Has flickr been hijacked?

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Flickr hasn’t been loading for me at all today — all morning long it was giving me a DNS error saying that the server couldn’t be found.

Now I seem to be getting something…but I don’t think I’m getting what I’m supposed to be getting, and I’m afraid that were I running an exploitable browser (like, oh, Internet Exploder), I might be getting some nasty surprises.

Loading the main flickr page ( http://www.flickr.com/ ) stalls for a while, and then loads one of the many generic “looks like a search page while we install exploits onto your system” pages that float around when domains disappear. Included in the page are two javascripts, one of which ( http://www.flickr.com/js/pu.js ) is loading a popunder window.

This is really a shame. Looks like someone forgot to renew their domain on time, and it got snapped up from underneath them. Hopefully it all gets straightened out soon.

Update: They appear to be back. No word (yet?) on the flickr blog as to what might have happened.

iTunes “X-Lover” by Sheep on Drugs from the album One for the Money (1997, 3:55).

I so need this toy!

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Plush Facehugger

I came so close to blowing some money just a few minutes ago — if this wasn’t rent week, I probably would have.

There’s a plush Alien Facehugger available now (I saw it at Suncoast).

Plush.

Facehugger.

It even has wires run through the fingers and tail to make it posable (huggable?). Cuddle up to it, or wrap it around your skull.

Creepy. Eerie. Deadly. Cute. Cuddly.

I want!

Update: Hey, mom, dad — babies like plush animals, right? Think this would make a good first Christmas present for Noah? ;)

iTunes “Mantrap: The Seduction” by Beborn Beton from the album Tales From Another World (1996, 5:00).

The DJ tried to kill me

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Last night at The Vogue was really good — Ogre was DJing, standing in for Evan, and he kept making it damn near impossible for me to get off the dance floor. Always a good thing, of course, since it means that the music is consistently good — but then he topped it all off by playing Pop Will Eat Itself‘s “Can U Dig It?“, off of This is the Day…This is the Hour…This is This! I’m a big PWEI fan, and would never have expected to hear that at a club. Too cool.

iTunes “Def.Con.One” by Pop Will Eat Itself from the album This is the Day…This is the Hour…This is This! (1989, 3:59).

Fox news really is Faux News

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While their rather strong obvious bias has earned Fox News the nickname of ‘Faux News’ for a while now, this past few days they seem to be doing an incredibly good job of living up to their nickname.

The first incident was Friday, when the following story appeared on the Fox News website:

Rallying supporters in Tampa Friday, Kerry played up his performance in Thursday night’s debate, in which many observers agreed the Massachusetts senator outperformed the president.

“Didn’t my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!” Kerry said Friday.

With the foreign-policy debate in the history books, Kerry hopes to keep the pressure on and the sense of traction going.

Aides say he will step up attacks on the president in the next few days, and pivot somewhat to the domestic agenda, with a focus on women and abortion rights.

“It’s about the Supreme Court. Women should like me! I do manicures,” Kerry said.

Kerry still trails in actual horse-race polls, but aides say his performance was strong enough to rally his base and further appeal to voters ready for a change.

“I’m metrosexual — he’s a cowboy,” the Democratic candidate said of himself and his opponent.

A “metrosexual” is defined as an urbane male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle.

Josh Marshall of the Talking Points Memo picked up on this and started looking into it. Over the course of the day, the article was taken down, and then later replaced by an apology. Turns out the article was written by Fox News staffer covering the Kerry campaign, Carl Cameron.

Then, later that same day, one of Atrios’ readers picked up on a post-debate article on Fox News in which this appeared…

Of course, there were some Kerry supporters in attendance who had no doubts whatever about their candidate.

“We’re trying to get Comrade Kerry elected and get that capitalist enabler George Bush out of office,” said 17-year-old Komoselutes Rob of Communists for Kerry.

“Even though he, too, is a capitalist, he supports my socialist values more than President Bush,” Rob said, before assuring FOXNews.com that his organization was not a parody group. When asked his thoughts on Washington’s policy toward Communist holdout North Korea, Rob said: “The North Koreans are my comrades to a point, and I’m sure they support Comrade Kerry, too.”

It is unclear whether the Kerry campaign has welcomed the Communists’ endorsement.

The kicker is that when you visit the Communists for Kerry website and check their ‘About Us‘ page, you find this:

“Communists for Kerry” is a campaign of the Hellgate Republican Club, a tax exempt non-partisan public advocacy “527” organization that exists for the purpose of;

“Informing voters with satire and irony, how political candidates make decisions based on the failed social economic principles of socialism that punish the individual by preventing them from becoming their dream through proven ideas of entrepreneurship and freedom.”

Our members help elect candidates who support economic growth through Entrepreneurship, limited government and lower taxes. Communists For Kerry is separate and distinct from the Communist party of America and any of its organization. None of it’s members are members of any communist organizations.

The Fox article has since been updated to indicate that Communists for Kerry is a satirical orignization.

Does Faux News hold itself to any standards whatsoever?

iTunes “Don’t You Want Me (Hot Tracks)” by Human League from the album Edge, The Level 2 (1995, 6:52).

Disney turning Bloom County 3-D

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You know, much as I’d like to get excited about the prospect of a Bloom County feature film, given Disney‘s track record over the past few years (nearly anything without Pixar‘s involvement is a waste of time — Pirates of the Caribbean and Lilo and Stitch are the only exceptions I can think of, and even Lilo, while enjoyable, isn’t quite up to the standards Disney used to have), the news that their first foray into 3-D animation without Pixar’s involvement will be a Bloom County film doesn’t thrill me.

Miramax Films will co-finance and distribute computer-animated family films starting with “Opus,” adapted from the popular “Bloom County” comic strip, the company said Thursday.

Miramax will release some of the films under its Dimension banner and produce them in conjunction with Wild Brain Inc., a San Francisco-based animated film company perhaps best known for creating the nasty toe fungus in commercials for the prescription drug Lamisil.

Now, while I don’t know anything about Wild Brain (or their nasty toe fungus), the fact that the movie will be under the Disney subsidiary Miramax does give some hope that the end result won’t be as Disney-fied as might otherwise be the case (after all, Miramax does distribute a lot of movies I enjoy, including many of Kevin Smith‘s works). So maybe it won’t be all bad, right? But then the article goes on…

The deal envisions lower budget feature films consistent with Miramax’s independent studio status. Films will cost about half of the bigger budget movies produced by Pixar Animation Studios or DreamWorks SKG.

“What you spend doesn’t necessarily reflect on how good the movie is,” said Jim Miller, Wild Brain chairman.

Well, sure Jim, that’s quite true — there are many, many examples of low-budget films whose quality far outshines the big-budget extravaganzas foisted upon us by the movie studios each summer. However, that said, “low-budget” isn’t really a term I tend to associate with CGI. Still, I will easily admit that I know jack squat about the costs involved in CGI. Maybe it is possible to create a quality feature length CGI film on 1/2 the budget of a Pixar film (though given how good Pixar’s films are, and how successful, I’d hesitate to consider calling their work too expensive).

I’m also having a little difficulty trying to envision the Bloom County universe as a fully three-dimensional rendered world. I keep trying to picture Opus, Bill, and the rest of the critters as 3-D models, and stumbling. On top of that, there are the human characters — Milo, Binkley, Steve, Cutter John, Oliver — and human animation is getting better, but will it be good enough to actually realize the characters I’ve grown up with?

But beyond the quality of the animation and the talent of the animators, there’s this little thing called the script that someone’s got to worry about, and when dealing with a property as well-known and loved as Bloom County, that’s got to be very important consideration.

The choice of subject for the first film reflects Miramax’s eclectic tastes and could prove to be a hard sell, especially to younger audiences.

The character of Opus is a rotund penguin with a cynical world view – far from the heartwarming characters at the center of such films as “Finding Nemo.”

“We agree that it’s a challenge,” Miller said. “How do you take the essence of those characters, who are a little cynical, and move them into a story that can reach adults at the ‘Bloom County’ level and children at their level? We think we have a terrific story.”

The challenge has been given to screenwriter Craig Mazin, whose credits include “Scary Movie 3.” “Bloom County” is written by Berkeley Breathed.

And therein lies my real fear.

So far, I’ve only ever seen two properties that I ever felt could really bridge the gap between children’s entertainment and adult entertainment in a way that successfully appealed to both age groups without pandering to either: The Muppets (with the original television show and the first movie being the high points) and Animaniacs. All too often, either something ends up being watered down too much in order to aim at the children, and the adults have to sit through mind-numbingly asinine shows to appease their children, or the humor is aimed so much at the adult level that parents aren’t comfortable allowing younger children to watch.

Combining the two is a very tricky business, often requiring a level of subtlety that I just don’t see much these days. Rather than going for obvious “adult” or “juvenile” humor (which, admittedly, these days seems all too similar, usually revolving around toilet humor, with the only real difference being whether or not there’s a sexual overtone), it seems to require more thought to the humor — more intelligent jokes, more puns, veiled references…done well (as both the Muppets and Animaniacs did), it can be incredibly enjoyable for both age groups. Done poorly, and nobody enjoys it as much as they should.

Of course, as with all things, there will be no real way to know until it comes out, which should be sometime in 2006. Until then, though…well, I won’t be holding my breath. And if all else fails, there is a lot of Bloom County in print that is just as funny to me now as it was when it came out (sometimes funnier, as I’ve grown older and more able to understand some of the humor).

iTunes “Attached” by Orbital from the album Snivilisation (1994, 12:25).

Federal Marriage Amendment rejected

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Excellent news: the proposed Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage has been shot down.

The House emphatically rejected a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage Thursday, the latest in a string of conservative pet causes advanced by Republican leaders in the run-up to Election Day.

The vote was 227-186, 49 votes shy of the two-thirds needed for approval of an amendment that President Bush backed but the Senate had previously scuttled.

(via Terrance and Len)

iTunes “Age of Love, The (Jam and Spoon Watch Out for Stella)” by Age of Love, The from the album Club Cuts EP Vol. 1 (1990, 6:39).

Where it all began…

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In case there was any curiosity where my tendency for innuendo-laced humor, flirting, and the occasional blatantly sexual comment come from, I present you with the following evidence…

Me, mom...and Playboy

Me at age two or three, in mom’s lap…looking at a Playboy.

Doomed from birth, I tell you. I couldn’t have been “normal” if I tried. ;)

iTunes “Rhapsody” by Siouxsie and the Banshees from the album Peepshow (1988, 6:22).

Once More, With Feeling

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As I’ve mentioned on here every so often, I’ve been working my way through the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series from beginning to end by renting the DVDs from NetFlix. I’m up to season six now (which means I’m going to have to take a break pretty soon, as season seven isn’t out for a little while yet), and I’m still thoroughly enjoying the show.

Season four had what is so far my all-time favorite episode — ‘Hush‘ — but last night I watched what’s now a very close second: ‘Once More, With Feeling‘.

In deference to friends who are also working their way through Buffy for the first time, the rest of these ramblings is behind the cut… Now, I’d heard about ‘Once More With Feeling’ (a.k.a. “Buffy — The Musical”) before hand, but I knew nothing about it beyond that it was a musical episode, so I was really looking forward to seeing it. I didn’t know how they were going to present it (music and spoken word, like a true musical; purely music, operetta-style; possibly something else), or how they were going to make it work within the confines of the show — though, admittedly, with a show like Buffy it’s easy enough to explain nearly anything away with a little creative work.

I knew I was going to be in for a treat when the show opened to a widescreen ratio and old movie style credits. Obviously they weren’t going to go about this halfway! I spent the rest of the next hour with a goofy grin on my face, often laughing out loud as the trademark wordplay worked its way into the songs.

Musically, while it’s not perfect — the cast are actors, after all, and not professional singers (though Anthony Stewart Head and Amber Benson both do quite well) — it is a lot of fun, with styles bouncing all over the place, from soft-shoe jazz to rock power ballads, and even a few reprises of earlier themes popping up later on in the show. Whedon is obviously a fan of musicals, and that shows throughout the show, not just in the music, but also in his framing of the shots and the choreography of the dances.

While it’s definitely something that could only be done as a one-off concept episode, I had a blast with it. Enough of a blast that when I found out that the soundtrack is on iTMS, it was downloading to my computer just a few moments later. My favorite track from the show? Definitely Spike’s showcase number, Rest in Peace. Not only does it do a wonderful job of expressing Spike’s frustration in his non-relationship with Buffy, but it’s a fun power rock pseudo-ballad, and James Marsters does a credible job with it (even if his accent does slip a bit from time to time).

While ‘Hush’ still takes the prize as my all-time favorite episode that I’ve seen so far, ‘Once More With Feeling’ is a very, very close second. If only there were more television shows like this, I might actually bother to watch TV more often.

iTunes “Main Title (from ”Once More with Feeling“)” by Orchestra from the album Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Once More, With Feeling (2002, 0:27).

First Presidential ‘debate’

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(The following are my hastily-scribbled thoughts while watching tonight’s presidential debate — unpolished, written on the fly. Be warned. [grin])

Well, the C-Span video feed is working (RealPlayer, ugh, but it works).

Jim Lehrer’s getting everyone in the audience set up…looks like we’ve got a few minutes to kill before things get started. He just told everyone to kill their cell phones and pagers. Pretty exciting, huh? ;)

“We’re gonna have a great debate,” says Lehrer. What kind of debate doesn’t let the participants ask each other questions?

Umbrella topic: Foreign policy and homeland security.

Y’know, forget the whole buzzer thing when they talk too long. Just take a page from the old TV show You Can’t Do That On Television and replace the flashing red “shut up now” light with buckets of green goo. Hmm — no opening statements (scratch that — Kerry just took a few moments out of his speaking time to thank everyone).

Part of this is just because of the low quality of RealPlayer, but while Bush listens to Kerry and keeps looking back and forth, he looks like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

Wow — Sept. 11th was the first thing Bush dropped out of his mouth after fumbling a response to Kerry’s thanks. No big surprise there. He’s also going on about what we’re doing around the world…in response to a question about Homeland Security.

Bush is playing the fear cards hard — protecting children, Iraq and/or terrorists are going to keep trying to kill us all, etc., etc., yadda yadda.

Kerry’s taking notes while Bush talks — I wonder if Bush will do the same.

Kerry’s also not pulling punches — directly accusing Bush of mismanaging the country and the war and changing the excuses for the war mid-stream.

Kerry’s listing Bush’s misjudgements: telling the country he’d make a true alliance when he didn’t want to in the first place and then was unable to…promising to go to war as a last resort, then rushing into it…pushing our allies aside in order to go to war…ignoring Afghanistan’s troubles in order to focus on Iraq.

Bush is pulling Kerry’s comments about the world being better off without Saddam out of context as his response. Says Saddamn had no intention of disarming, that he was systematically deceiving the inspectors — funny, I don’t remember WMDs suddenly popping up in the last day or so.

Bush is claiming we have the capability to go after both Saddamn and Osama bin Laden. “We’re making progress.” Progressing in the wrong direction…(that’s me).

Nice one from Kerry — “Iraq was not even close to being the center of the war on terrorism before he decided to invade it (paraphrased).” “This president, I don’t know if he sees what’s really happening over there.”

Kerry’s really hammering on the mistake of switching our focus from Osama to Saddam.

Kerry’s contrasting the money flowing into Iraq for reconstruction with the lack of money being spent in America and the cuts Bush has made to police, fire, and city improvement programs here.

Bush wants to know how Kerry will pay for what he wants to do (actually a good question, as he won’t leave Kerry any money).

Bush says we’ll bring our troops home when Iraqis take charge and can defend themselves. Funny, but I bet that’s what the “terrorists” and “insurgents” that keep attacking us think they’re doing.

Kerry’s bringing up Bush Sr.’s decision not to go into Iraq because we’d have no good way to get out. Pointing out that the only building in Baghdad we guarded was the Ministry of Oil, and left many other buildings unprotected.

Another thing I’m noticing — no matter what Bush says, Kerry is keeping a smile on his face. Bush keeps looking more and more pissed when Kerry speaks — like he’s getting closer to losing his temper.

How frequently can Bush talk with other country leaders when he’s on vacation as much as he is?

Apparently, according to Bush, the reason we’re having problems is because we went in too fast — the war won’t be over quickly because it went too fast. Or something like that.

Good, Kerry — he brought up North Korea’s burgeoning nuclear capability.

Kerry mentioned that he’d been working with some of these world leaders longer than Bush has — since C-Span is using a split-screen for the entire debate (Kerry on the left, Bush on the right), I got to see Bush get a wonderfully ticked expression on his face at that one.

Bush is bringing up the Kerry “flip-flop” attack, saying that he keeps changing his positions as the politics change. As for myself, I’m a lot more comfortable with someone who can change their mind when presented with new facts instead of blindly clinging to an idea that’s obviously not reality.

Bush isn’t answering the question about whether the 1,052 lives lost in Iraq are a worthy cost — instead, pulling out a tearjerker story about a mother and son who lost their husband.

Kerry: “…or you can have the President’s plan, which is four words: ‘more of the same.'”

Kerry’s certainly presenting himself far better than Bush — Bush is stumbling more and more, pausing, stuttering, while Kerry is solid straight through.

Good point from Kerry, that we’re presenting the picture of having long-term designs for Iraq, which isn’t going to help the Iraqis to trust us.

Bush: “The enemy attacked us.” Which is why we’re in…Iraq? Who didn’t attack us?

Rue the day? Who talks like that? (I never thought I’d be quoting Real Genius during a Presidential debate…)

Good — Kerry picked up on Bush’s “the enemy attacked us” comment, and is pointing out that it wasn’t Saddmn Hussein or Iraq that attacked us, but Osama bin Laden, who is still on the loose. “Outsourced the job [of finding and killing bin Laden] to Afghan warlords.”

Kerry: “35 to 40 countries in the world had a greater capability than Iraq when we invaded.” And continuing on this line. Excellent.

Excellent — comparing DeGaulle’s statement that “the word of the President is good enough for us” during the Cuban Missile Crisis when photographic proof of Cuba’s missiles was offered with Powell’s apology for the bad intelligence presented to the U.N. during the runup to the Iraq war.

After Bush’s rather nonsensical ramble about North Korea, Kerry’s doing a wonderful job of pointing out where Bush stumbled on Korea (reversing our policies, not talking to North Korea, etc.).

Dammit, Kerry, answer the question on Sudan, leave Iran for later.

Once he got into it, he did point out that our military is seriously over extended, people aren’t being allowed to leave, etc. I’m not sure how he’s going to fix that, though.

Now Bush is back on Iran…just stick to the subject. Grr.

Wow — Bush got asked about potential character issues that Kerry might have, and he’s falling back on the same old mixed message/flip-flop issue. He could easily have gone for some of the more Bible-belt issues…did he stay away from that intentionally, or is he just so stuck on the flip-flop argument that he can’t go for anything else?

Kerry: “Talking about character isn’t my job or business.”

No hesitation from Kerry on the question about the single biggest danger to national security — “Nuclear proliferation.” Pointed out that Bush cut money to track down loose nuclear materials, and has found less in the two years since 9/11 than in the two years prior. Also that we’re telling the world that they can’t have nukes while pouring money into researching and building more of our own.

Bush is, of course, still banging away on missile defenses (the latest version of Star Wars, Reagan’s own wet dream).

Nice that Bush thinks that “establishing good personal relationships with people is important” — we’ll just have to ask France about that. ;)

Interesting that Bush went on about how close he is with Putin and how good friends they are, and then Kerry pointed out the censorship and political imprisonments of Putin’s foes.

Kerry: “[Saddamn] was a threat. That’s not the issue. The issue is what you do about it.”

Time for the closing statements — Kerry’s first.

Kerry: “I believe that the future belongs to freedom — not to fear.”

Bush: “The military will be an all-volunteer army.” Until they run out of cannonfodder and need to reinstate the draft… The rest seems to be more of the usual fear tactics — if Bush doesn’t stay in office, we’re all going to die. Ugh — “I’ve climbed the mighty mountain and seen the valley below, and it is the valley of peace.”

Final thoughts:

First off, it wasn’t nearly as much of a “joint press conference” as I was afraid it was going to be. I still wish it were more of a real debate format, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Secondly, if one is going to talk in terms of “winning” and “losing” in a debate like this, I’d quite honestly give the win to Kerry here (and just for reference, in the 2000 debates the win pretty much went to Bush every time, even though I couldn’t stand him — Gore just didn’t do well back then). Where Kerry stayed calm, cool and collected through the entire debate, Bush often looked testy, annoyed, and kept stumbling all over himself, far more than I’d expect (debates have traditionally been one of his stronger areas, after all).

It’ll definitely be interesting to see the wrap-ups in the news and across the blogosphere in the coming days.

Lastly, a quick schedule of the debates, courtesy of C-SPAN’s page:

  1. 1st Presidential Debate: Thursday, September 30, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL
  2. Vice Presidential Debate: Tuesday, October 5, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH
  3. 2nd Presidential Debate: Friday, October 8, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
  4. 3rd Presidential Debate: Wednesday, October 13, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

iTunes “Sunshine” by Alice in Chains from the album Facelift (1990, 4:44).

WSJ’s Farnaz Fassihi on life in Iraq

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Recently, a letter from Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi started getting passed around the ‘net, detailing just what day-to-day life in Iraq is like at the moment. That letter has now been confirmed as genuine.

Readers of any nailbiting story from Iraq in a major mainstream newspaper must often wonder what the dispassionate reporter really thinks about the chaotic situation there, and what he or she might be saying in private letters or in conversations with friends back home.

Now, at least in the case of Wall Street Journal correspondent Farnaz Fassihi, we know.

A lengthy letter from Baghdad she recently sent to friends “has rapidly become a global chain mail,” Fassihi told Jim Romenesko on Wednesday after it was finally posted at the Poynter Institute’s Web site. She confirmed writing the letter.

“Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for insecurity,” Fassihi wrote (among much else) in the letter. “Guess what? They say they’d take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.” And: “Despite President Bush’s rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a ‘potential’ threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to ‘imminent and active threat,’ a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.”

Read on for the full text of Fassihi’s letter…

Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a difference.

Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people’s homes and never walk in the streets. I can’t go grocery shopping any more, can’t eat in restaurants, can’t strike a conversation with strangers, can’t look for stories, can’t drive in any thing but a full armored car, can’t go to scenes of breaking news stories, can’t be stuck in traffic, can’t speak English outside, can’t take a road trip, can’t say I’m an American, can’t linger at checkpoints, can’t be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can’t and can’t.

There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.

It’s hard to pinpoint when the turning point exactly began. Was it April when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq’s population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush’s rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a potential threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to imminent and active threat, a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.

Iraqis like to call this mess the situation. ÊWhen asked how are things? they reply: the situation is very bad.

What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn’t control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country’s roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war.

In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health, which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers– has now stopped disclosing them.

Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.

A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.

For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around Baghdad because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and highways between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female friend at 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had been abducted from their homes in broad daylight. Then the two Americans, who got beheaded this week and the Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential neighborhood. They were supplying the entire block with round the clock electricity from their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed one of them at 6 a.m. when he came out to switch on the generator; his beheaded body was thrown back near the neighborhoods. The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down. If any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated every day. The various elements within it — baathists, criminals, nationalists and Al Qaeda — are cooperating and coordinating.

I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the military and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told our fate would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain once it was determined we were missing. ÊHere is how it goes: criminal gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other way from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the criminals. My friend Georges, the French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has been missing for a month with no word on release or whether he is still alive.

America’s last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National Guard units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are being murdered by the dozens every dayÜover 700 to date — and the insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S. military has allocated \$6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly.

As for reconstruction: firstly it’s so unsafe for foreigners to operate that almost all projects have come to a halt. After two years, of the \$18 billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only about \$1 billion or so has been spent and a chuck has now been reallocated for improving security, a sign of just how bad things are going here.

Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of sabotage and oil prices have hit record high of \$49 a barrel.

Who did this war exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam is holed up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq?

Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for insecurity. Guess what? They say they’d take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.

I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. This is truly sad.

Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to him about elections here. He has been trying to educate the public on the importance of voting. He said, “President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into a democracy that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about democracy, forget about being a model for the region, we have to salvage Iraq before all is lost.”

One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it’s hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral.

The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can’t be put back into a bottle.

The Iraqi government is talking about having elections in three months while half of the country remains a no go zone — out of the hands of the government and the Americans and out of reach of journalists. In the other half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up at polling stations. The Sunnis have already said they’d boycott elections, leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites that will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civil war.

I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some degree elect a leadership. His response summed it all: “Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?”

(via Boing Boing)