Top Items:
Marc Santora / New York Times:
Hussein Video Grips Iraq; Attacks Go On — Saddam Hussein never bowed his head, until his neck snapped. — His last words were equally defiant. — "Down with the traitors, the Americans, the spies and the Persians." — The former ruler of Iraq's final hour began about 5 a.m. …
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Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Video: Saddam's execution uncut; Update: Translation added; Update: Buried in Tikrit — As usual, Rusty Shackleford Vinnie comes through with the vid. Obviously this wasn't shot by the official Iraqi cameraman: he was up on the platform with Saddam and using a real lens, not a cell phone.
Discussion:
Agence France Presse, Associated Press, Secular Blasphemy, Blogs of War, Israel Matzav, PoliBlog (TM) and Assorted Babble
Telegraph:
Saddam's end: tormented as his death loomed — In pictures: Life and times of Saddam Hussein — Hands tied behind his back, feet bound, Saddam Hussein shuffled on to the red-painted metal gallows for his execution yesterday. — Iraqi TV showed Saddam Hussein being taken to the gallows and the noose being put over his head
David Kaspar / Davids Medienkritik:
Post Execution Media Reaction: The Death Penalty - Really a Wedge Issue? — (By Ray D.) — Majorities in USA and Europe Favor Saddam Execution — The recent results of a poll conducted by Novatris/Harris for the French daily Le Monde on the death penalty shocked the editors and writers at Germany's left-leaning SPIEGEL ONLINE.
Discussion:
Don Surber
Michael James / Bizarre Bazaar:
SADDAM'S HANGING — UNCUT — Several hours after Saddam Hussein was hanged this morning in Baghdad, the state-run television channel, Iraqia, began to run edited video, without sound, of the run-up to the hanging. The video shows Saddam being guided up the steps to the top of the gallows …
Discussion:
TalkLeft
Vinnie / The Jawa Report:
Saddam Execution Video — Thanks to Erin in the comments, the part of the Saddam video you're not seeing in the media. — Although it's poor quality, it's quite obviously Saddam Hussein. — And remember, it's not my fault if you hit the play button. — Update: More Vid copies and coverage in our first post here.
Dahlia Lithwick / Slate:
THE 10 MOST OUTRAGEOUS CIVIL LIBERTIES VIOLATIONS OF 2006. — I love those year-end roundups—ubiquitous annual lists of greatest films and albums and lip glosses and tractors. It's reassuring that all human information can be wrestled into bundles of 10.
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Najmaldin Karim / New York Times:
Justice, but No Reckoning — MY personal battle with Saddam Hussein — which began in 1972 when I abandoned my medical career in Mosul, Iraq, and joined the Kurdish armed resistance — is at an end. To execute such a criminal, a man who reveled in his atrocities, is an act of justice.
Discussion:
normblog
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Sudarsan Raghavan / Washington Post:
Saddam Hussein Is Put to Death
Saddam Hussein Is Put to Death
Discussion:
Captain's Quarters, the talking dog, Power Line, New York Times, toohotfortnr and Don Surber
Richard A. Clarke / Washington Post:
While You Were at War . . . In every administration, there are usually only about a dozen barons who can really initiate and manage meaningful changes in national security policy. For most of 2006, some of these critical slots in the Bush administration have been vacant …
Rob Crilly / Times of London:
Hunt for Al-Qaeda men in Mogadishu — SOMALIA's prime minister has asked clan elders in Mogadishu to surrender Al-Qaeda suspects who are believed to be sheltering in the city after his forces, with Ethiopian military support, drove out Islamic militias which controlled the capital.
Discussion:
PrairiePundit
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New York Times:
And Now, a Word From Chile ... Everyone who followed the debate about privatizing Social Security back in 2005 has vivid memories of the Chilean model. Sometimes it seemed impossible to get through any discussion of fixing Social Security without hearing a free-market paean to the way Chile …
Andy Soltis / New York Post:
HEZ PAY-PER-SLAY — 'REWARDS' ROCKETS VS. ISRAEL — Hezbollah and its Iranian backers are rewarding Palestinian terrorists with thousands of dollars for each homemade rocket that hits southern Israel, according to Israeli intelligence. — The size of the payoffs depends on the number …
Discussion:
Atlas Shrugs
Times of London:
Science told: hands off gay sheep — Experiments that claim to 'cure' homosexual rams spark anger — SCIENTISTS are conducting experiments to change the sexuality of "gay" sheep in a programme that critics fear could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans.
Discussion:
Inactivist
Michael Beschloss / Newsweek:
Ford's Long Shadow — An unlikely president, Gerald Ford steadied America and, in an unpublished interview, mused about her fate. — Vice President Gerald Ford and wife Betty escort First Lady Pat Nixon and President Richard Nixon across the South Lawn to Marine 1 following Nixon's farewell statement on Aug. 9, 1974.
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo
Jeffrey Jones / Reuters:
Huge ice shelf breaks free in Canada's far north — Source: Reuters — CALGARY, Alberta, Dec 29 (Reuters) - A chunk of ice bigger than the area of Manhattan broke from an ice shelf in Canada's far north and could wreak havoc if it starts to float westward toward oil-drilling regions …