HILL JABS AT JOHN  —  TAKES HER FIRST SHOT VS. AN '08 PREZ FOE  —  Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton last night ripped into 2008 White House contender John Edwards - her first direct assault on any of her potential Democratic presidential rivals.  —  Clinton's surprising broadside came just hours after Edwards …

UAE beats Americans' environmental harm  —  DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - When it comes to squandering the earth's natural resources, residents of this desert land of chilled swimming pools, monster 4x4s and air-conditioned malls are on a par with even the ravenous consumption of Americans, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?  —  (CBS) On Jan. 12, 2007, two days after President George W. Bush told the country that he would send 21,000 more troops into Iraq, the president sat down with 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley for a candid conversation.  The two met in Camp David's Laurel Cabin …

Iran target of US Gulf military moves, Gates says  —  Mark Tran and agencies  —  Increased US military activity in the Gulf is aimed at Iran's "very negative" behaviour, the Bush administration said today.  —  The defence secretary, Robert Gates, told reporters that the decision to deploy …

Allard: No third term  —  WASHINGTON — Sen. Wayne Allard said today he will honor his term-limits pledge and leave at the end of 2008, creating a replacement fight that should turn Colorado into one of the country's biggest electoral battlegrounds.  —  "I just didn't think I could back away from the (term limits) commitment.

Hussein's half-brother decapitated during hanging … BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Iraq hanged two of Saddam Hussein's aides early Monday, and one of the men was decapitated in the process.  —  The official video of the hangings showed Hussein's half-brother lying headless below the gallows …

Despite Lessons on King, Some Unaware of His Dream  —  In a recent survey of college students on U.S. civic literacy, more than 81 percent knew that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was expressing hope for "racial justice and brotherhood" in his historic "I Have a Dream" speech.  —  That's the good news.

KSFO: not helping matters one bit  —  KSFO, San Francisco's conservative talk-radio station, is being hounded by left-wing bloggers.  Now, most of what KSFO does is just your regular conservative talk radio, with Dr. Laura and Rush Limbaugh.  A lot of my friends in earshot of their station consider …

IRAQ: WHY THE MEDIA MISSTEP  —  JUST outside Um al-Qasar, a port in south east Iraq, a crowd had gathered around a British armored car with a crew of four.  An argument seemed to be heating up through an interpreter.  —  The interpreter told the Brits that the crowd was angry and wanted U.K. forces out of Iraq.

France and UK considered 1950s 'merger'  —  Staff and agencies  —  Britain and France talked about a "union" in the 1950s, even discussing the possibility of the Queen becoming the French head of state, it was reported today.  —  On September 10 1956, Guy Mollet, the then French prime minister …

How Australia confronts militant Islam  —  A nation's blunt refusal to back down to terror  —  Australians are sometimes accused of being direct, even blunt.  But this way of going about things seems to have worked well enough when dealing with the threat of radical Islamism Down Under.

Bush: It's all 'unacceptable'  —  In six years in office, President Bush has found a lot of things to be unacceptable - most recently, the situation in Iraq.  Sometimes the president has accepted responsibility for the situation, as he has in Iraq, and sometimes he has attempted to hold others accountable for all that is unacceptable.

from the protein wisdom archives: "There's no such thing as race (and it's a good thing, too)" (UPDATED)  —  I like to trot out this old essay for MLK day, because it affords me the opportunity to take the race / "diversity" industry—whatever its intentions, be they altruistic or self-serving …

Romney, McCain Tout New Backers  —  In the escalating behind-the-scenes battle between Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), both men scored coups of a sort over the weekend.  —  Romney has landed Vin Weber, a former Minnesota Republican Congressman …

Sandy Berger: What Did He Take and Why Did He Take It?  —  Some things cry out for explanation.  Like finding $90,000 in marked bills in a Congressman's freezer.  Or finding out that a blue-chip lawyer who held one of the most important jobs in the nation was willing to risk his career …