Source: Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — The general election’s most competitive Terre Haute City Council district race will not have a Republican challenging the Democrat in the contest.

... The Vigo County Republican Party did not fill any of the four City Council candidate vacancies, or for the city judge and city clerk openings, in its ballot for the upcoming election.

The party only has one candidate for the City Council at-large seats. Two more at-large hopefuls could’ve been nominated since voters will elect three of the candidates to the City Council.

Republican Party chairman Bill Treadway especially wanted to fill the slots in the 6th District and city judge races since no incumbents were running, but ultimately couldn’t find people to fill the ticket.


Read more: http://www.tribstar.com/local/local_story_...

Source: Editor & Publisher

In a remarkable column today, Clark Hoyt, the newly arrived public editor at The New York Times, charges that the Times in recent weeks has too often gone along with the new drive by the White House and the military to blame insurgent attacks on al-Qaeda. The column arrives on the same day the paper calls for a U.S. pullout in Iraq. .

... Today, Hoyt charges that the Times "in recent weeks as the newspaper has slipped into a routine of quoting the president and the military uncritically about Al Qaeda’s role in Iraq — and sometimes citing the group itself without attribution.

... "There is plenty of evidence that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is but one of the challenges facing the United States military and that overemphasizing it distorts the true picture of what is happening there. While a president running out of time and policy options may want to talk about a single enemy that Americans hate and fear in the hope of uniting the country behind him, journalists have the obligation to ask tough questions about the accuracy of his statements."

Read more: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/ne...

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Federal agents do not need a search warrant to monitor a suspect's computer use and determine the e-mail addresses and Web pages the suspect is contacting, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

In a drug case from San Diego County, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco likened computer surveillance to the "pen register" devices that officers use to pinpoint the phone numbers a suspect dials, without listening to the phone calls themselves.

... In Friday's ruling, the court said computer users should know that they lose privacy protections with e-mail and Web site addresses when they are communicated to the company whose equipment carries the messages.

... Expert evidence in Alba's case showed that the Web addresses obtained by federal agents included page numbers that allowed the agents to determine what someone read online, Crowley said.

Read more: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c...

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Former World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz, who resigned amid a furor over his handling of a bank pay package for his girlfriend, has joined the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank, as a visiting scholar.

AEI's president, Christopher DeMuth, made the announcement Monday. Wolfowitz will work on entrepreneurship and development issues, Africa and public-private partnerships, the group said in a release.

Wolfowitz's last day as head of the World Bank, a major poverty-fighting institution, was on Saturday, ending a stormy two-year run.


Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/bus...

Source: ABC News

A secret U.S. law enforcement report, prepared for the Department of Homeland Security, warns that al Qaeda is planning a terror "spectacular" this summer, according to a senior official with access to the document.

"This is reminiscent of the warnings and intelligence we were getting in the summer of 2001," the official told ABCNews.com.

U.S. officials have kept the information secret, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that the United States did not have "have any specific credible evidence that there's an attack focused on the United States at this point."

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=333...

We already had the "al-Qaida scuba diver" scare back in 2002 ... and again in 2005. They're so short on fresh scare tactics that they have to recycle the old ones?

http://www.blythe.org/nytransfer-subs/Midd...
June 2, 2002
With security beefed up on the Brooklyn Bridge roadway, officials invoked the threat of al-Qaeda scuba divers launching an underwater attack.

http://stopnewworldorder.tripod.com/stopne...
The Sunday Times - Britain
April 24, 2005
SECURITY chiefs fear Al-Qaeda terrorists trained as scuba divers could mount attacks against a royal review of the fleet being held to mark the 200th anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar.

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected public school assignment plans that take account of students’ race.

The decision in cases affecting schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide, and it leaves public school systems with a limited arsenal to maintain racial diversity.

The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court’s judgment. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a dissent that was joined by the court’s other three liberals.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19475846 /

http://americanresearchgroup.com/nhpoll /

June 28, 2007

Bush Job Approval Ratings in NH
6/26/07 Approve Disapprove Undecided
Overall 14% 79% 7%
Economy 18% 74% 8%

http://www.sacbee.com/acuna/story/237234.h...

How rare is it these days for a reader to write a letter to the paper supporting President George W. Bush?

Well, visualize quietly efficient editorial workers diligently digging through the hundreds of e-mails, letters, faxes and online offerings submitted by The Bee's readers each week.

Days and days go by until, finally, one suddenly appears, like a glimmering gold nugget in a clear Sierra stream: a letter praising the president.

Eureka!

It brings a smile to Bill Moore's face, not to mention a sense of relief.

Moore is the paper's letters editor. He has the task of selecting the eight to 10 readers' letters published on the editorial pages most days.

... "We'd love to put pro-Bush letters in," he said. "If a letter like that comes in, it goes to the top of the list. I make a big deal about it.

Source: The Observer

Tony Blair yesterday used his last official foreign engagement before leaving office to tell Pope Benedict he wanted to become a Roman Catholic, a Vatican source said last night.

But, in talks lasting more than half an hour, the outgoing Prime Minister was left in no doubt that the Pope took a dim view of his record in office. A statement issued afterwards by the Vatican said there had been a 'frank exchange of views'.

Read more: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/st...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113455

The following 144 journalists made campaign contributions from 2004 through the first quarter of 2007, according to Federal Election Commission records studied by MSNBC.com.

excerpts -- names redacted by me
D) Star Tribune, Minneapolis, xxx, copy editor.
(D) Detroit Free Press, xxx, copy editor.
(R) The Miami Herald, xxx, copy editor/page designer.
(D) The San Diego Union-Tribune, xxx, copy editor.
(D) The Sun, Baltimore, xxx, copy editor.
(D) San Jose Mercury News, xxx, sports editor.
(D) Boston Herald, xxx, news librarian.
(D) Fort Worth Star-Telegram, xxx, sports copy editor.
(D) The Hartford Courant, xxx, copy editor.
(D) The Hartford Courant, xxx, copy editor.
(D) Richmond Times-Dispatch, xxx, copy editor.
(D) The Honolulu Advertiser, xxx, wire editor.
(D) The Blade, Toledo, xxx, copy editor.
(D) Lexington Herald-Leader, xxx, copy desk chief.
(D) The Lincoln, Neb., Journal Star, xxx, copy editor.
(R) The Macon, Ga., Telegraph, xxx, local government reporter.
(D) New Hampshire Union Leader, xxx, sports copy editor.
(D) York, Pa., Daily Record, xxx, copy editor.
(D) Fort Wayne, Ind., News-Sentinel, xxx, copy editor.
(D) Fort Wayne, Ind., News-Sentinel, xxx, copy editor.
(D) Martha's Vineyard, Mass., Times, xxx, copy editor.

Accompanying story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113485

---

If ever there were a reason to get out of the business now, this witch hunt on the part of MSNBC is it. Reading this made me tingle with revulsion over how similar this is to a "communist" witch hunt. Even if such donations are "wrong" -- and, at most news organizations, they are -- spotlighting these very minor people in a national forum is hugely out of proportion to the alleged "crimes" they've committed. Most, if not all, of these people will find themselves unemployed because of this one article -- and, thanks to "the Google," chances are that their entire journalism careers have just ended forever, without so much as a whimper.

Source: Associated Press

Wal-Mart, furthering a lucrative push to offer financial services to its customers, will sell prepaid Visa debit cards that would allow millions of low-income shoppers who don't have bank accounts to keep up with an increasingly cashless society.

... The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. estimates that 40 million American households are “unbanked” or “underbanked”, meaning they do not have accounts at financial institutions and often pay excessive fees for basic financial services.

... The Wal-Mart MoneyCard costs $8.95 to buy and $4.95 for monthly maintenance. Cash can be loaded on the card for free by cashing a payroll or government check at Wal-Mart or direct depositing. Otherwise it costs $4.64 to reload the card.


Read more: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/busines...

Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Police are investigating the disappearance of Seattle radio personality Mike Webb, the former liberal talk-show host for KIRO-AM radio who was convicted of insurance fraud earlier this year.

Webb, 52, was last seen by family or friends on April 13, according to a missing-person report filed in May with the Seattle Police Department.

... Webb's Queen Anne home appeared on Friday to have long been abandoned. An eviction warning was affixed to his front door, advising that June's rent had not been paid.

... According to the missing-person report, Webb's family was concerned for his safety because he had recently been spending time with a "shady character" that had previously taken a car from Webb. Police declined to release the individual's name.

Read more: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/320144...

Source: Canadian Press

CALGARY (CP) - A pair of anti-corporate activists may have pulled off a bizarre prank at the Go Expo Energy conference. Footage was broadcast on a television station Thursday from an online site called theenergynews.com showing members of a group called the Yes Men posing as key players from the U.S. oil industry.

... At first, the speech just seemed odd.

"Without oil, at least four billion people would starve," one of the speakers earnestly told the crowd. "This spiral of trouble would make the oil infrastructure utterly useless.

"And starving would become the new black."

When the speaker started to talk about vivolium - a renewable energy source nobody in the room had ever heard of - the red flags started to go up.

But once the pair lit up two torch-like candles and urged the audience to do the same in memory of a dead Exxon oil worker, attendees and organizers realized they'd been had.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/070614/K0614...

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

The California Republican Party has decided no American is qualified to take one of its most crucial positions -- state deputy political director -- and has hired a Canadian for the job through a coveted H-1B visa, a program favored by Silicon Valley tech firms that is under fire for displacing skilled American workers.

Christopher Matthews, 35, a Canadian citizen, has worked for the state GOP as a campaign consultant since 2004. But he recently was hired as full-time deputy political director, with responsibility for handling campaign operations and information technology for the country's largest state Republican party operation, California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring confirmed in a telephone interview this week.

In the nation's most populous state -- which has produced a roster of nationally known veteran political consultants -- "it's insulting but also embarrassing ... to bring people from the outside who don't know the difference between Lodi and Lancaster ... and who can't even vote,'' said Karen Hanretty, a political commentator and former state GOP party spokeswoman.

Read more: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c...