Notable

* According to a Pentagon spokesman, the Iraq war is now costing about $8.4 billion per month, up from $4.4 billion when the crusade began in 2003.

* Twas a bloody weekend in Iraq. Monday was particularly bad, too, from an Iraqi perspective.

* WSWS, channeling UNHCR: US occupation turns 3.7 million Iraqis into refugees.

* We've passed yet another war landmark: the 500th amputee.

* Laura Rozen asks, "Just what is the Bush administration up to regarding Iran?" It's not entirely clear, which is perhaps what's most worrying.

* Gareth Porter wondered last week whether there was any evidence that Iran is supplying anti-coalition forces in Iraq with arms or IED components. Today, the LA Times follows up and answers Porter's query with a qualified "no."

* Go figure. Israel's illegal separation barrier/apartheid wall in the West Bank "is trapping 250,000 Palestinians in enclaves designed to protect Jewish settlers in the occupied territory," reports The Independent. This is according to a new report funded by the New Israel Fund and the British Embassy in Tel Aviv, which says that the "creation of the enclaves cutting Palestinian communities off from the rest of the West Bank 'almost totally ignores the daily needs of the Palestinian population' and is 'focused almost exclusively on the desire to maintain the fabric of life of Israeli settlers.'" See also: Amira Hass on "Life Under Prohibition in Palestine."

* Mission Accomplished. Again. Via Jim Lobe: "Despite two years of a concentrated effort by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her public diplomacy major-domo Karen Hughes to boost Washington's global image, more people around the world have an unfavorable opinion of U.S. policies than at any time in recent memory, according to a new BBC poll released Monday."

* "The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) may have effectively closed up shop two years ago and its key neoconservative allies in the administration, such as Scooter Libby and Douglas Feith, may be long gone, but the group's five-year-old Middle East strategy remains very much alive," Lobe reports in another piece.

* As Libby's trial starts, Jason Leopold -- yes, him -- revisits the "16 words in the SotU" controversy.

* Tom Engelhardt offers up "George Bush's Crusading Scorecard (2001-2007)."

* New Orleans is turning into half the city it once was, according to the NY Times.

* Dear lord. The Attorney General of the US doesn't even know that the Constitution grants the rights of habeas corpus. How fitting, for this administration.

* The Observer previews the release of the latest findings of the IPCC, "the most authoritative report yet produced on climate change."

* In a two-part TomDispatch piece, Michael Klare introduces us to the happy future of "energo-fascism."

* Don't you love it when "netrooters" fall over themselves trying discredit the efforts of those more radical than they, even amongst their predecessors? Yeah, me neither.

* Dean Baker: The Social Security WMD Story.

* Dinesh D'Souza is at it again. It also turns out that -- surprise! -- he's amply funded. Justice in the universe remains fickle, granted.

* Check out two interesting reviews of Tristram Stuart's new history of vegetarianism from the New Yorker and The Nation.