] In the giddy spirit of the day, nothing could quite top
] the wish list bellowed out by one man in the throng of
] people greeting American troops from the 101st Airborne
] Division who marched into town today.
]
] What, the man was asked, did he hope to see now that the
] Baath Party had been driven from power in his town? What
] would the Americans bring?
]
] "Democracy," the man said, his voice rising to lift each
] word to greater prominence. "Whiskey. And sexy!"
]
] Around him, the crowd roared its approval. Yet when the
] first round of welcomes to American soldiers and
] journalists were exuberantly, even affectionately
] completed, the people in the crowd had a more urgent
] request than liquor. They wanted water.

Exuberant Crowd's Most Urgent Request: Water

] One of the most mysterious aspects of this highly
] mysterious war is the absence of casualties. People get
] killed in normal wars. Who is getting killed in this one?
] And where is the Iraqi army?
]
] As a percentage of those engaged, casualties represent
] less than one tenth of one per cent. For purposes of
] comparison, during the Second World War casualties in
] Bomber Command of four per cent per sortie - say 300 dead
] aircrew each 1,000 bomber raid - were thought bearable.
]
] The British death toll so far is under 30 and most of the
] victims have died in accidents. The American death toll
] is not much higher.
]
] Opponents of the war will say that, though Western
] casualties may be low, that is not true of the Iraqis.
] Perhaps but where is the proof?
]
] Although there is still a large Western press corps in
] Baghdad, television has so far succeeded in bringing us
] only the most paltry evidence of deaths inflicted among
] civilians by the coalition - three here, perhaps 17
] there, but that may have been Iraqi friendly fire. In a
] similar incident during the Bosnian war, when a Sarajevo
] market was shelled by the Serbs, 80 were killed. The
] Iraqi government announced yesterday that 1,250 civilians
] have died but provided no evidence.

Where are the casualities and the Iraqi army? - War on Iraq - smh.com.au

] Reminiscent of the Hitler Youth of World War II, Saddam
] Hussein has trained an 8,000-strong army of children to
] face coalition forces in Baghdad.
]
] In a report by the New York Daily News, Peter Singer of
] the Brookings Institution explains the children are
] considered a junior Fedayeen Saddam %u2013 the
] paramilitary forces Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
] has dubbed "death squads" for the atrocities they commit.
]
] The child army is called Ashbal Saddam, or Saddam's Lion
] Cubs, according to the report.

WorldNetDaily: Saddam trains kids to kill

What a Precious Moment.

Lord Bless the Defender of Freedom!!

] The photograph's caption doesn't give her a name. Nor
] does it name the man who cradles her. He is just "a
] Marine medic" And she is just "a 4-year-old
] girl."
]
] He sits cross-legged on the ground, one heel scraping a
] small hollow in the sand, eyes closed as he holds her.
] She curls into the fetal position, her bare feet pale in
] the sun. Her doll fingers reach to touch his camouflaged
] chest, the pink sleeve of her sweater smudged with blood.
]
] Her mother, we are told, was killed in the crossfire near
] a place called Rifa.
]
] That is one way we might describe it. Another way, the
] military way, is shorter and simpler: collateral damage.
] Or, if that seems a bit abstract, there's
] "liberated," the Newspeak of our patriotic age.
]
] Of course, those words mean nothing to the 4-year-old
] girl. She is too young to have the words she needs to
] frame her world's end. There is only the incomprehensible
] fact of her mother's absence, this strange, helmeted man.

Cost Of War Too High For One Little Girl

] The soldier's father said the family hoped to speak with
] Jessi, as she's known at home, soon.

holy crap, that's what i'm known as at home. spelled that way too.

U.S. POW rescued in dramatic raid

] As of last week, there have been no accidents since the
] reconfiguration, Bishop said. But he added he considers
] the intersection "an accident waiting to happen."
]
] His point was underscored by a March 7 incident in which
] a line of six cars driving east on business Route 33 all
] veered into the lane of oncoming westbound traffic.
]
] Bishop said the driver of the lead car went into the
] wrong lane, and the other drivers following closely also
] went the same way.

God, I miss New Jersey...

SIGNS SAY SOMETHING'S WRONG ON BUSINESS ROUTE 33

] The recording industry is suing students at Michigan
] Technological and two other universities, saying they ran
] Napster-like file sharing systems on the schools'
] high-speed Internet networks.
]
] The lawsuit says Michigan Tech student Joseph Nievelt and
] three others ran systems offering more than 1 million
] copies of songs for illegal downloading.

Michigan Tech student sued by music industry over file sharing

Cost going up, but along with speed.

Comcast increases Internet fees: Cable company raises prices while also doubling upstream speeds - Tuesday, 02/11/03

] Michael Moore's anti-war speech at this week's Oscars
] made his website the most visited political site, in a
] week where traffic to political websites rocketed by 16%
] in response to the invasion of Iraq.
]
]
]
] According to Hitwise, 16% of hits on MichaelMoore.com
] came from Google, after British viewers saw the comedian
] and satirist making his "shame on you, Mr Bush" speech
] when he collected the best documentary award for 'Bowling
] for Columbine'. The site captured nearly 8% of the market
] share, and figures show that 6.27% of visitors bookmarked
] the site.

Michael Moore's anti-war Oscar speech drives web traffic