You may notice some format changes. Its the result of blogger crapping out when I was making a minor change to the template. I was left with no template and the backup was not too useful.

The book seems to be getting a lot of press, which is nice. Emily Gertz wrote a nice story about my time in Iraq and my ongoing interest in the region. The story is running in the current edition of Grist Magazine. I was interviewed today by the Baltimore Sun. On Saturday I am scheduled to be on CNN around 12:30.

I was very excited to see that google has a new Arabic/English translation program in Beta. The one I've used before was somewhat limited. Like the other translation programs that Google has, it will do a machine translation of a website on the fly. Depending on the language, you can often get a passable translation. I tried it on this site as well as the Iraq Fauna Wiki. I'm planning to use it to create an Arabic mirror. Like all Machine Translations the result will need work, but its a start. If nothing else it could produce some amusing reading for Arabic speakers. Currently it seems to work best for news and would not be recommended for poetry.