Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Your Morning News 3.25.08
Posted by Josh in A's, hillary clinton, Iraq, Pakistan, President Bush, Red Sox, Soot, UN
Quick side note, it’s 6:30 am and my Red Sox are losing to the damn A’s. That doesn’t really matter, because baseball is back.
Big news out of Iraq as President Bush yesterday conferred with General Patraeus and Ambassador David Crocker on the future of Iraq. The President acknowledged the sacrifices made so far but said that the US troops are doing little but try to police a civil war and it is time for them to start coming home. PSYCH. Actually he said that he was stopping the currently reductions in troop levels until at least after July–though probably until he gets tossed out of the White House next January.
The UN, Presidential Campaigns, Soot, and Pakistan after the jump.
The LA Times leads with a rare bit of international news. The UN World Food Program has launched an emergency fund raising campaign. If they can’t raise $500 million by May 1, rations in areas that depend on the UN provides food will have to be cut because of rising food prices. You can donate to the food program here. I recommend you do so even if they do have a picture of Drew Barrymore on their main page. This would be the issue to raise at work because it hits a trifecta of making you seem like a smart guy: foreign countries, macroeconomics, and rasing money for charity.
The Presidential campaign continues unabated. Senator Clinton unveiled a plan to deal with the nation’s housing crisis yesterday in a speech she gave in Philadelphia. Politically, it was a clear attempt to differentiate herself by giving a speech on pocketbook issues so soon after Senator Obama gave a loftier speech on race last week. Practically, I don’t really believe that any of the candidates will be able to pull us out of the recession. The Washington Post also has a profile of the campaign in Indiana, saying that it is shaping up as a remarkably fair and even contest. All I read was that it isn’t until May 6, and I threw up a little in my mouth.
A study released this week says that soot plays a larger roll in global warming than previously thought. This is cool because soot is easy to remove from the atmosphere, and not cool because it guarantees that every global warming denier is now going to cite this report as a way to avoid making hard choices about carbon emissions and as a way to mock Al Gore.
Finally, apparently while I was moving Pakistan up and elected themselves a new Prime Minister. His name is Yousaf Raza Gillani, and yesterday he ordered that all federal judges be freed from house arrest. Musharraf imprisoned a whole bunch of judges, including the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, last year when he tried to suspend the Pakistani constitution to extend his terms in office and to give himself more power.