THE FULCRUM

The Transportation Security Administration proposed an order that would compel 77 airlines to provide names, addresses and other information collected through carriers' reservation systems for domestic travel during the month.

All passenger records will be compared with a newly concentrated security watch list, compiled by federal law enforcement, intelligence and security agencies.

A posting on an Islamic Web site claimed Tuesday that an al-Qaida-linked group has slain a second American hostage in Iraq and threatened to kill a third hostage.

The claim that Jack Hensley, a civilian contractor, had been killed could not be verified immediately.

Who'd like to be the last man to die for that? I'm looking for a show of hands. But more than that, I'm looking for someone to raise questions that go to the heart of this matter of life and death. In this sense, Iraq is fast becoming Vietnam -- only the stakes are higher. (Vietnam had no oil.) It is also Vietnam in the way the presidential campaign is handling it. Once again the GOP is playing the odious patriotism card to silence dissent. As for Bush, he talks about Iraq with the same loopy unreality as he does his National Guard service. He's a fabulist.

She [Rice] said ``there's no evidence'' that Iraq is falling into a state of civil war and said things are better than three months ago even though the Iraqi people ``are facing a very tough and daring insurgency.''

Secretary of State Colin Powell, interviewed Tuesday on ABC's ``Good Morning America,'' called the situation ``a difficult struggle'' but said ``to say we can't deal with it, this sort of attitude that we're on the verge of defeat is absolutely wrong.''

Deadline looms for American, British captives in Iraq
American contractor beheaded in Iraq
Iraq bombs cause civilian deaths
Iraq: busload of corpses discovered
Camp Pendleton Marine killed in Iraq
Ex-Michigan man killed by homemade explosive in Iraq
Senior Sunni clerics assassinated in Iraq

Gholamreza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, told reporters in Vienna Iran had begun converting 37 tonnes of raw uranium into material which is fuel for nuclear centrifuges -- the machines that enrich uranium.

One nuclear expert has said that, if enriched, that would be enough material for five nuclear weapons.

Ed Wasserman, among others, has looked closely at the impact on journalism of this growing conglomeration of ownership. He recently wrote: "You would think that having a mightier media would strengthen their ability to assert their independence, to chart their own course, to behave in an adversarial way toward the state." Instead "they fold in a stiff breeze" - as Viacom, one of the richest media companies in the history of thought, did when it “couldn’t even go ahead and run a dim-witted movie” on Ronald Reagan because the current president’s political arm objected to anything that would interfere with the ludicrous drive to canonize Reagan and put him on Mount Rushmore. Wasserman acknowledges, as I do, that there is some world-class journalism being done all over the country today, but he went on to speak of "a palpable sense of decline, of rot, of a loss of spine, determination, gutlessness" that pervades our craft. Journalism and the news business, he concludes, aren’t playing well together. Media owners have businesses to run, and "these media-owning corporations have enormous interests of their own that impinge on an ever-widening swath of public policy" - hugely important things, ranging from campaign finance reform (who ends up with those millions of dollars spent on advertising?) to broadcast deregulation and antitrust policy, to virtually everything related to the Internet, intellectual property, globalization and free trade, even to minimum wage, affirmative action and environmental policy. "This doesn’t mean media shill mindlessly for their owners, any more than their reporters are stealth operatives for pet causes," but it does mean that in this era, when its broader and broader economic entanglements make media more dependent on state largesse, "the news business finds itself at war with journalism."

Gunmen killed a Sunni Muslim cleric as he entered a mosque in Baghdad to perform noon prayers Monday, the second slaying of a cleric from the influential Association of Muslim Scholars in as many days, the group said.

With 95% of precincts reporting, the amendment won approval with 79% of the vote and support for it was evident statewide. Only in New Orleans, home to a politically strong gay community, did the race appear to be close, and even there the amendment was passing by a small margin.

"It's gratifying to see the people of Louisiana had an opportunity, as distinguished from judges, having the final say on the issue of whether traditional marriage will continue to be the fundamental institution in our state," said Darrell White, a retired state judge and consultant for Louisiana Family Forum, which pushed hard for the amendment.

President Bush is moving to control the Iraq debate with a weeklong effort that signals U.S. resolve to see through that country's chaotic experiment in democracy while tapping the power of incumbency for his re-election campaign.

Drafts of a report from the top U.S. inspector in Iraq conclude there were no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but say there were signs that fallen Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had dormant programs he hoped to revive at a later time, according to people familiar with the findings.

Here's how bad off the Democrats are: They're cowering behind closed doors, whispering that if it should ever turn out that Republicans are behind this, it would be so exquisitely Machiavellian, so beyond what Democrats are capable of, they should just fold and concede the election now - before the Republicans have to go to the trouble of stealing it again.

[snip]

In this vast left-wing conspiracy theory, Mr. Rove takes real evidence on W.'s shirking and transfers it to documents doomed to be exposed as phony (thereby undermining the real goods), then funnels it through third parties to Dan Rather, Bush 41's nemesis on Iran-contra. A perfect bank shot.

The administration has been so dazzling in misleading the public with audacious, mendacious malarkey that the Democrats fear the Bushies are capable of any level of deceit.

A rocket slammed into the ground near where Afghan President Hamid Karzai's helicopter was approaching to land in an eastern city Thursday, forcing him to return to Kabul, officials said.

Karzai was headed to the city of Gardez, 60 miles south of Kabul, for a school-opening ceremony, aboard a U.S. military helicopter. Presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said the rocket came down in a village about a mile from Gardez, while U.S. military spokesman Maj. Mark McCann said it hit 300 yards from the landing zone.

FUBAR: adj. acronym: F***ed Up Beyond All Repair. Military slang; likely originated during the Korean or Viet Nam conflicts.

Gunmen kidnapped two Americans and one Briton in the Iraqi capital, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said Thursday.

The three were seized from their house in Baghdad's al-Mansour neighborhood at dawn Thursday, said ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdel-Rahman. He didn't give their identities or say who they worked for. Col. Abdel-Rahman had earlier said the three were all British nationals.

[snip]

Separately, a car bomb exploded Wednesday in a town south of Baghdad, killing two people and injuring 10, said Col. Abdel-Rahman. The car was targeting a National Guard checkpoint in Suwayrah, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) south of Baghdad, Col. Abdel-Rahman said. One national guardsman was among the dead, he said. No further details were available.

[snip]

Also Wednesday, three beheaded bodies were found on a road north of Baghdad, authorities said.

Senators See Budget Shift on Iraq as Sign of Trouble

Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said today that the Bush administration's request to divert more than $3 billion from reconstruction work in Iraq to security measures was a sign that the American campaign in Iraq is in serious trouble.

[snip]

Mr. Hagel went on to say that the request for reprogramming the money "does not add up, in my opinion, to a pretty picture, to a picture that shows that we're winning. But it does add up to this, an acknowledgment that we are in deep trouble."

Forty-three months into his presidency, George Bush's main explanation for this dismal economic record is an assortment of blame and excuses. Yet what President Bush cannot explain is how the last 11 presidents before him -- Democrats and Republicans -- faced wars, recessions and international crises, and yet only he has presided over lost jobs, declining real exports, and the swing from a $5.6 trillion surplus to trillions of dollars of deficits.

[snip]

With the right choices on the economy, America can do better. American businesses and workers are the most resilient, productive and innovative in the world. And they deserve policies that are better for our economy. My economic plan will do the following: (1) Create good jobs, (2) cut middle-class taxes and health-care costs, (3) restore America's competitive edge, and (4) cut the deficit and restore economic confidence.

The founder of the group Texans for Truth said Tuesday that he is offering $50,000 to anyone who can prove President Bush fulfilled his service requirements, including required duties and drills, in the Alabama Air National Guard in 1972.

If he is a flip-flopper, Kerry has company.

In 2000, Bush argued against new military entanglements and nation building. He's done both in Iraq.

He opposed a Homeland Security Department, then embraced it.

He opposed creation of an independent Sept. 11 commission, then supported it. He first refused to speak to its members, then agreed only if Vice President Dick Cheney came with him.

Bush argued for free trade, then imposed three-year tariffs on steel imports in 2002, only to withdraw them after 21 months.

Last month, he said he doubted the war on terror could be won, then reversed himself to say it could and would.

A week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bush said he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." But he told reporters six months later, "I truly am not that concerned about him." He did not mention bin Laden in his hour-long convention acceptance speech.

"I'm a war president," Bush told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Feb. 8. But in a July 20 speech in Iowa, he said: "Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president."

Bush keeps revising his Iraq war rationale: The need to seize Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction until none were found; liberating the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator; fighting terrorists in Iraq not at home; spreading democracy throughout the Middle East. Now it's a safer America and a safer world.

"No matter how many times Senator Kerry flip-flops, we were right to make America safer by removing Saddam Hussein from power," he said last week in Missouri.

Bush has changed his positions on new Clean Air Act restrictions, protecting the Social Security surplus, tobacco subsidies, the level of assistance to help combat AIDs in Africa, campaign finance overhaul and whether to negotiate with North Korean officials....

A car bomb exploded near a police station in the Iraqi capital early Tuesday, as dozens were applying to join the force, killing at least 47 people and wounding nearly 114, officials said.

Separately in Baqouba, gunmen in two cars opened fire on a van carrying policemen home from work, killing 11 officers and a civilian, police and hospital officials said.

Also Tuesday, saboteurs blew up a junction where multiple oil pipelines cross the Tigris River in northern Iraq, setting off a chain reaction in electricity generating systems that left the entire country without power, officials said.

Vice President Dick Cheney sought to "clean up" a controversy over comments he made this week, saying that the country must brace for a potential terrorist attack no matter who is elected president.

"I did not say if Kerry is elected, we will be hit by a terrorist attack," Cheney told the newspaper. "Whoever is elected president has to anticipate more attacks.

For the second year in a row, al-Qaida released a video tape rallying its supporters near the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and experts were investigating if the images of the terror network's No. 2 leader were new or not.

[snip]

"The defeat of America in Iraq and Afghanistan has become a matter of time, with God's help," al-Zawahri said on the tape. "The Americans in both countries are between two fires, if they continue they bleed to death and if they withdraw they lose everything."

The House voted to bar the Bush administration from enforcing new wage rules that make it easier for employers to deny overtime pay to white-collar and administrative workers.

The White House has threatened to veto the prohibition to keep the rules in effect. But in a rare victory to organized labor, 22 Republicans broke ranks on the 223-193 vote, despite strong pressure from their party leadership.

"Overtime is not a gift from America's employers. It is the right of American workers."

Bush Now Backs Budget Powers in New Spy Post

President Bush said on Wednesday that he wanted to give a new national intelligence director "full budgetary authority," a sharp shift from an earlier position and an acquiescence to a major recommendation of the Sept. 11 commission.

It offered a $10 million (U.S.) reward for help in hunting two separatist Chechen rebels, and a top Russian general said the military will strike "terrorist bases in any region of the world" — but would refrain from using nuclear weapons.

Demand for Oil Could One Day Outstrip Supply

A respected oil-forecasting group predicted that the energy industry may be unable to produce enough oil to meet projected demand by the end of the next decade, in a study that lends support to a small chorus of analysts who warn that a peak in petroleum output is looming in the years ahead.

In a presentation yesterday, analysts from Washington-based PFC Energy warned that the world won't be able to produce more than 100 million barrels of oil a day, only some 20% more than current output of about 82 million barrels a day, and well below demand projections for the end of the next decade.

"Even production of 100 million barrels a day can only be sustained for a few years," said Roger Diwan, a PFC analyst. "Every year since the 1970s, we have been consuming much more oil than we have been discovering."

1. Disobeying a direct order.


2. Failure to get a flight physical.


3. Being suspended from flight duty.


4. Adversely affecting unit readiness.


5. Failure to attend required drill dates.


6. Failure to attend Guard duties in Alabama.


7. Failure to join a National Guard unit in Massachusetts.

Most disturbing of all, I’ve come across a lot of men and women who’ve grown afraid of their fellow Americans. It’s as if their patriotism has been poisoned. They say they feel their flag has been appropriated by narrow-minded zealots. Their hopes are being crushed by cynical politicians. Their sons and daughters are being sent to die in wars that seem to have no end, and anyone who questions those politicians or those wars is being branded a traitor.

Christopher Dickey
From the Article

"You don't 'prevent' anything by war except peace."

President Harry S Truman

"Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right."

Carl Schurz
Nineteenth-century immigre

...the United States should stand for freedom and independence wherever her flag is unfurled, but "she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy." By launching foreign wars of interest and intrigue, [he] predicted, the fundamental underpinnings of American policy would change "from liberty to force." America "might become the dictatress of the world: she would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit." Foreign adventures and foreign threats are, as often as not, pretexts for curtailing the freedoms Americans believe they should be fighting for.

John Quincy Adams
1821

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday warned Americans about voting for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, saying that if the nation makes the wrong choice on Election Day it faces the threat of another terrorist attack.

Texans for Truth, established by the 20,000-member Texas online activist group, DriveDemocracy.org, has produced a 0:30 second television advertisement, "AWOL." The ad features Robert Mintz, one of many who served in Alabama's 187th Air National Guard -- when Bush claims to have been there -- who have no memory of Bush on the base. In other words, Bush failed to fulfill his military duty while others were dying in Vietnam.

Three years after Sept. 11, too many people have become experts at averting their eyes. If you look at the editorials and public pronouncements made in response to Beslan, you see that they glide over the perpetrators of this act and search for more conventional, more easily comprehensible targets for their rage.

The Boston Globe editorial, which was typical of the American journalistic response, made two quick references to the barbarity of the terrorists, but then quickly veered off with long passages condemning Putin and various Russian policy errors.

The Dutch foreign minister, Bernard Bot, speaking on behalf of the European Union, declared: "All countries in the world need to work together to prevent tragedies like this. But we also would like to know from the Russian authorities how this tragedy could have happened."

This death cult has no reason and is beyond negotiation. This is what makes it so frightening. This is what causes so many to engage in a sort of mental diversion. They don't want to confront this horror. So they rush off in search of more comprehensible things to hate.

The U.S. Army plans to move within months to break up the multibillion-dollar logistics contract that Halliburton Co. has to feed, house and look after U.S. troops in Iraq, and to put out the work for competitive bid.

The move, laid out in an internal Army memorandum, comes after more than a year in which Halliburton's work in Iraq under the contract has been plagued by accounting turmoil and accusations of overcharging. The contract, which the memo values at as much as $13 billion, has been used since early last year to provide massive support services for U.S. troops in Iraq and Kuwait, including housing, dining halls, transportation and laundry.

Pentagon auditors said in a report last month that KBR hadn't provided satisfactory details to back up more than $1.8 billion of work in Iraq and Kuwait. The Army still is debating whether to begin withholding payment on 15% of all billings until KBR is able to resolve the accounting backlog.

The United States and its allies have moved closer to capturing Osama bin Laden in the last two months, a top U.S. counterterrorism official said in a television interview broadcast Saturday.

"If he has a watch, he should be looking at it because the clock is ticking. He will be caught," Joseph Cofer Black, the U.S. State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, told private Geo television network.

A day after President Bush heralded his efforts to help the elderly cope with increased medical expenses, federal officials announced the largest premium increase in dollars in the Medicare program's history, raising the monthly expense by $11.60 to $78.20.

A Democratic Party official told Reuters that Clinton, who served two terms as president from 1993 to 2001, had checked into the hospital with chest pains. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, could not confirm that Clinton would undergo bypass surgery.

The severity of Clinton's coronary problem was discovered after tests at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York, ABC News reported. His coronary results were not favorable and he was found to have multiple lesions, it said.

CBS News said doctors found a blockage.

CNN quoted a source close to the former president as saying the surgery could take place as early as Saturday.

In more than a dozen interviews, Republicans in their teens and 20s offered a range of answers. Some have friends in the military in Iraq and are considering enlisting; others said they can better support the war by working politically in the United States; and still others said they think the military doesn't need them because the U.S. presence in Iraq is sufficient.


"Frankly, I want to be a politician. I'd like to survive to see that," said Vivian Lee, 17, a war supporter visiting the convention from Los Angeles.

"It is true that a handful of people have tried to destroy our city by going up and yelling at visitors here because they don't agree with their views," Mr. Bloomberg said. "Think about what that says. This is America, New York, cradle of liberty, the city for free speech if there ever was one and some people think that we shouldn't allow people to express themselves. That's exactly what the terrorists did, if you think about it, on 9/11. Now this is not the same kind of terrorism but there's no question that these anarchists are afraid to let people speak out."

According to Mr. Siegel, the teen's mother called Manhattan central booking to inquire about her son and was told that "all demonstrators would be held until President Bush left town." Mr. Bush makes his acceptance speech tonight at the Republican National Convention.

The back-to-school shopping season got off to a sluggish start, as midprice department stores, discounters and specialty-apparel retailers rung up disappointing sales in August, reinforcing concerns that consumers are feeling the effects of a shaky and uneven economic recovery.

Upscale shoppers helped luxury department-store chains post hefty gains. Moderate- and lower-income shoppers continued to feel the bite of higher gas and grocery bills and lackluster job growth.

Upscale department stores posted strong gains. Neiman Marcus Group Inc., Dallas, said same-store sales jumped 15% for its Neiman Marcus Stores and Bergdorf Goodman units combined, citing strength in designer handbags. Same-store sales at Nordstrom Inc., of Seattle, rose 7.2%, on brisk demand for accessories.

"...fate gave us George W. Bush for President"

A new assessment of Iran's nuclear program by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency says that, as early as 1995, Pakistan was providing Tehran with the designs for sophisticated centrifuges capable of making bomb-grade nuclear fuel. It also finds evidence that, as of the mid-August, Iran had assembled and tested the major components for 70 of the machines, which it showed to inspectors from the agency.

Israeli forces blew up two large apartment blocks in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, making scores of Palestinians homeless after suicide bombers killed 16 people in Israel.

The army, carrying out its biggest Gaza incursion in weeks, said the operation in the Khan Younis refugee camp targeted twin five-storey buildings used by Palestinian militants for attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers.

You can call me “liberal.” I am liberal. But the headlines I’ve written comport more closely with the view held by most of the civilized world. The opposite views—the ones around which our political circuses spin—are held only by a tiny minority of people. It is the world’s colossal misfortune to have this tiny minority at the helm of the world’s most powerful nation, despite their side having lost the last election by any reasonable measure.

As speakers at the GOP convention trumpet Bush administration successes in the war on terrorism, an NBC News analysis of Islamic terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001, shows that attacks are on the rise worldwide - dramatically.

[snip]

Moreover, the level of sophistication is increasing. Terrorism experts point in particular to the attacks apparently carried out by Chechen rebels during that 10-day period. The rebels, whose top military commanders have been Arabs, are operating at a whole different level.

"You have bombs on board planes, bombs at a train station and now a hostage taking," said Roger Cressey, a former deputy National Security Council director of counterterrorism. "This is all coordinated. These things do not happen by accident, and in fact, United States officials are frantically trying to determine if they are a forerunner of an attack aimed at the U.S."

The vice president hailed President Bush as a "superb commander-in-chief" who has helped restore the economy and will lead the nation to victory in the war on terror. Mr. Bush "does not deal in empty threats and half measures," Mr. Cheney said in his prime-time speech to delegates and a nationwide television audience.

Iran has announced plans to turn tons of uranium into a substance that can be used to make nuclear weapons, the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Wednesday in a report stoking concern about Tehran's nuclear agenda.

[snip]

Another diplomat, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said that enough highly enriched uranium could be produced from the hexafluoride derived to make several explosive devices.

[Andrea] Seabrook: Well, well I'm not...the Secret Service has blocked off that area. They're calling it a...a hazard because of the number of people who are a gathered around him. There aren't that many people, but the Secret Service won't let me around him anymore, so I think a the access to him might be cut off for a moment. We'll try to get back with him.

[snip]

Seabrook: Yes, I am in the middle of a...you might be able to hear the Secret Service yelling into my mic at the same time. There, there are a bunch of Secret Service that have surrounded Michael Moore's section. There are three or four reporters with him right now, but they are trying to kick all of the reporters and press photographers who are around him out of his area. The convention staff is also here. They're standing here telling us that we have to move from this are...they're obviously disturbed by the fact that Michael Moore is here and want as little public here as possible.

Delegates to the Republican National Convention found a new way to take a jab at Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam service record: by sporting adhesive bandages with small purple hearts on them.

Morton Blackwell, a prominent Virginia delegate, has been handing out the heart-covered bandages to delegates, who've worn them on their chins, cheeks, the backs of their hands and other places.

An Iraqi militant group said it had killed 12 Nepali hostages and showed pictures on an Islamist Web site on Tuesday of one of them being beheaded.

"We have carried out the sentence of God against 12 Nepalis who came from their country to fight the Muslims and to serve the Jews and the Christians...believing in Buddhah [sic] as their God," said the statement by the military committee of the Army of Ansar al-Sunna.

Sen. John McCain swept aside his differences with President Bush tonight and urged voters to re-elect him, heartily endorsing the Iraq and anti-terrorism policies of his 2000 rival for the White House.

[snip]

Mr. McCain said Mr. Bush has earned re-election because of his resolute actions since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 -- a key theme on the convention's opening night.

Last Thursday, my organization, People Reluctant To Kill for an Abstraction, orchestrated an overwhelming show of force around the globe.

At precisely 9 in the morning, working with focus and stealth, our entire membership succeeded in simultaneously beheading no one. At 10, Phase II began, during which our entire membership did not force a single man to suck another man's penis. Also, none of us blew himself/herself up in a crowded public place. No civilians were literally turned inside out via our powerful explosives. In addition, at 11, in Phase III, zero (0) planes were flown into buildings.

The five-day tribute, "Beam Me Up Scotty ... One Last Time," had been in the planning stages for more than a year before it was revealed, earlier this summer, that the 84-year-old [James] Doohan, who lives in Redmond, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Coming so soon after the death of the similarly afflicted former president, Ronald Reagan, the family's announcement added greater urgency — and no small degree of poignancy — to preparations.

Instead of going ahead with a purely festive "retirement party" for the beloved actor, Planet XPO elected to join forces with the Fisher Center for Alzheimer's Research Foundation to raise awareness of the disease. With the cooperation of Doohan's family, representatives of both groups quickly were able to refocus the event's theme, turning Saturday night's banquet into a benefit.

Doohan's final formal public appearance is expected tomorrow morning, when his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is unveiled, in front of the Hollywood Entertainment Museum.

In the past year, violence has escalated across Afghanistan despite the presence of NATO forces, including 18,000 U.S. troops. Taliban insurgents, remnants of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network and others have been waging hit-and-run attacks against military and civilian targets throughout the country.

Hundreds of Afghans have been killed, and humanitarian relief workers have halted operations in many rural areas.

Iraqi National Guard troops are supposed to police their own hometowns and villages. But in many cases the soldiers refuse to arrest anyone for fear the insurgents will seek revenge against their families.

"I've seen insurgents put [remote-detonated roadside bombs] 100 meters from my Iraqi National Guard checkpoints," said Staff Sgt. Nicholas Fox, who oversees a company of about 90 Iraqi soldiers outside Fallujah. When Sgt. Fox asked the Iraqi soldiers why they didn't stop the insurgents, the soldiers replied that they were afraid their families would be targeted.

Two Iraqi National Guard units in al Anbar province, which encompasses Fallujah and Ramadi, were overrun earlier this month by insurgents who stormed their headquarters. The insurgents kidnapped the units' battalion commanders. The dead body of one of the commanders was found a few days later; the other man is still missing. The insurgents also took most of the two 800-soldier battalions' guns, helmets and body armor.

The police haven't performed well, either. Recently the Marines detained the police chief for the province, who is suspected of cooperating with the insurgents. His officers were guarding the provincial governor's home when it was attacked by insurgents and the governor's two sons were abducted. The police didn't fire a shot.

Did W not read the bill he signed into law?

If he did read the bill and felt that 527 groups were "shadowy," why did he sign it?

If he did read the bill and agreed with the provisions for 527 groups at the time, what has caused him to flip-flop now?

If he didn't read the bill and signed it anyway, doesn't that make him a fool who is now being hoisted by his own petard?

Just what is a petard and why would anyone get hoisted by it?

The number of Americans living in poverty rose last year, as did the number of those without health insurance, according to government data that immediately stoked debate over President Bush's economic policies.

Mr. Bush, speaking at a campaign rally in Las Cruces, N.M., didn't mention the Census Bureau data. He focused on the economy's resilience in the face of a rash of bad news in the past three years. He also defended the role of his tax cuts, while conceding that "we have more to do to make this economy stronger."

• Saboteurs Attack About 20 Iraq Pipelines


• Dead Marine's Father Sets Himself on Fire


• Iraq's Sistani Arrives in Najaf; 74 Dead in Attacks


• Italy Ready to Pull Troops Out of Iraq on Government Request


• 14 [More] Nepalese Taken Hostage in Iraq

Amid the confusing debate over John Kerry's Vietnam record, one thing is clear: war - particularly the trauma of war - corrodes memory.

[snip]

So, then, what about John Kerry and the Swift boat crew? Enough already. There are some things we'll never know. But there are also some things that are beyond dispute - even in the chaos of war. Mr. Kerry went. He served. Lucky for him, he got to come home and raise his daughters.

The backbone of security is being provided by the 37,000-member New York Police Department, which has a budget larger than all but 19 of the world's standing armies.

President Bush didn't tell the full story on Monday when he denounced TV ads by such "527s" as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. But not because he didn't agree to the Kerry campaign's demand that he repudiate the specific Swift Boat ads. Our gripe is that Mr. Bush assailed the very campaign-finance system that he helped create.

[snip]

In our view, this was among the worst moments of Mr. Bush's term. Having helped to midwife the current campaign-finance system, it ill behooves him to blame others for the way this world works.

Senior Pentagon military and civilian officials share part of the blame for creating conditions that led to the prisoner abuse scandal at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, an independent commission of U.S. defence experts has concluded.

The panel, appointed by U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and headed by former defence secretary James Schlesinger, was released on Tuesday.

Mr. Bush's advisers said they were girding for the most extensive street demonstrations at any political convention since the Democrats nominated Hubert H. Humphrey in Chicago in 1968. But in contrast to that convention, which was severely undermined by televised displays of street rioting, Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.

...Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.

The Bush administration has successfully overcome Cuban jamming of U.S. government radio and television broadcasts through transmission from a military aircraft, the State Department said Monday.

Spokesman Adam Ereli said the transmissions of Miami-based Radio and TV Marti took place for several hours on Saturday from an aircraft flown by the Air National Guard.

"These broadcasts will give the Cuban people uncensored information about their country and the world, and will help bring about a rapid and peaceful transition to democracy," Mr. Ereli said.

Assailants on Tuesday targeted the convoys of the interim government's ministers of environment and education in two separate bombings in Baghdad, officials said.

Neither of the ministers was hurt, but at least five people were reported dead.

Meanwhile in Najaf, plumes of black smoke rose above the embattled city after American warplanes bombed insurgent positions overnight and supporters of a radical cleric charged that shrapnel from a U.S. attack had hit parts of the Imam Ali Shrine. The military denied the claim.

A Democrat can't win a statewide election in Florida without a high voter turnout - both at the polls and with absentee ballots - of African-Americans," said a man who is close to the Republican establishment in Florida but asked not to be identified. "It's no secret that the name of the game for Republicans is to restrain that turnout as much as possible. Black votes are Democratic votes, and there are a lot of them in Florida."

On the campaign trail, Mr. Bush tends to play up the state jobs data when they are favorable. In Florida on Aug. 10, for example, he said that because of his tax cuts, "Florida has added nearly 300,000 jobs since the end of 2001."

But last Monday, in Michigan, which has lost 142,000 jobs since the end of 2001 (108,000 before Friday's data were available) and whose 6.8% unemployment rate is well above the national average, Mr. Bush only cited nationwide job data and acknowledged, "I fully understand we face challenges in some of our manufacturing communities. In some parts of Michigan, the recovery has lagged."

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com, a West Chester, Pa., firm specializing in state and local economic analysis, said Florida's job market likely will continue to do well while Ohio's and Michigan's will remain weak between now and Election Day. Florida, he said, is about to receive a $20 billion influx of insurance money and state and federal disaster aid as a result of Hurricane Charley. Meanwhile, "Ohio and Michigan are very dependent on the domestic auto industry, which is struggling to hold onto sales and jobs."