Wednesday's Daily Brief

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 Obama Veto Threat Of GOP Spending Bill Ratchets Up Talk Of Government Shutdown Just hours after President Barack Obama insisted, in a rare news conference, that "there should be no reason at all for a government shut down" over budgetary debates, his office issued a veto threat to a Republican spending bill that ratcheted up talk of forthcoming government paralysis. In a statement of administration policy released Tuesday night, the Office of Management and Budget formally announced the president's threat to veto a continuing resolution bill introduced by House Republicans to keep the government funded past March 4. The line in the sand hardly sent shock waves through Congress. Obama's opposition to the measure seemed almost pre-ordained, owing to the bill's sharp spending cuts on issues that Democrats hold dear: the Peace Corps, Pell Grants, and labor programs among others. BUSINESS Bernie Madoff: Banks 'Had To Know' Of Fraud WORLD Anti-Government Protests Spread To Libya TECHNOLOGY `Jeopardy!': Computer CRUSHES Competition MEDIA CBS: Lara Logan Suffered 'Brutal' Sexual Assault In Egypt BUSINESS Borders Files For Bankruptcy, To Close Stores BLOG POSTS Harry Shearer:What the New Census Data Can, and Can't, Tell Us About New Orleans There are 118,000 fewer African-Americans in New Orleans than in the previous census. We know that approximately 100,000 of them were evacuated after Katrina, but we don't know where those people are now. Mary Robinson:Climate Change -- A Glimpse of the Future Travelling by seaplane to Koyra, in the delta area of Bangladesh, was the equivalent of a journey some years into the future, when the devastating effects of climate change will be an accepted reality worldwide. Asher Smith:'Bieber Fever' Is a Symptom of What Ails the Music Industry Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Or Justin Bieber fans staying up past their bedtimes on a Sunday night. This isn't the first time Bieber's fans have thrown joint, public temper tantrums. Stephen Baker:How Could IBM's Watson Think That Canada Is a U.S. City? Watson screws up on some Jeopardy clues. It comes up with a clunker or two in nearly every game. But it also gets lots of clues right -- and is close to being the greatest Jeopardy player ever. Jeff Jarvis:It's Not All About the Content In his recent column, David Carr makes two understandable but fundamentally fallacious assumptions about news and media: that the value in journalism is in content and that making content must be work.

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