Burning Allies — and Ourselves  —  DUBAI — Officials here heard late Thursday that Karl Rove had decided to pull the plug.  President Bush's political adviser was said to have conveyed to a top manager of Dubai Ports World in Washington that the White House couldn't hold out any longer …

Bush's Approval Rating Falls to New Low  —  WASHINGTON - More and more people, particularly Republicans, disapprove of President Bush's performance, question his character and no longer consider him a strong leader against terrorism, according to an AP-Ipsos poll documenting one of the bleakest points of his presidency.

Gale Norton to resign from Cabinet  —  Washington - Gale Norton is announcing her resignation today after serving more than five years as secretary of the Interior and overseeing a dramatic expansion of drilling, logging and development on the public lands of the West.

Retired Supreme Court Justice hits attacks on courts and warns of dictatorship  —  RAW STORY  —  Via NPR.  Rush transcript by RAW STORY.  Listen to the audio report here.  —  Supreme Court justices keep many opinions private but Sandra Day O'Connor no longer faces that obligation.

The Kurd Card  —  Lost amid the news of all the bloodletting in Iraq is an important political development: The Kurds have switched sides.  In the first parliament after the first set of elections, they allied themselves with the Shiite slate to produce the current Shiite-dominated government led by Ibrahim al-Jafari.

Elizabeth Dole is a racist  —  Check out FancyFord.com, a racist attack site created by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to oppose Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., who's running for Senate in Tennessee.  —  What's the message behind this site?  The line of white women on the front page …

ROOTS PROJECT: Pennsylvania  —  (Last updated: Friday March 10 @ 11:30 am Penna. time)  —  The Roots Project  —  The Roots Project is a coordinated effort by national and local bloggers to develop the netroots in each state, and convert them into what I call "netboots" …

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: FEBRUARY 2006  —  Nonfarm payroll employment grew by 243,000 in February, and the unemploy-  —  ment rate was little changed at 4.8 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics  —  of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today.  Job gains occurred in con-

The New Protectionists  —  How to create a real security crisis.  —  Dubai Ports World finally threw in the kaffiyah on its American operations yesterday, agreeing to sell them "to a U.S. entity."  We hope that entity turns out to be Halliburton, if only for the torment that would cause certain eminences on Capitol Hill.

Pentagon admits errors in spying on protesters  —  NBC: Official says peaceful demonstrators' names erased from database  —  The Department of Defense admitted in a letter obtained by NBC News on Thursday that it had wrongly added peaceful demonstrators to a database of possible domestic terrorist threats.

Racially charged e-mail stirs outrage  —  Rep. Welker cites his 'poor judgment' in forwarding essay  —  A Loveland lawmaker has been blasted by his colleagues for e-mailing an essay written by someone else that accused "welfare-pampered blacks" of waiting for the government to save them from Hurricane Katrina.

UPDATE #3: Pulitzer Finalists—Here's Likely List  —  NEW YORK With leaks pouring in, all confirmed by two or more sources, E&P presents below a list of alleged/likely finalists for this year's Pulitzer prizes in journalism.  Those apparently doing very well with multiple nods include The Washington Post …