Saturday, February 26, 2005

Counting

I used to count just blogs, a fairly harmless exercise in optimism. But one which has left me feeling the scales are a little unbalanced. So, with an the absence of new blogs to count, I decided to try something new today. This is a personal decision, not expecting anyone else to follow suit.

And before my detractors start calling for the kerosene and kindling, I am going to count a variety of things.

Beginning now (in no particular order) ~
  • Seats for women in Iraq's parliament; 33.3 % (easily outvoteable, Juan Cole has details, read right through).
  • Internally displaced persons and refugees in Iraq; 1.4 million (Anthony G Brown scroll to 10/02/04 open letter)
  • Iraq Body Count running total; min 16121, max 18393 (here)
  • US Coalition Body Count; running total 1493; in Feb; 53 (here)
  • Number of troops the Ukraine plans to pull out of Iraq; 1,650 (here)
  • Number of troops Australia might be sending to Iraq; 450 (here)
  • Blogs counted this month; 3
  • number of times emigre has said to herself "one day we will do away with war"; countless.
To the person (and your numerous alibis) who is just about to start typing those "emigre is a pessimist, tie her to the stake" comments, you might as well save your fingers. I find being optimistic all the time oppressive. Assessing the damage, believe it or not, and pausing to say "oh crap what a mess" is a positive step towards identifying problems and fixing them.

Clarifying

At first I thought "I am not going to get dragged up in this", in someone else's smear campaign. But then I thought, it is an issue and it needs addressing.

A bi-partisan commenter (not a member of this blog) has apparently been circulating emails behind backs. Emails about a certain blog in the blogroll here. The blog offends him, and he would like to see it removed. Firstly, this is a joke. The person apparently circulating the email has in the past written some of the foulest rudest comments I have ever seen. Secondly, the person circulating the email claims to support democracy. And yet this person wants to "disappear" a blog he does not like. The principle of democracy, is that there is a place for everyone in it. One cannot claim to maintain a definitive Iraq Blog directory, if one begins disappearing Iraq blogs. Once one blog goes, where does it end I ask.

I have already replied to this person, but thought I'd just bring it out in the open. As I said to this person, in the words of Martin Niemoller;

"They came for the Communists
And I didn't object for I wasn't a Communist

They came for the Socialists
And I didn't object for I wasn't a Socialist

They came for the Labor leaders
And I didn't object for I wasn't a Labor leader

They came for the Jews
And I didn't object.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to object."

Let me make an analogy. Think of a telephone directory. In it you will find the names of panelbeaters, bank clerks, musicians, cleaners, IT specialists, dentists and tree surgeons. All side by side, row after row, with nothing in common other then the page and the ink. It is possible for many people to co-exist in a telephone directory, without ever having even necessarily met each other. And so it is with Iraq Blog counts Iraq Blog directory. Co-existence is the key to peace. Everyone is there. The heretic, the truthteller, the teen, the insurgent and the kid who met the president.

I have to wonder at that apparent email circulator's commitment to democracy. If this was an issue to him, why did he not email Iraq Blog Count directly? Why did he resort to gossip-mongering behind other peoples backs? You know, I've had my share of disagreements too - but I always choose to approach the source. That is the beauty of the web - we can, or should be able to, contact each other openly.

Friday, February 25, 2005

Aside

Don't know about anyone else, but I'm getting a bit "oranged out" by the header. Originally chose the colour because it looked, if you'll pardon, "optimistic" and reminded me of saffron-robed Buddha's, all enlightenment and inner joy.

So, sorry to drag you away from urgencies (Ritter, over 700,000 refugees etc) but just wondered if you wouldn't mind taking a look at these colour swatches. Am thinking a title-bar in either tan or spring green. Any preferences? Other options?

This one? or This one? How's this, this maybe this?

Update; How's that? Not quite green, not quite aqua, not too bad. Design by consensus - just what every artist holds dear. However, in this case, it appears to have almost worked.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Counting

Other things that may not have been counted.

SCOTT RITTER SAYS U.S. PLANS JUNE ATTACK ON IRAN ...and... ‘COOKED’ JAN. 30 IRAQI ELECTION RESULTS

Mark Jensen
February 19, 2005 UPPC (WA)

Scott Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail yesterday in Washington State, dropped two shocking bombshells in a talk delivered to a packed house in Olympia’s Capitol Theater. The ex-Marine turned UNSCOM weapons inspector said that George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and claimed the U.S. manipulated the results of the recent Jan. 30 elections in Iraq. more.

More more here and here.

Ritter said that U.S. authorities in Iraq had manipulated the results in order to reduce the percentage of the vote received by the United Iraqi Alliance from 56% to 48%.

Ritter is the former UN weapons inspector who said there were no WMD's left in Iraq prior the prep for the latest war. That was before everyone realised Scott Ritter was right, at which point Rhetoric took a sharp turn towards "Democracy". Is this the end of the road for Rhetoric? Which way can it turn now?

If Saddam's regime had no weapons left and was on it's last legs anyway, and if a whole bunch of people wanted to vote regardless of war or not... does Iraq need troops at all?

'el Arabi

Omg, bi-lingual hole in blogroll. How could this have happened, linked but not counted. And this is what makes me wonder how accurate those body counts are too, there must be lots of things that don't get counted. I bet Iraq Body Count's total is like a quarter of what it really is.

Bel Arabi ~ needs no introduction. (Elen is... a Klimpt-ophile?)

New Today; 1
Total; 105

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Neighbours in tight quarters

Urging for calm. One good reason to hope Lebanon ~ Syrian tensions mellow out, from the Center of Excellence Iraq Humanitarian Assistance Report;

Refugees: A recent influx of Iraqis to Syria results in an estimated 700,000 refugees, reportedly causing housing shortages and overcrowding. (February 18 2005)

The flow of Iraqis entering Syria has increased in the past four months, with an estimated 700,000 Iraqis in Syria ... This means an increase of 400,000 Iraqis who have fled Iraq since October 2004, when Syrian officials reported 300,000 Iraqis in Syria. Reports of Iraqis living in Syria have varied from some 200,000 up to 1,000,000. As of December 2004, the official number of Iraqi refugees in Syria was 45,000. (Thursday, Feb-03-05)

The last thing anyone needs, a refugee crisis.

The Iraq Humanitarian Assistance Report is published three times a week on Monday Wednesday and Friday.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Live Debated

Did anyone hear Majority Report's live debate about Iraq and Credibility between Juan Cole and Jonah Goldberg? With Markos Moulitsas and Flavia Colgan?

Hope Maj Report publish transcripts, some of us are in diff time zones (and some of us on globes bottom, out of transmission range). I wonder if Maj Report do Audio files?.

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Why did Iraqis vote?

To get the occupation out!
me*

Friday, February 11, 2005

Pax Interview !!! Netherland World Exclusive !!! Audiofile !!!

World Exclusive !!! Blogger Interview !!! Blogger Interviews Blogger !!!

Cecile Landman, pajama'd visionary behind Streamtime, interviews Salam Pax in World Exclusive Iraq Blog Audio Broadcast !!!

Comprehensive, shocking, down-to-earth (like a gravity bound shell) yet blogger-mystiqueful and hidden revelational. Read the whole thing here, listen to the whole thing here.

Impress your friends and translate the transcript !!! Cecile is looking for someone with time to translate the text into Arabic, if you'd like to help contact Cecile at streamtime.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

An Average Iraqi

Another cousin of mine started blogging, Hassan, in (An Average Iraqi), he's 19, and he's studying civil engineering.

Here's how he described his blog:
An Average Iraqi is just a fictional character whose....well, fictional. I will use this character to make a comparison between him and real human beings like myself or any one else.
I know much more about him, but I'm sure if he wanted, he'll tell you himself..

New Today; 1
Total; 104

Monday, February 07, 2005

Globally Aware

Just stopped by to say hello. Was inspired to post after sitting here gazing at Lims little map there with the radiating green circles broadcasting blogger activity ~ hello Canada, US and, erm, Lebanon.

Wish I had something more valuable to offer. All I can find are links reminensing Vietnam's 1967 election. Although perhaps there is cause for a little celebration, afterall we have blogs. Am I being very convincing? Latest count from reuters.

Oh well, enjoy the blogroll.

Election Counting...

Kurdmedia ~ has US Out-Of-country Voting (OCV) results, released by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) last week.

US OCV results ~ from total 7 polling stations.
Total votes cast ~ 24,332

United Iraqi Alliance ~ 31.69%
Rafidain National List ~ 28.82%
Kurdistan Alliance List ~ 16.94%
The National List ~ 8.19%
Iraqi List ~ 4.23%
Iraqis (Iraqiyoon) List ~ 0.38%

List info ~

United Iraqi Alliance ~ often referred to as the Shii -list or Shii-dominated.
Rafidain National List ~ an Assyrian/Christian list headed by Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM) Secretary General Yonadam Kanna.
Kurdistan Alliance List ~ needs no explanation, as per name.
The National List ~ a coalition headed by the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP).
Iraqi List ~ Prime Minister Ayad Allawis list.
Iraqis (Iraqiyoon) List ~ list of President Ghazi al-Yawar, includes Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan.

Sydney Polling Update ~ Read in a local rag yesterday that the Auburn Sydney polling punch/shoot incidents were irritated by external Non-Iraqi presence. Apparently some peaceful non-voters had gathered to peacefully demonstrate and later moved on when asked to by police. At some stage a third group arrived and began stirring up hostilities till a few voters crossed the road and a few fists landed. Anyway, taking a few geographic liberties, where Sydney's Auburn polling station might be viewed microcosmically as Iraq, could be fair to say most non-voters are peaceful, most voters just wanted to vote, and the trouble came from external foreign sources. Tried to find the article to post a link but The Daily Telegraph doesn't publish all it's articles online, so am just having to "word of mouth this". Well, I guess that's what bloggers do best.

Friday, February 04, 2005

Compassion Count

Petitioning msn, all our deaths are as one. To sign the petition go here. To read msn's count go here.

Point ~ in display of universality the petition urges msn to include Iraqi civilian deaths in msn's Iraq: The Human Cost list of casualties. All lives are equal are they not, perhaps more so in death then any place else.

Oh yes, and From Baghdad To New York, run by Laith. Lot's of stuff on it, news and articles and a guest center and all sorts really. You might want to pop along and have a look if you have not already.


Count contd

Baghdadskies continues... at Baghdadskies2

Memories of a childhood in Iraq in the 1950s, thoughts on events in the Middle East.


New(ish) Today; 1
Total; 103

All I did was include more details... ~ Jason

You might remember Jason, a guy blogging from Iraq last year who just happened to be a soldier. His blog was edited (one fairwell post remains) and then reappeared for a few weeks at the end of last year before disappearing a second time and reincarnating as a series of signposts scattered about the place, like this.

Anyway, his stuff still manages to make it's way around. Parts of it. He wrote a letter in reply to a journalist seeking soldier stories and it wound up in my email, some magic how, just a few days ago. It kind of struck a cord. Captivated, I asked him if he minded me posting it and he said yup that's fine. I'm not going to censor any of his story. I know this space is sometimes sort of an extended family show but I think it's ok to leave Jason's letter "raw", with this advance warning. If parents are reading I'm hoping you'll understand.

Jason's story...

My unit (2/108 Infantry from New York) returned from Iraq on New Years Day. We spent a week at Fort Drum with the demobilization process and we are now all back to being citizen Joe again. All told, we spent fifteen months on this deployment, about eleven of it in Iraq in the Sunni Triangle.

I started my blog at the beginning of our deployment and had it online for a few months during our training-up period before my commander asked me to take it down. Our Family Readiness group knew about the blog who eventually leaked it to my commander. He flipped out. So I took it down, but continued to write, emailing my stories to those who wanted to continue to read. I successfully flew under the radar like this for most my deployment.

Once there were about two months left on our deployment, I put the blog back online with everything I had written. It took less than two weeks for someone from the New York National Guard stateside to inform my command. That's when things got bad.

My commander decided to court martial me. Then he said he saw how the court martial against the soldiers who refused to go on a fuel convoy mission was thrown out, so he changed the request for a court martial to a field-grade article 15 because he wanted to be certain he "could see me punished". My commander is an assistant district attorney in Manhattan in real life and is an expert when it comes to bullying people. I suspect once he cooled off a little he realized that a court martial was a bit much, so gave me the fuel convoy story as an excuse for changing his mind. I also suspect he just wanted to scare me as much as possible by telling me he wanted me court martialed.

My battalion S2 section made a hard copy of my blog and there was an investigation. It concluded that I had violated OPSEC, violated the Geneva convention (for photos of detainees), and that I was guilty of conduct unbecoming an NCO (primarily for a photograph of me sitting on a shitter, among other things). Then I sat around for a month after being transferred from my job as a rifle squad leader (about to be promoted to E-6) to our headquarters platoon doing absolutely nothing while I waited for the other shoe to drop. I was taken off missions altogether (which is the ultimate punishment for a soldier-- to not let him work). Waiting for my article 15 hearing and not knowing what was going to happen to me was one of the worst experiences of my life. I wanted to demand a court martial because I felt I had done nothing wrong, but the thought of being kept on active duty in legal limbo while the rest of my unit went back to their homes weighed very heavily on me. I was ready to be off active duty like I can't explain. Sitting around for that month while anxiety consumed me was far worse than combat. Call me a wimp, but it really sucked.

Apparently our brigade JAG guy (2 BCT 1 ID) was too busy with his own blog (daggerjag.blogspot.com or something like that) to process my article 15 while we were in Iraq, so it didn't get resolved. Instead it was handed over to the garrison support unit at Ft. Drum upon our return. The article 15 I was given charged me with violating a direct order and violating OPSEC. The JAG lawyer I spoke with at Drum was little help and I was in no shape emotionally at that point to deal with a court martial, so I took the hit. I was given a field-grade article 15 by a colonel I never met in my life who didn't know me from a bucket of paint except for an investigation that made me sound like a traitor. I was demoted to E-4 and fined $1000.

The most interesting aspect of this entire fiasco is how OPSEC is defined, or rather not defined. Since there is no concise legal definition of what constitutes a violation of OPSEC (or at least not one anyone could produce for me when I requested it), it's impossible to determine when something crosses the line from "not a violation" to "a violation". It's like trying to define what pornography is or bad taste in music. To make a convincing argument how OPSEC has been violated is trivial. You pretty much only have to smarter than the person you are trying to convince, or just instill in him enough fear, uncertainty, and doubt that he'll have no choice but to agree. It's like accusing someone of being a communist. If you disagree with the person making the accusation, you'll be considered a communist sympathizer, or maybe even a communist yourself. The fight is over before the gauntlet is even dropped.

To answer the rest of your questions: My advice for soldiers who want to blog is to retain legal counsel before you start blogging. Have every legal detail worked out beforehand in regards to what you can and can't blog about. That way when your commander tells you to take your blog down, you can tell him to take the matter up with your lawyer. I had no idea my blog would become such a big issue, but if I had to do it over again, I would have gotten a lawyer before I started or at least made a call to the ACLU.

There is no way to blog about Iraq without your unit finding out about it. The guys in my unit knew about my blog within a month or two from the time I started it, but it took a few months before my commander found it. The only way for a soldier to not get in trouble is to write nothing but insipidly agreeable and conspicuously patriotic content that is reviewed by his or her leadership before posting. So yes, I do feel as though my First Amendment rights were violated. My article 15 was officially about my supposed violations of a direct order and OPSEC, but the ass-chewings I received focused a lot more on my penchant for explicating on the abundant absurdities of military life and combat. This was the real issue moreso than the supposed OPSEC violations and this is why the First Amendment exists-- to protect speech, even unpopular speech.

Everyone has a vision of how they want to remember their combat experience and particularly how they want others to view their combat service. Most soldiers, and especially infantrymen, want to realize all their Jerry Bruckheimer-fueled fantasies with macho military fervor. All I did was include more details in hopes of providing a more honest and humorous perspective of what soldiering is typically like. I could write "We went on a raid tonight. We smashed the gate down and cleared the house, but the guy we were looking for wasn't home." But instead I'd write "Tonight we went on a raid. It wasn't till 3am and I couldn't sleep so I masturbated before we left. On the way to the raid we got lost, but after driving around for a while we finally found the house. We tried to breech the gate of the outer wall, but in the process accidentally ended up knocking the entire wall over. After clearing the house, we realized it was the wrong one. Once we figured out where the correct house was, we raided it. But the guy we were looking for wasn't home. As I was pulling security on an alley, I realized that the chow we had for dinner wasn't agreeing with me and when I tried to fart ended up shitting my pants a little. Once we finished searching the house, we hopped back in our Humvees and took what we thought was our planned egress route, but instead found ourselves on a dead end canal road. While turning around, one of the Humvees got stuck in the mud. Most raids do not go this badly. We eventually made it back to our base safe and sound. My ass had started to chafe from when I 'sharted', so I took a shower, masturbated, and went to bed." (This, by the way, is a true story.) If I wrote a story like this, my commander would spend thirty minutes condemning me for portraying our unit as incompetent and unprofessional, but charge me with violating OPSEC because I disclosed tactical details on how we perform breeches.

All in all, I think Army leadership can't grasp that it's possible for a soldier to be critical or satirical of the Army but still be pro-Army. I've been in the Army 14 years. I love being an infantryman. But there are so many great stories that don't get told because there are so many people who don't want their illusions molested. Or because telling them apparently constitutes a violation of OPSEC.

---

UPDATE; kris krug publishes the unspeakable too. Kris says ~ if he were an uber-blogger he'd like organise in no time a stream of donations to pay Jason's $1000 fine and pitch book deals. Wee problem though, we are but meek and humble seekers of truth and as somebody once said "who wants to hear the truth". That is what happens when you become a Tao blogger, money matters not. So long as we have bread and cheese and the sweet wine of deconstructed fallacy.

I do not condone war in any way but I do appreciate open discourse. Sure it may not tell us what we want to hear and it might make us cringe and it's probably loaded with the bias of personal experience but, it is a path to understanding.

What is Universal

All that is best in the great poets of all counties is not what is national in them, but what is universal ~ Longfellow, Kavanagh

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Iraqi Letters ~ Election

Has anybody been reading Abu Khaleel lately? Lot of wise stuff that seems to have been passed over during the heat of things, worth taking time out for a visit while the dust settles.

He has predictions, jitters and finally a revelation (well, we have to call it something don't we, to keep our spirits up). Oh, and this click caught my eye because I'd posted something very much along those lines somewhere else recently, though not nearly as eloquently. The thing that's always fascinated me about the web, is how even when you don't actually make a bonafide html link, somehow thought's just sort of seem to psychically ooze about.

Minor House~keeping

Oh damn. This is so annoying. Inbox was really full with a whole lot of stuff which I was sweeping away. Anyway, Laith of "The Human Cost" ~ if you are reading would you mind sending that again? I didn't get a chance to look at it before the vacume sucked it up.

Thanks.

Mosul Vote Hampered By Suspiciously Unexplained Bureaucratic Red-Tape

Another revealing piece of information, from Fayrouz this time. Observe the shambles we call blogger unity as we work together slowly to peel back the curtain on events and cast a little of our blog light.

One of my concerns originally when I heard about this whole (halts self) about these elections was a statement months ago that elections would not happen in some areas of Iraq. At that time those areas seemed to be areas like Fallujah and Ramadi, and maybe parts of Mosul. Which has grave implications for proportional representation, when certain significant areas aren't even represented at all.

Anyway, Iraqi's have been taking to the streets in villages around Mosul where voting has not taken place yet. These people do not sound like they are going to suffer any weak excuse for having their electorate tampered with. "The desire to vote is great" stresses Father Ganni to Asianews.

Goodness. What an election. So far everything seems to have gone according to plan ~ the voters are happy, the not-voters put in a good non-showing, the resistance protected the polling booths (theoretically, some of them anyway) the rest of the world's press showed up to neutrally observe, the skeptics stood their ground under duress (yes we like balance, an equal proportion of skeptics and believers is what keeps democracy ticking, like a metronome) and Iraqi's are taking to the streets to uphold their rights.

Come on skeptics cheer them along, you know, do your blog thing ~ murmur "charade" or something. As I said, think metronome.

In summary. The voters voted, and the not-voters stayed behind on lookout duty watching for discrepancies and signs of corruption. And you know what, I think the overall combined effect is great. Some may not realise it now, but Iraq will be far stronger for this. Stronger for the people who braved the trip to the polling booth and stronger for the people who had the strength of conviction to declare boycott and stick by it despite the propaganda wars waged by dubious other bodies. I feel this is a good thing in the long run. It shows balance. It shows people making choices and ultimately building something not dictated by external foreign policy.

Voters and not-voters alike, all have something to be proud of.

Analytical meander ~ If 60 percent of Iraqi's voted evenly between five or six main lists, that averages out to about say 10 to 15 percent of the vote for each list. Now relate those percentages to 40 percent of not-voters. That's a significant and unified portion of the vote. Imagine if there were a box on the ballot paper that people could have ticked which said "not-vote". Imagine if that little box were on every ballot paper globally ~ now that would make an interesting election, wouldn't it.

Iraqi Resistance Protected Polling Booths

Another interesting little nugget of information from Ladybird that passed us by while some of us were busy getting banned on other blogs. Sorry everybody, for neglecting my linkage duties here in favour of tussling with issues elsewhere.

Iraqi Resistance Group Says Not to Target Elections

Three days ahead of the controversial vote, a leading Iraqi resistance group vowed not to target polling stations or attack innocent Iraqis, saying the real battle is against the occupiers.

In a statement, the Salah Al-Dine Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Front for Resistance, said they would not be dragged into a battle against their own people. Read more here.



Sydney Election Update

There are some election related things that have been happening in Sydney the last few days that have been a little disturbing. Disturbing personally because these things happened in a suburb very near me and disturbing in a wider context because when I finally wrenched myself from election coverage on another blog (or perhaps it was wrenched from me) I realised that Iraq was happening just a few stops down the train-line from where I live and that while I rejoice that some people have been able to vote if they feel like it (knowing also that I equally support those who don't wish to vote if they don't feel like it) some of the things that were happening just a few burbs away where a little fractious. Let us just say that the war in Iraq suddenly seemed closer and realer and a little scary.

The first incident was more or less a minor event at the time. I was tempted to post about it when it happened but restrained myself for a few days until the euphoria had panned out a bit. It was needless to say an impassioned day for voters and non-voters alike. Apparently a small group of non-voters had gathered at the polling station to register their non-votes. Well, this is democracy. Anyway it erupted into, from what I have heard, a situation in which a few voters and a few non-voters came very near to blows. It could be that they actually did come to blows but not being there myself I am unwilling to say whether or not punches actually landed. Anyway, later on somebody found an abandoned backpack... and well, paranoia has been running fairly high in Sydney for the last 12 months or so (you should see our train stations these days, crawling with uniforms, it's a little unsettling) so yes, the unattended baggage was quarantined and a bomb squad (don't get excited, it was probably just a few police gingerly opening the bag) called in. Unsurprisingly the bag contained a highly volatile packet of biscuits and a bottle of water.

These "precautions" by the way are not restricted to polling booths and train stations but also apply to our (Aus) postal service. Incidentally. Did you know you now can not send perfume out of Sydney? No. It's flammable. Just a wee warning to anyone who might be wanting to send perfume. It's for our own good though and I feel safer this way (oh dear, is my face straight?).

Where was I. Oh yes. Iraq, elections. So there was the bag thing and I'd heard about that. And then a few days later I read in a local paper (The Telegraph Tuesday Feb 1, 2005 to ebb precise) that unfortunately, on Sunday night syd time, gunshots were fired and four men wound up in hospital with minor wounds. Apparently only a very small group of people were involved and knowing Sydney I would say that's probably right. Sydney dwellers do not normally go around shooting at each other over election disparities.

Some people who had voted felt they had been targeted for being caught blue-handed as it were. Why oh why did we need to use the blue ink in Sydney. I suppose it was to try and replicate elections as they happened in Iraq, for consistency and also perhaps a little for theatrical effect. I wish the ink hadn't been used. We don't usually need it for elections in Sydney and I'm just am not sure the full implications of using it this time were thought out.

I just wish people would mellow out a bit about some things. I mean, everyone has a different view and everyone's entitled to that. That's what elections are all about. Most people who decided to vote did so with trust and most people who decided not to vote did so with grace. But there are always a few who lose their heads, so to speak, and a few others who rub stuff in peoples faces till they get a reaction. It really didn't have to happen that way. As I said I wasn't there and didn't witness events directly but I do trust my intuition and intuition tells me that some outsiders did a little shit-stirring. And that annoys me. Just to repeat, I support both people who voted and people who didn't and I support them both peacefully.

Anyway, lastly. It was a little weird knowing these things had happened while at the same time listening to a bbc broadcast declaring that Out Of Country Voting had passed globally "Without Incident". I suppose Australia is kind of a backwater but I just wondered, well, if our Sydney "Without Incidents" haven't made it into mainstream news then perhaps other countries "Without Incidents" haven't either?

Sorry, that was bit long. Really am not attempting to rain on anyone's parade. The only reason I'm reporting these things is because they seem to have slipped through the cracks somehow and as a conscientious blogger I do feel compelled to fill in the gaps.

The abc say the police say up to 100 people were involved on Sunday night. As I say, I wasn't there. I kind of wish I was, I'm fairly accurate at estimating crowds and I'd like to be able to report a figure I believe is accurate. The Telegraph reported the same figure but I don't know, the police and the telegraph tend to sensationalise a bit. Yahweh, ironic to hear a blogger disparaging IRL sensationalism!

Anybody else got local stories to share? Post away, It's ok, you can be as optimistic or as depressed as you like ~ it's all good.

Live Election Web~Radio Streams From Iraq

Visit streamtime for catch-up info on the elections. The streamtime people post a variety of news and views. It is refreshing. Like dew. Have a click around their site and you'll find live radio streams broadcast with talkback web-radio including commentary from both voters and non-voters in Iraq, it gives me much hope to see a range of opinions represented in a simple and very informative format.

Go and visit streamtime now. Go to streamtime. Now. Now. Now. Heh, I love infomercials. I wonder if streamtime would ever give me a job writing advertising jingles for them? Just how many links can a blogger fit in one post anyway? Without beginning to look silly, or perhaps a little lightheaded.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Calmeth with cartography

Welcome our new map on the right. I ask all contributors to speak up if they don't like the current location or have a better idea for where we should place it. It will be an Iraq Blog Count democratic decision. Har har...so, enjoy the map. We'll be putting other new and interesting tools into effect soon for you the viewer. Remember, IBC loves you.

Happiness,

Liminal

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