Morning News Roundup (30 August)

Domestic Potpourri

• Happy Anniversary! Thousands of families receiving free rent from the federal government after evacuating homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina could lose that help and be out on the street as early as this week as a series of deadlines approaches stirring a mounting anxiety about the future of the multibillion-dollar housing program. [Nola.com]
  
  
• Last week, Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) raised a few eyebrows by insisting that voters had to elect Christians to avoid "legislating sin," calling the constitutional separation of church and state a "lie," and arguing that God did not intend for the United States to be "a nation of secular laws."
  
  Since then she backed away from the first two points, but struggled a bit to explain the third.
  

  Asked whether the U.S. should be a secular country, Harris said: "I think that our laws, I mean, I look at how the law originated, even from Moses, the 10 Commandments. And I don’t believe, that uh . . . That’s how all of our laws originated in the United States, period. I think that’s the basis of our rule of law."

  Usually (this argument) phrased a little more articulately, but particularly among far-right conservatives, the notion that our laws "originated" from the Ten Commandments is very popular. And very wrong. [Crooks and Liars]
  

Middle East Sturm und Drang

• Former President Jimmy Carter has expressed his willingness to meet with former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami after Iranians indicated their desire for such a meeting. Carter’s spokesman said, “He believes that it is much better to be talking to people who you have problems with than not to, and that’s the approach he takes now.” [ThinkProgress]
  
  
• A day after a U.S. military spokesman said “we are actually seeing progress” in Baghdad, Iraqi police found 27 bodies “in three separate locations” around the city yesterday. “They included 11 bullet-riddled corpses discovered near a school in a Shiite neighborhood of south Baghdad and 13 more dumped behind a Shiite mosque in the west of the city.” [ThinkProgress]

Ass Hat

• Drawing parallels to efforts by some nations to appease Adolf Hitler before World War II, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld said it would be "folly" for the United States to ignore the rising dangers posed by a new enemy that he called "serious, lethal and relentless."
  
  In a pointed attack on the news media and critics of President Bush's war and national security policies, Rumsfeld declared: "Any kind of moral and intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can severely weaken the ability of free societies to persevere."
  [...]
  With polls showing that a majority of Americans believe it was a mistake for the United States to invade Iraq and with many Democrats calling for a deadline for withdrawing U.S. troops, Rumsfeld called the Iraq war the "epicenter" of the struggle against terrorism. Last week, Bush said that setting a timetable for a troop withdrawal would embolden the enemy and cause chaos in Iraq and throughout the region.
  
  Congressional Democrats angrily responded to Rumsfeld's remarks. "There is no confusion among military experts, bipartisan members of Congress and the overwhelming majority of the American people about the need to change course in Iraq," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). "The only person confused about how to best protect this country is Don Rumsfeld, which is why he must go." [WaPo; ThinkProgress has the video]
  

Fascinating

• Yesterday, the New York Times published a lengthy piece on the evidence being assembled against the airline terror suspects in Britain. The article was far more detailed than any reporting I'd seen previously. It contained direct quotes from the "martyrdom videos" of the accused and technical details of the surveillance operation the British authorities had conducted.
  
  It turns out it was too detailed for British eyes. The Guardian reports that anyone attempting to access the story from a British IP address receives the following message:

  This Article Is Unavailable. On advice of legal counsel, this article is unavailable to readers of nytimes.com in Britain. This arises from the requirement in British law that prohibits publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior to trial.

  Monday's paper is also not being shipped to Britain and the International Herald Tribune deliberately omitted the story. [Foreign Policy's Passport]

Green News

• Yes, Toyota Motor Corporation is a major player in the automotive industry, but its subsidiary Toyota Roof Garden (this is an English translation of the Japanese site) is producing some interesting ways to offset the environmental challenges that come with this position. First, it was a shrub capable of absorbing airborne pollutants. Now, they've launched roofing tiles that can instantaneously change your roof to a green one. The irrigation system-ready TM9 turf mats, 20 inches square and two inches thick, are both easy to apply and low-maintenance, the manufacturer says, and the Korean velvet grass only needs to be trimmed once a year. Reportedly, these mats are also cheap: Running $43 per square yard. Could a green roof be as simple as TM9? This could be a major breakthrough. [Treehugger]