Here's an article about a man with "Wisconsinaphobia". The phobia and associated severe back pain were triggered by "anything related to Wisconsin - sports scores on television, license plates and business names, for instance - and anything that had to do with public utilities."

Here are two articles on the war in Iraq from the Washington Post. The first article discusses how "what ended as a military victory that toppled the Iraqi government in 21 days was filled with moments of uncertainty, miscues and unexpected successes for U.S. forces." The second article tells the story of one member of Saddam's Fedayeen.

How did the United States win the war in Iraq? In this article from Slate, Fred Kaplan explains how the U.S. military has changed and improved since the last Gulf War in 1991. These changes include "a new war-fighting doctrine, advanced digital technology, and a less parochial culture."

How many of you remember Norm Coleman? Norm won the Senate election last November in Minnesota after his opponent, Paul Wellstone, died in an airplane crash. Last week Norm told the Washington newspaper Roll Call "To be very blunt and God watch over Paul's soul, I am a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone. Just about on every issue." (The link is to an AP story. I would link to the original story, but it costs $200 a year to access the Roll Call site.)

Norm was surprised that anyone was offended by that statement, and "tried to put his remarks in context, saying he was making the point that he was close to President Bush, while Wellstone 'was never with the president.'"

When that didn't work, Coleman said "I apologize without equivocation. . . . It was wrong."

All this controversy has made Al Franken ponder the other 1%.

John Stewart has always been funny, but lately his Daily Show has been particularly good. Here's an article from Salon about John Stewart and the Daily Show.

Sight and Sound magazine’s once-a decade list of the best films ever made was released late last year. It was based on lists of films submitted by movie critics and directors. The top 10, including movies like Citizen Kane and Battleship Potemkin, did not include any movies made in the last 30 years. But according to this article from the Boston Globe, film students have their own ideas about what should be considered classic films.

In this New York Post column, former Army officer Ralph Peters examines the war in Iraq and concludes that "The troops are winning impressively - despite Secretary Rumsfeld's micromanagement."

In this article from Haaretz, Israeli military officers and historian Martin van Creveld discuss the media coverage of the war in Iraq. They agree that because of the high level of disinformation, "nobody knows what is really happening in Iraq." As Van Creveld says, "Everyone is lying about everything all the time, and it is difficult to say what is happening. I've stopped listening. All the pictures shown on TV are color pieces which have no significance."

Gregg Easterbrook is writing a series of daily dispatches about the war in Iraq. This dispatch is about the dispute between Rumsfeld and the Army generals over planning the war. In this dispatch Easterbrook discusses the deaths of Iraqi combatants and Iraq's incredibly weak tactical position.

Here is a New York Times article about the Marquette University basketball team. Marquette has reached the NCAA Final Four for the first time since Al McGuire led the team to the championship in 1977. The article is ok, but I posted this link because to the right of the article is what may be the World's Greatest Sports Team Photo. (Be sure to click on "Enlarge this Image".)

This New Yorker article by Seymour Hersch discusses how Donald Rumsfeld overruled senior Pentagon planners and reduced the number of American ground troops for the war in Iraq. According to several of Hersch's sources, "Rumsfeld simply failed to anticipate the consequences of protracted warfare."

Here are some weblogs that provide news on the war in Iraq. As I've mentioned before, The Agonist is a good source for news on the war. Intel Dump and The Command Post follow the military campaign, while Talking Points Memo focuses on the diplomatic and political aspects of the war.

Why did we go to war with Iraq? According to Joshua Marshall of Talking Points Memo:

"This war isn't really about Iraq or deposing Saddam or even eliminating his WMD, though each of those are important benefits along the way. Nor is it something so mundane as a 'war for oil.' The leading architects of this war in and out of the administration see this war, and have pursued it, as an opening blow in a far broader war against political Islam. They see it as the first in a series of wars and near-wars which will lead eventually to the overthrow of most of the current governments in the Middle East, the establishment of western-oriented democracies throughout the Arab world, and the destruction of nothing less than the political world of Islamic fundamentalism."

You can read a short discussion of these ideas on this Talking Points Memo post, or a longer discussion in this article from the Washington Monthly.

Mark Bowden discusses the upcoming battle for Baghdad in this New York Times Op-Ed column. Michael Tomasky explains why the war with Iraq is not a quagmire in this article from the American Prospect.

In this New York Times column, Paul Krugman explains what connects pro-war rallies, Clear Channel Communications, and the Bush administration.

Several months ago I linked to an article about people who explore the tunnels under Moscow. Now, here's an article about a Japanese journalist who thinks he's found evidence of secret tunnels under Tokyo.

The best coverage I've seen of the war in Iraq is on the weblog The Agonist. For example, here is the Agonist's list of questions the media is not asking.

Each year the Village Voice asks a few hundred American music critics to submit their lists of top albums and singles of the year. These lists are then combined into the Village Voice's Pazz and Jop poll. According to the poll, 2002's best album was Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The top 40 albums are listed here.

The Village Voice's Robert Christgau, the "Dean of American Music Critics", writes an introductory essay here, and the Washington Post's music critic, David Segal, makes fun of Christgau's essay here.

Slate has a page of links to many of the best internet sites that provide news about the war in Iraq.

A few years ago my father discovered steel drum music. He loved the music so much that he began building his own steel drums and started 7 steel drum bands in Mayville, Wisconsin. (Surprisingly, Mayville had not had a steel drum band before 1992.) They have recorded 2 tapes and a CD and have performed all over Wisconsin, in Florida, and on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. For more information, go to the Mayville Steel Drums website.