by Matt Martinez

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.

We're in New York! Well, actually just Alison and Matt are — Luke is hopping on a plane from Seattle and I (Matt) am fighting off sleep because I took a red-eye from Phoenix. So, I'm kinda here. All that to say, we got started a little late today — but plenty going on. Coming up on the podcast later today: We're talking sports with some guy named Bill Wolff. We promise it'll be a good time.

The Rundown. In attendance: Alison Stewart (fresh from the gym), Matt Martinez (bleary-eyed nursing a venti skim latte) and Luke Burbank (joining us by phone, while driving and drinking coffee — kids, don't try that at home).

SUDAN SANCTIONS — President Bush is following through on a threat made to Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and plans to announce economic sanctions against Sudan today. Mr. Bush asked Sudan's prez to permit full deployment of U-N peacekeeping forces in Darfur, as well as allow aid to reach the region and to stop supporting janjaweed militias. Well, Bashir didn't do it. Hence, the sanctions. The violence and genocide in Darfur is such an important story, but it's also extraordinarily complicated. After we got through the news of sanctions, we thought this would be a good opportunity to step back and get a handle on the situation in the Darfur region. I thought we should call NPR's East Africa Correspondent Gwen Thompkins — she's based in Nairobi, Kenya and just returned from a tour of the Darfur region. I worked closely with Gwen for three years at Weekend Edition, Saturday and one of the many things I was impressed with was her ability to put things in perspective — to take a huge, sprawling, seemingly out-of-control story and make it comprehensible. Alison was interested in the fact that, back in April, President Bush backed down on the sanctions at the request of the U-N's Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon. We wondered, since when does this administration back down because of a U-N request. (Sure, that's not fair — but the Administration's U-N track record is less than stellar.) Luke was wondering how much of the aid promised to Darfur — and the Africa in general — is tied to faith-based groups.

IRAN — The United States and Iran met for four hours of talks in Baghdad on Monday. The purpose: To talk about violence in Iraq, specifically who is responsible for it and how to make it stop. The U.S. says Iran backs Shiite militias. Iran says they don't. Ryan Crocker is the U.S. Ambassador in Baghdad, he described the meeting as business-like and focused solely on Iraq. The only firm thing that all parties seemed to agree on was that Iraq should be a secure and stable federal democracy with its own security force. But how? We thought it might be good to turn to someone like Reza Aslan and have a conversation.

GOOGLE NATION — Google has hit a stumbling block in their attempt to dominate the world. The Federal Trade Commission opened an antitrust investigation into Google's planned purchase of DoubleClick, which would be the largest in Google's history (even more than what what it paid for YouTube). According to DoubleClick, this is what they do:

DoubleClick's suite of products empowers agencies, web publishers and marketers to work together successfully. This is realized through the integrated DART platform, our suite of products designed to meet the needs of the buy-side and sell-side of digital marketing. On the buy-side, DoubleClick serves the needs of agencies, advertisers, and marketers with MediaVisor, DART for Advertisers, DART Search, DART Motif, Klipmart solutions and strategic services. On the sell-side, DoubleClick serves the needs of web publishers, networks, and media websites with DART for Publishers, DART Sales Manager, DART Enterprise, DART Adapt, DART Motif, DART Motif for Flash-in-Flash, DART Motif for In-Stream and strategic services.

What?!?!?!?!?! I want to know what this company does — in normal person speak. Maybe that'll give a bit more insight into why the FTC is in such a huff over the whole thing.

NASA ESCAPE HATCH — This story is just cool. NASA engineers are designing a new escape hatch for the launch pad and, in a word, it looks awesome! Like some crazy roller coaster ride at Six Flags. If something were to go wrong on a launch, the astronauts would be able to bail by taking a contraption that would swoop them down a 370-feet tall 90-degree track. USA Today has a great graphic of it (of course they do). I want to talk to one of those crazy roller coaster people I always see on the Discovery Channel — or to one of the many engineers that design roller coasters.

GAY ROBOT — Word today that our favorite gay-themed robot pilot may now become a real show. The story is brilliant: Guy wants to make a sitcom about a robot that is gay. No one picks it up. Guy puts the pilot on YouTube, it becomes a hit. Now, the show is probably going to get picked up by Comedy Central. A good story about how much power the Internet can have.

WEBSITE OF THE DAY — Passive Aggressive Notes. You can go there and check this out if you want to, but you don't have to. Really, just do whatever you want.

SPORTS — We plan to talk sports today with Alison's significant other — Bill Wolff. On tap: The Yankees suck, Barry Bond's steroid probs, super-big fun on the racetrack over the weekend and Bill's undying love for Luke Burbank. It's the BPP sports page. Stay tuned.