Several key advocates for the invasion of Iraq are now profiting from Iraq's reconstruction the Los Angeles Times reports. "As lobbyists, public relations counselors and confidential advisors to senior federal officials, they warned against Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, praised exiled leader Ahmad Chalabi, and argued that toppling Saddam Hussein was a matter of national security and moral duty.

According to the "PR Machine" blog, "blogging threatens the power of brands and their message control because blogs facilitate open dialogues with customers. ... The exact threat? Meta-sites, blogs, wikis, and the proliferation of RSS and related site syndication technologies, have all rapidly given a voice to people who previously had no way of expressing their opinions. ...

It used to be that the U.S. chemical industry lobbied lawmakers in Washington. Now the White House is aggressively lobbying on the industry's behalf in Brussels, opposing new European Union regulations on chemicals. The EU's proposed Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals or REACH would require chemical makers to publicly report the potential harmfulness of their products - both for new chemicals being introduced and those already available.