1. The Washington Post reports FEC warns McCain on campaign spending.

   McCain’s attempts to build up his campaign coffers before a general election contest appeared to be threatened by the stern warning yesterday from Federal Election Commission Chairman David M. Mason, a Republican. Mason notified McCain that the commission had not granted his Feb. 6 request to withdraw from the presidential public financing system. The implications of that could be dramatic…

   Mason’s letter raises two issues as the basis for his position. One is that the six-member commission lacks a quorum, with four vacancies because of a Senate deadlock over President Bush’s nominees for the seats. Mason said the FEC would need to vote on McCain’s request to leave the system, which is not possible without a quorum. Until that can happen, the candidate will have to remain within the system, he said.

   The second issue is more complicated. It involves a $1 million loan McCain obtained from a Bethesda bank in January. The bank was worried about his ability to repay the loan if he exited the federal financing program and started to lose in the primary race. McCain promised the bank that, if that happened, he would reapply for matching money and offer those as collateral for the loan. While McCain’s aides have argued that the campaign was careful to make sure that they technically complied with the rules, Mason indicated that the question needs further FEC review.

   If the FEC refuses McCain’s request to leave the system, his campaign could be bound by a potentially debilitating spending limit until he formally accepts his party’s nomination. His campaign has already spent $49 million, federal reports show. Knowingly violating the spending limit is a criminal offense that could put McCain at risk of stiff fines and up to five years in prison.

2. The Guardian reports Turkish forces enter northern Iraq. “The Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, today told Turkey not to ‘violate’ the country after Turkish troops entered northern Iraq to attack Kurdish rebels. Several hundred troops – some reports claimed thousands – crossed the border after fighter jets and heavy artillery bombed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) forces. The PKK said two Turkish soldiers were killed and eight wounded in clashes following the incursion, but Turkey refused to comment on the claim… NTV television reported that 10,000 troops were taking part in the offensive and had penetrated 10km (six miles) into Iraq, although one US officer said the offensive involved only several hundred troops.”

3. Meanwhile in southern Iran, the Los Angeles Times reports Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites work together, distrustfully. “Both the Sunni and Shiite guards are helping the U.S. military defend Muqdadiya’s Matar district from Sunni extremists who forced the city into a self-styled Islamic caliphate for more than a year. But though the two groups run checkpoints around the corner from each other, each takes every opportunity to convince the Americans that the other is not to be trusted… As the militant organizations have retreated, rival bands of Sunni and Shiite guards have raced to stake claims to the vacated areas, raising the specter of sectarian bloodshed.”

4. The Los Angeles Times reports another Dolphin dies near sonar site. “A deep-diving dolphin died on the beach of the Navy’s San Nicolas Island late last month during the final days of naval exercises using a type of sonar that has been linked to fatal injuries of whales and dolphins. Although researchers have yet to determine a cause of death, a dissection of the northern right whale dolphin’s head revealed blood and other fluid in its ears and ear canals. The same symptoms were found in deep-diving whales that washed ashore in the Canary Islands and the Bahamas after military sonar exercises.”

1. The Guardian reports Serb protesters set US embassy ablaze in Belgrade. “Protesters set fire to the American embassy in Belgrade tonight and then attacked the neighbouring Croatian embassy after 150,000 Serbs gathered in the city to demonstrate against the independence of Kosovo… Masked attackers who entered the building tried to throw furniture and papers from the first floor, and appeared to have started the fire from inside one of the offices. The blaze spread across the front of the building. The building has been closed this week, and the ambassador was at his home”. The British and Croatian embassies were also attacked. According to BBC News, “Schools have been closed for the day and Serbian railways are offering free travel.” and told the BBC she “felt as if there if there were a million people at the Belgrade rally.”

2. How can we leave Iraq now that the “surge” is working so spiffily? According to Reuters, Iraqi police find bodies of 15 executed men. “Iraqi police said on Thursday they had found the bodies of 15 men, including 10 soldiers, who had been blindfolded and shot execution-style in the head. The bodies were found in ditches in Diyala province close to the city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad. Police said 10 of the bodies were those of soldiers in uniform. They appeared to have been killed about a week ago.”

3. With Fidel stepping down, there is much speculation about what will happen in Cuba now. The Los Angeles Times reports on some predictions in Cuba expected to turn over new leaf in farming. “Cuba is more likely to launch reforms to boost food production, create oil industry jobs and put more pesos in citizens’ pockets, analysts said… Some changes, probably starting with efforts to help farmers, are likely to occur during the next year… Raul Castro, the president’s 76-year-old brother and potential successor, and other Cuban leaders for months have indicated that farmers may receive legal rights to their land and guaranteed market prices for their produce. With food production pitifully low for a country with fertile land and a year-round growing climate, farmers need more land and more autonomy in tilling it to boost output. Cuba imports at least 70% of its food, including a record $437-million worth from the United States last year.” Additionally, “opportunities to draw more investment in oil exploration and nickel mining have also emerged”.

4. The New York Times reports that Research explains formation of unique Martian fans. Scientists at the Utrecht University in the Netherlands “believe they now know how sediment deposits spilling out of the mouth of some water channels on Mars were shaped in a series of terraces that look like terraced rice paddies… No similar natural formations have been seen in river deltas on Earth… About 10 stepped fans have been identified, most at the base of a steep slope emptying into a basin like an impact crater… The sandbox experiment, reported in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature, [suggest] the terraces form by the interaction of the sediment flow with the water’s edge, which is rising as the basin fills.” High school students helped the Utrecht University scientists with the research.

1. The New York Times reports that After his wins, Obama is the focus of McCain and Clinton. “Mr. McCain has turned his attention to Mr. Obama, calling on him to pledge to abide by the limits of public financing for the campaign. Mrs. Clinton also focused on Mr. Obama as she went on the offensive early Wednesday in a speech at Hunter College in Manhattan, charging that her rival has substituted rhetoric for practical experience. ‘It is time to get real,’ Mrs. Clinton, of New York, said. ‘To get real about how we actually win this election and get real about the challenges facing America. It’s time we moved from good words to good works, from sound bites to sound solutions.'” Clinton is campaigning in New York, while her “must win” primaries are in Texas and Ohio.

   Mccain’s motivations are obviously not driven by belief that campaigns should be publically financed. Rather, “Mr. Obama has broken all political fundraising records in this election he has taken in more than $150 million so far, $36 million in January alone, and Mr. McCain’s advisers have privately questioned why he would disarm himself of that advantage and not spend the prodigious amounts he has raised on his own.”

   Meanwhile, The Guardian reports the Obama campaign urges Clinton to concede. “Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, dismissed her camp’s hopes of making a comeback… ‘This is a wide, wide lead right now,’ Plouffe said in a conference call with reporters. ‘The Clinton campaign keeps saying the race is essentially tied. That’s just lunacy.’ The argument from the Obama camp appears designed to paint Clinton as a nuisance candidate — much like Mike Huckabee… Clinton’s hopes of upsetting that equation now turn on delivering a convincing performance in tomorrow night’s Democratic debate in Austin, Texas”.

2. The AP reports the Supreme Court says 401(k) participants can sue under a pension protection law to recover their losses. The court’s decision was unanimous. “James LaRue of Southlake, Texas, said the value of his stock market holdings plunged $150,000 when administrators at his retirement plan failed to follow his instructions to switch to safer investments… Justice John Paul Stevens, in his opinion for the court, said that such lawsuits are allowed. ‘Fiduciary misconduct need not threaten the solvency of the entire plan to reduce benefits below the amount that participants would otherwise receive,’ Stevens said… The Bush administration argued in support of workers. The government said the appeals court ruling barring LaRue’s lawsuit would leave 401(k) participants without a meaningful remedy from any federal, state or local court when plan administrators fail to live up to their duties. Business groups supported LaRue’s employer.” Will this make any difference to most people?

3. Newsflash! Well, maybe not… Just more bad news. Bloomberg News reports Federal Reserve outlook predicts more joblessness and higher inflation. “Fed policy makers now expect U.S. gross domestic product to increase by 1.3 percent to 2 percent in 2008, compared with the 1.8 percent to 2.5 percent they predicted in October. The fourth-quarter jobless rate will be between 5.2 percent and 5.3 percent, up from a range of 4.8 percent to 4.9 percent in the last forecast… Inflation, excluding food and energy, will run at 2 percent to 2.2 percent this year, compared with 1.7 percent to 1.9 percent projected in October. Total consumer prices will rise by 2.1 percent to 2.4 percent; the FOMC projected an increase of 1.8 percent to 2.1 percent three months earlier… Food prices rose last year at the fastest pace since 1990, the Labor Department said Jan. 16.”

   Oh and Reuters reports Oil steadies at $100 after touching record high. As predicted, $100 per barrel is now the new low. Meanwhile in Germany, Spiegel wonders if their country is about to have the “worst financial crisis since 1931?” Because, according to them German state-owned banks on verge of collapse. So if history repeats itself, which country will be the first to fully embrace fascism. My money is on the U.S. this time around.

4. If you live in a cave, you become accustomed to the dark. So, it was with great enthusiasm that I read the news in the Washington Post that Scientists create a black that erases virtually all light. “Researchers in New York reported this month that they have created a paper-thin material that absorbs 99.955 percent of the light that hits it, making it by far the darkest substance ever made — about 30 times as dark as the government’s current standard for blackest black… By voraciously sucking up all surrounding illumination, it can give those who gaze on it a dizzying sensation of nothingness.”

   Of course the military is interested in (and funding) the research, but the article also explains that “Solar panels coated with it would be much more efficient than those coated with conventional black paint, which reflects 5 percent or more of incoming light.” Maybe something good will come from the darkness?

1. Stop the police state? Don’t look to the Supreme Court for help. The Los Angeles Times reports Supreme Court rejects wiretap suit.

   The Supreme Court today dismissed the first legal challenge to President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping order, but without ruling on any of the key issues…

   The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, a Cold War-era compromise, said the president could order secret wiretapping within the United States, but only with the specific approval of a special court.

   But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush issued a secret order to the National Security Agency that authorized it to intercept phone calls or e-mails coming into or going out of this country if there was a “reasonable basis” to believe there was a link to Al Qaeda. More significantly, the NSA did not need the approval of the FISA court to conduct this spying, according to the order.

   When Bush’s order was revealed in 2005, the president defended his decision as necessary for protecting against another attack within the United States. He also argued that the president, as commander in chief of the armed services, had the constitutional authority to act in the national interest, even if a law stood in the way.

   I cannot believe some are still asking if the president above the law. The president is not above the law.

2. According to the Washington Post, the Unilateral strike is called a model for U.S. operations in Pakistan. On January 29, a CIA Predator aircraft missile attack killed Abu Laith al-Libi, a al-Qaeda commander. “Having requested the Pakistani government’s official permission for such strikes on previous occasions, only to be put off or turned down, this time the U.S. spy agency did not seek approval.” Pakistan “was notified only as the operation was underway”. The U.S. has spent billions of dollars on surveillance equipment in South Asia, but still local, human intelligence leads to this “model” attack. However…

   Some officials also emphasized that such airstrikes have a marginal and temporary impact. And they do not yield the kind of intelligence dividends often associated with the live capture of terrorists — documents, computers, equipment and diaries that could lead to further unraveling the network.

   The officials stressed that despite the occasional tactical success against it, such as the Libi strike, the threat posed by al-Qaeda’s presence in Pakistan has been growing. As a senior U.S. official briefed on the strike said: “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. But overall, we’re in worse shape than we were 18 months ago.”

3. The New York Times reports Midlife suicide rises, puzzling researchers. There has been “an unusually large increase in suicides among middle-aged Americans in recent years… For officials, it is a surprising and baffling public health mystery. A new five-year analysis of the nation’s death rates recently released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the suicide rate among 45-to-54-year-olds increased nearly 20 percent from 1999 to 2004, the latest year studied, far outpacing changes in nearly every other age group. (All figures are adjusted for population.) For women 45 to 54, the rate leapt 31 percent… At the moment, the prime suspect is the skyrocketing use – and abuse – of prescription drugs.”

4. The Oregonian reports a Pair of cannons found on Oregon Coast could be from 1846 ship. “The discovery of a pair of pre-Civil War era cannons on the Oregon Coast this week has caused a stir among archeologists, historians and coast residents who have flocked to Arch Cape to get a look. The cannons, which residents and a state park official speculate came from the USS Shark, a survey schooner that ran aground on the Columbia Bar in 1846, washed up this week… Gary McDaniel, a supervisor with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department’s Nehalem Bay management unit, said the cannons appear to be two of three cannons that were mounted on the USS Shark. The first cannon washed up in 1898 and is the namesake of Cannon Beach, about four or five miles north of Arch Cape.”

Oh and Castro will step down from power this weekend.

1. The AP reports 140 Afghans killed in 2 days of bombings. “A suicide car bomber killed 38 Afghans at a crowded market Monday, pushing the death toll from two days of militant bombings to about 140. The marketplace blast, which targeted a Canadian army convoy, came a day after the country’s deadliest insurgent attack since a U.S. invasion defeated the Taliban regime in late 2001.

   Irony alert! U.S. Army Gen. Dan K. McNeill, NATO’s top commander in Afghanistan, back in September expressed his doubt the Taliban was ever defeated. Bush never finished his first invasion before moving on to oil-rich Iraq.

   “The toll from that bombing in a crowd watching a dog fight rose to more than 100… The previous deadliest bombing in Afghanistan killed about 70 people – mostly students – in November, part of a record year of violence in 2007 that included more than 140 suicide attacks.”

   In addition to a record number of civilian casualties in 2007, last year was also the deadliest year for American troops in Afghanistan too.

2. The Washington Post reports on Army moms in Short maternity leaves, long deployments. “Many female soldiers hoping to start families face the prospect of missing most of their child’s first year. The Army grants six weeks of maternity leave before a new mother must return to her job or training, and four months until she can be sent to a war zone. The Marine Corps and Navy allow from six months to a year before a new mother must deploy… Under that system, a woman who wishes to have a child and remain with her unit must conceive soon after returning home so she can give birth, recover and prepare for her next overseas tour. Female soldiers… say the tight schedule cuts short precious time for mother and infant to bond and breast-feed, forcing women to choose between their loyalty to their comrades — as well as their careers — and nurturing their families.”

3. The Los Angles Times reports that Student’s deportation roils New Mexico town. Until last December, Roswell had largely ignored the immigration debate. But when “a school security officer stopped Karina Acosta, an 18-year-old pregnant Roswell High School senior, and discovered she was in the country illegally. He called federal immigration authorities, who swiftly deported her. The district superintendent protested and the officer was removed from the school and transferred back to the city Police Department. About three dozen angry students and parents marched on police headquarters — a notable event in a town not accustomed to controversy — and were met by a handful of counterdemonstrators who backed the officer… Two months later, unease permeates the community.”

4. CBS 60 Minutes sent Morley Safer to Denmark in The pursuit of happiness.

   Over the past 30 years, in survey after survey, [Denmark] consistently beat the rest of the world in the happiness stakes. It’s hard to figure: the weather is only so-so, they are heavy drinkers and smokers, their neighbors, the Norwegians, are richer, and their other neighbors, the Swedes, are healthier…

   After careful study, [Professor Kaare Christensen at the University of Southern Denmark] thinks he isolated the key to Danish anti-depression. “What we basically figured out that although the Danes were very happy with their life, when we looked at their expectations they were pretty modest,” he says. By having low expectations, one is rarely disappointed…

   All education is free in Denmark, right on through university. And students can take as long as they like to complete their studies…

   Denmark also provides free health care, subsidized child care and elder care, a social safety net spread the length and breadth of the country… Christensen says the average work week is 37 hours, and workers get six weeks of vacation. But in getting all of these wonderful gifts from the government, the Danes do pay a price. Christensen says a middle income person would pay about 50 percent – half – in taxes.

   But not everyone is happy in Denmark. The International Herald Tribune reports Danish police arrest almost 30 people in 8th night of youth violence. “Nearly 30 people were arrested for setting fires to buildings, cars and trash bins in an eight consecutive night of youth violence in Danish cities, mostly in immigrant neighborhoods, police said Monday… It was not clear what triggered the unrest… Some observers say the youth are frustrated over police harassment and the reprinting of a cartoon lampooning the Prophet Muhammad. Danish newspapers reproduced the drawing on Wednesday to show their commitment to free speech after police foiled an alleged plot to kill the cartoonist who created it.”

A risky and controversial plan to save coral reefs from extinction is below the fold.

1. Here’s a headline I never thought I’d see from the 110th Capitulation Congress. The Hill reports Bye-bye bipartisanship.

   House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the Senate legislation is unacceptable because it grants immunity from lawsuits to telephone companies that shared private records with government officials. Pelosi said the legislation should also make clear that the administration’s authority to eavesdrop relies entirely on legislative statute and not on any executive powers granted to the president under the Constitution.

   Pelosi told reporters Thursday that she would allow the intelligence community’s broader surveillance authority to lapse, forcing its members to obtain warrants from the special court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) until the House and Senate can reach agreement on a reauthorization bill.

   Democrats say that Senate Republicans deliberately slowed the passage of intelligence legislation in that chamber to put House leaders in a tight spot of having to either accept the Senate version or allow surveillance authorization to lapse.

   The Republican strategy seems almost to have worked. Democratic leaders were in position to take up the Senate bill Thursday after they passed a rule Wednesday evening to allow them to vote on “any bill related to foreign intelligence.”

   But their spines stiffened overnight. On Thursday, House Democrats claimed that allowing the authorization to lapse for a few weeks would pose no danger to the American people, bracing themselves for an expected onslaught of Republican accusations that Congress is imperiling national security.

   “President Bush has nothing to offer but fear,” said Pelosi.

   The Washington Post has more in House defies Bush on warrantless wiretaps.

   Several Democrats said yesterday that many in their party wish to take a more measured approach to terrorism issues, and they refused to be stampeded by Bush. “We have seen what happens when the president uses fearmongering to stampede Congress into making bad decisions,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). “That’s why we went to war in Iraq.”

   White House officials and their allies were angry that the Democrats did not “blink,” as one outside adviser said. The decision to defy the White House came in the form of a weeklong adjournment of the House yesterday afternoon.

   Pelosi said she instructed committee chairmen to begin talks with their Democratic counterparts in the Senate, who this week supported the administration’s position on the surveillance bill, suggesting that a compromise might be possible in the coming weeks.

   Nancy — don’t start that whole “compromising” with Bush and the Republicans thing again… that’s how America gets into these messes.

Four at Four continues below the fold. I’m not telling what’s there so you’ll have to leap below the fold to see…

1. TPMmuckraker reports the House Passes Contempt Resolution against White House Officials. “The House passed the contempt resolution against White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers, 223-32. Most Republicans, having staged their walk out, did not vote. So now the ball’s in Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s court. He’s expected to decline to enforce the citation of contempt… The resolution included both a criminal contempt citation and the authorization for the House Judiciary Committee to sue the White House if Mukasey refuses to enforce the citation.”

   The Hill has more in House finds Bolten, Miers in contempt of Congress. “The matter will now be referred to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. If the fight comes to a head without a compromise having been reached, it could pit Congress’s power to hold White officials in contempt against the president’s right to assert executive privilege. Democrats passed two resolutions through the adoption of a single rule, a procedural tactic that limited the time of debate, angering Republicans. One resolution holds Bolten and Miers in contempt. The second sets the stage for a civil suit the House would file against the administration to compel it to force Bolten and Miers to testify.”

2. TPMmuckraker is also reporting on the testimony of Steven Bradbury, head of the Office of Legal Counsel before the House Judiciary subcommittee in CIA Waterboarding Was Subject to “Strict Limitations”. “The CIA’s use of waterboarding was legal and not torture, a Justice Deparment official argued this morning, because it was a “procedure subject to strict limitations and safeguards” that made it substantially different from historical uses of the technique by the Japanese and the Spanish Inquisition… [Bradbury] argued that what the CIA did bears ‘no resemblance’ to what torturers in time past have done.”

   Earlier in his testimony today, Bradbury stated waterboarding isn’t currently legal. As TPMmuckraker states it is part of the Bush administration’s waterboarding PR campaign.

3. The Guardian reports Total human impact on oceans mapped for the first time.

   Fishing, climate change and pollution have left an indelible mark on virtually all of the world’s oceans, according to a huge study that has mapped the total human impact on the seas for the first time. Scientists found that almost no areas have been left pristine and that more than 40% of the world’s oceans have been heavily affected…

   Human impact is most severe in the North Sea, the South and East China Seas, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Gulf, the Bering Sea, along the eastern coast of North America and in much of the western Pacific.
   The oceans at the poles are less affected, but melting ice sheets will leave them vulnerable, researchers said.

   Different ecosystems have been affected to differing degrees: the study found that almost half of the world’s coral reefs have been heavily damaged. Other areas of concern are seagrass beds, mangrove forests, seamounts, rocky reefs and continental shelves. Soft-bottom ecosystems and the open ocean fared best, but even these were not pristine in the majority of locations…

   Highlighting examples of action, the researchers said that, for example, no-fishing zones have been shown to protect sensitive ecosystems, as has re-routing shipping lanes.

There’s a bonus dinosaur beneath the fold… Follow the link to dig up the ol’ fossil. Or if you’re not into dinosaurs, there’s a spy satellite to shoot down too. Click to launch missiles…

1. Josh White, writing for the Washington Post reports, of the Bomb targeter-turned-human rights advocate.

   Sitting in a secure vault deep inside the Pentagon, Marc Garlasco cheered when the laser-guided bombs he had helped target slammed to Earth, striking Iraqi soil. As a body flew like a rag doll across the video screen, framed in a bright flash and a cloud of dust, Garlasco and his fellow intelligence analysts thought they had taken out one of the U.S. military’s top targets during the early days of the Iraq war.

   But even as he reveled in the April 2003 airstrike, Garlasco was thinking ahead to his next job, which would take him to the edges of the very crater he had just helped create. Just two weeks after the failed attack targeting Iraq’s notorious Ali Hassan Majeed, known as Chemical Ali, Garlasco left the Defense Intelligence Agency and traveled worldwide as a human rights activist seeking to determine the civilian toll of his previous work.

   “I found myself standing at that crater, talking to a man about how his family was destroyed, how children were killed, and there was this bunny-rabbit toy covered in dust nearby, and it tore me in two,” Garlasco said. “I had been a part of it, so it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. It really dawned on me that these aren’t just nameless, faceless targets. This is a place where people are going to feel ramifications for a long time.“

2. The New York Times reports GAO Report warns of threat to campus nuclear reactors. “The risks of a terrorist attack on a nuclear reactor on a college campus, and the potential consequences, have been underestimated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Congressional auditors say in a report. The report, by the Government Accountability Office, said the commission had overruled expert contractors who thought differently, and misrepresented what the contractors had said. Security requirements at the reactors have changed little since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to the auditors, even though many of the reactors still run on enriched uranium, which terrorists could convert into an atomic bomb.”

   According to the report, “There are 37 research reactors in the United States, mostly located on college campuses. Of these, 33 reactors are licensed and regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Four are operated by the Department of Energy (DOE) and are located at three national laboratories… DOE also has concluded that the consequences of an attack at some of its research reactors could be severe, causing radioactivity to be dispersed over many square miles and requiring the evacuation of nearby areas. As a result, all facilities where DOE reactors are located have extensive plans and procedures for responding to security incidents. NRC based its security and emergency response requirements largely on the regulations it had in place before September 2001. NRC decided that the security assessment it conducted between 2003 and 2006 showed that these requirements were sufficient.”

3. The Guardian reports the True scale of C02 emissions from shipping is revealed. “The true scale of climate change emissions from shipping is almost three times higher than previously believed, according to a leaked UN study… It calculates that annual emissions from the world’s merchant fleet have already reached 1.12bn tonnes of CO2, or nearly 4.5% of all global emissions of the main greenhouse gas.

   “The report suggests that shipping emissions… will become one of the largest single sources of manmade CO2 after cars, housing, agriculture and industry. By comparison, the aviation industry, which has been under heavy pressure to clean up, is responsible for about 650m tonnes of CO2 emissions a year, just over half that from shipping.” Makes all that ‘cheap stuff’ from overseas seem not so cheap.

4. From the Wall Street Journal news that a New era dawns for rail building. “America is back to working on the railroads… For decades, railroads spent little on expansion, even tore up surplus track and shrank routes. But since 2000 they’ve spent $10 billion to expand tracks, build freight yards and buy locomotives, and they have $12 billion more in upgrades planned. The buildout comes as the industry transitions away from its chief role in recent decades of hauling coal, timber and other raw materials in manufacturing regions. Now, increasingly, railroads are moving finished consumer goods, often made in Asia, from ports to major cities…

   “Railroad operators are pressing for advantage over their main competitor, long-haul trucking, which has struggled with rising fuel prices, driver shortages and highway congestion. Railroads say a load can be moved by rail using about a third as much fuel as it takes to haul it by truck… Demand for rail service increased sharply when the U.S. economy and Asian imports surged starting in 2003.” Of course, this rail renaissance is being driven by ‘cheap stuff’ from overseas… and no sign of passengers.

Today is the 199th birthday of Charles Darwin and 2008 marks the 149th year anniversary of his book, On the Origin of Species, where he advocated and provided scientific evidence that showed all species of life evolved over time from common ancestry through the process of natural selection.

Today is also a good time to reflect upon what Darwin’s ideas mean to Americans.

1. The Washington Post reports the Senate rejects surveillance amendment and preserves telecom immunity. “The Senate voted today to preserve retroactive immunity from lawsuits for telecommunications companies that cooperated with a government eavesdropping program, decisively rejecting an amendment that would have stripped the provision from a bill… Senators voted 67 to 31 to shelve the amendment offered by Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.)… The vote represented a victory for the Bush administration and a number of telecommunications companies — including AT&T and Sprint Nextel — that face dozens of lawsuits from customers seeking billions of dollars in damages… Immunity from such lawsuits must also be approved by the House, which does not provide such protection in its version of the bill.”

2. The Los Angeles Times reports Nearly 50,000 votes won’t count in Los Angeles. “An estimated 49,500 votes were cast incorrectly in Los Angeles County by nonpartisan voters in the presidential primaries and cannot be counted because the voters’ intentions are unclear, acting Registrar Dean Logan said Monday. The mismarked ballots were the result of a confusing ballot design and poor education of poll workers and the public, Logan said… Logan released a report of the Feb. 5 voting based on a manual survey of nonpartisan ballots cast in 1% of the county’s precincts. It found that 26% tried to vote in one of the two party primaries but neglected to mark a party bubble on the ballot.”

3. The Guardian reports Boeing engineer and Pentagon analyst charged with spying for the Chinese.

   Dongfan Chung, the former Boeing engineer, was charged with supplying the Chinese with secrets relating to the space shuttle and other Nasa programmes…

   Born in China, he became a US citizen and worked at Boeing until 2002, before returning as a contractor. He had security clearance to work on secret projects, but the FBI alleges that he gave China secrets from Boeing relating to the shuttle, the C-17 military transport aircraft and a rocket system.

   The indictment alleges that Chung’s Chinese handlers began sending him “tasking” letters in 1979, when he worked for Rockwell International, a firm later taken over by Boeing. He gave China details of the B-1 bomber designed by Rockwell…

   In the second case, Gregg Bergersen, 51, a Pentagon weapons systems analyst, was charged with selling secret information to a furniture businessman in New Orleans called Tai Kuo. The salesman, a naturalised US citizen originally from Taiwan, aged 58, was arrested in New Orleans along with another immigrant from China, Yu Xin Kang, 33.

   Kuo stands accused of passing on the information received from Bergersen to the Chinese, while Kang is said to have acted as conduit between Kuo and China. The transmitted data is alleged to include details of all sales of military technology and weaponry by the US to Taiwan over the next five years.

4. The International Herald Tribune reports Spain gets women’s measurements down. A yearlong government-sponsored study “used laser beams to measure more than 10,000 women aged from 12 to 70, claims that 4 out of 10 have trouble finding clothes that fit them, mainly because sizes are inconsistent from one outlet to another and because what is on the racks is too small… The study says Spanish women fall into three categories: ‘cylinders,’ whose chest, waist and hips are more or less the same size; ‘hourglasses,’ with smaller waists; and ‘bells,’ or pear-shapes, whose hips are wider than their chests and waists. Many who start out life as cylinders or hourglasses end up as bells, it says… Armed with the new data, the government hopes to overhaul the sizing system used by the Spanish fashion industry for 35 years and eliminate the skinny stereotype that it says encourages eating disorders.” Bernat Soria, the health minister, plans “to do a similar survey of men – assuming the Socialist government wins the March 9 general election – and to propose that the European Union adopt a common standard.”

1. The Washington Post reports the Iraq drawdown may be delayed. “Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday that it ‘probably does make sense’ to pause troop withdrawals from Iraq late this summer after the last of the forces sent in as part of an offensive surge have gone home… He spoke a day after a series of bombings targeting Iraqi security forces and U.S.-backed Sunni guards killed as many as 37 people in northern Iraq. The violence continued Monday, with two suicide car bombs detonating outside the compound of a top Sunni tribal leader, Ali Hatam al-Suleiman, killing at least eight people and wounding 23… U.S. officials said an American soldier was killed in Diyala province Sunday when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb; two other soldiers were wounded”. The surge is permenant, because the occupation is endless.

2. Just in case there was any doubt, according to the Los Angeles Times, Bush will help campaign if McCain is nominee. George W. Bush promised “to assist Sen. John McCain’s campaign for the presidency assuming he wins the Republican Party nomination — but acknowledged that the Arizona senator has ‘got some convincing to do’ among the party’s conservatives… Bush made clear that he was willing to set aside the tensions he has had with McCain in the past, and he praised the front-runner as ‘a true conservative’.

   But as The New York Times reports Losses signal weakness for McCain. “McCain, who won enough delegates in the coast-to-coast nominating contests on Tuesday to place him mathematically beyond the reach of his Republican rivals, suffered embarrassing losses in the Louisiana primary and the Kansas caucuses on Saturday to former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas.”

   And even the attempt by the corrupt Republican Party to steal elections for their beauty queen isn’t working according to plan. The Seattle Times reports Huckabee disputes delegate count in Washinton’s caucuses. “Huckabee’s campaign took issue with Washington state Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser’s decision to call the race Saturday night with 87 percent of the precincts counted. At that point, McCain was ahead of Huckabee by 242 delegates out of the 13,000 counted, Esser said. The Huckabee campaign contends there were another 1,500 or so delegates not counted.” Not counting all the votes — how very Republican.

3. In what must be a perverted misuse of the word democratic, Burma promises democratic elections according to the CS Monitor. “Military rulers in Burma (Myanmar) said this weekend they would hold a national referendum in May to approve a new constitution, followed by democratic elections in 2010, the first since 1990. The country’s military junta was rebuked by the United Nations Security Council last October after violently repressing pro-democracy marches sparked by economic hardship. Since then, leaders have held sporadic talks with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and hosted a senior UN envoy, while sticking to its own ‘road map’ to restore democratic rule… A spokesman for the National League for Democracy, the party led by Suu Kyi that won the 1990 ballot only to see its victory annulled, told the BBC that the statement was ‘vague, incomplete, and strange,’ given that the election date was conditional on the constitution passing the referendum.”

4. The New York Times reports on the environmental problem that are America’s suburbs in Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You.

   If the United States is ever to reduce its carbon emissions, suburbanites – that is, roughly half of all Americans, said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution – are going to have to play a big role…

   The problem with suburbs, many environmentalists say, is not an issue of light bulbs. In the end, the very things that make suburban life attractive – the lush lawns, spacious houses and three-car garages – also disproportionally contribute to global warming. Suburban life, these environmentalists argue, is simply not sustainable.

   “The very essence of the post-Second World War America suburb militates against ‘greening,’ ” said Thomas J. Sugrue, a professor of history and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. “Given the almost complete dependency of suburbanites on the car, it’s an uphill battle.” …

   Despite the efforts of individuals and whole communities to reduce the carbon cost of suburban life, the broad trends in American life have been moving in the opposite direction for decades. The average single-family home nearly doubled in size from 1970 to 2005, to 2,434 square feet. Americans commuting to work by car travel farther as suburbs sprawl (an average 12.1 miles in 2001, up from 8.9 miles in 1983), in vehicles whose average fuel efficiency has improved little.