by Alison Stewart

Morning Meeting

"Morning Meeting" is a recap of our daily editorial meeting. If we had a show today, these are some of the stories you would probably hear.

Oh, Wednesday. We've got a boatload ofone delicious podcast for you later today — but first, the meeting rundown:

In attendance: Alison Stewart, Luke Burbank, Matt Martinez, Dan Pashman (producer), Wright Bryan (web producer)

IRAQ — Lots of Iraq news this morning to flesh out: Roadside bombings, gun battles and a body found in a river south of Baghdad that might be one of the three missing U.S. soldiers. Dan played devil's advocate and asked why the coverage of the missing soldiers has been played up so much — why are these three so special when there are soldiers dying everyday in Iraq? Alison countered that these guys were most likely kidnapped — and that elevates the story. Add to that the possibility the soldiers were tortured and it rises above — though doesn't lessen — the daily carnage.

CONGRESS — Democrats caved on their demand for a troop-withdrawal deadline in the spending bill. There was a brief discussion of the word "caved." Is it accurate? The deadline was the number one goal for Dems. The President already axed one bill with a deadline to pull troops out of Iraq — and he planned to do it again if the Dems persisted in their demand for a time line. We thought a conversation with Jim VandeHei at Politico.com would be in order — and that could lead to a bigger discussion about how this Congress is an "Oversight Congress." (Read: Endless, endless, endless committee meetings.)

GOOGLE EMPIRE — Okay, I'm voting this the most disturbing story of the day. In an article in today's Financial Times, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that he hopes Google will soon be able to take over your life. It's like 2001, but six years late. From the article:

The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as "What shall I do tomorrow?" and "What job shall I take?"

He says that Google's ability to "maximize personalization" will enable the company to micro-tailor the software. Man, if we ever leave it to our computers to tell us what to do...uh, wait, hold on...just got an Outlook reminder...gotta run to a meeting soon...

PERIOD BE GONE — Alison, noting she was the only woman on staff and didn't care if it was a creepy topic for the fellas because women will listen to this show too, pitched a Q&A with a doctor about the period-stopping birth control pill. (It was ok'd by the FDA on Tuesday. It's called Lybrel.) A couple of folks wanted to know about the long term health risks of a pill like this. Several doctors have said they have concerns over whether altering a natural human function will result in disastrous side-effects.

CABS GO GREEN/WHITHER THE HUMMER — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that every cab in New York will be a hybrid by 2012. And GM announced that the Hummer H-1 will cease production. A good day for the environment.

MUSLIM PEW POLL — An interesting poll from the Pew Research Center on Tuesday surveyed a large sample of the estimated 2.4 million Muslim Americans. Dan pointed out while the headlines all focus on the assimilation and moderation of Muslim Americans (see USA Today), if you dig deeper into the article, the picture is less rosy.
American Muslims between 18 and 29 have a greater acceptance of suicide bombings — one in four saying it's justified in some cases .

100 WETTEST CITIES — This is one of the most viewed articles on Yahoo.com, not Maxim. Despite the legend of a damp, dank northwest, Luke's old stomping ground Seattle was not number one — which Luke already knew! That honor goes to Mobile, Alabama. Alison wondered if it was too 'news you can use' to do a story about how weather affects emotional and mental states.

IN VIRTUAL WEATHER NEWS — You might need to factor in a chance of hail the next time you play video games. Luke pitched a story about Electronic Arts' soon-to-be-released video game which introduces real time weather conditions to its NCAA '08 football game. So if it's really raining in Phoenix right now, and you're playing a game in Phoenix right now, it'll start raining in your video game, leading to the video game version of wet turf. We thought we'd love to have Win Rosenfeld, our video czar, do a piece on this one, so you could really see what the game looks like.

SHOW CHICAGO THE MONEY — The MacCarthur Foundation announced it will invest $26 million over five years to help redevelop some of the city's most economically challenged areas. The plan will be developed from the ground up and drafted by community groups. Wright suggested we talk not just to experts on stories like this, but also to regular folks who can give us a sense of the issues on the ground. Also, the segment should include a primer on who and what the MacCarthur Foundation is.

CAPTIVE IN IRAN — Sixty-seven year old Haleh Esfandiari, a scholar on Middle Eastern and Iranian affairs, is being held captive in Iran. Only her 93-year old mother, who lives there, has been able to see her. Matt wanted to know more about how this happened, who this woman is, and whether the charges against her have validity.

NICE TRY — Mr. Martinez attempted to pitch a story about a woman who weaves clothes out of audio tape. He lost us at the word "weave," but got us back when he said there was a way to hear audio from the clothing....stay tuned for that one.

We also mulled over how to improve some of what we've already posted. We do appreciate the constructive feedback. Please continue to let us know which if any of these stories sing out to you. Remember, the show WILL have a newscast at least twice an hour, so we will get you information on day-of events.