Moves Signal Tighter Secrecy Within C.I.A.  —  WASHINGTON, April 23 — The crackdown on leaks at the Central Intelligence Agency that led to the dismissal of a veteran intelligence officer last week included a highly unusual polygraph examination for the agency's independent watchdog …

Bin Laden Tape: U.S. Is at War With Islam  —  CAIRO, Egypt — Usama bin Laden issued new threats in an audiotape broadcast on Arab television Sunday and accused the United States and Europe of supporting a "Zionist" war on Islam by cutting off funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian government.

Been there, done that  —  Talk of a U.S. strike on Iran is eerily reminiscent of the run-up to the Iraq war.  —  IRAN'S ANNOUNCEMENT that it has enriched a minute amount of uranium has unleashed urgent calls for a preventive U.S. airstrike from the same sources that earlier urged war on Iraq.

As schools struggle, ends don't always meet  —  Rich districts do fundraisers, poor districts do without  —  Parents resort to fundraisers to boost teacher salaries, buy library books and even replace classroom doors.  —  Bond elections once reserved for new schools or fancy stadiums …

Bush's Thousand Days  —  The Hundred Days is indelibly associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Thousand Days with John F. Kennedy.  But as of this week, a thousand days remain of President Bush's last term — days filled with ominous preparations for and dark rumors of a preventive war against Iran.

Inspectors Find More Torture at Iraqi Jails  —  Top General's Pledge To Protect Prisoners 'Not Being Followed'  —  BAGHDAD — Last Nov. 13, U.S. soldiers found 173 incarcerated men, some of them emaciated and showing signs of torture, in a secret bunker in an Interior Ministry compound in central Baghdad.

The Raging RINO's Are HERE!  —  *** last minute submissions coming in at the end (OK, I posted early, not their fault!)  Yep, my turn to host those rampaging RINOs (and man, do they leave a mess on the carpet).  So, without further delay, here are your RINOs with this weeks Raging topics (in the order I received them).

President Lincoln 'Lied' Us Into War Too  —  The President "lied" us into war.  Much of the pre-war intelligence was wrong.  The civilian defense chief was detested as "brusque, domineering and unbearably unpleasant to work with."  Civil liberties were abridged.

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 …

60 Minutes: CIA Official Reveals Bush, Cheney, Rice Were Personally Told Iraq Had No WMD in Fall 2002  —  Tonight on 60 Minutes, CIA analyst Tyler Drumheller revealed that in the fall of 2002, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others …

"No Poop to Scoop...What Will We Do?"  —  Globalization has its downside.  There is nothing that humans do (or don't do) that doesn't have a downside.  But I often find myself amused by how people misidentify precisely which parts of the process it might be that are so awful.

Fatah, Hamas Gunmen Clash in Gaza  —  GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Violent clashes and mass protests erupted Saturday across the West Bank and Gaza Strip between followers of the militant group Hamas and Fatah rivals, after a Hamas leader accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of treachery.

'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.