Poison plotters claim their second victim  —  Police fear that the murder of a former Kremlin spy may have been part of a double killing plot after a second man was taken to hospital last night with radiation poisoning.  —  The Anti-Terror Group is examining whether the killers …

Tancredo protesters turn violent  —  Violence erupted at a Michigan law school Thursday when protestors tried to block a speech by Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo.  —  Police were called after protestors pulled a fire alarm prior to the speech on immigration policies.

Saudi-Iranian rift?  —  Did anybody really need a leaked memo from the National Security Agency to figure out that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is incapable of stopping the carnage in Iraq?  Given that his political power depends on factions allied with Shi'ite militias behind much of the carnage …

THE FAKING IMAMS — Pajamas Media Exclusive: Police Report, Passenger Reveals That Flying Imams Were Up to No Good  —  THE FAKING IMAMS — PAJAMAS MEDIA EXCLUSIVE: POLICE REPORT, PASSENGER REVEALS THAT FLYING IMAMS WERE UP TO NO GOOD  —  The Now Notorious Flying Imams Claim Their Only Crime Was …

Education and Entrepreneurship  —  "...we need a completely new stream of teachers to staff a new vision of what our high schools should look like."  — Carl J. Schramm, The Entrepreneurial Imperative, p. 181  —  I have been losing interest in the contests between Democrats and Republicans in Washington.

Hezbollah Sets Up a Very Atypical Tent City  —  This is definitely not your typical tent city!  —  No freedom songs... No all night poetry... No hot democracy babes hanging out late...  Just thugs in a tent.  —  Hezbollah thugs are now blocking the roads to government offices where the Lebanese leaders are holed up.

The Tom Friedman disease consumes Establishment Washington  —  (updated below)  —  Someone e-mailed me several days ago to say that while it is fruitful and necessary to chronicle the dishonest historical record of pundits and political figures when it comes to Iraq, I deserve to be chastised …

GOP strategists: Impact of Romney's Mormonism exaggerated  —  WASHINGTON - The Mormon problem for Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's expected presidential run has been overblown, a panel of Republican strategists said Thursday.  —  "The Mormon issue is way overstated," said Mark McKinnon …

Phoenix Airport to Test X-Ray Screening  —  PHOENIX (AP) - Sky Harbor International Airport here will test a new federal screening system that takes X-rays of passenger's bodies to detect concealed explosives and other weapons.  —  The technology, called backscatter, has been around …

Al Sharpton's Strong Suit Is Making a Statement  —  On Monday morning, Al Sharpton was photographed alongside Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly during a news conference at New York's City Hall.  The tableau of men and women — almost all in dark suits …

US markets must 'learn from London'  —  A new report highlights the reasons for the US financial markets' declining influence, but does the new Congress have the will to reform Sarbanes-Oxley?  —  Tumbleweeds are not yet blowing through Manhattan's vacant streets, but if New York is to hold onto …

Cheating on an Ethics Test?  It's 'Topic A' at Columbia  —  Cheating is not unheard of on university campuses.  But cheating on an open-book, take-home exam in a pass-fail course seems odd, and all the more so in a course about ethics.  —  Yet Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism …

Corruption: the 'second insurgency' costing $4bn a year  —  One third of rebuilding contracts under criminal investigation  —  The Iraqi government is in danger of being brought down by the wholesale smuggling of the nation's oil and other forms of corruption that together represent a …

The 10 Best Books of 2006  —  FICTION  —  Shteyngart's scruffy, exuberant second novel, equal parts Gogol and Borat, is immodest on every level - it's long, crude, manic and has cheap vodka on its breath.  It also happens to be smart, funny and, in the end, extraordinarily rich and moving.

Apocalypse on the US blogosphere  —  There is a world, increasingly driven by unreason, in which voices in the wilderness denounce each other as 'traitors', cry out that 'all I want is no more Islam near me', or allege that Prince Charles is 'waiting in the wings to declare the UK a Muslim country the minute QEII dies'.