Little bits...and Bush's remarks overheard....

From American Progress:

Journalist Akbar Ganji, Iran’s “most prominent dissident,” said the war in Iraq has hurt his country’s reform movement by giving its regime an excuse to stifle dissent. “What has happened in Iraq did not support our movement in any significant way,” he said.

Four years after the G-8 nations pledged “$20 billion over 10 years to prevent terrorists from obtaining nuclear materials, only $3.5 billion has been donated — and far less has been used to secure enriched uranium, the key ingredient of a nuclear weapon.”

A $600 million shortfall at the Department of Housing and Urban Development is hurting local agencies that are “already struggling to meet community needs for affordable housing.” On top of the shortfall, President Bush has eliminated $1.7 billion in public housing funds since he took office.

The Bush administration “plans sweeping changes in Medicare payments to hospitals that could cut payments by 20 to 30 percent for many complex treatments and new technologies,” a move that doctors and patients’ groups believe “could be devastating.”

Nearly a year after Hurricane Katrina, “federal aid is finally starting to flow into the hands of people in Mississippi and Louisiana who lost their houses.” “The money is widely considered the most important single factor in rebuilding the still-ruined landscapes of New Orleans and the other devastated Gulf areas of the two states.”

University of Colorado biologists are installing a global warming alarm system near Boulder. “Like the alarm systems in your car or home, this one is designed to detect intruders. But in this case, the invaders are tundra plants moving up from lower elevations in response to global warming.”

The Arizona Voter Reward Act, a proposal to “award $1 million in every general election to one lucky resident, chosen by lottery, simply for voting” has qualified for the ballot, along with other initiatives such as a minimum wage increase.

And finally: A microphone picked up President Bush’s private conversations with other world leaders at the G8 summit. Bush on Putin’s flight home: “You eight hours? Me too. Russia’s a big country and you’re a big country. … Russia’s big and so is China.” Bush on Blair’s departure: “Yo Blair, what’re you doing? Are you leaving?” “Bush also remarked that some of the speakers at the meeting had the tendency to talk too long.”

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