Purported bin Laden tape slams West for 'crusader-Zionist war'  —  (CNN) — Parts of an audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden aired Sunday on an Arabic-language TV network in which the al Qaeda leader attacks the West for cutting off funds to the Palestinian Hamas-led government and referred to a …

Treason by association  —  Almost every Bush follower screeching about the Mary McCarthy story thinks it is extremely significant that (a) she donated money to John Kerry's campaign; (b) Dana Priest's husband knows Joe Wilson, as does McCarthy herself; and (c) McCarthy has professional ties to Sandy Berger.

Iran's president recruits terror master  —  Sarah Baxter, Washington and Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv  —  Plot for revenge attacks on West  —  IRAN'S president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended a meeting in Syria earlier this year with one of the world's most wanted terrorists …

Can Josh Bolten Rescue the Bush Presidency?  —  He started by shaking up the staff.  Next comes a five-point White House "recovery plan"  —  At the George W. Bush campaign headquarters in Austin, Texas, in 1999, policy director Josh Bolten was a low-key Washingtonian in a building full of brash Texans.

Battling cancer — and Blue Cross  —  Unlike THE TYPICAL Blue Cross "valued member," as the annual letter on rate and benefit changes always calls us, I wasn't upset to learn that my monthly premium would increase by $50, to $395 a month, for me and my daughter.  —  That's because I'm not really a Blue Cross valued member.

A commemoration for the 70 000 that died under Chavez  —  Acuestate por la Vida,  —  commemorating the 70 000 deaths by violence in Venezuela in the last 6 years.  —  Since Hugo Chavez has become president in 1998, the toll of violent death from crime has been multiplied by three.

Is U.S. being transformed into a radical republic?  —  We Americans came not from a revolution but from an evolution.  —  That is in large part why our so-called revolution produced success while most throughout history did not.  We came as much from the Magna Carta as from our own doings …

Bush's third term  —  IF PRESIDENT BUSH HOPES the "shake-up" of his administration initiated last week will re-energize his listless presidency, he's bound to be disappointed.  A far more audacious makeover is needed — one that sends Vice President Dick Cheney into early retirement.

Nothing to fear but the climate change alarmists  —  Do you worry?  You look like you do.  Worrying is the way the responsible citizen of an advanced society demonstrates his virtue: He feels good by feeling bad.  —  But what to worry about?  Iranian nukes?

The Missing Girls of Iraq  —  Sex trafficking, virtually nonexistent under Saddam Hussein, has resurfaced in Iraq.  TIME reports on a seldom-discussed epidemic: girls being kidnapped and sold to brothels  —  The man on the phone with the 14-year-old Iraqi girl called himself Sa'ad.

The Three-Ring Circus Floats Some Trial Balloons  —  Shakes here...  Some Republicans are urging Bush to dump Cheney and replace him with Condi "if he is serious about presenting a new face to the jaded American public."  —  Well, that's certainly a big if, but okay, I'll play along.

'We would have been close even if 9/11 hadn't happened'  —  Tony Blair had just finished a video conference with George W. Bush when I arrived to meet him at Downing Street.  Their conversation, inevitably, had been mainly about Iraq.  "Every week, we have a video conference to catch up on things," he explained.

Honor in Discretion  —  Conduct unbecoming from retired generals.  —  One could say much to defend Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld against the recent attacks of half a dozen retired generals—that the indictments are either old ("not enough troops," a trope from April 2003) or vague …

Kerry Dismisses Idea Whites Run Nomination  —  WASHINGTON - Sen. John Kerry dismisses as "absolutely ridiculous" the notion that his support for Iowa and New Hampshire's prominent roles in the presidential nomination process means he thinks only the votes of white people count.