News You Might Have Missed

Hi everyone. Welcome back to my weekly attempt to bring you the news you might have missed. Sorry about skipping Thursday's review. I, um, kind of fell asleep during the show. Whoops. Anyway, a reminder to my readers, I don't blog Fridays. Also, a couple of the following stories might have broken over the weekend:

• Oh well, what's one more bad idea, right? U.S. military encouraging snipers to lure insurgents using "bait." (This is actually a couple of weeks old, but, well, I missed it.)

• Freedom of the press: apparently not one of the freedoms we're bringing to Iraq. The military has returned a tape and memory card that they seized from an AP cameraman following an attack.
  

• Well, this time we know it wasn't Rove. The Bush administration leaked a Bin Laden tape to the media, ruining a private security company's surveillance operation.

• Hey! Only one invader in the quagmire at a time. Turkey thinking about taking on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.
  

• And Bill O'Reilly said he liked it. Shawn Hornbeck was forced to make a deal for his life because Michael Devlin was going to strange him to death. And that's why he didn't leave. This isn't the kind of story I would normally link to, but it's local for me and I still get hits on the subject.

• These are the people that guard our officials? Blackwater drew guns on U.S. soldiers.

• That seems like if could be a problem. Atlanta is running out of water.

• A reminder that life continues to be unfair. This isn't really news you might have missed, but rather a plea for help. The Joseph family lost their lower ninth ward home during Katrina and had almost rebuilt, when they lost it for a second time by a fire after someone ignited a stolen car in their yard. Their Road Home money is gone. Please help. If you can't donate money, a little PR on your blog, MySpace, and all the rest would be great too.
  

• When punditry and reality collide with heartbreaking and uplifting results. I make no secret that I really do not like Christopher Hitchens, but this is a must read. We've lost over 3,800 soldiers in the Iraq war so far. Mark Daily was one of them. This is his story.
  

• So, what is the objective, again? Top Iraqi leaders say reconciliation of the government is not possible.
  

• If we're trying to leave, why do we even need an embassy? More corruption and more money wasted in Iraq--this time on a huge U.S. Embassy.

• Dying to tell the story. Washington Post reporter shot dead in Baghdad.