Bubba bellies on up--to a brand-new salad bar
A tiger in the tank
Hybrid makers Honda and Toyota have a message for the Environmental Protection Agency: Hit the road. Seems the EPA has admitted that its mileage tests give the company's electric-gas cars higher mileage than they really get. So the EPA has asked both to voluntarily lower their figures. The companies refused, suggesting that the EPA just fix the tests. Or ask carmakers to change the mileage ratings for all vehicles.
Is anybody home?
Seems the old 9/11 commission, which focused on how government agencies didn't talk to one another, has a communications problem of its own. Just reinvented as the nonprofit 9/11 Public Discourse Project, it encourages Americans to call in and open a "national conversation" about fixing the problems the commission found. The problem: The new office doesn't have a phone yet. Spokesman Al Felzenberg says it's a temporary situation. At least he hopes so, because in the meantime his cellphone is doubling as the project's main number.
The company he kept
A nominee to a key government procurement post has troubled some on Capitol Hill because of his ties to alleged Islamic extremists. Despite an April hearing on David Safavian 's appointment to an Office of Management and Budget job overseeing $300 billion in government contracts, the full Senate has not held a vote, in part because of lingering questions about his work for the former lobbying firm of White House ally Grover Norquist, now head of Americans for Tax Reform. Lobbying disclosure forms show Safavian worked for Abdurahman Alamoudi, who pleaded guilty this summer to aiding a Libyan plot to assassinate Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah and was accused by prosecutors of having ties to al Qaeda. Safavian, however, said he never lobbied for Alamoudi. The real client was a man named Jamal al Barzinji, but that's not much better. A 2002 federal affidavit names Barzinji as the leader of a group suspected of aiding terrorists. Safavian told the Senate his work was limited only to pitching the firm to Barzinji. The Senate vote is expected as early as this week.
The pedaling prez
President Bush doesn't need to spend $8,000 like Sen. John Kerry to get a cool bike. He's got friends. Specifically John Burke, president of Trek Bicycle Corp. Commerce Secretary Don Evans tells us that after Bush's gimpy knees drove him to bikes, Burke, who serves on the President's Physical Fitness Council, bragged about his bikes, and the president bit. Now the prez has a fleet of U.S.-made Treks at Camp David.
What's Up With Bo?
Sen. John Kerry wins the celebrity list with his team of Tinseltown backers, but President Bush isn't star-less. He's got Bo Derek. We chased down the lovely star of 10 during the GOP convention in NYC to ask why she's a Bushie. "My impression has always been that he does what's right, what he believes is right." As for the attacks saying he's all politics, no policy, she adds, "I don't find him terribly political."
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With Suzi Parker, Richard J. Newman, Samantha Levine and Julian E. Barnes
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