Mefi's Own Baby_Balrog: "Stephen and I traveled to Bilin, near Ramallah, on Friday. [...] IDF soldiers began firing CS gas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets at the marchers [...] here's a video of me running away when the soldiers started firing gas canisters [...] I had my jump kit with me and tried to help a few people [...]" He's writing a pretty fascinating blog.
posted by WCityMike on Jun 24, 2008 - 14 comments

IraqFilter Is Awful. Is there some wide swath of MeFi users who derive a lot of enjoyment or benefit out of posts like this, which seem to surface whenever somebody pens an op-ed that criticizes the Iraq war (i.e., fairly frequently)? Here's the pattern: (1) op-ed is published; (2) op-ed is copied to MeFi; (3) posters say how bad President Bush is; (4) a poster or two will defend the administration; and (4) posters will attack the defenders until they no longer respond. Am I the only one who thinks that is tedious?
posted by Slap Factory on Jul 22, 2007 - 416 comments

I see that jefgodesky's summary of Jeff Vail's "Intentional Instability Model" has been linked to the sidebar. I suppose this is somewhat subjective, but I'd describe it as a conspiracy theory backed by no evidence whatsoever, not really the best of MetaFilter.

The historical description of British policy also seems completely bogus to me. The British regarded the Middle East as their lifeline to India. It makes no sense for them to have deliberately set up Iraq to fail.
posted by russilwvong on Jun 22, 2006 - 26 comments

Did ParisParamus really join the Army?
posted by eustacescrubb on Jan 25, 2006 - 20 comments

Could someone skilled in JavaScript please compose a script for the Firefox extension Greasemonkey that will remove any FPP with "Bush", "Iraq", or "War on Terror" appearing in the text? It would also be great if this script could allow custom word filtering.
posted by sjvilla79 on Dec 15, 2005 - 82 comments

Are there any members who are serving or have served in Iraq? Any members who live, or have constant contact with someone who lives, in Iraq? If you're willing, I have language-related questions, both about American military usage and colloquial modern Iraqi Arabic. Email me at the address on the web site linked in my profile.
posted by Mo Nickels on Aug 6, 2005 - 6 comments

uh, what neverending ax grinding? More inside.
posted by If I Had An Anus on Jun 28, 2005 - 58 comments

Memories...misty water-colored memories...

ahhh--it takes me back to the olden days in the blue. good times, good times. ; >
posted by amberglow on Apr 18, 2005 - 136 comments

too graphic for metafilter?
posted by specialk420 on Jan 26, 2005 - 230 comments

I dislike it when friends of mine in Iraq are accidentally FPP'ed, when I know for a fact that they could potentially get in trouble for even having a weblog and depend upon "anonymity through numbers" to get away with it.

1> Could this link be fixed to point to the true link?

2> Can we establish some kind of method to quote/reference content that cannot, for security reasons, be linked to? Could a few trusted individuals, for example, check out sources/links of material privately?

For instance, I regularly read things in soldier's private journals that I cannot and will not link to because it could get the people in question into serious trouble. I would like to share such things, but if the links become public, then the sources face having their lives destroyed.
posted by insomnia_lj on Sep 25, 2004 - 128 comments

So, I notice there's a link in the sidebar to Devoter, and I was just wondering: is there a new policy about election/iraq/political posts? Should they be moved over to Devoter? Are you going to start deleting political threads here, Matt?
posted by monju_bosatsu on Aug 27, 2004 - 96 comments

Am I alone in thinking that this thread could be setting a dangerous precedent? I spend more time reading the green than the blue these days, because it is 99.4% apolitical. ISTM that questions like that, which are clearly attempts to produce support for an exisiting agenda, rather than an actual request for knowledge, are just a stonesthrow away from the craptacular mess that the blue becomes alot of the time.
posted by jammer on Jun 4, 2004 - 18 comments

Did Rumsfeld ban cameraphones in Iraq?(Follow up to this thread) Seems sloppy journalists fell for fake news from the web. Again.
posted by PenDevil on May 26, 2004 - 25 comments

*dances, sings, quips, shoots Americans on sight*
This strikes me as a bit over the top. (MI)
posted by clavdivs on May 1, 2004 - 93 comments

Re: Iraq.
Kinda playing off of what stavros was hinting at a couple of posts ago. More inside.
posted by BlueTrain on Jan 26, 2004 - 143 comments

As ineffective as the injunction against Iraq-related threads on the posting page was, maybe something similar might be a good idea to head off what is certain to grow into an onslaught of suboptimal posts like this one over the coming months.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken on Jan 24, 2004 - 61 comments

'Dec 21
MetaFilter in Iraq. Thanks Jeremy!'

From the front page side bar. Is the link broken or down?
posted by clavdivs on Jan 8, 2004 - 6 comments

I'm a big fan of IraqFilter, but when we post new developments like this thread by Postroad, can we provide a little direction about what's supposed to be discussed? Perhaps it might lessen the flamewars/snarkyness that ensues. [more inside]
posted by Happydaz on Dec 22, 2003 - 7 comments

From here:
If you're going to make a post related to Iraq and the impending war, please reconsider, as the topic has been discussed previously many times.
Um. Impending?
I know - a minor quibble.
posted by armoured-ant on Nov 30, 2003 - 39 comments

Surely we don't need another thread on the Hussein boys so soon, do we?
posted by monju_bosatsu on Jul 24, 2003 - 23 comments

Just a quick quibble - as the war in Iraq is no longer "impending", can we (well, you) edit the Post a Link page to either remove or update the warning to potential warfilter posters?
posted by jonson on Jun 1, 2003 - 5 comments

is "I" word off limits from this point forward?
posted by specialk420 on May 15, 2003 - 44 comments

Iraqulence - a simple notion for screening Iraq posts. What is Iraqulence? Well, obviously, it is like flatulence in that it's smell can drive many from the Metafilter "room", while those who stay become irritable and fling invectives around.

Iraqulence tends to involve posts about stories which are divisive and could be perhaps framed in a less inflammatory way, yes, but it is also NewsFilterish, tending towards stories which might very well prove - the following day - to have been unfounded ("The US thinks it may have killed Saddam in a bombing attack (but maybe not) or have questionable significance and lack scope - or both ( perhaps "Exclusive Middle East sources have tracked down top Iraqi leader's bolt Hole?" - Not to point fingers too accusingly, as I've broken all these principles many times myself ).
posted by troutfishing on Apr 8, 2003 - 44 comments

Hey, have you noticed that Metafilter is like totally Iraqfilter and stuff? Of course you haven't. But this guy has. Over and over and over and over and over and over again! Maybe it's time to put Metafilter=Iraqfilter on the sideglob, so as to save people the time of typing it in every post?
posted by Ljubljana on Mar 30, 2003 - 98 comments

This is an example of the very worst kind of IraqFilter thread. Grabbing the first news story on a subject, a Fark-style minimal headline and people getting out the popcorn for a surely ensuing flamewar.

Can we please not have anymore crap like this on MeFi? There are many other places to get information like this.
posted by Space Coyote on Mar 23, 2003 - 15 comments

Can we have an alternative frontpage where all the posts which mention Iraq are filtered out? I'm getting a bit tired of this war thing and would like to enjoy my MetaFilter Iraq free. Something like www.metafilter.com/noiraq.mefi would be greatly appreciated!
posted by sebas on Mar 22, 2003 - 48 comments

so its almost time for thousands of "the war has started !" posts. No doubt hundreds of us have carefully collected links to such unique gems as CNN, patiently waiting for the bombs to fall before hitting post. Comments regarding horrific pictures and heroic stories have been typed and proofread. Opinions formed, pre-conceived notions strong...we are ready.
posted by th3ph17 on Mar 19, 2003 - 42 comments

I wish to take my turn beating the dead horse [more inside].
posted by Yelling At Nothing on Feb 13, 2003 - 59 comments

Enough is enough.
posted by 111 on Feb 11, 2003 - 28 comments

Is there any way MeFi could have a voluntary moratorium on Middle East threads? Just for a week, a day, or even several hours? I understand that I should ignore them. I do. I don't post them and I rarely comment, if ever. But I can't even go a few threads without seeing another one. And now people are posting each and EVERY detail...come on, for the sake of some sanity, and a chance to reflect, a voluntary moratorium for any given time?
posted by BlueTrain on Apr 16, 2002 - 65 comments

I know that some of us are bored by news about "The War", but isn't this going just a little overboard?
posted by starvingartist on Nov 13, 2001 - 47 comments