I don't do politics his site nor do I cover things which are basically beyond our control, reports on which amount to opinionating. Grassroots life experience is the OYB thing.

Still, there's no escaping the Iraq War. Well, actually there is. If you're not in it yourself, other than your opinion you've got your vote and whatever other project you might have and that's it.

Well, when I want to catch-up on what's going down, I go to Intel Dump. I like Intel Dump because it's the personal blog of a thoughtful investigative soldier. He has a feel for both the big picture and the boots-on-the-ground. Anyone else like I-D? What do you have?

Another site I occasionally use to keep on a sense of things is http://www.ijtihad.org. It's a thoughtful Muslim site by a US professor. (There's also http://www.theamericanmuslim.org and http://www.islamonline.net/English/index.shtml and http://www.cuii.org.)