"It was a bumpy start to an odd interview, as Rumsfeld cited poor memory, loose office procedures, and a general distraction with 'the wars' in Iraq and Afghanistan to explain why he was unsure how his department came to nearly squander $30 billion leasing several hundred new tanker aircraft that its own experts had decided were not needed... But a copy of the transcript, obtained recently by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act after a year-long wait, says a lot about how little of Rumsfeld's attention has been focused on weapons-buying -- a function that consumes nearly a fifth of the $410 billion defense budget, exclusive of expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Must read: one of the reporters kicked out of Guantanamo describes the wacky event.
Good read from a new book: "If there was even a 1 percent chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction — and there has been a small probability of such an occurrence for some time — the United States must now act as if it were a certainty." More on the book, and the significance, from Dan Froomkin.
TUESDAY NEWSDAY:
* The corporate takeover of journalism and reporting.
* Fact-checking Tony Snow.
* Safavian convicted.
* Ehrlich may hold a special session, but he'll also decide who gets to be heard.
* Slate magazine, ten years later.
* Planning for the end times: inside the Arctic seed vault.
* Fighting movie piracy with laser beams.
* Dan Rather leaves CBS.
* Morbid Curiosity magazine closes its doors.
"...[the] non-denominational mega-church, whose sprawling, shopping center-like campus includes a 2,500-car parking garage, two auditoriums, a book store, and a food court. Welcome to the new face of American Christianity, where dynamic mega-churches are increasingly prominent in public life.
"A Pentagon document classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder, decades after mental health experts abandoned that position."
Predicting the urban world of 2050.
Must read: one of the reporters kicked out of Guantanamo describes the wacky event.
Good read from a new book: "If there was even a 1 percent chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction — and there has been a small probability of such an occurrence for some time — the United States must now act as if it were a certainty." More on the book, and the significance, from Dan Froomkin.
TUESDAY NEWSDAY:
* The corporate takeover of journalism and reporting.
* Fact-checking Tony Snow.
* Safavian convicted.
* Ehrlich may hold a special session, but he'll also decide who gets to be heard.
* Slate magazine, ten years later.
* Planning for the end times: inside the Arctic seed vault.
* Fighting movie piracy with laser beams.
* Dan Rather leaves CBS.
* Morbid Curiosity magazine closes its doors.
"...[the] non-denominational mega-church, whose sprawling, shopping center-like campus includes a 2,500-car parking garage, two auditoriums, a book store, and a food court. Welcome to the new face of American Christianity, where dynamic mega-churches are increasingly prominent in public life.
"A Pentagon document classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder, decades after mental health experts abandoned that position."
Predicting the urban world of 2050.