UKRAINE UPDATE, from the New York Times:

Monday, Dec. 27 – Viktor A. Yushchenko, the opposition leader, appeared headed for a resounding victory early Monday in a riveting presidential race marked by intrigue, charges of poisoning, fervent street demonstrations and widespread abuses of state power.

There were no independent reports of the egregious election violations that had discredited the previous round of voting. Mr. Yushchenko, addressing supporters at this headquarters, predicted an end at last to an extended and bitter election season.

“It has happened,” said Mr. Yushchenko, his face still disfigured from dioxin poisoning this fall for which he has blamed his adversaries in the government. “Today we are turning a page of lies, censorship and violence.” Ahead, he said, lay a “new epoch of a new great democracy.”

With 74 percent of the votes from the Sunday election counted, Mr. Yushchenko was leading Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich by 55 percent to 40 percent, according to the Central Election Commission. The early results placed him within the range predicted by surveys of voters exiting the polls, which gave the opposition a 15- to 20-point lead.

This seems like excellent news, and it’s certainly a black eye for Putin, whose heavyhanded interference not only helped win the election for Yushchenko, but has ensured that this will send ripples throughout other former Soviet states. Some useful observations here:

–The mild support we gave to the democratic forces in the Ukraine proved far more powerful than most of the experts expected. The revolutionaries required a bit of guidance in the methods of non-violent resistance, a bit of communications gear, and many words of encouragement. They did the rest. The same can and should be done elsewhere in the world (Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, China, North Korea…)
–Our democratic values are shared by the overwhelming majority of the people in the world, and are rejected, sometimes violently, by tyrants and their followers. We need to stick to our principles, which means that we cannot blindly and compulsively support all the policies of individual anti-democratic leaders just because they help us. That kind of support always gets us in trouble (as in the Middle East, where we are justly criticized for our many decades of support for corrupt tyrants). Sometimes we will have to make some compromises, but when we do, we must still support democratic forces–openly, unapologetically.

Read the whole thing.

MORE: Russian reaction here, along with these observations:

Ukraine has been a litmus test of Russia’s capacity to influence events in the neighbouring countries.

And it appears that capacity is limited after the defeat of Mr Yanukovych, the candidate Moscow directly backed with money, moral support, advertising and TV airtime. . . .

One communist newspaper, Pravda, says the result means “the complete loss of our gas and oil export routes to the USA or the European Union”. It also voices the fear that Mr Yushchenko’s election means “Russia no longer exists as a world-class power”. Pravda blames Washington for this.

Centrist commentators portray a very different situation.

A writer for business publication Kommersant claims the outcome of Ukraine’s political crisis means “the Orange Revolution virus will now spread to Russia”.

He writes: “It will not take long to dismantle the new Russian totalitarianism”.

Media sources close to the Kremlin have stayed away from an assessment of Ukrainian exit polls. Instead, they have concentrated on the happy atmosphere in Kiev, and the apparent absence (so far) of reports of mass violations.

It’s certainly good news, in my opinion.

DARFUR UPDATE: China’s role is noted again. Perhaps we should Buy Cambodian!

POWER LINE is fact-checking Tom Friedman:

Friedman then recapitulates, in a sentence or two, ten recent news stories, all of which are intended to reflect badly the Bush administration; . . . There is a fundamental problem, however, with Friedman’s attempt to show that our national priorities are wrong. The news stories he cites are largely either false, or mischaracterized by him. Let’s take them one at a time.

And they do. Part of Friedman’s problem is that he was suckered by the Post. Power Line concludes: “Actually, Tom, there is a debate going on. The New York Times just isn’t part of it, because it operates at too low a level of information to be useful to knowledgeable news consumers.” (Ouch! It’s like they’re channeling you-know-who!) But at least Friedman isn’t living in Modopia!

UPDATE: Tom Maguire notes ironies for Okrent.

I guess this is just more evidence that “the Internet is helping.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Friedman’s missed opportunity is discussed.

WHY THE TSUNAMI DEATH TOLL IS SO HIGH:

None of the countries most severely affected – including India, Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka – had a tsunami warning mechanism or tidal gauges to alert people to the wall of water that followed a massive earthquake, said Waverly Person of the USGS National Earthquake Information Centre.

“Most of those people could have been saved if they had had a tsunami warning system in place or tide gauges,” he said yesterday. . . .

US seismologists said it was unlikely the Indian Ocean region would be hit any time soon by a similarly devastating tsunami because it takes an enormously strong earthquake to generate one.

“That’s really what has created all of these problems – is that the earthquake is just so massive,” said Dan Blakeman, a USGS earthquake analyst.

But Person said governments should instruct people living along the coast to move after a quake. Since a tsunami is generated at the source of an underwater earthquake, there is usually time – from 20 minutes to two hours – to get people away as it builds in the ocean.

“People along the Japanese coasts, along the coasts of California – people are taught to move away from the coasts. But a lot of these people in the area where this occurred – they probably had no kind of lessons or any knowledge of tsunamis because they are so rare.”

Like an asteroid strike, it seemed too unlikely to be worth guarding against.

STRATEGYPAGE: Iraq: The War That Isn’t Reported. A must-read.

UPDATE: The Belmont Club is standing up for the public’s right to know. I think that it’s further support for the thesis of Hugh Hewitt’s new book.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jim Lindgren offers some perspective.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: A followup to The Belmont Club’s post, with a poll, from Egyptian blogger The Big Pharaoh.

LOTS OF UKRAINE ELECTION POSTS at Le Sabot Post-Moderne.

UPDATE: Much more here. Exit polls show Yushchenko winning by 15%.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yushchenko supporters are claiming victory. And this passage should worry some people:

“Putin didn’t manage to push Yanukovich into power because even Putin understands that you can’t stop freedom,” Mykola Tomenko, a deputy in Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine coalition, told the cheering crowd.

“We have to help people in former Soviet republics carry out their revolutions.”

This is starting to look like a major miscalculation on Putin’s part.

MORE: Interesting background posts from Geitner Simmons, here and here.

IN THE MAIL: A copy of Hugh Hewitt’s new book, Blog : Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World — which is already at #924 on Amazon, I notice. Just glancing through it, it looks quite good and I’m sure it’s a must-read for anyone interested in the blogosphere. I’ll report back when I’ve finished it.

And no, I don’t actually get mail on Sunday — I just came into the office today. It arrived sometime last week.

REGGIE WHITE IS DEAD. Kevin Connors expects me to have a lot to say, but mostly all I have to say is that it’s sad. Reggie wasn’t perfect, but he was a good man and — unlike some other University of Tennessee players I can think of — did as much to boost the University’s reputation off the field as he did when he was on it. I wish there were more people like him in professional sports.

YOU DON’T NEED AN ASTEROID: There’s been an earthquake/tsunami in the Indian Ocean. The Command Post has a roundup; it seems quite horrific.

Malaysian blogger Rajan Rishyakaran is posting numerous updates, with links to bloggers from around the region. And here’s more from Indian blogger Nitin Pai.

UPDATE: Historical perspective, from Amit Varma, who remembers the Maharashtra quake of 1993. And Malaysian blogger Jeff Ooi has more, and a huge roundup of links to other bloggers in the region. Fellow Malaysian blogger Peter Tan is posting regularly, too, with reports from the affected areas.

It seems clear that the scope of this disaster is enormous, and the death-toll figures are likely to rise considerably as we learn more.

MORE: Here’s an extensive discussion thread from Slashdot, with lots of useful information.

STILL MORE: The United States is offering aid to affected nations. And quite a few readers want to know where they can send donations. I don’t know, but Tim Blair is promising to post information on that as soon as he has some.

MORE STILL: Here’s a first-hand report, with a photo.

WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY, and he isn’t us.

MORE ASTEROID NEWS — drawing the proper line between realistic concern and hysteria.

This asteroid, 2004 MN, is still unlikely to strike — and it’s not big enough to produce a Lucifer’s Hammer kind of situation. It’s more of a Krakatoa-level threat, which is bad enough, but not a civilization-ender. The big lesson, though, is that this sort of threat isn’t just theoretical. Though the probability of a big hit is low, even a hit of this level — which at 1/42 can’t be called very low-probability at this point — is serious. We’re fortunate that nothing like this happened during the Cold War, when it might have triggered a nuclear exchange. But as nuclear weapons proliferate, there’s more reason to try to ensure that we’re not caught by surprise even by these smaller impacts.

THE UKRAINE ELECTION RE-RUN IS UNDER WAY:

Ukrainians are voting for a new president in a repeat ballot called after outrage over fraud led to the cancellation of the result.

Pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko is strongly tipped to defeat Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, whose 21 November win was widely discredited.

Correspondents say the margin of victory will be almost as important in a country with a sharp east-west split.

About 12,000 foreign observers are monitoring the vote across the country.

Let’s hope that all goes well.

UNSCAM UPDATE:

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.-ordered probe into oil-for-food corruption is being seriously hampered by an elaborate system of ghost firms set up around the world to cover the tracks of bribes to Saddam Hussein as he cheated the $60 billion program, a top investigator said.

Not a surprise.

VERONICA KHOKHLOVA is posting more Ukraine updates. More on tomorrow’s elections here, from the BBC, and here, from Reuters.

POWER LINE: “Am I missing something, or has the AP now admitted everything it was charged with by Wretchard?” Wretchard, meanwhile, has another question. And Roger Simon is unhappy.

It’s interesting that intelligence agencies like the CIA have come under a lot of fire by the media for using individuals with, um, questionable associations in order to get the story, but that news media organizations themselves seem to be doing something not too different.

IT’S A MILBLOGGERS’ CHRISTMAS ROUNDUP over at The Mudville Gazette, and there’s a poem, too.

JONATHAN LAST is defending The American Prospect.

THE WASHINGTON POST GETS IT BACKWARD ON PELL GRANTS: At least they admitted the error:

The headline on a Dec. 24 article about the Education Department’s new formula for federal college scholarship aid incorrectly said that fewer students will be eligible for Pell Grants. Although 80,000 to 90,000 grantees at the higher-income end will be dropped from the Pell program in the 2005-2006 academic year, the department expects more students to be eligible overall because of a rising number of low-income high school graduates.

But, of course, the correction isn’t as prominent as the error.

A CHRISTMAS COLUMN from Austin Bay.

ZEYAD has numerous posts about the Iraqi elections.

UKRAINE UPDATE:

A Ukrainian court says a key change to the country’s election law violates the constitution, in a dramatic ruling on the eve of Sunday’s presidential vote.

A reform limiting voting from home was passed by parliament amid the crisis generated by November’s disputed poll.

Viktor Yanukovych’s backers challenged the law, saying it would discriminate against the disabled and housebound.

Their solicitude for the less-fortunate is commendable. Meanwhile a reader sends this, from Dick Morris:

The stakes for global liberty couldn’t be higher. In Russia’s bid to come back as an imperial power, the Ukraine struggle is the equivalent of Hitler’s bid to remilitarize the Rhineland. A determined stand here will keep Russia (145 million) and Ukraine (50 million) separate and cripple Putin’s imperial ambitions. With Ukraine inevitably drawing closer to the EU and further away from Moscow, its chances for prosperity and freedom will increase.

But all depends on forcing the country’s powers-that-be to count the votes accurately.

Indeed.

JAY MANIFOLD HAS MORE on the asteroid threat mentioned below. And here’s an article, though the risk has been revised upward since.

UPDATE: Some further discussion on Slashdot.

And it’s worth noting that what we are missing is in some ways as troubling as what we’re seeing.

DAVID BROOKS looks at the best political essays of 2004. I particularly agree with his choices regarding the Stuntz and Longman pieces.

IT’S NOT FEELING MUCH LIKE CHRISTMAS at the U.N.: “A longtime confidant and adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan abruptly resigned this week, while two senior management and budgetary experts indicated they plan to leave shortly. The exodus reflects a period of uncertainty among senior U.N. management as Mr. Annan enters the final two years of his current term, a time that is likely to be focused in large measure on the oil-for-food scandal.”

LONDON CALLING ASKS WHERE’S THE GLOBAL BLOGGER? Good question. I do what I can to encourage bloggers elsewhere, but there’s only one of me.

UPDATE: Read this post by Joi Ito, too.