Bush rejects Iraq timetables, but election has clock ticking In the 1992 election, Democratic strategist James Carville summed up the dominant theme of the campaign with the phrase it's the economy, stupid. This year, it's the Iraq war. Polls show...
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How drinking damages lungs
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By Linda Chavez November 3, 2006 Voters in eight states will decide Tuesday whether to amend their constitutions to ensure that marriage continues to be an institution limited to one man and one woman.
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By Bruce Fein November 3, 2006 Suppose the United States Supreme Court was divided 4-4 in every major constitutional case because the ninth justice was recused from participating.
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Because the Democratic Party is in such intellectual and moral decline, the Republicans should be eking out victory next week.
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Central Europe is in turmoil, and the European left is ecstatic about it.
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Conservatives who are upset that Republicans haven't done enough during their 12 years in control of the House and Senate and nearly six years in control of the White House need a slap in the face.
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Britain's armed forces are understaffed, with rising numbers of personnel quitting early, a Whitehall watchdog says. Do you agree?
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The fun of fireworks seems to be overshadowed by anti-social behaviour. Do you dread Bonfire Night?
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Scientists have warned that fish stocks throughout the world could be wiped out by 2048. Should we stop catching fish?
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So much for getting the money out of politics: Candidates rushed out more than 600 new television ads ahead of network deadlines for the weekend, with many Republicans trying to shift attention from Iraq and President Bush to local issues...
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"San Francisco Values."...
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Hey, here's a new one: comparing Karl Rove to a tobacco executive. Tom Freidman writes: Everyone says that Karl Rove is a genius. Yeah, right. So are cigarette companies. They get you to buy cigarettes even though we know they...
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More on the dust up in the Minnesota Governor's race I mentioned last night over DFL Lt. Gov candidate Judy Dutcher's inability to answer a question about E-85 ethanol during a debate. The Minneapolis Star reports on the rather humorous...
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Here's an interesting contrast. The Denver Post runs a front page story playing up the fact that 5,400 new Latinos have registered to vote in Colorado since July 1: The number of Colorado Latinos who registered to vote has increased...
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Why are young black males in the UK and the US more likely to get sent to prison than any other ethnic group?
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It makes perfect sense for progressives to champion military officers' criticisms of President Bush's war policy, says the American Prospect. It should just be done with a note of caution.
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The National Review Online says neither the Democrats nor the Republicans offer a plausible strategy for dealing with Iraq; in fact, both parties seem eager to avoid the issue altogether.
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(Courtesy Lynn Sherr)Each week we invite someone from outside PE to weigh in with their thoughts about CBS News and the media at large. This week, we turned to Lynn Sherr, author of the recent memoir Outside The Box about her experiences in television news, and a correspondent for ABC News" "20/20." She has also written about television news for The Huffington Post. Below, Sherr wonders if the remote control has a little bit too much control over how we see the news on television these days. As always, the opinions expressed and factual assertions made in "Outside Voices" are those of the author, not ours, and we seek a wide variety of voices. Blame it on the clicker. You know, the remote control that lets us fly through the channels like a greased tele-surfer without having to pause for commercials. Or content. It"s the clicker that"s made those of us in the TV news business compete, not only with other newsgatherers, but with everything from 30-second souffl s to "Law and Order" reruns to classic cartoons. Time was, if you wanted to change the channel (back in the misty days when the maximum was 13), you had to get up from your easy chair, walk across the room, and turn (not punch) the dial, a physical activity that required at least a modicum of energy. A recent cartoon in The New Yorker got it best. It showed an older fellow on a couch next to a young boy, as both watched TV. The man is saying to the kid, with the scorn apparent in his face, "When I was a boy, I had to walk five miles through the snow to change the channel." Bingo. Now, our audiences sit back and work their thumbs, searching for the . what? . most captivating images . most engaging comments . the car crash, the sexy scene, the laughter. As I"ve been touring the country with my new book, Outside the Box: A Memoir, I"ve begged our viewers to give us more time - to finish a sentence, to ask a whole question, to get a whole answer. They could learn something. But I don"t hold out much hope.
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(CBS)But you might be soon if you"re not signed up for the Public Eye newsletter. Due to technical problems beyond my ability to understand, the anticipated November 1 launch of the newsletter has slipped just a bit. But rest assured, we"ll be up and running soon so sign up now by clicking here. Keep up with all the behind-the-scenes happenings at CBS and the sharpest insights on our changing media world at large. It"s coming soon to an in-box near you so act now and don"t get left behind.
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(AP Photo)Let's say you're, oh, I don't know, an evangelical preacher who has been accused of having a three-year sexual relationship with a male prostitute while using crystal meth. Media outlets aren't sure how to play the story, since no evidence, other than the word of the escort, has surfaced. What do you do? One hint: Don't step aside. When Mike Jones told a Denver radio station about his alleged relationship with Rev. Ted Haggard, who opposes gay rights (and presumably meth use, though I'd have to confirm that), many media outlets reacted cautiously. The Denver Post ran a small story. The national media waited to see how it would play out. But when Haggard stepped down, the kind of action that offers a solid news peg, he gave the press a green light to have at the story. In fairness, it looks like Haggard had little choice - according to the acting senior pastor at Haggard's church, "there is an admission of some guilt" from Haggard. Wrote the acting senior pastor in an e-mail to Church members: "It is important for you to know that he confessed to the overseers that some of the accusations against him are true."
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(AP)Last night I headed uptown for a panel called "Assignment Iraq," which was held in conjunction with the release of Columbia Journalism Review's 45th anniversary issue. The issue is an oral history of the Iraq war from the perspective of 47 journalists who have covered it, and at the panel five of them spoke about their experiences: Deborah Amos of NPR; Rajiv Chandrasekaran of The Washington Post; Ali Fadhil, an Iraqi doctor turned translator/stringer for western journalists; freelancer Patrick Graham, who spent a year in Fallujah; and photojournalist Chris Hondros. A lot of the evening involved the journalists simply telling stories from their time in Iraq. It was fascinating stuff. Much of the media criticism and analysis of this war has come from people who have not been there, so it was particularly refreshing to listen to people who have the experience to know what they are talking about tell their stories - stories about holidays in Fallujah, the driver mafia that manipulates Western journalists, and the way Iraqis see Americans. The page CJR has put up for its (excellent) special issue is here. Have a look. On the left side of the page, you'll find an MP3 of last night's panel. If you're interested in what's really going on in Iraq, it's very much worth a listen.
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(CBS)Taking in political advertisements for this year"s mid-term elections is "like drinking from a fire hose," said Brooks Jackson, a veteran journalist who has reported for the The Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal and CNN and is the director of FactCheck.org. It"s a non-partisan, non-profit element of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania that focuses on the practice of fact-checking the statements of politicians. FactCheck is a helpful resource for an election season in which political ads have been substantial - less so, perhaps, in content than sheer volume. The Washington Post reports today that candidates "rushed out more than 600 new television ads ahead of network deadlines for the weekend," topping off a spending spree this season that will reach more than $2 billion. That's according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, with whom the Post consulted. The $2 billion this year is $400 million more than what was spent on advertising in 2004. The AP today shares Nielsen"s numbers -- 942,900 political ads ran between Aug.1 and Oct. 15, 31 percent more than the same period four years ago. Where the media is concerned, much of the focus has remained on just how nasty those nasty campaign ads are getting. (CBSNews.com has a compendium of the nastiest.) The tawdry tales catalogued within advertisements for both parties" candidates in Virginia"s and Tennessee"s Senate races in particular have soaked up lots of space in newspapers and on television. The talk of just how nasty the ads have become is something you hear during the course of every election, said Jackson. "I"m not saying it"s not true, but there"s no hard data. Reporters tend to say this reflexively." "Having said that," Jackson conceded with a chuckle, "I can"t remember campaign ads as negative as these." But, according to Jackson, the press pointing out these ads" overwhelming negativity isn"t particularly useful to voters anyway.
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If you look at the chart of the RCP Average in the Virginia Senate race, you can see that Allen stabilized a 3-5 point lead in the first week of September which lasted roughly six weeks, until the third week...
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The Hartford Courant says John Kerry's "joke" was "understandably perceived to be a blast at our soldiers." Clearly, the editorial board at the Courant are a bunch of right wing hacks and morons not graced with the omniscience of Keith...
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