1. Expanding on the theme of the American police state, McClatchy Newspapers report the FBI is to get freer rein to look for terrorism suspects.

   Attorney General Michael Mukasey confirmed plans Wednesday to loosen post-Watergate restrictions on the FBI’s national security and criminal investigations, saying the changes were necessary to improve the bureau’s ability to detect terrorists.

   Mukasey said he expected criticism of the new rules because “they expressly authorize the FBI to engage in intelligence collection inside the United States.” However, he said the criticism would be misplaced because the bureau has long had authority to do so.

   The Oregonian adds Mukasey says agents will apply methods used to investigate organized crime. But don’t worry, “Mukasey also promised to protect civil liberties and forbid the use of prejudicial investigations based on race, religion or constitutionally protected political expression.”

   According to Mukasey, such changes will transform the FBI into an “elite national security organization“!

   The McClatchy story notes civil libertarians are “alarmed” by the changes. For example:

   Michael German, a former veteran FBI agent who is now policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said if Mukasey moves ahead with the new rules as he describes them, he’ll be weakening restrictions originally put in place after the Watergate scandal to rein in the FBI’s domestic Counter Intelligence Program, or COINTELPRO. At the time, the FBI spied on American political leaders and organizations deemed to be subversive throughout the late 1950s and into the 1960s.

   “I’m concerned with the way the attorney general frames the problem,” German said. “He talks about ‘arbitrary or irrelevant differences’ between criminal and national security investigations but these were corrections originally designed to prevent the type of overreach the FBI engaged in for years.”

   Last year, Jeffrey Rosen writing for the NY Times, asked Who’s Watching the FBI? This was written after “widespread and serious misuse” of national-security letters by the FBI was disclosed. So who is watching the FBI, since Congress has sure proved it isn’t up to the job.

Four at Four continues with the West desperately trying to save Musharraf from impeachment, Pelosi and the Democrats can’t capitulate fast enough, streetcars, and bonus story about urban gardens.

1. The Guardian reports the western Amazon rainforest threatened by new wave of oil and gas exploration. Over 35 multinational companies are exploring for oil and gas reserves in a 688,00 sq km area (about the size of Texas), that are “peak biodiversity spots” — home to the “most species-rich areas of the Amazon for mammals, birds and amphibians”.

   Researchers used government information on land that has been leased to state or multinational energy companies over the past four years to create oil and gas exploration maps for western Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia. The maps showed that in Peru and Ecuador, regions designated for oil and gas projects already cover more than two thirds of the Amazon. Of 64 oil and gas regions that cover 72% of the Peruvian Amazon, all but eight were approved since 2003. Major increases in activity are expected in Bolivia and western Brazil.

   “We’ve been following oil and gas development in the Amazon since 2004 and the picture has changed before our eyes,” said Matt Finer of Save America’s Forests, a US-based environment group. “When you look at where the oil and gas blocks are, they overlap perfectly on top of the peak biodiversity spots, almost as if by design, and this is in one of the most, if not the most, biodiverse place on Earth.”

   Some regions have established oil and gas reserves, but in others, companies will need to cut into the forest to conduct speculative tests, including explosive seismic investigations and test drilling. Typically, companies have seven years to explore a region before deciding whether to go into full production.

   American Zapatista has an essay about this report’s findings and the impact the exploration will have on indigenous peoples.

2. The CS Monitor reports Poor see gains of 1990s reversed as poverty has become more concentrated in the first half of this decade. The number of low-income people living in poor neighborhoods declined in the economic boom of the 1990s.

   But that trend has reversed during the first five years of this decade, according to a new analysis by the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. It found that the number of poor people who live in areas of concentrated poverty increased by 41 percent since 1999.

   According to Elizabeth Kneebone, the lead author of the report, increased “concentrations of poor people in specific neighborhoods create a kind of self-perpetuating economic segregation”. Midwest and Northeast urban metropolitan showed the largest increases in poverty-concentration.

Four at Four continues with the sham Olympics, the death of Hiu Lui Ng at the hands of Homeland Security, and a bonus story about Magic Mushrooms. Also available is my essay about Bush sending U.S. troops to Georgia to deliver humanitarian aid.

The Press Association reports US plans to send troops to Georgia.

The US is to send troops to embattled Georgia in the form of a humanitarian aid exercise, President George Bush said.

Mr Bush said military planes would deliver supplies in a move which would put American forces in the heart of the region.

Bush, in a prepared statement, said:

I’ve also directed Secretary of Defense Bob Gates to begin a humanitarian mission to the people of Georgia, headed by the United States military. This mission will be vigorous and ongoing. A U.S. C-17 aircraft with humanitarian supplies is on its way. And in the days ahead we will use U.S. aircraft, as well as naval forces, to deliver humanitarian and medical supplies.

1. Here’s a shocker… not. The NY Times reports Mukasey won’t pursue charges in hiring inquiry.

   Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Tuesday rejected the idea of criminally prosecuting former Justice Department employees who improperly used political litmus tests in hiring decisions, saying he had already taken strong internal steps in response to a “painful” episode…

   “Where there is enough evidence to charge someone with a crime, we vigorously prosecute,” he said.

   “But not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime,” he said.

   As the inspector general’s report acknowledged, the hiring violations were such a case, because the wrongdoing violated federal civil service law, but not criminal law, he said.

   “That does not mean, as some people have suggested, that those officials who were found by the joint reports to have committed misconduct have suffered no consequences,” Mr. Mukasey said. “Far from it. The officials most directly implicated in the misconduct left the Department to the accompaniment of substantial negative publicity.”

   Oh deary me! Negative publicity! Such a terrible burden to bare. Tsk, tsk. Remind me again why it was better to fill the position of Attorney General and not leave it vaccant until the next administration?

Four at Four continues with an Iraqi interpreter, whales, and the Olympics.

1. The LA Times reports a U.S. soldier and 17 Iraqis were killed in suicide blast.

   A suicide bomber detonated explosives Sunday amid U.S. and Iraqi troops who were investigating an earlier attack. Iraqi police said nearly 20 people died, and the U.S. military said they included one American soldier.

   It was the day’s worst attack among several that occurred across Iraq, including one at a crowded bus depot in Baghdad that left four people dead.

   The bloodshed came as U.S. and Iraqi negotiators tried to finalize details of an accord laying out the future for American troops in Iraq. The pact is needed because the United Nations mandate for the U.S. presence in Iraq expires at the end of the year.

   In comments on Iraq’s Al Hurra television, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the pact “is about to be finished” and probably would be presented to parliament when lawmakers return from their summer break next month.

   Zebari said Iraq was pressing for a clear timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, but he did not give dates. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has said he hopes American combat troops can be gone by the end of 2010, leaving behind only advisors and support troops.

2. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports on A solar success.

   The first time you visit The Jerrys Farm – that’s what Hicks and Neff call their place – it’s easy to get a mite confused as to just what century these guys are living in.

   Those solar panels certainly say 21st century. But the draft horses and the antique mowing machine could suggest that the two Jerrys are stuck smack in the middle of the 19th.

   You can blame Neff and Hicks for the confusion. On their little farm here they’re trying hard to combine the best of the old and the best of the new.

   The story looks at the Jerrys Farm in Kentucky, where “all the various activities on the farm are designed to mesh and work together.” It may be radical to some, but these concepts are what, I think, our future in America will look like if we are to survive. The Jerrys Farm is also online. They’ve been farming since 2003.

   Farmers are not the only ones looking at solar. The NY Times reports Giant retailers look to sun for energy savings. “The nation’s biggest store chains are coming to see their immense, flat roofs as an untapped resource.” Many of the big chains “installed solar panels on roofs of their stores to generate electricity on a large scale. One reason they are racing is to beat a Dec. 31 deadline to gain tax advantages for these projects.” Most chains have only installed panels on 10 percent of their buildings.

   Of course, the roofs of big box retailers could have solar panels on them, but what also would help out their energy bills is skylights. Why not use the sun for lighting the stores too?

Four at Four continues with bicycles on college campuses and the accelerating loss of Arctic sea ice.

1. This seems almost coordinated. The Washington Post writes Obama hits back, too softly for some. For more than the past week, John McCain has been launching “increasingly personal attacks on Obama… Such attacks have raised worries among Democratic strategists — haunted by John F. Kerry’s 2004 run and Al Gore’s razor-thin loss in 2000 — that Obama has not responded in kind with a parallel assault on McCain’s character. Interviews with nearly a dozen Democratic strategists found those concerns to be widespread, although few wished to be quoted by name while Obama’s campaign is demanding unity.”

   The campaign strategists worry that Obama isn’t sinking to McCain’s level of nastiness and since Obama has asked liberal independent groups from running attack ads, there are few attack ads coming from the left. However, Bill Burton, spokesman for Obama’s campaign responded, “This is a classic Washington story, anonymous quotes from armchair quarterbacks with no sense of our strategy, data or plan”.

   Meanwhile, the LA Times reports Obama ready to unwind in Hawaii. “After marathon bouts of campaigning, Obama is about to relent. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is heading off for Hawaii on Friday for a break that will be his last before the November election. Weighing the political risks of leaving the continental U.S. in the middle of the campaign, Obama conceded that the timing was not the best. But he told reporters aboard his campaign plane this week that he didn’t have much choice. He’s visibly tired. Gray hairs are sprouting. Perhaps more worrisome for Obama, a new poll shows voters may be tiring of him.”

Four at Four continues with a NRA mole, green dictatorship, and tropical fish off Long Island.

1. The Miami Herald reports Brakes put on Obama gas station ads. “A Barack Obama ad ready to air at Florida gas stations that have pumps topped with TV screens was nixed at the last minute because the advertising company’s chief said it reflected poorly on the oil industry, according to the presidential candidate’s campaign.” Ouch, the people of Florida watch ads while they pump gas.

   “The ad — which can still be viewed on television in Florida and other states — is more critical of McCain than Big Oil, describing him as a Washington insider who voted against alternative energy sources and higher mileage standards. ‘Barack Obama. He’ll make energy independence an urgent national priority . . . as we break the grip of foreign oil,’ the ad says.”

   While not the ad proposed to run at Florida gas stations, I guess Big Oil wouldn’t really want to remind people of this while filling up.

2. Mishima already touched upon the story about “500: Deadly U.S. Milestone in Afghan War” this morning, but I think this graphic from the NY Times was worth highlighting.

   About this graphic: “U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan grew through the second half of 2007 and continued at the same pace this year. Combat deaths rose and more involved improvised explosive devices. These charts show deaths of soldiers directly involved in the Afghanistan war for six-month periods. The 2001 deaths are for December only.”

   A paragraph from the article: “June was the second deadliest month for the military in Afghanistan since the war began, with 23 American deaths from hostilities, compared with 22 in Iraq. July was less deadly, with 20 deaths, compared with six in Iraq. On July 22, nearly seven years after the conflict began on Oct. 7, 2001, the United States lost its 500th soldier in the Afghanistan war.”

Four at Four continues with Iraq’s parliament going to recess and shutting down climate change help to poor nations.

1. The Hill reports the White House lauds Iraq’s reconstructions efforts. “The White House on Wednesday said Iraq has taken over much of the cost for its reconstruction”.

   White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters: “They’ve already taken over a lot of their reconstruction cost, and I think the vast majority of it. They want to be able to do more, and they are doing more.”

   Meanwhile, the NY Times reports As Iraq surplus rises, little goes into rebuilding. Whoops!

   Soaring oil prices will leave the Iraqi government with a cumulative budget surplus of as much as $79 billion by year’s end, according to an American federal oversight agency. But Iraq has spent only a minute fraction of that on reconstruction costs, which are now largely borne by the United States.

   The unspent windfall, which covers surpluses from oil sales since 2005, appears likely to reinforce growing debate about the approximately $48 billion in American taxpayer money devoted to rebuilding Iraq since the American-led invasion.

   In one comparison, the United States has spent $23.2 billion in the critical areas of security, oil, electricity and water since the 2003 invasion, the report said. But from 2005 through April 2008, Iraq has spent just $3.9 billion on similar services.

   Now of course the Democrats are up in arms about this and the ‘leadership’ has severeal stern letters ready to be sent. The Hill reports Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) said, “It is inexcusable for U.S. taxpayers to continue to foot the bill for projects the Iraqis are fully capable of funding themselves… We should not be paying for Iraqi projects while Iraqi oil revenues continue to pile up in the bank, including outrageous profits from $4-a-gallon gas prices in the U.S.”

2. The LA Times reports a Amputee Marine returns to combat duty in Afghanistan.

   Just over a year ago, Cpl. Garrett Jones was one of thousands of Marines slogging through a tour of duty in Iraq. Today, he is deployed with the same unit in Afghanistan, but he serves now with an unusual distinction.

   On July 23, 2007, Jones was on foot patrol near the Iraqi city of Fallouja when he was injured by a roadside bomb. After the attack, his left leg was amputated above the knee. He developed infections and fevers. His weight dropped from 175 pounds to 125. At 21, Jones faced months of painful rehabilitation and a likely end to his service in the Marine Corps.

   One year later, Jones is walking smoothly on a prosthetic leg. He not only continues to serve on active duty, but he has worked his way back to a war zone, serving with his Marine battle buddies in Afghanistan.

   In previous wars, Jones would have been given a medical discharge. But today, “the Pentagon has made it possible for some amputees to return to duty — and for a few to deploy overseas again. Advances in medical care and high-tech prostheses have enabled amputees to function far better.”

   Jones wanted to return to duty and show others what is possible for amputees. “I want to be someone an injured Marine can talk to,” he said. “And I can tell them: ‘Times will be rough and not always easy as an amputee, but you can still make great things out of an unfortunate situation.’ That’s what I want to do.”

Four at Four continues with an essay by an Iraqi journalist in America and a story about a homeless camp on a millionaires’ island near Seattle.

1. Bloomberg reports Oil falls to $118 as global economy slows and storm danger lessens. The service sectors of the U.S. and European economies are slowing down and Tropical Storm Edouard appears to be leaving the oil rigs and refineries along the Texas coast undamaged. So “Oil has lost $27 since touching a record of $147.27 a barrel in New York on July 11”.

   Additionally, “U.S. gasoline stockpiles are 3 percent above their five-year seasonal norm at 213.6 million barrels, according to the Energy Department.”

   I expect the price of oil to continue to fall until after the November election, when it will rise again in time for winter heating bills. The question is will Americans remember the high price of gasoline when they go to the polls? According to the AP, Obama links the nation’s energy troubles to Dick Cheney. Obama noted that John McCain is more concerned about oil company profits and drilling than an overall energy strategy for America. “McCain has taken a page out of the Cheney playbook,” he said.

   Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that Gas prices have applied the brakes To suburban migration.

   Cheap oil, which helped push the American Dream away from the city center, isn’t so cheap anymore. As more and more families reconsider their dreams, land-use experts are beginning to ask whether $4-a-gallon gas is enough to change the way Americans have thought for half a century about where they live…

   Even the way the government pays for roads and transit is dependent on gas taxes, which is effective only if Americans keep driving…

   Federal spending is about 4 to 1 in favor of highways over transit. Today, more than 99 percent of the trips taken by U.S. residents are in cars or some other non-transit vehicle, largely as a result of decades of such unbalanced spending.

   The policies — building so many highways and building so many houses near those highways — have had a direct bearing on how and where people live and work. More Americans, 52 percent, live in the suburbs than anywhere else. The suburban growth rate exceeded 90 percent in the past decade.

   But there’s been a radical shift in recent months. Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer highway miles in May than a year earlier. In the Washington area and elsewhere, mass transit ridership is setting records. Last year, transit trips nationwide topped 10.3 billion, a 50-year high.

   The high prices at the gas pump may be less than they were a few weeks ago, but they’re not going away unless demand dramatically falls. The days of $1 a gallon gas are gone.

   And over the weekend, the NY Times reported Shipping costs start to crimp globalization. “Cheap oil, the lubricant of quick, inexpensive transportation links across the world, may not return anytime soon, upsetting the logic of diffuse global supply chains that treat geography as a footnote in the pursuit of lower wages. Rising concern about global warming, the reaction against lost jobs in rich countries, worries about food safety and security, and the collapse of world trade talks in Geneva last week also signal that political and environmental concerns may make the calculus of globalization far more complex.”

Four at Four continues with yet another impeachable offense of Bush, Denver’s police state, extinction for gorillas and monkeys, and bonus story about bulletproof bras.

1. The Wall Street Journal reports that by exploiting a tax break meant for employees, Companies tap pension plans to fund executive benefits.

   At a time when scores of companies are freezing pensions for their workers, some are quietly converting their pension plans into resources to finance their executives’ retirement benefits and pay.

   In recent years, companies from Intel Corp. to CenturyTel Inc. collectively have moved hundreds of millions of dollars of obligations for executive benefits into rank-and-file pension plans. This lets companies capture tax breaks intended for pensions of regular workers and use them to pay for executives’ supplemental benefits and compensation.

   The practice has drawn scant notice. A close examination by The Wall Street Journal shows how it works and reveals that the maneuver, besides being a dubious use of tax law, risks harming regular workers. It can drain assets from pension plans and make them more likely to fail. Now, with the current bear market in stocks weakening many pension plans, this practice could put more in jeopardy. There is no easy way to determine which companies are taking advatage of this scheme.

   By deferring corporate executive salaries into the employee pension plan, corporations are allowing executives compensation to grow tax free. The company does not have to pay the executives and when they ‘retire’ the employee pension plan covers their deferred salary. This and other moves that allows these highly-compensated executives and corporations to skirt around paying their share of taxes.

   Generally, only the executives are aware this is being done. Benefits consultants have advised companies to keep quiet to avoid an employee backlash.

   Hat tip Paul Kiel at ProPublica.

2. The New York Daily News reports FBI was told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials. “In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda, but investigators ruled that out”.

   Mueller was “beaten up” during President Bush’s morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide.

   “They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East” …

   Both Bush and Cheney were applying pressure to Mueller. Hat tip TPM Muckraker.

Four at Four continues with harnessing the wind and the first new steam locomotive in Britain in nearly 50 years.

All three “public” Bushes called into Rush Limbaugh’s show today, reports the LA Times to congratulate him for 20 years of spewing rightwing noise across America’s airwaves. Just reading the provided transcript is enough to transform weaker stomachs into queasy, vomit catapults.

Here’s some lowlights:

W: Hello!

RUSH: Oh, jeez. The president?

W: Rush Limbaugh?

RUSH: Yes, sir, Mr. President.

W: President George W. Bush calling to congratulate you on 20 years of important and excellent broadcasting.

RUSH: Well, thank you, sir. You’ve stunned me! (laughing) I’m shocked. But thank you so much.

W: That’s hard to do.

RUSH: (laughing) I know, it is.

W: I’m here with a room full of admirers. There are two others that would like to speak to you and congratulate you, people who consider you … friends and really appreciate the contribution you’ve made.

Update below the fold…

1. Alok Jha of The Guardian reports on a Cheap way to ‘split water’ that could lead to an abundant clean fuel. “Daniel Nocera, a chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has developed a catalyst made from cobalt and phosphorus that can split water at room temperature, a technique he describes in the journal Science.”

   The technique, which mimics the way photosynthesis works in plants, also provides a highly efficient way to store energy, potentially paving the way to making solar power more economically viable.

   Hydrogen is a clean, energy-rich fuel that many experts believe could become important as nations attempt to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The gas can be produced by splitting water but current techniques are expensive, use harsh chemicals and need carefully controlled environments in which to operate.

   Over at Dailky Kos, Litho gives more details in Solar Energy: MIT announces major breakthrough.

2. Huricanes can actually be beneficial. From the Great Beyond at Nature, Hurricane keeps dead zone small. “The huge ‘dead zone’ of oxygen-poor water in the Gulf of Mexico failed to reach record size this year.” Because, “Hurricane Dolly stirred the dead zone like a big pot of soup, aerating water that would otherwise have been oxygenless. Thus by the time scientists finished measuring it, the zone was smaller than predicted. It should shrink further in the fall, with cooler weather, fewer algae and more storms mixing the waters.”

   More evidence of self-repair from the Earth’s natural systems?

Four at Four continues with a couple stories about climate change, trolls on the net, and a troll running for the president.