Morning News Roundup (09 May)

• It looks like someone other than the BushCo Gang needs to learn a thing or two about diplomacy: Details have emerged of the surprise letter written by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to US President George W Bush. The 18-page document has not yet been made public, but according to leaks, Mr Ahmadinejad spoke of the invasion of Iraq, a US cover-up over the 11 September 2001 attacks, the issue of Israel's right to exist and the role of religion in the world.
  
  "On the pretext of the existence of WMDs [weapons of mass destruction], this great tragedy [the US invasion of Iraq] came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country. Lies were told in the Iraqi matter," Reuters news agency quoted the letter as saying. "What was the result? I have no doubt that telling lies is reprehensible in any culture, and you do not like to be lied to," Mr Ahmadinejad is quoted as saying. [BBC]
  
  
• The FBI is investigating whether the third-ranking official at the CIA, Kyle ''Dusty" Foggo, had improperly intervened in the award of contracts to a business executive who has been implicated in a congressional bribery scandal. Foggo has decided to retire from the CIA after the resignation last Friday of the CIA director, Porter J. Goss, an intelligence official said yesterday, also speaking on condition of anonymity. [Boston Globe]
  
  
• With the May 15 deadline to enroll in the new Medicare prescription drug program fast approaching, USA Today reports the program “is being used least by those who could benefit most: poor, often minority Medicare beneficiaries.” Only 24 percent of such beneficiaries have been approved or have enrolled. [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  
• Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has dubbed this week “Health Week.” But instead of taking up universal health care proposals, Frist yesterday pressed a vote “to limit damages for pain and suffering in medical malpractice lawsuits,” a move which would affect private health insurance premiums by a just one half of one percent. Democrats blocked the bill. [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  
• Bush isn't the only lion in winter: British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has sunk to fresh lows in opinion polls as newspapers reported that many lawmakers expected him to step down within a year. A poll in The Times newspaper found support for his Labour Party at just 30 percent, its lowest since 1992 when it was languishing in opposition. [Agence France Presse]
  
  
• The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the main organizer of a government-sponsored conference on prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, dropped one speaker from a panel on abstinence being held today, added two others and changed the name of the session. More from the WaPo:
  

  An aide to Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.), sent an e-mail April 26 to the Department of Health and Human Services raising questions about a panel titled "Are Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs a Threat to Public Health?"
  
  "Just the title alone was enough to cause us concern," said Martin Green, Souder's spokesman. But the congressman also was alarmed because one of the speakers was focusing on a report produced by the office of Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) that was critical of abstinence programs, and because no one would be speaking in support of such programs.

  Here's more on that Waxman report from 2004.
  
  
• Good news: A surge of tax revenues this spring, sparked by economic growth, prompted the Congressional Budget Office last Thursday to revise its 2006 deficit forecast from around $370 billion to as low as $300 billion.
  
  Bad news: A provision -- buried on page 121 of the 151-page budget blueprint -- would raise the federal debt ceiling to nearly $10 trillion, less than two months after Congress last raised the federal government's borrowing limit. The federal debt keeps climbing because of continued deficit spending and the government's insatiable borrowing from the Social Security trust fund.
  
  
• The hydrogen highway that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger dreams of is closer to reality in Norway. Norway has already started builds a 360 mile road where fuel cell vehicles will be able to refuel on hydrogen. The road stretches from Oslo to Stavanger (which, coincidentally, is where my Norwegian ancestors are from). [Wired's Autotopia]
  
  
• Among 33 industrialized nations, the United States is tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with a death rate of nearly 5 per 1,000 babies, according to a new report. Latvia's rate is 6 per 1,000. The U.S. ranking is driven partly by racial and income health care disparities. Among U.S. blacks, there are 9 deaths per 1,000 live births, closer to rates in developing nations than to those in the industrialized world. [AP via Yahoo!]
  
  
• Smoke 'em if you got 'em: Legal cigarette sales in Washington are up, despite a tax increase and a ban on smoking in most public places. In the first three months of the year, 52.5 million packs of legally taxed cigarettes were sold, slightly more than the 52.4 million packs sold in the first quarter of 2005, according to the state Revenue Department. Nine-month figures also an increase since the 60-cent-a-pack tax hike took in July. [Seattle P-I]
  
  
• An interesting proposal from MP3Newswire.net, asking what if Apple bought the Warner music label? This is in regards to the recent kerfuffle between Apple's iTunes Music Store and the Big Four labels who supply the music (Warner Bros., EMI, Sony, and Universal-Vivendi), who wanted to increase the $0.99 per song to up to $2.50 for new releases (Apple won those negotiations and the lower price remains).
  

  Apple would have the power to price Warners digital downloads to what they see is most fit. In my opinion that would be $0.25 a track for contemporary music and a dime a track for all music prior to 1980. In the end, growth and higher profits would come not through cartel imposed scarcity, but through volume and mass consumerism. No one consumes in volume more than Americans.
  
  Of course, it would be better if Apple purchased EMI instead of Warners. Why? Because EMI is the parent of Capitol Records, owner of much of the Beatles catalog.

• Just a month before the World Cup is slated to begin, Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei has overruled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's previous decision to allow women at men’s soccer games—provided they were seated in a separate section. Despite the fact Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared in April that allowing women would "improve soccer-watching manners and promote a healthy atmosphere," the president withdrew his request. [Mother Jones' MoJo]