Blue Radar

As I post each morning, here are some of the political stories thatmight not be worthy of their own posts, but are nonetheless newsworthy:

• General Petraeus is "telling surge troops that they will not be kept past their 15-month tours," meaning that a troop draw-down could begin next April.  The only way the Pentagon could sustain a surge is if those troops remain there longer.
• The US and European Union are building a database on all airline passengers.
• British Prime Minister Gordon Brown traveled to the US on Sunday for his first visit in the states.  He downplayed the strain in US-UK relations.  "It is a relationship that is founded on our common values of liberty,opportunity and the dignity of the individual," Brown said in astatement. "And because of the values we share, the relationship withthe United States is not only strong, but can become stronger in theyears ahead."
• US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilza slammed Saudi Arabia because he said they have helped destabilize the situation in Iraq.  "Saudi Arabia and a number of other countries are not doing all theycan to help us in Iraq," Khalilza said Sunday. "At times, some of them arenot only not helping, but they are doing things that is undermining theeffort to make progress."  This statement may have been the Ambassador's way of criticizing his boss, George W. Bush, for approving a $20 billion arms sale to the Saudis.
• Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was routed in Sunday's election.  Ichiro Ozawa's Democratic Party won decisively.
• Karl Rove told a closed-door group of House Republicans that it was less the Iraq war than corruption that cost the Republicans majority in 2006.
• North Carolina is changing its election law so that its electoral votes are distributed proportionally, instead of having winner-take-all distribution like the 47 other states.
• Former Democratic presidential candidate Tom Vilsack, who now works for Hillary Clinton's campaign, took a shot at Barack Obama for wanting to meet with US foes without preconditions: "I would hope the senator would clarify his comments as to whether ornot he is for preconditions or not and would cease and desist fromdistorting the record and comments of Senator Clinton."
• The Republicans will hold a straw poll in Iowa on August 11th.

If we left anything out, feel free to add any stories in the commentbox.