Recommended reading: Robert Newman's excellent novel, The Fountain at the Center of the World," is predicted to become "the talismanic Catch-22 of the antiglobalization protest movement, the fictional complement to Naomi Klein's influential treatise No Logo" by the New York Times book review. (Thanks to whoever emailed the review a few weeks back.)

The ego has landed: According to an early report from Fox, Ralph Nader will be running for president.

Flaws with the Anyone-But-Bush strategy? Mark Hand at Press Action wonders how much better Kerry might be than the neocon Bush, citing the "gung-ho" militarism of the New Democrats and the Progressive Policy Institute:

...John Kerry, the frontrunner in the quest for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, has been promoting a foreign policy perspective called "progressive internationalism." It's a concept concocted by establishment Democrats seeking to convince potential backers in the corporate and political world that, if installed in the White House, they would preserve U.S. power and influence around the world, but in a kinder, gentler fashion than the current administration.

In the domestic battle to captain the American empire, the neocons have in their corner the Project for a New American Century while the New Democrats have the Progressive Policy Institute. Come November, who will get your vote? Coke or Pepsi?

Read the entire article here. (Thanks, Andy.)

Memogate mayhem: Conservative activists are savaging Orrin Hatch. Some are likening him to Neville Chaimberlain. One, in the Washington Post, warned of a "thermonuclear" punishment for the crotchety Utah Republican, and more than a few blame him for a "demoralized" Republican base. His crime? Supporting a formal investigation into the unethical--and possibly illegal--pilfering of Democratic computer files related to confirmation proceedings for ultra-conservative judges. "The right-wing bile over Hatch's Memogate burst of conscience," reports Slate, "only shows how frighteningly militant Washington's church of conservatism has become." And, in case you missed it, George W. Bush has again made an end-run around the Democratic filibuster of a rightwing, activist judicial nominee. Like last month's recess appointment of segregationist judge Charles Pickering, Bush appointed William Pryor to the US appeals bench despite longstanding Democratic efforts to block the move. A crusader against Roe v. Wade, Pryor has the distinction of likening homosexuality to "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography and even incest and pedophilia."