The expats who have chosen to vote are delighted. But Iraqis remain very divided over the elections. The New York Times has this updated analysis.

Polls open tomorrow at 7 am Baghdad time, which is 11pm ET Saturday night. Insurgents today promised a bloodbath for Sunday.

"For the last time, we warn that (Sunday) will be bloody for the Christians and Jews and their mercenaries and whoever takes part in the (election) game of America and Allawi," Zarqawi's faction said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site.

Bush today said we will stay in Iraq after the election.

What's really going on in Baghdad right now? Check out these blogs posting from Iraq:

• Iraq Dispatches
• Today in Iraq is on top of the news.
• Baghdad Dweller
• Back to Iraq (journalist Chris Allbritton who says he'll be out in the thick of it Sunday.)

Christopher writes:

I'll be out in the thick of it for a while at least... Out with my photographer and seeing what goes on. Not sure if I'll be driving or walking. That will depend on my security guys. This is a free election? Insurgent pamphlets are being distributed that anyone walking to a polling center is a target. Several centers have already been blown up. The fear is thick enough to cut with a knife. The Iraqi security forces—with their American patrons—have tanks at the end of my street. Old Soviet T-55s, but tanks, nonetheless.

No one knows what's going to happen, whether it's the level of violence, the level of turnout or who will win. The Sistani-blessed United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) list is expected to do well, but I would be shocked if it got an absolute majority.

Yahoo has this page of updated photos from Iraq.

Baghdad Burning's last post was Thursday, and Raed in the Middle's was yesterday, but keep checking both.

A rocket hit the grounds of the U.S. embassy, killing two Americans and wounding four more.

Insurgents hit the U.S. embassy with an audacious rocket strike on Saturday that killed two Americans and wounded four, and also killed 17 Iraqis and an American soldier on the eve of Iraq's landmark election....It hit near the embassy building," embassy spokesman Bob Callahan said. "There are two dead and four who are wounded ... all Americans."

by TChris

Ventura County, California public defender Liana Johnsson wonders why women can be punished for appearing in public without a shirt while men are free to wander about sans top. Johnsson has been lobbying "to strike down the law that makes topless sunbathing illegal, arguing that it treats men differently from women."

To drive home her point, she produced a short video showing overweight men lounging on California beaches, their ample breasts apparent for all to see.

Not a pretty sight. But Johnsson's mission isn't based on aesthetics. Johnsson wanted to spark a debate about gender equality, but her more urgent objection to laws that define the exposure of a breast as criminally "indecent" is rooted in the harsh realities of the criminal law:

[Johnsson] sounded alarms when noting that because of a recent court ruling, women convicted of indecent exposure could find themselves listed as sex offenders under Megan's Law, alongside rapists and child molesters.

Some will point to a repeal of the law as further evidence of society's moral decay. In reality, repealing the little-enforced law won't change a thing.

"[Johnsson's] looked at places where women do sunbathe nude on the beach, and lo and behold, kids are not traumatized and society has not fallen apart," said Tina Rasnow, coordinator of Ventura County Superior Court's self-help legal access center.

Frank Rich says Iraq is Vietnam on speed.

Iraq is Vietnam on speed - the false endings of that tragic decade re-enacted and compressed in jump cuts, a quagmire retooled for the MTV attention span. But in at least one way America is not back in Vietnam. Iraq hawks, like Vietnam hawks before them, often take the line that to criticize America's mission in Iraq is to attack the troops. That paradigm just doesn't hold.

Rich also gives an excellent review of the film Gunner Palace. Background here and here.

Update: Here's a transcript of the telephone call in which the Judge threatened to take Ross's lawyer's law license. (hat tip: Todd Bussert and Matthew Berger)

Update: The execution of Michael Ross has been postponed until Monday, while his lawyer, T. Paulding, tries to resolve new allegations of a conflict of interest. More here.

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Original Post

Michael Ross is out of appeals. The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal filed today by Ross' father. Ross is scheduled to be killed in two hours, at 2:01 am, ET.

Today, a telephone call between the federal Judge who had granted the stay and lawyers got very ugly, with the Judge threatening to take Ross' lawyer's law license.

Television is playing a major role in getting information out to the Iraqi public about the various choices for the election.

In Sunday's election, in which few candidates' names are known, few issues have been debated in depth and many voters are too frightened to cast their ballots, television has emerged as the most effective way to communicate. In fact, in the battle for hearts and minds, the medium is more than the message; it's essentially the campaign....virtually entire blocks of commercials have been given over to the advertisements, many of them slick, emotionally charged appeals to get out the vote.

"We don't have the means to do anything else -- not rallies, not even billboards . . . because they were torn down by the other side," said Adnan Janabi, campaign manager for the Iraqiya coalition of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. "So we are using the media. We are using television as the medium of choice."

Who's watching? Most likely the rich, who can afford generators, because power is so intermittent in Iraq.

Kudos to actress Sharon Stone who stood up at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland at the World Conference and raised $1 million in 5 minutes for poverty-stricken Africa.

Seizing her chance during a heavyweight debate on how to tackle poverty in Africa, Stone stood up in the middle of the crowded hall to offer an immediate personal pledge of 10,000 dollars -- then challenged others to follow suit. It rather undercut the big-name panelists, who included Britain's finance minister Gordon Brown, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and the billionaire Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.

I didn't think Dick Cheney was a good choice to represent the U.S. at the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auchwitz, but I didn't expect this. Can anyone find another time he appeared at an official event so dressed down? I bet not. It's not like he flew commercial and they lost his baggage. So why the nonchalance (at best) and disrespect?

Vice President Dick Cheney raised eyebrows on Friday for wearing an olive-drab parka, hiking boots and knit ski cap to represent the United States at a solemn ceremony remembering the liberation of Auschwitz.

Other leaders at the event in Poland on Thursday marking the 60th anniversary of the death camp's liberation, such as French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin, wore dark, formal overcoats and dress shoes or boots.

"The vice president, however, was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower," Robin Givhan, The Washington Post's fashion writer, wrote in the newspaper's Friday editions.

[p. photo via Atrios.]

Many are skeptical the Iraqi elections are a sign of positive reform. The most insightful blog on the war in Iraq is Informed Comment by Professor Juan Cole.

Two Iraqi blogs I read are:

• Raed in the Middle

• Riverbend (Baghdad Burning)

Otherwise, there's pretty slim pickings if you're looking for blogs that don't sound like they are receiving an honorarium from the Bush Administration.

Bob Dreyfuss at TomPaine.com has a guide of who's supporting whom in the Iraqi elections. It's easy to follow. Here's a sample:

Iran. If you support Iran, vote for Ayatollah Sistani’s Shiite list, headed by Abdel Aziz Hakim, the commander of the Iran-backed paramilitary Badr Brigade. Chances are that this party will get the most votes and put Iraq on the slippery slope to the theocracy. It will harmonize with Iran, and Iran will probably move closer to the Sistani position. And don’t rule out the possibility of an Israeli-Shiite alliance to follow, in a year or two.

Saudi Arabia. Voters who support Saudi Arabia can vote for Allawi’s centrist party. The CIA-backed prime minister, running on a law-and-order platform, will probably come in second, and might even stay on as prime minister. Allawi is closely tied to the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, although Saudi-Gulf voters can also back Adnan Pachachi, the octogenarian former foreign minister. Allawi means more the same—that is, more violence, more repression, more clashes with the Shiites and the Kurds.

What does America want? Dreyfuss writes,

Voting has begun in the Iraq elections. Is it an election or a non-election?

Violence continues - 10 Iraqis and 5 soldiers were killed today. The atmosphere is hardly conducive to a high voter turnout:

A 7 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew began Friday and will stay in effect through Monday, and the government said it will close Baghdad International Airport and seal the nation's borders during the election period. Medical teams will be on alert and nationwide restrictions on traffic will be imposed from Saturday to Monday to try to deter car bombs.

Here's what is being voted on: