So whom do we believe?

A U.S. Government analysis says that the nearly six-year long War On Terror has been a bust:

"Al Qaeda is the strongest it has been since the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, a new U.S. government analysis concludes, according to a senior government official who has seen it."

George Bush disagrees:

"Speaking at a news conference, President Bush said: "There is a perception in the coverage that al-Qaeda may be as strong today as they were prior to September 11.

"That's just simply not the case.""

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's 'gut' tells him differently:

"We've seen a lot more public statements from Al Qaeda," he said. "There are a lot of reasons to speculate about that but one reason that occurs to me is that they're feeling more comfortable and raising expectations."

Hmm... They can't all be right, can they?

33 and a third...

No, not the long-playing album speed...

I just hit 200 pages on A MAGIC OF NIGHTFALL, my current work-in-progress. Mind you, "pages" is a totally artificial marker, since I could change that total by as much as 30% one way or the other by changing the font I'm using (Palatino), or the font size (12), or the margins (whatever Nisus Writer Pro's defaults are). But... given the font and size and margins, and given that those are the same parameters I generally use, then this draft will end up being around 600 pages all told.

Which means I'm a third of the way through. Yay!

Of course, there's still the Dire Swamp of the Middle to go through yet...