Today's title probably brings Sun Tzu's classic treatise on military strategy to mind, but our lineup today features stories about the kinds of art that emerge from war. The connection between the two is an obvious one: war is altogether too large, too complex to capture in bald statements of fact; but art can define conflict symbolically and convey its emotional aspect—whether from the field or in the bedchamber.

The "We Are In Control" T-Shirt

The Raven's been getting a lot of traffic via Google for this item. If you're looking for that Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf T-shirt, you can order it here. The price, given in British pounds as 14.99, is about $23.55, U.S.

Most-Wanted Playing Cards

This title's a pun, actually, seeing as how everybody is trying to get their hands on a deck of those Department of Defense "Iraqi Most-Wanted" cards, and CNN Money has the scoop on this story.

Here's the only woman in the pack, Muba Salin Ammash, the Ba'athist bioweapons minister who's obviously somebody we'd like to chat with. Where'd I get this image? Turns out that the Department of Defense has the whole deck online (takes a few minutes to load). But no, everybody wants a "real" set as a kind of souvenir, and this is where you should be cautious.

An initial print run of only "a couple hundred decks" has been sent to Central Command in Qatar for distribution, said Lieutenant Commander Jim Brooks of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The Prince of Shagdad

Remember those stories about Saddam's lil' trysting hideaway? We linked to a couple of stories but didn't run the pictures, since they tended to focus on the garish artwork hanging on the walls. Turns out the artist who produced those works noticed, and it freaked her out, too.

New York painter Rowena Morrill is obviously following the same muse that inspired Frank Frazetta, as we can see in this work titled, King Dragon, which Saddam had hanging over his bed.

"I would give anything to get them back," said Rowena, whose last name is Morrill but prefers using only her first name. "I am so upset that they are there."

"I utterly hate Saddam Hussein," she said. "I loathe everything he is and everything he stands for."

Just kidding. Anyway, she says she sold King Dragon to a Japanese collector for $20,000 and how it wound up in Mr. Sexy's lair is unknown.

Stickin' It to Da Mann

Peter Mann, that is. He's an Edinburgh artist whose works aren't quite everyone's cup of tea. In fact, his shop windows have been smashed repeatedly by "vandals" so Mann protected his windows with a set of wooden shutters. Then he painted them in his signature style.

Oh, his style is "bizarre surrealist nudes," one of which here is a self-portrait. Local residents are not amused. Here's Lynsey Elbekhti, 27, who lives nearby with her 2-year-old:

"They are shocking. If I had older children I wouldn't take them past here because they would have nightmares after seeing these grotesque pictures. He [Mr Mann] should just cover the shutters with basic drawings which aren't distorted or rude."

2:30:17 PM