Kurdish forces have occupied Kirkuk; according to NPR this morning, there are about 20,000 Kurdish soldiers in the city along with a fairly token US presence. This is supposedly a trigger point for a Turkish invasion, so we’ll soon see if Turkey and/or the US are bluffing or not. Abdullah Gul, the Turkish Foreign Minister, said Colin Powell agreed to allow Turkish military observers to go to Kirkuk (original), and that US forces would arrive “within a few hours” to take control of the situation.

Alas, but it’s true: Nick Urfe’s “…inexplicably fancy trash” has shut its doors. Well, not shut, precisely. More that the store at which one found those interesting little intellectually pornographic tidbits has stopped getting in new stock. You can still browse the old stuff, and it’s still entirely worthwhile to do so. I stumbled across the place early in what I might laughably call my blogging career, and it is still the touchstone I return to when I really badly need to remind myself that there’s more to write about beyond the war and politics. It offered, in cupped hands, the possibility of litrachur in this new mode of expression. Mindbending stuff. ...

That CBS Baghdad webcam is currently showing footage of a tank and a slew of Iraqi citizens trying to tear down a big statue of Saddam. Just in case anyone wants to watch. (Addendum: here’s a rough screenshot.)

Still no chemical weapons. Maybe some will turn up tomorrow. On February 5th, Colin Powell talked about Iraqi chemical weapons. And we have sources who tell us that he recently has authorized his field commanders to use them. He wouldn’t be passing out the orders if he didn’t have the weapons or the intent to use them. Iraqi field commanders have been willing to commit war crimes. We’ve seen suicide bombers. We’ve seen Iraqi troops dressed in civilian clothing. We’ve seen false surrenders. The US has made no secret of its intent to prosecute these as war crimes. Yet… none of these field commanders, who Powell said were authorized to use chemical weapons, have done so. Why not? Why would they commit the crimes they committed, but no others? ...

Rules of Attraction rocked; thought you’d like to know. Nah, really. It’s glossy and terribly calculated, but it’s also stark and unflinching, and I like that in a movie. The plot isn’t exactly much but you wouldn’t complain if it was a romance with this little plot. Think of this as the anti-romance. Come to think of it, pair it off with The Talented Mr. Ripley and maybe Igby Goes Down and you’ve got yourself a nice thematic trilogy. ...

So, what’s up in Iraq? I’m not even pretending to keep track of the reputed chemical weapon finds, but MSNBC is. As of now the only recent discovery confirmed by the military turned out to be pesticides. There are two or three other rumored finds out there, but the key word there is “rumored.” We may or may not have killed Saddam in a recent bombing run. Stratfor claims that there’s still fighting going on in Umm Qasr. The British are holding down that entire area, which I mention mostly for the sake of noting yet again that Rumsfeld said we wouldn’t need the Brits. Ahem. Anyhow, this is a problem because it hampers naval access to Iraq. ...

NPR reports that chemical weapon loaded missiles have been found in Iraq (original). The NPR story attributes the news to an officer in the 101st Airborne Division, but a Yahoo story says NPR attributed it to an officer in the 1st Marine Division. The latter attribution matches my memory of what I heard on NPR while driving into work this morning. That division’s commander, Joe Dowdy, was relieved of his post on Saturday. There’s been no explanation of why yet, which is not necessarily alarming, but man. Part of me wonders whether the two stories could be linked. Part of me says “That’s silly; if he was relieved of duty for refusing to report fake WMD evidence, the truth would come out pretty quickly.” The second part wins after a short battle, but the story bears watching. ...

Isn’t the morning after sort of the definition of incoherency? Anyhow. WISH 41 (original) asks: How coherent do you expect a game world to be? Is a game world merely a stage for the characters, or does it have a life of its own? How deep does it need to be to satisfy you? How do you contribute as a player or GM to making the game world more coherent, if you do? ...

Idle note of no particular relevance except that North Korea has this urgent need to be noticed right now and I want to do my part: The biggest audience ever for a professional wrestling match was in Pyongyang, North Korea in 1995. The venue was May Day Stadium, and the wrestlers were Antonio Inoki and Ric Flair. Attendance is variously estimated at between 150,000 and 190,000 people. Whooooooo! Also, because I stumbled across it while researching this entry, I want to share the unofficial Pyongyang Metro web site (original). Enjoy.

I pulled the Agonist from my war blogroll and added Stratfor; this won’t do anyone without a subscription much good, alas. Sorry about that. I’m pretty sure I had good reason, though. When Sean-Paul Kelley admitted he was pulling stuff from Stratfor without attribution cause of “time constraints” I chalked it up to newbie enthusiasm. It’s one reason I decided to get the Stratfor account — I’d been reading their reports for free over on the Agonist, which made me feel a touch guilty. However, it now seems that he misattributed several Stratfor bits (original) in order to gain credibility. In other words, he wanted people to think he had insider connections so he copied some Stratfor pieces and claimed they came from secret sources. ...