Military secrecy, suspected lies. Some 4,500 soliders have been medically evaluated from Iraq and some died there from uncertain causes, with the military providing little information on the topic -- and cryptic when the do. Families suspect DU and anthrax vaccines are behind it.

Citing the US military Central Command as its source, the Washington Post reported on September 2 that “more than 6,000 service members” had been medically evacuated from Iraq since the launch of the war. At the time, the number of combat wounded stood at 1,124. A further 301 personnel had been injured in non-combat incidents such as vehicle accidents. The figure of “more than 6,000” supplied to the Post therefore implies that over 4,500 US troops have required evacuation from Iraq for medical reasons other than combat or non-combat injuries.

When the government lies, always. The we all have to becme spies for our out sake.

Daily life has become an exercise in counterintelligence just to figure out what's going on.

It's not a question of party politics. This is deeper than that. It's about trying to find our balance as we teeter precariously on the moebius strip of cover and deception that cloaks our public life, that governs the selling of the latest war, that called the air in New York clean instead of lethal, that has darkened the life of a formerly free people who enjoyed constitutional rights as if there's a midday eclipse. We see our own civil affairs through a glass, darkly, and nobody really knows what's what.

No bail for Bush & cronies. America has a lesson to learn and it seems that allowing us to stew in our own self-concocted juices may be the only way.

If Bush is let off the hook now they will never demand to know his real reasons for waging the war.

This is called democracy. Its survival in the US is even more important than in the democratic black spots like Myanmar, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe. Abuses of power in the latter victimize their own people; those in the US victimize everyone else. Americans have to re-learn the democratic traditions of opposition politics, questioning government policy, transparency and accountability - traditions that were all but wiped out by 9/11.

Second shoe falling. Americans remain naive, ignorant and content to stay that way -- and are certain to succeed at it with media ownership being what it is.

"It is not just that the anxiety remains, perhaps it is even greater now," said Marian Salzman yesterday, who is global chief strategist for RSCG and one of the world's most respected futurologists. "In some ways, Americans are waiting for the other shoe to drop."

The lag in getting to grips with the implications of 9/11 also relates to Americans' ignorance about world affairs. "Your average American doesn't know that al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein are not the same. For us, there are just a hell of a lot of evil-doers out there," Ms Salzman said. There is evidence that Americans are watching, reading and listening to more news in the media. Much of it, however, maybe very partisan, rather than anything that could be described as objectively informative.

Sars resurgent? Let's hope not because it could do more damage the second time around. Alas, Singapire officials confirm this case is Sars returned, though it remains isolated, Fears are expressed the deadly disease remains alive in "wild animal populations" in South Chuina. Which is what, two zoo pandas and a stuffed tiger? Everthing else must by now have been eaten, exported or slaughtered so its horns, hooves or foreskins could be ground up for aphrodisiacs.

Two anarchist bullfighters, a one-legged teacher and a poet. Disinterment from a ditch far away.