The Right's Second Look At McCain  —  With his non-announcement announcement of candidacy on Letterman Wednesday night, John McCain's getting some fresh media attention today, most notably Peggy Noonan's typically frothy take in the (subscription-only) Wall Street Journal.

Army Secretary Resigns in Scandal's Wake  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey abruptly stepped down Friday as the Bush administration struggled to cope with the fallout from a scandal over substandard conditions for wounded Iraq soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

YouTube Oppo Of The Day  —  1. Sen. Barack Obama, speaking in a fairly impoverished Cleveland, saying he wants "everybody here to pony up five dollars, ten dollars for this campaign.  I don't care how poor you are, you've got five dollars."  —  2. An anti-Giuliani video, just in time for CPAC.

Why We Don't Have National Health Insurance  —  A long time I read an article which classified the health care funding systems of countries into three types: socialized medicine (with overtones of Stalinism and stinking waiting-rooms and lines which never move), the system initiated by Bismarck in Germany …

Reading Hillary Rodham's hidden thesis  —  Clinton White House asked Wellesley College to close off access  —  Hillary Rodham, in a 1965 freshman photo when she was president of Wellesley College's Young Republicans, with the cover page of her senior thesis from 1969 on radical organizer Saul D. Alinsky.

Plame film in works at Warner Bros.  —  Studio sets movie about CIA leak scandal  —  Warner Bros. is developing a feature on the lives of Valerie Plame and Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the married couple drawn into a D.C. firestorm.  —  Plame's status as a CIA agent was revealed …

A new twist to an intriguing family history … WASHINGTON // Many people know that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas.  —  But an intriguing sliver of his family history has received almost no attention until now …

Rice Names Critic Of Iraq Policy to Counselor's Post  —  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has tapped Eliot A. Cohen, a prominent writer on national security strategy and an outspoken critic of the administration's postwar occupation of Iraq, as her counselor, State Department officials said yesterday.

Honey, I'm Dead!  —  HOW GOD REWARDS A FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBER.  —  A female suicide bomber detonated a vest filled with explosives at a university in Baghdad Sunday, killing more than 40 people.  If male martyrs can expect to find 72 virgin maidens in paradise when they die, what rewards can female suicide bombers expect?

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Speaks  —  Justice Thomas talks about the lasting influence of the man who guided him through his years at Holy Cross and why he's not a beneficiary of affirmative action  —  Of all the influences in the life of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas …

Wilkes' prosecutor seeks limits on intelligence secrets  —  Concern is damage to national security  —  DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO - Prosecutors in the corruption case against Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes and former CIA official Kyle "Dusty" Foggo asked a judge yesterday to limit dissemination …

When Dick Cheney Talks, Pakistan Listens  —  Brian Ross and Habibullah Khan Report:  —  Pakistan intelligence sources say a second high-ranking Taliban leader has been taken into custody, as the country appeared to be responding to Vice President Dick Cheney's showdown meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Coulter: I Would Talk About Edwards But "You Have To Go Into Rehab If You Use The Word 'Faggot'"  —  Speaking today at the Conservative Political Action Conference, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter said: "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards …

Saudi Arabian oil declines 8% in 2006  —  Saudi Arabian oil production, Jan 2006-Jan 2007, from four different sources.  Linear trends fitted to each series.  Graph is not zero-scaled to better show changes.  Click to enlarge.  Source: US EIA International Petroleum Monthly Table 1.1 …