] MANDRAKE%u2014THE ONLINE ALIAS for 42-year-old Steve
] Bail, borrowed from Stanley Kubrick%u2019s film
] %u201CDoctor Strangelove%u201D%u2014is a war blogger. A
] seven-year veteran of the Royal Air Force, Bail now
] spends his spare time running a Web log, a diarylike
] personal Web page, devoted to chronicling and discussing
] the war in Iraq ( lionelmandrake.blogspot.com ).
]
] He%u2019s not alone: in the past few years,
] hundreds of thousands of bloggers have staked out
] hypertext positions along the Internet%u2019s newest
] frontier. These guerrilla pundits, denizens of the
] so-called blogosphere, come in all shapes and sizes:
] artists, music buffs, politicos and the occasional
] journalist. But with the onset of hostilities in Iraq,
] the news-related sites have moved to the forefront. In
] fact, not since the days after September 11%u2014the
] birth, many say, of the war blog%u2014has online traffic
] been so heavy. %u201CBlogs may come of age in this
] war,%u201D says Bail, noting that since the Tomahawks
] started flying, he%u2019s seen a huge spike in
] readership.