Want To Go To Iraq? Please? For $20,000?

• The Army missed their recruiting targets in May. Then they missed them again in June. So they decided to just hand out sacks of cash to anyone who’d join up. [NY Times] [Washington Post]
• Well, practically. Beginning July 25th, the Army offered a $20,000 “quick ship” bonus, equivalent to almost a years salary for soldiers without a college degree, to anyone who’d be willing to leave their home “within days” to begin basic combat training.
• Unsurprisingly, the program has been enticing. 90% of the new recruits who’ve signed up since the program began did so under “quick ship.”
• The targets for this program? Young people with an uncertain future, who may need additional incentive to join up.
• Says Cindy Williams, a military analyst at MIT, “The Army is intent on trying to meet its recruitment goals in terms of numbers by the end of the fiscal year, so they’re doing just about anything they can to bring those numbers up...To me it signals something that we’ve been seeing already from the Army, a trade-off in terms of quality and quantity. My sense is that right now, they’re willing to take anybody who is willing to walk in the door and ship by Sept. 30.”
• The Army also recently ordered a “surge in recruiters,” bringing 1,106 soldiers back to recruiting duty to help them meet the goal of 80,000 new recruits this year. [Army Times]

Desperate measures to continue an unpopular war.

Gonzales Gone-zo.

The Story

• The controversy exploded in recent months, as Gonzales contradicted himself multiple times in hearings before Congress about the politically motivated firings of 9 U.S. attorneys and the White House thuggish tactics to implement the warrantless wiretapping program in 2004. [Washington Post]
• (Refresh your memory with a short history of the Legacy of Gonzo.) [Mic Check July]
• The attorney general gave a short statement to the press. He did not give a reason for leaving. He did not take questions from the press.
• Just this past May, Gonzales said he would *not* resign from his post, saying it was too important to America’s children to have him in office A senior Justice Department official said that a likely temporary replacement for Gonzales is Solicitor General Paul Clement. And according to the DC rumor mill, a front runner to permanently take his place would be current head of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff.

The Audio

Alberto Gonzales Press Conference

• Yesterday I met with President Bush and informed him of my decision to conclude my government service as Attorney General of the United States, effective September 17, 2007.
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President Bush’s Press Conference

• This morning, attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced he will leave the Department of Justice after two-and-a-half years of service to the Department. Al Gonzales is a man of integrity, decency and principle, and I have reluctantly accepted his resignation with great appreciation for the service he has provided for the country.
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• After months of unfair treatment that created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department, Judge Gonzales decided to resign his position and I accept his decision
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• It’s sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work because his good name is dragged though the mud for political reasons.
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Reaction From The Senate

• Sen. Chuck Schumer: “Under this attorney general, sadly, the Department of Justice had less credibility than even FEMA. Under Alberto Gonzales, the Department of Justice was a sinking ship. The president now has an opportunity to right the ship and chart a new course.”
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• Sen. Patrick Leahy: “I’ve been there with six presidents. I cannot think of a single one where there’s been this kind of wholesale absence of people in charge. It’s hard to tell who’s in charge down there anymore.”
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• Sen. Patrick Leahy: “This president and the Department of Justice suffered a severe crisis of leadership that allowed our justice system to become corrupted by political influence. It is a shame, and it is the Justice Department, the American people and the dedicated professionals of our law enforcement community who have suffered the most from it.”
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• Sen. John Cornyn (inappropriate torture analogy coming in three…two…one…): “I think he was probably just worn down by the criticism. This sort of thing has a Chinese water torture effect of drip drip drip drip...”
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At least Cornyn didn’t call it “waterboarding.”

Ground Zero Workers Can’t Breathe

• A new study released yesterday by the New York City Department of Health shows Ground Zero workers are twelve times more likely than normal to have asthma. [CBS News]
• The numbers: 3.6% of the 25,000 people who worked on the debris at Ground Zero after the terror attacks have developed asthma. That’s 12x the expected rate.
• According to the study: “The risk was significantly elevated for fire and rescue workers, medical workers, and police and military personnel compared to volunteers.” [Washington Post]
• Similar studies showed 70% of everyone who worked at Ground Zero contracted lung problems. [NY Times]
• Then-EPA head Christine Todd Whitman has said that while she pushed for workers to wear respiratory protection at Ground Zero, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani fought her on it, blocking her efforts. [NY Daily News]
• Grain of salt time: Just 7 days after the attacks, Whitman told America “I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C., that the air is safe to breathe.”
• Also, in the days after the attacks, the White House stripped danger warnings and pressured the EPA to add falsely reassuring language to reports about the safety of air and water quality around the site. [CBS News]
• In 2003, a report from the EPA inspector general Nikki L. Tinsley found the White House “convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones.” For example, the “EPA was convinced to omit from its early public statements guidance for cleaning indoor spaces and tips on potential health effects from airborne dust containing asbestos, lead, glass fibers and concrete.” [CBS News]

The World Trade Center Health Registry tracks the long-term health effects of Ground Zero on rescue workers.

The Child Soldiers of Iraq

• Child soldiers, notorious in conflicts that rage in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are arising from the radicalization and desperation of a new battlefield: Iraq. [LA Times]
• Militant groups and militias in Iraq are increasingly using children to assist with “kidnappings, killings and roadside bombings” in clashes with U.S. forces and sectarian violence, reports the LA Times.
• There are now more young Iraqi boys (800, up from only 100 in March) than foreign fighters (130) held in U.S. detention camps. No doubt much less fun than summer camp.
• Militias use boys, some as young as eleven, to lay roadside bombs and lure would-be-kidnapping victims. Militants pay the boys families, sometimes as much as $200-$300 dollars, enough to feed a family for several months, for use of their child.
• 85% of the child soldiers seem to be coming from Sunni regions in the north and west, but the Shi’ite Mehdi Army, led by Muqtada al’Sadr, also recruits kids into their ranks.
• On August 13th, U.S. forces opened a school/detention center at Camp Crocker to hold ballooning levels of arrested children. But they’ve been having discipline problems: in December, at the old facility, guards put down a riot of 240 boys who “ripped toilets from the floor and hurled stones and concrete” Their solution? Harry Potter books translated into Arabic (no joke).

Harry Potter: riot suppressant.

Good News, Bad News

Viagra: It’s not just for bumping-and-grinding. Turns out, it’s also for making love. Impotence drugs such as Viagra may do more than help men physically have sex — they may also boost levels of a hormone linked with feelings of love, U.S. researchers reported last week. Let’s check out the pros and cons. [Reuters]

GOOD NEWS

Add some candles and rose petals to your bow-chica-wow-wow.

BAD NEWS

More Bob Dole commercials.

Quote Of The Day

“What’s happening is Congress is really politicizing the Justice Department, unfairly so and dangerously so, because there are so many important law important functions that go on there.”

—Administration lap-dog, former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.

Yes, that’s right despite, Alberto Gonzales’s firing of attorney’s for political reasons, the unprecedented access he gave to the White House political team, the hiring of attorneys based on their loyalty to the Republican party, and his lying and dissembling under oath about the Administration spying program, it’s Congress that’s politicizing the Justice Department. [Think Progress]

Speed Round

BUSTED

Idaho GOP Sen. Larry Craig pleads guilty to lewd behavior in the men’s room of a Minneapolis airport. Thank goodness for family values. [USA Today]

BURGLED OFFICE

Burglars rob Sen. Chris Dodd’s office in Hartford, CT, taking “undisclosed” objects and, more disturbingly, leaving “something” behind. [AP]

TRAGEDY

Motorcycle cop in Bush motorcade dies in tragic crash just one year after the last motorcade cop had a fatal accident. [USA Today]

KICK THE KORAN

As part of their attempt to “win hearts and minds” of Muslims in Afghanistan, the U.S. hands out soccer balls printed with various flags, including the Saudi Arabian flag…which contains verses from the Koran. Because there’s nothing a devout Muslim likes more than putting texts from the Koran on the ground and kicking them around. (Yes, there were protests.) [AFP via Raw Story]

SCARY

DC metro stations fill with smoke for the second night in a row. We’re officially walking to work. [Washington Post]

BAD PEOPLE

It turns out Americans are selling illegal weapons to Iraqi insurgents to use against other Americans. The Ninth Circle of Hell reports it’s readying extra rooms. Hot ones. With dirty linens. [NY Times]

SPY CENTRAL

Ten people are finally arrested in connection with the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. [Fox News]

IRAQ DEATH COUNT

Despite all you’ve heard about the relative security gains of Bush’s escalation plan, the death toll from sectarian violence on Iraq’s streets is twice what it was one year ago. [Washington Post]

DE-BAATHIFICATION

A group of Shi’te, Sunni and Kurdish Iraqi leaders have agreed on a plan that would release thousands of former members of Saddam Hussein’s political party from prison and allow many to hold government jobs. The plan, however, is expected to “face a stiff battle in Iraq’s divided parliament.” [Washington Post]

ANOTHER WORLD WAR

Zalmay Khalilzad, America’s ambassador to the UN, says that current turmoil in the Middle East reminds him of Europe before the World Wars: “Europe was just as dysfunctional for a while. And some of its wars became world wars.” [Raw Story]

TRAGEDY

Translator for CBS News is abducted, murdered by Iraqi insurgents. [CBS News]

HOUSING BUBBLE

The ratio of unsold homes to the pace at which people are buying them is the highest since 1999. I.e. don’t talk to your real estate agent friends...they’re too busy ripping their hair out. [Reuters]

JUST PLAIN AWESOME

“Snowmaking Guns Used to Fight Idaho Fire” [AP]

SERIOUSLY. CAN AUGUST END?

“Parents Begin Potty Training at Birth” [AP]

IT’S EASY BEING GREEN

Solar power: sleek, efficient, and getting a whole lot cheaper. [USA Today]