1) US protests 'harassment' by Chinese vessels

WASHINGTON – Chinese ships surrounded and harassed a Navy mapping ship in international waters off China, at one point coming within 25 feet of the American boat and strewing debris in its path, the Defense Department said Monday. The Obama administration said it would continue naval operations in the South China Sea, most of which China considers its territory, and protested to China about what it called reckless behavior that endangered lives. At one point during the incident Sunday the unarmed USNS Impeccable turned fire hoses on an approaching Chinese ship in self defense, the Pentagon said. At another point a Chinese ship played chicken with the Americans, stopping dead in front of the Impeccable as it tried to sail away, forcing the civilian mariners to slam on the brakes. …Pentagon officials said the incident followed "increasingly aggressive" acts by Chinese ships against the Impeccable on Wednesday and Saturday and against the USNS Victorious surveillance ship on Thursday while it operated in the Yellow Sea. See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090310/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_china_incident 2) N. Korea warns intercepting 'satellite' will prompt counterstrike+ PYONGYANG/BEIJING, March 9 (AP) - (Kyodo)—North Korea warned Monday that any move to intercept what it calls a satellite launch and what other countries suspect may be a missile test-firing would result in a counterstrike against the countries trying to stop it.  "We will retaliate (over) any act of intercepting our satellite for peaceful purposes with prompt counterstrikes by the most powerful military means," the official Korean Central News Agency quoted a spokesman of the General Staff of the Korean People's Army as saying.  If countries such as the United States, Japan or South Korea try to intercept the launch, the North Korean military will carry out "a just retaliatory strike operation not only against all the interceptor means involved but against the strongholds" of the countries, it said. …The United States, Japan and South Korea have said that even if Pyongyang calls the launch a missile test, it would violate existing U.N. Security Council resolutions. See: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96Q4L200&show_article=1 3) Pelosi Backs Talk Radio Regulations: More on Back-Door Fairness Doctrine House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is supporting legislation that will force the Federal Communications Commission to “promote diversity” on the airwaves – a move many see as a stealth effort to regulate conservative-dominated talk radio without bringing back the controversial Fairness Doctrine.  Pelosi, D-Calif., has thrown her support to an amendment in a Senate bill that directs the FCC to explicitly “take actions to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest,” according to CNS News.  The amendment has become known as the Durbin amendment, after its sponsor, Senate Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin, D-Ill.  “Certainly, I support Mr. Durbin in most things,” Pelosi told CNS News. “Diversity in media ownership is very, very, important.” See: http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/pelosi_durbin_amendment/2009/03/08/189685.html 4) Memo to President Obama: First Things First, Please Welcome to the Barack Obama bear market. On Inauguration Day, the official beginning of the era of “hope” and “change,” the Dow stood at 8,281. On Friday, it closed at 6,626 – the fastest drop for any president in more than 90 years. Given his track record so far on economics, no wonder Obama wants to talk about health care instead. But before Americans decide to trust the President to “reform” the greatest and most innovative health care system in the world, they might want to take a look at the Administration’s approach to addressing the nation’s most pressing crisis. What policies have Obama and his team presented to reassure the markets and offer the promise of stabilization and renewed growth?  The short answer: None. Rather, the Obama team has inadvertently (one hopes) followed a course that has succeeded only in depressing the market by spooking Wall Street and heightening the climate of fear. See: http://townhall.com/columnists/CarolPlattLiebau/2009/03/09/memo_to_president_obama__first_things_first,_please 5) Eligibility issue sparks 'edit war': Wikipedia blocks users from posting criticism of Obama A WND article reporting yesterday that Wikipedia had been scrubbing President Obama's biography of criticism has resulted in an "edit war" on the website in which a large number of users were barred from posting on key issues, including any mention of challenges to Obama's eligibility.  Ultimately, administrators at Wikipedia, the online "free encyclopedia" mega-site written and edited by its users, entirely locked Obama's page so that only top editors could make changes to the entry – and only if a change is supported by a consensus of editors. See: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91257