Four Michigan solons want to ban federal funds for initiatives that prohibit the use of words like “jihadist” and “Islamist,” as urged by the National Counterterrorism Center and DHS, The Detroit News’ Gregg Krupa recounts. U.S. lawmakers are also alarmed by new allegations — hardly novel — of corruption and human-rights abuses in Kazakhstan, U.S. terror war ally and energy producer, The Wall Street Journal’s Glenn R. Simpson and Susan Schmit report.

Feds: As in other cities, Providence police officials “express doubts about whether the imperative to protect domestic security has blinded federal authorities to other priorities,” The New York Times’ David Johnston spotlights. Last year, DHS inspectors “seized 4,296 prohibited meat or plant materials, including 164 agricultural pests at ports of entry,” The Associated Press’ Dean Fosdick profiles. Nearly seven years since 9/11, the government still can't effectively measure whether it has made progress in information-sharing, The Wall Street Journal’s Siobhan Gorman has a GAO report finding. A.G. Michael Mukasey yesterday said he has rejected a request from lawmakers that an outside special counsel investigate the case of a Canadian renditioned to Syria for torture, Reuters’ James Vicini relates.

McBama: “Barack Obama and John McCain differ on the size of the U.S. military, the Iraq war and how to deal with Iran, but they have similar views on the need to reform Pentagon procurement,” Reuters’ Andrea Shalal-Esa surveys. “Rapidly shifting events are beginning to make the presidential candidates' debate over Iraq seem oddly out of sync with reality,” a USA Today editorial suggests. On the Israel-Palestine conflict, Obama seems likely to return the U.S. to the role of “honest broker,” while McCain sees fighting Islamic extremists as paramount, The Christian Science Monitor’s Howard LaFranchi compares. “Whoever won the presidential election, U.S. policy in Afghanistan was bound to change,” Australia’s ABC Local Radio quotes a U.S. expert. “Obama and McCain have four months to fill in the details [of their counterterror agenda] beyond the foreign policy point scoring,” The Melbourne Age asserts. “To win, Obama needs only to battle McCain to a tie on foreign policy and national security,” The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne Jr. argues.

Poly-ticks: “Obama should have supported the surge in Iraq, but that doesn't mean that advocating one in Afghanistan makes sense,” a WSJ op-ed argues — while The Tehran Times derides him as an “instant expert” on Pakistan’s tribal frontier, from whence he expects the next 9/11. Obama's plan to build up U.S. forces in Afghanistan while keeping perhaps 50,000 troops in Iraq has triggered a deep rift among antiwar activists, McClatchy Newspapers notes. The now ex-DHS adviser caught on video influence peddling for donations to the future Bush library is a long-time business associate of Randy Schuenemann, John McCain's top foreign policy adviser, TPM Muckraker tattles. Obama apparently eschewed protection from private security contractors — whose use by federal agencies overseas he has questioned — during his stops in Afghanistan and Iraq, Slate says.

State and local: “Cpl. Mark Landahl's job is a direct result of 9/11,” The Frederick (Md.) News Postleads in profile of the County Sheriff’s homeland honcho. Eleven Florida sheriff’s deputies are undergoing a month of ICE training on federal immigration laws, The Naples Daily News notes. New security measures are in effect at the Indiana Government Center, with public access now restricted at the office complex near the Statehouse, The Indianapolis Star says. The Oregon National Guard plans to activate more than 300 Guard members for forest fire training at three sites, The Medford Mail Tribune reports.

New York state of mind: A 9/11 relative is fighting his co-op board to keep an American flag on his door that he has sworn to leave up until Osama bin Laden is captured, The New York Post reports. Gotham will receive $10 million more in DHS funding than last year — reflecting, a solon says, its status as “the number one terrorist target in the world,” Newsday notes. The CDC, meantime, is expected to announce today the award of $30 million to hospitals and clinics that monitor and treat so-called “nonresponders” affected by Ground Zero dust, the Times tells.

Ivory (Watch) Towers: After lawmaker protested, DHS has abandoned its claim that eight foreign grad students in oceanography were security threats, though they are still barred from U.S. ports, The Chronicle of Higher Education recounts. SCIPP International will be providing security awareness materials for the NSA, DHS Centers of Academic Excellence and other schools, MarketWatch relays. A new facility at North Carolina State University will assist first responders “by testing their turnout gear against potentially harmful chemical and biological threats,” Physorg.com also relays. “The homeland security program at Laramie County Community College is expanding,” The Wyoming Tribune-Eagle tells.Aussie feds have busted, at the request of the FBI, a director of a Melbourne business college, believed to be linked to the Tamil Tigers, The Australian says.

Bugs ‘n bombs: The House homeland chair wants TSA to act to keep Atlanta’s airport a gun-free zone in the face of a new Georgia concealed carry law, the Journal-Constitution recounts — and see the paper’s op-ed: “Armed citizens won't make the airport safer.” Amanda Ripley's “The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes — And Why” (Crown) “is the thinking person's manual for getting out alive,” NPR judges. “Brandishing the vast U.S. military arsenal over al Qaeda is a little like holding a .44 Magnum on a buzzing mosquito: It won't discourage the bug from drawing blood,” Wired Magazine essays. “The threat posed by nuclear terrorism has become a serious field of study,” United Press Internationalquotes savants at Barcelona’s Euroscience meet. The Bush administration should stop threatening military attack if talks don’t halt Iran’s uranium reprocessing program, the Post has two ex-security advisors advising.

Coming and going: A California man will stand trial for lying to LAX screeners about having a bomb in his backpack and threatening the airport, The Orange County Register reports. Officials on Long Island are trying to determine how architectural drawings of MacArthur Airport's terminal ended up in a deli’s garbage can, Newsday notes. “Just by going to the airport or driving along the expressway we all can potentially help make the country safer,” The Press of Atlantic City comments in re: DHS plans to test security approaches there. A federal report says Chicago mass transit needs to be better prepared to react in case of a major natural disaster or terrorist attack, the Tribune relays. Tijuana is the U.S.-Mexico border's most congested crossing and still longer waits may be in store next June when new border transiting ID rules go into effect, AP spotlights.

Courts and rights:Testifying at Guantanamo, an ex-FBI agent said detainees weren’t advised of rights because the military prison is dedicated to intel gathering, not law enforcement, AP reports. The defendant, as Osama bin Laden's driver, overheard the al Qaeda leader saying he was happy about the 9/11 death toll, Reuters quotes the same witness. If we want a full accounting of CIA interrogation methods, “the president should give those accused of 'war crimes' a pass,” a Newsweek columnist urges — and see The American Prospect’s sharp dissent. A Canadian on terror trial in Ottawa is “not the brightest” bulb in the mosque, but neither is he a terrorist, The Vancouver Sun has his ex-fianc??e’s testifying. Five Brits jailed last year for plotting an al Qaeda-linked bombing campaign lost an appeal against their convictions yesterday, Agence France-Presse relates — while The Glasgow Herald sees “Scotland's first Islamist terrorist” winning the right to argue he did not get a fair trial.

Over here: Human rights commissions, “in conspiring to silence what a handful of Muslims deem ‘hate speech’ . . . are paving the way for the hell of global ‘soft jihad,’” The National Post nags — and check a FrontPage Magazine terror symposium on “confronting Islamization of the West.” A Brooklyn imam “linked to various terror plots to destroy landmarks is targeting New York City passengers in 1,000 subway cars with a new campaign to draw people into Islam,” The New York Post protests. “Europeans are increasingly lashing out at the construction of mosques in their cities as terrorism fears and continued immigration feed anti-Muslim sentiment,” USA Today leads. Two major U.S. Muslimorganizations are arguing that the government's evidence of their ties to Hamas is old and insufficient to name them “unindicted co-conspirators” in an Islamic charity’s prosecution, The New York Sun says.

Holy Wars: “Since Islam is not really a religion, but a political ideology,” the State Department’s peddling of an Islamocentric calendar evidently doesn’t violate the separation of church and state, Gates of Vienna grinds.Morocco plans to send scores of moderate Muslim preachers to Europe during Ramadan to help fight extremism in the Moroccan community abroad, AP reports. Under pressure from State, Saudi authorities agreed to revise grade school textbooks to dwell less on the hatred of infidels, “but it's hard to tell the difference,” a Washington Post columnist concludes. Spiegel meets with a leader of ultra-radical Islamists training in the Gaza Strip — while The Times of London sees “Afghanistan replacing Iraq as the destination of choice for international jihadists.”

Rest In Pieces: “After decades of bitter conflict and the loss of thousands of innocent lives, Israeli and Palestinian forces clashed once again this week, with each side laying claim to a five-mile stretch of desperately needed cemetery space,” The Onion reports. “Fighting over the disputed territory, which is located on the easternmost border of the Gaza Strip, has thus far resulted in more than four dozen casualties . . . The first episodes of violence over the narrow strip of cemetery began early Monday morning when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated himself outside of a Jewish mausoleum, leaving one dead and outraging hundreds. In response, Israel launched a series of swift air strikes, destroying six Palestinian funeral homes and killing an estimated 15 pallbearers. Unfazed by the counterattack, Islamic extremists vowed never to surrender, and said they would continue to perish ‘for as long as it takes.