Now that it has pretty much been confirmed that North Korea did explode a nuclear bomb, if a very small one, comes the news that it may be ready to repeat the feat on short order. Yes, this is deeply disturbing, but Selig Harrison (who has a penchant for saying things the Washington elite doesn't want to hear) warned weeks before the blast that it was coming, and that it would be a tactic by Pyongyang to press Washington for direct negotiations—another possibility we have noted before. If this is true, Bush's intransigence essentially prompted North Korea to cross the nuclear threshold. From AlJazeera, Sept. 23:

From UPI, Oct. 17:

Hit-and-run deaths at 10-year high

WASHINGTON, DC -- Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Washington show that hit-and-run pedestrian deaths have risen 20 percent since 2000.

From the Center for Constitutional Rights, Oct. 17:

Bush Signs the Military Commissions Act: CCR Calls it a Blow to Democracy and the Constitution
New York, NY - Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) denounced President Bush's signing into law of the Military Commissions Act (MCA). The final version of the bill emerged only four days before the Senate's 11th hour vote. Although President Bush declared that "time was of the essence" when he called for the legislation, he has waited nearly two weeks to sign it into law. Congress has once again been cowed into doing the President's bidding and abdicated their Constitutional powers in the process, say attorneys.

From the New York Times, Oct. 17:

BAGHDAD -- The blackened shells of five cars still sit in front of the Church of the Virgin Mary here, stark reminders of a bomb blast that killed two people after a recent Sunday Mass.

After a much-publicized cancellation, "My Name is Rachel Corrie," based on the activist's writings, has opened in NYC. The following commentary ran Oct. 16 in Newsweek:

This seems like a worthy cause, but how much is the American Jewish Committee actually hurting Choudhury's chances of acquittal or clemency by campaigning on his behalf?

Note the rather ironic last line of this account. Perhaps the real lesson US war-makers failed to glean from Pontecorvo's film was, "Stay out—its hopeless." From Italy's AKI news agency, Oct. 13:

Gillo Pontecorvo, one of Italy's leading filmmakers renowned for 'The Battle of Algiers', a realistic representation of Algeria's independence war against France, died on Thursday night. He was 86. The Battle of Algiers, which Pontecorvo wrote with Franco Solinas and directed in 1966, won the Venice film festival that year and was nominated for three Oscars - best director, screenplay and foreign film. The documentary-style movie showed the plight of Algerians during the 1954-62 war, denouncing the bombings and torture of civilians by the French military. It was banned in France until 1972 and in Britain until 1969.

A suicide bomber crashed a truck full of explosives into a convoy of buses carrying unarmed navy personnel going on leave in Sri Lanka Oct. 16, killing at least 94 and wounding 150. The explosion, at Habarana about 100 miles northeast of the capital, was one of the deadliest attacks since a 2002 cease-fire between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The government blamed the LTTE for the attack, a charge the group neither confirmed nor denied. The vast majority of the casualties were sailors, but a military spokesman said some civilians were caught in the explosion.