New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson Announces Presidential Bid  —  New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson began a run for the Democratic presidential nomination this morning, betting that his deep résumé and Hispanic heritage will boost his chances in a field already stocked with better-known candidates.

State of the Union: Unhappy With Bush  —  Bush's 33 Percent Approval Rating Lowest Since Nixon for President Entering State of the Union Speech  —  President Bush faces the nation this week more unpopular than any president on the eve of a State of the Union address since Richard Nixon in 1974.

BREAKING: Sen. John Warner To Introduce Resolution Opposing Iraq Escalation  —  Sen. John Warner (R-VA) will introduce a resolution today "making clear that he does not support the President on increasing the troop levels in Iraq" and calling escalation "a mistake," CNN's Dana Bash reports.

Fragile Hopes for Bipartisan Rescue of Social Security  —  President Bush is renewing his call for a bipartisan effort on Social Security, but few other issues so clearly highlight the limits of bipartisanship these days, the mistrust and ideological division just barely below the surface.

Facing the Islamist Menace  —  Mark Steyn's new book is a welcome wake-up call.  —  In the prologue to his new book, America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, Mark Steyn sarcastically alludes to two people whom, in different ways, I know well.  The first is novelist Martin Amis …

Campaign Allegation A Source of Vexation  —  Days after Barack Obama jumped into the presidential sweepstakes, he was hit with a thinly sourced story from his past—39 years in his past, to be exact.  —  The allegation, by a conservative magazine, raised questions about whether the Illinois senator …

(UPDATE: Khalid "Relieved")  —  Posted by Bill  —  Members of General Khalid Juad Khadim's staff light a pyre in the late evening hours.  —  Something quite strange even for Fallujah happened here Saturday when the occupants of three civilian vehicles stopped at the home …

Bombs kill at least 65 people in Baghdad  —  BAGHDAD, Iraq - At least 65 people were killed and 113 wounded after two nearly simultaneous bombs struck a predominantly Shiite commercial area in central Baghdad Monday, police said.  —  The first blast occurred shortly after noon when a bomb left …

In Raw World of Sex Movies, High Definition Could Be a View Too Real  —  The XXX industry has gotten too graphic, even for its own tastes.  —  Pornography has long helped drive the adoption of new technology, from the printing press to the videocassette.  Now pornographic movie studios …

ANDREW SULLIVAN WONDERS WHAT I THINK ABOUT THE SURGE: I thought I'd been fairly straightforward, but sometimes my thoughts, scattered across a lot of short posts, come across as more cryptic than I realize, so I appreciate being prodded to pull them together in one place.

I talk, and talk, say nothing  —  Does "Paleoprog" contribute anything to the otherwise indispensable American Footprints at all?  Consider this thread, where he is defending the Iranian-IED stories on the grounds that … If I had decided to disbelieve any statement from any of these people out of hand …

Climate scientists feeling the heat  —  As public debate deals in absolutes, some experts fear predictions 'have created a monster'  —  Scientists long have issued the warnings: The modern world's appetite for cars, air conditioning and cheap, fossil-fuel energy spews billions of tons …

We Can Win the White House  —  To build on our midterm gains, Dems should follow my '50 Percent Solution.'  —  I am blessed.  I love my job.  I wake up every Monday morning excited about the week ahead.  The one downside is how consuming it is.  I don't have much time for leisure activities.

Documentary on beastiality premieres at Sundance Film Festival  —  PARK CITY, Utah — "Zoo" is a documentary about what director Robinson Devor accurately characterizes as "the last taboo, on the boundary of something comprehensible."  But remarkably, an elegant, eerily lyrical film has resulted.

Milton Friedman @ Rest  —  Email from a Nobel Laureate.  —  In July last year, the late Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate in economics in 1976, granted an interview to The Wall Street Journal.  Today we publish material from a question-and-answer exchange he had by email—shortly after their meeting …

U.S. Tries to Interpret China's Silence Over Test  —  Bush administration officials said that they had been unable to get even the most basic diplomatic response from China after their detection of a successful test to destroy a satellite 10 days ago, and that they were uncertain whether China's top leaders …

A One-Sided Arms Race  —  Something disturbing happened five hundred miles above China on January 11th.  —  An old Chinese weather satellite was in orbit, and then, quite abruptly, it wasn't.  Or, rather, if it was, it was no longer in one piece, and if it had been in any way operational before, it certainly wasn't afterward.