Saddam reportedly just sent out the message that “Victory is at hand.”

Professor De Genova, he of a “million Mogadishus,” is afraid to go to class.

The Newsday journalists, who were arrested by the regime for several days and recently got out of Iraq, have first-hand accounts of torture in the prison in which they were held.

The two said they were never abused physically, although conditions in the prison were harsh. They often heard and felt bombs exploding in and around Baghdad. ”At times it was extremely close,” Saman said. ”The cells would kind of rumble.”

They said they often heard the screams of other prisoners being tortured and saw some with their eyes and faces bloodied and swollen.

”There were beatings and torture going on outside our cells, in the corridor, literally,” McAllester said. Other inmates hobbled around, apparently because the soles of their feet had been burned or otherwise injured.

Also,

She also told her sister that the Iraqi prison officials would not let the Red Cross see them there.

She must be lying. Ramsey Clark himself says that talk like this is just propaganda.

Andrea Harris is, shall we say, less than impressed with some idiocy (and it really is–read it) from Dave Winer.

[Warning: Not a G-Rated post]

I forgot to mention yesterday that Bjorn Staerk has maintained the tradition he started last year. I hope Alex Beam is reading.

Note that this story was written on the same day as the final push to Baghdad begins.

Three possibilities:

1) The story is bogus;

2) Russian intelligence is lousy;

3) the Russians are feeding the Iraqis deliberate disinformation, for reasons on which one can only speculate.

I decided to tot up the tally. Since 1940, the media have predicted seven out of the last one quagmires.

Look, I’m glad the POW was rescued, but am I the only one that thought this was vastly overblown as “big news” and “good news,” worth waking up reporters at 3 AM to announce? I was expecting Saddam’s surrender, or the fall of Basra, or even the release of all the POWs.

The fact that they only got the one back makes me feel all the worse for those still in captivity. And that includes the Iraqis that Saddam continues to hold hostage as a nation.

[Update a few minutes later]

It was Jessica Lynch. That is great, particularly since her status was unknown, but it’s still sad that she’s the only one.

Here’s a more expansive story on the Baghdad Peter saga.

NBC really didn’t want to have to can him.

Another NBC executive said that Mr. Shapiro had hoped that the Iraqis pressured Mr. Arnett in the interview and that he would say, “There was a guy behind this orange curtain with an AK-47.”

He couldn’t oblige them, though.

But during a phone call, Mr. Arnett told Mr. Shapiro that he felt no such pressure, a spokeswoman said.

Here’s my favorite part:

He complained: “The right-wing media and politicians are looking for any opportunity to be critical of the reporters who are here,” Mr. Arnett writes in the column called “This War Is Not Working.” “I made the misjudgment which gave them the opportunity to do so.”

He also wrote, “I’ll never stop reporting on the truth of this war.”

I believe you, Petie. It’s hard to stop something you’ve never started.

Japanese videogame makers are staging a futile effort to prevent hackers from coming up with patches to remove the clothing from CGI-generated female beach volleyball players. Apparently there are already such things for a nude version of Tomb Raider, with Lara Croft in the buff.

Seems like an oxymoronic use of the word “patch.”