Scalia just gave the finger in church yesterday (not kidding)  —  UPDATE: The Boston Herald is reporting Scalia's movement as "an obscene gesture" and a "flick of the wrist."  That still is unclear, it could have been the wrist-under-chin gesture mixed with the middle finger.  Either way, it's not really relevant.

On Stand, Moussaoui Says He Knew of Plan to Attack W.T.C.  —  ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified Monday that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House.

WELCOME TO RECONQUISTA  —  ***scroll for updates...Bush warns against stoking anti-immigrant feelings.  Wants a "civil debate."  Video here...Ok.  Tell that to the divisive militants below...***  —  As Mickey Kaus points out, the reporters at the Los Angeles Times (and all other major media …

Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says  —  LONDON — In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.

AP's Mainscream Media Bias  —  Although this AP story is ostensibly about Iraq, we didn't bother using the "Iraq Matters" category tag because — well, because the real story here is the creative use of the media megaphone to create the news, rather than merely report it (that's so dull!)

Rove said cooperating in CIA leak inquiry  —  Karl Rove, Deputy White House Chief of Staff and special adviser to President George W. Bush, has recently been providing information to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the ongoing CIA leak investigation, sources close to the investigation say.

FEC Won't Regulate Internet Politics  —  The Federal Election Commission decided Monday that the nation's new campaign finance law will not apply to most political activity on the Internet.  —  In a 6-0 vote, the commission decided to regulate only paid political ads placed on another person's Web site.

Mr. Levin, Meet Ms. Rohbar  —  If Yale's president wants to educate a deserving Afghan, I've got just the woman for him.  —  NEW HAVEN, Conn.—The BBC calls Malalai Joya the most famous woman in Afghanistan.  On Thursday the 27-year-old women's rights activist, a member of the Afghan Parliament …

In Iran, Even Some On Right Warning Against Extremes  —  TEHRAN — Nine months after the election of hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president, Iranian politics has shifted so sharply to the right that some traditional conservatives are warning of the dangers of radicalism.

The Battle of the Borders  —  What we have now — and would with guest workers — is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico.  By and large, this is a bad bargain for the United States.  It stresses local schools, hospitals and housing; it feeds social tensions (witness the Minutemen).

Today Tehran, Tomorrow the World  —  What's at stake in the dispute over Iranian nukes?  Ultimately, human survival  —  Like many physicists who worked on the Manhattan Project, Richard Feynman could not get the Bomb out of his mind after the war.  "I would see people building a bridge," he wrote.

In an Election Year, a Shift in Public Opinion on the War  —  ALBUQUERQUE, March 25 — Neil Mondragon watched with approval at an auto repair shop recently as Representative Heather A. Wilson, a New Mexico Republican visiting her district, dropped into the pit and drained the oil from a car.

On Iraq, Pointed Questions With an Edge  —  Have the media declared war on the war?  —  In increasingly aggressive questions to President Bush and Vice President Cheney, in a growing focus on the death toll in Iraq, in downbeat assessments on the invasion's third anniversary …