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Under the media umbrella

Major conglomerates and a selection of holdings, plus their 2003 revenue. (Excludes music and book publishing.)

TimeWarner - $39.6 billion
Holdings: Warner Bros, AOL, CNN, HBO, Time Warner Cable, Turner, Cartoon Network, The WB, New Line Cinema, Castle Rock Entertainment, DC Comics, People, Entertainment Weekly

The Walt Disney Company - $28.4 billion
Holdings: ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN, A&E, History Channel, E! Entertainment, Buena Vista, Touchstone Pictures, 10 TV stations, 60-plus radio stations, Miramax Films, and theme parks.

Viacom - $26.6 billion
Holdings: CBS and UPN networks, over 35 TV stations, MTV, Showtime, Nickelodeon, BET, Paramount Pictures, Blockbuster Video

News Corporation - $17.5 billion
Holdings: FOX Network, DirecTV, 34 TV stations, National Geographic Channel, FX, 20th Century Fox, the New York Post, The Times (of London)

NBC Universal (spinoff of GE) - $13 billion
NBC, Telemundo, Universal Pictures, Universal Parks & Resorts, USA Network, CNBC, Bravo, MSNBC, PAX, 14 TV stations, Sci-Fi Channel

Source: Columbia Journalism Review's Who Owns What? (Christian Science Monitor)

``The president needs to be shot. His father needs to be shot. If someone gave me bullets, I would do that.''

A police officer who mouthed off while picking up his uniform at the cleaners has been indicted on a charge of threatening President Bush for allegedly saying he would shoot him and his father if someone gave him the bullets....

....On July 15, a day before Bush visited Tampa, Mazagwu was picking up his dry cleaning when the owner asked if he would be part of the president's security detail.

The 11-year U.S. Army veteran and Nigerian native answered that he would not work it under any circumstances and criticized the war in Iraq and U.S. policies in Africa.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert O'Neill alleged that Mazagwu said words to the effect: ``The president needs to be shot. His father needs to be shot. If someone gave me bullets, I would do that.'' (AP)

"In most other countries, coaching is revered and respected,"

"In most other countries, coaching is revered and respected," said Donnie Nelson, the president of operations for the NBA's Dallas Mavericks who has worked with the Lithuanian national team for 13 years. "In our country now, it's tolerated. I don't know all the reasons for that, but when people fill a young player's head with garbage and tell him he's the next Michael Jordan when he's not, and that player listens to what the media says about them, they stop working on their games.

"We have to recapture the way we taught players. The United States losing like this is an opportunity for us to address some problems." (Washington Post)

At an average depth of 2 1/2 miles, this underwater desert is far removed from the life-sustaining sunlight of the surface

But these are the oases of the deep sea; almost half of the seafloor is made up of another, even greater prairie, the nearly featureless stretches of what oceanographers call the abyssal plain. At an average depth of 2 1/2 miles, this underwater desert is far removed from the life-sustaining sunlight of the surface, and without the chemical energy of methane seeps or hydrothermal vents life here trickles, rather than teems. Rare photos of the depths echo the barren moonscape where the Apollo astronauts first set foot on the lunar surface 35 years ago. The similarity is not coincidental; just as the moon is covered by a thick layer of dust accumulated over millenniums, the deep-sea floor is coated with layer after layer of delicate flakes of dead plankton, feces, and other organic particles, settling down from the waters far above. But while the lunar sediments were disturbed only by meteorites and Neil Armstrong's boot prints, the "marine snow" that accumulates on the deep-sea floor is home--and food supply--to populations of bacteria, worms, and the occasional deep-water fish. It can take seven hours just to lower a probe to the abyssal depths, notes Ron O'Dor, the senior scientist of the C oML project, so samples are rare. But on one recent German expedition, a single scoop of the bottom muck contained a nearly unbelievable 400 new species of worms, crustaceans, and other life. Even in the most barren stretches of the deep ocean, O'Dor says, there lurks "a huge amount of unknown biology."
(USNews.com)

"They're autonomous, but that doesn't mean they're smart."

"They're autonomous, but that doesn't mean they're smart." (USNews.com)

Arab militias destroying schools in Sudan to wipe out black culture

"If you study law, you know your rights. If you study economics, you can develop Darfur," said Mohamed Baharedine, another teacher. "All these policies of the government are there to stop development in Darfur."

Today, there are 135 teachers in the refugee camp, but they have no school.

"We need help from the United Nations to build a school here," said Amir Bakheet Ahmed, 43, another teacher.

"Then we can teach our children and try to save our culture." (Knight Ridder)

``I can't believe that America is now saying that settlement expansion is all right,'' he said. ``This will destroy the peace process.''

Palestinian leaders on Sunday accused the United States of harming prospects for Mideast peace after the latest indications that Washington is ready to accept some Israeli expansion of West Bank settlements.

The New York Times reported Saturday that the United States will now tacitly support construction in built-up areas of major Jewish settlements, while remaining opposed to housing activity in undeveloped areas....

....Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, said he was waiting for confirmation of the apparent shift in U.S. policy, adding that he would be shocked if it were true.

``I can't believe that America is now saying that settlement expansion is all right,'' he said. ``This will destroy the peace process.''

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a top aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, called on the White House to ``clarify'' its position, fearing it would ``encourage the Israeli government to continue and escalate its war against the Palestinian people.'' (AP)

New Canadian legislation would decriminalize possession of less than 15 grams of marijuana

New Canadian legislation would decriminalize possession of less than 15 grams of marijuana, meaning that offenders would be slapped with only the equivalent of a traffic ticket. That approach is a far cry from the one that is taken in U.S. states like Oklahoma, where a person caught smoking dope could get up to a year in prison, although probation is more common. (TIME.com)

U.S.-based oil and gas companies have nearly 900 subsidiaries located in tax haven countries, such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.

U.S.-based oil and gas companies have nearly 900 subsidiaries located in tax haven countries, such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. (Center for Public Integrity)

We fly mega-airline, we check into mega-hotel, we watch mega-network and we eat at, well, mega-chain.

We fly mega-airline, we check into mega-hotel, we watch mega-network and we eat at, well, mega-chain. (CNN)