High gas prices are drawing politicians' attention. "Democratic proposals range from a temporary halt in shipments to it to releasing a portion of the crude" oil in the 660 million barrel U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, for some price relief, Reuters reports. But George Bush told reporters, "We're at war.

Congress' investigative arm, the General Accounting Office, determined that video news releases (VNRs) touting the new Medicare law, which ran as news reports on some 40 stations, violated a ban on government funded "publicity and propaganda." The Hill notes, "VNRs are standard practice in the public-relations industry and local news reports often rely on them. ...

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber will be truly going bananas in the weeks ahead touring with the Center's new book Banana Republicans. You can meet the authors speaking at bookstores in San Francisco, Berkeley, Menlo Park, Santa Rosa, Pasadena and Santa Monica, California; on the east coast in Boston, New York and DC; and, back in the midwest in Madison & Milwaukee, Wisconsin.