One of the common worries expressed by anti-war protestors was the possibilty of backlash during the war. We were forced to close our embassy in Pakistan yesterday, and all US citizens are advised to leave Pakistan. Why? Seems there are intensifying protests over there, and things are getting violent. Meanwhile, the Instapundit thinks Iraqis who are happy to be liberated are my worst nightmare. As Unqualified Offerings notes, my worst nightmares involve things like militant Islamic coups in Pakistan, a nation that has a number of nuclear weapons. Iraqi citizens happy to be liberated? That’s a good thing. ...

I’m in Harvard Square, near the Pit, listening to a not bad band pound out the Rolling Stones at full electrified volume. I walked through the Yard just now, and looked up at the third floor of Weld, and realized I wanted to record it. It’s odd; I remember Weld so distinctly, but that was onlu Harvard Summer School, and freshman year in the Yard has faded. I blame Jeanie and Fern. How else? ...

Another useful resource this week: the BBC’s reporter diaries. The Agonist is also good — Sean-Paul is doing a good job of keeping up with the news. His head will explode within days, no doubt. Turkey has OKed US overflight, finally. There was a lot of back and forth about this, mostly related to whether or not the US was going to let Turkish troops into Northern Iraq. Turkey wants to make sure the Kurds don’t form their own state, and will do so by force as necessary. No word as to what the final deal was, but Turkey reasserted that it would send troops in after they announced they’d open airspace. That’s not good. ...

Two things. First, Amiri Baraka is an idiot and a pig and quite possibly a racist. (Although, you know, do some research (original). “It is a narrow nationalism that says the white man is the enemy… Nationalism, so-called, when it says ‘all non-blacks are our enemies,’ is sickness or criminality, in fact, a form of fascism.” You’ll never guess who wrote that. Still, set that aside: once you start with calling people a whore during your lectures, you get slotted into the idiot and pig categories. At the very least.) ...

Whoof, that was a whole lot of Malazan Empire. Yep, you betcha. I liked Deadhouse Gates a lot, and I am pleased to report that it continued to progress along lines quite different than Gardens of the Moon. The differences in setting and characters are most obvious, but around halfway through the former I realized that whereas Gardens is a novel about places, Deadhouse Gates is all about journeys. The centerpiece of Deadhouse Gates is the deeply harrowing march known as the Chain of Dogs, while Gardens revolves around the struggle for Darujhistan. ...

My little RSS project has foundered on the shoals of RSS parsing woes. If you have a raw apostrophe in your RSS feed, well-behaved RSS parsers will fail. Isn’t that fun? Amphetadesk works around this by just using XML::Simple directly, which I suppose I could do, but I’m kind of lazy. Mark Pilgrim wrote a nice ultra-liberal RSS parser but it’s in Python. Learning enough Python to make use of it would be easier than writing my own code using XML::Simple, I think. Maybe not. Not tonight, anyhow, either way. ...

Because I think it’s worth highlighting the extremes of human dignity, I link to the speech Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins delivered before battle. This type of man is one reason why I wish both our soldiers and British soldiers well. “We go to liberate not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them.” And: ...

Some things I’ve been reading lately: Where is Raed is a blog belonging to a young guy living in Baghdad. “air raid sirens in baghdad but the only sounds you can here are the anti-aircraft machine guns. will go now.” Kevin Sites is a CNN reporter who’s blogging from Northern Iraq; the blog is not affiliated with CNN. Christopher Allbritton is on his way to Iraq. Throw him ten bucks if you’ve got it; his series for NPR on his travels in Northern Iraq was very interesting and he needs the cash to get back there. Yay independent journalism.

Michael Swanwick is keeping a list of SF authors opposed to the war. Linked for my reference (via Making Light).

The Chicago Tribune reports that many of the recent pro-war rallies were sponsored by Clear Channel. Clear Channel is currently lobbying against proposed regulatory changes that would limit its ability to expand. This doesn’t diminish or negate the sentiments expressed by those attending, but it sure raises some interesting questions about Clear Channel.