Bush press conference at 10:30 a.m.

Your President is heading out on vacation. But before Bush leaves for a month, he's going to do a press conference so you all know how hard he's working. Just one more chance to lie to the American people -- and one more chance for the White House press corps to regurgitate the lies:

President Bush, clearing the decks before his August vacation, called a news conference for Thursday.

The president was expected to face questions about the war in Iraq, now in its fifth year, political unrest in nuclear-armed Pakistan, an ally in the war on terrorism, and the deteriorating state of bridges in the United States, dramatized by last week's collapse of the span over the Mississippi River at Minneapolis.

The midmorning session was Bush's first full news conference since July 12 when he inaugurated the newly refurbished White House briefing room. Since then, he has had brief question-and-answer sessions with Britain's new prime minister, Gordon Brown, and Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai.

Big news from CNN's Ed Henry is that Bush has his own new podium in the press briefing room. Yep, Bush won't use the same podium that Tony Snow and Dana Perino use. Wow...

I'll live blog the press conference.