Official: Saddam to be executed tonight  —  BAGHDAD, Iraq - The official witnesses to Saddam Hussein's impending execution gathered Friday in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone in final preparation for his hanging, as state television broadcast footage of his regime's atrocities.

Year 2007 will definitely be without Saddam walking on the ground....  It's very imminent now and might become a fact at any minute.  —  The situation in Baghdad is tense now and US and Iraqi forces are heavily deployed on the streets.  —  We're hearing and reading more confirmations …

Why We Need More Troops in Iraq  —  I've just spent 10 days traveling in the Middle East and speaking to leaders there, all of which has made one thing clearer to me than ever: While we are naturally focused on Iraq, a larger war is emerging.  On one side are extremists and terrorists led …

Thousands greet Somalia's PM in capital  —  MOGADISHU, Somalia - Somalia's prime minister entered the capital Friday, a day after an Islamic movement's fighters retreated ahead of his Ethiopian-backed troops, and was welcomed by thousands of cheering residents of the battle-scarred city.

SOME THOUGHTS ON MOONBATTERY  —  A few days ago, radio talk show host Scott Hennen posted an email he received from a soldier in Iraq who witnessed John Kerry's visit to the troops in Baghdad.  This soldier offered his own observations to the effect that Kerry's welcome was less than warm …

Here's the post where I take on Ron Bailey of Reason Magazine.  —  Ron Bailey has put up a long attack on me on the Reason Magazine blog.  It's his version of what happened at the Liberty Fund colloquium on Frank S. Meyer, which I've alluded to but avoided talking about in detail.

Housework cuts breast cancer risk  —  Women who exercise by doing the housework can reduce their risk of breast cancer, a study suggests.  —  The research on more than 200,000 women from nine European countries found doing household chores was far more cancer protective than playing sport.

BUCKING RUBINOMICS.... Last week, Paul Krugman offered the incoming Democratic majority some advice: do not place deficit reduction at the top of the priority list.  —  As Krugman explained, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin helped convince the party in the 1990s that deficit reduction was key to fiscal and budgetary policy.

Middle School Girls Gone Wild  —  It's hard to write this without sounding like a prig.  But it's just as hard to erase the images that planted the idea for this essay, so here goes.  The scene is a middle school auditorium, where girls in teams of three or four are bopping to pop songs at a student talent show.

THE SITUATION ROOM  —  Saddam Hussein's Final Hours; James Brown's Life Celebrated at the Apollo  —  THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT.  THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.  —  ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Christine.  And to our viewers …

7 N.O. cops indicted in killings on bridge  —  SHOOTING DEATHS CAME 6 DAYS AFTER KATRINA  —  Seven New Orleans police officers were indicted Thursday on an array of murder and attempted-murder charges stemming from a shooting on the Danziger Bridge six days after Hurricane Katrina …

Weird science  —  This may be one of the more bizarre stories we've seen (h/t Daily Kos) recently, which is saying a lot.  Your federal government is apparently unwilling to investigate whether or not the Grand Canyon was created by the Biblical flood of Noah just 6,000 years ago.

A question for 2007  —  Taking a whack at prognostication at the end of 2005, it wasn't hard to imagine, as I did, that 2006 would be a rotten year for freedom of speech.  Both inside the Islamic world and, more alarmingly, outside the Islamic world, Shariah laws prohibiting criticism of Islam were already working smoothly.