Consequently, according to a well-placed Bush administration source, "everyone in town" is now participating in a broad discussion about the costs and benefits of military action against Iran, with the likely timeframe for any such course of action being over the next eight to 10 months, after the presidential primaries have probably been decided, but well before the November 2008 elections.

The discussions are now focused on two basic options: less invasive scenarios under which the U.S. might blockade Iranian imports of gasoline or exports of oil, actions generally thought to exact too high a cost on the Iranian people but not enough on the regime in Tehran; and full-scale aerial bombardment.

On the latter course, active consideration is being given as to how long it would take to degrade Iranian air defenses before American air superiority could be established and U.S. fighter jets could then begin a systematic attack on Iran's known nuclear targets.

Most relevant parties have concluded such a comprehensive attack plan would require at least a week of sustained bombing runs, and would at best set the Iranian nuclear program back a number of years — but not destroy it forever. Other considerations include the likelihood of Iranian reprisals against Tel Aviv and other Israeli population centers; and the effects on American troops in Iraq. There, officials have concluded that the Iranians are unlikely to do much more damage than they already have been able to inflict through their supply of explosives and training of insurgents in Iraq. [...]

The next shoe to drop will be when Rice and President Bush make a final decision about whether to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and/or its lethal subset, the Quds Force, as a terrorist entity or entities. FOX News reported in June that such a move is under consideration.

There's a lot to say about Bush's "major speech" last night on Iraq. Most of what I have to say has already been covered by the variety of opinion out there. The Pelosi quote that this is an insult to the intelligence of the American people comes closest to where I stand on the issue.

What a despicable and small man Bush is. Rather than give you more opinion, here's an Associated Press look at the facts as conveyed by Bush in his speech last night: (I've added in a few relevant links.)

BUSH SAID:
"Anbar province is a good example of how our strategy is working," Bush said, noting that just last year U.S. intelligence analysts had written off the Sunni area as "lost to al-Qaida."

FACT CHECK:
Early Thursday, the most prominent figure in a U.S.-backed revolt of Sunni sheiks against al-Qaida in Iraq was killed by a bomb planted near his home.

The killing of a chief Anbar ally hours before Bush spoke showed the tenuous and changeable nature of success in Anbar and Iraq at large.

Although Sunni sheiks have defied al-Qaida and largely allied with U.S. forces in Anbar, the province remains violent and al-Qaida remains a threat.

Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha died 10 days after he met with Bush during a surprise visit the U.S. leader made to highlight the turnaround in Anbar. The charismatic young sheik led the Anbar Salvation Council, also known as the Anbar Awakening - an alliance of clans backing the Iraqi government and U.S. forces.
The Sunni revolt against al-Qaida led to a dramatic improvement in security in Anbar cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi. Iraqis who had been sitting on the sidelines - or planting roadside bombs to kill Americans - have now joined with U.S. forces to hunt down al-Qaida in Iraq, whose links to Osama bin Laden's terror network are unclear.

Anbar is not secure, accounting for 18 percent of the U.S. deaths in Iraq so far this year - making it the second deadliest province after Baghdad.

Bush's top military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, told Congress this week that Anbar's circumstances are unique and its model cannot be replicated everywhere in Iraq, but "it does demonstrate the dramatic change in security that is possible with the support and participation of local citizens."

(more below the fold)

From USA Today: TD Ameritrade says hacker stole customer info

TD Ameritrade (AMTD) said Friday that one of its databases was hacked and contact information for its more than 6.3 million customers was stolen.

Spokeswoman Kim Hillyer said the information included names, addresses and e-mail addresses, as well as "miscellaneous account activity information" such as the number of trades conducted the past six months.

There is no evidence that Social Security numbers, account numbers and birthdates in the database were stolen, she said. Passwords and user identifications were not in the database, client assets "were never touched," and accounts opened after July 18 were not affected, she said.

TD Ameritrade declined to say when it found out about the breach, but said it has been investigating "for some time." It said it learned of a problem after customers reported receiving "spam" offering unsolicited stock tips. [...]

Hackers have tried to hijack accounts at several online brokerages, including Charles Schwab and E*Trade Financial, which have said they have 6.9 million and 4.7 million brokerage accounts, respectively.

Americans lost about $49.3 billion last year to criminals who stole their identities, according to a February study by Javelin Strategy & Research.

You know it's bad when the "good news" is that it didn't rise that much....when compared to last year, that is. 

From The New York Times: Cost of Health Insurance Rises Again, but at a Slightly Slower Rate

The cost of employer-sponsored health insurance premiums has increased 6.1 percent this year, well ahead of wage trends and consumer price inflation, but below the 7.7 percent increase in 2006, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported yesterday.

Because doctor and hospital costs continue to rise at an even faster rate, the modest slowdown in insurance inflation mainly reflects cutbacks in coverage by many health plans, which have found ways to make employees pay more for their care. Industry experts said that without those measures, premium costs would have risen by 9 percent or more.

The total average annual cost for family coverage premiums rose this year to $12,106. [...]

The 2007 increase was the smallest annual rise since 1999, when health premiums jumped 5.3 percent.

Tell me again about how great the economy is doing...

From Associated Press (Fox News): Dollar Sinks to All-Time Low

The dollar sank to an all-time low against the euro Wednesday amid speculation that the Federal Reserve will soon cut interest rates by as much as half a percentage point.

The 13-nation euro rose as high as $1.3889 in afternoon European trading — breaking through its previous record of $1.3852, reached on July 24. That compared with the $1.3832 it bought in New York late Tuesday.[...]

The dollar, which has hovered within a few cents of its record low in recent weeks amid a crisis over U.S. mortgage lending, has come under new pressure since the U.S. Labor Department issued unexpectedly poor August jobs data Friday. [...]

The U.S. currency was lower against the Japanese yen, even as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that he would resign, putting an end to his troubled year-old government. The dollar slid to 113.85 yen from 114.30 yen.

From Associated Press - Analysis: Deaths From Drug Reactions Up

Reports of dangerous side effects and deaths from widely used medicines almost tripled between 1998 and 2005, an analysis of U.S. drug data found.

The number of deaths and serious injuries from prescription and over-the-counter drugs climbed from 34,966 to 89,842 during the study of reports to the Food and Drug Administration.

Potent narcotic painkillers including Oxycontin, sold generically as oxycodone, were among 15 drugs most often linked with deaths in the study. Drugs frequently linked with serious nonfatal complications included insulin, the arthritis drugs Vioxx and Remicade, and the antidepressant Paxil.[...]

They analyzed excerpts of reports on serious side effects received by the FDA between January 1998 and December 2005. A total of 467,809 serious complications were found. Reported deaths nearly tripled, rising from 5,519 to 15,107.

A disproportionate number of complications occurred in elderly patients. Women were more often victims than men, 55.5 percent compared to 45.5 percent. Children were involved in 7.4 percent of the problems.

It has been reported that Republican Representative Jim Walsh is now willing to support troop withdrawal, after his recent trip from Iraq.

The question remains as to whether, like Republicans that have spoken out about Iraq in the past, Mr. Walsh will back this up with his actual vote.  

The following is an excerpt from an opinion piece in the Los Angeles times, written by John Kiriakou and Richard Klein. 

John Kiriakou, now in the private sector, served as a CIA counter-terrorism official from 1998 to 2004 and recently returned from Afghanistan. Richard Klein, a former State Department official, is managing director for the Middle East and Arabian Gulf at Kissinger McLarty Associates in Washington.

From the Los Angeles Times: We're losing in Afghanistan too

Former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld says in the current edition of GQ magazine that the war in Afghanistan has been "a big success," with people living in freedom and life "improved on the streets."

To anyone working in the country, there is only one possible, informed response: What Afghanistan is the man talking about? [...]

The country is, plain and simple, a mess. Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies have quietly regained territory, rendering wide swaths of the country off-limits to U.S. and Afghan forces, international aid workers and even journalists. Violent attacks against Western interests are routine. Even Kabul, which the White House has held up as a postcard for what is possible in Afghanistan, has become so dangerous that foreign embassies are in states of lockdown, diplomats do not leave their offices, and venturing beyond security perimeters requires daylight-only travel, armored vehicles, Kevlar and armed escorts.

Fear reigns among average Afghans in Kabul. Street crime, virtually unheard of in Afghan culture, has increased dramatically over the last three years as angry, unemployed and often radicalized young men settle scores with members of other tribes and clans, steal and rob to feed their families and vent their frustration with a government that appears powerless to help them. Taking a chance by eating in one of Kabul's handful of restaurants or going shopping in one of the few markets left is a new version of Russian roulette. [...]

The war in Afghanistan is a political and military one-step-forward-two-steps-back exercise. The work there isn't just unfinished, it is more dangerous and less certain than policymakers in Washington and talking heads in New York studios can imagine. Those suggesting otherwise are either naive or flacking a political agenda.

The tentative Oil Revenue deal in Iraq has collapsed, and Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, the leader of a group of Sunni Tribes cooperating with U.S. Troops in Anbar has been killed.

Other than that, everything in Iraq is just groovy.  

I keep hearing about Bush and his cronies looking to keep us in Iraq for the next 9-10 years. Try again.

They are on record saying they would like a presence for the next 50 years or so.

Republican Chris Shays is now the second Republican in recent weeks to admit that a large part of our continued presence in the region is that we're unwilling to relinquish control of the oil.

Representative Porter recently raised the spectre of 9 dollar a gallon gas as a justification for continuing to occupy Iraq. 

I may be over optimistic here (something I'm seldom accused of), but my take is that if Republicans are willing to start admitting the truth, there may be some desperation taking hold. 

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

    -- Ronald Reagan - 40th president of US (1911 - 2004)

From USA Today: Avandia should be pulled, say authors of studies

Two studies and an editorial today should lead the Food and Drug Administration to pull the diabetes pill Avandia off the market, the authors say.

"Taken together, it's going to put a lot of pressure on the FDA to act," says Steven Nissen, the cardiovascular medicine chief at the Cleveland Clinic and co-author of one study, which appears in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Nissen raised concerns about Avandia's heart attack risk in May with a study in The NewEngland Journal of Medicine. It pooled results of 42 short-term clinical trials and found that Avandia patients were 43% more likely to have a heart attack or be hospitalized for blocked coronary arteries than other patients. [...]

In the other JAMA study, researchers pooled results from four long-term Avandia trials and concluded that the drug raised heart attack risk 42%.

Oops. Dare I say that the Administration was caught playing politics with the specter of 9/11? Nah, they would never do something like that.

From The New York Times: New U.S. Law Credited in Arrests Abroad

The government’s ability to eavesdrop on terrorism suspects overseas allowed the United States to obtain information that helped lead to the arrests last week of three Islamic militants accused of planning bomb attacks in Germany, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told senators on Monday.

But another government official said Mr. McConnell might have misspoken. Mr. McConnell said the information had been obtained under a newly updated and highly contentious wiretapping law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But the official, who has been briefed on the eavesdropping laws and the information given to the Germans, said that those intercepts were recovered last year under the old law. The official asked for anonymity because the information is classified.

The previous law required officials to seek warrants to monitor at least some phone calls and e-mail messages between foreign locations when they were collected from fiber-optic cable in the United States; the new law waived that requirement.

This distinction is important because Mr. McConnell’s remarks, on the eve of the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, were an important part of the Bush administration’s intensifying effort to make permanent the new law, which is scheduled to expire in about five months. Democrats in Congress have said that they want to write more safeguards for civil liberties into the law before renewing it.

 
Update:
McConnell has decided to recant this statement about the Protect America Act and admits that the data collected was collected via the FISA court, with all those bothersome checks and balances, oversight, etc.

From Media Matters: Black and White and Re(a)d All Over: The Conservative Advantage in Syndicated Op-Ed Columns

• Sixty percent of the nation's daily newspapers print more conservative syndicated columnists every week than progressive syndicated columnists. Only 20 percent run more progressives than conservatives, while the remaining 20 percent are evenly balanced.
• In a given week, nationally syndicated progressive columnists are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of 125 million. Conservative columnists, on the other hand, are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of more than 152 million.
• The top 10 columnists as ranked by the number of papers in which they are carried include five conservatives, two centrists, and only three progressives.
• The top 10 columnists as ranked by the total circulation of the papers in which they are published also include five conservatives, two centrists, and only three progressives.
• In 38 states, the conservative voice is greater than the progressive voice -- in other words, conservative columns reach more readers in total than progressive columns. In only 12 states is the progressive voice greater than the conservative voice.
• In three out of the four broad regions of the country -- the West, the South, and the Midwest -- conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists. Only in the Northeast do progressives reach more readers, and only by a margin of 2 percent.
• In eight of the nine divisions into which the U.S. Census Bureau divides the country, conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists in any given week. Only in the Middle Atlantic division do progressive columnists reach more readers each week.

Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.