HERE’S ANOTHER MILITARY BLOG (a Marine blog, actually) that you should be reading. Excerpt:

Umm Qasr is essentially a void now in the daily briefings of the Iraqi disinformation minister. His last mention of Umm Qasr was a vow that it would never fall into the hands of the “pirates” (arrrrrrrgh) and “gangsters” (mama mia!) of the coalition. This is essentially true, in that the coalition is devoid of either. American and British troops did take the city, though, and are in the process of… doing nefarious things like public works projects.

There has to be as many aid workers and civil engineers running around the coalition-occupied territory of Southern Iraq as there are fighting troops now. And the last I checked, the pirates of the Caribbean were not especially concerned with the welfare of those they invaded.

And I’m short a parrot, damn it.

I’d take up a collection to send one, but I don’t think the Corps would let it through.

And read LT Smash’s response to an Iranian emailer.

UPDATE: And there’s a lot of great stuff over at Sgt. Stryker’s today, starting with this post.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This is good, too.