Why I Read the Saturday Paper
Saturday March 4, 2006
PR folks know that the best time to release bad or unfavorable news is mid-day on Friday -- just in time for Saturday papers but not so late as to slip into Sunday. That's because the Saturday edition is the least-read paper of the week. Here's today's news: not the big stuff like the record sentence given Randy "Duke" Cunningham or the Pentagon releasing names of Guantanamo prisoners, but important nuggets found off the front page.
- The White House is quietly pushing DP World to partner with a US company so that its port deal moves forward, and the logical partner seems to be Veep Cheney's former company, Haliburton, according to unnamed sources. Why not US port management firm SSA Marine, with 150 operations worldwide? Oh, and media are still underreporting the number of ports in the deal.
- The Washington Post reports that the Bush Administration is "developing plans to design and deploy refurbished or replacement warheads for the nuclear stockpile." And despite the President's rhetoric on Pakistan and India, Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told a Senate Committee on this week: "We believe that India and Pakistan . . . continue expanding and modernizing their nuclear weapon stockpiles... Pakistan has also developed the capability to produce plutonium for potential weapons use."
- House Republicans have scheduled a hearing in 10 days on the practice of "reclassifying" previously "declassified" documents in the National Archives, according to Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT), chair of the Government Reform Subcommittee. Shays has created controversy by endorsing Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman in his bid for a fourth term this November.
- From the "I can't believe this" department, the LA Times reports that Rumsfeld's Pentagon plans to "continue paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories favorable to the United States" because the program is "within [Pentagon] authorities." Although this practice would not be legit if done domestically, it is "legal" if our government engages in propaganda efforts abroad.
- What is it about Colorado and its teachers? We leave the Ward Churchill controversy (college-level) for Denver suburban high school teacher Jay Bennish. Bennish is on leave for criticizing the State of the Union speech in his world geography class. At the close of his remarks, Bennish say, "I'm not implying you should agree with me .... What I'm trying to do is to get you to ... think abut these issues in more depth." He filed a lawsuit against the school district on Friday, on First Amendment grounds.
- In economic news, Intel, the world's largest computer chip manufacturer, forecasts weakening demand and lower profits; and pilots at Northwest Airlines have agreed to pay cuts, averting a strike.
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Comments
I notice you took down the false story you were hyping about President Bush and the breached levees as soon as the AP issued a ‘clarification’ admitting that they lied about their ’secret video’ story. Oh, well. Just goes to show you how foolish you can look when you get your news from the biased mainstream media.