NEW STUDY FROM NEWS WATCH INDIA -

New revelation: Almost 98 per cent of errors in US newspapers go uncorrected

Almost half of the articles published by daily newspapers in the US contain one or more factual errors, and less than two per cent end up being corrected. The findings are from a forthcoming research paper by Scott R Maier, an associate professor at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication. The findings challenge how well journalism’s “corrections box” sets the record straight or serves as a safety valve for the venting of frustrations by wronged news sources.

A REPORT A DAY KEEPS IRAQ IN PLAY
IS CHINA DUMPING DOLLARS
SALUTING LUCIANO PAVAROTTI

TGIF—another week of techno frustration has me glad I am leaving town and the USSA tonight for a few days in another reality. I guess I really didn’t miss all the email, but I do miss making sense of the bizarre moment of history we are in. To borrow a Bushism, it’s really HARD work.

We live in troubling times where a military plane loaded with nuclear weapons inadvertently flew the friendly skies across the USA and little incidents like this barely get attention—perhaps they are much more common that we realize.

BBC: Syria says it opened fire on Israeli jets that were violating its air space and forced them to leave.

AUSTRIA: Four Austrian soldiers face criminal charges for exchanging Hitler salutes in two videos that appeared on the Internet, Defence Minister Norbert Darabos said on Thursday.

Any display of Nazi propaganda or symbols is a crime in Austria, which took decades to acknowledge it was more a willing party than a victim of Nazi Germany’s Third Reich.

WAR WITHOUT END IN IRAQ

Two stories from the Wash Post:

]Iraq’s army, despite measurable progress, will be unable to take over internal security from U.S. forces in the next 12 to 18 months and “cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven,” according to a report on the Iraqi security forces published today

Experts Doubt Drop In Violence in Iraq

The U.S. military’s claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.

FROM THE ANGRY ARAB NEWS SERVICE’

“”We’re kicking ass,” he told Mark Vaile on the tarmac after the Deputy Prime Minister inquired politely of the President’s stopover in Iraq en route to Sydney.

Are you keeping up with all the Iraq reports—there seems to be more than one every day as David Terreshuk reports:

Continuing the Iraq war seems to take a plethora of reports. George W Bush commissioned from General David Petraeus (pictured above) and Ambassador Ryan Crocker the now intriguingly nicknamed Pet-Crock Report (coinage by the ever-inventive former Richard Nixon speechwriter, and now studious “language maven” William Safire).

But this report business is all a bit - perhaps deliberately - confusing. It was formally Congress that commissioned the President to provide the report by this month, and he in turn asked the general and the ambassador to work on it, “reporting” to him, of course. In the meantime, however, both Bush’s men-in-the-field will travel to Washington and give evidence on Capitol Hill next week. Strictly speaking, the final official report to Congress should be called the Bush Report … but let’s stick with “Pet-Crock” for the sake of discussion.

The Administration media machine’s stratagem has been to dangle Pet-Crock, along with warnings not to prejudge it but instead wait for its conclusions, as a way to dampen or divert full consideration of successive efforts at objective assessment. There have been, for instance, the National Intelligence Estimate in August which painted a chillingly bleak security picture, and this week’s Government Accountability Office report concluding that only three out of eighteen so-called “benchmarks” of both political and military progress have been achieved in Iraq. Benchmarks, by the way, that were originally laid down by the White House, not by Congress.

WHO CAN WE TRUST ON IRAQ?

ICH: Pat Buchanan: BUSH’S WAR, PHASE 3

“Those who hoped that - with the victory of the antiwar party in 2006, the departure of Rumsfeld and the neocons from the Pentagon, the rise of Condi and the eclipse of Cheney - America was headed out of Iraq got a rude awakening. They are about to get another.

CRAIGTIME

Funny how in one week we read that the sex police have their eyes on Craig’s list and their cuffs on a Senator named Craig. Coincidence or something more?

Craig Moves to Block Senate Ethics Panel Complaint

A spokesman said that Senator Larry E. Craig would fight the Senate ethics and misdemeanor charges as he reconsiders his plans to resign.

RADAR ON THE ACTOR AND THE TALK SHOW HOST

It’s official: The guy who played the totally lame air traffic controller in Die Hard 2 is running for president! Fred Thompson swaggered onto Leno last night and started slangin’ his presidential candidacy with his usual folksy country lawyer schtick. According to Thompson, he and his wife just “started around the kitchen table in late March, talking about it, thinking about it, thinking about what kind of world and what kind of country our kids were going to grow up in … and I decided that it was time for me to step up.”

Though Thompson has taken some heat for skipping last night’s Republican debate in New Hampshire, he was clearly pleased with his choice to hit the late night circuit instead. When Leno asked about debates, Thompson said “I don’t think much of them … I don’t think it’s a very enlightening forum, to tell you truth.” Well, these debates may not like him very much either. Last night’s event started with a question essentially begging each candidate to try to pee on Thompson’s Guccis. The most self-flattering comment came from Giuliani: “He’s done a pretty good job of playing my part on Law & Order. I personally prefer the real thing.”

But for all the brilliance that took place in New Hampshire, there’s no question that the night belonged to Thompson (and NBC), who flew to Iowa after his TV appearance and joked, “It’s a lot more difficult to get on the Tonight Show than it is to get into a presidential debate.”

WHY DO WE HAVE TO READ ABOUT THIS ON BBC?