Necessary News

All you need to know to sound brilliant

Afghan Drug Production Hits Record Highs

• More bad news from the Forgotten War: Yesterday, the UN reported that Afghanistan’s opium output soared during 2006, increasing by nearly 49% from a year earlier. [AP]
• “Opium production in Afghanistan increased from 4,100 metric tons in 2005 to 6,100 metric tons in 2006, according to the 2007 World Drug Report released by the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Opium is the main ingredient for heroin.”
• In 2006, Afghanistan accounted for 92 percent of global illicit opium production, up from 70 percent in 2000 and 52 percent a decade earlier. The higher yields in Afghanistan have brought global opium production to a new record high of 6,610 metric tons in 2006, a 43 percent increase over 2005.
• Why this matters: In the war on terror, opium and heroin are used as currency. Major drug traffickers (who often have ties to both the Taliban and the official Afghan government) will smuggle their stash out of the country, and return with weapons and bombs for insurgents. [Mic Check]
• Things are just getting worse. Increased opium production is just one more sign of how the situation in Afghanistan is unraveling.
• At the beginning of this week, the Associated Press reported that “U.S.-led coalition and NATO forces fighting insurgents in Afghanistan have killed at least 203 civilians so far this year—surpassing the 178 civilians killed in militant attacks. [AP]

“...Drug production hits record *highs*.” Get it? Nevermind.

Kicking The CIA In The Family Jewels

• The CIA yesterday released a 693-page classified document known by agents as the “family jewels.” [ABC News]
• In 1973, CIA Director James Schlesinger was furious to read in the paper that the Watergate break-in had received help from active CIA agents.
• Schlesinger ordered “all senior operating officials of this agency to report to me immediately on any activities now going on, or that have gone on in the past, which might be construed to be outside the legislative charter of this agency.”
• In a nutshell, says Thomas Blanton, director of the private National Security Archive, it was the equivalent of “the top CIA officers all going into the confessional and saying, ‘Forgive me father, for I have sinned.’”
• We’ve known about the document since December 1974, when Seymour Hersh exposed its existence in the New York Times, but until now, no one knew exactly what was in it. [UPI]
• Getting all the ink: The Family Jewels contains details on a CIA plot to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro. In 1960, the CIA approached mobster Johnny Roselli – high-ranking member of the mob and the guy who “controlled all the ice-making machines on the Las Vegas Strip” – about whacking Fidel.
• The CIA was willing to pay $150K for the hit. Roselli and fellow wiseguy Salvatore “Sam Gold” Giancana decided the best way would be to poison Castro. At the last minute, however, the Cuban official they’d roped in to do the actual dirty work got cold feet and the deal fell apart. [ABC News]
• Other good stuff: In a precursor to “black site” prisons, the CIA abducted Russian defector Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko in August 1965 and stashed him in “a specially constructed ‘jail’ in a remote wooded area” until 1967. There he was subjected to “hostile interrogations” to find out if he was a spy. They eventually decided no, he was really a defector, and let him go.
• Oh, and don’t forget “Project Mockingbird,” wiretapping reporters Robert Allen and Paul Scott to find out who was leaking them classified documents.
• (We also like the analysis that decided “no security breach [was] involved” in the publication of Flying Saucers from Outer Space. Gentlemen, start your conspiracy engines.) [Wired]

Watch for these and more stories, coming soon to a multiplex near you!

Not Dead Yet! Immigration Bill Lives To Fight Another Day

• It’s not dead yet! The Senate bill on immigration, pronounced gravely ill if not downright deceased two weeks ago, suddenly sat up yesterday and asked for a glass of juice. [Monty Python, Bring Out Your Dead]
  Please log in to download this clip.
• The Senate voted 64-35 to invoke cloture yesterday on the immigration legislation. [NY Times]
• What That Means: In laymans terms, “cloture” is a vote to quit yakking and actually consider a bill. The Senate needs 60 votes to invoke cloture; two weeks ago, they were only able to muster 45. If they hadn’t been able to swing the 64 votes yesterday, the bill would have died (at least for the foreseeable future.)
• What’s in the bill: Tougher border security. Tougher workplace security. A plan to help 12 million illegal immigrants become legal. A new “temporary worker program” to help in the meantime. [Washington Post]
• The bill isn’t out of the woods yet. Next up, the Senate has to vote on a slew of amendments, some which are designed to help illegal immigrants, some which will be harsher. Then House has to come up with an immigration bill, which will be at least as difficult a process as it’s been in the Senate. And then the two bills have to become one. Whew.
• In other news, President Bush sent seismic tremors through the conservative world when he announced the immigration bill was, in a word, amnesty. “You know, I’ve heard all the rhetoric – you’ve heard it too – about how this is amnesty. Amnesty means that you’ve got to pay a price for having been here illegally, and this bill does that.”
  Please log in to download this clip.
• Whoops. Them’s fightin’ words to the far-right. Just over an hour later, the White House sent out an emergency clarification, saying the president “misspoke.” “President Bush has noted repeatedly that the comprehensive reform he supports is not an amnesty bill…The legislation under consideration does not…the White House website addresses the myth that the measure is amnesty.” [AP]

Some right-wing Senators have vowed to do everything in their power to kill this thing — the next few days should be a bloodsport.

Say Goodbye To Greenland

• We’ve got some advice for you if you live in Greenland: move. [Reuters]
• A United Nations panel of scientists reported earlier this week that “new research shows that man-made climate change could cause the Greenland ice sheet to break up in hundreds, rather than thousands, of years.”
• Earlier this year, the UN climate change panel published a five-year report saying that it would take thousands of years for Greenland’s ice sheets to melt. But now, after considering new evidence, the panel’s saying that prediction was far too optimistic.
• Here’s the science: The new research shows rapid melting on the surface of the Greenland ice sheet. Meltwater is disappearing down huge crevasses, and theory suggests that water will lubricate the bottom of the ice sheet and speed up its flow into the sea.
• The entire collapse of Greenland’s ice sheet would raise sea-levels globally by around 7 meters (23 feet), they said.
• To give you a sense of what kind of devastation such a rise in sea-levels could cause, take a look at the elevations of some of the world’s largest cities: Venice, Italy — 1 ft.; Amsterdam — negative 10 ft; Miami — 7 ft; Bangkok — 6 ft; Seattle — sea-level; New York City — 33 ft.

Our advice: Take swimming lessons.

White House Prison Watch: J. Steven Griles Gets 10 Months

• Meet J. Steven Griles, the highest-ranking Bush White House official to plead guilty in connection to shady dealings with convicted uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
• He also was sentenced to 10 months in prison yesterday by a federal judge. [AP]
• Griles was the second in command at the Department of the Interior from 2001-2005. He was also the Interior Department’s point person on Cheney’s energy task force.
• Griles used his position to do powerful favors for Jack Abramoff on behalf of his clients. In return, Abramoff steered lots of cash to a group run by Griles’s girlfriend and got jobs at his firm for other women Griles had “close, personal” relationships with. (It’s hard out there for a pimp.) [The Hill]
• Abramoff referred to Griles in emails as “my guy” at Interior.
• Griles then openly lied to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee about his ties to Abramoff. And he got busted.
• Griles’s lawyers wanted their client to get 3 months of house arrest. Prosecutors wanted 5 months in jail, 5 months of house arrest. No way, said federal judge Ellen Huvelle. She threw the proverbial book at him, giving him a full 10 months in prison. [Washington Post]
• Huvelle: “You held a position of trust as number two in the Department of the Interior and I will hold you to the highest standard…I find that even now you continue to minimize and try to excuse your conduct and the nature of your misstatements.”

Others in the White House prison club: White House OMB deputy director David Safavian. Rep. Bob Ney. Two former Tom DeLay aides. And that’s just for starters..

Good News, Bad News

In the market for some real estate? You might want to pass over that charming suburban abode and set your sights on something...well...Martian. According to noted physicist Lowell Wood, Mars will be transformed into a shirt-sleeve, habitable world for humanity before century’s end, made livable by thawing out the coldish climes of the red planet and altering its now carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. Let’s check out the pros and cons.. [MSNBC]

GOOD NEWS

Lots of land, great schools, and awesome views of Saturn.

BAD NEWS

Winters can get a bit chilly. Like, -220 degrees F chilly.

Quote Of The Day

“People aren’t boats and the economy isn’t an ocean...And if you can’t afford a boat, the rising tide goes up your nose.”

— Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank about...something. [United Church of Christ] via [WSJ]

Speed Round

MSM

1%: Amount of news coverage last week dedicated to Iraq policy. [Journalism]

LUGAR

Mister Luuuuu-gar! The White House would like to have a word with you! After stating the surge wasn’t working, Dick Lugar is ordered to go to the White House for a chat. [Politico]

IRAQ

Iraq issues a warrant for its own Culture Minister, accusing him of masterminding an assassination attempt against Ahmad Chalabi’s top aide in 2005. [Washington Post]

NEEDED: MORE MUSLIM COOPERATION

A new report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs says if the government is really serious about protecting the United States, it needs to better integrate the Muslim population. [LA Times]

$4.75 million

The cost — paid in full by taxpayers — of Vice President Cheney’s executive office. Even though, according to Cheney, he’s not really part of the executive office. [Think Progress]

CRASH SHMASH

The state trooper who was at the wheel during New Jersey Gov. Corzine’s near-fatal SUV crash will remain his driver. Because, you know, bygones. [AP]

TONY BLAIR 4 ENVOY! TONY BLAIR 4 ENVOY!

Middle East mediators close to solidifying Tony Blair’s new role as an envoy to the embattled region. [Reuters]

MODERN MEDICINE

Turns out your really friendly doctor is really bad at medicine. [NY Times]

SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS

You think growing up in suburbia was rough? Try being a kid in Baghdad. New studies show that Iraqi youth face lasting scars. [Washington Post]

HELLO, BONJOUR, ETC.

Condi heads to the City of Lights to rub elbows with France’s new leaders. [Washington Post]

GOOD NEWS

Firefighters are gaining ground on the California wildfire that’s already destroyed more than 275 structures. [AP]

THIS WON’T END WELL

“Sweden OKs prison porn for rape convicts” [USA Today]

43.6 million

The number of Americans who have no health insurance; a whopping 14.8% of the population. [NY Times]