The phone rings.

"The Bistro," I answer, "How can I help you?"

"What kind of cuisine do you serve?" a female voice asks.

"Northern Italian madam."

"And what's your sushi special tonight?"

One political analyst said the ad buy was a relatively small one that wouldn't be enough to bombard voters with the message. And Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of the "Cook Political Report" said she believes the short clip is intended less as a jab at Byrd than an indirect way to prod U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., to run against him.

"This ad was designed to put subtle pressure on her. It's not a big enough buy to be directed at voters and it's soft enough in tone not to move Byrd," Duffy said.

Byrd has yet to announce that he is running for an eighth term in 2006, and Capito hasn't decided if she'll launch a campaign against him.

"I assume I'll have an opponent," Matheson said this week. "Hey, I'm the only race the Republicans have in 2006."

There is no sign that normal agricultural production will resume any time in the near future. There is no sign that the insecurity confining people to camps for the displaced or villages under siege will be alleviated, even with the currently planned deployment of additional African Union personnel. There is no sign that the international community intends to fund humanitarian efforts in Darfur at an appropriate level. There is no sign that Khartoum's National Islamic Front, and the new government it dominates, has changed its genocidal ambitions, now best served by preserving the deadly status quo. There is no sign that peace negotiations in Abuja, Nigeria will yield more than the vaguely worded "declaration of principles" signed two weeks ago. And there is no sign of the international humanitarian intervention that might stop the genocide.

There are only signs that the dying will continue indefinitely... In other words, the genocide in Darfur will continue. We could stop it. We have simply chosen not to.

The morning's work consisted of a long tracking shot that began below the stage with Maya Rudolph, who is an actress from "Saturday Night Live" and several months pregnant, feigning having her baby to get Mr. Keillor out of his dressing room and up to the stage.

In one of five takes, Mr. Keillor failed to remove the towels from his shoulders that protected his suit while makeup was applied. The curtain rose and Ms. Rudolph, reacting instinctively as a live television performer might, dashed out and ripped them from his shoulders.

It was a perfect Altman moment, all played out in front of an audience of 600 extras.

Mr. Altman all but hugged himself at the miscue as he watched the three monitors just off stage. It would be built into subsequent takes.

There's some bitter irony here for Alabama's governor. Just two years ago voters overwhelmingly rejected his plea for an increase in the state's rock-bottom taxes on the affluent, so that he could afford to improve the state's low-quality education system. Opponents of the tax hike convinced voters that it would cost the state jobs.

But education is only one reason Toyota chose Ontario. Canada's other big selling point is its national health insurance system, which saves auto manufacturers large sums in benefit payments compared with their costs in the United States...

Funny, isn't it? Pundits tell us that the welfare state is doomed by globalization, that programs like national health insurance have become unsustainable. But Canada's universal health insurance system is handling international competition just fine. It's our own system, which penalizes companies that treat their workers well, that's in trouble.

BUT WHAT ABOUT JEB? Matt Yglesias writes that

This seem[s] like a good time to mention an all-too-obvious fact that oftentimes seems to elude liberals -- George W. Bush can't ever be elected President again no matter what.

That quote sounds pretty funny out of context, but what Matt's actually trying to say is that if the Democrats spend the next three years running against Bush instead of coming up with a clear definition of the party's agenda and values, it will do just as badly in '08 as it did in '04.

I'll see you two weeks later. With gangrene.

—Matt
On hyenas who fight lions

Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the dean of Washington's diplomatic corps and confidant of presidents both Republican and Democratic over the past 22 years, has resigned and will be replaced by the former head of Saudi Arabia's intelligence service...

In a reflection of his influence, officials in the first Bush administration referred to him as "Top Gun." He had such direct access to presidents and Cabinet members that he could show up at their offices unscheduled and gain entry. He once arrived at the State Department with 10 bags of McDonalds hamburgers for a 10 p.m. strategy session -- when top officials had no idea he was coming and were discussing an initiative that was still secret.

Fears of instability in a country that has become a pillar of U.S. policy and a vital energy source.

Saudi Arabia also faces political challenges, with King Fahd incapacitated by a stroke and with many senior princes aging. Fahd was hospitalized recently amid signs that the royal family is preparing for a transition to Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler. Bandar's father, the defense minister, is the leading candidate to become crown prince, although he is recovering from stomach cancer, U.S. officials say.

Because Roberts is a nominee of President Bush, and the product of a selection process over which conservative activists had a major influence, there will be a tendency in some circles to suggest that he will find a natural place on the bench with Scalia and Thomas (the President's favorites among the sitting Justices). That assumes that he will come under the influence, primarily, of those two.

It would be natural for Roberts to grow comfortable casting his vote alongside Rehnquist. But that is not likely to be a long-term proposition, given the Chief's health, and it is not likely to shape him in a mold that would fit for years to come.

Thus, the possibility is a Court in the new Term starting in October that has Scalia and Thomas, joined somewhat loosely by Rehnquist, on the most conservative wing, Justices Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens on the most liberal wing, and Roberts somewhat loosely aligned in the center with Kennedy and Breyer.

This does not represent a foolish dream of a moderate or a liberal who wants to hang onto a Court that would be no more conservative than the present Nine. Instead, it is a realistic possibility that could come from the style and instincts of "Justice" Roberts, who is more conservative than either O'Connor or Powell.

Why Kennedy? Why Breyer?...

The strategy wasn't exactly subtle. Karl Rove's role in a massive White House scandal was dominating political discussion in Washington and causing real concern with the public. We weren't supposed to see a Supreme Court nominee until next week, or perhaps even early August, but, as one Republican strategist put it, an earlier announcement "helps take Rove off the front pages for a week."...

For me, this is largely a question of pragmatism. We have a conservative president and a Senate with a 55-seat Republican majority. If Dems are to successfully block any Supreme Court nominee, we would first need to keep all 45 Dems together. That is no small feat; the New York Times reported today that Joe Lieberman said before the nomination that that "he was likely to support Mr. Roberts if he was nominated." Chances are, Lieberman isn't the only Dem who'd consider breaking ranks.

Putting that aside, even if the caucus was united against a nominee, Dems would need to either a) peel off six Republican votes; or b) successfully filibuster the nominee, while steering clear of the nuclear option. If this isn't likely to happen, we need to act and plan accordingly. Wasting resources to beat a nominee who is going to win doesn't make a lot of sense.

I've heard from several Dem friends today, many of whom have suggested that Roberts is a nightmare nominee. He's not. Roberts is a conservative partisan, but he's not James Dobson with a law degree. Through the course of the confirmation process, it's certainly possible that damaging and embarrassing revelations will come to light that could put his nomination in jeopardy. If it does, Dems will have a responsibility to take a firm stand. Short of that, however, Dems need to do their due diligence but consider the fact that an all-out judicial war is not only unwise in this case, it's also likely to fail.

There are certain lines Dems cannot allow Republicans to cross — I don't think this is one of them...

I realize that most conservatives are pleased with John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court, but Orrin Hatch seems to believe Bush's choice may be holier than thou. Literally.

Throughout the day, Democrats stressed that Roberts, 50, could spend 30 or more years on the court and that it is essential to scrutinize his record and philosophies. "A preliminary review of Judge Roberts's record suggests areas of significant concern that need exploration," Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, said in a floor speech. "We need to know what kind of Supreme Court justice John Roberts would be. I hope the White House and the nominee will work with us and cooperate so that all relevant matters can be constructively explored." […]

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) [responded] more colorfully. "It's a little bit like biblical Pharisees, you know, who basically are always trying to undermine Jesus Christ," he said on Fox News. (emphasis added)

...Hatch may also want to check his history a little closer. The Pharisees were self-righteousness hypocrites. If Hatch is looking for politicians in Washington for whom this description applies...

Last night, I saw Howard Fineman call Roberts a 'brilliant' pick on one of the cable shows because he is the most conservative candidate Bush could appoint without sparking a battle with Democrats. As usual, Fineman is astonishingly wrong. A better way to characterize Roberts is: the most moderate and uncontroversial candidate Bush could appoint without sparking a battle with James Dobson and the Christianists.

Three months ago the President would have delighted in jamming an untra conservative like Janice Rogers Brown down the Senate's throat while invoking the nuclear option and spitting in each Democratic senator's eye. Fast forward to this week, when he was forced to accept a late night visit from Arlen Spector, who had the audacity to demand that Bush replace O'Conner with a "moderate justice" in order to "maintain the balance." This the same Spector who was on his knees vowing fealty to the President just last year.

The Roberts nomination is not a sign that Bush is finally getting "sensible" on judicial matters. It's an indication of just how politically weak he's become. Roberts is just conservative enough to squeeze by the Dobson crowd without howls of anger. He is arguably the least conservative of Bush's "short list" of nominees. Clearly, Bush and Rove were terrified about losing this battle to the Democrats and moderate Republican senators. Having lost already social security and with the Rove scandal boiling, such a loss would be too devastating to contemplate.

Roberts may turn out to be an extremely conservative justice who votes to strike down Roe v. Wade and many other liberal favorites. The fact that we're not certain about this must be a bitter pill for Dobson and friends, however.

Less than 15 hours after President Bush announced that John Roberts would be his nominee for the Supreme Court, leading Democrats stood before a bank of television cameras Wednesday and criticized the president. But their ire had nothing to do with Roberts.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) assailed the president for failing to punish Karl Rove for his alleged involvement in disclosing the name of a CIA operative...

"A Supreme Court nominee will not distract the country from the growing credibility problem at the White House," Democrats were told to echo, according to a copy of the leadership memo obtained by Roll Call. "If Bush wants to know what Karl Rove and Scooter Libby did or did not do, he should call them into his office and ask them. It's time for President Bush to show some leadership."

• 15: Light Before Day by Chris Rice
  I love all the New Orleans authors: Anne Rice, Chris Rice, Condi Rice, fried rice. There's no reason to group Chris Rice's novels with his mother's, though; he's grown further from her, in style and substance, with each new book. Light Before Day, his third book, is a pulpy detective noir, a latter day Dixon Hill. Virtually all the elements of hard-boiled detective fiction are there. The hard-luck private eye with an office on Santa Monica Boulevard is now a hard-luck journalist at an indie weekly with an apartment in West Hollywood. The sex kitten femme fatal with a thing for the detective is now a Hollywood Hills kept boy with a thing for the reporter. The damsel in distress is a missing ex-boyfriend; the woman with a secret is now a closeted marine. The detective's tough guy friend who'll knock some heads is, of course, a motorcycle enthusiast lesbian from San Jose who'll knock some heads. And the evil gangster blackmailing the mayor? Now a dot-com millionaire pedophile blackmailing the mayor. That list could go on for pages, but all in all, the book's a lot of fun, and Rice gets bonus points for working some stuff on how bad the crystal meth problem is in the gay world into an otherwise escapist novel. And as I've mentioned, Rice is funny as hell:

  He grabbed the remote, found an eleven o'clock news broadcast, gave me a look, and raised the volume. The two of us sat there as an eighty-one-year-old woman described what it was like to have her arms ripped off by her nephew's pit bull. When the reporter asked her what the worst part of the experience had been, the woman replied, “Losing my arms.”

• 16: Hollywood by Gore Vidal
  Once you've read the other books in Vidal's American Chronicle series, this penultimate novel seems a bit, well, penultimate. After Burr, Lincoln, 1876, and Empire, I've gotten used to excellence in this series. Blaise and Caroline Sanford and Senator James Burden Day, the fictional protagonists of Empire, are getting on in years, and while there's a burning curiosity to see where their lives go, they aren't quite what they were at the turn of the century. The same is true of Vidal's real-life characters, such as Henry Adams and the Roosevelts. It's just not quite as good as last time. The same can be said for Vidal's window into the White House: while Edith Wilson's regency and the rise and fall (and murder) of Harding hanger-on Jess Smith are enthralling, they don't quite have the power of Empire's climactic confrontation between Teddy Roosevelt and William Randolph Hearst. Was it a bad book? Hardly; it was merely crippled by my own high expectations.
  
  
• 17: Messiah by Gore Vidal
  Of course, sometimes expectations can get you. I was expecting a book in the style of Myra Breckinridge or Duluth, the kind of book described by Italo Calvino as "the hyper-novel or the novel elevated to the square or to the cube." Now, that quote is somewhere on every edition of Myra, Duluth, and The Smithsonian Institution ever printed, and while I've never quite figured out what a "hyper novel" is—the books in question are still printed with regular, two dimensional words—or who Italo Calvino is, I have certainly associated a certain style of novel with that quote. So here, too, I had expectations. And again, they weren't met. This time, though, it was great: instead of using fluffy, wordy, run-on sentences to disguise a vicious satire, Vidal wrote an almost Vonnegut-esque plain-spoken, gentle but firm rebuttal to religion in general and apocalyptic cults in specific that, when you finish it, turns out to have been simple story of an old man looking back at a life lived. In fact, what seemed while I was reading it to be Vidal's most nihilistic, cynical book, was, looking back, his most emotional and bittersweet.
  
  
• 18: Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
  I read through this book in a day. I slacked off at work, didn't eat meals, and even paid $40 for a towel that's the wrong size, simply to have more time to read this book. And I don't regret any of it, not even the towel thing. It's that good.
  
  
• 19, 20, 21: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
  You know, I really enjoyed the Narnia books growing up—and still do—but there was always something about them that bothered me. When I first realized they were such an allegory for the Bible (it took me a couple books, but c'mon, I was twelve) I thought that was it. I thought that for a while, but at some point I realized I still hadn't put my finger on what was bothering me. And I didn't put my finger on it until I read this interview with J.K. Rowling in Time:

  There's something about Lewis' sentimentality about children that gets on her nerves. "There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex," Rowling says. "I have a big problem with that."

  This is why we love Harry Potter. I mean, just look at it:

  "I was trying to subvert the genre," Rowling explains bluntly. "Harry goes off into this magical world, and is it any better than the world he's left? Only because he meets nicer people. Magic does not make his world better significantly. The relationships make his world better. Magic in many ways complicates his life."
  
  And unlike Lewis, whose books are drenched in theology, Rowling refuses to view herself as a moral educator to the millions of children who read her books. "I don't think that it's at all healthy for the work for me to think in those terms. So I don't," she says. "I never think in terms of What am I going to teach them? Or, What would it be good for them to find out here?"
  
  ...(Interestingly, although Rowling is a member of the Church of Scotland, the books are free of references to God. On this point, Rowling is cagey. "Um. I don't think they're that secular," she says, choosing her words slowly. "But, obviously, Dumbledore is not Jesus.")

What does a "competent tribunal" look like? The D.C. Circuit's Court of Appeals has an interesting take. According to today's ruling, which gives a green light to the military commissions being used to try Guantanamo detainees, competency doesn't have to do with judges having legal experience or knowing how many articles are in the Geneva Convention. It doesn't require that a defendant be advised of the evidence against him or provided the right to independent appeal. It doesn't relate to strict standards for admissible evidence--in fact, hearsay and statements obtained under coercion are a-okay. In fact, really the only thing a competent tribunal needs is three commissioned officers, at least one of whom is ranked above captain. And, having those, says the court, "the military commission is such a tribunal." Release the kangaroos!

A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned.

—Shepherd Book
Firefly

$300 / 1br - special tenant needed...

Okay I’m just going to be very frank about this. I have a basement apartment for rent that still has residual bloodstains on one wall and in the grout of the bathroom due to the murder/suicide of the previous tenants. I have paid three separate “cleaning specialists” to come in and get rid of these stains, and they are much better, believe me, but they are still there. The bottom line is I can’t wait any longer to rent out this apartment and I’m seeking a tenant who doesn’t mind living with blood splatter marks on the wall. I realize this sounds awful but I see no other choice but to be honest about this and hope that there will be one person out there who doesn’t mind or maybe is even used to living with blood stains on their walls. Obviously, in a situation like this my options are limited, so I’m willing to rent out on a month-to-month basis, and am not requiring a security deposit. By the same token, please be aware that I am trying to sell this property so that I may return to Kansas. Email me if you are interested. Thank you.

This is Anthony, Anthony Fatayi -Williams, 26 years old, he's missing and we fear that he was in the bus explosion ... on Thursday. We don't know. We do know from the witnesses that he left the Northern line in Euston. We know he made a call to his office at Amec at 9.41 from the NW1 area to say he could not make [it] by the tube but he would find alternative means to work.

Since then he has not made any contact with any single person. Now New York, now Madrid, now London. There has been widespread slaughter of innocent people. There have been streams of tears, innocent tears. There have been rivers of blood, innocent blood. Death in the morning, people going to find their livelihood, death in the noontime on the highways and streets.

They are not warriors. Which cause has been served? Certainly not the cause of God, not the cause of Allah because God Almighty only gives life and is full of mercy. Anyone who has been misled, or is being misled to believe that by killing innocent people he or she is serving God should think again because it's not true.Terrorism is not the way, terrorism is not the way. It doesn't beget peace. We can't deliver peace by terrorism, never can we deliver peace by killing people. Throughout history, those people who have changed the world have done so without violence, they have [won] people to their cause through peaceful protest. Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, their discipline, their self-sacrifice, their conviction made people turn towards them, to follow them. What inspiration can senseless slaughter provide? Death and destruction of young people in their prime as well as old and helpless can never be the foundations for building society.

My son Anthony is my first son, my only son, the head of my family. In African society, we hold on to sons. He has dreams and hopes and I, his mother, must fight to protect them. This is now the fifth day, five days on, and we are waiting to know what happened to him and I, his mother, I need to know what happened to Anthony. His young sisters need to know what happened, his uncles and aunties need to know what happened to Anthony, his father needs to know what happened to Anthony. Millions of my friends back home in Nigeria need to know what happened to Anthony. His friends surrounding me here, who have put this together, need to know what has happened to Anthony. I need to know, I want to protect him. I'm his mother, I will fight till I die to protect him. To protect his values and to protect his memory.

Innocent blood will always cry to God Almighty for reparation. How much blood must be spilled? How many tears shall we cry? How many mothers' hearts must be maimed? My heart is maimed. I pray I will see my son, Anthony. Why? I need to know, Anthony needs to know, Anthony needs to know, so do many others unaccounted for innocent victims, they need to know.

It's time to stop and think. We cannot live in fear because we are surrounded by hatred. Look around us today. Anthony is a Nigerian, born in London, worked in London, he is a world citizen. Here today we have Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, all of us united in love for Anthony. Hatred begets only hatred. It is time to stop this vicious cycle of killing. We must all stand together, for our common humanity. I need to know what happened to my Anthony. He's the love of my life. My first son, my first son, 26. He tells me one day, "Mummy, I don't want to die, I don't want to die. I want to live, I want to take care of you, I will do great things for you, I will look after you, you will see what I will achieve for you. I will make you happy.' And he was making me happy. I am proud of him, I am still very proud of him but I need to now where he is, I need to know what happened to him. I grieve, I am sad, I am distraught, I am destroyed.

He didn't do anything to anybody, he loved everybody so much. If what I hear is true, even when he came out of the underground he was directing people to take buses, to be sure that they were OK. Then he called his office at the same time to tell them he was running late. He was a multi-purpose person, trying to save people, trying to call his office, trying to meet his appointments. What did he then do to deserve this. Where is he, someone tell me, where is he?

Those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.

—Pope Benedict XVI* condemning Harry Potter

[Fraser]'s new memoir, "But You Knew That Already," is getting solid reviews and selling briskly. Fraser's 6-foot-6-inch frame means he already stands out in a crown, but perhaps the way he views the role of psychics is what sets him apart.

For starters, he doesn't talk to dead people.

"It's boring," Fraser says. "They always say the same thing: 'We're fine. It didn't hurt. I'm with grandma.' I do it, but I'm more interested in human dynamics."

Fraser believes that people who seek advice from psychics may rely too heavily on what they say..."People are looking to me for something that I can't give them. [But I'll take their money.]"