In Kabul, it's a very early Fourth of July No members of the media were invited - in fact, any reporters there that day were escorted out before the assorted dignitaries and other invitees were to arrive. Loop Fans may recall that the embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, celebrated the Fourth - which it calls "National Day" - in early March. The reason for that, we understood, is because Riyadh is perhaps the hottest capital in the world, with daytime temps in July averaging 110 degrees and the record high close to 120 degrees. The highs in March average 30 degrees cooler. But that can't be the reason in Kabul, where July's average high temperature, in the low 90s, isn't much different from here. Or maybe there were security concerns? Meanwhile, we've gotten word that the military has decided to ban Afghan employees from the sprawling Bagram air base outside Kabul on the Fourth. But Afghan employees run the mess hall. So it's going to be MRE's (meals ready-to-eat) for the holiday? Blinded by the light Secretary of State John F. Kerry was trying to conduct some non-Asia business Tuesday at a regional security conference in Brunei. When the dour Lavrov arrived, the media scrambled inside the room for a "photo spray," the traditional, brief grip-and-grin for the cameras, before being hustled out. "Don't shout at me, please," Lavrov muttered before the press was hustled out and the door closed. "I missed my lunch and I have a meeting to attend," he said, and then: "Turn off that light, you're blinding me." A Stetson in Paris? Increasing chatter that IBM heiress and philanthropist Jane Stetson , former Democratic National Committee national finance chair and mega-bundler for President Obama, is a strong candidate to be the next ambassador to France. Stetson is the granddaughter of Thomas J. Watson, founder of International Business Machines (IBM), and daughter of Arthur K. Watson, who was ambassador to France in the early "70s. She's fluent in French and has studied at the Sorbonne and the American College in Paris. Stetson raised $2.4 million for Obama and the DNC for the 2012 campaign, and her bundling since 2007 totals just under $4 million, according to an analysis in the New York Times. And that may be lowballing the totals and failing to include personal contributions. Billionaire hedge fund head and major bundler Marc Lasry had been the White House's first pick for the job - although he was never officially nominated - but he withdrew two months ago amid news reports that he played poker in an alleged Russian mob-run ring that was laundering money through a Carlyle hotel art gallery. "It's not that he's committed a crime," a source told the New York Post at the time, "but it opens a can of worms" in terms of getting the nomination confirmed. Meanwhile, we're hearing that the White House is thinking about renominating Washington lawyer and major Obama campaign bundler Timothy Broas to be ambassador to the Netherlands. The White House withdrew the nomination in June 2012, 10 days after Broas was charged with speeding, drunken driving and resisting arrest near his home in Chevy Chase. He was going 47 mph in a 35 mph zone in that infamous radar zone on Connecticut Avenue just north of Chevy Chase Circle. The latter two charges were dropped shortly after the arrest. With Emily Heil The blog: washingtonpost.com/ intheloop. Twitter: @InTheLoopWP.