If it wasn't already obvious, I've mothballed my blog for the time-being. Instead, you can catch me at ProPublica, the non-profit investigative newsroom where I now spend my days.
From the NYT:
The ugly daily fight for ground in the poor Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City unfolded Saturday at a small mosque next door to a hospital, damaging the hospital and all its ambulances, and near a group of children who were injured by the violence as they gathered tin cans to sell for salvage.
The first hit came after a night of clashes in the neighborhood, when the Americans fired at least three “precision-guided munitions” in the area of the Sadr General Hospital at 10 a.m. The target was a small building next door to the hospital that neighbors said was used as a rest house and place of prayer for hospital employees, pilgrims and neighborhood residents.
The sign at the iron gate at the entrance to the building said “Imam Hussein’s Resthouse.”
The Americans described the building in a statement as “a criminal element command and control center.”
“Intelligence reports indicate the command and control center was used by criminal elements to plan and coordinate attacks against Iraqi security and coalition forces and innocent Iraqi citizens,” the statement said.
Next door, in an area used as a parking lot for the hospital’s ambulances, a second missile hit, damaging a water line and creating a small pond, destroying three ambulances and shattering the windows in about 10 others. A third missile hit a generator nearby that supplied the neighborhood.
I make the New York Times' Style section.
P.S. I'm pretty sure I never said, "I wanted to marry a Jewish woman from a family like mine." C'est la vie.
I've joined ProPublica, a non-profit investigative news outfit that's starting. I'm going to be writing for and helping oversee the Web site. Which means 1) health care! 2) posts to this here blog will probably continue at their current, eh, less-than-torrid pace.
As I've said before, we should be paying more attention to the spiraling price of grain around the world and the unrest that's causing. Nice to see the head of the IMF put out a clarion call:
The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that hundreds of thousands of people will face starvation if food prices keep rising.
The price of rice has nearly doubled since January. Among other things, that's a national security problem.
Remember "broken windows" theory? The notion that small signs of decay--such as broke windows--need to be guarded against since they give a sense of lawlessness and in turn encourage bigger problems. Well, looks like Baghdad's traffic cops are trying out the theory, and people are pretty happy:
Mohammed Yunis, an inspector with the traffic police in central Baghdad's Karada district, said the seat belt rules began to be enforced a couple of days ago and that the response showed that Iraqis were eager to follow the law. "About 80% of the drivers have their seat belts on, so it's not impossible to implement these laws here," he said.