Just a few last thoughts before things heat up and we all get glued to the TV and radio coverage.

Have you noticed that this war has generated fewer neologisms and euphemisms than we've seen in past engagements? It may be that our controllers are getting more sophisticated, or maybe all the good ones have been taken, but I kinda miss the old Newspeak. There are a handful of new entries to the lexicon, however, such as:

• Winnebagos of Death: Avril Lavigne's roadshow
  
• HooAH! bars: Official Snack of the Iraq Attack
  
• Shock and awe: Your tax liability for fiscal 2002
  
• Freedom fries: Vox populi, vox Dei
  
• Cheese-eating surrender monkeys: The Art of Diplomacy
  
• Coalition of the willing: See "New Europe"
  
• New Europe: Anyone whose arm we could twist
  
• Axis of evil: Fox News, O'Reilly, Michael Savage
  
• MOAB: From America, with love
  
• Rubber-stamp parliament: What passes for the Iraqi legislature
  
• EPWs: Means "POWs," but why the update?
  

The Men from Uncle

A Raven correspondent directed me to the London Times, which reports: Mass desertions weaken Iraqi defences.

You may disagree, but the stories coming in underscore the notion that the Iraqi military has no interest in defending the Hussein regime. We can take a measure of solace in this.

In northern Iraq between 43 and 75 per cent of regular soldiers, depending upon their regiment, have already fled. Iraqi tribal leaders in the region have also abandoned Saddam and defected to the Kurds in the Northern No-Fly Zone.

Jumping the Shark

Another diplomat has bailed over Bush's ham-handed efforts at foreign affairs. You'll remember the powerful resignation letter of Foreign Service officer John Brady Kiesling (courtesy Dave Fox); this refusal to continue comes from State Department official John Brown, who says that Kiesling's letter "played a role in pushing him to resign."

But Brown said he also was offended by what he called Bush's "incoherence" during the March 6 news conference in making the case for war to the nation.

That's it for our pre-war coverage. Let's hope our men and women pull through safely in the hours to come.

6:33:34 PM       

Yesterday's angle was a bit slow, and the reason for that was a general malaise settling over me—call it a pre-war depression. I'd explain more, but I think you know exactly what I mean. This sense of helplessness and inevitability to things colors every thought, every word, and increasingly I feel myself drawn to seek solace in the past like Edwin Arlington Robinson's Miniver Cheevy, who loved the days of old, "and kept on drinking."

But we're turning the corner and there's a few bright notes out there worth looking at. For instance, while utterly juvenile and penned without guile, something about A Letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush on the Eve of War gave us a laugh. Too whiny by far, but there's a good point or two in there. Or how about this ABC headline?

New technology will bring war to your living room.

And This, Too

Can't beat El Supremo Justice Scalia for telling it like it is. He went on record yesterday saying that the federal government "has room to scale back individual rights during wartime without violating the Constitution." Clever, really, to frame the notion of civil rights as something like the buttons on a coat you can button up, or button down, depending on the whim of the moment.

"The Constitution just sets minimums," Scalia said after a speech at John Carroll University in suburban Cleveland. "Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires."

Touchy, Touchy

When's the last time you read a good story about the Spanish Conquistadores? They don't usually make headlines anymore, so I had to check in on this odd brouhaha raging in the Catalans. Turns out an American historian with some authority in the field has "slandered" Spain by suggesting that the Conquistadores were kinda rough on the South Americans.

Mr Kamen's book has shaken the accepted, school-taught Spanish view of the New World conquista as an epic tale of organised empire-building carried out by brave, loyal Spaniards for the greater glory of their country and monarchs.

Speaking of misfortune, Luis, 2 million Aztecs would like to have a word with you.

Family Affair

Over in New York, there's a weird case developing out of a sex orgy that occurred on Long Island Railroad train.

Francine Greene, 40, was arrested for engaging in a menage-a-trois with her husband and his brother. Now she's attending the trial of her brother-in-law, Dennis Greene, who's facing charges of "public lewdness." Greene's lawyer is arguing that the alleged act couldn't have occurred since there just isn't enough room on those narrow seats to accommodate a three-way tryst. He may have a tough sell with that, since Francine already admits the shenanigans.

Francine Greene admitted she was in the middle, performing oral sex upon her seated husband, while having vaginal sex at the same time with her brother-in-law, who works at the emergency room at North Shore University Hospital in Forest Hills.

It's a wild world.

10:22:56 AM