Today's Details

-In the 2004 presidential election, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) "almost certainly would have won Ohio if all of his votes had been counted, and if all of the eligible voters who tried to vote for him had been allowed to cast their ballots," writes columnist Bob Herbert for Monday's edition of The New York Times. FULL STORY

-Former Sen. John Edwards has a narrow lead in Iowa over New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to a new poll. In a survey measuring the strength of potential Democratic presidential candidates, Edwards received 30 percent. Clinton was close benind with 26 percent. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry was third with at 12 percent. Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack finished a disappointing fourth in his home state with 10 percent. (I sure do love John Edwards. He's one of those politicians that has "IT". You know, the "IT" Clinton has [as in Bill - not Hillary], Obama has, JFK had, JFK Jr had ---- "IT". eaprez) FULL STORY

-AdAge magazine, a leading magazine for the advertising community, has asked Godless author Ann Coulter to kill herself. FULL STORY

- Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., a critic of U.S. involvement in Iraq, said Monday that now is "a perfect time" for a troop withdrawal. "People want a change in this country ... a change in direction, and I hope the president hears that and I hope the Iraqis ask us to leave," Murtha said on ABC's "Good Morning America." FULL STORY

- Despite saturation media coverage when it was published a month ago, Mary Cheney's book Now It's My Turn has tanked at bookstores. Published by a conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster, the memoir has sold fewer than 6,000 copies to date, according to Nielsen Bookscan. (Duhhhh! Her only claim to fame is that she's the daughter of an unpopular VP who happens to be gay. Not a very compelling reason to run out and buy a book. We don' t need to read her rhetoric on why she supports a party and worked to elect an administration that has made gays (and Mexicans) the biggest threat to America since Osama bin Laden. Hell no! Like the sensible folks we are - we concluded without reading the book that she was a hypocrite like the rest of them. eaprez) FULL STORY

-Al-Qaida in Iraq said in a Web statement posted Monday that a militant named Abu Hamza al-Muhajer was the group's new leader. Al-Muhajer succeeds Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed Wednesday by a U.S. airstrike on his hideout northeast of Baghdad, Iraq. FULL STORY

-America plans to retain a garrison of 50,000 troops, one tenth of its entire army, in Iraq for years to come, according to US media reports. FULL STORY

-There's a potential pothole in U.S. Sen. Bill Frist's road to the White House: He's a confessed kitty killer.He fessed up in his 1989 book, "Transplant," to adopting cats from shelters when he was in medical school, treating them like pets for a while, and then using them in his research experiments. (I'll probably piss a lot of people off by saying that I understand the need for medical people in training to use animal cadavars for various reasons related to perfecting their skills. However, there is something awfully sick and twisted in using animals that have become your pets for that purpose. eaprez) FULL STORY

-Forecasters issued a hurricane warning for part of Florida's Gulf Coast on Monday as Tropical Storm Alberto, the first named storm of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season, quickly and unexpectedly gained strength. FULL STORY

-Overall violent crime reports surged for the first time in 15 years in 2005, including a 5 percent increase in the District, according to preliminary FBI statistics released today. The FBI's annual crime report shows increases in three of the four major categories of violent crime -- murder, robbery and assault -- contributing to an overall increase of 2.5 percent in violent offenses from 2004. FULL STORY

-Abu Musab al-Zarqawi lived for 52 minutes after a U.S. warplane bombed his hideout northeast of Baghdad, and he died of extensive internal injuries consistent with those caused by a bomb blast, the U.S. military said Monday. FULL STORY