Morning News Roundup (14 Feb)

• Time has the goods on how Vice President Dick "Big Time" Cheney put the brakes on press coverage of his hunting accident.
  

  Cheney insisted on carrying out a strategy he had worked out with the ranch owner, Katharine Armstrong, in which she was to call a trusted reporter at the local paper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, to disclose the news. Caller-Times Managing Editor Shane Fitzgerald told TIME that the newspaper had done its usual nightly checks with local law enforcement agents on Saturday and had been told nothing was going on. Armstrong started leaving messages at the newspaper at 8 a.m., reached a reporter by 11 a.m. and the newspaper posted its story on the Web at 1:48 p.m. local time Sunday. At 3:34 p.m. eastern time, The Associated Press finally flashed the news: "Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a hunting trip in Texas." Fitzgerald said he is "mystified" about the chain of events and that the public should have been notified much earlier, even if the shooter had been some random guy. Even on Monday, the newspaper struggled to get a copy of the accident report. "I think it has become a bigger deal than Mr. Cheney and/or the White House anticipated," the editor said.

  No shit.
  
  
• An Australian news programme (I'll use the English/Aussie spelling for that) "plans to broadcast about 60 previously unpublished photographs that the US Government has been fighting to keep secret in a court case with the American Civil Liberties Union" (Sydney Morning Herald). I'll try to follow up on this later in the day.
  
  
• If you're serious about strengthening our armed forces in a time of great national need and dwindling interest, you need to consider all willing candidates--including homosexuals. The WaPo and Boston Globe have a stories on a report on the financial repercussions of the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy; from the Globe:
  

  Discharging troops under the Pentagon's policy on gays cost $363.8 million over 10 years, almost double what the government concluded a year ago, a private report says. The report, to be released today by a University of California Blue Ribbon Commission, questioned the methodology the Government Accountability Office used when it estimated that the financial impact of the ''Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy was at least $190.5 million.

• A report prepared by five independent experts in international law appointed by the UN Commission on Human Rights is expected to call for the US to close its Guantanamo Bay detention center and transfer enemy combatants to US soil (The Independent).
  
  
• Ohio Iraq War veteran Paul Hackett (who took on the Queen of Mean, Jean Schmidt, in a special congressional election and narrowly lost in a heavy Republican district) has dropped out of the Senate race, opening up a confrontation between current Dem Representative Sherrod Brown (who has some very good progressive bonafides) against GOP Senator Mike DeWine. Kos and Steve Clemons have more info on this pull-out (and here's the AP story over at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune), which seems to have been triggered (unfortunately, to some degree) by pressure put upon his donors from Senate leaders.
  
  [updated - 9:13am PST] I donated to his cause in his race against Schmidt, but have stood pat on donating to either candidate--a) because I'm not from Ohio and b) because I think Brown might indeed be the better Senatorial candidate. It's sounding like Hackett is completely dropping out of politics now, not even considering a rematch with Schmidt (which I think he'd have a very good shot at overcoming). Gary Hart has some thoughts over at HuffPo on this unfortunate move by Democratic party leaders to squash his candidacy.
  
  
• Finally, the Incredible Hulk (aka, Lou Ferrigno) has become a Los Angeles reserve deputy sheriff (BBC).
  
  
• PS... happy Valentines Day. If you're a hardcore adherant to the Hallmark holiday, be happy you're not in India:
  

  Hardline Hindu groups and radical Muslims burned Valentine's Day greeting cards and held sporadic protests on Tuesday across India against celebrating the festival of love saying it was a Western import that spread immorality.

[UPDATE - 9:21am PST] You have to read Kat's comment from below...