By Lee Cowan, NBC News correspondent

Along our journey, our production crew Christiana Arvetis, Ray Farmer, Dennis Frye and I sought the perfect spot to capture the essence of this remote area for my standup. 

There are few better places to show just how beautifully desolate the Great Basin valley is than along parts of I-93 between Baker and Castleton.  The Wilson Creek mountains rise up off the flat desert floor into picture perfect blue skies. There are nothing but jack rabbits, crows and sage brush that seems to stop crowing when it gets about knee high.  Even the clouds here look different here. If you're looking for a place to be truly alone -- whether to think, whether to camp, whether to just go for a long dive. This place is it. Just bring your own water and a full tank of gas. Rest stops are few and far between.

By Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC News chief medical editor

This week the American Cancer Society published a review of Breast Cancer Facts and Figures for 2007-2008.  The report gives us an in-depth look at how well we are doing in the on-going battle against breast cancer.  Some of the numbers are known to us: 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer in her lifetime.   But other than that statistic, you have to look deeper and realize that this cancer is affecting white women and women of color quite differently.

White women are more likely to get breast cancer AFTER the age of 40.  In contrast Black women have a higher chance of getting breast cancer BEFORE the age of 40.  Even more striking is the fact that Black women are more likely to die from breast cancer at every age.  They are 36% more likely to die from their cancer than White women.  The reasons cited include lack of health insurance, access to mammography, late stage cancer at the time of diagnosis, and limited access to cutting edge treatment.  Tumor biology, making tumors more aggressive, may also play a role.   

The multiple causes of these disturbing numbers may be numerous and a motivation for all of us to re-focus our collective energies.

These numbers are sobering - and remind us all once again that early detection is part of the problem but addressing disparities in the healthcare system is just as important.

Dr. Snyderman will have more on NBC Nightly News

Editor's note: It's our third week of a new feature on this blog. Every weekday, you can check out our First Person "Photo of the Day"  --  breaking news pictures and photography submitted by you.

Today's photo of note is from John Pickens:

"Here are some pictures of the April Sound Country Club fire."

Click here to see more Photo of the Day features. 
Click FirstPerson.MSNBC.com to submit an entry.

Tell us what you think, on comments, below.

Hi. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Manhattan adventure culminates today at the U.N., after yesterday's rather rude welcome at Columbia (denying the existence of stuff like the Holocaust and homosexuality doesn't really play, does it?) but amid all the sound and fury, new signs that the "new product rollout" (war with Iran) is proceeding apace. A tale from Syria that gets curiouser and curiouser seems to be related, at least tangentially. An effort to explain a "Bent Spear" incident -- unauthorized flying nukes -- raises more questions.

And AP previews Ahmadinejad's UN speech. Salon's Koppelman and Herbaugh capture the mood of yesterday's visit to Columbia with the log-line: we're so glad you're here so we can tell you you're an a**hole. Hugh Hewitt still thinks Columbia disgraced itself.  And if you really want to drill down into the argument that no one has been helped more by the war in Iraq than Iran, read Peter Galbraith's NY Review of books piece (via Salon) "Mission Accomplished."  And re: President Bush's U.N. speech: a swipe or two at the U.N. on the freedom agenda. But hey, one of these things is not like the others: North Korea, Iran, Syria, Belarus.

So maybe the answer to that dilemma is to attack Iran then, right? Rupert Murdoch's The Times (of London) reports that a team has been assembled to "think outside the box" to make the coming attack effective. More from the (London) Guardian. Newsweek's Ephron and Hosenball think Israel will be the Decider. Jim Lobe at IPS looks at a recent Op Ed and sees an explanation for the case for war: Bush as Dissident President. Oh, and there's a Sense of the Senate resolution (co-sponsored by Senator Lieberman of Connecticut) authorizing war with Iran in the Defense Appropriations Bill -- nice catch Leslie at No Quarter. 

Now to that mysterious air attack on Syria by Israel two and a half weeks ago. The NYT's Mazzetti and Sanger only go so far as to say it "raises questions" about whether North Korea is helping Syria develop nuclear weapons. But others are going much further than that. Once again the Times (of London) and Sarah Baxter -- the same reporter who briefed us above on preps for the coming war with Iran. It turns out the air raid on Syria wasn't just an air raid. According to Baxter's sources, Israeli commandoes snuck into Syria disguised as Syrian military personnel, infiltrated the nuclear weapons facility, STOLE the nuclear material, tucked it away, and high-tailed it back to Israel. THEN they called in the air strike. And whattya know, Israeli scientists confirmed that the nuclear material was indeed from North Korea. I don't know about you, but I don't even think Tom Cruise would buy that. And apparently I'm not alone in that assessment. Nonproliferation expert (and Iraq war opponent) Joseph Cirincione.  And an update: Aussie blogger lataan.  Noobster sees a familiar cast of characters at work. http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1646/ah-they-were-scuds>">ArmsControlWonk says the Syrian target was plain old SCUD missiles and for good measure throws cold water on speculation about Syrians using existing technology for nuclear weapons. And RawStory has the first challenge to a nuclear connection by "unnamed intel officials" and a former Bush 41 counterterror chief. (Hat tip: Cursor.org) And here's yet another theory.. what the Israelis "snatched" wasn't nuclear material but nuclear scientists.

OK so why would "sources" circulate a story that would simultaneously create a new axis of evil (Iran-North Korea-Syria) and reestablish Israel's military supremacy (not to mention their place as masters of unrivaled derring-do, not the guys who fought the goons from Hezbollah to a draw last year). Here's a possibility: the rollout.

Pivoting now to that story about nuclear weapons being loaded onto a B-52 and flown across the country. The Washington Post's Warrick and Pincus try to explain what in military parlance is called a "Bent Spear" incident, hewing to the official line that it was a bad accident.  Larry Johnson notes several holes in the story and generally isn't buying it.  And SpookInTheMachine puts more meat on the criticism of the WaPo. (Hat Tip GR3 in No Quarter comments.)

Politics: Roger Simon of Pajamas Media writes about how the ad rate given to MoveOn.org by the NYT exposes the Times' "institutional bias" (maybe he's not familiar with Judith Miller).  But the Carpetbagger Report picks up on MSNBC's David Schuster's revealing question to a Tennessee GOP Congresswoman. Rep. Marsha Blackburn showed in an interview that she'd been thoroughly briefed on such things as New York Times ad rate sheet, stock price and recent layoffs, but had no idea who the last soldier from her district to be killed in Iraq was. 

TalkingPointsMemo looks at a remark from the White House that Barack Obama is intellectually "lazy" combined with a follow-up email from the RNC on Obama's "Razzle Dazzle" and sees ugly code words.  Here's the email.

Mortgage meltdown and the bad news just keeps on coming: existing home sales fell to the lowest level in five years last month. The WSJ has the news.  And as you'd expect, prices fell too -- as the WSJ's economics blog points out. (But probably not enough yet, if you look at months of supply, which was 10 in August. Six months is seen as healthy, normal inventory.)  Minyanville's Kevin Depew puts some perspective on all the numbers. And adds some pithy commentary on the UAW stike as well.

And some food for thought on what caused the 1987 stock market crash via Matthew Rees in The American. (Hat tip: Bimmerrat at Tickerforum).

And if a lot of the above stuff makes you feel vaguely nauseated... well you've got company, according to the second-most watched video on YouTube right now. (The most-watched is a Halo 3 preview.. and on that one, I admit I am completely and totally stumped.)

Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.

Clarence E. Sasser
Private First Class, U.S. Army Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 60th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division

When Clarence Sasser was drafted in 1967, he  assumed that he would be just another GI. After a battery of tests indicated he should be trained as a medical aidman, he was surprised that the Army thought he might have the ability to save lives.

By the fall of 1967, Sasser was in Vietnam with the Army's 9th Infantry Division. He didn't experience a heavy firefight until January 10, 1968. Early that morning, his company was flown out toward the Mekong Delta on a reconnaissance-in-force operation to check out reports of enemy forces in the area. At about 10:00 a.m., the dozen helicopters carrying the undermanned company of slightly more than one hundred soldiers swooped down onto a large rice paddy near where the Vietcong had already been sighted. As the formation descended, the U-shaped wooded area nearly enclosing the landing zone erupted with small arms, recoilless rifle, machine-gun, and rocket fire. The mission might have been aborted, but the lead helicopter was hit and crashed, so the others immediately followed to protect it.

With the shallow water of the rice paddy roiled by enemy fire, the Americans tried to get out of the helicopters as quickly as possible and head for the mounded levees that offered them their only cover. In the first few minutes of the engagement, more than thirty men went down. The air was already filled with screams of "Medic!" when Sasser scrambled out of his helicopter. Running across the open rice paddy, he didn't have time to set medical priorities; he could only "go to the one who was calling the loudest." He slithered through the muck to get from soldier to soldier, working on his belly because standing upright meant certain death. Bullets chopping the water would sometimes trace a swift path toward an American infantryman and hit him. Sasser couldn't keep up with the casualties.

As he picked up a wounded GI and dragged him to cover against the embankment of a dike, Sasser was hit by shrapnel from an exploding rocket. Although it didn't have the energy of a bullet, the red-hot metal fragment burned itself into his shoulder. He pulled it out himself, waiving off help from medics from the other platoons.

Rushing back to the rice paddy to aid more wounded, he was hit in both legs by machine-gun fire and knocked down. He used his arms to pull himself through the mud to help a wounded soldier calling out from a hundred yards away. Close by, he saw a group of GIs huddled together, disoriented by the heavy fire; he managed to talk them into action, getting them to crawl toward the protection of a dike where they could begin to fire back at the enemy. "I felt that if I could get the guys up and fighting," he said later, "we might all get out of there somehow."

By afternoon, the enemy began to pull its main force back but left enough fighters behind to keep the Americans pinned down. Although faint from blood loss and in agonizing pain, Sasser continued to treat the wounded. Finally, at 4:00 the next morning, eighteen hours after the battle had begun, the area was sufficiently pacified for U.S. helicopters to arrange an evacuation. American troops had suffered thirty-four dead and fifty-nine wounded.

It took several months of rehabilitation in Japan before Sasser could use his legs again. While recovering, he was called into the hospital commander's office and told that he was to receive the Medal of Honor. It was presented to him by President Richard Nixon at the White House on March 7, 1969.

By Margie Lehrman NBC News Senior Producer

I've been watching with great interest and a sense of deja vu the turmoil surrounding the invitation of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia University today.

I'm doubly interested because (a) I'm a graduate of Columbia (the Graduate School of Journalism); and (b) Columbia's president Lee Bollinger and I attended the University of Oregon at the same time back in the (ahem) '60s. Even then, Lee was a BMOC.

During our time at Oregon (UO), Lee and I were touched by the Civil Rights Movement, the Free-Speech movement, the Vietnam War, the John F. Kennedy assassination, and other consciousness-raising events.

One in particular is pertinent here -- when the UO invited U.S. Communist Party secretary Gus Hall to speak on campus. For anyone who didn't live through the Cold War, the sheer evil of just the word "communist" can't be overemphasized. Gus Hall was the personification of Evil.

Campus was in an uproar. Faculty debated faculty. Students debated students. And most parents were totally freaked out (which of course made us want to hear what Gus Hall had to say even more).

When the evening finally arrived, more than 11,000 people went to hear the communist, Gus Hall. (We had fewer than 10,000 students enrolled at the time.) Well, guess what. The following morning, students did NOT rush out to join the Communist Party.

In fact, Evil had passed through Eugene, Oregon, and the sky hadn't fallen. Gus Hall still was the hot topic on campus, but now with a bit of derision. Oz had come and gone.

What everyone had feared leading up to the Gus Hall visit was, simply, the unknown. What would Gus Hall say? Would he corrupt our young people?

That single event was one of the most enduring lessons I took away from the UO. We might not like what someone has to say, but that person has the consitutional right to say it. In fact, in our listening, we learn and we become wiser and stronger.

That Lee Bollinger led the institution that invited President Ahmadinejad is no surprise. Bollinger, the young man from eastern Oregon, graduated from the UO and went on to attend Columbia's Law School, Clerk for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, teach law, become Dean of the University of Michigan Law School, president of Michigan, and along the way, one of the pre-eminent scholars in free speech and the First Amendment.

Today he put his money where his mouth is. My guess is: Eugene, Oregon understands.

 

By Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor

Correspondents Kevin Tibbles, Don Teague and Mark Potter were all spotted in our newsroom today -- representing our outposts in Chicago, Dallas and Miami, respectively.  That can only mean one thing:  it's News Emmy night tonight in New York.  On top of the criss-crossing motorcades of the U.N. gathering, there will be crazed journalists on the road this evening.  A recipe for disaster.  Telltale sign that staff members are heading for a formal dinner tonight after work?  Everybody's hair looks really good.  That and the garment bags hanging in the closet.

All the excitement today was uptown from here, at Columbia -- Andrea Mitchell will cover the speech and the reaction.  We've got Detroit covered tonight, and we begin a series we're excited about, concerning a valuable resource on this planet.

Finally, who says the internet isn't a tool for education, social change and community? Over 1.5 million people have visited this website.

Please take time to read today's Medal of Honor biography, and we sure hope to see you for tonight's broadcast.

By Robert Windrem, Investigative producer for special projects

One battle line not discussed in the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama fight for the 2008 presidential nomination is the battle between Yale and Harvard.  Sen. Clinton has a degree from Yale Law School.  Sen. Obama has a degree from Harvard Law.

If Clinton becomes president, she would be the sixth US president with a degree from Yale, and the fourth consecutive.  If he goes all the way, he would become the eighth and the second straight to have a degree from Harvard.  George W. Bush has degrees from Yale (B.A.) and Harvard (M.B.A.), the only president with degrees from both.

Bush is the fifth US president with a degree from Yale, the fourth of the last six and the third consecutive.

The Yale presidents:

27. William H. Taft    BA 1878
38. Gerald Ford        Law 1941
41. George H. W. Bush  BA economics 1948
42. William Clinton    Law 1973
43. George W. Bush     BA history 1968

In fact since 1972, at least one Yale graduate has run for either president or vice president on the Democratic and/or Republican tickets. 

The Yale contenders:

1972 - Sargent Shriver
1976 - Gerald Ford
1980 - George H. W. Bush
1984 - George H. W. Bush
1988 - George H. W. Bush
1992 - George H. W. Bush and William Clinton
1996 - William Clinton
2000 - George W. Bush and Joseph Lieberman
2004 - George W. Bush and John Kerry

And that list doesn't include Dick Cheney, a Yale dropout. Bush is also the third president who was a member of Skull and Bones while at Yale, following Taft and his father George H.W. Bush.

Yale is second only to Harvard in the number of alumni who have achieved the presidency.  Seven US presidents have earned degrees from Harvard although, as noted, President Bush counts twice.

Obama, in addition to being the first African-American president and the first not born in the continental US--he was born in Hawaii--he would be the eighth president with a degree from Harvard.

Here is the list of the seven Harvard presidents:

2.  John Adams
6.  John Quincy Adams
19. Rutherford B. Hayes (Law)
26. Theodore Roosevelt
32. Franklin D. Roosevelt
35. John F. Kennedy, 
43. George W. Bush (MBA)

Other schools with more than one president among their alumni are:

William and Mary [3]
    George Washington [surveyors license], Thomas Jefferson, John Tyler

Princeton [2]
    James Madison, Woodrow Wilson

West Point [2]
    Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight Eisenhower.

And if Obama wins the presidency, that list would be expanded to include Columbia, where he has an undergraduate degree.  Franklin D. Roosevelt obtained his law degree from Columbia.

Finally, Yale and Harvard have also recently produced presidents of other nations. Harvard in fact counts the presidents of Mexico and Liberia as alumni/ae.  Felipe deJesus Calderon, the current president of Mexico, received a a Master of Public Administration from Harvard in 2000. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the world's first black female president and Africa's first elected female head of state also holds the same degree from the Kennedy School, earning it in 1971.

Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, who stepped down in 2000, earned a Ph.D in economics from Yale in 1981.

Editor's note: It's our third week of a new feature on this blog. Every weekday, you can check out our First Person "Photo of the Day"  --  breaking news pictures and photography submitted by you.

Today's photo of note is from Marilyn Nagy:

"Storm on its way in Naples, Florida. From the depression that started on the East Coast. Had rain on and off all day."

Click here to see more Photo of the Day features. 
Click FirstPerson.MSNBC.com to submit an entry.

Tell us what you think, on comments, below.

 

Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.

George T. Sakato

Private, U.S. Army  Company E, 442nd Regimental Combat Team

In 1942, George Sakato's family moved from California to Arizona, to avoid being sent to an internment camp for Japanese Americans. The twenty-one-year-old Sakato tried to enlist in the Army Air Corps but was rejected because of his draft status—4-C, undesirable alien. Then in 1943, because of the exploits of Japanese Americans in the Hawaiian National Guard's 100th Infantry Battalion in battles at Salerno, Montecassino, and Anzio, the government allowed other Japanese Americans in the service. Sakato enlisted in the Army, joining his older brother, Henry, who had volunteered before Pearl Harbor. After finishing basic training in the summer of 1944, the brothers were sent to Naples as replacements for the "Go for Broke" Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which became the most decorated American unit in the war. 

In August, the 442nd boarded ships for a landing at Marseille. For the next two months, Sakato's unit fought its way north through France. In late October, it attacked the Germans around the town of Biffontaine, an area near the German border that was too mountainous for armor. Its objective, Hill 617, overlooked an open valley cut in half by the railroad line running from Strasbourg to Paris. The Germans were entrenched at the top of the hill, firing down on the American troops trying to mount an assault.

Just before midnight on October 28, Private Sakato's company was ordered to flank the Germans and get behind their position. It was so dark that each GI had
to hold on to the back strap of the man in front of him while moving forward. At dawn, the Americans attacked, Sakato leading the assault. With a Thompson submachine gun he had scavenged from a disabled tank, he killed five German soldiers.

Sakato's platoon secured the hill and sent prisoners back down to the Americans below. Then the Germans counterattacked; one of his close friends was hit and died in his arms. Seeking vengeance, Sakato took charge of the squad, fighting with an enemy rifle and pistol he picked up from the battlefield after his tommy gun ran out of ammunition. He killed another seven Germans and led his platoon in capturing thirty-four more. His unit held its position until it was relieved.

A few days later, the 442nd attempted to break through the Germans' encirclement of a battalion of the 141st Infantry Regiment, known as the Lost Battalion. The Japanese American unit suffered more than 800 casualties in rescuing the 211 trapped GIs. During the battle, Sakato was knocked down by a mortar shell;
the bulky winter overcoat he was carrying in his pack kept him from being killed by the shrapnel that struck his spine and lungs.

Sakato was hospitalized for eight months. He heard that he had been recommended for the Medal of Honor, but the decoration he received was the Distinguished Service Cross. He didn't think anything more about it until the morning fifty-five years later when he received a call from the Pentagon. His award was being upgraded to the Medal of Honor as the result of a review of the records of Asian American soldiers who had received the DSC. He was presented with the medal by President Bill Clinton on June 21, 2000.

By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent

I heard the squelch of Anil's feet on the waterlogged path well before he arrived at the door of my hut.

"Problem with boat," he announced in a very matter-of-fact way.

"Problem?" I asked groggily, having just emerged from under my thick mosquito net.

"Yes," he replied. "Boat sank. You want tea?"

All night the heavy rain had pounded our huts. It came in intense waves, the wind rattling doors and window frames, and by morning the village was sitting in a mud soup, the bloated river lapping high against protective dirt walls.

Our small boat had been among several moored in what the night before had been a protected inlet, and several young boys were now working with old pans and leaking buckets to bail them out and pull them further up the receding river bank. They chatted and laughed, slipping and falling in the mud. But with the rain still falling it seemed like a hopeless task.

For Anil, our taciturn Bengali host – a man who could coolly describe the latest cobra attacks or the tiger tracks he'd found in the village – the tropical storm sweeping from the Bay of Bengal was little more than an annoyance.

Within two hours he'd rustled up a bigger boat – "this one will make it," he told us in an attempt to reassure - and the mud-splattered NBC team, guided by the helping hands of scores of amused villagers, was soon making its way gingerly across a thin plank and onboard the bobbing vessel for the five-hour river and road journey back to Calcutta.

The village in which we'd spent the night was on a small island in the Sundarbans, which lie at the mouth of the River Ganges, where India's most revered river empties into the Bay of Bengal.

The monsoon rains here are intense, and being caught in the middle of it does leave you wondering how India could possibly have a water shortage.

When it rains here it rains big time – and that's part of the problem. On average it rains for only one hundred hours a year, according to Sunita Narain, who heads the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment. It is often accompanied by devastating floods, but the monsoon runoff is frequently contaminated, there is little harvesting or water management, and the rain is insufficient to adequately recharge groundwater levels, which are receding alarmingly across large parts of India.

"It is one issue that will make or break India," Narain told us.  "If we can get our water management right we will be a prosperous country, which will have well being for all.  But if we get our water management wrong, which we are getting today, then let us be very clear, all the riches in the world are not going to be enough."

Close to where we had boarded our (sunken) boat to the Sundarbans, we had witnessed what looked like a tug-of-war contest. There was a party-like atmosphere as men and boys yelled and shouted, egging each other on, as they pulled on a rope.

But it turned out they were digging for clean water, first pulling out old pipes before boring more deeply into the ground. They explained that they have to go deeper because the water had become contaminated by salt.

In this part of India it really is a case of water, water everywhere, but nothing to drink.

In Varanasi, a city holy to Hindus, which sits higher up the Ganges, the main problem is sewage, which is killing the river, India's lifeline. Nearly half a billion people live in the Ganges basin and depend on it for fresh water.

"It's murky, it's brown, it stinks," said Veer Bhadra Mishra, who leads a foundation trying to clean it up. He's a Hindu priest as well as a trained engineer, and each morning joins the thousands of Hindu faithful bathing in the river's sacred waters.

"If poison is mixed into this water at one point we will die and that will be the end of this culture related to the river, and that will be the end of this river," he told us.

We traveled on the river with a team he sends out each morning to test the Ganges poisonous cocktail, in support of a law suite to force action from a government that's promised much but delivered little.

Other priests have threatened to drown themselves in the river unless it is cleaned up.

Recent water show the water pollution levels at Varanasi to be two hundred times safe levels for drinking and thirty thousand times safe levels for drinking.

In villages around Varanasi, wells are closed, pumps chained to prevent people drinking dirty water. Villagers here are also forced to go deeper for clean water. But new hand pumps, recently installed, have tapped another scourge – naturally occurring arsenic, according to Benares University researchers.

Prolonged exposure to arsenic can cause kidney and liver damage – even cancer. Water-born diseases are already the biggest health issue.

Only richer farmers are able afford powerful electric pumps to such water from ever deeper in the receding aquifer. They will supply others – but only at a price. And in some parts of India the groundwater is literally being sucked dry.
 
Right across India, there is mounting pressure on dwindling supplies of fresh water, and conflicts over access to water have even provoked riots in some areas.
 
India's rapid economic growth has also intensified the competition for water, and even in the capital Delhi more and more people are depending on tankers for their drinking water.

"We don't have drinking water. We have children, we have families and we can't do anything without water.  So we have a big problem," one frustrated woman told us as she waited for a tanker in a poor suburb of Delhi.

For Sunita Narain it is perhaps the most critical challenge facing her country.

"India just has to get its act together," she told us. "I cannot sound any more desperate than this. It has to get its act together knowing that it has no other choice.  It has to get it right."

by Lester Holt

Good afternoon from New York. The annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations is always sure to get New Yorkers grumbling. It's usually not over foreign policy, but rather something more immediate: traffic. Parts of the city will be in virtual lock down as dignitaries are shuttled to and from events. For the rest of us it means gridlock and street closures. There is, however, grumbling of a more serious nature over the visit here of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  This IS over foreign policy, as well as his statements about Israel, and his country's support of terrorism. He's arriving this evening amid great controversy over an appearance at Columbia University Monday night. The University is under pressure from some students as well as some New York politicians to cancel the speech. Tonight, NBC's Rehema Ellis will report on the outcry over Ahmadinejad's visit, and the reception he's expected to get at the United Nations.

There has been a lot about the security firm Blackwater USA in the news this past week over the questionable shootings of Iraqi civilians. The company provides security for American diplomats in Iraq. Tonight NBC's Richard Engel will report on the big business of private security companies protecting Americans in Iraq and the questions now being raised about their powers and accountability.

Our newest correspondent Savannah Guthrie makes her first Nightly News appearance tonight with a report on the growing use of tasers by police across the country to subdue unruly suspects. They were marketed as an alternative to lethal force, but some question whether they're being used too often. We'll hear from both sides on that question.

For business travelers fed up with air travel delays, there may be a solution. Tom Costello will tell us about a new air taxi service that's taking advantage of a new generation of small jets and promising to get passengers from point A to point B with less hassle. Tom goes for a ride to show us what we can expect from this latest twist in the air travel business.

by Martin Savidge, NBC Correspondent

JENA, La.-- What's  a tree worth? More accurately what's a tree stump worth?

Calvin Hardy was wondering that very same thing when I found him leaning on his old red pick-up truck a block from the Jena courthouse...

The stump was the so called "White tree" the tree that used to offer shade at the local high school under which, so the story goes, only whites could sit beneath. The same tree from whose branches 3 nooses were hung when an African American student asked to share its shade.

"Is that the tree?"  I asked. Hardy pulled out the copy of his receipt showing how the Lasalle parish school board paid him $500 to take it down and get rid of it. "They said it was causing contention and they wanted it gone."

Hardy said, "They didn't say what the problem was."

So in just three hours on July 23rd, Hardy cut down the live oak that he said looked to have stood about 35 years.

"It was a good tree... There was nothing wrong with it," Hardy said.

He took the tree to his cousin's house and dumped down a slope to keep the soil from slipping.

Time passed and though the tree was dead it's impact continued to grow...

Altercations followed, the school burned, 6 black teens beat a white classmate. Charges were filed. A trial was held. And the shadow of a tree began to be felt across a nation.

Suddenly a town nobody knew was a place where many had to be: boarding buses, marching, demanding justice.

The protestors gathered at the high school and stood where the tree used to stand until Hardy and his Stihl chainsaw were hired.

"It was a good tree," he repeated. As an arborist, he would know.

After all those people came he began rethinking that tree in his cousin's dirt. So he went back to his cousins and saved the stump.

"What are you gonna do with it?" I asked.

"I was thinking about putting it on e-bay or maybe cut it up and sell pieces of it. It's history."

After a pause. "A fella from the NAACP offered me a hundred dollars. But I think I'll wait a bit."

The trees dead but the thought of money was obviously growing in Hardy's mind. "I got 5 kids."

So what's a tree worth? 

In Jena perhaps there is another way to phrase that... what has it cost?

by Robert Bazell, NBC News Chief Science Correspondent

Tonight,  we report the latest in research into possibly prolonging life by drastically restricting caloric intake. For more than 70 years scientists have known that the one thing that makes lab animals --from worms and fruit flies to rats and mice -- live longer is to put them on a calorie-restricted diet. 

Today we focus on the latest studies involving rhesus monkeys at the University of Wisconsin Regional Primate Center. It is important to note that this research does not involve the equivalent of a person going on a diet to lose weight.  In the studies, animals get about three quarters of the amount of calories that would normally be necessary to maintain body weight but with nutritional supplements so they do not suffer from vitamin deficiencies or other problems that can come with an inadequate amount of food.

The monkeys on the calorie restricted diet so far have less diabetes, heart disease and other health problems. The experiment began in 1989 and so the monkeys are approaching the end of their normal lifespan and soon the longevity data will be in.

Already there is a small group of people who so believe in the calorie restricted diet they are trying it themselves. In our piece tonight we feature a couple Meredith Averil and Paul McGlothin who have been on the diet for 14 years. They have a book called "The CR Way" coming out in the spring and you can checkout their Website. We have far more video  of our interview with the couple here.

Most Americans would find it difficult to eat so little for so long for an uncertain result. 

Years ago I did a story about Dr. Roy Walford, a professor the University of Southern California and then UCLA, one of the earliest proponents of calorie restriction for humans.  He told me by eating less, he planned to live to 150,  but sadly he died at age 79 from complications of A.L.S.

Whether or not the restricted diet appeals to many people, the research in animals is yielding interesting results. Yesterday scientists from Harvard and Weill Cornell medical schools published the discovery of  two genes that seem to be switched on by calorie restriction. This could lead to a better understanding of the process of aging.

For a good summary of many areas of research into aging, including calorie restriction,  check out this document  from the National Institute on Aging.
 

by Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor

 

People I know who are normally NOT given to conspiracy theories are having a field day with this week's dual, rare occurrences.

by Vicky Bernal, NBC producer

Last Friday, three families who lost loved ones to the 9/11 attacks came to our studios to share with us memories-memories of a mother, of a husband and of a son.  It was a tough day. Six years later their pain is still so real,  and still so great. As you heard them tell their stories your heart couldn't help but break.  There wasn't a dry eye in the room. 

They brought pictures, they brought quilts, but it was the everyday items that these people touched and used that really tells the story of who they were. There's the ring that was recovered from the 9/11 rubble that belonged to Rosemary Smith. Rosemary bought that ring for herself after surviving the bombing of the World Trade Center in '93 and she was wearing it on that fateful September day.

Brian already shared with you how the Voices of September 11th Living Memorials are documenting these stories and artifacts in a digital archive. But we wanted to make the extended interviews with these families available because six years later, twenty years later, a hundred years later, it's these memories of who these people were, the lives that they touched that we want to keep alive.  (WATCH VIDEO)

Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.

Alejandro R. Ruiz
Private First Class, U.S. Army  165th Infantry, 27th Infantry Division

 

Alejandro Renteria Ruiz was born and raised in New Mexico, the son of a Mexican immigrant who had been an officer in Pancho Villa's army. In 1944, twenty-year-old Ruiz was driving to Texas to see his girlfriend when he got into a legal scrape. He went before a judge who gave him a choice between the Army and jail. Ruiz enlisted.

After training at Fort Bliss and Fort Ord, Private First Class Ruiz shipped out with the 165th Infantry. His unit landed on Okinawa in April 1945. On April 28, his company, exhausted from a series of engagements with Japanese troops in heavily fortified positions, was moving down into a deep ravine. The Japanese let his unit pass by a well-camouflaged pillbox before opening fire and lobbing grenades. As the Americans tried to find cover while Japanese grenades rained down on them, Ruiz saw his comrades falling all around him; after just a few minutes, only he and his squad leader had escaped injury.  

Knowing that he needed more firepower than his rifle could offer, Ruiz grabbed a Browning Automatic Rifle and moved toward the pillbox. As he started to climb on top of it so he could open fire, the weapon jammed. At that moment, a Japanese soldier charged him; Ruiz clubbed him down, then tossed the rifle aside and ran back through the heavy fire to where his men were pinned down. Picking up another automatic rifle and grabbing some extra cans of ammunition, he headed back toward the pillbox while the Japanese machine gunners and riflemen were all concentrating their fire on him. Making it through the storm of bullets and grenades, he once again climbed on top of the emplacement and sent several bursts of fire through the aperture, killing the twelve soldiers inside and destroying the position.

Unscathed except for a minor flesh wound in the leg, Ruiz found a place to sit down after the battle and tried to light a cigarette with shaking hands. The men he had saved told him they were going to recommend him for the Medal of Honor. Ruiz didn't think about it for the next several weeks as his unit continued the fight on Okinawa. It wasn't until May 1946, when he was back in the United States, living in the married soldiers' barracks, that he was told he was indeed to receive the medal. Ruiz's wife, mother, and sister accompanied him to the White House, where President Harry Truman made the presentation on June 12, 1946.

Ruiz remained in the service for the next eighteen years. He saw action again in Korea and retired as a sergeant in 1964.

 

Editor's note: It's our second week of a new feature on this blog. Every weekday, you can check out our First Person "Photo of the Day"  --  breaking news pictures and photography submitted by you.

 

The best photo received today is from Sloane Chen from La Jolla, Calif.:

"Andy MacDonald, professional skateboarder, Action Sports Tour in San Diego, CA, Sept. 14, 2007."

Happy Friday everyone!

Click here to see more Photo of the Day features. 
Click FirstPerson.MSNBC.com to submit an entry.

Tell us what you think, on comments, below.

Nineteen U.S. soldiers and Marines died in Iraq last week, Aug. 9-15, pushing the war's total up to then to 3,773. Here are the names and faces behind the statistics:

 

1. Army Sgt. Alexander Gagalac

, 28, of Wahiawa, Hawaii, was suppose to come home from Iraq today. "His plan was to get out of the Army, maybe take a break, and go to school," his twin brother, Alexis, told the Honolulu Advertiser. But Gagalac was killed when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his Humvee in Hawijah, Iraq, on Sept. 9. He was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division.

2. Army Staff Sgt. Courtney Hollinsworth

, 26, of Yonkers, N.Y., served in Afghanistan in 2002, participated in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and returned in February for a second tour in Iraq with the 1st Infantry Division. "He just loved the Army," his uncle told the New York Daily News. "I think that's what he was born to be." Hollinsworth was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Sept. 9. He leaves behind a new wife and stepchild.

3. Army Pfc. Sammie Phillips

, 19, of Cecilia, Ky., joined the Kentucky National Guard last year and left for Iraq last month. "He was one of our best gunners, the absolute cream of the crop," his commander wrote from Iraq. "He was always ready to go." Phillips died in a vehicle rollover in Rustamiyah, Iraq, on Sept. 10. He is survived by his 19-year-old widow, Ashley Marie.

4. Marine Cpl. Carlos Gilorozco

, 23, of San Jose, Calif., had a 3-month-old son, Kenny, who was born after he deployed to Iraq with the 2nd Marine Division. "I miss u my chiquito," he wrote Kenny. "I can't wait until me and u go get a hair cut together and go in a green grass and play ball." His letter arrived the day after he was killed on Sept. 10 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province.

5. Marine Lance Cpl. Jon Hicks

, 20, of Atco, N.J., was killed in the same incident as Gilorozco. Hicks had joined the Marines in 2006 to become a cop. "He wanted to be a policeman badly, and he believed if you've been in the Marines, you'd be the first chosen to be on the force," his grandmother told the Philadelphia Inquirer. Hicks would have turned 21 next month. "Only 20," his neighbor told the Newark Star Ledger. "Such a terrible loss."

 

The following seven members of the 82nd Airborne Division were killed Sept. 10 when their truck rolled over in Baghdad:

6. Army Staff Sgt. Yance Gray

, 26, of Ismay, Mont., was one of five members of his high school graduating class of 18 to join the military. "My son was a soldier in his heart from the age of 5," his mother told the New York Times. He was also one of the authors of an Aug. 19 op-ed piece in the Times critical of the U.S. war effort. "We operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies," Yance and five other soldiers wrote. Yance leaves a widow, Jessica, and a daughter, Ava, born in April.

7. Army Staff Sgt. Gregory Rivera-Santiago

, 26, of St. Croix, Virgin Islands, was on his third tour in Iraq. "He had been gone on deployment so often," his widow, Brooke, told the Virgin Islands Daily News. "He promised that when he got back this time, we would go on actual dates." His survivors include their three children, Ayani, 4, Gregory Jr., 2, and Xiomara, 7 months. "Ayani just asked, 'Who will be my daddy now?" Brooke said in the Daily News.

8. Army Sgt. Michael Hardegree

, 21, of Villa Rica, Ga., was destined to be a paratrooper. Both his grandfather and father served in the 82nd Airborne, and his grandfather pinned on his wings when he graduated from paratrooper school. "He was meant for greatness," Hardegree's adopted brother told 11 Alive News. Hardegree, who was on his second tour in Iraq, had hoped to come home in two months and enroll at the University of Alabama.

9. Army Sgt. Omar Mora

, 28, of Texas City, Texas, was passionate about playing soccer, fixing cars, and being a soldier. Originally from Ecuador, he enlisted in 2004 and was on his second tour in Iraq. Along with Gray, he was one of the authors of the New York Times op-ed piece. "We are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable," the soldiers wrote. He leaves a widow, Christa, and daughter, Jordan, 5.

10. Army Sgt. Nicholas Patterson

, 24, of Rochester, Ind., was a point guard in basketball and second baseman in baseball at Rochester High School in Rochester, Ind. He led his basketball team in scoring his senior year. "He was a highly competitive, high energy kid," his coach told the Associated Press. "You never had to worry about him not bringing his full energy to the field." Patterson is survived by his widow, Jayme, and son Reilley, 4.

11. Army Spc. Ari Brown-Weeks

, 23, of Abingdon, Md., married Ashley Weeks in December and deployed to Iraq in January. "He was everything I could have hoped for Ashley," his mother-in-law told the Baltimore Sun. Brown-Weeks was due home in November and was thinking about a career in law enforcement or firefighting. "I think he always wanted to fight the bad guys and save lives," his 21-year-old widow told the Sun.

12. Army Spc. Steven Elrod

, 20, of Hope Mills, N.C., joined the Army in 2006 to pay for college. He was considering a career in either marine biology or sports journalism. His high school English teacher said Elrod was an excellent writer. "He really had a lot of potential to go on and be somebody great," she told News 14 Carolina, "and it's just a shame that he didn't get the chance."

 

The following four members of the 1st Cavalry Division were killed Sept. 14 by a roadside bomb while on patrol in their Bradley Fighting Vehicle northeast of Baghdad:

13. Army Staff Sgt. Terry Wagoner

, 28, of Piedmont, S.C., followed his five uncles and a cousin into military service. Wagoner, a high school track star, served seven years in the Army and was on his second tour in Iraq when he was killed. "All my hopes and dreams I had were in my son," his father told the Greenville News. Wagoner is survived by his widow, Kate, and their 3-year-old daughter.

14. Army Spc. Todd Motley

, 23, of Clare, Mich., was voted most athletic, teacher's pet, most artistic, and most likely to succeed at Pioneer High School in 2003. "He just kind of fit into everything," Pioneer's principal told the Clare Morning Sun. "He was just a great kid." Motley entered the Army in 2005 and deployed to Iraq in 2006. He is survived by his widow, Karen, and their two daughters, Hannah, 2, and Kaylee, 9 months.

15. Army Spc. Jonathan Rivadeneira

, 22, of Jackson Heights, N.Y., was remembered as bright and affable. He joined the Army for its educational benefits and an eventual career in medicine. "I was against it," his mother told the New York Daily News. "I told him, 'Think about it because there's a war going on in Iraq.'" Rivadeneira enlisted anyway. A combat medic, he leaves a widow, Heather, whom he married two years ago.

16. Army Pvt. Christopher McCloud

, 24, of Malakoff, Texas, loved riding dirt bikes. He met his wife, Sheena, at a church function when she was 12 and he was 15. She was drawn to him by his eyes and his pranks. "Chris would do anything to make people laugh," she told the Athens Review. "He would throw a fake snake in front of someone in the woods just to see how high they would jump." Besides Sheena, McCloud is survived by their two sons, Aidan, 3, and Landyn, 2.

 

17. Army Sgt. John Mele

, 25, of Union City, Tenn., was on his third tour in Iraq when he was killed Sept. 14 while on patrol in Arab Jabour, southwest of Baghdad. Mele, a military policeman with the 3rd Infantry Division, entered a house and was killed by a concealed homemade bomb. "He was a good kid, never got into trouble," a friend's mother told the Union City Daily Messenger. Mele leaves a widow, Jennie, and a 6-year-old daughter, Clarissa.

18. Marine Cpl. Terrence Allen

, 21, of Pennsauken, N.J., was shot in the head and killed, apparently by a sniper, on Sept. 15, four days before he was due home from Iraq. His death at Al Asad Air Base in Anbar province, presumably a safe zone, was under investigation. "We were past worrying," his father told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "We thought he was safe." Allen leaves a widow, Catherine, whom he married a month before deploying to Iraq.

19. Army Pfc. Brandon Thorsen

, 22, of Trenton, Fla., wanted to become a game warden when he got out of the Army in two years. He enjoyed hunting deer and hogs, flat fishing, and golf with his father. "Anything outdoor, that was us," his father told the Gainesville Sun. Thorsen died on Sept. 15 of a combat-related gunshot wound in Baghdad. He was with the 1st Cavalry Division.

 

Washington Producer John Rutherford is a decorated Vietnam veteran. He posts a weekly blog on burials of service members at Arlington National Cemetery.

By Alison Stewart, NBC News contributor

40 is not the new 30 when it comes to a woman's fertility. 

This was the topic of discussion between me and a friend over a glass of wine. She confided in me the lengths she was going to  with the hopes of getting pregnant.  She suggested I pitch the story.

I think for those of us born after the Kennedy assassination but before Watergate the notion of a biological clock seemed somehow tinged with sexism.  However the  reality is your fertility declines dramatically as you get older. End of story.

So what to do? Curse out  mother nature? Find a time machine. Not likely.  The answer-get a financial plan. Educate yourself about your options. Seek out a reputable fertility clinic and hopefully you'll find as compassionate a doctor as  Dr. Richard Scott from Reproductive Medicine Associates with whom I spoke for this story.

By Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor

I watched something play out at the President's news conference today that, as I recall it, had its beginnings at the lunch for television journalists at the White House last week.  The discussion turned towards why there "weren't any Nelson Mandelas in Iraq..." (meaning, of course, a powerful, charismatic force for peace among the population, rising up to lead).  The point was made that perhaps Saddam Hussein had long ago suppressed or exterminated all possible candidates for that role.  Today it resulted in the President's soundbite (as it will be excerpted) "Mandela's dead!" when of course Nelson Mandela is alive and well and living in South Africa.

It was an interesting press conference in terms of the President's demeanor and the interpersonal dynamic on display, to say nothing (actually, tonight, we will say a lot) about his answers to various questions -- including, but not limited to, the MoveOn.org ad aimed at General Petraeus and the incident (and David Gregory's question) involving the Israeli military and Iran.  As we reported here last week, the President reacted violently to the MoveOn.org ad last week in that background lunch session -- and since word of that sort of thing gets around quickly, there was every reason to believe that a question along those lines today would have mined a similar response.  It did.

On the subject of Iran, I came across a fascinating blog post today -- which, readers should be reminded is NOT a pitch for a major motion picture.

We will have extensive reporting tonight on Jena, Louisiana -- a story that has lit up the internet and energized many people to mobilize.

Please take time to read today's Medal of Honor biography.

Please join us for tonight's broadcast.

Editor's note: It's our second week of a new feature on this blog. Every weekday, you can check out our First Person "Photo of the Day"  --  breaking news pictures and photography submitted by you.

 

The best photo received today is from Matthew Carpentier:

"This picture was taken by my wife, Alexis. It's the last kiss I gave my son, Devlin, before I left for the AOR (area of operations). I love you, Devlin Bailey. I love you, Alexis. Thank you for being there for me when I need you the most."

It's an interesting photograph to feature today, as the war debates rage on... and as Senate Republicans yesterday rejected the Webb amendment, a proposal to lengthen the home leaves of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Click here to see more Photo of the Day features.

Click here to see more photos of troop homecomings and departures. 

Click FirstPerson.MSNBC.com to submit an entry.

Tell us what you think, on comments, below.

Hi. Lots to catch up on today.. including a Presidential Q&A, the counter-argument on criticizing General Petraeus, and lots of assurances that the econmy is A-OK.. except if you're talking about the value of the dollar. First a quick apology for the unplanned hiatus from this space. Last week it was 4 1/2 hours of work vanishing into a blog black hole (who knew you could time-out of a session with no warning? Ummm.. Not me.) And Tuesday it was every family's nightmare: the sick nanny. Thank you Dale F. from Cambridge for taking note.

So the President led off his newser this morning with an attack on Democrats over the children's health insurance program known as S-CHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program). Congress has already passed a bill that would expand the program to cover more children, funded by a hike in tobacco taxes. Read down in the NYT's take to see that many influential Republicans are not on the President's side on this one.  John Kerry answers via the Democratic Daily.  TownHall has the Bush angle. And reaching back a bit, cyber-buddy N=1 at UniversalHealth posted a thorough state of play on S-CHIP via the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report.

More health care news: Joe Conason writes today at RealClearPolitics about how Hillary Clinton's health care plan is helped by the fact that she's co-opting everyone else's good ideas.. including those of right-wing think tanks.

Iraq: So what's the tab? The Congressional Research Service listened to President Bush talk about Iraq last week, did some figurin' and says keeping the U.S. going in Iraq will cost trillions. Kos links to the study.  And BarbinMD at DailyKos posts on how the benchmark of turning over security in the provinces to Iraqis has been pushed back, again.

And the President finally gets to go on the record (on video) with his "disgust" at the MoveOn ad critiquing General Petreaus. Glenn Greenwald, who as we've chronicled in this space before is no fan of the General, says the way the Mainstream Media have treated the debate over the ad is "limitless" in its wrongness. And perhaps this is completely futile, but MediaMatters tries to call attention to the actual substance of the critique of Petreaus below that "Betray-Us" headline. RedState doesn't like that Senate Democrats are equating the MoveOn ad with the Swift Boat and Max Cleland attack ads. And USAToday polls and finds for all the sound and fury, Petreaus didn't move the public opinion needle.  And hey, if you agree or disagree with Paul Krugman, you gotta read him-- and now not only is he out from behind the torn-down TimesSelect wall, he's blogging too! And he makes the style over substance point about Petraeus.

Will Bunch picks up on a new contention on the right: that the CIA won't leave the Green Zone without its Blackwater minders, which is part of a plot to defeat the surge by Iran.

The LA Times Levey writes up the Republican filibuster of the Webb Amendment, which would have mandated that U.S. troops spend as much time at home between tours as the tour itself.  The Carpetbagger report looks at Congress' filibuster "problem." Greewald, again.. on the Webb Amendment and those to strain so mightily to send other people's children to war.

And speaking of wars, Steve Clemons argues in Salon that President Bush will not attack Iran.

A request to visit ground zero by Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad draws outrage.. from Hugh Hewitt.. And  Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters.

Sidney Blumenthal goes mega-meta on the Bush presidency, playing off the new Draper biography, and his analysis is a doozy. Here's a taste: "Bush grasps at the straws of his own disinformation as he casts himself deeper into the abyss. The more profound and compounded his blunders, and the more he redoubles his certainty in ultimate victory, the greater his indifference to failure. He has entered a phase of decadent perversity, where he accelerates his errors to vindicate his folly. As the sands of time run down, he has decided that no matter what he does, history will finally judge him as heroic". Oof. Go read the whole thing.

TalkingPointsMemo links to AP's coverage of Dem fundraiser Norman Hsu's indictment, speaking of doozies. 

The Huffington Post is among several blogs that fact-checked the President's sound bite from this morning's news conference that he got a B in Econ 101. More like a C-. ThinkProgress expands on that.

But not to worry, the economy is strong. Uhhh.. especially if you want to use dollars as toilet paper. Thanks for the rate cut Chairman Bernanke! The Saudis are now openly speculating about dropping the dollar peg and said dollar is dropping like a stone on world currency markets today-- all time low versus the Euro and at parity with the Canadian dollar for the first time in more than 30 years. The NYT website is leading with it at the moment.  And I've posted before about Ambrose Evans Pritchard's checkered past, but he seems to have hit the Saudi nail on the head last night. CalculatedRisk sums up Bernanke's acknowledgement on Capitol Hill this morning that he got some stuff wrong on the mortgage front. And Minyanville's Mike Mish Shedlock says Bernanke's bullet missed the mark.

And how bad was Bear Stearns' quarter? Remember how they kicked off the credit panic when their two subprime-heavy hedge funds imploded? Profits were down 62%. Ouch.

From the: IF AL GORE HAD SAID THIS BELTWAY JOURNALISTS WOULD BE TURNING INSIDE-OUT file: Rudy Giuliani brags he's one of the 5 most famous Americans on the planet. (Hat Tip: John Aravosis at Americablog)

John Stewart succinctly sums up the latest case of "free speech abomination" with the catchy combo of police overreaction and student douchebaggery.  And a hat tip to my co-worker Garrett Haake for finding the YouTube video where you can actually hear what the alleged DB was saying.

[Youtube:lpMSNjXhhhg]

RedState posts on how students at this country's most prestigious colleges performed really badly on a test of American History and civics. Maybe everyone's busy learning how to be a hedge fund manager. (Click on the link inside to take the quiz.)

By Martin Savidge, NBC News correspondent

Jena is in gridlock. The number of buses leaving Alexandria 40 miles away is said to look like a hurricane evacuation. Cell phone service is overloaded. Local officials have declared a state of emergency. Schools and businesses are closed and security has beefed up.  Protest leaders stress this is a peaceful protest.  The crowd size had to measure with people, cars and busses, which stalled in the street.  The Reverend Al Sharpton proclaimed to a crowd in front of the courthouse, "this is the start of the civil rights movement for the 21st century!"

There are signs in the crowd in front of the courthouse read... "Stop racism now" "Free the Jena 6" "justice includes us". "Mychael Bell could have been my son" -  "why cut down the tree?" "Blacks protest N justice".

Riders on the buses are abandoning them due to stalled traffic. They are moving on foot -some hold banners and signs, others have cameras - recording it all.  One older African-American woman told a younger man, "you will be able to tell others you were here this day." On the sidewalk vendors do a brisk trade selling t-shirts for $10.  They read "justice for the Jena 6."

 

Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.

Donald E. Rudolf
Technical Sergeant, U.S. Army  Company E, 20th Infantry, 6th Infantry Division

 

In February 1941, Donald Rudolph volunteered with the 6th Infantry Division—known as "the Sight-Seeing Sixth" because it had marched to several battles in World War I only to find the fighting over before it arrived. Rudolph thought he had enlisted for a year, but Pearl Harbor made it indefinite. The 6th trained in Yuma, Arizona, for desert fighting in North Africa. Then orders changed, and the division began training for jungle fighting in the Pacific.
Rudolph's unit saw action in New Guinea. Then came the Philippines. By this time a technical sergeant, Rudolph had seen so much combat on the island of Luzon in late 1944 that he was taken off the front lines. But while tending the wounded, he saw several GIs from his unit and returned to the front lines, without waiting for orders, to be with his men.

On February 3, 1945, he took over the unit after the platoon leader was evacuated. Two days later, the unit was raked by fire from enemy troops dug into well-fortified positions in an area that wasn't thought to be strongly defended. Kneeling down to administer first aid to one of his men, Technical Sergeant Rudolph noticed that some of the heaviest enemy fire was coming from a nearby culvert. He crawled to it and with his rifle and grenades killed three Japanese soldiers hidden there.

Then he began to work his way toward a line of enemy pillboxes that had another company pinned down. He ripped an opening in the tin roof of the first one and dropped in a grenade, killing the Japanese gunners inside. Advancing on the second pillbox, he knocked a hole in its roof with a discarded Japanese pickax, then tossed in a grenade and fired in several rifle rounds, killing the enemy inside.

In quick succession, Rudolph attacked and neutralized six more enemy pillboxes. His men, now able to advance, soon came under attack by a Japanese tank. Rudolph worked his way to the tank, climbed onto it, and dropped a white phosphorus grenade through the turret, killing the crew inside.

This action cleared the way for an advance that culminated in a decisive victory. A few weeks later, an enemy artillery shell hit the unit's position in Luzon. Rudolph was wounded in the back by shrapnel, and a piece struck him from the side, entering his nose and lodging under his eye. After being hospitalized for several weeks and released, he was informed that he had been recommended for a medal and was being taken out of hazardous duty. He served as a military policeman for a few weeks, then discovered that it was the Medal of Honor he was being given. President Harry Truman awarded it to him on August 23, 1945, in the East Room of the White House.