two-twenty

burger king, crab air base (forward operating base warrior), northern iraq | mister hamburger • post/haste

BURGER NAME: Whopper with Cheese meal, $5.25

FIRST IMPRESSION: Kebabs, roast chicken, slop from the mess halls throughout Iraq. A burger is clearly a welcomed treat anywhere on the planet, but in the land of shitty kebabs, and even worse KBR contracted army food, a Burger King was a surprise. Four hamburgers for the sheer fact they were there.

APPEARANCE: It would have gotten two hamburgers, but Mister Hamburger has a little sympathy considering this food has been driven up in armed convoys from Kuwait along some of the most dangerous roads on earth. The bun was a little soggy, almost as though it had been microwaved, but the sauces and the amount of lettuce were pleasing.

MEAT: Well grilled. The guys working in the BK were all south Asian, Mister Hamburger is not sure exactly where from, but wherever it is Mister Hamburger would like to go, because they know how to cook a burger patty. They are 100% better than those idiots in the U.S. Burger Kings.

BUN: Not Iraqi bread, but sadly a little soggy.

PACKAGE:

TASTE: Mister Hamburger loves fast food, especially when it is hard to get. This Burger king is one of two in Iraq, and the one in Baghdad is hard to access because Mister Hamburger does not have a Dept. of Defence card to access the base. Also, it is hard to justify driving down the infamous airport road where there are daily attacks and bombings, for a cheeseburger. Thus, the burger gets a higher than average rating, because Burger King Iraq are a bunch of hard asses.

DRIPPYNESS: Burger King always has good drippyness. It is that strange but good tasting white sauce stuff they use.

MEAT TEXTURE : Good, and good thickness.

MEAT COLOR:

SIZE: The south Asians liked Mister Hamburger, and must have given him extra fries, because when Mister Hamburger got back to his tent, he discovered his bag was over flowing with fries.

VALUE: Everything in Iraq is tax free, except stupid Burger King - they make everyone pay full price. Mister Hamburger suspects this is to pay off the families who sacrificed drivers and soldiers who are forced to drive the ingredients from Kuwait. Mister Hamburger is sad for those dead people, though Mister Hamburger wonders if American Soldiers really need Burger King in a combat zone?

COOKED TO SPECS: Pretty good, but missing salt in the fries and the bun could have been better.

AMOUNT OF LOVE FROM CHEF: Would have been three, but Mister Hamburger suspected use of a Microwave there.

FROM DELIVERY PERSON/WAITER: No attitude, no shit service. Fast turnaround. We need more of these fellows to work in the States, because those shit eating morons at any chain store in the United States really make ordering burgers a nightmare. If you are reading this Macca's and BK employees of America, kill yourself, you rude selfish arrogant fuckers.

ONE HOUR LATER: Not local food.

BELLS AND WHISTLES: Canned drinks and the fries were not salted enough.

FINAL IMPRESSION: It is thanks to the U.S. air force that this base has so many little stores like this Burger King, there are at least 6 including a Taco Bell. The air force are known widely to have good food at their bases, and to look after their soldiers, but sadly the air force are a bunch of dicks. On the way to the humvee that was picking up Mister Hamburger, an Air Force police officer stopped the driver, an army guy, and gave him a ticket for stopping in a no parking area. The driver tried to explain that he was just picking up Mister Hamburger, but the air force cop would not have a bar of it. Can you imagine? In a serious and brutal combat zone, some loser stops a car on a military base to give out a ticket for not paying enough attention to road rules? Mister Hamburger thinks that the air force policemen should be given rifles with no ammunition and sent across the wire to have a look at what the soldiers are dealing with off base.

this ain't no holiday | joanna • post/haste

Today's postcard from Ash:

Other felicitous Pixies songs from my brain's vast lyric-rolodex:
"Where is My Mind?"
"There Goes My Gun"
"Wave of Mutilation"
"I'm Amazed"

Feel free to play along.

holy shi'ite • post/haste

So you're a Shi'ite Muslim and you're wondering if you can have anal sex with the woman you've married temporarily, or if it's cool to keep your money in an interest-bearing account at a non Muslim bank, or how to deal with a friend you no longer want to talk to... where do you turn? The Grand Ayatollah Sistani provides answers to these questions and many more at his incredibly helpful website, www.sistani.org.

(In case you're feeling lazy, the answers to the above questions are, yes, anal sex is permitted though undesirable; it is permissible to earn interest at a non-muslim bank; if you want to ditch your friend you still have to say hello to him and ask after his health, and visit him if he gets sick.)

postcards from the edge | joanna • post/haste

Ash sent the following postcard from his embed in Iraq via the New York Times this morning:

He's been hanging out with the 1st Armored Division for about a week now, almost the whole time he's been in Iraq.

For a multimedia take on what's going down in lovely Karbala, check out Fox News' video page and click on the "Nightime Firefight" link. Nuckin' futz (yeah, I saw that movie).

baghdad bigtop • post/haste

Just when we thought Iraq couldn't get any scarier, a bunch of clowns have decided to take a circus there.

Circus2Iraq began scaring the crap out of entertaining children of the war-torn country after realizing "People are traumatised, tired and worn down by years of war and sanctions and are still without many basic necessities, despite the obligations of the occupying powers to provide humanitarian items."

"We're not aid workers," their website says, "and, in any case, Iraq is a wealthy country which doesn't need charity. We think the best thing we can do is bring a bit of colour, a bit of normality, a bit of playfulness and make people smile.

Two-twenty would like to point out that there is nothing normal about clowns. That said, even our hard hearts were tempered by Fish Eye, Jo, and Devilstick Peat's humanitarian effort. We would like to suggest that in addition to the juggling scarves, red noses and kazoos they request on their wishlist, the following items might be of use:

• ringmaster trained by special forces
• armored clown car (it's a lot easier to get to the kids in one piece if you're protected by three inches of steel plating!)
• mine mattresses (clown shoes are kind of big!)
• multi-colored kevlar jumpsuits (the kevlar's for the bad guys, the pretty colors are for the kids!)

baghdad's loss is our gain • post/haste

Two-twenty would like to congratulate Ash on successfully getting out of Bags, and Iraq, in one piece. We are very proud of him and think he did a great job. Here’s one of the last examples of his work that the Times printed before his departure:

It kind of looks like the sleeve art on a never-released Belle & Sebastian single called, say, “The Day Xochitl Asked us to Bottle Our Sweat at the 375th Street Y”. Very postmodern Rockwellian dystopia. Whoa… when a wee picture in the Times sends your brain on a tangent like that… it’s called art, folks. The photo actually illustrates a story about “Freedom Rest”, a soldier’s spa in Baghdad where American troops can rest up for the long, possibly never-ending search for WMDs that lies ahead. “It’s a great escape from getting mortared,” quoth Sgt. Xochitl Barragan – hey, quelle coincidence, heh?

Speaking of French, or in pidgen French, or whatever, Joanna and Ash are probably right about now reuniting in Paris. Have fun, lovebirds. Two-twenty misses you.

In the Center of Baghdad, an Escape to America | NY Times

spider hole is the new glory hole • post/haste

It's true. Operation America is Always Right or Re-elect President Bush or whatever they are calling it these days would be much better, and much more interesting, as a porno (last item).

THE BLACK LIST: BACK IN BLACK WITH 76.4% MORE CRAP. | The Black Table

pop goes the world • post/haste

After over ten years of drinking fake Pepsi, Iraqis will soon be able to have the real thing -- oh, wait, isn't that Coca-Cola? No matter. Free from trade sanctions now that Saddam's been dragged from his hole, PepsiCo has again partnered with Baghdad Soft Drinks Co. to bottle the world's number two cola, prompting Coca-Cola to rethink its thirty-six-year-long unofficial Arab boycott. Since two-twenty cares about our Middle Eastern friends and remains ever loyal to Coca-Cola (especially Diet Coke, to which we were once horribly addicted), we hope the honchos at Coke decide to enter the Iraqi market. After all, what exemplifies democratic freedom more than having the opportunity to take the Pepsi Challenge?

Pepsi Making Comeback in Iraq | Reuters via NY Times

gazillion bombs a bombing | joanna • post/haste

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. While I sit in the cozy confines of 220 writing preposterously meditative, caffeine-infused Christmas e-mails to friends far and wide, Baghdad is seeing more fire than Jacko on his ill-fated Pepsi shoot. Ash has accepted Kettle One as payment for our wager, and since a large portion of the bang-bang occurred right outside his house, I graciously upped the prize to two bottles without any prompting. Hmm. Vodka doesn't sound like such a bad idea right now. It's a holiday spirit, isn't it?

Mortar Round Hits Baghdad Hotel | NY Times

notes from the home office | joanna • post/haste

On behalf of the currently all-chick two-twenty and our hometown of New York City, I would like to take the opportunity to welcome the rest of the United States to terrorist-threat-level orange, where we in Gotham have been sitting relatively pretty since September 11th 2001. Word from our man in Bags is that the media stationed in Iraq have also been prepared for a holly-jolly bang-bang Christmas, prompting Ash and I to wager, in typical macabre fashion, on who's gonna get messed with first. He's so sure that he'll win this one he set the stakes at a bottle of aged Johnny Walker -- a poison on my very short list of unpalatable potables. On general wagering principles I almost contended that a bottle of Kettle One was a more egalitarian prize for not getting wailed on by nut jobs, but since calling his sat phone costs about $1.40 a minute and more than one of our telephone exchanges have been punctuated by the sound of distant fire, the money seemed better spent on the booze -- his booze. So Ash, if you're reading this, you’ll take what you get and what you'll get is vodka.

As close readers of two-twenty no doubt already know, Alex is currently home in the bucolic suburbs of Boston for the holidaze. Given we enable each other in bad habits as much as we do productive practices, it's likely that you'll see a slight decline in our postings while the hive mind operates long-distance. Nonetheless, we will try our hardest to keep you, our dear readers, properly distracted from the impending doom.

Amid Terror Concerns, Ridge Urges Mix of Calm and Caution | NY Times
Military in Iraq Is Warned of Attacks During Holidays | NY Times

asciiraq • post/haste

This morning the New York Times swapped out a real live photo from Iraq for this super-fancy digitalized masterpiece to serve as its primary image on their Struggle for Iraq page:

Yeah, big props for Mister Tom Zeller and his artful shoving of that old bearded-Saddam pic through a Photoshop plugin.

Just for fun, two-twenty made our own html-ified version of one of Ash's photos in today's Times using Text-Image.com's conversion tool. And you thought ASCII art had gone the way of, say, illustratated war coverage.

candy cane carpet-bombing • post/haste

You are perfectly capable of locating this sparkly little holiday jewel all on your own, but two-twenty is, after all, here to help.

Christmas Brought To Iraq By Force | The Onion

isn't it pretty to think so • post/haste

We're surprised there were no gawker stalker sightings of Bennifer this week, as it attended a holiday party thrown by one of its publicists in the city Monday night. Ben managed to disentangle his lips from JLo's ass long enough to weigh in on the Saddam issue and Bush's chances for re-election:

"If he capitalizes on [Saddam's capture] correctly, [Bush] could hang on to the office," stated the much sought-after campaign strategist. The vaunted foreign policy maven added, "If he were smart, he would declare victory right now and bring home the soldiers."

The celebrated ethicist and long-time student of the impact of culture and religion on international affairs had this to say about Saddam's fate: "I think it would be a mistake to execute him. You don't want any appearance of martyrdom."

Daily Dish & Gossip - Rush & Molloy | NY Daily News

ashley's is the centerfold • post/haste

Ash's marine-sliding-down-palace-bannister photo, already featured in Time's book 21 Days To Baghdad, is now available at your local newsstand as part of Time Magazine's "Year in Pictures 2003". We at two-twenty are taking our own advice and will be celebrating later by shooting rounds of vodka, not ammo.

what goes up must come down • post/haste

Here's Ash's latest from the Times, showing Iraqis celebrating the news of Saddam's capture by firing their big guns into the sky. We at two-twenty humbly suggest that a boistrous round of clapping, accompanied by a series of "whoo-hoo!"s might be a safer, less-likely-to-blow-up-cars panegyric gesture. Just something for our friends over there to consider.

double, double oil and trouble • post/haste

Ash's latest for the Times, in Edward Wong's piece about fuel shortages in Iraq:

The Reconstruction: Saboteurs, Looters and Old Equipment Work Against Efforts to Restart Iraqi Oil Fields | NY Times

oh the effing irony • post/haste

Just one day after Newsweek publishes a story about Ash almost getting "whacked" in Samarra by two bad guys in a BMW, his photo of a Beemer appears in the New York Times coverage of Iraq.

Are you there Allah? It's us, Two-Twenty.

words of war • post/haste

In yet another fine example of how Bush’s crew actually believes their own press, and expects us to, Andy Card on Sunday declared “moot” any concerns about the issue of prewar intelligence, WMDs, and the decision-making process leading up to Operation Iraq Paper Scissors. We feel better already.

Related news: CNN reported on Sunday that Afghan villagers are “pretty understanding”, though “not happy”, about the deaths of 9 local children in a US air raid. Related related news: Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, who gave CNN the above quotes, is told by superior officer to “keep his fucking trap shut” next time he sees a reporter.

Salon.com News | Card calls prewar intelligence questions "moot"
CNN.com - Afghans understand deaths - U.S. - Dec. 7, 2003

the plane truth, take three • post/haste

The Washington Post -- invited guests to Bush's Thanksgiving in Bags -- relates the third version of what happened while the Pres was en route to his turkey dinner. In this account, there was apparently no British air traffic controller or pilot, just some "non-UK operator" Air Force One's captain thought had a british accent. Can't wait to read the Times' I-told-you-so retort.
Another Course Change in the Air Force One Story (washingtonpost.com)

hussein needs better management • post/haste

Britney's inspired more hate-sites than Saddam Hussein. Maybe if he makes a video with Osama Bin Laden he'll restore his rightful place at the top of Google's Most Hated.
dailyrecord - HATE ME BABY ONE MORE TIME

the plane truth • post/haste

The New York Times gets back at the White House for not inviting them to Bush's Thanksgiving in Bags by printing a three graph "liar liar pants on fire" story on the fed's accounts of a British Airways pilot's encounter with Air Force One.
Air Force One: A New Account