On the Ground with Lamont/Lieberman  —  E.J. Dionne repeats a piece of conventional wisdom that irks the hell out of me every time I hear it - if Lieberman loses the primary and runs as an independent it will distract everyone from the true villain, the GOP, and therefore we should just give him a pass.

Sox standout Lowell: Castro killed my kin  —  Charging Fidel Castro with the deaths of his relatives, Cuban-American Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell declared last night: "I hope he does die."  —  Castro's health:  —  "Castro killed members of my family," Lowell told the Herald …

Evolution Opponents Lose Kansas Board Majority  —  Kansas voters on Tuesday handed power back to moderates on the State Board of Education, setting the stage for a return of science teaching that broadly accepts the theory of evolution, according to preliminary election results.

Washington Traffic Jam?  Senators-Only Elevator  —  In addition to lofty issues of war and peace, the Senate is grappling with another urgent matter: the senators-only elevators at the Capitol are being overrun by the unelected.  —  "I hesitate to say that it's a big problem," …

Ex-Aide: Harris Hid Subpoena  —  More from this channel:  —  This feature requires the Macromedia Flash Plugin.  Please visit http://www.macromedia.com/go/ getflashplayer to download this plugin.  —  WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris received a grand jury subpoena …

An Image Popular in Films Raises Some Eyebrows in Ads  —  At 200 pounds plus — most of that pure attitude — she is hard to miss.  —  Her onscreen presence takes on many variations, but she is easily recognizable by a few defining traits.  Other than her size, she is almost always black.

9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon  —  Allegations Brought to Inspectors General  —  Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort …

Mideast Lessons From 1973  —  Groping for a way to understand the ruinous mess in the Middle East, I find myself looking backward to an earlier ruinous mess, the Yom Kippur War of October 1973.  —  That long-ago war, like the current one in Lebanon, began with an Arab sneak attack …

Green Helmet Guy: Abdel Qader  —  Green Helmet Guy, the "rescue worker" who posed for photo ops with children's bodies in Qana, is interviewed by Al Jazeera in Arabic, in a video clip at YouTube: Eye witness.  —  From Allison Kaplan Sommer, who provides this summary via an Arabic-speaking friend:

Hezbollah fires record number of rockets  —  BEIT HILLEL, Israel - Hezbollah launched its deepest strikes yet into Israel on Wednesday, firing a record number of more than 190 rockets.  An Israeli-American was killed as he fled for home by bicycle, and a stray rocket hit the West Bank for the first time.

Iran frees bin Laden son: newspaper  —  Iran has freed a son of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from house arrest, a German newspaper reported on Wednesday.  —  Die Welt said the Iranian Revolutionary Guard released Saad bin Laden on July 28 with the aim of sending him to the Syria-Lebanon border.

U.S. Insists Cease-Fire Must Await Plan to Disarm Hezbollah  —  The United States firmly reiterated its position on Tuesday that there can be no cease-fire in the Middle East until there is a solid plan in place to disarm Hezbollah.  —  "The United States is working for a cease-fire …

Man killed on kibbutz near Nahariya as record number of rockets slam into north  —  An Israeli man was killed Wednesday when a Katyusha struck Kibbutz Saar, north of Nahariya, as Hezbollah marked the resumption of strikes on northern Israel with a record number of some 210 rockets.

Unions Say E.P.A. Bends to Political Pressure  —  Unions representing thousands of staff scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency say the agency is bending to political pressure and ignoring sound science in allowing a group of toxic chemicals to be used in agricultural pesticides.

Bush Grants Self Permission To Grant More Power To Self  —  WASHINGTON, DC—In a decisive 1-0 decision Monday, President Bush voted to grant the president the constitutional power to grant himself additional powers.  —  "As president, I strongly believe that my first duty as president …

White House Proposal Would Expand Authority of Military Courts  —  A draft Bush administration plan for special military courts seeks to expand the reach and authority of such "commissions" to include trials, for the first time, of people who are not members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban …

'Potentially incendiary' at the Brooklyn Public Library  —  This spring, in my capacity as publisher of Encounter Books, I had the honor to publish Melanie Phillips's book Londonistan, a brilliant, but also harrowing, look at the ways in which radical Islam has established itself in England.

Much Undone In Rebuilding Iraq, Audit Says  —  A flailing Iraq reconstruction effort that has been dominated for more than three years by U.S. dollars and companies is being transferred to Iraqis, leaving them the challenge of completing a long list of projects left unfinished by the Americans.

Lieberman Plans for Loss Next Week  —  Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) will shake up his campaign staff if he loses Tuesday's Democratic primary to challenger Ned Lamont.  Lieberman supporters have watched with growing dismay since the spring as the three term senator's campaign has gone from oblivious to defensive.

Hill fries free to be French again  —  The fries on Capitol Hill are French again.  —  So is the breakfast toast in the congressional cafeterias, with both fries and toast having been liberated from the appellation "freedom."  —  Three years after House Republicans trumpeted the new names …

McGavick sued over Safeco payout  —  Retirement package of $28.4 million illegal, shareholder action says  —  A prominent Seattle lawyer and a scion of a prominent Seattle family are suing a prominent politician — U.S. Senate candidate Mike McGavick — over his lucrative retirement package from a prominent Seattle company, Safeco.

The Lieberman Question  —  If I were a Democrat, I'd support Joe Lieberman next week.  I don't believe the agenda of Ned Lamont will help either the U.S. or the Democrats.  But, then, I'm not a Democrat.  At this point, I'd best be described as a conservative independent.

Fighting 'has sunk hope of a free Lebanon'  —  Walid Jumblatt, leader of the most powerful clan in Lebanon's Druze community, said on Tuesday the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas had dealt a fatal blow to Lebanese hopes of a strong independent state, free of Iranian and Syrian influence.