Sunday Morning Quickie

I'm about to head to church with Mrs. F (not a frequent habit, but All Pilgrims is a very welcoming place indeed), but wanted to jot down a few things as I'll be rather busy the next coupla days (which includes a stint volunteering tomorrow for our local NPR station, KUOW, in their pledge drive).

• It looks like Katherine Harris' bid for the Senate in Florida is going tits up. The WaPo notes that the exodus "adds to their pessimism about GOP prospects for unseating Sen. Bill Nelson (D). Two recent surveys -- one conducted by the independent Mason-Dixon polling firm, the other by Strategic Vision, a Republican outfit -- found Harris trailing Nelson by double digits."
  
  
• Well, maybe not so secret: The London Telegraph reports that the UK government will hold secret talks with defence chiefs tomorrow to discuss possible military strikes against Iran.
  

  The United States government is hopeful that the military operation will be a multinational mission, but defence chiefs believe that the Bush administration is prepared to launch the attack on its own or with the assistance of Israel, if there is little international support. British military chiefs believe an attack would be limited to a series of air strikes against nuclear plants - a land assault is not being considered at the moment.

  But confirmation that Britain has started contingency planning will undermine the claim last month by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, that a military attack against Iran was "inconceivable".

• The WaPo reports that if attacked, Iran would mount attacks against U.S. targets inside Iraq, where Iranian intelligence agents are already plentiful, predicted these experts. There is also a growing consensus that Iran's agents would target civilians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, they said.
  
  
• A new poll in Time Magazine finds that 79% of those polled favor a guest worker program. It also finds that President Bush's approval rating has slipped to 37%--a new low for the Time poll.
  
  
• Finally, check out this bold cartoon from Pat Bagley at the Salt Lake City Tribune (which plays on this comment):