Mosques torched after worst Iraq bombing  —  BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen bent on revenge burned mosques and homes in a Sunni enclave of Baghdad on Friday as Iraq's leaders pleaded for calm, a day after the worst bomb attack since the U.S. invasion.  —  Some 30 people were killed, police said …

Spy 'Poisoned By Radiation'  —  A large quantity of radiation, probably from a substance called Polonium 210, has been found in the body of dead ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.  —  The "major dose" of alpha radiation was detected in his urine, said Government experts, who added that Polonium 210 is only dangerous if ingested.

Briefly: Hamas cameraman killed by Israeli troops  —  Israeli troops killed a Hamas militant Friday who was filming the group's operations in Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said.  —  The governing Hamas movement often films its battles and operations against the Israeli Army …

Is the L.A. Times Repeating Enemy Propaganda?  Or Is There Another Reason The Paper Is Getting Basic Facts Wrong and Failing to Report the Military's Side?  —  Is the L.A. Times reporting unconfirmed enemy propaganda from an Iraqi stringer with ties to the insurgency?

The Politics of Murder  —  A disease is eating away at the Middle East.  It afflicts the Syrians, the Iraqis, the Lebanese, even the Israelis.  It is the idea that the only political determinant in the Arab world is raw force — the power of physical intimidation.  It is politics as assassination.

Man with submachine gun arrested after standoff at Miami Herald  —  A 3 ½-hour standoff at The Miami Herald building ended without violence this afternoon as Miami police officers arrested a man — dressed in camouflage and carrying a submachine gun — who barricaded himself in the office of the top editor of El Nuevo Herald.

An Electronic Canary  —  Americans can be grateful that Sarasota County is in Florida and not in Montana or Virginia.  —  There's nothing wrong with Sarasota, a lovely place.  But if the voting snafus in the contest for Florida's 13th District had hung up either of this year's two closest Senate races …

Islamic fears kill off children's thriller … A LEADING children's publisher has dumped a novel because of political sensitivity over Islamic issues.  —  Scholastic Australia pulled the plug on the Army of the Pure after booksellers and librarians said they would not stock the adventure thriller …

Despite a Year of Ire and Angst, Little Has Changed on Wiretaps  —  When President Bush went on national television one Saturday morning last December to acknowledge the existence of a secret wiretapping program outside the courts, the fallout was fierce and immediate.

I am slightly miffed  —  Originally uploaded by dynamist.  —  The kid in the picture above doesn't look very harmful, right?  He's reasonably well-dressed, anyway.  But actually, he is quite a large fellow, and likes to assault random women with the help of an equally vile friend of his.

The real Kramer: That's not me  —  NEW YORK - The first call came from the Midwest.  Before long, the phone was ringing, and ringing, and ringing again: Satellite radio.  Fox News.  Extra.  —  Yada, yada, yada.  —  For Kenny Kramer, role model for the "Seinfeld" character who shared his surname …

Tolls could cut congestion, test shows  —  For about eight months, drivers in 275 Seattle-area households agreed to pay for something the rest of us get for free: The right to drive on the region's freeways and streets.  —  They were guinea pigs in a pioneering study that explored …

Just an Anti-Semitic Laugh?  Hardly.  —  "Borat" is many things: a sidesplitting triumph of slapstick and scatology, a runaway moneymaker and budding franchise, the worst thing to happen to Kazakhstan since the Mongol hordes, and, as columnist David Brooks astutely points out …