Musharraf Declares State of Emergency  —  The Pakistani leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, declared a state of emergency tonight, suspending the country's constitution, blacking out all independent television news reports and filling the streets of the capital with hundreds of police and soldiers.

Survivor  —  In a new NEWSWEEK poll, Hillary Clinton took the heat at this week's Democratic debate and emerged undamaged.  —  Stan Honda / AFP-Getty Images  —  The New York senator listens to John Edwards during the Oct. 30 Democratic debate in Philadelphia

Thompson Adviser Has Criminal Past  —  Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson has been crisscrossing the country since early this summer on a private jet lent to him by a businessman and close adviser who has a criminal record for drug dealing.  —  Thompson selected the businessman …

Justice Nominee Gets 2 Key Votes From Democrats  —  The confirmation of Michael B. Mukasey as attorney general appeared to be all but certain on Friday after two key Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee announced they would support the nomination despite complaints over Mr. Mukasey's refusal …

Flag-burning 'lesson' provokes UM student  —  ORONO, Maine - A University of Maine student alleges her former professor offered extra credit to class members if they burned the American flag or the U.S. Constitution or were arrested defending free speech.  —  On the first day of class …

Thousands return to safer Iraqi capital  —  BAGHDAD - In a dramatic turnaround, more than 3,000 Iraqi families driven out of their Baghdad neighborhoods have returned to their homes in the past three months as sectarian violence has dropped, the government said Saturday.

Noun + Verb + 9/11 + Iran = Democrats' Defeat?  —  WHEN President Bush started making noises about World War III, he only confirmed what has been a Democratic article of faith all year: Between now and Election Day he and Dick Cheney, cheered on by the mob of neocon dead-enders, are going to bomb Iran.

Dissident  —  Natan Sharansky's passion for democracy isn't always welcome in the West.  —  JERUSALEM—An eternity ago, in 2004, the former Soviet refusenik and Israeli government minister Natan Sharansky called George W. Bush "a dissident President"—"jokingly," he tells me, thinking back to that first White House meeting.

New Detainee Rights Weighed in Plans to Close Guantánamo  —  Administration officials are considering granting Guantánamo detainees substantially greater rights as part of an effort to close the detention center and possibly move much of its population to the United States …

CPSC Head and Toy Industry In Bed While Our Kids Suck Lead  —  Steve wrote about this scandal previously, now the author is now speaking out and giving more details.  Just four days ago Speaker Nancy Pelosi was calling for Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Acting Chairman Nancy Nord …

We're twinseparable!  Happy with his brother, the boy who refused to die  —  They say twins share a strong bond - but the one between Gabriel and Ieuan Jones was unbreakable.  —  When doctors found that Gabriel was weaker than his brother, with an enlarged heart,and believed he was going to die …

ALL-TIME WINGNUTTIEST BLOG POST CONTEST....While the rest of the blogosphere concerns itself with the worthy task of choosing the all-time best blog posts, I'm keeping my focus where it belongs: on the all-time worst blog posts.  And thanks to help from my commenters, plus commenters over at FDL …

DO NOT TRUST CONTENT FROM ANDREW SULLIVAN: I can't go around answering all of Andrew Sullivan's misrepresentations, but it's telling that he can't seem to criticize me without misrepresenting what I've said.  In this post he links to a truncated version of my views on the torture debate on another blog.

Factoid of the Day: Hillary's name  —  This is more or less just sad, but it does give you a sense of the depth to which Hillary is embedded in American culture.  —  The chart above measures the rank of the name "Hillary" among the top 1,000 American baby names.