Cracks in the Facade: Morning News Roundup (04 October)

Mostly Foley free...

BushCo's Wars

“In the second month of a security crackdown in the capital, U.S. military casualties appear to be rising,” according to military officials. “At least 17 troops have been killed in combat since Saturday, including eight U.S. soldiers who died in gunbattles and bomb blasts Monday in Baghdad - the most killed in a single day in the capital since July 2005.” [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
As of Tuesday, 23,416 US troops have been wounded or killed in the Iraq War. [Juan Cole's Informed Comment]
At least 13 people have died and dozens have been injured in a series of bomb blasts in a busy area in the south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. About 75 people were reported injured when three explosions hit the mainly Christian Camp Sarah district. [BBC]
A suicide bomber unleashed a blast in a Baghdad fish market Tuesday and two Shiite families were found slain north of the capital as violence across Iraq claimed at least 52 lives. [WaPo]
Responding to Sen. Frist's recent admission that the Taliban should be brought into Afghanistan's government as the war against hardline guerillas there can "never be won militarily," Kerry writes, "I could say it's Dr. Frist's worst diagnosis since the public spectacle of his Terri Schiavo diagnosis on the Senate floor. I could say that Bill Frist who once pathetically labeled Democrats who are right about Iraq the 'Defeatocrat Party,' is now the Senate's leading spokesperson for those who are dead wrong on Afghanistan – the 'Retreaticans.' [RawStory]
Iran has proposed that France organize and monitor the production of enriched uranium inside Iran, complicating negotiations over the fate of its nuclear program. The United States, France and Britain rejected the proposal on Tuesday, saying it was a stalling tactic and fell far short of the United Nations Security Council’s demand that Iran freeze all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities. [NYTimes]
Since late August, British commandos in the deserts of far southeastern Iraq have been testing one of the most serious charges leveled by the United States against Iran: that Iran is secretly supplying weapons, parts, funding and training for attacks on U.S.-led forces in Iraq. There's just one thing.

"I suspect there's nothing out there," the commander, Lt. Col. David Labouchere, said last month, speaking at an overnight camp near the border. "And I intend to prove it."

Other senior British military leaders spoke as explicitly in interviews over the previous two months. Britain, whose forces have had responsibility for security in southeastern Iraq since the war began, has found nothing to support the Americans' contention that Iran is providing weapons and training in Iraq, several senior military officials said. [WaPo]
Condi is in the Middle East to encourage dialogue between Israel's PM Olmert and the PA's Abbas. She's already met with leaders in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Ignatius in the Post today thinks it's time for Rice to stop traveling with a Green Zone mentality. [Foreign Policy's Passport]

Climate Crisis

Extreme drought will affect about a third of the planet and spread across half of the earth’s land surface by 2100 because of global warming, according to new predictions from Britain’s leading climate scientists. [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
Sea ice in the Arctic last month melted to its second lowest monthly minimum in the 29-year record of satellite measurements. Scientists at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Colorado said the total surface area covered by sea ice during September was smaller than in any previous year apart from 2005, when it reached an all-time record minimum. And it was only a sudden change to cool and stormy weather in August that prevented another record low being set this September, they said. [The Independent]

Big Blue Marble

Nearly two million survivors of last year's earthquake in Pakistan face a second winter without proper protection against the weather. The aid agency says 1.8 million survivors are in makeshift accomodation and other temporary facilities. [BBC]

Domestic Potpourri

The Dow closed at 11,727.34 yesterday, besting its previous high set on Jan. 14, 2000. (The WP points out, however, that once inflation is figured in, the index is still 2,150 points short of the record.) The coverage is notably lacking in exuberance, irrational or otherwise. The LAT points out that the average home price has risen 64 percent and the price of gold has doubled in the six years it has taken the stock market to recover its value, while WSJ sees signs of a bear market coming on. Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange didn't even applaud when the final bell rang. [Slate's Today's Papers]
A federal labor agency Tuesday broadened its definition of who is a supervisor, in a ruling that could keep millions of skilled employees from joining unions and accelerate a decades-long decline in union membership. In a long-awaited decision, the Republican-controlled National Labor Relations Board held that nurses could be classified as supervisors if they directed and oversaw other nurses. Under federal law, employees defined as supervisors aren't entitled to legal protections ensuring their right to join unions. [LATimes]
See anything wrong with this graphic? The O'Reilly Factor ran it in not one, but two segments and posted it three times. I can understand if FOX and The Factor made an error the first time, but to post it repeatedly should be a firing offense, The most watched show on FOX News has now labeled the former Republican Congressman Mark Foley, who is in the middle of a sexual predator scandal that has Hastert's career on the ropes — a Democrat. [Crooks and Liars]