CNN’s chief news exec for Iraq explains that there were lots of things CNN didn’t dare report, less their Iraqi staff be tortured or killed. “I came to know several Iraqi officials well enough that they confided in me that Saddam Hussein was a maniac who had to be removed. One Foreign Ministry officer told me of a colleague who, finding out his brother had been executed by the regime, was forced, as a test of loyalty, to write a letter of congratulations on the act to Saddam Hussein. An aide to Uday once told me why he had no front teeth: henchmen had ripped them out with pliers and told him never to wear dentures, so he would always remember the price to be paid for upsetting his boss. Again, we could not broadcast anything these men said to us.” (Via Mr. Drudge.)

Over at MarketingFix., I had some fun debating the merits of the old-school online ad network DoubleClick.

Great to take Baghdad, to see Iraqis celebrate, to see Saddam’s statues tumble, to see the Arab street awed and even, though this is trivial in comparison, to see European and American pessimists stumped. Saddam’s rout is a miracle wrought from will, courage and civilized force.

We haven’t won yet, though. We need to bring peace, democracy and rationality to Iraq to redeem the lives this cost. I hope there are more miracles to come.

E-publishing genius Phil Greenspun finally has a blog. Can’t wait ’til he starts posting some of his photos. Gotta go buy Greenspun on Blogshares. Damn, he’s not listed yet.

Using eBay, this dude auctioned off the back of his head for $7000. “It’s better than going to a bank for a business loan,” he said. (Via Obscure Store.)

Flipping through the March 24 issue of the New Yorker, I found the ever-smart James Surowiecki’s article about web sites like TradeSports and Newsfutures.com, which allow people to bet on the resolution of current events. He notes that markets do a better job of predicting the future than mechanisms like forecasting and polling. The “Hewlett-Packard has used artificial markets for sales forecats. Essentially, H.-P. employees bought and sold shares depending on what they thought sales in a particular month would be. The number of people participating was small — never more than twenty-six — and each market ran for only a week, but in the course of three years the markets outperformed the company’s official forecasts seventy-five per cent of the time.”

With this in mind, it will be fun to see what Blogshares.com turns up. Lots of people have been trying to figure out how blogs power opinion building, and this market-based approach may make an important addition to the science of knowledge blogging. It’s new “[url=]pop index[/url]” shows which are the most “widely blogs.” Expect lots more slicing and dicing of that database.

E&P reports: “After seeing a spike in audience the week the Iraq war started (March 19), many news sites saw steep declines in the week ending March 30. USAToday.com was down 17% among users at home and 16% among users at work, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Washingtonpost.com lost 11% of its audience at home and 5% of its audience at work from the previous week. NYTimes.com held on to its users at home, more or less, but slipped 2% among those at work.” Meanwhile, Command-Post and Glenn Reynolds are steaming to new highes. In its first week, CP’s daily high was 140,000 page views. Last week, the high was 160,000. And it looks like that high will get beaten today by 10 or 20%.

I’ve started trading on Blogshares. Bought blocks of Ken Layneand Nick Denton, sold some Layne at a profit and bought some of Seyed Razavi‘s blog. Amazingly addictive stuff. The other blogs I wanted to buy weren’t trading yet.

Until I can figure out how to embed this logo permanently, here’s the code that allows me to claim shares in my own blog.

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“The economy is stalling even as the Federal Reserve and the government do everything they can to stimulate growth. In economic cycles since World War II, government spending and low interest rates pulled the United States out of recession. This time, even though the Fed has lowered short-term interest rates 12 times in three years, and the government has swung from a $237 billion surplus in 2000 to a projected deficit of more than $300 billion this year, the medicine appears not to be working.” NYTimes.com

Soviet propaganda posters. (Via BoingBoing.) (more…)