Tell Me How This Ends — II  —  There were at least 70 people killed in Iraq on Sunday — twin car bombs, suicide bombers, pulling passengers from another sect off a bus and shooting them — just an average day in an endless chain of carnage.  Last night, CBS' 60 Minutes featured a segment …

Student Government Asks Reporters to Leave by Monday  —  You've seen the news coverage from Blacksburg, complete with prominent network anchors reporting from the scene.  —  And now, the student government at Virginia Tech is asking for all of that to end.

Saving the Earth: The Biodiesel Bus Blog  —  Singer Sheryl Crow and environmentalist Laurie David have been traveling across America on a two-week Stop Global Warming College Tour, which winds up today at George Washington University.  Crow and David (co-producer of the documentary …

FDA Was Aware of Dangers To Food  —  Outbreaks Were Not Preventable, Officials Say  —  The Food and Drug Administration has known for years about contamination problems at a Georgia peanut butter plant and on California spinach farms that led to disease outbreaks that killed three people …

Spitzer Plans to Introduce Gay Marriage Bill  —  Gov. Eliot Spitzer will introduce a bill in the coming weeks to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, his spokeswoman said Friday, a move that would propel New York to the forefront of one of the most contentious issues in politics.

Democrats Getting Paid  —  Last spring, with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, I wrote an item saying that for corporations and federal contractors looking for favors in Washington, it was hardly even worth buying a Democrat anymore.  But the November 2006 Democratic victory changed all that.

Let's be realistic about reality  —  Within hours of the Virginia Tech massacre, the New York Times had identified the problem: ''What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage and such unbearable loss.''

Rep. Millender-McDonald dies  —  Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-Calif.), 68, who'd taken leave from Congress after being diagnosed with cancer, died Sunday, a congressional source said.  —  House Clerk Lorraine Miller has secured Millender-McDonald's office and is to oversee the office until an election can be held to replace her.

Video: O'Donnell on VTech shootings — wrong on the facts, wrong on the law  —  First he identifies Cho's weapons as automatic, i.e., capable of firing repeatedly so long as the trigger is held down.  Wrong: both were semi-automatics, requiring a fresh trigger pull for each shot.

WHO NEEDS A PLAN?:  —  This month's National Journal has a piece looking at the nuts and bolts of withdrawal from Iraq—what it would entail, who would stay behind, etc.  Most of the piece just recaps the battles in Washington over funding and the like, but these two paragraphs are unnerving:

The politics of saying 'genocide'  —  More than 90 years after the Armenian genocide, the U.S. is deadlocked in a humiliating linguistic debate.  —  ON TUESDAY, President Bush will be obliged, by law, to wrap his double-talking mouth around one of the most curiously persistent debates in modern geopolitics …

Furor over author Ayaan Hirsi Ali's visit stirs debate on religious freedom  —  Say what you want about your religion.  —  Go ahead, say anything that comes into your mind — even if you don't agree with your minister, your priest, your rabbi.  Even if you think you're right and they've got it all wrong …

Gingrich Says The Real Cause Of Virginia Tech Massacre Was Liberalism  —  Those who are not wedded to demonizing "the other side" at all costs KNEW this would happen.  We just had to figure out who it would come from.  Jerry Falwell?  Pat Robertson?  Rush Limbaugh?