I check Riverbend's weblog pretty regularly, although nowadays she hardly ever posts. The relentless negativity, the single-minded inabilty to admit any single aspect of the occupation had any redeeming qualities, and the refusal to admit Iraq had a future consisting of more than explosions and death provided an interesting counterpoint to the more moderate and optimistic Iraqi bloggers. I knew at least some of the stuff she was writing was, shall we say, spun, but not actually living there I let it all pass without comment (shocking, I know). Ali doesn't have this problem, and feels no such inhibition:

Let me show you where the lies are: “On our better days, we get about 12 hours of electricity”. A straight out lie, as we get 16-18 hours of electricity per day on our worst days, while on our best days we get 20 hours per day, lately. I want to explain that I don’t give all the credit in that for the Iraqi government efforts only, as it’s simply the fact that during this time of the year the consumption of electric power is at it’s lowest rates.

(Italics original)

The whole thing is well worth reading, and provides its own counterpoint to the "bleeding leads" our own media love so dearly.