  The urlLink NYT reports on the Democratic National Convention - "But what is close to certain now, they said, is that Mr. Clinton will speak in prime time on the convention's opening night, July 26; Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts will speak in prime time on July 27; Senator John Kerry's running mate, who has yet to be named, will speak on July 28; and Mr. Kerry will give his acceptance speech on July 29.
" Yes, I'm asking, like the rest of you, what about Al Gore, Howard Dean, Carol Mosely Braun, and Big Al Sharpton? Can one convention hold that much personality? And speaking of personality, the urlLink NYT reports "A day after not getting the Green Party's endorsement for president, Ralph Nader brushed off the rejection as an inconvenience, described the party as "strange," called the party's national nominating convention "a cabal" and predicted who the big loser in its decision not to endorse him would be.
" This may be Dem hatchet job on this goggle-eyed wunderkind, but it's clear that his impact in this race will be a lot less than was initially expected. Without the Greens, it will be hard for him to get onto most ballots. Meanwhile, back in Iraq, the fledgling government made up entirely of American appointees tries to figure out how sovereignty could feel so powerless. Bremer urlLink leaves his footprint on the 51st state, "BAGHDAD, June 26 -- U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer has issued a raft of edicts revising Iraq's legal code and has appointed at least two dozen Iraqis to government jobs with multi-year terms in an attempt to promote his concepts of governance long after the planned handover of political authority on Wednesday. " Please remember, too, that all CPA contracts must, by urlLink U.N.law , be upheld by the new sovereign Iraqi pseudogovernment. urlLink TomDispatch writes about the pseudostate, asserting, "Iraq reenters the world with its sovereignty weighed down and constrained by 97 L. Paul Bremer-inspired occupation administration "legal orders" that, for years to come, are meant to control practically all Iraqi acts from who can take part in elections to how you drive your car (two handed, no horns except in "emergency situations"). " This sovereignty thing is great, huh? It's just another example of the ways that the right in this nation controls the rhetoric, and the ways that the mainstream media uses new definitions for words like sovereignty without blinking a journalistic eye.
A longer post on this forthcoming. BushCo., having received a 'crushing defeat' at the hands of the Supreme Court in it's ruling allowing Gitmo prisoners access to U.S. courts, promptly begins urlLink trying three of them in military tribunals . I'm guessing this is not what the plaintiffs were hoping for. Aside from Democrats, Republicans, Iraqis, and doomed prisoners - there's much celebrating in Nudietown tonight as urlLink the Supreme Court hands down a decision calling porn blockers on the internet a breach of First Amendment Rights. Lastly, heading off all sorts of trouble, urlLink Canadians have responded to the Edible Ballot Society by warning election officials not to eat their ballots. 
