DISSENT ON THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT: Jeff Jarvis rounds up some interesting stuff.

KERRY’S WORLDVIEW: Gred Djerejian looks at Kerry’s 1971 testimony and thinks about what it might mean about Kerry’s positions today.

UPDATE: Related item here: “The war-torn soul of John Kerry.”

RYAN SAGER has posted many new photos from the NYC convention protests.

You can also find more here.

Not all that many nice smiles to be had, though, overall.

MY NIGERIAN SISTER-IN-LAW VICTORIA, who’s now an American citizen, is always irritated when people tell her that she’s not an “African-American.” If I’m not one, she asks, who is?

Robert Tagorda has an interesting post on that debate.

I GUESS THESE ARE ANALOG BROWNSHIRTS, rather than the digital kind:

Nearly 40 protesters gathered Saturday at the home of the chief financial backer of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose ads criticize Democrat John Kerry’s military record.

Or something like that.

JOHN ROSENBERG looks at Joe Biden vs. John Kerry.

I actually defended Biden in The Appearance of Impropriety, the ethics book I coauthored with Peter Morgan. You can read that chapter online here.

JERALYN MERRITT OF TALKLEFT has a column on convention-blogging in the Denver Post.

EXIT INTERVIEW: Tbogg’s father has died, and he’s written a moving farewell. Please send him your condolences.

BETSY NEWMARK notes that Amazon.com has changed its comment policies where the SwiftBoat Vets book Unfit for Command is concerned.

AN AMUSING PRANK in Massachussetts.

SELF-INFLICTED WOUND: “Kerry can rail all he wants about the unfairness of criticism by the Swift boat veterans. But to see who is ultimately responsible for this controversy, Kerry should look in the mirror.”

CROSSWIRE is a new GOP-Convention blog set up by the Knoxville News-Sentinel. It features well-known Knoxville blogger SKBubba on the left, and new blogger WestKnoxMomma on the right. (Via Michael Silence).

THERE’S A TOUCH OF BLOGOSPHERE TRIUMPHALISM in the quotes at the end of this article. But under the circumstances, I think it’s warranted.

UPDATE: Read this, too.

INTERESTING GRAPHIC FROM THE DETROIT NEWS on the impact of Bush’s tax cuts.

I MISSED MAUREEN DOWD’S LETTERMAN APPEARANCE, but Ann Althouse didn’t, and notes that Dowd was (repeatedly) dismissing Kerry as “lame.” It makes me think that Ed Morrissey was right when he wrote that Kerry’s media honeymoon is over.

UPDATE: Althouse has more thoughts here on the media and Kerry: “The media are looking ahead and imagining how the history of the 2004 presidential campaign will read and how their performance will measure up.”

Meanwhile, reader Rick Lee emails:

haven’t seen anybody mention what I thought was the best line of the Dowd/Letterman interview… he asked her if she was backing Kerry (or something like that) and she answered that (roughly quoting from memory) “NY Times columnists aren’t permitted to endorse candidates… [sotto voce] although apparently Paul Krugman is ignoring that”. At this point Dave made a joke about this answer going over his head.

Heh. Wish they posted transcripts.

SPOONS MAKES the conservative argument against Bush. He’s actually been doing that for a while. Bush’s dumb position on Campaign Finance “Reform” plays a major role.

TOM MAGUIRE IS QUESTIONING THE TIMING of leaks concerning an espionage investigation in the Defense Department. I don’t know what to make of this, but if The New York Times is downplaying the importance of the suspect, saying that he wasn’t in a position to influence policy, then it’s probably not a big deal given the potential for embarrassing the Bush Administration, and the NYT’s willingness to stretch things to do so. Needless to say, if the guy’s guilty, he should get slammed. Moles, even for friendly powers, can’t be tolerated.

UPDATE: Hmm. I’m not sure if this is comforting or not:

“From everything I’ve seen, the guy’s not a spy,” the official said. “The guy’s an idiot.”

On the other hand, this definitely isn’t comforting:

An FBI probe into the handling of highly classified material by Pentagon civilians is broader than previously reported, and goes well beyond allegations that a single midlevel analyst gave a top-secret Iran policy document to Israel, three sources familiar with the investigation said Saturday.

The frightening thought is that Sandy Berger’s behavior might have just been par for the course in the national security establishment. Sheesh. Roger Simon has related thoughts.

HUGH HEWITT administers a spanking to Jim Boyd of the Star-Tribune.

RYAN SAGER is photoblogging the convention protests in New York. He’s got quite a few photos.

I hope that a lot of people will be photo- and even video-blogging this stuff, as I suspect that it won’t get as much attention from the mainstream media as it otherwise might.

Nice smile.

NOW THIS IS COOL:

Enthusiasts on Friday unveiled an effort to establish an annual competition for space-elevator technologies, taking a page from the playbook for other high-tech contests such as the $10 million Ansari X Prize.

The project, spearheaded by the California-based Spaceward Foundation, would focus on innovations in fields that could open the way for payloads to be lifted into space by light-powered platforms. Such platforms, also known as climbers, would move up and down superstrong ribbons rising as high as 62,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. . . .

If space elevators could actually be built, the cost of sending payloads into space could be reduced from $10,000 or more per pound (455 grams) to $100 or less — opening up a revolutionary route to the final frontier. Like the X Prize for private spaceflight, Elevator:2010 is aimed at jump-starting the revolution.

I was involved in the early X-Prize work, and I have to say that it has exceeded my hopes.