Category: Miscellany

class=”linktitle”>Thank You Veterans! Trac (8 links)
Oblogatory Anecdotes
You can read my weekly article on Newwest.net by clicking on the link. My story conserns school choice and Children First Utah.Also it is

Friday Ark #60 (7 links)
Modulator
Friday Ark Template We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cu

class=”linktitle”>Veterans Day Links (7 links)
-Peakah’s Provocations-
Of course there’s mine from yestersday.Mudville Gazette’s

Deck O’ Bloggers 2005 – Hearts Voting OPEN!!! (7 links)
aaron | aaron
On Veterans Day, Im initiating the voting for Hearts, those that nurtured and/or inspired (and continue to inspire!) our soldier boys.
If my beloved father-in-law, rest his soul, and my mother-in-law blogged, Id have just awarded the

Honoring Veteran’s Day 2005 (7 links)
California Conservative
[L]et us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us re-consecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring pea

class=”linktitle”>Buchanan and Democrats Ma (7 links)
RightFaith
The leadership that Democrats and Pat Buchanan offers manifests their aged strategies and irrelevance. Gone are the days when politicians could rely upon a lazy constituency by providing sound-bites that a

class=”linktitle”>Bush’s Speech, Call (9 links)
Stop The ACLU
window.document.getElementById(‘post-561’).parentNode.className += ‘ adhesive_post’; Bush knocks it out of the park.
President Bush fires back at critics of the war in Iraq and says it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how

President Bush: “It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began&#8221 (8 links)
The Political Teen
President Bush addresses Veterans. November 11, 2005. Video.]]>

The President Strikes Back (7 links)
Blogs for Bush: The White House Of The Blogosphere
For the longest time we on the right have been wondering when President Bush was going to come out swinging against his critics on the war. As time has progressed and our victory in Iraq become more manifest, the drumbeat…

class=”linktitle”>BUSH BATTLES BACK (10 links)
Michelle Malkin
President Bush takes on the Cindy Sheehan Left:
“While it is perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the co

Give Peace a Chance and Declare War on Israel (9 links)
Conservative Cat
People always ask Bruce how I can be so smart and still support the war in Iraq, so I thoought I'd better explain it. Now, a lot of people get stuck on the whole Bush-lied-soldiers-died thing, but that means nothing…

Democrats Deny Having Pre-War Intelligence (7 links)
ScrappleFace
(2005-11-11) — Democrats in Congress today rejected President George Bush’s accusation that they’re trying to rewrite history, which shows they supported the Iraq war based on the same intelligence that drove his decision to send in the troops.]]>

class=”linktitle”>Bush’s Gettysburg (12 links)
Don Surber
From a small town in Pennsylvania, the president came to finally answer critics of an increasingly unpopular war, a war that Democrats hoped would sweep them into office in the next election.But enough abou

Rewriting History (7 links)
Eschaton
Bush today:“It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how the war began,’

class=”linktitle”>BUSH SLAMS HISTORICAL REV (8 links)
Instapundit.com
BUSH SLAMS HISTORICAL REVISIONISTS ON THE WAR: About time. Jeff Goldstein has more. And read earlier posts on this subject here and here. Also here. The White House needs to go on the offensive here in a big way — and Bush needs to be very plain th

Heroes (7 links)
third world county
This is a repost of my Memorial Day post of May 30, 2005. The poems quoted below were each in response to WWI and are equally appropriate, IMO, on Veterans Day, honoring both those who have given their live

class=”linktitle”>Our School blog burst (7 links)
joannejacobs.com
After nearly five years, my book, Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea and the School That Beat the Odds is a reality. I've got my advance copy; the book should be in the stores by…

American Media Quit The French Riots Story (7 links)
Captain’s Quarters
If an American consumer read today's newspapers, he would assume that the riots in France have ended. None of the major newspapers that had covered the uprising have any specific updates today on the story, despite the continued overnight viole

CQ Thanks American Veterans For Their Sacrifice (7 links)
Captain’s Quarters
CQ flies the flag that defied the terrorists at the Pentagon on September 12, 2001. Thank you to all who serve or have served our nation by laying your lives on the line for our freedom and safety. This flag…

class=”linktitle”>Veteran's Day 2005. (10 links)
Argghhh! The Home Of Two Of Jonah’s Military Guys..
You *really* to honor a Vet? Then do this. Donate. Again, if you have already.

Ghosts of the Great War, 2005 (9 links)
Making Light
(See also, last years comment thread on this same post.) Were not making a sacrifice. Jesus, youve seen this war….

November 11, 2005 (8 links)
Below The Beltway
They’ve always done their duty.
From Valley Forge:

Veterans’ Day Drop Zone – OPEN POST (8 links)
euphoricreality.net
Ill have a piece up on Veterans Day later this afternoon after class. For now, Id like to offer people a chance to show us what theyve done for this special day. Leave a trackback to your Veterans Day post so we

Veterans Never Forgotten (7 links)
PC Free Zone
Veterans Never
Forgotten
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.
We didn’t pass it on to our chil

The Continuing GOP Collapse (7 links)
Below The Beltway
On Wednesday it was drilling in ANWAR, yesterday the GOP leadership caved in on their entire plan to cut the federal budget.
House Republican leaders were forced to abruptly pull their $54 billion budget-cu

class=”linktitle”>Present Arms (8 links)
overtaken~by~events
It's Veteran's Day, and just about everyone has a better tribute up than I'be be able to write. I would…

Veteran's Day (8 links)
Conservative Thinking
A note from my parents this morning:
On this Veterans Day, thank you for serving. In case your dad and I don’t think to tell you often enough, we are very proud of you and your service to our country.

Veterans Day (7 links)
Jo’s Cafe
Tribute to the Military here from Military.com.
Basil has an open post for Veterans Day posts here.
The Grey Tie has a great tribute here.
Sin City posts about the “11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month”.
Don Surber’s Veterans Da

class=”linktitle”>Veteran’s Day Open (10 links)
BIG DOG’s WEBLOG
The date of 11/11 is set aside each year so that we might honor those who have served our country. It is strange that we set one day aside for the people who ensure we are able to enjoy the rest of the days safely in a free and great country. The

Open Post – Thank a Veteran (8 links)
Choose Life
Today is Veteran’s Day. For the freedoms you have, for the extraordinary life you lead, thank a veteran.]]>

Thank you; Veterans Day 2005 (8 links)
RightFaith

Veteran’s Day Salute and Open Post (7 links)
TMH’s Bacon Bits
Thank You Veterans
for your service and sacrifice
And current military: Know that America supports you!
from the founding writers and guest bloggers at TMH’s Bacon Bits
Penelope
Bergbikr
The MaryHunter
&and don’t forget: today is t

Veterans' Day, 2005 (7 links)
CatHouse Chat
Today is the day that our country sets aside to give due honor and thanks to the men and women who have so faithfully served their country. Ever since our country was founded 229 years ago, men and women have…

class=”linktitle”>“.. to preserve, pr (10 links)
La Shawn Barber’s Corner
While I spent a peaceful night sleeping in the comfort of home, rising early to work at home, then prepare for my upcoming trip to New York City for the Pajamas Media launch, I thought about the people whore helping to keep me free and safe.

Veterans Day Open Trackbacks (9 links)
Stop The ACLU
window.document.getElementById(‘post-559’).parentNode.className += ‘ adhesive_post’; Its Veterans Day, thank a vet.
November 11, is the anniversary of the Armistice which was signed in the Forest of Compiegne by the Allies and the Germans in 1918

VETERAN'S DAY (7 links)
Michelle Malkin
To all of America’s men and women who serve and have served: Thank you and God bless.
Stars and Stripes marks the day.
Read the latest from

class=”linktitle”>Veteran’s Day 2005 (7 links)
basil’s blog
Today is Veterans Day. For the freedoms you have, for the extraordinary life you lead, thank a veteran.
It was a veteran, not a reporter,
Who guaranteed freedom of the press.
It was a veteran, not a poet,
Who guaranteed freedom of speech.

Da’ Weekend (7 links)
NIF

class=”linktitle”>Self-Inflicted Wounds (12 links)
Power Line
Republicans in both the Senate and the House were in disarray today. In the House, the party's leaders had to…

11-11 (12 links)
Making Light
No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk. Of course they're…

Veterans Day (10 links)
Don Surber
From my column:Congress is considering an end to military honors at the funerals of veterans who later commit heinous crimes.
This crusade began with a particularly gruesome multiple murder case in Maryland

On Plastic Surgery (8 links)
Popagandhi
Agagooga got to the good stuff before I could be bothered to dig up my yearbooks, and maybe this is why I said

class=”linktitle”>Roll the dice (27 links)
NIF

Top Ten Reasons To Stop The ACLU (22 links)
Stop The ACLU
window.document.getElementById(‘post-552’).parentNode.className += ‘ adhesive_post’; Stop The ACLU was started on February 9th, 2004. We started with high hopes, and we realized we were facing a goliath. There were many reasons why we thought the

LETTERS TO THE GOP (20 links)
Michelle Malkin
Reader reaction to the GOP cave-in on ANWR has been overwhelming. I’m reprinting just a small sample of letters that came in this morning from conservatives fed-up with Republican “leade

Roll the dice (20 links)
NIF
Quick Thoughts * News * Interesting * Funny * Quote(s) of the Day * Closing Thursday : Is Stop the ACLU day, my crosspost is below NIF : Running late / slow today … again …

Quick Thoughts News * Interesting * Funny * Quote(s) of

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARINES (14 links)
Michelle Malkin
It’s the 230th anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps. A new commemorative stamp series is being unveiled this week. Here are the honorees:

Pre Veterans' Day Blogfest (14 links)
Stuck On Stupid
Happy Birthday Marine Corps: 230 years old today! Trackback any news that you want known that might have been ignored by the MSM. Just make sure that you trackback to this post. Linked to:Adam's Blog,Big Dog's, The Political Teen, Don Sub

Flatiron properties (14 links)
Making Light
There's plenty of documentation on the strong winds at the base of the Flatiron Building, but has it ever been…

Beer-Throwing Lawyers & Open Post (10 links)
Don Surber
Lawyer Robert P. Martin, 51, may have discovered a new way to settle civil disputes: Beer throwing. Martin stands accused of tossing a can of beer at the chest of another lawyer, Michael M. Fisher.
The poli

Breakfast: 11/10/2005 (9 links)
basil’s blog
Try one of these specials with your breakfast:
Michelle Malkin looks at the latest GOP cave-in
Stop the ACLU! stopped at ten reasons, but could go on
Random Thoughts are about lying
Maggie likes voting, but not all voters
Metaphysically Wrin

Republicans: Democrats Lite (8 links)
Below The Beltway
Michelle Malkin calls it “The GOP Cave In” but you can call it whatever you want. Suffice it to say that my lack of confidence in the Republican

ACLU Can Now Accept Money From Terrorists (8 links)
Stop The ACLU
window.document.getElementById(‘post-557’).parentNode.className += ‘ adhesive_post’; Hat tip: And Rightly So
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union and 12 other national non-profit organizations today said they have

Picnic Lunch 11/10/2005 (7 links)
basil’s blog
If you have an interesting post that you’d like to share, please leave a TrackBack to that post, and please link to this post so that others can enjoy the fun.
If you need help with TrackBacks:
Harvey of Bad Example has an excellent primer h

Folks –
I’ve mostly stayed out of the contentious parts of the “sexism in the Blogosphere” debate, and that isn’t about to change now. However, Meryl did me as an example of sorts of how, perhaps, gender influenced who the Big Boys linked to:
Was it sheer coincidence that NZ Bear shot up to the top of the blogosphere? Or was it sexism, as no female blogger has ever garnered the attention he received quite so quickly? (We’re talking pre-ecosystem—Glenn Reynolds, Bill Quick, and Stephen Green treated Bear like a long-lost brother returned home…)
Well, it’s obviously impossible to say what influenced those fellows to link to me, and I won’t try. Do I believe there was gender-bias involved? No. Can I prove it? Also no.
Except… let’s take a look at all the links I got from Glenn in the early days of my blog:
May 18, 2002 – HEADS ROLLING: Josh Marshall says the 9/11 intelligence problems were more likely systemic than the result of dereliction of duty… And The Bear says we should focus on the bottom line…
May 25, 2002 – AD HOMINEM ALERT: Ben Domenech says that my post on teen sex means I can’t be a father… UPDATE: And N.Z. Bear has some comments on fatherhood.
May 28, 2002 – BLOGGER N.Z. BEAR has a lengthy post on the latest Amnesty International report on human rights…
May 28, 2002 – “HE’S MORE MACHINE NOW THAN MAN:” Hillary Carter continues her feud with Richard “Darth” Bennett… UPDATE: The Bear says much the same. So does Stephen Green.
May 29, 2002 – THE BEAR SAYS I’m wrong about Bill Frist’s HIV/Terrorism speech
May 31, 2002 – BLOGGER N.Z. BEAR has a piece in Salon today. It’s his/her first professional sale. Congrats, Bear!
Wait a minute…
“his/her first professional sale” ?
Kinda difficult to charge Glenn with any trace sexism in my case when he didn’t seem to be clear on my gender until he had already linked to me five times, isn’t it?

Decided that Meryl’s posts regarding call to revolution deserved more prominence. Particularly since she doesn’t have comments, and I do — somehow, I suspect there might be debate around these.
Issue 1: Is there sexism from the “big guns” in the Blogosphere? Meryl says yes:
Do the A-listers link more often to male bloggers and ignore female bloggers? Do the guys have an online boys club where they check their buddies out first? Was it sheer coincidence that NZ Bear shot up to the top of the blogosphere? Or was it sexism, as no female blogger has ever garnered the attention he received quite so quickly?
…Yes, I think there is sexism in the blogosphere, and it is for the most part unintentional. I was working on a post on that topic months ago, and as a for-instance, I checked the blogrolls of the weblogs I visited regularly and discovered an appalling ratio of female-to-male bloggers on blogrolls…
Disclaimer/Reminder: Meryl and I are old (and I do mean old) offline friends; she’s allowed to use me as an example.
Issue 2: Can a woman post about sex (and post suggestive photos of herself) and still expect to be taken seriously on other subjects? Meryl is dubious:
“Yeah, I’ve heard the argument: There are great investigative articles in Playboy and Penthouse. I’ve even read many of them, since in my days as a typesetter my typehouse published Penthouse. But those investigative articles are not written by the women who are spreading their legs for the centerfold. It’s a credibility issue. It’s difficult to take Dawn seriously under these circumstances…
If you spend an overwhelming amount of words (or pictures) in your weblog on one theme, and then get annoyed with people when they lock you into that theme, you’ve already lost the high ground. It’s rather unfair to blame people for thinking of you in one way when you’ve worked hard to establish that they do think of you that way. Dawn, my suggestion: Start a new weblog for your serious topics, and stick with the sexuality on Up Yours. I can’t see any other way out of your dilemma.”
My thoughts? I still have a nagging feeling that this is a double standard, which was one of the issues I raised in my original emails to Meryl goading her into weighing in on this topic.
I think I agree with Meryl, though, when she says that it is a bit much to complain about being pigeonholed into one topic (regardless of if it is sex or humor) when you yourself have made that topic the focus of your blog. So when Dawn says:
“[Glenn] has even linked to me, but I have noticed a trend in what he links to: it’s never any of my more heady posts, but usually something sexual, which taken out context, comes off as condescending or even vaguely insulting.”
…I think perhaps she’s being a bit oversensitive. The fact that Glenn (or anybody) tends to link to her sex posts might well be explained by simple probability; if you generally write about sex, chances are when you get a link, it’ll be on a post about sex.
But… I can’t help still thinking that if Dawn’s main topic was humor; or cooking; or sports, or something — anything — other than sex, then Meryl might have been more willing to rally to her cause. As Meryl herself says, “It’s a credibility issue. It’s difficult to take Dawn seriously under these circumstances…”. So the conclusion I have to reach is that writing about sex removes your credibility — or posting suggestive photos of yourself removes your credibility. And I’m still not sure why sex is more credibility-removing than the silliness Lair brings to the table much of the time (and then counters with intelligent, heartfelt commentary at other times). And while its arguable whether Lair’s style alienates him from gaining respect widely, I know for a fact that he has mine, and Meryl’s.
Enough of my opinions. Your turn. Comment away, please…

Dawn Olsen is tired of the current hierarchy in the Blogosphere, and is to stir up a revolution:
“The biggest bloggers (those with the most influence and traffic) do what they do and link who they feel support their beliefs and arguments. If you aren’t a war-blogger then there seems to be no reason to pay attention to you. And even if you do include politics and war-blogging in your material, but focus mainly on micro/personal issues, say someone like Shell, you are still overlooked by the mainstream people…NO ONE HAS A RESPONSIBILITY TO LINK TO ANYONE ELSE. But……
It turns out a lot of people seem to have a similiar unspoken feelings about the heirarchy, and feel somewhat resentful about being ignored by the appointed leaders.
Well who appointed them? We did. Every blogger who links them or reads them appointed them. And why not? They are all excellent writers, state their points of view well, and the majority of the community agree with them. But that doesn’t make them nice people or appropriate leaders. Not all leaders do an equal job with the responsiblity handed them…
I won’t read them, I won’t link to them and I will not speak of them again…The current state of affairs can be changed. The weight and power of the collective blogalaxy can cause a huge shift if it wants to. That’s how revolutions begin.”
A disclaimer: Dawn took great pains to ensure she stated her point clearly and fairly, and I’ve attempted to preserve that spirit in my quotes, but it was a difficult job, so I heartily recommend you read the whole thing.
Dawn’s gotten a batch of comments already, some insulting, some insightful. The best of the lot imho came from Ann Salisbury:
“The way I see it is this: you have your thing, other bloggers have theirs. Your traffic will grow as other people who are interested in what you have to say find you. In the same way, the “other” bloggers traffic has grown based on what they have to say (and maybe when they started saying it).
I have issues with some “other” bloggers too. Mostly because they don’t welcome reasoned or spirited dissent on their blogs. Fair enough — it’s their blog. They are not performing a public service. By the same token, I’m not required to return, read or link to them. Am I a little hurt by their behavior, yes. But there are many, many worse things in life.
So repeat after me: “I am not my traffic. I am not my traffic.”
Dawn kindly asked me to chip in my thoughts (I had commented on a related subject on her board), so here’s my $0.02.
First, Ann is bang on: traffic for traffic’s sake is silly. I’m getting hits on my page for “s0ccer m0m p0rn” from Google right now (I’m # 1 ! ) because somebody posted a comment mentioning the P0rn Video Store Blogger in reply to my post on how I wish everyone (including s0ccer m0m’s) were blogging. Somehow, I don’t think those folks are adding much value to my site (nor do I suspect I’m providing them what they seek, either).
That said, I think Dawn is looking for more than a way to simply increase her own traffic stats; she’s looking to change the entire “state of affairs”, as she put it, of how the Blogosphere is organized. A “revolution”, in fact.
Let me try to set a specific goal here, and hopefully I’m interpreting Dawn correctly: she’s looking to change the balance of power, so to speak, which I interpret as wanting to see more traffic flowing to the less-established bloggers, and less traffic flowing to the few, core “leaders” that are “in power” today.
Dawn’s approach is to act within her sphere of influence: she will no longer link to our mention the current “leadership” on her blog, and she encourages others to do the same if they feel similarly.
The problem is, I can’t see this ever changing the distribution of traffic in any significant way. And that would seem to be the goal.
Why? Well, first let’s look at the direct effects. Imagine that Dawn’s got 300 visitors a day currently, and Evil Leader #1 has 4,000 visitors a day (I’m making numbers up, obviously). If EL1 links to Dawn (or doesn’t), it has a major impact on her traffic, because EL1’s incoming traffic is so much greater than hers. But the converse isn’t true: if Dawn doesn’t link to EL1, EL1 isn’t going to even notice. The visits she might (or might not) send his way are completely insignificant compared to his normal base traffic.
OK, so Dawn isn’t going to be able to hurt the Evil Leaders by depriving them of traffic directly. That was pretty obvious, really; Dawn didn’t need me to tell her that.
The more interesting question, really, is how both Dawn and the Evil Leaders gain new readers. How does somebody who has never read a blog in their life find the first blog they decide to read regularly?
Well, I claim it is a matter of visibility. You’ve got visibility in the Blogosphere itself — how many other bloggers are linking to you — and then, for some higher-powered bloggers, you’ve actually got visibility in mainstream media.
The problem Dawn’s effort faces is that the Evil Leaders’ visibility is just as disproportionate with hers as their traffic is. A new blog-reader is far, far more likely — just by random chance of what they happen to have seen in a BigMedia article on blogging or by stumbling onto somebody’s blog page somewhere — to find themselves routed to the Evil Leaders’ pages than to Dawn’s.
But, you say, Dawn’s content is far more interesting to some people than the Evil Leaders’! They’ll want to read Dawn’s stuff more!
And that is most certainly true; Dawn offers her own unique voice that I’m sure many folks would choose over the Evil Leaders’. But it doesn’t matter, because chances are, the vast majority of Dawn’s potential audience is never going to find her. The Evil Leaders’ have the visibility: they get the new readers. Think gravity: they’ve got the mass; the readers are going to naturally fall towards them. Some tiny few will trickle out, and venture into the deep dark unknown, and they may then find Dawn’s little asteroid circling out somewhere beyond Mars. But most won’t — including most of those who really would enjoy her work.
But… what if Dawn manages to convince a lot of other people to also not link to the Evil Leaders anymore?
Well, theoretically, if you got enough of the Blogosphere on board, maybe it would work. But maybe not even then. Those Evil Leaders have a large amount of traffic coming to them with no referrals at all; so those ‘base’ readers wouldn’t be affected at all. Sure, you could chip away at their visibility over time, but you’d have to have a rather big chunk of the existing Blogosphere on your side to make much of a difference — and, by the way, you’d have to make sure you got to every single brand-new blogger first, before they do what every new blogger does today — put up links on their page to the Evil Leaders.
This is not to say that Dawn should drink the Cool-Aide and keep linking to people she doesn’t approve of, of course. Nor should anybody else. But sorry as I am to say it, I can’t see a “revolution” coming of it.
But… perhaps there is another way. Not to unseat the Evil Leaders, necessarily — I suspect we’ll always see a power-law distribution of traffic — but at least to ensure that people who would enjoy Dawn’s work can find it.
Yes, I have a bias here; and yes, I’m selling something.
It’s my little metadata effort, of course. The whole point of which is to allow bloggers to tell the world about themselves; to publish information about who they are and what they blog — and to ensure that there are ways for readers to search on that information and find them.
If we can be successful in our effort, new readers won’t just have to rely on the Evil Leaders to point them to other blogs to read. They’ll be able to go to a search portal and search on — for instance — female bloggers who write about sex and politics.
And bing, out pops a link to Up Yours.
Anyway. Yes, I’m evangelizing again, but it’s kinda my job, so forgive me. And I do truly believe in that which I speak. Bottom-up revolutions are all fine and good — but in this case, the technology as it exists today stacks the game against the little people. I’m working to change that — not necessarily to unseat the Evil Leaders (I think many of them are fun, in, well, an Evil kind of way) — but to empower the Little People.
Connect every blogger with their full “natural audience” of readers who are out there, not knowing they exist but who would enjoy their work — do that, and that my friends, will be the revolution.
Update: Meryl weighs in on sexism in the Blogosphere, and whether sex & serious politics can mix.

Observe the latest news this morning (focus on the headline):

Iraq says airstrike hit civilians
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sept. 6, 2002 | BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Iraq on Friday accused U.S. and British planes of striking civilian targets during an air raid southwest of Baghdad, and it claimed its anti-aircraft batteries chased off the attacking jets.
The U.S. military said Thursday that American and British planes attacked an air defense command and control facility at a military airfield 240 miles southwest of Baghdad.
The U.S. Central Command said the strike was a response to an Iraqi attack on allied aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone.
On Friday, Iraqi state newspapers quoted an unidentified Iraqi military spokesman as saying enemy warplanes had attacked “civil and service installations” in the al-Rutbah area on Thursday. They gave no further details about the sites.
Iraq almost invariably accuses allied planes of attacking civilian targets.

Help me out here, folks; I’m just a poor blogger. I don’t know about all that high-falootin’ professional journalism and stuff. But if Iraq “almost invariably accuses allied planes of attacking civilian targets”, why the hell is that the bloody headline?
As far as I know, this is the only story the AP is running on this incident in its main feed — at the least, it’s the only one Salon is posting from their AP feed. So again, help me understand: is the fact that Iraq complained about it really the most significant aspect of this story? Do I really need to Stephen over there to explain a few things to the Associated Press?
Here’s the link — I’m exposing the filename because it, too, demonstrates the point: http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2002/09/06/civilians/index.html

Hey you.
Yeah, you.
You a geek?
Shhh. I won’t tell nobody. S’okay, you’re with friends here.
Yeah? Good, good. First step to recovery and all that.
But listen — you want a hit of something strong?
Like, let’s-change-the-world-with-technology strong?
Oh yeah, I knew you did.
Then let me clue you in on the latest thing.
It’s called
Yeah, yeah, I know the name sucks, they’re fixing that. Nevermind that.
But its powerful stuff, man.
Designing metadata to describe weblogs across the planet.
Enabling search engines beyond your wildest dreams; find blogs by topic; geography; language, what-ever.
Looping in blogging tool providers to get their input and to get ’em to implement the stuff right in their tools — yeah, they’re talkin’ to the big boys.
XML, RDF, Dublin Core — it’s the real deal.
And its an open source effort: 100% pure. Only the good stuff.
Come on, man. All the cool kids are doing it.