Tonight, Extension 720 turns its attention to the world of religion and the latest developments and trends with two well-known religion writers. More information on this and other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show from 9 to 11 p.m. central time here.

OH, WHAT A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE WHEN FIRST WE VENTURE TO DECEIVE: The Houston Chronicle zeros in on the fellow who now is strongly suspected of being "the source" of those CBS memos and he appears to have been obsessed (but not consistent) in his long-expressed fulminations against George W.

MEMOGATE, RATHERGATE, SIXTYMINUTESGATE....or whatever suffix you prefer, the real question is: What happened and how? This chronologically-ordered review of the sad saga has been supplied by Human Events which, in this undertaking, has effectively summarized the available facts.

KRAUTHAMMER: THE INNER PSYCHIATRIST EMERGES AGAIN! This column from today's Washington Post, examining Kerry's inconsistencies (across time) on questions of war, concludes with some reflections on the Senator's "character." We think that the classic polarity between ambition and principle provides just as good an analytic tool when it comes to the higher American politics.

WHY ISRAEL WILL HAVE TO ATTACK THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITY......according to a columnist writing today in The Australian.

A STRANGE DAY AT WHITEHALL: It wasn't as dangerous as the Gunpowder Plot, but the MPs had a right to wonder whether the Chamber was and will remain secure from the Invasion of the Fox Hunters. Here's some of the needed detail as supplied by the U.K. Guardian.

PUTIN MAY BE ROLLING BACK RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY....but there is still enough of it left for his two predecessors (they didn't have live predecessors in the USSR) to leap into the denunciatory mode. This coverage from the Moscow News is rich with relevant links.

A NEW INSTANCE OF DARWINIAN "NATURAL SELECTION"....has just been reported from a research project focused upon high-altitude Tibetan mothers and their children. Add this to butterflies in Liverpool and the beak lengths of Galapagos Finches! Howzat? Well, those are two prior claimed instances of evolution in action.

5764 AND ALL THAT: WHAT KIND OF YEAR HAS IT BEEN FOR AMERICAN JEWS? An interesting--and somewhat worried--overview as it appeared a few days ago in The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles.

AND STILL, THE DIPLOMATS DITHER AND THE DARFURIANS DIE: The Economist has just published this review of the situation in Sudan. They are trying to be hopeful but, or so it seems to us, the gloom shows through.

A GREAT SCHOLAR AND NOBLE SOUL PASSES: James David Barber was a truly inspired political scientist and--where necessary--political activist. We knew him, Horatio--a fellow of infinite worth and, in the old days, a frequent guest on our program. The obituary is from the Chronicle of Duke University.

THE BIRTH OF LANGUAGE? This study, just reported, makes the large claim that it has revealed how languages are formed. We predict that this will be met by more skepticism from the "linguistics community" than it has received from the press. But, all the same, the autonomous emergence of a language that follows universal structural rules is surely interesting (if true).

AND SPEAKING OF THE ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE: Here's an informative review of a new book that sounds like the definitive summary of ALL thought and scientific conjecture on that subject.

PURE WILLIE NELSON: This generous selection includes The City of New Orleans, On the Road Again and Heartbreak Hotel.

Tonight on Extension 720, after the 6:10 Cubs game, sports lawyer Eldon Ham returns to the program to discuss the rules of sport and the many ways in which they are broken. He will be joined by a fellow sports lawyer, Lester Munson. More information on this and other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show around 9:15 p.m. central time here.

Milt's File is taking the day off, but will return tomorrow.

A recorded edition of Extension 720 will air as Milt takes the night off to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Producer MAGGIE BERNDT hosts a selection of clips from Extension 720's thirty year history that feature politicians, political historians and political pundit, including Colin Powell, Jimmy Carter, P.J. O'Rourke, Michael Beschloss and Sir Peter Ustinov.

More information on this and other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show from 9 to 11 p.m. central time here.

THE EUROPEAN UNION BESTIRS ITSELF OVER THE GENOCIDE IN DARFUR...but ever so slowly in the "diplomatic" mode; and, meanwhile, hundreds (or is it now thousands?) die every day. This report of some ministerial activity is from Deutsche Welle.

SPEAK TRUTH TO RUSSIAN POWER...and don't let Putin get away with the re-Sovietization upon which he is now launched. That is the underlying "action implication" of this op/ed by Robert Kagan in today's Washington Post.

THE SILENCE OF MUSLIM LEADERS IN THE AFTERMATH OF BESLAN...is noted, analyzed and condemned by one of the leading columnists at the Jerusalem Post who, at the same time, finds some hope in one Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia.

SO WHAT KIND OF YEAR HAS IT BEEN FOR THE JEWS...asks the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The answer, erev Rosh Hashonah, seems to be: greater political prominence in the U.S., greater anti-semitism in Europe...and everyone is a little more...uh, tense.

AN ANGUISHED VOICE FROM ISRAEL. Plaut, the author of this article in today's Front Page magazine, perceives the Israeli left to be undermining the very continued existence of the state itself. There are few more angry voices in Israel, but his passion is informed by a "realpolitik" view that does not admit of "compromise" with those who disdain and condemn the Jewishness of the Jewish state

A WORTHY EVALUATION AND CRITIQUE OF THE BUSH REGIME'S FOREIGN POLICY...is presented here by the magazine of the same name. Melvyn Leffler, eschewing extremity, finds present policy to be in continuity with that of earlier regimes--but thinks that some additional realism is required.

THE RATHERGATE IS OPEN...and, even to lots of "friends of Kerry," CBS has some explaining--or revealing--to do. Here's what ABC is saying about its competitor's dilemma today.

AND THIS ONE IS GETTING RATHER A LOT OF ATTENTION TODAY. Ann Morse, writing for the National Review Online, recalls another time when D.R. plopped himself into the soup.

READING (CLOSELY) THE SENATOR'S FIRST BOOK...is the possibly arduous, but not unuseful, task that David Skinner of the Weekly Standard set for himself. Herein, the findings and thus a much delayed book review.

THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL IS NOT HEAVEN...its a neuro-optical phenomenon caused by oxygen-deprivation. So says this qualified physician/anesthesiologist writing in the Skeptical Inquirer. Sorry!

IF IT HADN'T BEEN DARWIN IT WOULD HAVE BEEN, WHO? Alfred Russell Wallace, of course--and here's a fine review of two new books about him and his other, less "scientific," interests.

BETWEEN THE SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS OF PSYCHOBABBLE AND HAPPY PILLS...is where lots of the "unsick but unhappy" find themselves. The U.K. New Statesman provides a usefully cynical evaluation of the "happiness industry."

MISTAH BUTLER, HE DEAD...but the ghost of America's "leading neo-nazi" will, undoubtedly, go marching on. This report of his demise and some reactions to it is from the San Francisco Chronicle.

CLOSER TO HEAVEN THAN TO HELL...AND THE LOCAL WINE IS GREAT...in Orvieto, the jewel hill-town of Tuscany. Our enthusiasm for the place was renewed by this fine, appreciative and evocative article in the New York Times.

A GREAT COLLECTION OF MIXED SWING AND POP. Don't miss: Etta James, Sinatra and the Stan Kenton and Benny Carter bands.

Tonight on Extension 720, Milt opens the phone lines for listener reponse to current events after the 7:05 Cubs game. You can listen to the show around 10 p.m. central time here.

Milt's File is taking the day off, but will return tomorrow.

Tonight on Extension 720, Milt talks with noted historical novelist Alan Furst. You can listen to the program after the 7:05 Cubs game (around 10 p.m. central time) here.

THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR THREAT...worries, as it should, the International Atomic Energy Agency which will not be soothed by the recent report from the leading Iranian group opposing the regime of the mullahs. Here's the AP story as reported today in the Jerusalem Post.

MORT KONDRACKE AS JOHN KERRY. The executive editor of Roll Call (and a rather freequent guest on Extension 720) tries to put himself in the shoes of the newly elected President Kerry facing some decisions on Iraq.

THE "PAJAMA STORY" AND THE BELEAGUERING OF "SIXTY MINUTES." John Fund, writing in today's Wall Street Journal, heralds the emergence of the blogs as a source of "expert" investigative journalism. We think he's got it right.

THE BUSH/NATIONAL GUARD KERFUFFLE. The Washington Post is exerting itself to be "fair and balanced" in this review story from yesterday's paper--and, as we read it, CBS comes out tainted with the tag of "motivated carelessness."

A STRONG DEFENSE (AND COMMENDATION) OF THE FOX NETWORK...and it comes from our favorite leftist, civil-libertarian, Nat Hentoff who excells in confounding those whose judgements are routinely derived from hard-wired ideological programs.

THE BUSH/NATIONAL GUARD KERFUFFLE. The Washington Post is exerting itself to be "fair and balanced" in this review story from yesterday's paper--and, as we read it, CBS comes out tainted with the tag of "motivated carelessness."

THE NEXT BIG (GEOLOGICAL) THING...will probably be the eruption of the Mauna Loa volcano which covers "half of the island of Hawaii!!" This fascinating interactive site tells you all--and possibly more than--you want to know about Hawaiian vulcanology.

THE AFRICAN-CARIBBEAN-ENGLISH COMMUNITY GETS "COSBYED"...and the message, like the problem, is the same: "gangsta" street culture is helping to wreck a generation of young men. This coverage of the strong j'accuse delivered by Garth Crooks is from yesterday's U.K. Observer.

SHAKESPEARE, SHYLOCK AND THE TRIAL OF DR. LOPEZ. The complex questions of what prompted The Merchant of Venice and of what its author intended are addressed here in a compelling essay by Stephen Greenblatt from yesterday's New York Times magazine.

THE SPECIAL EXCELLENCE OF ALAN FURST...is proclaimed and explained in this equally excellent essay from the New Criterion. Its special relevence here is that Alan Furst will be appearing on our radio program tonight.

WHY DO SO MANY PRESIDENTS AND VICE-PRESIDENTS COME FROM YALE? Is it conspiracy, happenstance or a reflection of the superior (and worldly) education provided there? The question is well-asked if not fully answered in this essay from yesterday's Boston Globe which, inevitably, holds some special interest for the former Yale assistant professor who is the proprietor of these premises.

THE DECIPHERING OF BRITSPEAK AND FRANCOSPEAK...doesn't get any easier as the world grows evermore multilingual. But now some experts are helping to translate what the Brit really means when he says "I hear what you say" or what the Gaul means when he says je sarai clair. This article from the Economist delights and informs but leaves you wanting more, much more.

THE CURSES OF THE BILLY GOAT AND THE BAMBINO...and various other such memorable hexes in the history of baseball are examined in this fine article just published at a major website concerned with culture and religion.

A GREAT PERFORMANCE OF BEETHOVEN'S FOURTH VIOLIN/PIANO SONATA...by Argerich and Horigome at the Lugano Festival. And filling out the program: Saint-Saens, Poulenc and Bartok!