STEVENS IS SMOKED OUT  —  After much speculation, a staffer to Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, admitted to Cox Newspapers today that the senator is the lawmaker who placed a "secret hold" on legislation that would open up the obscure world of government contracting to public scrutiny.

CBS magazine slims down Couric in photo  —  NEW YORK - No, Katie Couric didn't suddenly lose 20 pounds.  The incoming "CBS Evening News" anchor appears significantly thinner in a network promotional magazine photo thanks to digital airbrushing.  —  The touched-up photo of Couric dressed …

Fess Up, Mr. Armitage  —  Time to put the Plame conspiracy to its final rest.  —  From its very start, the ballyhooed case of who leaked the name of CIA analyst Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak has been drenched in partisan politics and media hypocrisy.

Iran Enriching More Uranium  —  U.S. Officials View the Act as Defiant As Deadline to Suspend Program Nears  —  Iranian nuclear specialists have begun enriching a new batch of uranium in an apparent act of defiance just days ahead of a U.N. Security Council deadline for Tehran to stop …

Tomlinson Cited For Abuses at Broadcast Board  —  CPB Ex-Chief Put Friend On Payroll, State Dept. Says  —  A year-long State Department investigation has found that the chairman of the agency that oversees Voice of America and other government broadcasting operations improperly used his office …

CT-Sen: Lieberman Views Campaign As Revenge For Party Democracy  —  Yet again, it is all about Lieberman: … I have watched the video, which is difficult to stomach and which I will not reproduce here since it is Faux News, and there seem to be two ways to read this quote.

President Bush talks to Brian Williams  —  An exclusive conversation on the one-year anniversary of Katrina landfall … BRIAN WILLIAMS: You have apologized for the damage, but what about the damage to your presidency?  And Mr. President, here's what I mean, most call it your low point.

The Right wing attacks the FOX News journalists that were just released  —  I thought the way some right wing bloggers and radio talk show hosts reacted to the Jill Carroll release was simply abominable, but I was surprised to see a very similar reaction to the FOX News journalists.

Afghanistan ignored  —  A WAR is missing.  Sadly, it is not missing from the physical location in which it is taking place, and people continue to die as it is waged.  But it has largely disappeared from our national debate, and that debate has been sorely distorted as a consequence.

Olmert firm on Lebanon blockade  —  Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has rebuffed calls for a swift end to Israel's seven-week blockade of Lebanon.  —  Speaking after talks with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, he said the siege would only be lifted once ceasefire terms were fully implemented.

Gasoline prices could keep falling  —  Gasoline prices are falling fast and could keep dropping for months.  —  "The only place they have to go is down," says Fred Rozell, gasoline analyst at the Oil Price Information Service (OPIS).  "We'll be closer to $2 than $3 come Thanksgiving."

Journalists blame Israel for war coverage  —  International journalists discuss Lebanon war coverage; NYT bureau chief: Israel 'not interested in Lebanese deaths'  —  Yaakov Lappin  —  A number of journalists claimed during a convention in Jerusalem Monday evening that Israel and the IDF …

LOSING THE WAR THE RUMSFELDIAN WAY....I guess one way of viewing Don Rumsfeld's speech to the American Legion yesterday is that it was nothing more than garden variety election-year political pandering.  Iowa farmers want to hear you swear undying fealty to ethanol subsidies and WWII vets want to hear paeans to blood and guts.

FEC Officially Votes to Silence Political Speech for Last Two Months of 06 Campaign  —  With a 3-3 vote featuring Democrat commissioners supporting the silencing of political speech against congressional incumbents and Republican commissioners in favoring of allowing it …

Carter Agrees to Hold Talks With Khatami  —  Ex-President of Iran to Visit U.S. Amid Tensions Over Tehran's Nuclear Program  —  For an event that would turn a page in American history, former president Jimmy Carter has agreed in principle to host former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami …

For Congress in Maryland  —  Our choices: two worthy incumbents and one fresh face  —  REP. ALBERT R. WYNN has represented Maryland's 4th Congressional District since 1993, and in that time he has never faced a serious challenger.  This year, in Donna Edwards , he does.

First the Flood, Now the Fight  —  Critics Say FEMA Is Impeding Gulf Coast Rebuilding As Disputes Hold Up Nearly $1 Billion in Relief Funds  —  Someone had to pay to remove 3,000 dead trees in New Orleans.  The trees, insisted the Federal Emergency Management Agency, couldn't have been killed …

Lieberman, 'Snakes' and the seductive mythology of the blogosphere  —  If ever America needed a wake-up call about the mythology of blogging, we got it this month.  —  On Aug. 8, Connecticut businessman Ned Lamont defeated U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary …

DRIVER'S RAMPAGE THE HUMAN TOLL  —  THE VICTIMS: 'No pattern' in targets of rampage  —  The victims of Tuesday's hit-and-run carnage were men and women, old and young, black, white and Asian.  One was on a bike, the rest on foot.  —  They were mowed down in at least 11 locations in San Francisco.

MIT's inconvenient scientist  —  Speech codes are rare in the industrialized, Western democracies.  In Germany and Austria, for instance, it is forbidden to proselytize Nazi ideology or trivialize the Holocaust.  Given those countries' recent histories, that is a restraint on free expression we can live with.

Call me crazy.  I blame terrorists.  —  Who is A. K. Dewdney?  He's an adjunct professor of biology at the University of Western Ontario, and he has pieced together the truth about what happened on 9/11.  You may be familiar with the official version: "To account for the events of Sept. 11 …