Hagel is calling it quits  —  WORLD-HERALD BUREAU, COPYRIGHT 2007 OMAHA WORLD-HERALD  —  WASHINGTON - Chuck Hagel will announce Monday that he is retiring from the U.S. Senate and will not run for president next year, people close to the Nebraska Republican said Friday.

Brooks: In His New Tape, Bin Laden Sounds Like He's Been 'Reading Lefty Blogs'  —  Last night on PBS' The NewsHour, New York Times columnist David Brooks compared 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden's latest video message to "lefty blogs," saying the al Qaeda head is like "one of these childish …

CRS: Bush Administration Has Intensified False Reporting On Al Qaeda Since 'Surge' Began  —  Attempting to drum up public support for the war in Iraq in July, President Bush referred to al Qaeda 95 times in a single speech, claiming the war in Iraq has become the central front in the fight against al Qaeda (AQI):

Sunnis Return To Iraqi Assembly  —  With the focus on political progress heightening in advance of the testimony of General David Petraeus, the Iraqi National Assembly has come under pressure to start approving legislation from the agreement two weeks ago between the leaders of the various factions on reform.

Why We Should Exit Iraq Now  —  Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have suggested that there is little difference among us on Iraq.  This is not true: I am the only leading Democratic candidate committed to getting all our troops out and doing so quickly.

German suspects had deadline for attacks-report  —  BERLIN (Reuters) - Three suspected Islamist militants who were planning to attack American targets in Germany had orders to act by Sept. 15 and knew police were hot on their trail before their arrest, a magazine said on Saturday.

Jew-Hatred and Jihad  —  The Nazi roots of the 9/11 attack.  —  The idea of using suicide pilots to obliterate the skyscrapers of Manhattan originated in 1940s Berlin.  "In the latter stages of the war, I never saw Hitler so beside himself as when, as if in a delirium …

THE MASTER OF DISASTER....In Slate, Fred Kaplan takes a crack at figuring out just who it was that ordered the disastrous policy of disbanding the Iraqi army shortly after the invasion.  His piece includes this fascinating tidbit, which as far as I know has never been reported before: … Unanimous!

F.B.I. Data Mining Went Beyond Targets  —  The F.B.I. cast a much wider net in its terrorism investigations than it has previously acknowledged by relying on telecommunications companies to analyze phone-call and e-mail patterns of the associates of Americans who had come under suspicion, according to newly obtained bureau records.

'Dutch left must be more articulate in Islam debate'  —  Interview with Malaysian Muslim thinker Farish Noor  —  The Dutch Labour party (PvdA) has often been criticized in the past for not speaking out about Islam.  But now the party seems to have rediscovered its voice in the Dutch Islam debate.

Melting ice cap triggering earthquakes  —  The Greenland ice cap is melting so quickly that it is triggering earthquakes as pieces of ice several cubic kilometres in size break off.  —  Scientists monitoring events this summer say the acceleration could be catastrophic in terms of sea-level rise …

Troop Buildup, Yielding Slight Gains, Fails to Meet U.S. Goals  —  Seven months after the American-led troop "surge" began, Baghdad has experienced modest security gains that have neither reversed the city's underlying sectarian dynamic nor created a unified and trusted national government.

Bar-exam flunker quits suit over gay-wed question  —  A Boston man has asked a federal court to dismiss his lawsuit in which he claimed that his refusal to answer a Massachusetts bar exam question related to gay marriage caused him to fail the test.  —  Stephen Dunne, 30 …

Feinstein Should Be Thrown Out Of The Senate Right Now  —  How could anyone take Feinstein at her word ever again?  Does she care about the troops?  She wants to bring them home, care for them, and make life pretty.  On her website, she states her goals on Iraq:  —  Iraq: U.S. forces were sent to Iraq as liberators.