As promised, I have an update of the statistics regarding our traffic increase following the start of the war.

On the 21th, I posted saying we were seeing a 66% increase in traffic in the period after the 17th. At the time I noted that this was not a very accurate statistic because weekends tend to be light on traffic, which would slant the statistic on the high side.. Now that its been a full week, I can report more accurately what the "war impact" on site traffic has been.

The 17th thru 20th were all really busy days.. Each one a record setter, which spawned the initial 66% increase stat. For the sake of further refinement, that was a 34% increase over the same time period for the week before.. The 66% figure took into account the same span of time immediately before, which was the weekend, when traffic slacks.. In hindsight, that was a really misleading statistic. And to make matters worse, I didn't catch a critical typo in my inital post, causing a figure of 166% to make it to the front page, which in turn caused me to feel like an idiot.. Anyway.. There was a slight falloff in traffic on Friday the 21th, and the 22nd and 23rd were light as expected, but all three days were still higher then normal.

In short, visits are up:

* 31% for the week following the 17th
* 34% for the inital 4 days following the 17th

] What does it say about American culture if Venice
] filmmaker Tim Sullivan can't get financing for a remake
] of the 1964 splatter classic "2000 Maniacs"?
]
] What it said to Sullivan is that raising funds for
] low-budget independent movies -- never easy -- has gotten
] tougher since Wall Street laid an egg.
]
] At 38, Sullivan is a 20-year horror veteran. His first
] break came in his hometown of Metuchen, N.J., on 1983's
] forgotten "Return of the Aliens: The Deadly Spawn."
] Sullivan's job, wielding a Black & Decker hand pump
] behind the scenes, was to make sure the blood gushed on
] cue and on budget.

Tim is also my cousin, so meme/blog this around and get my kin some attention..

] The plot: Confederate zombies take revenge on
] present-day Yankee tourists.

Whole bunch of folks in the southeast on MemeStreams.. If this dosen't get you going, what will?

] A couple of characters will be dropped and some action
] sequences trimmed. However, there are some compromises
] he won't make. The script said eight murders, and eight
] murders there will be.
]
] "If I have to choose between a decapitation and a
] motorcycle chase," Sullivan said, "I'm going with the
] decapitation."

Right on..

Movie Industry Screwed! Economy Screwed! Rattle's cousin screwed out of financing for '2000 Maniacs' remake!

Excellent peice by Paul Berman on Sayyid Qutb, the man whom islamist extremeist philosophy can directly be attributed to.

This is a must read article. Long (10 pages), but completely worth it. Filled with insight and background on the collision of islamist and liberal culture..

The Philosopher of Islamic Terror

] As the White House contended that links between Mr.
] Hussein and Al Qaeda justified military action against
] Iraq, these analysts complained that reports on Iraq have
] attracted unusually intense scrutiny from senior policy
] makers within the Bush administration.
]
] "A lot of analysts have been upset about the way the
] Iraq-Al Qaeda case has been handled," said one
] intelligence official familiar with the debate.

] Several analysts have told colleagues they have become
] so frustrated that they have considered leaving the
] agency, according to government officials who have talked
] with the analysts.

NYT | C.I.A. Aides Feel Pressure in Preparing Iraqi Reports

Message base (arabic language, I can't read it) with higher resolution shots of the soldiers from the IraqTV/Al-Jazeera video. You can clearly make out their faces in these.

Screen captures, IraqTV/Al-Jazeera Video

Picture gallery of pics from IraqTV/Al-Jazeera video.

Not pretty stuff..

aljazeera caps; dead american soldiers, pow's

] The United States delivered a protest to the government
] of President Vladimir Putin yesterday for refusing to
] stop Russian arms dealers from providing illegal weapons
] and assistance to the Iraqi military.
]
] Bush administration sources said one Russian company is
] helping the Iraqi military deploy electronic jamming
] equipment against U.S. planes and bombs, and two others
] have sold antitank missiles and thousands of night-vision
] goggles in violation of U.N. sanctions. The sources said
] Moscow has ignored entreaties from senior Bush
] administration officials concerned about the threat to
] U.S. forces.

3 Russian Firms' Deals Anger U.S. (washingtonpost.com)

] Russia delivered a statement of protest to the U.S.
] Embassy on Saturday, accusing Washington of tactics
] associated with the Cold War after a U.S. spy plane flew
] near Russia's border with neighboring Georgia.
]
] Two Russian fighters were scrambled to track the U-2 spy
] plane as it flew 12 to 19 miles from the Russian border
] Saturday, the Defense Ministry said, according to Russian
] news agencies.
]
] The U.S. Embassy said it had no comment.
]
] Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Nikolai Deryabin was
] quoted as saying that air defense systems locked onto the
] American plane as it began its flight over the former
] Soviet republic of Georgia, an impoverished Caucasus
] Mountains nation that Washington has identified as a
] possible haven for Islamic terrorists, including
] militants linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

CBS News | Russia: U.S. Using Cold War Tactics

] An Iraqi Kurdish group running part of northern Iraq said
] U.S. forces had launched a second day of missile strikes
] there on Sunday against an Islamist group accused by
] Washington of links to al Qaeda.
]
] An official of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)
] said U.S. missiles had struck suspected Ansar al-Islam
] positions near the Iranian border, one day after
] Washington firing missiles and launching air raids on
] Ansar's mountainous stronghold.
]
] "There were more strikes overnight, again with cruise
] missiles," said the official of the PUK, which also
] accuses Ansar al-Islam of links to the group that
] Washington blames for the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide attacks
] on the United States.

Iraqi Kurds Say U.S. Hits Islamists for Second Day (washingtonpost.com)

] Most of the new information comes from handwritten
] documents and computer hard drives seized during the
] March 1 capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, regarded by
] some government analysts as al Qaeda's most important
] operational planner. Known inside al Qaeda as "the
] Brain," Mohammed has acknowledged being the principal
] author of the Sept. 11, 2001, plot. Significantly, one
] official noted, Mohammed was arrested at a Rawalpindi,
] Pakistan, home owned by Abdul Quddoos Khan, a
] bacteriologist with access to production materials and
] facilities who has since disappeared.

More info from Mohammed's laptop.

Al Qaeda Near Biological, Chemical Arms Production (washingtonpost.com)