From A Fiery Speaker To The Country On Fire (Thursday's Second Hour)

We open the second hour with a Zaine Verjee piece on Hugo Chavez and I actually didn't pay attention because I initially thought it was a repeat. Oops. But seriously how much Chavez coverage do we really need anyway? After the piece we get a little bit of rerun of the Ahmadinejad interview and then we go back to the studio where Aneesh Raman joins us live. It's good to see Aneesh somewhere he doesn't have to worry about his safety. Aneesh let's us in on the fact that Ahmadinejad really isn't all that popular at home and the Iranians don't care about the nuclear program as much as we'd might think. They're nationalistic about it, but actually more worried about the economy. Also of note is that off camera an Iranian told Aneesh he likes Bush because Bush got rid of Saddam, but on camera the same guy says Bush is Satan. Man, wouldn't it be a trip if Bush's actual approve rating in Iran is higher than it is here? Rick Sanchez and Gary Tuchman also join us via satellite and Rick mentions that Chavez got a law passed in Venezuela that bans speaking out against him, which is something some Venezuelans see as hypocracy. Gary says Chavez is the shock jock of politics. Going back to Ahmadinejad, Aneesh mentions the little talked about notion that the Iranian president has a messianic vision and thinks the world will end soon. That can't be good. The rapture ready people freak me out enough as it is and they're not trying to get nukes--well that I know of anyway.

On now to a Jamie McIntyre piece on how the US wouldn't wait for permission to go get Bin Laden inside Pakistan. Basically there's not much new here, though some Raw Data from Anderson teaches us that Pakistan has 115 million people and is twice the size of California.

The next piece comes from Bill Nealy of ITN and I'm kind of fascinated by the whole meta workings of news sharing because I saw this same piece on the NBC Nightly News. Does anybody get to use footage from ITN? Anyway, Bill brings us video of a scary Taliban ambush on British troops in southern Afghanistan. Luckily all troops came out unscathed, but it just goes to show that the Taliban are still a force to be reckoned with.

Transitioning now to a David Mattingly piece, which I think is the most important of the hour. You may remember the horrific story of a 14 year old Iraqi girl that was raped and murdered by US soldiers. The only reason they didn't get away with it is because another soldier blew the whistle on them. That whistleblower's name is Justin Watt and in my view he's a hero. Unfortunately, the military doesn't view these kind of things as heroic and Justin was so worried that he wasn't going to make it home alive he wrote a last letter to his parents. I just can't understand this. The military is suppose to be a place of courage and honor. This man did something courageous and honorable and then had to fear for his life because of it. Obviously all of the military can't be painted with one brush, but sometimes the code of honor doesn't seem so honorable. Justin is not allowed to talk about the case or his testimony and he still has two more years in the army. I hope they are good years. Also, what a joke it is that criminals and incompetents are given the presidential medal of freedom and people like Justin are not. If only this blog could hand them out.

On now to a Peter Viles piece on our record year of wildfires. They started early this year and have taken out 1.5 million acres in Nevada alone. After the piece we get Peter live form Los Padres National Forest and he tells us the weather is going to shift and perhaps make things more difficult. Continuing with the subject of fire we get a Gary Tuchman piece on how Montana is using computer software to better fight the fires. We then get Gary live from the nerve center in Montana and he walks around asking the people at their computers what they're working on. I don't know why, but that kind of cracks me up. Back now to another piece from Peter on a female fire commander. Man, this is a lot of fire coverage. Maybe I'm prejudice against fires, but did we need all this? I would have traded one of these pieces for some Thailand coup coverage.

Next up we've got a piece from Susan Candiotti on the teenager whose father was let out of jail to donate him a kidney, but skipped town instead. Anderson informs us the kid ended up getting the much needed kidney from an anonymous donor "despite his deadbeat dad." Anyway, the jerk dad is still on the lam.

We had a The Shot tonight, but I sort of missed. It was guys stuck on some sort of ski lift thingee. Or something. Anyway, the second hour was definitely weaker than the first. That's it for the night.

Screencaps by stormi0611 and liberation337.