Salam's post today: "we sit infront of the TV with the map of Iraq on our laps trying to figure out what is going on in the south." Funny, that's what I'm doing.

Last night I read nearly all of the Baghdad web logger's archived posts. Some snippets:

- A BBC reporter walking thru the Mutanabi Friday book market (again) ends his report with : “It looks like Iraqis are putting on an air of normality” Look, what are you supposed to do then? Run around in the streets wailing? War is at the door eeeeeeeeeeeee!

- You know the band BUSH ? DJs on the English language radio station in Baghdad (voice of youth) are not allowed to say the name of the band, they have to spell it. “Bee yu ess etch have yet another single out”. I bet all the DJs there thank god there isn’t a band called schwartzkopf, imagine having to spell that everytime you play a song.

- The radio plays war songs from the 80’s non-stop. We know them all by heart. Driving thru Baghdad now singing along to songs saying things like “we will be with you till the day we die Saddam” was suddenly a bit too heavy, no one gave that line too much thought but somehow these days it is sounds sinister.... A couple of hours earlier we were at a shop and a woman said as she was leaving, and this is a very common sentence, “we’ll see you tomorrow if good keeps us alive” – itha allah khalana taibeen – and the whole place just freezes. She laughed nervously and said she didn’t mean that.

Plus, he likes the Jesus and Mary Chain.