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Joe Biden on Meet the Press today:

The United States will "have to face" a painful dilemma on restoring the military draft as rising casualties result in persistent shortfalls in US army recruitment, a top US senator warned. Joseph Biden, the top Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made the prediction after new data released by the Pentagon showed the US Army failing to meet its recruitment targets for four straight months.

"We're going to have to face that question," Biden said on NBC's "Meet the Press" television show when asked if it was realistic to expect restoration of the draft. "The truth of the matter is, it is going to become a subject, if, in fact, there's a 40 percent shortfall in recruitment. It's just a reality," he said.

The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq is now over 1,700. We should be thinking of an exit strategy, not a draft. [link via Oliver Willis.]

Texas Governor Perry may not be as adept as Bush and Rove at playing the evangelical card, but this is still pretty scary.

Even for Texas, the scene was remarkable: The governor, flanked by an out-of-state televangelist and religious right leaders, signing legislation in a church school gymnasium amid shouts of "amen" from backers who just as well could have been attending a revival.

The protesters were out, but there needs to be a bigger public outcry against this sort of thing.

It wasn't just the blatant blend of church and state that made the gathering in Fort Worth unusual. Advance publicity also attracted about 300 angry protesters - unheard of for the routine business of ceremonial bill signings.

I'm sad to report that TChris's father has died. He will be in California for the next week attending to funeral arrangements and being with family. If you'd like, you can post condolences in the comments. All of our parents are getting older. TL's dad died three years ago and it was very sad. It must be really hard a week before father's day. My thoughts and prayers are with TChris today.

Today's Live 8 News:

• Pink Floyd has joined the lineup for the London Show.
• Nelson Mandela and a stellar lineup were on hand for Norway's Arctic Circle show on Saturday.

The 86-year-old former South African president hosted the concert, which was sponsored by the Norwegian parliament, as part of his "46664" anti-AIDS campaign -- named after his prison number during his 27 years in jail under apartheid.He appealed to the G8 group of industrialized nations to take the lead in helping to end disease and poverty in Africa at their summit in July. "They have an historical opportunity to open the door to hope and the possibility of a better life for all," he said.

• Bob Geldof says debt relief is only the beginning.

Bob Geldof and other anti-poverty campaigners have hailed an agreement by the world's richest nations to cancel the debt of more than 30 poor countries as "a victory for millions". Geldof said: "Tomorrow 280 million Africans will wake up for the first time in their lives without owing you or me a penny from the burden of debt that has crippled them and their countries for so long - money we didn't even know we were owed and never wanted in the first place, and money they could never pay." Yet Geldof, who has campaigned to alleviate African poverty for more than 20 years, said the deal was "just a beginning".

New York Times Sunday Magazine

• Joseph Lelyveld: Interrogating Ourselves. I found it difficult reading and disappointing in its lack of a firm stand against torture and accountability. He seems to be saying (and I didn't read the entire 13 page article) that the American people didn't demand a full investigation because they weren't willing to take a firm stand against torture-lite - and either is he. Plenty of us have called for a full investigation into torture lite. Congress just isn't listening. It's so much more convenient to buy into the "few bad apples" meme.

Time Magazine's Series on Guantanamo

• Inside the Interrogation of Detainee 063
• Extracts from an Interrogation Log
• Guantanamo Photos

The Sunday Times On Line

• Ministers Told of Need for Excuse for Gulf War
• July 22 Office Briefing Paper

Bloggers on the Sunday Times OnLine Article:

• Juan Cole
• Jack Balkin
• Billmon
• The Heretik has questions for Scott McClellan
• Blah 3

Check Out the "Howard Dean Speaks for Me" petiton - already 4,700 signatures (I was number 4699.) Via Skippy [hat tip to Tennessee Guerilla Women}

Update: Dean calls on Dems to adopt values language.

The Washington Post has completed an analysis of the Administration's claim that it has obtained convictions of 200 terrorists. Here are the results:

An analysis of the Justice Department's own list of terrorism prosecutions by The Washington Post shows that 39 people -- not 200, as officials have implied -- were convicted of crimes related to terrorism or national security.

Most of the others were convicted of relatively minor crimes such as making false statements and violating immigration law -- and had nothing to do with terrorism, the analysis shows. For the entire list, the median sentence was just 11 months.

Both the Washington Post and the Times Online have updates on the July, 2002 briefing paper (of which the Downing Street Memo was a part.) The Times Online report has these new details:

MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal. The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.

In May, the Times Online outlined the briefing memo here. (our post on this is here.) The full text of the paper is here.

Crooks and Liars has lots of Dowing Street Memo coverage today.

Mike Ditto writes about a brainwashing summer camp for gay kids in Tennessee. This 16 year old attendee is writing a blog from the camp, and he's none too pleased. He says his parents lied to him and it's worse than boot camp. Go read, before they make him take it down.

Update: Mike Ditto says the kid's blog was written just before he went to the camp.

The 9/11 Commission recommended the establishment of a civil liberties board to ensure our rights weren't trampled in the conduct of the war on terror. Bush has faced criticism for dragging his feet in appointing a chair to the board. Today he named the chair and several members.

Bush picked Texas lawyer Carol Dinkins, who was deputy attorney general under former President Reagan, to chair the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and Alan Charles Raul, an administration official in the former Bush and Clinton administrations, to be vice chairman.

The other members chosen by Bush were: Lanny Davis, once a crisis manager in the Clinton White House; former Solicitor General Ted Olson; and General Electric Co. executive Francis X. Taylor, a former head of diplomatic security and counterterrorism coordinator at the State Department.

Ted Olsen, whose wife was killed in the 9/11 attacks, who represented the Administration before the Supreme Court as Solicitor General in defending the Administration's enemy combatant policy?

Alan Charles Raul, former Associate White House counsel to President Reagan, and a supporter of the Administration's enemy combatant policy, has been lobbying for the position since right after the Sept. 11 attacks. Here is an op-ed he wrote, titled "Cheer Ashcroft On, With a Little Friendly Oversight; A civil liberties panel would help quell the naysayers in the fight against terrorism" for the Los Angeles Times (December 5, 2001, available on Lexis.com)

Via CrimProf Blog:

John Jeremie, the AG of Trindad and Tobago, told Parliament this week that he will resume hanging convicts on death row as soon as they exhaust their appeals. Jeremie said the hangings are necessary to fight the recent upswing in crime. "The Government recognises that our people have grown tired of plans, talk and discussions of the problems ...today the Government states in forthright and unambiguous terms that we are at war with each and every criminal in Trinidad and Tobago," said Jeremie.

Jeremie also stated that if the courts intervene, the AG's office will do everything in its power to hang every person on death row.