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.

Danger has released a developer SDK (original) for the Sidekick, with some interesting restrictions. Namely, user-developed applications can’t be transmitted to the Sidekick over the air unless they’ve been approved by both Danger and (at present) T-Mobile. Let the recrimination phase begin! I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, it’s hard to deny that part of the Palm’s success was the open SDK and the resulting flood of applications. I want to play IF on my Sidekick… oh. OK (original), then. (I swear I did not find that link before I chose my sample desired application.) Still, you get the point. ...

The other day, I was debating the legality of entering my apartment without prior notice with my landlord when my neighbor got home. My neighbor is French; I don’t know the first thing about him other than that. He’s quiet. My landlord gave up on our conversation, and started haranguing my neighbor about speaking French. “Don’t go speaking French around here! I don’t like what France has been doing!” I wimped out; I didn’t tell him that my neighbor had every right to speak French if he wanted. ...

Weird little Cheney interview. He says, referring to terrorism, “[T]he United States and the president have been forced to come to grips with issues that our allies to date have not yet had to come to grips with…” And I really don’t understand that. Has he somehow missed the Red Army, or more recently the Chechnya terrorists who took over a theater in Russia? Shining Path ring a bell? Or, hey, how about the IRA and the Basque separatists? It seems very clear to me that many European nations on both sides of the debate have seen more than enough terrorist activity to get a very clear idea of the issues.

The [WISH of the week](http://web.archive.org/web/20060924230604/http://web.archive.org/web/20060924230604/http://www.whiterose.org/pam/archives/003041.html (original) “Perverse Access Memory: WISH 38: Favoritism”) (original): Do you (or your GM) ‘play favourites?’ Do you feel you have to justify your answer? Do you have a horror story to share? I agree with Greg Morrow’s comments (follow the link above), with some additions. Favoritism shows up most often as spotlight time, a concept I find tremendously useful when thinking about balance. It doesn’t matter if Bob the Paladin can deal out more damage than Ernie the Weedy Cleric if Ernie does all the negotiations and it’s a socially oriented campaign. ...

This is kind of trainspotting at this point, but the Guardian is running live coverage of the British House of Commons debate on Iraq. There’s no doubt Blair’s resolution will pass at this point; the question is how many Labour MPs will defect. Robin Cook adroitly separated opposition to war from opposition to Blair’s government yesterday, which makes today more interesting.

There we go. Here’s the full text of Robin Cook’s resignation speech, which I’ve been pitching as a must read, so hurry up already. In other British political news, Clare Short (original) withdrew her threat to resign, confirming everything skeptics think about the left.

So. We’re going to war. I think a number of things, which I will outline here, as much to remind myself of them in the days to come as for any other reason. I think that regime change in Iraq is an admirable goal; Saddam Hussein is a terrible leader who has caused great harm to his citizens. He is a dictator and a criminal. I have no doubt of this. ...