Necessary News

All you need to know to sound brilliant

Hybrid Cars Pay For Themselves

• One more reason it’s smart to invest in a hybrid car: it’s good for your wallet. [CNN]
• The average hybrid car costs $1200-$7000 more than its traditional counterpart. But the savings you get from it’s fantastic fuel efficiency plus tax refunds from the government will quickly make up that difference.
• The auto consumer group Edmonds offered this example: “Assuming vehicles were driven 15,000 miles per year and gas was priced at $3 per gallon, owners of the Toyota Prius and Ford Motor Co.’s Escape Hybrid would break even within three years.” Pretty sweet.
• But you’d better act quickly if you want that tax rebate – the government is phasing out tax breaks on the most popular hybrid models (we know – it doesn’t make sense to us, either.)
• “The tax credit on Toyota and Lexus hybrids is scheduled to drop to 25 percent in April 2007 and then be eliminated in October 2007.”

Plus all the cool kids are driving hybrids now. Who doesn’t want to be more like Larry David?

Kidnapped Fox News Journalists Released in Gaza

• Yesterday, miltants freed two Fox News journalists in Gaza, marking the end of a two-week long hostange crisis. [New York Times]
• Fox correspondent Steve Centanni and camera man Olaf Wiig were dropped off at the Beach Hotel in Gaza City by Palenstinian security officials on Sunday.
• The journalists were abducted on August 14th by a local militant group which has been said to have no link to al-Qaida.
• During the past two years, Palestinian militants have seized more than a dozen foreign journalists. Centanni and Wiig were held for the longest.
• ‘’I want to thank everybody. I am happy to be here. I hope that this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover the story because the Palestinian people are very beautiful and kind hearted,'’ Centanni told reporters during a press conference following his release. ‘’The world needs to know more about them. Don’t be discouraged.'’
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Cue the sigh of relief.

Michael Brown Explains His Heck Of A Job

• Former FEMA head Michael Brown, widely held responsible for the disasterous efforts in New Orleans, hit the talk show circuit yesterday.
• Brown on Bush scapegoating: “There’s the email that came from a very high source in the White House that says the President at the cabinet meeting said thank goodness Brown’s taking all the heat because it’s better that he takes the heat than I do, meaning the President, or Secretary Chertoff.”
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• Brown on his failures: “Well of course I failed, because I made many mistakes. The biggest mistake that I’ve said I made was not standing up and not saying at the beginning of the storm it’s catastrophic, I can’t get what I need, and this isn’t working.”
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• Brown on White House lying: “The lie was that we were ready and that everything was working as a team. Behind the scenes it wasn’t working at all. There were political considerations in going into all the discussions.”
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• Brown, answering George Stephanopoulos question “Why did the White House want you to lie?": “Because they want us to talk about how great things are going. You always want to put the spin on that things are working the way they’re supposed to. And behind the scenes they’re not.”
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Hell hath no fury like a Brownie scorned...

Report Slamming BP Pipeline Was Altered

• This can’t be good. Federal authorities are investigating changes made to a report commissioned by Alaskan officials on oil giant BP’s operation in the state. [Wall Street Journal]
• Turns out that the report was altered after BP complained that it was too harsh.
• Copies of the original and final versions of the report show “several instances in which critical commentary is deleted or replaced with positive comments.”
• Most interesting: “the original version, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, said BP’s corrosion-monitoring program ‘makes it difficult to develop a qualitative understanding of the basis for their corrosion strategy.’ That reference was replaced by this: “BP has demonstrated a clear commitment to corrosion control."‘
• Why is this a big deal? Earlier this month, a corroded pipeline forced BP to partially shut down the Purdhoe oil field in Alaska, which accounts for about 8% of U.S. daily crude oil production.

Kind of like when we changed the “F” to a “B” on our report card. Just worse. A lot worse.

The Case of the Missing Evolutionary Biology

• Whoops. Every year, the federal government awards grants for low-income college students. The students just have to pick a course of study from the official, government-sanctioned list of acceptable fields of study. (NY Times)
• This year, the list shrank by one field. Yep – evolutionary biology went missing.
• The White House says it’s just a coincidence – a clerical mistake that accidentally scratched that one from the list. They also said they’d readd it immediately. (As of today, it has not been put back on the list.)
• Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers: The ommission is “odd,” because applying the subject codes “is a fairly mechanical task. It is not supposed to be the subject of any kind of deliberation.” “I am not at all certain that the omission of this particular major is unintentional,” he added. “But I have to take them at their word.”

We smell a little bit of monkey business here, don’t you?

The Lies of David Safavian

• David Safavian wants his conviction overturned. [Washington Post]
• Safavian is the Jack Abramoff crony arrested just days after quitting his job as head of the General Services Administration in the White House. He was convicted in June of obstruction of justice and making false statements.
• Safavian now thinks a set of emails which helped convict him should not have been admitted – emails in which he and Abramoff discussed two pieces of GSA property that Abramoff wanted thrown his way. (Just after the emails were written and the property indeed went to Abramoff, Safavian accepted a fancy St. Andrews golfing vacation from Abramoff. Go figure.)
• The rationale? Safavian says he didn’t know it was wrong to lie, so he shouldn’t be punished for it. Yep, he now says since he was never advised that he could be convicted for lying about the emails, he shouldn’t be in trouble.
• His lawyers also say the Abramoff investigation was not hindered by Safavian’s lies, so he shouldn’t be in trouble for them.
• Safavian faces 10 years in prison. And a really big moral hangover.

Can you imagine trying this one at home? “Gee, honey, you never specifically told me I could get in trouble for lying to you, so it doesn’t count, right?”

Quote Of The Day

“I don’t think it would affect one vote, one way or another. Everybody has problems in their family.”

— Ultra-right-winger, “family values” activist and founder of Operation Rescue Randall Terry, on the fact that he left two of his now-estranged kids out of photos in his Florida state senate campaign material. One child came out of the closet; the other had a baby out of wedlock. Both have been excised from the family. Turns out “family values” are only for *other* people’s families. Terry claims Florida voters won’t see this as hypocrisy. [The Advocate]

Speed Round

TRAGEDY

Commuter flight carrying 50 people crashes in Kentucky when pilot uses wrong runway. There is one survivor. [New York Times]

RUMSFELD

Rumsfeld faces tough questions from soliders’ wives. [AP]

IRAQ

Iraqi PM says that violence in the country is decreasing. In other news, car bombs killed 15 people on Sunday. [AP]

HURRICANES

Just in time: hurricane Ernesto expected to slam Floriday by Thursday. [CNN]

FAKE WRITERS

And today, in fake writer news: Pulitzer-winning journalist charged with espionage. [CNN]

RIDICULOUS

Tree huggers are the new al-Qaida. Environmentalist angered over being added to terrorist list by FBI. [AP]

KATHARINE HARRIS

QUOTE: “If you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin.” Oh, my. [ABC Blog]

NEW ORLEANS

Really though? Feds say that New Orleans is storm-ready. [AP]