Surveillance and Betrayal Ended Hunt  —  BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 8 —Muhammad Ismael, a 40-year-old Iraqi taxi driver, was standing outside his home in the tiny village of Hibhib on Wednesday evening when something unusual caught his eye.  —  Three GMC trucks, each with blackened windows …

DeLay Pulls No Punches In Final Speech to House  —  Unrepentant, 'the Hammer' Urges GOP to Keep Up Fight  —  Former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said goodbye to Congress yesterday in typical fighting form, delivering a pugnacious defense of the iron-fisted partisanship that defined his decade in power.

G.O.P. Fails in Attempt to Repeal Estate Tax  —  WASHINGTON, June 8 — Senate Republicans failed on Thursday to muster the votes needed to abolish the estate tax on inherited wealth, but supporters of a compromise held out hope for a deal this year that could attract enough Democrats to pass.

Apologise or we'll cut your funding, US envoy tells UN  —  From James Bone in New York and Richard Beeston  —  AMERICA'S bitter dispute with the United Nations escalated last night when John Bolton, the US envoy to the UN, threatened to withhold funding to the organisation unless it apologised …

FDA Approves Vaccine That Should Prevent Most Cervical Cancers  —  In what officials called a major public health breakthrough, the Food and Drug Administration yesterday approved the first vaccine developed to protect women against cervical cancer.  —  The vaccine, which works by building immunity …

Israeli air strike kills Gaza security chief  —  Source: Reuters  —  GAZA, June 8 (Reuters) - A senior Palestinian security official in the Hamas government was killed on Thursday in an Israeli aerial attack on a militant camp in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses and medics said.

Rep. Tom DeLay Delivers His Farewell Address  —  SPEAKER: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TOM DELAY (R-TX)  —  DELAY: Mr. Speaker, political careers tend to end in one of three ways: defeat, death or retirement.  —  And despite the fervent and mostly noble exertions of my adversaries over the years …

Black Caucus opposes Jefferson treatment  —  WASHINGTON - A drive by the Democratic leadership to strip embattled Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record) of his committee post triggered a backlash Thursday as the Congressional Black Caucus opposed the move and said the Louisiana lawmaker deserves a "presumption of innocence."

GRADING ON A CURVE: A recent comment brought up the traditional criticism of grading on curves — what if 80% of a particular class did really well, and deserves As? what if 80% did badly, and deserves Fs? why not grade objectively rather than comparatively? — so I thought I'd repost my paean to curves from 2002.

Dog Feces Left at Congresswoman's Office  —  Republican U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave's re-election campaign was already heated, and it just got smelly as well: Her staff accused a Democratic activist Thursday of leaving an envelope full of dog feces at Musgrave's Greeley office.

Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites  —  "I AM continually shocked and appalled at the details people voluntarily post online about themselves."  So says Jon Callas, chief security officer at PGP, a Silicon Valley-based maker of encryption software.