renominating bolton

* heres an odd fact i missed about one of the london bombers: " The day before leaving, Tanweer had dyed his hair and eyebrows light brown" (link)

* "Three of the four London suicide bombers staged a dry run of their devastating attacks less than two weeks before July 7, police have revealed." (link)
aka - some of them went to london. for some reason, they were an hour later than their 'wet run'

* driftglass: "So we stand like the Roman Army stranded in at the foot of Masada, screaming at the enemy to come down and fight the only kind of war we know how to win, enraged that they just lob shit on our heads and laugh at us, and acutely aware that what was touted as the “dead ender” denouement to this clusterfuck is obviously the main event – an event for which we were disastrously unprepared. And that we are losing. Badly. And our real enemies are taking copious notes.
Every day, the Bush War manufactures a hundred new terrorists and metastasizes them, and every day the Bush Presidency scares the countries that used to be our friends. Showing them that, yes, we actually are stupid enough to let a dry-drunk halfwit helm the last remaining superpower through dark and dangerous waters."

* arianna: "So could Ambassador Bolton actually be a target of Pat Fitzgerald's investigation? When considering this question, it's important to keep in mind that he's never been subpoenaed or questioned by the Plamegate grand jury -- and, as a lawyer who does work for the New York Times put it: "The target of a grand jury investigation would not ordinarily be subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury."" (link)

* "The U.S. Justice Department has told a Texas court that a lawsuit accusing Pope Benedict XVI of conspiring to cover up the sexual molestation of three boys by a seminarian should be dismissed because the pontiff enjoys immunity as head of state of the Holy See." (link)

* "The White House yesterday also announced the renomination of two men who were granted recess appointments -- U.N. Ambassador John Bolton and Defense Undersecretary Eric Edelman" (link)
that seems odd. why are they renominating bolton?

* "Sebastian Mallaby writes in The Washington Post: "It's hard to say what's worse: The incompetence of the administration's initial hurricane response or the cowardice of its follow-up. Faced with a small hit to his ratings, the president who once boasted of ignoring polls is rushing to spend billions of other people's dollars on saving his political skin. His philosophy is, 'It's going to cost whatever it costs.' That phrase should be the title of some future history of the Bush era."" (link)

* from sadly,no: "There's a rather amusing feud goin' down between Andrew Sullivan and the Power Tools. The whole thing is worth reading, but this line by Hinderocket is just freaking hilarious: I was an admirer of Andrew's for a long time--in truth, I still am--but it seems to me that ever since he decided, for whatever reasons, to turn his back on the Bush administration, his writing has lacked coherence." (link)
priceless.

* juancole fills in some of the details of the brit/basra debacle - including:
"It was at that point that the British tanks rolled against the jail.
In freeing the two Britons, they inadvertently let 150 other prisoners escape, presumably some of them involved in the guerrilla movement. Two Iraqis were killed in related violence. The entire episode reeks of "dual sovereignty,"" (link)

* theres something weird about the narrative that katrina has exposed 'race as an issue in america' - ask a muslim if there are race issues in america