oh dear.

You rarely get someone running a newspaper to say quite so clearly who matters

The publisher of The New York Times refused to tell a Times reporter where its Monday night party would be. "We are hosting a cocktail party at an undisclosed location in Manhattan and inviting New Yorkers from all walks of life - business, government, entertainment, media, law," said the publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., in an e-mail message. Someone outside the paper said the party would be held at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

I could probably rummage up a few more walks of life if pressed.

Oh, and you know all the upheaval we're gonna have because the convention is being held over one of the world's largest transportation hubs?

Guess where the party "at the end of the convention" is gonna be?

Cipriani. Across 42d St. from Grand Central Station.

Which is an even bigger hub than Penn Station.

Nice planning, guys.

um, yeah.

It turns out that the records Our Fearless Leader hasn't released about his military service or lack thereof were recently destroyed in a fire seven years ago

Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.

It said the payroll records of "numerous service members," including former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. No back-up paper copies could be found, it added in notices dated June 25.

The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Mr. Bush's claims of service in Alabama are in question.

The disclosure appeared to catch some experts, both pro-Bush and con, by surprise. Even the retired lieutenant colonel who studied Mr. Bush's records for the White House, Albert C. Lloyd of Austin, said it came as news to him.

The loss was announced by the Defense Department's Office of Freedom of Information and Security Review in letters to The New York Times and other news organizations that for nearly half a year have sought Mr. Bush's complete service file under the open-records law.

There was no mention of the loss, for example, when White House officials released hundreds of pages of the President's military records last February in an effort to stem Democratic accusations that he was "AWOL" for a time during his commitment to fly at home in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

Team A redux

As you do or don't know, depending how long you've been reading here or there, Atrios is on leave and he has subs in.

The last time, the subs went on to form Corrente, which is one of the first things I read in the morning (for you LiveJournal folks, the feed is here).

I'm sort of hoping the current group form a blog when they're done, because they're damn good.

Here's Holden, on how that microfilm still existed in June, Athenae, with a little common sense about all the al Qaeda terror warnings, pie, who points out that despite what Saxby "I'll see your three lost limbs and raise you a trick knee that doesn't keep me from jogging" Chambliss might think, the administration is not vindicated on pre-war intelligence

(bonus) Holden on Richard Riordan's way with kids (and of that - the child's name was Isis. The Education Secretary doesn't know who Isis was? He was what, distracted by something else when Wonder Woman was clicking her bracelets together?)

Hooray for Isis and her mom, by the way.

Lila said her daughter didn't correct Riordan because "she told me she didn't want to hurt his feelings. I got the impression she just didn't think he was very bright."

something less than kin but more in kind

Over at Kos, the state Republican Party in Michigan has decided to follow other state Republican organizations and spend their limited money and volunteer pool where it will do the most good - getting Ralph Nader on the ballot.

Of course I'm sure Mr. Nader plans to get them to stop when they've donated $2k worth of time to his campaign, but if this tactic plays out for them they won't have too much to worry about from the FEC.

OK, deeply amused

I went running to the supermarket before it closed, and there underneath the Weekly World News (the Pope has been hit by another meteorite, so you know) there's the New Star Magazine, your source for celebrity news.

On the cover? Celebrity Flaws.

Brittney?: flabby tummy

Julia Roberts? has actual hair growing in her armpits

but my absolutely favorite of all:

Courtney Love: stained teeth.

Middle America. Land of values.

in other news

Note the extraordinarily low threshhold for being "disenfranchised" in Michigan (def: you can still vote, but there's no spoiler on the ballot)

Maybe the MI GOP and the FL GOP need to talk.

*snort*

Yeah, that there Fearless Leader, he's a glass half full kind of guy (incoming pretzel! the bike slipped in the mud!)

President Bush on Friday called Democrat John Edwards a pessimist on the economy and suggested his experience as a trial lawyer would tilt him toward policies that would hurt small businesses.

At a raucous rally in York, Pennsylvania, the president launched his most aggressive broadside against Edwards since John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, named the North Carolina senator as his running mate on Tuesday.

Bush told the crowd of more than 10,000 that the U.S. economy was "moving into high gear" but he said Kerry and Edwards were ignoring the good news while insisting that "the sky is falling."

He alluded to Edwards' sunny demeanor as he criticized his and Kerry's emphasis on difficulties facing workers such as rising health-care costs and the outsourcing of jobs overseas.

"Whether the message is delivered with a frown or a smile, it's the same old pessimism," Bush said.