1 Bring 'em home
Republican Congressional leaders, worried that the mid-term '06 elections could be bloodier than the St. Valentine's Day massacre, smartened up last week, calling for President Bush to actually devise an exit strategy for the war in Iraq. Bush's approval rating is at a near-leprosy level and fellow GOP types are abandoning ship.

2 School daze
A high-speed chase involving Des Moines' finest and a 17-year-old misguided youth ended up at Lincoln High School with cops storming a gym class and arresting Christopher Lane, who was "trying to blend in." Meanwhile, security has been downgraded in the high-crime area known as the Waukee School District, with backpacks now allowed back on campus. One or more junior high students who were "going to kill all the stupid sixth-graders" had made recent threats but had not followed through as of press time.

3 Eye of the beholder
An over-sexed, mostly naked angel graffitied on a downtown building perhaps warrants a few raised eyebrows, but when city officials got their diapers in a bundle over a mural at Meredith Middle School because the use of the school's name ran afoul of city ordinance, it became apparent that local bureaucrats could use an art appreciation class. Rest assured, though, with $532 of your tax dollars and untold wasted hours of discussion by your stewards of government, the wayward school came into compliance with the law last week, obtaining a special permit for the innocuous artwork depicting smiling children.

4 Slippery bastards
Forget the bird flu- the epidemic of lying on Capitol Hill continued to fester last week, as The Washington Post reported that documents proved that executives from Exxon, Shell and other Big Oil companies did, in fact, meet with Dick Cheney regarding the U.S. energy policy back in 2001. The most nauseating part? The report broke barely a week after execs from those same companies told Congress, "We did not have energy negotiations with that man."

5 Same old story
Last year, the Ohio-based Battelle Institute advised the state to create a biotechnology czar and invest $300 million over 10 years to promote that industry here in Iowa. Then last week, the same group advised state leaders to create a manufacturing czar and invest some $300 million over 10 years to promote that industry in Iowa. Good advice. Then let's take another $500,000 in public funds like we paid Battelle and create a czar of czars and invest $300 million over 10 years to promote a think-tank charity industry.

6 A Hitler-esque hike
Faced with either balancing the budget or sticking it to taxpayers and doing their damnedest to kill downtown retail, the Des Moines City Council will bump up parking rates as much as 50 percent over the next three years. Business leader Tim Rypma told the Register that leaders who pushed for the increase are "Nazis."

7 Balls to the wall
While Sgt. Dave Murillo likes to play the part of the take-no-shit president of the Des Moines Police Burial and Protective Association, he was looking a little sheepish last week when it was reported that the organization's independent fund raiser has been given such a long leash that, not only is he unregistered with the state and stands accused of harassing local residents for donations, but also that Dave doesn't so much as have the guy's phone number. C'mon, Dave. Where's that "testicular fortitude"?

8 "Appropriate"?
Looking more like a doormat every day, Gov. Tom Vilsack backed his cronies in the Department of Transportation last week, disregarding a staggering amount of information detailing the land transaction for the Ankeny drivers' license station and calling the whole shady deal "appropriate."

9 Not again
Talk of the Court Avenue district getting a movie theater has begun again in earnest with a gaggle of developers champing at the bit for taxpayer money to build up the entertainment district that has had decades of big dreams only to be perpetually carried by caring small-business owners.

10 Kiss those grits (goodbye)
Employers facing rising health costs, and constantly on the lookout for carrying company policy into workers' private lives, have started to go on the offensive, with many of them levying a surcharge on employees who smoke CV

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