The Guidebook for Taking a Life  —  We were in a small house in Zarqa, Jordan, trying to interview two heavily bearded Islamic militants about their distribution of recruitment videos when one of us asked one too many questions.  —  "He's American?" one of the militants growled.  "Let's kidnap and kill him."

Bush Violates Papal Protocol  —  People are apparently upset that President Bush violated protocol in his meeting with Joe Ratzinger this morning. … This causes gasps?  Really?  —  Bush isn't Catholic.  He's the leader of the dominant country on the planet.

The Zero-to-60 Thompson Run  —  Fred gears up for 2008.  —  In early March, only a handful of Fred Thompson's good friends knew that he was even thinking about a bid for president.  Three months later, according to several polls, Thompson is in second place nationally, trailing frontrunner Rudy Giuliani.

UN warns of five million Iraqi refugees  —  Half of displaced people have no access to food aid  —  Omar, a Sunni driver, lived in a pleasant house in a Shia neighbourhood of al-Jihad district in west Baghdad until he decided that it was too dangerous for his family to stay.

Fatwa forbids PA Muslims to emigrate  —  Alarmed by the growing number of Palestinians who are emigrating from the Palestinian territories, the Palestinian Authority's mufti has issued a fatwa [religious decree] forbidding Muslims to leave.  —  Sources in the PA Foreign Ministry told …

Military Envisions Longer Stay in Iraq  —  Officers Anticipate Small 'Post-Occupation' Force  —  BAGHDAD — U.S. military officials here are increasingly envisioning a "post-occupation" troop presence in Iraq that neither maintains current levels nor leads to a complete pullout …

Judge Walton's Lesson  —  Years ago, when campaigns were drowning in political rhetoric on the crime issue, I got The Post to reassign me temporarily to the District of Columbia courthouse so I could learn from front-line law enforcement what worked — and what didn't — to keep the streets safe.

The $5 Million Man?  —  If the latest report pans out, Ron Paul has leaped out of the asterisk box in the GOP campaign.  His largely online funding, if verified, would put him on a par with McCain.  Money quote: … I'd credit the Internet, wouldn't you?  Stay tuned for confirmation.

Pentagon Confirms It Sought To Build A 'Gay Bomb'  —  (CBS 5) BERKELEY A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Amid death and chaos, the Scouts revive an idea of fun for children  —  A cordon at the camp protects them from unexploded bombs but the tradition lives on 80 years after it was introduced by the British  —  Armed with rakes and wheelbarrows, a group of Iraqi Scouts and Guides is clearing a patch of Baghdad woodland.

Land of Plenty  —  AFTER the privations of the Depression and war years, Congress passed and President Harry Truman signed the Employment Act of 1946, which made it federal policy to maintain "the propensity to consume."  The choice of the word "propensity" would have seemed droll, were any Congress capable of drollery.

Grass Roots Roared and Immigration Plan Collapsed  —  The undoing of the immigration bill in the Senate this week had many players, but none more effective than angry voters like Monique Thibodeaux, who joined a nationwide campaign to derail it.  —  Mrs. Thibodeaux, an office manager …

Microsoft Finds Legal Defender in Justice Dept.  —  Nearly a decade after the government began its landmark effort to break up Microsoft, the Bush administration has sharply changed course by repeatedly defending the company both in the United States and abroad against accusations of anticompetitive conduct …