RAED IN THE MIDDLE

Remember Salam Pax, the mysterious Iraqi blogger who gave us turbulent, emotional first-hand reports from Baghdad months before Bush started his worthless war?

Pax went on to become a media darling with the UK's Guardian and has recently completed a short film about his experiences.

His site has grown stale now that he's off enjoying his fame, so I searched for other Iraq blogs. I found this one, Raed in the Middle, which is well written and copious and packed with venom for the occupiers. Sometimes he writes in prose. Sometimes he writes in inelegant stanzas. Raed's site is well worth the time, just as a reminder that a "liberated" people are free to loathe their so-called freedoms, such as the one that prevents them from participating in the closed-door appointment by occupiers of their new interim government.

And for those of you who ignore or have forgotten that we've killed about 10,000 Iraqis since the war started, go here, where you can find an alarming spreadsheet with over 2,000 casualties listed, their ages, and the conditions of their deaths. If you can't be bothered with details about the destruction of individuals with families and backstories, go here, where you'll find a dread-inspiring database filled with facts on when and where the killings occured. The methodology for the latter site is here.