[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

Your article of the day is from Fox News, and it says that Bush is leading Kerry by 2% in the polls.

"Um, how is this good news for Kerry?"

The key paragraphs are paragraphs two and three, which read:

These new poll results show a slight dip in polling conducted Wednesday and Thursday night when Bush topped Kerry by 50 percent to 45 percent.

Polling was conducted Thursday and Friday evenings, so about half of those interviewed would have had the opportunity to hear reports of a new tape from Usama bin Laden.

So: the tape hasn't helped Bush, which is not any great surprise, because the tape is a big fat reminder that Osama is still out there.

Now, that poll is from last week. You can get the current tracking polls here, and Fox News is right at the top of the page. There's been an additional Fox News polling cycle since that article was written, and it shows Kerry up by 47% to 46% among likely voters. This is a big fat swing over to Kerry; as predicted, the undecideds are breaking his way.

[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

Ron Suskind has a nice archive of Bush White House documents that he's releasing now and again. Interesting stuff. One recent piece of interest was this projection of oil price rises following an invasion of Iraq. Suskind notes the optimism inherent in the assumption that oil prices will be the only thing affected. Me, I notice the optimism that $45 a barrel is the worst case scenario. We've beaten that by $7 a barrel, for reasons that the memo doesn't even speculate on. Namely, terrorist action to prevent the flow of oil.