John Kerry, today:

"When did denying al-Qaida a terrorist stronghold in Afghanistan stop being an urgent American priority?" Kerry said. "How is it possible that we keep sending thousands of additional U.S. troops into the middle of a civil war in Iraq but we can't find any more troops to send to Afghanistan?"

Accompanying question: Are there second chances in politics? 

The story of her uncovering, collective intelligence prevails:

The story of how Mr. Flinders, Mr. Beckett and Ms. Rose were discovered in spite of their efforts to hide, and prolong the mystery, sheds light on the nature of online wiki-style investigations and manhunts. When Mr. Steinfeld’s dummy site, which had been set up before the first Lonelygirl15 video was even posted, struck users as suspicious and unsupervised — Mr. Steinfeld says he grew tired of running it, and dropped out of the project — fans set up their own site devoted to Lonelygirl15, which soon attracted more than a thousand members.

...Last month, a Lonelygirl15 fan discovered and posted a trademark application by Mr. Goodfried, which seemed to prove that the videos, which presented themselves as nothing but a video diary, were at least in part a commercial venture. Then, last week, three tech-savvy fans, working together, set up a sting on the e-mail being used by “Bree”; the operation revealed to them the I.P. address of Creative Artists Agency.

On the strength of this information, Mr. Foremski was confident he could find some trace of Bree on the Internet. He was sure that any participant in a semiprofessional production like Lonelygirl15 would have posted pictures somewhere. Sure enough, they had.

Froomkin, at WaPo, re: Bush's comments yesterday to conservative journalists about a "third awakening" of religiosity (see also here):

But Bush's disquisition about a "Third Awakening" is highly suggestive, and potentially of no small political significance.

National Review senior editor Jeffrey Hart touched on the issue of revivalism in an op-ed for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last year. He wrote that Bush "has brought religion into politics in a way unknown to recent memory. And he has owed both of his electoral victories to his Evangelical Christian base. This indispensable base has profoundly affected his policies, foreign and domestic.

"The Bush presidency often is called conservative. That is a mistake. It is populist and radical, and its principal energies have roots in American history, and these roots are not conservative."

Hart wrote that the "Third Awakening of Evangelicalism believes all sorts of bizarre things, such as the imminent end of the world, the second coming of Christ, the sudden elevation of the just to heaven and the final struggle of Good versus Evil in Jerusalem: Armageddon. We thus have the immense popularity of the Left Behind series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins."

Froomkin notes Bush's line in his recent speech on September 11, about how Americans kneeled down in prayer. 

Espresso lovers, be sure to read this terrific article on the NYC espresso scene. And don't miss the video -- check out that pour!

I've been working on my microfoam forever, but I still can't pour em like the pros.

Oil prices fall below $66 a barrel. Definitely can't be the upcoming elections. It's supply and demand.

Don't question it.

From what I saw, you took on most of the trolls over here from Drudge. In the 1+ year I've been posting here, I don't think we've ever seen such an influx.

I guess it says something about Drudge and his influence, although I'd say his followers are more of an embarrassment than anything else. But, hey, everyone's gotta make a living.

Anyway, kudos for taking them all on.