Beth Gillin schreibt beim Philly Inquirer(Philadelphia Inquirer):

Salam Pax -- known as the mysterious Blogger of Baghdad -- went missing last week as bombs rained down on the city, the Philadelphia Innquirer reports. For months, the blogger reported daily details of life in Baghdad as Iraq drew closer to war. The Friday after the war began, Pax filed a worried blog on his site "Where is Raed?" as he awaited the "shock and awe" assaults. Then for three days he went silent.

While readers around the world questioned if he had been killed during the bombings, others questioned Pax’s authenticity. "Other than what he tells us, we have no way of knowing if he's actually posting live from Baghdad or is running some elaborate hoax from the middle of Kansas," Web designer Jason Kottke blogged. Speculation as to his true identity -- spy, civilian or lackey of Hussein -- has abounded. Paul Boutin, a technology writer for Slate and Wired, investigated Pax's blog and concluded the man is "probably" real. But with a word of caution he said, "In the end, it's still a matter of faith."

On March 24, Pax returned to his bloggings and informed readers that site traffic had caused servers to blow out on two continents, making his blogs unavailable. The blog, which began in December 2001 with a mere 140 hits for the month, has reportedly received nearly 100,000 hits so far for this month.

Salam Pax's "Where is Raed?": http://www.dearraed.blogspot.com/
CBS News: Defining Shock & Awe (January 27, 2003): http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/24/eveningnews/main537928.shtml
Bio Of Jason Kottke: http://kottke.org/about/jasonkottke.html
Boutin's comments on Pax and his Bio: http://paulboutin.weblogger.com/
Slate Homepage: http://slate.msn.com/
Wired homepage: http://www.wired.com/wired/current.html
Philly Inquirer's Homepage: http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/

Dieser Song von Randy Newmann war ursprünglich als Satire gedacht (1972) ,....

Political Science
No one likes us
I don't know why.
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try.
But all around even our old friends put us down.
Let's drop the big one and see what happens.

We give them money
But are they grateful?
No they're spiteful
And they're hateful.
They don't respect us so let's surprise them;
We'll drop the big one and pulverize them.
Now Asia's crowded
And Europe's too old.
Africa's far too hot,
And Canada's too cold.
And South America stole our name.
Let's drop the big one; there'll be no one left to blame us.

We'll save Australia;
Don't wanna hurt no kangaroo.
We'll build an all-American amusement park there;
They've got surfing, too.
Well, boom goes London,
And boom Paris.
More room for you
And more room for me.
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town.
Oh, how peaceful it'll be;
We'll set everybody free;
You'll have Japanese kimonos, baby,
There'll be Italian shoes for me.
They all hate us anyhow,
So let's drop the big one now.
Let's drop the big one now.

Quelle: Album "Sail Away", relased 1972
http://www.randynewman.com/sail_away.html#7

Diese Kolumne von Megnut (Meg Hourihan) ist nich neu. Aber immer wieder gut. Und im Hinblick auf die "Warbloggs" wieder brandaktuell:

When we talk about weblogs, we're talking about a way of organizing information, independent of its topic. What we write about does not define us as bloggers; it's how we write about it (frequently, ad nauseam, peppered with links).

Weblogs simply provide the framework, as haiku imposes order on words. The structure of the documents we're creating enable us to build our social networks on top of it -- the distributed conversations, the blog-rolling lists, and the friendships that begin online and are solidified over a "bloggers dinner" in the real world.

As bloggers, we're in the middle of, and enjoying, an evolution of communication. The traits of weblogs mentioned above will likely change and advance as our tools improve and our technology matures. What's important is that we've embraced a medium free of the physical limitations of pages, intrusions of editors, and delays of tedious publishing systems. As with free speech itself, what we say isn't as important as the system that enables us to say it.

Hier weiterlesen: http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/2474

Nach der gestrigen Ankündigung von Bundesrätin Micheline Calmy-Rey, die Schweiz werde eine "Liste der zivilen Opfer im Irak-Krieg" (siehe auch Der Rollberg resp. SonntagsBlick ) auf der Homepage des EDA - Eidgenössisches Depatement für auswärtige Angelegenheiten veröffentlichen, herrscht dort momentan heavy traffic ... man kommt noch kaum auf die Seiten.

Nur,...hat man es endlich geschafft,....wo ist denn die besagte Liste? :-(

http://www.eda.admin.ch/

[NACHTRAG] Soeben meldet die Nachrichtenagentur SDA, dass sich die Liste verzögern wird ...

[NACH-NACH-Trag] Aha und nun steht's auch auf der EDA-Webseite:

31.03.2003: Irak - Liste mit zivilen Kriegsopfern
Die erwähnte Liste steht noch nicht auf unseren Internetseiten zur Verfügung. Ein entsprechender Link wird in den nächsten Tagen auf dieser Website veröffentlicht .

*schnarchnasen* ! Die haben wohl auch endlich bemerkt, dass die EDA-Seite nicht mehr erreichbar wäre. Daran hätte man doch auch früher denken können oder ??

Gefunden bei ABC-News:

US soldiers in Iraq asked to pray for Bush

They may be the ones facing danger on the battlefield, but US soldiers in Iraq are being asked to pray for President George W Bush.

Thousands of marines have been given a pamphlet called "A Christian's Duty," a mini prayer book which includes a tear-out section to be mailed to the White House pledging the soldier who sends it in has been praying for Bush.

"I have committed to pray for you, your family, your staff and our troops during this time of uncertainty and tumult. May God's peace be your guide," says the pledge, according to a journalist embedded with coalition forces.

The pamphlet, produced by a group called In Touch Ministries, offers a daily prayer to be made for the US president, a born-again Christian who likes to invoke his God in speeches.

Sunday's is "Pray that the President and his advisers will seek God and his wisdom daily and not rely on their own understanding".

Monday's reads "Pray that the President and his advisers will be strong and courageous to do what is right regardless of critics".

(Quelle: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s819685.htm )