The US Supreme Court stops what would have been the 300th execution since the death penalty was restored.  BBC News

Sorting out the hawks and doves in the presidential field: When it comes to war in Iraq, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidates are all over the map. Howard Dean is against war in Iraq but in favor of considering war in North Korea. Bob Graham is against attacking Iraq unless we also attack Hamas. John Kerry is in favor of war if it works out but against it if it doesn’t. It’s gotten to where you can’t tell the players without a score card. So, here’s a score card. We’ve checked out the candidates’ positions on four key questions and three congressional votes, and we’ve ranked them in order of hawkishness, from most to least.. — William Saletan and Avi Zenilman, Slate

From Danklife: “FmH is first up against the wall when the shiny black boots go marching.”

…a fool to have thought he would be an equal partner in the second American century? Merrie Olde England joins Rumsfeld’s ‘Old Europe’, relegated to the dustbin of history? Guardian/UK editorial

even if Iraqis dance in the streets. One woman was in the Bali bombing, her boyfriend blown to bits. One mother had three sons at the front in the Gulf. One woman’s husband was a human shield at an Iraqi oil installation – would Blair promise not to bomb him? He writhed. An Iraqi victim of Saddam begged him not to attack her people. Worst of all, one mother lost her only child in the World Trade Centre and could not bear any other mother to suffer her agony. Their vehemence left him with a hunted air, his eyes flickering here and there, looking for escape. What’s more, against all the rules of balance, Trevor McDonald himself weighed in with “Aren’t you just Bush’s poodle?” questions. It was unfair and impossible. The war arguments are finely balanced – moral cause claimed by both sides – yet Downing Street is on the back foot every day now.Platitudes are crashing all around them, old diplomatic certainties among the broken crockery. Everyone is flying blind and now the British prime minister is at the mercy of a swindling old arms-dealing poseur in the Elysée, and even worse, the power-crazed global bullies in the White House. Guardian/UK

I love French Fries and won’t call them anything else (even though they were invented in Belgium). I eat Camembert and Roquefort, and I can’t do without French bread (because without French bread there would be no poor boys). I love Bordeaux, Sauternes, Cognac, Armagnac and Calvados. Bring on the P�rigord truffles and foie gras d’oie with gingerbread pain perdu (which is, of course, French toast!) and a cinnamon-caramel-fig sauce… yum yum yum). I have French doors in my house. I like to French kiss. I enjoy the sound of the French horn (although it’s properly called the “Horn in F”). Yep, I love the French, rude waiters and all. They can keep Jerry Lewis and that whole not-bathing thing, though. Looka!

I’m in total accord, Chuck, except with the part about Jerry Lewis.

Editor & Publisher generates a list of questions that “should have” been asked at Dubya’s press conference last Thursday. As if there’s a ghost of a chance there would have been anything other than a rote, evasive non-answer. He, indeed, was asked questions equally probing, calling for equal candor; for example, I counted four ways reporters posed essentially the same question to him about why the rest of the world thinks he’s so wrong if he thinks he’s so right, to paraphrase. Junior just wasn’t up to answering that one either. Perhaps it was the drugs.

Paul Krugman puts his money where his mouth is. With war looming, it’s time to be prepared. So last week I switched to a fixed-rate mortgage. It means higher monthly payments, but I’m terrified about what will happen to interest rates once financial markets wake up to the implications of skyrocketing budget deficits.

From a fiscal point of view the impending war is a lose-lose proposition. If it goes badly, the resulting mess will be a disaster for the budget. If it goes well, administration officials have made it clear that they will use any bump in the polls to ram through more big tax cuts, which will also be a disaster for the budget. Either way, the tide of red ink will keep on rising. NY Times

“After more than a million years of computation by more than 4 million computers worldwide, the SETI@home screensaver that crunches data in search of intelligent signals from space has produced a list of candidate radio sources that deserve a second look.

Three members of the SETI@home team will head to Puerto Rico this month to point the Arecibo radio telescope at up to 150 spots identified as the source of possible signals from intelligent civilizations.” spaceref.com

Massive salary dispute threatens future of the show. “Lawyers don’t say things like this, but I’ll say it: He can’t win; he’s just dead; he is dead, he just won’t lie down.” NY Times