“Motherhood may make women smarter and may help prevent dementia in old age by bathing the brain in protective hormones, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.” azcentral.com

‘Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s third-largest automaker, plans to use gasoline-electric hybrid engines in all vehicles by 2012 to increase fuel efficiency and reduce tailpipe emissions, an executive said.’ auto.com

Mobile car ban drives Bluetooth BBC; Cars To Get In-Dash Bluetooth Elgan Report

“A new £7.5m Prison Service computer system may have to be axed – over fears an IRA mole has had access to it.

The upgraded system was launched earlier this year, and provides precise details of each prison officer’s shifts at Ulster’s two main jails – Maghaberry and Magilligan – for each day of the next year.

It allows prison service officers to access what days they are scheduled to work, and what times they are due to start and finish.

Now it is understood concerned prison bosses are considering scrapping the computer system, over fears that the Provisional IRA may know the work routines of every prison officer employed by the under-fire service.” Belfast Telegraph

Sam Parry:

“The Washington press corps has come grudgingly to the recognition that George W. Bush is “malleable” with the truth, as the Washington Post delicately put it. Pressing for war with Iraq, Bush has been exaggerating his case so much that even CIA analysts are complaining, as a number of newspapers have now reported.

But the underlying reality about Bush’s honesty is far worse. Throughout his adult life, Bush has dodged the truth along with personal responsibility for his actions. Indeed, a remarkable feature of his presidency is the gap between Bush’s public image as a straight-talking everyman and the behind-the-curtain Bush whose imperial impulse sometimes flashes into public view.” The Consortium

Eric Alterman:

Bush Lies, Media Swallows: ‘President Bush is a liar. There, I said it, but most of the mainstream media won’t. Liberal pundits Michael Kinsley, Paul Krugman and Richard Cohen have addressed the issue on the Op-Ed pages, but almost all news pages and network broadcasts pretend not to notice. In the one significant effort by a national daily to deal with Bush’s consistent pattern of mendacity, the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank could not bring himself (or was not allowed) to utter the crucial words. Instead, readers were treated to such complicated linguistic circumlocutions as: Bush’s statements represented “embroidering key assertions” and were clearly “dubious, if not wrong.” The President’s “rhetoric has taken some flights of fancy,” he has “taken some liberties,” “omitted qualifiers” and “simply outpace[d] the facts.” But “Bush lied”? Never.’ The Nation [via Walker]