Redacted Version of Original Op-Ed  —  The Iraq Study Group has added its voice to a burgeoning chorus of commentators, politicians, and former officials calling for a limited, tactical dialogue with Iran regarding Iraq.  The Bush administration has indicated a conditional willingness to pursue …

Media-Sourcing Debate on Deck at Capitol  —  Congress Is Likely to Revisit  —  Calls for Federal Shield Law  —  As Baseball Case Culminates  —  WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is increasingly at odds with some Republicans over its efforts to make journalists reveal confidential sources.

Marines Charge 4 With Murder of Iraq Civilians  —  By PAUL von ZIELBAUER and CAROLYN MARSHALL  —  Four marines were charged yesterday with murder in the killings of two dozen Iraqi civilians, including at least 10 women and children, in the village of Haditha last year, military officials said at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

On Snowe-Landrieu Bipartisan Initiative: Kiss My Democratic Ass  —  Nausea alert: Do not read this on a full stomach if you're a Progressive, who has had it up to your eyeballs with some elected Democrats regularly accepting prison shower-room, Ned-Beatty-in-'Deliverance' treatment from Republicans …

Study Suggests Incentives on Oil Barely Help U.S.  —  The United States offers some of the most lucrative incentives in the world to companies that drill for oil in publicly owned coastal waters, but a newly released study suggests that the government is getting very little for its money.

Issue Advocacy Ads May Run During an Election, Three-Judge Court Rules  —  A divided three-judge court ruled yesterday that ads advocating for an issue and mentioning candidates can run during an election, creating a loophole in the law that sought to control the power of big money in elections.

Hamsters Return to Nature in Eastern Germany  —  Germany, warned five years ago by the European Union to revive its field hamster population, has brought a French pair of the rodents to get busy in a hamster-decmiated eastern state.  —  This week, officials cleared the final bureaucratic hurdles …

Report Says TSA Violated Privacy Law  —  Passengers Weren't Told That Brokers Provided Data to Screening Program in '04  —  Secure Flight, the U.S. government's stalled program to screen domestic air passengers against terrorism watch lists, violated federal law during a crucial test phase …

SHOCK TALK: AWFUL & OUT  —  MAG LASTS ONLY 8 ISSUES  —  SHOCKING news - Shock is dead.  —  Hachette Filipacchi Media CEO Jack Kliger pulled the plug on the controversial picture magazine Shock yesterday after only eight issues.  Eight people including Editor-in-Chief Mike Hammer were handed their walking papers.

PATH Tunnels Seen as Fragile in Bomb Attack  —  An analysis done for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says that the PATH train tunnels under the Hudson River are more vulnerable to a bomb attack than previously thought, and that a relatively small amount of high explosives …

Eyeing '08, Democrats Nurse Freshmen at Risk  —  When newly elected Democratic members of Congress showed up here last month, they were taken on the traditional round of orientation, civic-minded lessons on how Congress works, tours of the Capitol and receptions with their new colleagues and leaders.

VA boss likes draft - till White House blows it off  —  BY LISA COLANGELO in New York and RICHARD SISK in Washington  —  Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson gave qualified support yesterday to renewing the draft - a suggestion that rattled the White House.

Robin Hayes says we will win in Iraq by "spreading the message of Jesus Christ" there.  —  Robin Hayes has the solution to the Iraq war: have our soldiers convert all Muslims to Christianity.  —  Having won the election by only a hair's width and almost getting himself kicked out of Congress seems …

Polls for the Republican Nomination  —  Pollster.com has an interesting summary of the poll standings for the Republican nomination in 2008.  It makes the point, largely overlooked by political writers of all stripes, that Rudy Giuliani has been leading John McCain in the large majority of polls, albeit usually by narrow margins.

Iran "Votes"  —  The first step toward understanding the Iranian "elections" is that they weren't.  Elections, that is, at least in our common understanding of the term, namely the people vote and the counters count those votes and so we find out what the people want.

The Wag Time Pet Spa Conspiracy... And a Cancer Survivor's Right to Respect  —  As an investigative reporter and independent journalist, I have pursued a career course of independence so as to not be beholden to anyone.  A grandiose notion, perhaps, and I will perhaps leave it to others to judge my work against the ideal.