The Senate unexpectedly reversed itself yesterday and voted to slash more than half of President Bush's proposal to reduce taxes by $726 billion over the next decade, turning victory into defeat for the president on his economic program's centerpiece.

This is good.  This war has to paid for somehow. 

I became increasingly concerned about the way the Iraqi regime was restricting the movement of the shields, so a few days later I left Baghdad for Jordan by taxi with five others. Once over the border we felt comfortable enough to ask our driver what he felt about the regime and the threat of an aerial bombardment.

"Don't you listen to Powell on Voice of America radio?" he said. "Of course the Americans don't want to bomb civilians. They want to bomb government and Saddam's palaces. We want America to bomb Saddam."

We just sat, listening, our mouths open wide. Jake, one of the others, just kept saying, "Oh my God" as the driver described the horrors of the regime. Jake was so shocked at how naive he had been. We all were. It hadn't occurred to anyone that the Iraqis might actually be pro-war.

Another article about Human Shields having a change of heart.  This one is a few days old now, and folks have probably already seen it, but I thought I'd provide it as a foil to my own earlier conspiracy-mongering on the subject.

While flipping through the channels this evening, I happened on what was apparently the premiere evening of the Discovery Times Channel - a joint venture between The Discovery Channel and The New York Times. The first show was called "Al Qaeda 2.0" and was one of the most informative specials I've yet seen on Al Qaeda.

Amongst the revelations is evidence that Al Qeada's leadership may be in Bangledesh and have established a new base there. I missed the beginning of the show, but it's on again tonight at 11pm EST, so I'll get caught up then. 

On now is "Terror's Children" which is about children's lives in Pakistani madrassas.

This is all original programming produced by The Discovery Program and the New York Times jointly, and is interspersed (supposedly, I haven't seen this yet) with Iraq war reports from NY Times correspondents, and even the obligatory "Friedman's Journal" where John-Paul's mustachioed doppleganger holds forth on various topics.

It looks to be an impressive venture, assuming they can keep up the quality to tonight's levels. For those in Denver on Comcast, tune into channel 271.  For others, you can find out if you can see it here.