James Lileks has details on John Kerry’s plan to capture Osama bin Laden.

Mark Steyn puts his job on the line.

Usually after making wild predictions I confidently toss my job on the line and say, if they don’t pan out, I’m outta here. I’ve done that a couple of times this campaign season – over Wes Clark (remember him?) – but it almost goes without saying in these circumstances. Were America to elect John Kerry president, it would be seen around the world as a repudiation not just of Bush and of Iraq but of the broader war. It would be a declaration by the people of American unexceptionalism – that they are a slightly butcher Belgium; they would be signing on to the wisdom of conventional transnationalism. Having failed to read correctly the mood of my own backyard, I could hardly continue to pass myself off as a plausible interpreter of the great geopolitical forces at play. Obviously that doesn’t bother a lot of chaps in this line of work – Sir Simon Jenkins, Robert ‘Mister Robert’ Fisk, etc., – and no doubt I could breeze through the next four years doing ketchup riffs on Teresa Heinz Kerry, but I feel a period of sober reflection far from the scene would be appropriate. My faith in the persuasive powers of journalism would be shattered; maybe it would be time to try something else – organising coups in Africa, like the alleged Sir Mark Thatcher is alleged to have allegedly done; maybe abseiling down the walls of the Presidential palace and garroting the guards personally.

But I don’t think it will come to that. This is the 9/11 election, a choice between pushing on or retreating to the polite fictions of September 10. I bet on reality.

Here is a CNET News.com story about Google buying a company that produces web-based software that allows people to view satellite images. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this.

Here is an update to the earlier items I posted about Spread Firefox’s Ad Campaign to promote the 1.0 release of Firefox. In ten days, the campaign far exceeded its goal, acquiring $250,000 and more than 10,000 names.

Does character matter in Presidential elections? Is a politician’s prior record an adequate indicator of future behavior? Jeff Jacoby addresses these questions in an op-ed in today’s Boston globe.

All thinking people change their minds occasionally. But it is one thing to alter an opinion because of new information or further reflection. It is something very different to do so out of a compulsion to tell each audience what it wants to hear. Kerry has many gifts, but political courage is not among them. As president, could he take a tough stand and stick with it, even if there were a price to pay for doing so? All the evidence to date says no.

George W. Bush is far from perfect. He refuses to admit mistakes. He resists constructive criticism. His humor can be petty or cutting. His administration is secretive and self-righteous – traits that presumably start at the top.

But Bush, unlike Kerry, has the courage of his convictions. He can take a strong stand and not run away from it when the political winds shift. On the big issues, the crucial issues, he is a decisive man who means what he says – and isn’t afraid to say it even when his listeners disagree.

For a nation going to the polls in wartime, no issue matters more than character. Kerry has much to recommend him, and Bush’s flaws are many. But Bush has the character and backbone of a leader. And Kerry doesn’t.

Mark Steyn:

It’s only a day or so now till the chad-dangling round of Campaign 2004 begins but, when the lawsuits are over and the bloodletting begins, serious Democrats need to confront the intellectual emptiness of their party, which Kerry’s campaign embodies all too well. The Dems got a full tank from FDR, a top-up in the Civil Rights era, and they’ve been running on fumes for 30 years. Their last star, Bill Clinton, has no legacy because, deft as he was, his Democratic Party had no purpose other than as a vehicle for promoting his own indispensability. When he left, the Democrats became a party running on personality with no personalities to run. Hence, the Kerry candidacy. Despite the best efforts of American editorialists, there’s no there there.

CNET News.com compiled a voter scorecard for technology related issues, which reveals that GOP lawmakers were more friendly on high-tech issues. The scorecard covers a period of a decade.

One key finding of the study related to the votes of John Kerry and John Edwards:

Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, scored in the bottom half of senators with a lifetime voting rating of 44 percent–thanks in part to his votes on Internet taxes and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. On average, U.S. senators received a score of 53 percent.

Kerry’s running mate, John Edwards of North Carolina, was in office long enough to vote on only six of the 10 technology-related bills in the Senate that were ranked in the scorecard. Edwards’ rating is 50 percent.

MSNBC has made portions of the message from bin Laden available.

Roger L. Simon shares his views on the Bin Laden video, Wretchard’s comments on Belmont Club and the idea that the video might not be genuine.

This is a follow up to my earlier post.

UPDATE: Donald Sensing thinks that the video represents the beginning of the end for al Qaeda.

The words on the videotape are not the words of a man who thinks the light at the end of the tunnel is anything but the headlight of the proverbial oncoming train. This was the tape of a man who knows his tail is getting whipped from one end of the world to the other. He’s now out of ideas and even out of new threats. The extensive quotes of the Quran as in tapes of yore seem AWOL now.

A poster to Roger L. Simon’s blog points out the similarities between Bin Laden’s video and the Democratic talking points.