Rebuilding officials said yesterday that they hoped to complete a review of the environmental impact of the proposed construction at the World Trade Center site by next April. This would allow them to lay the cornerstone of a 1,776-foot tower in August 2004, during the Republican National Convention.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- 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.

Blackwell is president of the Leadership Institute, a nonpartisan educational foundation he founded in 1979. According to its Web site, the institute prepares conservatives for success in politics, government and the news media.

""In recent weeks, allegations have surfaced that have called into question my ability to represent the citizens of Virginia's Second Congressional District," Shrock said in a press release."

What were those allegations? That the Congressman, who had a 92% approval rating from The Christian Coalition, a co-sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, was reportedly cruising for men on phone sex lines. According to BlogActive:

"Congressman Ed Schrock has made a habit of rendezvousing with gay men via the MegaMates/ MegaPhone Line, an interactive telephone service on which men place ads and respond to those ads to meet each other."

The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.

Making up stories is tricky business. On the plus side, you can pretty much say anything you want, which is a definite advantage. On the minus side, you have to be careful that your story sounds like it's true. "Verisimilitude" is what the pointy-headed intellectuals call it, and even the producers of Spiderman 2 have to keep it in mind.

Anyway, it turns out that John O'Neill had a few verisimilitude problems with the first draft of Unfit for Command. Investigative reporter Art Levine has the scoop, exclusively for the Washington Monthly.

Among the stoutest defenders of "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," the best-selling book arguing that Mr. Kerry lied about his record of service in Vietnam, is the columnist Robert Novak.

In his syndicated columns and on the CNN program "Crossfire," Mr. Novak has lauded the book and referred to veterans who criticize Mr. Kerry - most notably John E. O'Neill, the book's co-author - as "real patriots."

Unmentioned in Mr. Novak's columns and television appearances, however, is a personal connection he has to the book: his son, Alex Novak, is the director of marketing for its publisher, the conservative publishing house Regnery.

In a telephone interview, Robert Novak said he saw no need to disclose the link.

"I don't think it's relevant," he said. [Emphasis added.]

I was also trying to gauge how many people were marching. I am not an expert on these matters but...I hate to say this but I must be honest...I do not believe that 400,000 came, as Leslie Cagan claims. Yes, it was a large demonstration, but a few blocks away from the main action and you didn't know it was going on. That's just not the way I remember the enormous anti-war demonstrations of my childhood, although I could be exaggerating their impact. But I don't think that this demonstration was as big as they were.

Practically everyone that I know left Manhattan. They are the sort of people who went to those antiwar demonstrations a generation ago.

After we marched past Madison Square Garden we turned on 34th Street towards Fifth (west) and then downtown. I bailed out on 28th and went up to 59th Street. I wanted to see if anything imaginative was going on at the Plaza. Nothing. (It was around 2:30 p.m. at this point). I walked through the park and recovered at my apartment. Then I took a walk through Central Park before coming here, where I have internet access.

Leslie Cagan held court at the entrance to the Delacorte Theater. I asked her how many people came. She said, "400,000." (As I said, I don't think so.) Then I walked to The Great Lawn, which was the scene of a wonderful impromptu People's Demonstration, like a huge Hyde Park. I walked around the lawn, which is a large oval shape. There were tables set up by various extremist organizations, people dressed in anti-Bush paraphernalia. On the shady, east side of the lawn cops lined up for drinks or lazed around, looking at the lawn unconcernedly. A soccer game and a softball game proceeded on the north part of the lawn. Everything was mellow and friendly.

Violence. None, nada, not a bit. Sorry to disappoint the rabid right-wing, but I didn't see even a spark of anger. A few cops were grumpy and chilly, counterbalanced by those who were friendly and cooperative.

Macing the kids will also create memories that linger. In fact, any number of chemical weapons make great disciplinary aids, in that they require much less physical exertion on the parent's part than do old-fashioned beatings.

The Post reports that Lisa says that she knows that the technique can be "abused." Which is good of her to concede, since a Google search of "hot sauce" "child abuse" and "murder" comes up with 145 hits.

-le snip-

While Gail is trying for a light, Harvey-esque quality, I think our attitude about drunks who talk to hallucinations has changed over the years. And anyway, Elwood P. Dowd wasn't intrusted with minor children. So, I hope the socialist Canadian authorities finally take note of Gail's obvious pleas for help, and have a social worker do a home evaluation.

When a foreign army invades a country about which it knows virtually nothing, there is plenty of deliberate brutality, but there is also the unintended barbarism of blind ignorance. It starts with cultural and religious slights: soldiers storming into a home without giving women a chance to cover their heads; army boots traipsing through mosques that have never been touched by the soles of shoes; a misunderstood hand signal at a checkpoint with deadly consequences.

And now Najaf. It's not just that sacred burial sites are being desecrated with fresh blood; it's that Americans appear unaware of the depths of this offense, and the repercussions it will have for decades to come. The Imam Ali Shrine is not a run-of-the-mill holy site; it's the Shiite equivalent of the Sistine Chapel. Najaf is not just another Iraqi city; it is the city of the dead, where the cemeteries go on forever, a place so sacred that every devout Shiite dreams of being buried there. And Muqtada al-Sadr and his followers are not just another group of generic terrorists out to kill Americans; their opposition to the occupation represents the overwhelmingly mainstream sentiment in Iraq. Yes, if elected Sadr would try to turn Iraq into a theocracy like Iran, but for now his demands are for direct elections and an end to foreign occupation.

Organizers estimated 400,000 people turned out for the march, which led to more than 100 arrests and yielded at least one skirmish between self-styled anarchists and police. More than 400 people have been arrested in protests since Thursday.

Chanting "Hey Ho, Bush Has Got to Go," the largely peaceful crowd marched past the Madison Square Garden convention site as Republicans and visitors arrived in the city for a four-day event where Bush will be nominated for another four-year term.

Police declined to estimate the size of the crowd but it stretched out more than a mile down one of the city's main thoroughfares. Thousands of police -- many clad in riot gear, some on bicycles and others on horseback -- turned out to control the crowd, who carried signs saying "Osama Loves Bush," "Bush Lies Who Dies?" and "Hate is not a Family Value."

A small group of masked anarchists set fire to a float just one block from the convention site and hurled bottles at police in riot gear who rushed them and made 11 arrests, police said.

March organizer Leslie Cagan told Reuters that despite some minor clashes, "The march has gone very, very well."

"People have come to protest the Bush administration on very many issues, but today we were united in speaking out against the Bush agenda," she said.

The trip to New York by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California to address the Republican National Convention is being financed by a variety of major corporations.

Mr. Schwarzenegger, who is scheduled to speak in a prime-time slot on Tuesday night, came to office promising to rid Sacramento of "special interests." But he has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from companies and interest groups with business before state government. [...]

Among the corporate sponsors of Mr. Schwarzenegger's trip, according to a list provided by the governor's office, are Fox Entertainment, NBC Universal, News Corporation, Paramount, TimeWarner, the Walt Disney Company and Viacom. Other donors include Abbott Laboratories, Amgen and Pfizer, ChevronTexaco and Conoco Phillips, and Outback Steakhouse, SBC and Visa.

Two important entertainment trade groups, the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, also contributed toward the trip. The two groups are also sponsoring a tribute to Mr. Schwarzenegger in New York after his speech.

War and occupation will never bring liberation!
Bullshit! Get off it! This war is for profit!

Reuters


CNN

With streets blocked off and police blimps flying overhead, rifle-toting National Guardsmen striding through Grand Central Terminal and radiation detectors in place, this city all but bristles with security and anti-terrorist armament.

Police have doubled the number of undercover officers riding the buses and subways, and video cameras provide 24-hour feeds from bridges and tunnels. The federal government has cleared a seven-mile-radius airspace "frozen zone" over Madison Square Garden -- site of the Republican National Convention -- and a high-tech, 2,000-square-foot nerve center at police headquarters will hold representatives from 66 federal, state and city law enforcement agencies. [...]

New York may have never been so well guarded. But some New Yorkers find the buildup to the GOP convention unsettling. In interviews, several dozen spoke of the disruptions caused by the phalanxes of police and National Guard troops, by protesters bent on civil disobedience, and by the roving security details assigned to Republican VIPs. Many residents, particularly immigrants, worry that they will spend a week as suspects in their city.

"People are afraid now," said Mohammad Razvi, an auxiliary police officer and executive director of a respected community group that serves Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants. "Whenever these terror warnings go up, they are like: 'Oh, no, are they going to pick on us again?' "

Small and large Quicktime videos available here.

The billboard features a constantly updated clock counting the cost of the Iraq war, similar to the former national debt clock.

The clock starts at $134.5 billion and increases at a rate of $177 million per day, $7.4 million per hour and $122,820 per minute.

Organisers plan to feature the clock in a full page ad in the New York Times on 30 August.

A fascinating discovery by a team of chemical engineers based at Leeds University has determined that with the use of two catalysts, made of nickel and carbon, they can produce incredibly pure hydrogen from vegetable oils without using any fossil fuels. The byproducts are only oxygen (which can be fed back around to power the device), carbon dioxide, and methane. They used sunflower oil, but said that any vegetable oil could be used.

I read this, and being incredibly excited about the very real possibility of having a hydrogen station on my corner someday rather than a gas station, I started to daydream. This could be a godsend for developing countries, which are often energy-poor but agriculturally productive. It could also entirely upset the current balance of energy power: the most sunflowers I've ever seen growing commercially was in Northern France - could France become the new Saudi Arabia? The US could easily become self sustaining for fuel and energy, and it could revitalize farms in the mid-west and other economically depressed agricultural areas.

Graphically the game is astounding. Carved watermelons shatter under gunfire, the Eggs Benedict have just the right amount of Hollandaise, and the concussion from a fragmentation grenade can send thermal coffee pots sailing across the room - leaving you to decide which is regular and which is decaf.

Attorney General John Ashcroft today revealed that the Justice Department has credible intelligence that protesters at next week’s Republican National Convention are actively plotting to speak and assemble.

“These evildoers may speak or assemble without warning,” Mr. Ashcroft told reporters. “We are preparing for the worst.”

To foil the protesters’ plot to speak and assemble, the Attorney General said that the Justice Department has established a special Anti-Speech and Assembly Task Force in New York City.

“This task force has its ears to the ground on a twenty-four-hour basis,” Mr. Ashcroft said. “If they get wind of a plot to speak or assemble, they will pounce.”

The Attorney General said that New York’s Central Park would be off-limits to protesters for the duration of the Convention, but said that space for the protesters to speak and assemble was being reserved in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Gitmo location was chosen, Mr. Ashcroft said, to facilitate military tribunals for the protesters immediately after they are done speaking and assembling. [...]

Finally, President Bush’s daughters Barbara and Jenna cancelled their convention speech scheduled for next Wednesday, citing a conflict with Ladies’ Night.

"Well, at the time that the Marines showed up, I was working. And I knew my husband called me immediately and was crying and screaming in the phone that Alexander had been killed, that his son had been killed. And I went to pieces and my husband, as you know, went to pieces and basically tried to accompany his son," Melida Arredondo said.

According to witnesses, Carlos Arredondo, 44, climbed into the Marine Corps van parked outside his home after smashing in the windows and setting it on fire using a propane tank, a can of gasoline and a blowtorch from his garage.

The three Marines, reservists who are members of a military Casualty Assistance Calls Officer team, pulled Carlos Arredondo from the burning vehicle and extinguished the flames, but more than 50 percent of his body had been burned. Carlos Arredondo's wife said he was in stable condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital Thursday night.

MPs are planning to impeach Tony Blair for "high crimes and misdemeanours" in taking Britain to war against Iraq, reviving an ancient practice last used against Lord Palmerston more than 150 years ago. <>

Eleven MPs led by Adam Price, Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, are to table a motion when parliament returns that will force the prime minister to appear before the Commons to defend his record in the run-up to the war. [...]<>

The MPs' decision follows the commissioning of a 100-page report which lays out the case for impeaching Mr Blair and the precedents for action, including arguments laid down in Erskine May, the parliamentary bible, on impeachments dating back to medieval times. [...]<>

Mr Price said he believed the case was compelling. "To dust off Victorian constitutional histories and examine precedents from the time of Charles I and Chaucer may seem bizarre. But the conduct of the prime minister has left people and parliament with no alternative if we are to preserve the very basis of democracy."

Jack Winter
July 25, 1994 New Yorker magazine.

It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very
chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate.

I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her
standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a
state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and
she moved in a gainly way.

I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I'd have to make bones
about it since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess,
whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be
skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only
swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn't be peccable. Only toward
and heard-of behavior would do.

Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause
was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone
as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or a sung
hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you
could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled
passion.

So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at once, for some apparent
reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make
heads or tails of.

I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and it
nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen.
Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt
capacitated--as if this were something I was great shakes at--and forgot
that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number of
times. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and
made my way through the ruly c