Necessary News

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Army Ends Welcome Home Festivities For U.S. Troops

• Here’s one way to save a buck: Cancel all Welcome Home parties for returning U.S. soldiers.
• What? You think that sounds mean and like a terrible way to support our men and women in uniform? Hey, don’t blame us. That’s what the cash-strapped U.S. Army in Europe has decided to do. [Stars and Stripes]
• Usually, when soldiers come home from serving overseas, there’s a long-standing tradition of a small community party, with free food, rides and other festivities for the returning soldiers and their families.
• But according to Stars and Stripes, that’s now ending. “In response to continuing financial strains, U.S. Army Europe has canceled all welcome home celebrations for units returning from deployment through this fiscal year.”
• How much cash will this actually save? No one knows. “As of press time Thursday, USAREUR was unable to say how much the command would save by canceling the events, or what a celebration typically costs.”

Thank you for your service. There will be a cash bar.

Bad News Budget

For everything you want to know about the budget, check out our InstaExpert Today. [InstaExpert]

Here’s a peek at some of the bad news we’ve found:

• Bad news for the poor and elderly: The president’s budget will slash the budgets for Medicare and Medicade by $96 billion. [Washington Post]
• Bad news for the poor: The budget changes food stamp rules, effectively kicking 185,000 Americans out of the food stamp program. [WSJ]
• Bad news for the sick: The budget would cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by about $500 million. [WSJ]
• Bad news for the troubled: The budget would cut grants for programs that help troubled juveniles and abused women. [WSJ]
• Bad news for the disabled: The budget would slash funds for the Office of Disability Employment Policy by 32%, from $28 million down to $19 million. [WSJ]
• Bad news for veterans: The budget would institute higher enrollment fees for health care for vets, plus increase their copayments for medications. [WSJ]
• Bad news for safety: The budget cuts grants for state and local law enforcment by 70%, from $1.82 billion last year to $542 million this year. [WSJ]

Sorry for all the downers — we’ll find something doubly happy for you tomorrow.

Further Prove Life’s Not Fair: The World’s Poor are Hit Hardest By Global Warming

• Mom always said life’s not fair — and she wasn’t just whistlin’ dixie. [Reuters]
• On Monday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told environmental ministers from around the world that the world’s poor, who are the least responsible for global warming, will suffer the most from climate change.
• Take, for example, Africa. Even though the continent produces the lowest amount of greenhouse gases, its people will feel the brunt of global warming produced catastrophes, due mainly to its poverty, under-development and geography.
• Already, desertification round the Sahara and the shrinking of Mount Kilimanjaro’s snow-cap have become terrifying symbols in Africa of the global environment crisis.
• Ban Ki-moon’s warnings came on the heels of the 100-nation global warming talks taking place this week in Paris, where a U.N. panel has said that there was a more than 90 percent chance humans were behind most of the warming in the past five decades.
• U.N. officials hope the report will spur nations — particularly the United States, the top emitter — and companies to do more to cut greenhouse gases, released mainly by cars, factories and power plants fuelling modern lifestyles.

Normally, we’d use some “It’s hot in here!” joke. But really, you’ve heard it enough. And frankly, so have we.

Senatorial Combat: Conservatives Block Iraq War Debate

• All they wanted was a vote. Partisan intransigence derailed debate and stopped a vote on a series of bipartisan resolutions expressing condemnation for Bush’s plan to escalate troop presence in Iraq. [AP]
• Disagreement between Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) over how the bills would be presented stalled debate and kept Reid from passing a “motion to proceed”(allowing a vote to be held). [Politico]
• The Senate has to move onto other business on Wednesday (they’ve got to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded) so tthis delay means the resolution may not be considered at all.
  
• At issue? Well, it depends who you ask. An anonymous aide suggested that McConnell is trying to avoid a vote because he knows a majority of the Senate, including members of his own party, would oppose the escalation.
• Others insist that these threats are a whole lot of nothin’: “a lot of bluster and posturing.”
• Unexpected highlight of the floor debate? A one hour interlude in which Senator Robert Byrd extolled the virtues of Loretta Lynn and oxygen while advocating the rights of coal miners.

Here’s audio from the whole shebang:

• Senator Joe Biden on the importance of the debate: “Iraq dominates our national life. It’s on the minds of tens of millions of Americans. It shapes the lives of hundreds of thousands of men and women in uniform and their families. And if the Senate would not debate, much less vote on, the single most urgent issue of our time, would be a total forfeiture of our responsibility.”
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• Senator Joe Biden on the importance of holding Senators accountable: “Every senator should be given a chance to vote on whether he or she approves or disapproves of the President’s tactic to send more troops into the middle of a civil war.”
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• But Senator Joe Lieberman says the main resolution was a sham anyway: “When we send a message of irresolution it does not support our troops.”
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• Despite the setback, Majority Leader Harry Reid says the debate will continue: “This does not end the debate on Iraq. It may end the debate for a few days, for a few weeks, but remember we’ve got the 9/11 commission recommendations coming and that is open to amendments and I guarantee everybody there will be Iraq amendents. The supplementary bill is coming, that’s costing to fund the war in Iraq, basically, more than 100 billion dollars. I think that there will very likely, Madame President, be a number of amendments dealing with Iraq in that. You can run but you can’t hide. We are going to debate Iraq.”
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And now, the honorable Senator from West Virginia:

• Senator Robert Byrd on Oxygen: “The miner act required additional oxygen. Ah! I can only live with oxygen. You can only live with oxygen. You, Mr. President, can only live with oxygen. You can’t live without it… long. I mean by that, without it, a few, f-e-w…minutes, oxygen. It’s been around since Adam and Eve inhabited the garden of Eden.”
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• Senator Robert Byrd on Loretta Lynn and coal miner’s daughters: “Yes, I married a coal miner’s daughter. You heard the song. “I’m a coal miner’s daughter.” By whom? By Loretta Lynn. I married a coal miner’s daughter…a long time ago.”
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Slippery Slope to Science Fiction: U.S. to Expand DNA Sampling

• Get ready to reveal your base-pairs, folks. Included in a recent crime bill is a provision that allows “DNA collecting from anyone under criminal arrest by federal authorities.” [NY Times]
• The new provision aims make DNA sampling as common as fingerprinting, drawing praise from law-enforcement, victims organizations and women’s groups who say this will make it easier to track down sexual predators.
• The most controversial aspect of the provision calls for DNA sampling from the hundreds of thousands of people detained as illegal immigrants.
• Said David Leopold, an immigration layer: “To equate somebody with a possible immigration violation in the same category as a suspected sex offender is an outrage.”
• Not only that, but DNA potentially offers much more information than a mere fingerprint. Even Peter Neufeld, a lawyer with “The Innocence Project” which uses DNA evidence to exonerate murderers says that “DNA profiles have the potential to reveal our physical diseases and mental disorders. It becomes intrusive when the government begins to mine our most intimate matters.”
• The new rules will mean a huge influx of up to one million DNA samples which will put a strain on already overburdened federal crime labs currently struggling to tackle over 150,000 samples that await analysis.

Have these people really never seen Gattaca?

Good News, Bad News

The days of Granny Smith apples and red plums are gone. Long gone. Thanks to genetics, hybrid fruits have become the latest trend at your local grocery store. Dapple Dandy Pluots, Cherokee Purple Tomatoes, and Mango Nectarines have blossomed into a $100 million business. Let’s check out the pros and the cons. [ABC]

GOOD NEWS

We get to say fun things like “pluots” and “apriums.”

BAD NEWS

What the hell are pluots and apriums?

Quote Of The Day

“Well, I think Oprah’s clean. She does douche.”

Panelist on Fox’s new show “Red Eye” giving an example of “clean” African American leaders besides Senator Barack Obama (a reaction to Senator Joe Biden’s comments last week). [Think Progress]

Speed Round

HELL NO, WATADA WON’T GO

Court Martial begins for anti-war soldier who refuses to deploy to Iraq. [CNN]

CASUALTIES OF WAR

1,000: According to the Iraq Ministry of the Interior, the number of Iraqis killed this past week, “due to gunbattles, drive-by shootings and bomb attacks.” [CNN]

2008

Mayor Giuliani files his “statement of candidacy.” [Washington Post]

REHAB

Newest advocate of the Rehab Cleanse: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome, fresh off a scandalous affair, enters alcohol treatment rehab. [NY Times]

WEIRD

Female Space Shuttle Astronaut arrested for trying to kidnap a woman she thought was involved with an astronaut she loved. Far out. [USA Today]

CRIME LEVEES DON’T HOLD

Katrina spurred social disintegration has made New Orleans the murder capital of the United States. 2/3 of murders go unsolved. [NY Times]

ARMEY’S LACK OF LOVE FOR TOM DELAY

Rep. Dick Armey, former GOP leader of the House, on his bosom friend Tom DeLay: “I don’t believe he’s a good person, and I don’t believe he is a person who should have been in public office… I don’t like sneaky, conniving people.” [Miami Herald]

BOBBY’S GOT A GUN

The world has 250,000 child soldiers, and a conference in Paris is determined to demobilize them. [AP]

CIVIL WAR PROBLEMS

Here’s the trouble with getting involved in a civil war: by cracking down on the Shi’ite Mahdi army, the U.S. has made Shi’ite civilians vulnerable to attacks from Sunni militants. It’s not getting any easier…[NY Times]

CAR-JACKING

Hyundai’s Chairman Chung Mong Koo sentenced to three years in prison for embezzlement. Beck sings: “baby, step inside my squad car.” [Bloomberg]

SAUDI JUSTICE

Riyadh Bandstand isn’t very fun: Saudi government catches 433 foreigners attending a party with booze, dancing, orders 20 to get the lash. [Fox News]

CONVENIENT

Putin’s fierce critic and former president of Russia’s biggest oil company faces 15 years in prison for embezzlement and money laundering. [Al Jazeera]

COOL

For some reason, we’re really digging this: In a recent speech, former Vice President Al Gore took questions from the audience…by text message. [Washington Times]

ENGLISH-ONLY

More than half of Iowa residents want to scrap their 5-year-old English-only law. [Des Moines Register]

COLLEGE KICKER UPDATE

Southern California kicker Mario Danelo had a blood-alcohol level of 0.23 when he fell off a cliff to his death last month. (That’s 3x the legal state limit.) [Houston Chronicle]

DEAD DUCKS MAKE US NERVOUS

What killed 418 ducks in the area around a Colorado water treatment plant? No one knows, but we’ve seen “Outbreak” and are officially nervous. [Rocky Mountain News]

WAL MART TO WALL STREET

Wal Mart reports its worst annual growth in 25 years, commence wailing. [UPI]

NATO BOOTS: MADE FOR KICKING OUT TALIBAN

NATO Forces kill “key Taliban Official”. [CNN]