Dallas Protest AAR: No pics, I'm afraid, since the prostestors smashed my camera.  —  I decided last night to sleep on it before writing this.  If I had written about yesterday last night, my post would have been filled with epithets and not very coherent.  —  My camera is now scattered bits …

France to replace youth job law  —  French President Jacques Chirac has announced that the new youth employment law that sparked weeks of sometimes violent protests will be scrapped.  —  He said it would be replaced by other measures to tackle youth unemployment.

THREE YEARS LATER: IT'S STILL NEWS!  —  Today's New York Times page-one, joint-byline story by David Sanger and David Johnston is "Bush ordered declassification, official says."  The story of course refers to the declassification and release of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimage consensus "key judgments" in July 2003.

Goldilocks and Iran  —  I've been stewing over two articles this weekend that purport to be about U.S. government planning for a potential war with Iran, one a front page article in this newspaper yesterday and the other a long New Yorker piece by Seymour Hersh.

Bush's Job Approval Rating Continues to Swoon  —  Forty-Seven Percent of Americans 'Strongly' Disapprove of Handling of the Presidency  —  Political reversals at home and continued bad news from Iraq have dragged President Bush's standing with the public to a new low and boosted Democratic chances …

Army surpassing year's retention goal by 15%  —  WASHINGTON — Two of every three eligible soldiers continue to re-enlist, putting the Army, which has endured most of the fighting in Iraq, ahead of its annual goal.  —  The Army was 15% ahead of its re-enlistment goal of 34,668 …

DeLay looks to worthy successor  —  Departing Rep. Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, says any of three colleagues could some day assume his role as leader of conservatives in the House.  —  Asked who might be the House's "next Tom DeLay," the former majority leader, once considered …

CEO pay soars in 2005 as a select group break the $100 million mark  —  Even after a decade of sharply rising CEO pay, 2005 proved a watershed for a select group of executives.  Their paydays — or potential paydays — broke $100 million.  —  Led by Capital One Financial's Richard Fairbank …

Behind Gossip, There's Often a Relationship  —  Jared Paul Stern has been in New York newspapers for 12 years, most of them working for Richard Johnson, the editor of the Page Six gossip column at The New York Post.  While Mr. Johnson has never been accused of anything like trying to shake …

Democracy in the Arab World, a U.S. Goal, Falters  —  DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, April 9 — Steps toward democracy in the Arab world, a crucial American goal that just months ago was cause for optimism — with elections held in Iraq, Egypt and the Palestinian areas — are slowing …

Christian Coalition Shrinks as Debt Grows  —  In an era when conservative Christians enjoy access and influence throughout the federal government, the organization that fueled their rise has fallen on hard times.  —  The once-mighty Christian Coalition, founded 17 years ago by the Rev. Pat Robertson …

Real Or Fake? … Thanks to digital technology, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the most photographed in history.  Photographers with digital cameras have provided, almost instantaneously, an enormous flood of accurate, dramatic, and even shocking images to people around the world.

Christians Sue for Right Not to Tolerate Policies  —  Many codes intended to protect gays from harassment are illegal, conservatives argue.  —  ATLANTA — Ruth Malhotra went to court last month for the right to be intolerant.  —  Malhotra says her Christian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality.

There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998  —  For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem.  In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco.

Balkin on Wills on JC  —  An interesting post by Jack Balkin today, itself referring to an op-ed by Garry Wills in the New York Times.  Wills argues against the institutionalization of Jesus in politics — against the tendency to recruit him as "a campaign aide."

For McCain and the Press, the End of the Affair?  —  John McCain was expecting journalists to start slapping him around, and he hasn't been disappointed.  —  As he gears up for a likely presidential campaign, the Arizona senator knows that reporters and columnists — whom he jokingly described last year as …