I have just spent the last 30 minutes kicking around these new country page profiles on Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and Morocco. Shadi Hamid of the Project on Middle East Democracy has assembled these portals, which I think are quite good. More later.

Tonight. . .7:15 pm EST. . .(which is Wednesday morning Sydney time), I’ll be talking with the best morning radio talk show host in Sydney, Australia — Deborah Cameron. I do this every Tuesday night DC time. The show streams here.

I’m in Oklahoma today — returning to D.C. on Monday. I paid $2.11 a gallon for gas in Bartlesville in fact. It was $2.36 in Centreville, Maryland on Saturday — and $2.94 in D.C. I just received this extensive profile by the New Yorker‘s Connie Bruck on Senator Chuck Hagel.

John McCain is said to be extremely “eaten up” that he allowed party advisers to push him to appeal to the base of the Republican Party and choose Sarah Palin over his preferred choice, Joseph Lieberman.

It just gets more and more weird.

I can’t validate this and probably won’t try for the time being. But I will report a reasonably high quality rumor that reached me from a high quality source.

(Josh Tulkin with Scott Paul outside a yurt near Tash Rabat, Kyrgyzstan. Photo Credit: Zoe Chafe) Josh Tulkin is a very close friend. He has dedicated his life to speaking for future generations and vulnerable populations threatened by climate change. He works tirelessly to make U.S.

I spent a bit more than 40 minutes this morning with Pedro Pedro Echavarria on C-Span’s Washington Journal You can watch the entire clip at your convenience on line by clicking here. The discussion focuses on the differences and similarities between John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s foreign policy views.

I caught this snippet tonight of an Australian political/policy blogger, Gary Sauer-Thompson, who was not so taken with the substance of an interview that Sky News Australia did with me — but rather that Sky News was taking bloggers and blogging seriously. I agree with the writer that this is a good thing.

Tomorrow morning, Thursday, I will be on C-Span’s Washington Journal starting at 8 am EST discussing the foreign policy views of John McCain and Barack Obama. Here are the texts of major speeches the candidates gave today. John McCain in Manchester, New Hampshire. Barack Obama in Richmond, Virginia. See you tomorrow morning.