After days of Republican attack ads that compared him to Britney Spears and Moses, Barack Obama celebrated his 47th birthday Aug. 4 by releasing his own TV spot accusing John McCain of being "in the pocket" of Big Oil. The ad came as Obama unveiled his energy plan to combat the US "addiction" to foreign oil, "one of the most dangerous and urgent threats" the country has ever faced. McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds responded that the ad "shows his celebrity is matched only by his hypocrisy" because Obama has also received $400,000 in campaign contributions from oil companies. (CanWest, Aug. 4)

Our switch to a new server has proved far more complicated than we had bargained for—in large part due to some problems with our Drupal program, it seems. We are running out of time, and need to somehow make the transition within the next few days. If there is anyone out there with the technical skills who can rise to the occasion, please contact us immediately.

Five years ago we were told the Justice Department had a "short list" of suspects in the 2001 anthrax attacks, with indications of a sinister intersection of high-level military research and the neo-Nazi ultra-right. Now we learn the name of the man the government was apparently ready to indict—when it it is too late to learn anything more useful from him. From AP via the New York Times, Aug. 1:

World War 4 Report is switching to a new server this weekend, and our Daily Report blog will be inactive during the transition. If all goes well, we should be rocking and rolling again in 24 hours or so. So please stay tuned. The August issue of our Electronic Journal should be out next weekend as scheduled. As always, you can subscribe here. And you can support our efforts at this particularly critical moment here. Gracias, shukran & thanks!

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos share a joint op-ed in the New York Times July 23, "Colombia's Gains Are America's, Too," shamelessly trading off the apparent hostage rescue operation to shill for the pending US-Colombia free trade agreement. Let's deconstruct this exercise in sinister propaganda:

There's a lesson here. But how many people are going to get it? From AP, July 23:

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Rising prices at the gas pump appear to be having at least one positive effect: Traffic deaths around the country are plummeting, just as they did during the Arab oil embargo more than three decades ago.

From AP, July 23:

Republican John McCain on Wednesday credited the recent $10-a-barrel drop in the price of oil to President Bush's lifting of a presidential ban on offshore drilling, an action he has been advocating in his presidential campaign.

The New York Times' City Room blog reports a strange spectacle from 6th Ave. July 17:

As thousands of people, mostly of Tibetan and Nepalese ancestry, streamed out of Radio City Music Hall on Thursday afternoon, where they had gone to hear the Dalai Lama give a lecture on the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, they found themselves in a chaotic scene on the Avenue of the Americas.