THE TENSION: Wednesday News Open Thread

Drudge reports that Bob Novak claims in a column set for Thursday release, "When Richard Armitage finally acknowledged last week he was my source three years ago in revealing Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA employee, the former deputy secretary of state's interviews obscured what he really did." Novak, attempting to set the record straight, writes: "First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he 'thought' might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked, and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former Amb. Joseph Wilson. Second, Armitage did not slip me this information as idle chitchat, as he now suggests. He made clear he considered it especially suited for my column."

Waves as high at 10 feet at Daytona Beach and surrounding beaches were blamed for injuring several people Tuesday, according to a Local 6 News report.

AP reports where you live, combined with race and income, plays a huge role in the nation's health disparities, differences so stark that a report issued Monday contends it's as if there are eight separate Americas instead of one. Locally, Montgomery, Md. and Fairfax rank in the top 20 with a life expectancy above 80 years.

Unable to attack on U.S .soil, terrorists rampage through Baghdad. Police found the bodies of 65 men who had been tortured, shot and dumped, most around Baghdad, while car bombs, mortar attacks and shootings killed at least 30 people around Iraq and injured dozens more, reports AP.

The NY Post reports Taliban terror leaders who had gathered for a funeral - and were secretly being watched by an eye-in-the-sky American drone - dodged assassination because U.S. rules of engagement bar attacks in cemeteries, according to a shocking report.