This week is certainly reinforcing my contempt for talking heads, regardless of network or nationality. The group bloggers are proving the best at aggregating diverse sources, culling out some amount of disinformation and speculation, and in a few cases have enough military / intelligence background to provide grounded commentary. My picks so far, if you want your news in a fast shot rather than watching days-old CNN streamers:

• Command Post - a cast of dozens. Fastest cull of the English language media.
• Rantburg. Blogger-in-chief is ex-intelligence. Best coverage of non-English media, and coverage of war on terrorism beyond Iraq. Lots of attitude.
• Winds of Change. Less frantic posting pace, more cherry picking of significant events and commentary. Diverse bloggers, from ex-military to Canadian to 'Iraniangirl'.
• Agonist isn't a group, just one guy, though his sleep schedule must be appalling. Reverse spin from Rantburg. Update: The Agonist turns out to have been cribbing much of his material from Stratfor, without attribution. Delinked.
• Update: An editing error dropped the invaluable Sgt. Stryker with a crew of current and ex- US military bloggers. If they post it, it's significant.

The dogs that haven't barked - yet

• Power, TV, radio, phones and even Internet are still up in Baghdad. We could have killed them long ago, why not? Something awaits.
• No Scuds into Israel. I'm sure we'll get the story someday.
• No bio/chem, keep praying.
• Not a single sortie from Iraqi airforce. Another story, I'm sure.
• One brigade of the 82nd still off the playing field.

11:42:43 AM