From the Guardian in London: Concern about a US-British attack on Iran is growing in the United Nation. The Guardian says Mohamed ElBaradei, the UN's chief nuclear-weapons inspector, and others are "attempting to slow down what seemed to be an accelerating march to war."

"He is really alarmed," a UN official said of ElBaradei. "He sees this thing going out of control. The feeling around here is that this looks like the run-up to the Iraq war."

Television ads have been used to sell everything from toothpaste to burgers. And while the public sneers at them, there's little doubt that they work.

But this year we're seeing an advertising first.

TV ads are being used to promote the war in Iraq.

A series of emotionally charged ads have been running on Fox News and CNN, using wounded Iraq War veterans and the families of soldiers killed in action. The goal: to prolong the war.

In one, a veteran says he re-enlisted after 9/11 because "he didn't want his son to see what he saw" and because terrorists "won't stay in Iraq." In another, a widow says her children will remember their father because he protected them from harm. Giving up now, she says, would be a waste.

The $15 million ad campaign is funded by Freedom's Watch, a political marketing group co-founded by Ari Fleischer, press secretary in President Bush's first term.

Concerns over political advertising are nothing new. The Swift Boat ads are often credited with helping Bush win the 2004 presidential election by discrediting John Kerry's service in Vietnam.

Still, an ad in favor of war raises the stakes. This isn't Coke vs. Pepsi, but the issue has been reduced to that level of consumerism.

It makes you long for the days of Clara Peller, the feisty senior in the Wendy's ad who demanded: "Where's the beef?" Maybe if Clara had marched up to the White House and asked "Where are the WMD's?" she'd have saved us all a lot of sorrow.

In The American Prospect's October issue, Paul Starr's "The Hillarycare Mythology," a refresher course in what the Clinton administration's health-care proposal was - and what it wasn't. Media coverage continues to be full of errors, Starr says.

Our staff is still analyzing Maggie Brooks' sales-tax plan, but it's easy to draw one conclusion:

There's no excuse for the Brooks' administration's secrecy and ramrodding.

Yes, we've all known that Brooks wanted to buy into the state's "intercept" plan. But until 5 o'clock yesterday, she hadn't said how she would do that and continue to share the sales tax with the city, towns, and villages. Nor had there been a hint that the county would start charging municipalities the costs of their Monroe Community College students - something that deserves a full, thoughtful airing.

Announcing a far-reaching plan at 5 and scheduling a 6 o'clock meeting to vote on it? That's not democracy. Nor is holding a meeting in Republican headquarters to explain the plan and inviting only Republican town supervisors.

Brooks didn't have to do it this way. And no town supervisor should have gone along with it.