New Steps by U.S. Against Iranians  —  The Bush administration will announce a long-debated policy of new sanctions against Iran on Thursday, accusing the elite Quds division of the Revolutionary Guard Corps of supporting terrorism, administration officials said Wednesday night.

Baghdad Diarist Was On Guard When Questioned by Editors  —  The soldier whose New Republic article about military cruelty in Iraq was labeled false by Army investigators refused to defend his accusations when questioned by the magazine, even after being told that the editors could no longer support him unless he cooperated.

Bobby Caina Calvan Blog : the entire post with comments preserved  —  UPDATE: Good gracious, blogging since '97 and my first Instalanche.  Thank you Mr. Reynolds!  Thank you AOSHQ and the lovely and talented Michelle Malkin as well.  —  The entire site is 404′d, and the comments were the sweetest plum!

Rudy?  —  Giuliani and religious right meet on the road to political adulthood.  —  One school of thought on the religious right holds that if Rudy Giuliani would commit to an unequivocal anti-abortion position, they could vote for him.  A second school of thought, articulated by Richard Land …

Questionable 4-year-old FBI memo presented as new to stoke terror fears  —  Did al Qaeda start the California wildfires?  —  As more than a million people escaped the flames, Fox News anchors couldn't help speculating about a terrorism link to the blazes ravaging southern California.

Musn't say the V-word  —  I read this sort of thing and I just do a slow burn. … The more interesting question is why should all of the parents who don't have the choice to send their kids to a private school, or move to the suburbs?  How do you write an article this long without noting …

John DiStaso's Granite Status: Rudy just doesn't get it  —  Maybe Rudy Giuliani thinks there are no Yankee fans north of Hartford, Conn.  —  Well, we can tell you first hand that there are a few around.  Diehard fans.  Fans who unabashedly carry on in Red Sox territory, regardless of who's in the World Series and who isn't.

Another $200 Billion  —  President Bush waited until he had vetoed a relatively inexpensive children's health insurance bill before asking for tens of billions of dollars more for his misadventure in Iraq.  The cynicism of that maneuver is only slightly less shameful than the president's distorted priorities.

GOP cries foul on timing of kids' health vote  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — House Republicans are fuming over Democrats' decision to hold the next vote on the State Children's Health Insurance Program on Thursday — when many Republicans will be in California as President Bush tours areas hit by wildfires.

STRESS MESS IN U.S.  —  48% CAN'T SLEEP  —  We're stressed out, we can't sleep, we're drinking too much - and it's getting worse.  —  Forty-eight percent of Americans say they're more stressed now than they were five years ago, and the same percent report regularly lying awake at night because of stress …