Category: General

THIS OBIT FOR JAMES BEASLEY RAN TODAY IN THE LOS ANGELES TIMES.

NOW THAT THE BUSH-KERRY DEBATE SCHEDULE IS OUT, one of the irritating facts about these sessions is that they create false divides between policy challenges that need to be considered at a systemic level. Jim Lehrer will moderate the foreign policy debate, and domestic policy will come as the last of the three scheduled exchanges….

AMB. IVOR ROBERTS, BRITAIN’S AMBASSADOR TO ITALY, thought he was off the record when he uttered a controversial truth — and described George Bush as “the best recruiting sergeant ever for al-Qaida”.

THADDEUS DUBOIS HAS BEEN NAMED WHITE HOUSE EXECUTIVE PASTRY CHEF.

“NO ADMINISTRATION HAS DONE MORE TO CONCEAL” the workings of government from the people — this from a new report just released from the minority staff of the House Government Reform Committee.

STAY TUNED. I JUST RECEIVED A COPY OF CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER’S blistering, as yet unreleased counter-attack against Francis Fukuyama for his article, “The Neoconservative Moment,” which appeared in the last issue of National Interest.

THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN PAKISTAN TODAY and reports that 17,000 U.S. soldiers are not listed on the Pentagon’s casualty list. This piece is based on Mark Benjamin‘s UPI article. Benjamin also brought the lariam/suicidal behavior by some U.S. Special Forces to light.

ALL MORNING, I HAVE BEEN SEETHING AS FOX & FRIENDS has crowed about the Killian memos, which CBS is apparently about to acknowledge as fraudulent. Bush’s team has been engaged in duplicity, obfuscation, the expansion of official secrecy to anti-democratic levels — and now the critics are undone by fraud on their side.

A FLOOD OF EMAILS HAS COME IN REGARDING BILL CONDON’S KINSEY film, which depicts the life and times of Indiana University sex researcher Alfred Kinsey and stars Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, John Lithgow, Peter Sarsgaard, and others.

CLEARLY, THIS PRESIDENTIAL RACE IS NOT SHAPING UP to be about alternative policy choices. It is a race driven by various exogenous shocks. Electoral-Vote.com does a nice job of plotting certain events against the likely electoral college performance of Bush and Kerry since May.