Some American lefties are screaming about the possibility that Saddam Hussein will be sentenced to death two days before the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 7 -- far ahead of what everyone thought the schedule would be.

Vik Franke, a Dutch documentary filmmaker in Afghanistan, first shot a roadside ambush by the Taliban with his camera. But when the camera's batteries died, he picked up a machine gun and helped the Dutch commandos and other NATO troops fire back.

F. Brinley Bruton talks about her experiences in this AlertNet blog posting.

Sheikh Taj el-Din el-Hilali, Australia's most senior Muslim cleric, gave a sermon recently in which he essentially said scantily-clad women, out in public without a hijab, invite sexual assault.

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside ... and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat?" he is reported to have said.

The imam is now engaged in some serious damage control.

The Independent has given over its front page to highlight the plight of four bloggers currently serving prison sentences in places like China, Vietnam, Iran and Tunisia (See it here).

There seems to be some confusion on what happened in the Panjwaii district of Afghanistan's Kandahar province earlier this week.