2005
10.27

Miers withdraws nomination

Breaking News from CNN: President Bush "reluctantly" accepts Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers’s request to withdraw her nomination.


2005
10.27

The Dutch are gearing up for climate change with amphibious houses. If rivers rise above their banks, the houses simply rise upwards as well. Such innovation could be good news for hurricane and flood-stunned America. But are water lovers prepared to live on swimming family arks? Could this be an answer for New Orleans, too? So asks Spiegel Online in this interesting article.


2005
10.26

Between Democracy and Civil War

"As of this week, Iraq is a democracy. On paper. But for this experiment to work, Iraq’s new elite has to think beyond ethnic and religious categories. The threat of civil war continues to loom if the once-powerful Sunni minority gets shut out." You can read the article here at Spiegel Online and please let us know what you think.


2005
10.26

The Washington Post reports: Gigantic oil companies generally do not enjoy the best PR.

Pick your poison: Oil companies have caused tanker spills, proposed drilling into the Arctic wildlife ranges, crafted ties to shady nations and meddled in the affairs of others, and produced products that pollute.

Now, even as high gasoline prices continue to anger motorists and aggravate financial problems at General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., the oil companies have begun to report record quarterly profit. Yesterday, British energy giant BP PLC reported a $6.53 billion third-quarter profit, up from $4.87 billion in the same period last year. And tomorrow, analysts expect Exxon Mobil Corp. to show that it earned nearly $9 billion over the past three months — the largest corporate quarterly profit ever.


2005
10.26

The Mercury News reports: Google confirmed on Tuesday the creation of Google Base, a service that potentially expands the company’s reach into online classifieds — and into the territory of Internet auctioneer eBay and craigslist.


2005
10.25

Leak Said to Come From Cheney

From the Washington Post: The New York Times this morning reports that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby apparently first learned that Joseph Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent from none other than his boss — Vice President Cheney.
This new revelation suggests that special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity has reached even closer to the vice president than was previously known.


2005
10.25

Iraqis approve new constitution

BBC reports: Iraq’s new constitution has been approved, according to official results from the nationwide referendum held earlier this month.


2005
10.24

Interesting interview from Newsweek: Why Disasters Are Getting Worse. Scary!  "If nothing is done to cushion the blow of natural disasters, they declared, by 2010 some 50 million people around the world could be driven from their homes annually." You can read the interview here and please let us know your thoughts.


2005
10.24

Bush names Greenspan successor

On Monday, Oct. 24, 2004, President Bush nominated Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, to succeed Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Here is Ben S. Bernanke’s Profile from the Washington Post.