Individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than liberal-leaners, and new research pinpoints the reason: Conservatives rationalize social and economic inequalities.

Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found.

Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person's tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities.

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Your beliefs don't justify gaps in status, you could be left frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University. They conducted both a U.S.-centric survey and a more internationally focused one to arrive at the findings.

"Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives," the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, "apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light."

Iraqi and U.S. forces have detained a man suspected of being the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Iraqi security officials said on Friday.

The Arabic television station al-Arabiya, quoting the Iraqi Defence Ministry, said the detained suspect was the al Qaeda in Iraq leader, an Egyptian called Abu Ayyab al-Masri, but also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir.

The U.S. military in Baghdad said it had no immediate information on the reports that Masri has been caught in the northern city of Mosul, which American generals say is al Qaeda's last remaining urban stronghold in Iraq.

It is now faintly circulating through American media that Johnson was born here, but so is the report that he gave up his citizenship in 2006 after encountering passport problems with fussy U.S. immigration authorities. The report is in error. I can now reveal that The American Spectator in another of its world exclusives has discovered (see the June issue) that the newly elected mayor of London never terminated his citizenship. He is as American as Barack Obama.

"That a right-wing-blog would impugn my patriotism because I said children should learn to read, and could get better jobs by doing so, is beneath contempt," he said in a statement posted on his Web site.

King said he supports the troops but believes the war in Iraq is a "waste of national resources ... and that includes the youth and blood of the 4,000 American troops who have lost their lives there and for the tens of thousands who have been wounded."

"I live in a National Guard town, and I support our troops, but I don’t support either the war or educational policies that limit the options of young men and women to any one career — military or otherwise," King said.

Speaking of energy, we can't help but give more attention to a recent press release from some of the Senate's leading liberals. Charles Schumer, Byron Dorgan, Bernie Sanders, Bob Casey and Mary Landrieu are demanding that President Bush tell OPEC nations to increase their oil supplies or risk losing arms deals with the United States. The Senators say U.S. consumers need the price relief that only increased oil production can bring.

Yes, that Senator Schumer and that Senator Dorgan, both of whom voted against increasing U.S. oil production because they couldn't abide drilling across 1% of Alaska's wilderness. Yes, that Senator Casey, who has called for mandatory reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide. At least Senator Landrieu of Louisiana has fought to allow more offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

All of these Senate Democrats are willing to accept greater carbon emissions, as long as we can also outsource jobs in the petroleum industry to Middle Eastern dictatorships. The Senators do aver that "some of us have concerns in general about arming this region to the teeth," but apparently cheap fossil fuel buys a lot of peace of mind.

A special word of concern about Mr. Sanders: He is the only avowed socialist in Congress, but the Vermonter appears to be losing his religion over $122-a-barrel oil. By signing this letter, not only is he officially recognizing the law of supply and demand; he's also proposing a more crassly commercial trade of guns for oil than anything we've ever heard from the most candid realpolitician.

To top it off, the Senator whose Web site proudly proclaims that the first bill he introduced was to combat global warming now wants more fossil fuels ready for burning. We hope his friends are closely watching Mr. Sanders, in case he blows a gasket over all of this cognitive ideological dissonance.

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I don't want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got, the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that. It's, it's not as bright. So, that's my little commercial for that.

'There is growing frustration that there is nothing on the floor,' said one senior Democratic leadership aide. ‘Lots of frustration that we aren’t acting on some things that it feels like we could act on now that are going to get shoved to the end of the session.