This is the coolest bike
in the world for short trips around town, the Strida.
Folds in seconds, relatively light, rolls when folded,
stores easily, grease-free Kevlar belt (instead of a
chain), able to fit easily on subways and buses. I've
had mine for almost 3 years and love it! Perfect
for NYC. Click here
to visit the site.
If ever there was going to be a turning point in this war, this is probably it, from NYT: Muslim Cleric Urges Iraqis Not to Resist. I certainly hope they're reporting that on Al-Jazeera. Of course, that might be difficult, as Al-Jazeera has been kicked out of Baghdad.
A colleague has emailed me to say that, according to Al Jazeera, Salam Pax is wounded in hospital. He seems to be in the city of Najaf. The doctor said that he was on his computer when his house was hit by a bomb.
After getting way too much publicity for a gay architect in Baghdad, Salam hasn't blogged for a week and a half now. Of course, this is the Internet, after all, which means who knows whether this is reliable, or, for that matter, whether Salam even exists.
Here's a wacky Iraqi theory: Salam is actually the alterego of Saddam himself! Wouldn't that be twisted?
The mystery intensifies: NYT piece on how Washington is spreading the "Saddam is dead" rumor as best it can for psychological advantage. It's ratchetting up the the up the pressure on Saddam to clarify the matter conclusively once and for all, or it probably will begin to look like the guy is really gone, which could certainly destabalize Iraq, if the the idea gained widespread belief.
Personally, I think we got him. I called it just a few hours after it happened, before they even came forward and said who they were targeting. Were it true, this thing may yet end quickly all of the sudden.
Or what if this: he's never heard from again. He just vanishes, and we never know for sure whether we got him or he simply got away. What a mind fuck this guy is.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is an accomplished man. Not only is he guiding the war in Iraq, he has been a pilot, a congressman, an ambassador, a businessman, and a civil servant. But few Americans know that he is also a poet...
Glass Box
You know, it's the old glass box at the—
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's—
And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But—
Some of you are probably too young to remember those—
Those glass boxes,
But—
But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.
—Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing
You know, if you had a band, and you were really determined to stay an underground band, instead of putting a vulgarity in your band name like in the olden days, you could just name your band "HTTP" so that nobody could search for it on Google. That would prove how underground you really are.
Unilateralist journalist friend in Iraq again checks in with Nick, this time to explain that the most highly valued commodity of this conflict is a satellite phone.
Doing the rounds in email these days, erroneously being attributed to John Cleese (it would appear in fact to be written by a staffer at SatireWire), quite funny piece: "Angerred by Snubbing, Lybia, China, Syria Form 'Axis of Just as Evil'." Here are the first two paragraphs:
Bitter after being snubbed for membership in the "Axis of Evil," Libya, China, and Syria today announced they had formed the "Axis of Just as Evil," which they said would be way eviler than that stupid Iran-Iraq-North Korea axis President Bush warned of his State of the Union address.
Axis of Evil members, however, immediately dismissed the new axis as having, for starters, a really dumb name. "Right. They are Just as Evil... in their dreams!" declared North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. "Everybody knows we're the best evils... best at being evil... we're the best."
Mark my words, "Fadayeen" will take on legendary proportions in the years to come in the annals of fanatical suicidal terrorists. Newsweek reports on what makes these pychos tick:
They began as what analysts at the time dismissed as a “toy army,” a pet project of Saddam’s volatile eldest son, Uday. He recruited the Saddam Fedayeen (“Martyrs for Saddam”) as a special bodyguard for his father. At first, according to experts on Iraq and defectors from Saddam’s inner circle, they did little more than Uday’s twisted bidding—-picking up girls for him to rape, beating Olympic athletes for losing games, cutting out the tongues of critics of the regime. Meanwhile Uday’s younger and more reliable brother Qusay took charge of his father’s most important paramilitary organizations, especially the feared Special Security Office and the elite Special Republican Guard.
Uday reqcruited the Fedayeen in orphanages and prisons, where candidates for his unique blend of psychopathy and filial devotion were plentiful.
Also contains the kind of quote I love from Rumsfeld: “If their wish is to die for Saddam Hussein, they will be accommodated.”
He is truly the evilest genius of his generation. Dr. Evil has nothing on Saddam. Without a doubt he is one of the sickest bastards Hell ever spawned. An he's winning the PR war? Incredible. But, given his insanely twisted logic, he is a most formidable foe, truly brilliant in his depravity and refusal to give up and die already. What a mind-fuck he's put on all of us.
