Israel Denies Planning Iran Nuke Attack  —  LONDON (AP) — A British newspaper reported Sunday that Israel has drafted plans to strike as many as three targets in Iran with low-yield nuclear weapons, aiming to halt Tehran's uranium enrichment program.  The Israeli Foreign Ministry denied the report.

Gore bars press from talk  —  Former VP will meet with students but not media  —  Reporters and TV news cameras will be banned from almost all of former Vice President Al Gore's appearance Jan. 23 in Sioux Falls.  —  Gore is the Boe Forum speaker at Augustana College and plans a talk called …

Pelosi: Congress Will Not Fund Escalation If Bush Does Not Justify It  —  This morning on CBS's Face the Nation, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced that Congress may refuse to authorize funding for an escalation of U.S. forces to Iraq if President Bush cannot justify the strategy.

Sen. Lieberman Goes His Independent Way  —  He Calls for 'Substantial' Troop Increase in Iraq  —  Standing under the grand dome of the Library of Congress on Friday, the three top Senate Democrats bitterly condemned sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, as President Bush is now considering.

Future of Iraq: The spoils of war  —  How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches  —  Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The Invasion of the Alpha Male Democrat  —  NANCY PELOSI'S carefully crafted introduction to the American people last week seemed to reinforce some stereotypes of the so-called mommy party.  On the day she made history as the first woman to be elected speaker, she appeared on the House floor …

Dems prepare slew of oversight hearings  —  WASHINGTON - In this new era of divided government, the congressional hearing room is where the executive and legislative branches will clash.  —  Over the next few weeks, Senate Democrats plan to hold at least 11 hearings just on Iraq.

Iraq Will Be Petraeus's Knot to Untie  —  General Known to See Peace as Still Possible  —  Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who is President Bush's choice to become the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, posed a riddle during the initial march to Baghdad four years ago that now becomes his own conundrum to solve: "Tell me how this ends."

Critics Say 'Surge' Is More of The Same  —  Past Troop Buildups Have Not Quelled Iraq  —  President Bush is putting the final touches on his new Iraq policy amid growing skepticism inside and outside the administration that the emerging package of extra troops, economic assistance …

Spurious Rumor Alert  —  Is John D. Negroponte's selection as deputy secretary of state a stepping stone to taking over from Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state?  —  Will Condi then replace the ailing Dick Cheney as vice president?  —  It's sure fun to speculate, isn't it?

Justices Continue Trend of Hearing Fewer Cases  —  Only a handful of decisions each year define the Supreme Court for the American public, and that might be especially appropriate this year.  —  After decades of decline in its caseload, the court is once again on track to take its fewest number of cases in modern history.

Catholic Collaborator Resigns As Archbishop At Installation Mass  —  Stanislaw Wielgus had planned to take office today as the new Archbishop of Warsaw, replacing the legendary Jozef Glemp.  Instead, he transformed his installation Mass into a resignation ceremony after evidence arose …

Secular fundamentalists are the new totalitarians  —  Militant secularists like Richard Dawkins are taking their revenge on us believers for refusing to stay in the closet  —  There's an aspiring totalitarianism in Britain which is brilliantly disguised.  It's disguised because the would-be dictators …

NOT JUST ANY IDIOT  —  Last night, John reported that "some idiot hacked into our server and briefly disrupted the site."  He promised to "make every effort to see that [the hacker] is criminally prosecuted."  —  It turns out that this was an inside job and that I was the idiot hacker.