Earlier predictions have come true and it's a banner year for opium production in Afghanistan. Officials are now worried it will spread to Iraq. What is responsible for the surge?

Instability in the wake of the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq has resulted in one booming market for the production of drugs, and a second potential market for narcotics sale and transit, officials said....The country's exploding drug production has already become an issue in the U.S. presidential campaign. In Thursday's debate in Florida, Democratic candidate Sen. John F. Kerry cited the burgeoning opium poppy crop as evidence of President Bush's "colossal misjudgment" in turning his attention from Afghanistan to wage war in Iraq.

Administration officials are pushing this meme hard:

Indeed, U.S., U.N. and Afghan officials believe that opium smuggling is a source of funding for Taliban insurgents, Al Qaeda terrorists and criminal gangs operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Much of the opium is exported through the lawless border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan where Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding, officials said. Insurgents encourage small farmers in areas they control to grow the drug, and charge a tax on it for transportation.

The horse trading that went on to establish the Cheney-Edwards debate rules is telling of Republican fears. Both men will be seated at a table instead of standing in a town hall setting. Why? The Washington Post reports,

Republicans feared such a format would allow Edwards to walk about like a lawyer giving a closing statement and maximize his presumed skill in engaging with ordinary voters. Tad Devine, a Kerry consultant, said this format was one of the concessions the Democratic side made in exchange for Bush's side agreeing to three presidential debates.

Strategically, here's what to expect. Cheney will play the 9/11 card. According to a Republican strategist,

...the vice president will try to bring fresh attention to the themes "that shoot out of the 9/11 set of memories and issues -- preparedness, safety and homeland security."

Edwards, on the other hand, is expected to play up the Administration's failures.

If you've been putting off registering to vote, Monday is the deadline in many of the swing states...

Today is the deadline for registering new voters in Pennsylvania, as well as Ohio, Michigan, Florida and 12 other states.

Colorado is another state with a deadline Monday.

Don't know where to get the form or how to register? The form for all states is here. Now you have no excuse. Voting is a precious right in a democracy. Use it or lose it.

Bump and Update: Just received an e-mail from TChris, TalkLeft's sole contributing blogger to date, who is arguing one of the two sentencing guideline cases in the Supreme Court tomorrow. His portion of the argument is 30 minutes. He says he's ready. Good luck, TChris!

"The sentencing procedure used in this case violated [Booker's] constitutional rights because the judge inflicted punishment that the jury's verdict alone does not allow," says T. Christopher Kelly, a Madison, Wis., lawyer in his brief on behalf of Booker.

Background on his case is here. It was just three months ago that his case (Booker v. U.S.) was the first in the country in which a federal appeals court ruled the sentencing guidlines unconstitutional after the Supreme Court decision in Blakely. And now he goes before the 9 Supreme Court Justices on the first day of the new term. Very, very exciting.

Check out what Peter Goldberger, criminal appellate whiz (Ardmore, PA) and frequent commenter on TalkLeft had to say about TChris and his case in the comments here:

Let me be the first to say, "TChris rocks!" The brief is elegantly written, thoughtfully argued, and highly persuasive. Mr. Booker should be thanking his lucky stars that a lawyer as brilliant and dedicated as Chris happened to be appointed as his counsel. (Congrats also to Dean Strang, the federal court public defender for western Wisconsin, who serves as Chris's volunteer co-counsel.) TL readers should know that for what amounts to more than a month of full time work, the Supreme Court will pay Chris a few thousand dollars -- maybe the equivalent of $12/hr -- plus his expenses in traveling to DC for the oral argument on October 4. Taking a historic case like this is a public service, not a way to make a living. TChris, best of luck at argument. Maybe I'll see you in Washington.

********************************
Original Post 10/2/04, 11:00 a.m.

While live-blogging during the debate, I made the observation:

Bush is petulant. He's impatient. He interrupted once when he saw time was up and another time said "let me finish" when no one had interrupted him. Bush's mouth is dry, he's licking his lips. He's also too fidgety. [emphasis supplied.]

Others are now making the same observation, wondering if Bush had an earpiece in and was responding to Rove or whomever was instructing him. Listen to the mp3 yourself- or watch the video at c-span --fast forward to 40 min 30 sec.

The debate isn't the first time Bush watchers have asked the question. See also, here

Update: Digby has a picture up of the back of Bush's jacket during the debate, and notes some are saying it looks like a wire running up the back of his jacket.

Italy may pull its troops from Iraq after the January elections.

Italy's deputy premier Gianfranco Fini, meanwhile, suggested that his country could withdraw its 3,000 troops from Iraq after the elections, saying they will no longer be needed when a representative government is in place.

Will this mean anything for our troops, particularly if other countries follow Italy's lead?

Has Britain agreed to release detainees in its prisons for the release of hostage Ken Bigley?

British police are investigating a claim that Ken Bigley, the British engineer held for more than two weeks by a militant Islamic group in Iraq, will be freed if the UK government releases around a dozen high-profile detainees. The statement, purporting to come from the Tawhid and Jihad group, which has been holding Bigley for 17 days, was posted on the internet last week. It claims that Bigley, 62, will be released if around a dozen foreign Islamic militants held in Belmarsh high-security prison in south-east London are freed.

Abu Qatada, the militant cleric who has been detained for nearly two years, is the only prisoner mentioned by name in the statement, though Abu Hamza, the firebrand Egyptian-born cleric, is also held at Belmarsh. Qatada is a Jordanian, like Tawhid leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and is known to have been an influence on the group.

A Kuwaiti newspaper reported on the alleged swap.

'There's near certain information pointing to the entry of an Iraqi militant group into negotiations with [the Tawhid group] for the release of the British hostage,' the al-Rai al-Aam newspaper said, quoting 'informed Islamic sources' in Iraq.

British officials deny they would deal with terrorists. Bigley's family has passed out 100,000 leaflets in Baghdad with statements from Muslim leaders condemning Bigley's kidnapping.

The Houston Chronicle joins the call for a moratorium on texecutions in Harris County, Texas until the lab mess is straightened out. Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal needs to step up to the plate and add his support.

Houston police have sorted through about one-quarter of the evidence they stumbled across in August in 280 dusty, disintegrating boxes. Texas should stop carrying out executions of death row inmates from Harris County at least until that process, believed to involve some 8,000 cases, is complete.

Two Harris County men on death row are scheduled for execution next week. Nine others are set for execution through March, including seven whose cases were investigated by the Houston Police Department. More than 150 other men and women from Harris County are awaiting lethal injection but have no execution dat.

The Houston police chief and a state senator support a moratorium. The Chronicle says Rosenthal should do the same:

Unfortunately, Rosenthal has chosen to duck the issue by pointing out that he lacks the legal authority to postpone executions. He should gather the courage to stand up for justice.

Some background on the Houston lab scandal is here.

The Washington Post has an editorial on the death of quadriplegic Jonathan Magbie, a first-offender serving a ten day sentence for possessing (using) pot. While failing to cast blame on the Judge, it asks:

But did Mr. Magbie deserve jail? Why was he sent to the hospital? Why did the hospital discharge him and refuse to take him back? Why did two days elapse before he could get his ventilator? Why is his case closed?

Another embarassing revelation is headed to Team Bush this week as a former Guantanamo guard, who took his 20 year retirement a few months ago, prepares to release a report showing that the detentions and interrogations at Guantanamo failed to prevent a single terror attack:

Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Christino, who retired last June after 20 years in military intelligence, says that President George W Bush and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have 'wildly exaggerated' their intelligence value.

Christino's revelations, to be published this week in Guantánamo: America's War on Human Rights, by British journalist David Rose, are supported by three further intelligence officials. Christino also disclosed that the 'screening' process in Afghanistan which determined whether detainees were sent to Guantánamo was 'hopelessly flawed from the get-go'.

It was performed by new recruits who had almost no training, and were forced to rely on incompetent interpreters. They were 'far too poorly trained to identify real terrorists from the ordinary Taliban militia'.

After a lengthy investigation, New York Times reporters have found that the Bush Administration provided dubious, one-sided data to support its conclusion that Saddam was rebuilding his weapons program, thereby sending us off to war in Iraq. For example,

Speaking to a group of Wyoming Republicans in September, Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States now had "irrefutable evidence" - thousands of tubes made of high-strength aluminum, tubes that the Bush administration said were destined for clandestine Iraqi uranium centrifuges, before some were seized at the behest of the United States.

The tubes were the only physical evidence the Bush team had to back up their claim:

Those tubes became a critical exhibit in the administration's brief against Iraq. As the only physical evidence the United States could brandish of Mr. Hussein's revived nuclear ambitions, they gave credibility to the apocalyptic imagery invoked by President Bush and his advisers. The tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, explained on CNN on Sept. 8, 2002. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Yet Team Bush knew their portrayal was disputed by their own experts:

Speculation is mounting about what Bush might have in store for his "October surprise." Aside from the predictable, like the capture of Osama or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, this one is Machiavellian to the core:

One "Hail Mary" pass could be for Vice President Dick Cheney to leave the ticket - perhaps to be replaced by a popular moderate such as former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Republican strategists scoff at such talk. But if Bush starts to fall behind, he and his advisers might want to try harder to reach out to moderates who dislike Cheney intensely. Cheney, who has had four heart attacks, could cite health concerns.

Pure Karl Rove, no? Don't say we didn't warn you.