* (nice article via mlh) "It's as if the government were following a script from the theater of the absurd. Instead of rallying our allies to a coordinated and relentless campaign against Al Qaeda after Sept. 11, we insulted the allies, gave them the back of our hand and arrogantly sent the bulk of our forces into the sand trap of Iraq." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/06/opinion/06herbert.html?hp

* "To understand how this works, it is useful to conceive of Pakistan's ISI as a state acting as terrorist traffickers, complaining that, if it does not receive the extraordinary dispensations and indulgences that it seeks, it will, in effect, 'implode,' and in the process do extraordinary harm."http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/8/2/185700.shtml (im not sure about this article - very dodgy source, washtimes is spooky - but im keeping an eye on pakistan - it seems kinda central. somehow.

* Despite the perennial complaints from media that conventions are too scripted, many in the press corps seemed most interested in policing the convention for anyone who might stray from this script. http://www.fair.org/press-releases/dnc-boston.html

* "I'm waiting on the transcript, but a moment ago Donna Brazille killed the "John Kerry was an indistinguished as a Senator" meme. In the "rapid fire" section of Crossfire she said the following to a Republican Strategist...
"Dick Cheney was in the house for over a decade. How many bills did he pass?"
The Republican Strategist paused, looked physically ill, then tried to change the subject by saying "Well, he was aknowledged as a leader."
There was laughter in the crowd. But Brazille didn't let him go. She leaned forward and very calmly told the truth. "2 bills. 2 bills for Cheney. 57 for Kerry."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/4/171036/1806

* Team Bush could hardly expect anyone to take them at their word. Even the stock markets, which normally go down when investors fear anything unexpected, climbed happily up in the face of the latest alert. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/080504A.shtml

* i see dead people

* "A senior official of the Central Intelligence Agency who has written a best-selling book critical of the Bush administration's handling of the war on terror has been ordered to sharply curtail his interviews with news organizations in connection with the book" http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/05/politics/05author.html?ex=buzzflash.com

* "At the packed Beirut f911 screenings many in the audience glued to the film said it showed them a way that America works with which they were unfamiliar. "What really struck me is how the American administration was able to manipulate the American people," said Leila Kanso, a 59-year-old social worker. "How can a government do that?"" indeed. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/movies/04cair.html

* "The police crime laboratory in Houston, already reeling from a scandal that has led to retesting of evidence in 360 cases, now faces a much larger crisis that could involve many thousands of cases over 25 years.... "We know already that they couldn't do DNA testing properly," Mr. Scheck said. "Now we have a scandal that calls into question many thousands more cases. And this jurisdiction has produced more executions than any other county in America."
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, Texas has executed 323 people, 73 for crimes in Harris County." please dont kill me mr president.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/05/national/05houston.html?pagewanted=all&position=

* krug "The military reality in Iraq is that there has been no letup in the insurgency, and large parts of the country seem to be effectively under the control of groups hostile to the U.S.-supported government." wheres ari3? http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/06/opinion/06krugman.html

* somebody shoot me "There is no bigger and more urgent threat to the security of every American than the possibility of nuclear bomb materials falling into the wrong hands. That is why it is astonishing, and frightening, that the Bush administration is now pushing to strip the teeth from a proposed new treaty aimed at expanding the current international bans on the production of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. With talks on the new treaty set to begin later this year, the administration suddenly announced last week that it would insist that no provisions for inspections or verification be included." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/06/opinion/06fri1.html

* nyt article called "Ads for (and at No Cost to) Kerry Keep Flowing" http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/05/politics/campaign/05ads.html?pagewanted=all&position= - the article doesnt even mention the swiftboat rubbish. (the guy who is making those claims actually got the same bronzestar for the same incident! http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/5/162248/3128 ) we are seeing a very odd bifurcation of the media where they have to cover the stories that show that bush is an imbecilic failure, yet they continue to run prop for the depugs at the same time. its totally schizophrenic and seems to be 'crescendo-ing'. the next 100 days are gonna get really fucking weird. as i said over a year ago - the worse things look for bush, the worse they look for all of us. i wrote a month or so ago that it looked like 43 was totally losing it and i thought he was actually not far from totally breaking down - but he seems to be doing really well in his speeches (apart from falling apart when he doesnt have the cheering to talk over - eg http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/08-06-2004/0002226945&EDATE=). the media is doing their best still - cnn is running a verypresidential ad for a verypresidential looking show about a verypresidential looking president they are running *on AUG28* - so the brainwashing continues, but at the same time they have to report at least some version of the news. i guess they proved with the iraq/alq & saddam/911 thing that they can pretend to tell the truth and still effectively keep the sheeple in the dark. id love to be at the meetings where say, krugman and safire/brooks, are both present and trying to be human to each other. kafka would be going nuts.