I moved the Ba'ath Poker deck to a separate file. It is also in the middle of a complete overhaul, which may take another day or two, since information on the names and positions of captured Iraqi leaders is often contradictory. When done, I hope to come up with some estimates on how the hunt for Ba'athists is going. Some obvious questions: Are they being picked up faster than before, or is the flow tapering off? Are those being picked up now generally more or less important than those already nabbed?

I have also added some more buttons near the top of this file: one for entomologists looking for information on weevils, three more for those who might want to buy my spare books, buy me books (or CDs, or DVDs) from my Amazon wish list, or (best of all) just send me money. Feel free to make use of any or all of the new buttons. Three of the five (but which three?) will even tell you my real name -- not that it's ever been much of a secret. I keep if off this site so I can continue to write for grownups without endangering my job prospects in high school and middle school teaching. I prefer not to make it too easy for students (or parents or prospective employers) to find this site by Googling my name. I'm not writing for them, and do not wish to confine myself to G-rated posts on noncontroversial topics.

I may change the color of the buttons. Yellow is easy to read, and very eye-catching, but tends to clash with the overall color scheme. The latter is almost symbolic: red, white, and blue to annoy all the right people, black and (again) white for strong opinions, shades of gray for the occasional nuance. Unfortunately, red or blue buttons would make the labels hard to read, while white buttons would blend into the background. Yellow will have to do for now.