While you were reagoning...

Now that our national reagasm is waning, it's time to study the news stories which escaped public attention this week:

White House owns up to errors in terror report

The Bush administration yesterday admitted it had got its facts, figures and analysis wrong in its annual report on counter-terrorism, which had been hailed as evidence of a policy triumph based on claims that the number of terrorist attacks worldwide had declined in 2003.

Retracting the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report released in late April, Richard Boucher, State Department spokesman, said a revised version would show the opposite - "a sharp increase" in both the number of attacks and deaths over 2002.

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Fuel Costs Hitting Farmers Hard

Nationwide, the increased energy costs means it will take $800 million more to bring in this year's crop than it did in 2003, according to projections from the American Farm Bureau. The 2003 tally was $2.6 billion higher than the cost to harvest the 2002 crop, again because of higher energy prices, said Troy Bredenkamp, who monitors fuel and energy for the Washington, D.C.-based organization.

"And it shows no sign of letting up," Bredenkamp said. "It's not good."

A gallon of diesel for farm use costs about $1.39, up from about 90 cents a year ago. Farmers don't pay road tax for their diesel so prices are still below those at commercial pumps, where a gallon is close to $1.80 in West Texas. The price of fertilizer and the energy for irrigation are up, and by as much as 40 percent, said Jay Yates, an economist with the Texas Cooperative Extension in Lubbock. Ninety percent of the cost of nitrogen fertilizer is based on the price of natural gas.

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Bush Drops Hopes for NATO Troops in Iraq

SAVANNAH, Ga., June 10 -- President Bush said Thursday that he did not expect NATO to provide troops to Iraq, abandoning hope for such help after partners in the alliance raised objections.

In a news conference ending the three-day Group of Eight meeting of industrialized nations, which Bush hosted in Sea Island, Ga., the president said his only hope for the military alliance would be for help in training Iraqi troops if the new interim government requests it. "I don't expect more troops from NATO to be offered up," he said. "That's an unrealistic expectation. Nobody is suggesting that"

Administration officials had been hoping that passage Tuesday of the U.N. Security Council resolution endorsing U.S. plans for Iraq would make it easier to recruit more international funds and manpower. Bush said Wednesday that "NATO ought to be involved" in Iraq -- a contention quickly rebutted by French President Jacques Chirac and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayy.

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'Made in Mexico' uniforms chafe Border Patrol agents

WASHINGTON - It seems an odd fit: U.S. Border Patrol uniforms with labels that say, "Made in Mexico."

Some agents are irate and said they are amazed and embarrassed to find that their new orders for green shirts and trousers - and maybe other uniform items - are being filled with articles of clothing manufactured south of the border.

It is an ironic twist, they said, for the agency whose job it is to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border.

"I just received a half-dozen new shirts, pants - and the labels all say they are made in Mexico," said Rich Pierce, a Tampa-based agent and executive vice president of the 16,000-member National Border Patrol Council, the agents' union. "Why can't we have uniforms made in the U.S.? What's next? Shipping our Border Patrol jobs to the Mexicans? The other agents I've talked to all think this is some bad joke."

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These are but a few of the stories you may have missed this week. And the Bush administration hopes you were in mourning and NOT PAYING ATTENTION!