Conservatives Refuse To Appear On Fox News To Publicly Defend Gonzales  —  On Fox News Sunday this morning, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) refused to defend Attorney General Alberto Gonzales against accusations that he may have perjured himself before Congress.

It's How We Pull Back  —  Try to imagine what was running through the mind of Hassan Kazemi Qomi, Iran's ambassador to Baghdad, as he sat across the negotiating table from his American counterpart, Ryan Crocker, last week.  While the U.S. diplomat delivered his stern warning against Iranian meddling in Iraq …

Freed Guantanamo inmates take up arms  —  AT LEAST 30 former Guantanamo Bay detainees have been killed or recaptured after taking up arms against allied forces following their release.  —  They have been discovered mostly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but not in Iraq, a US Defence Department spokesman told The Age yesterday.

Bush Aide Blocked Report  —  A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote …

Swat somebody's butt, and yours belongs to the the D.A.  —  Do you know Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison?  —  If you do, don't approach them.  Call 911 and order up a SWAT team.  They're believed to be in the vicinity of McMinnville, Ore., where they're a clear and present danger to the community.

The Under-Taxed Kings of Private Equity  —  AN arcane debate is raging in Congress over the appropriate taxation of the bountiful incomes of people who manage private-equity and hedge funds — incomes that can range into the hundreds of millions a year.  I don't recommend trying to master …

Arab princesses kicked off British Airways plane to jeers and whistles after refusing to sit next to male strangers  —  Three Arab princesses were thrown off a packed British Airways flight after refusing to sit next to male passengers they didn't know.  —  The dispute - in which the three princesses …

In any presidential campaign, critical media narratives develop around candidates, which are often tough to break.  Al Gore, for example, was labeled a "serial exaggerator."  It was a bogus story, but it dogged Gore throughout 2000, and raised doubts about his veracity.

Iraq defy odds to win Asian Cup  —  JAKARTA (Reuters) - Iraq completed one of sport's great fairytales by beating Saudi Arabia 1-0 in the Asian Cup final on Sunday to provide a rare moment for celebration in their war-torn homeland.  —  The Saudis had been bidding to become the first four-times winners …

Worry about bread, not oil  —  The great demographer and economist Thomas Malthus was 23-years-old the last time a British summer was this rain-soaked, which was back in 1789.  The consequences of excessive rainfall in the late 18th century were predictable.

A Column Prompts a Dressing-Down  —  How did it come to this?  Hillary Clinton's cleavage leading off the ombudsman's column?  —  The Post got thousands of angry letters and calls last week — the vast majority from women — in response to a July 20 Style column by Fashion Editor Robin Givhan …

Who's a Nerd, Anyway?  —  What is a nerd?  Mary Bucholtz, a linguist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been working on the question for the last 12 years.  She has gone to high schools and colleges, mainly in California, and asked students from different crowds …

Data Mining Figured In Dispute Over NSA  —  Report Links Program to Gonzales Uproar  —  A fierce dispute within the Bush administration in early 2004 over a National Security Agency warrantless surveillance program was related to concerns about the NSA's searches of huge computer databases, the New York Times reported today.

[TS] Op-Ed Columnist: Who Really Took Over During That Colonoscopy  —  We have a new surrogate president now.  Sic transit Cheney.  Long live General Petraeus!