HIDE AND SEEK As the President begins to slim his statements on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, citing documents collected rather than weapons discovered, sources within the government say the leads are few and far between.

Despite vigorous efforts, the U.S. government has been unsuccessful so far in finding key senior Iraqi scientists to support its prewar claims that former president Saddam Hussein was pursuing an aggressive program to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, according to senior administration officials and members of Congress who have been briefed recently on the subject.

The sources said four senior scientists and more than a dozen at lower levels who worked for the Iraqi government have been interviewed by U.S. officials under the direction of the CIA. Some scientists have been arrested and held for months, others have made deals in return for information and at least one has agreed to be interviewed outside Iraq.

No matter the circumstances, all of the scientists interviewed have denied that Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program or developed and hidden chemical or biological weapons since United Nations inspectors left in 1998. Several key Iraqi officials questioned the significance of evidence cited by the Bush administration to suggest that Hussein was stepping up efforts to develop new weapons of mass destruction programs.

A THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS Now that the NYTimes knows about Jenny and her amazing adventures as the Trash Queen of Baghdad, I don't feel obligated to keep her web journal under wraps. Jenny left for Baghdad in mid-April and helped to lead the charge to clean the streets -- she worked with a small group who doled out millions to street cleaners and trash collectors. NPR did a piece on her team in June, and she's penned an article for this Sunday's NYTimes on her three month stint. She's in Kuwait today, on her way back to the States to take a long bath and sit in front of a window air conditioning unit.

GET YOUR SALSA ON The Richmond Farmer's Market's slow road to growth is proving to be successful. The Mercado, or Latin market, began with a trickle of patrons this spring, and is quickly building a following with its music, food and flair. Once a weekly event, the Mercado has been downgraded to the first Saturday of each month.

I CANNOT TELL A LIE Too Stupid To Be President presents a short Flash animation of the President's version of the truth about weapons of mass destruction.

THE AUSTRALIAN ANGLE The father of Australian David Hicks is urging his son receive legal counsel. Hicks, who has been imprisoned without representation at a military camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was captured in Afghanistan with Taliban forces more than 18 months ago.

LOOKING GOOD ON THE DANCE FLOOR There are signs of hope in Richmond's downtown. Little sparkles, glittering like... well, anyway, two local DJs have opened Turnstyle, a music-clothes-lifestyle store. Turnstyle will be spinning the music during the next First Friday artwalk (that being this Friday), adding some youthful flair to the artistic stroll.

RICHMOND'S NEW WIND A cluster of young, professional, former hipsters (is there such a thing as a past-tense hipster?) are focusing their keen sensibilities on Richmond's amazing ability to take a good idea and mangle it.

TRAGIC MULTIPLIERS IN AFRICA When the media talks about AIDS in Africa, the focus tends to be abstract, or wrestle with questions of protection, education and abstinence. But there is a tougher problem facing the continent -- for every parent (and there are millions) who dies of AIDS, one or more children remain. ABC News takes a look at the young faces in Africa's latest fight for survival.

For more than two decades, AIDS has whittled away at African societies, plunging life expectancy into the 30s in many sub-Saharan nations. The disease has gutted the ranks of professionals — snuffing out teachers, farmers and soldiers. And the children, with the future of the continent on their backs, fend largely for themselves as the ranks of the orphaned continue to balloon.

Consider these staggering figures: By 2010, the total number of children orphaned by AIDS is expected to nearly double, to 25 million. In sub-Saharan Africa, 42 million children will be orphaned by all causes, 20 million children due to AIDS.

Even with unprecedented global attention on the AIDS pandemic, the orphan
crisis will persist for years. In general, death lags behind HIV infection by about 10 years, so even in a country where HIV prevalence has declined, orphan numbers remain high.

WOULD YOU LIKE TEA WITH YOUR EUROS? The all-too-rare Michael Wolff is a glimmer of light in an otherwise dull New York Magazine, and he gets the scoop (or at least an early take) on the planned U.S. edition of the liberal British newspaper The Guardian.

SOMETHING FISHY We all know (or should know) that farmed salmon has three strikes against it -- the feed is a significant pollutant; escaped farmed salmon muck with wild salmon genetics; and they use red dye to give the unnaturally pale fish a nice orange color. Now the good news. Farm-raised salmon is loaded with PCBs! How exciting.

Americans consume so much salmon these days -- most of it farmed -- that it is the third-most-popular type of seafood in the country, after canned tuna and shrimp. It is one of those foods that nutritionists say is good for you, and the Food and Drug Administration says you can eat as much of it as you like.

But a report released yesterday by the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit environmental research and advocacy organization, says 10 samples of farmed salmon bought at markets on the East and West coasts were found to be contaminated with PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, at an average level far higher than any other protein source, including other seafood.

The high levels do not exceed those set in 1984 by the FDA for commercially sold fish. But they are higher than the guidelines set by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1999 for recreationally caught fish. PCBs, long-lived industrial chemicals used extensively in electrical equipment before Congress banned them in 1976, have been identified as probable human carcinogens.

HEY, I'VE GOT A BAD IDEA! Hmm. A liberal Iraqi from Baghdad with nothing to do... why not head for conservative Tikrit?! That was what Salam Pax did last week, visiting the Saddam-friendly city days after Qusay and Uday Hussein were killed by U.S. forces. A fan of the Americans most days, Salam Pax is having a hard time figuring out how the strategists continue to manage to bungle every task they undertake.

Back in Baghdad, military personnel were standing in long queues waiting for their pay cheque while Saddam's new tape was being aired on al-Jazeera. Saddam is calling for his army to reform while they are waiting for hours to get paid by "the infidel invader".

So, now, disgruntled military personnel can be struck off the list of possible resistance members. That leaves Ba'athists and Islamic extremists. While dealing with these two groups, the Americans will manage to piss off the rest of the population. Take for example the Task Force 20 raid a couple of days ago in Mansur. They got some "intelligence" and surrounded an area that they had bombed with bunker-busting bombs just four months ago. They were not even being shot at or anything. These are people who were driving in their cars through their neighbourhood streets. And got the sheikh of the biggest tribe in Iraq angry in the process. Great job.

NOT THAT GIBSON... WILLIAM GIBSON Edgy futuresque novelist William Gibson has his own weblog. He likes Salam Pax, too.

HOWARD WHO? Apparently, no one in America -- outside of several hundred thousand desperate Democrats or political news junkies -- knows who Howard Dean is. He just launched his first campaign ad (presumably for Iowa markets), which should have had him say, "I'm not John McCain, but I play him on the campaign trail."

AND WEDNESDAY MAKES THREE Day to Day, the mid-day radio news program jointly sponsored by National Public Radio and Slate Magazine has hit hump-day in its first week on the air. Host Alex Chadwick has been keeping an online journal.

DARPA'S A DAY LATE Tomorrow was to be the day when the super-nerdy Defense Department brainiacs at DARPA rolled out their day-trading system. Republicans and Democrats scrambled yesterday to distance themselves from the idea, which isn't too different from a large number of online "news commodity" markets already in existence, like News Futures. Still, John Poindexter should be boiled in cabbage juice.

TAKING IT ON THE CHIN God, I love a fiesty Joe Biden. The Delaware Senator has been stewing for weeks over the situation in Iraq, and he found his outlet yesterday during hearings that featured Paul Wolfowitz and Josh Bolten. Biden, considered one of a handful of Democrats with a real handle on international affairs, lashed into Bolten.

...while (budget director Josh) Bolten said U.S. costs there would continue at about $4 billion monthly for the immediate future, he declined to provide a longer-term estimate, angering some senators.

"Oh, come on now," Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, the panel's top Democrat, told the witnesses. "Does anybody here at the table think we're going to be down below 100,000 forces in the next calendar year? Raise your hand, any one of you. You know it's going to be more than that. So you know at least it's going to be $2.5 billion a month."

Even committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., told the officials that the administration should provide "at least some idea of what is likely to be required of the American taxpayer."