• Has bin Laden been reading the news, too? Seeing his single most effective recruiting tool flagging in the polls and the headlines, and heading into the last weekend before the elections, bin Laden releases a videotape to give everyone the jitters? Just a thought. Unlike some hopeful bloggers, I doubt that this helps Kerry. Yes, it reminds people that bin Laden is still alive, when he could have been captured three years ago - before the job was "outsourced," as Kerry says. But the Bushies have been working hard these three years to Keep America Fearful, and a fearful America is a trigger-happy America. They like a president who shoots first and asks questions later. (If ever.) Repugnicans are already trying to spin this into a "bin Laden endorses Kerry!" development, but be real: Bush is the best thing that ever happened to bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
  
  
• How long had Bush been planning the invasion of Iraq? Since before he was president.
  
  
• The Cult of Personality:

  "I want you to stand, raise your right hands," and recite "the Bush Pledge," said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: "I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States."

• The Block the Vote Republicans pulling out all the stops, folks. Please read this courtroom drama from Ohio; and more about it here (I'm with Atrios: let's see some indictments!). Also read this analysis from New Donkey. Jeanne of Body and Soul says she was listening to right wing talk radio (God bless her; I can't do it no matter how I try to sell myself on the anthropological importance of it) and heard a woman talking "about the epidemic of Democrats stealing and mutilating Bush-Cheney yard signs, and how you 'never' hear of Republicans doing that kind of thing, and it just goes to show you the difference in values between the two parties..." Indeed. Democrats are pulling up yard signs (if in fact they are) and Republicans are destroying voter registration forms, stealing absentee ballots from the elderly and low income voters, illegally challenging voter registrations in court, and trying to move polling centers without telling long-time residents (I'd hunt down my links for those examples, but I'm too tired; you can find them in many previous entries). Yeah, there's a difference in values, all right.
  
  
• The Battle of the Bulge isn't over. A NASA photo analyst takes a look at the evidence, in Salon, and says "I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate... This is not about a bad suit. And there's no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt."
  
  
• A perspective on precision bombing -- The Lancet thinks up to 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed. Please read Juan Cole's post on this.
  
  
• Steven Waldman (editor of Beliefnet) has a thoughtful article in Slate, pondering whether Bush helps or hinders the evangelical cause with his militant anti-intellectualism.