Friday, April 4, 2008
Your Morning News 4.4.08
Posted by Josh in Airlines, Iraq, NATO, Polls, Your Morning News
Maybe I am unduly affected by the weather, but today’s news seems uniformly depressing. There is not even a single story driving any of the coverage. It is a bit all over the place, but there are a few things you should check up on.
The biggest story today is that whistleblowers testified to Congress that federal officials have been overlooking or thwarting major airline inspections. The main airline affected seems to be Southwest, but the issue shines a light on the close relationship that airlines have with their federal regulators. This is the kind of story that only expands. If it comes up at the office, say that we should either nationalize or completely privatize the airlines (flip a coin). Also say that even with cracked fuselages it is still better than Amtrack.
Do you like summits? If so, you should think about getting involved in NATO. President Bush passed part of his agenda at a NATO summit yesterday, getting countries to back the concept of a missile-defense system in Europe. However, he couldn’t get the member-nations to agree to let in Georgia (this one) and Ukraine. This probably won’t come up, but if it does it is pretty much always OK to make fun of a missile shield.
The fighting is Basra and Baghdad has largely died down, and the New York Times has a review of how the Iraqi security forces performed. Let’s just say, not so hot.
Finally, a new poll says that 81% of the nation says we are on the wrong track. That is the highest percentage since the New York Times began doing these polls in 1990. After reading today’s headlines, I can’t imagine why anyone would say that.
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