Quick links on a Monday.

Obstructed View "Extreme danger and sky-high security costs have diminished the press corps in Iraq and severely limited access to a deepening morass. The result is a clouded picture of perhaps today’s most important news story."

Sherry Ricchiardi produces a sobering piece in American Journalism Review:

Though journalists struggle mightily to cut through the fog and spin, Americans are left without a complete account of a prolonged, bloody war that is devouring billions of taxpayers' dollars. Correspondents are hamstrung when it comes to independently verifying information from military press briefings or rhetoric from the Pentagon. Without risking their lives, they can't go into the festering city of Fallujah or certain Baghdad neighborhoods to conduct their own investigations (see "Out of Reach," April/May 2006). Embedding is an alternative, but it offers a limited view under scrutiny of the military.

"The whole thing seems so confusing," says Getty Images photographer Chris Hondros a few hours before heading back to Baghdad. He described this scenario: "A bomb blows up an American convoy. Who did that? The Sunni insurgents or the Shia or some other player? We have no idea and no way to figure it out... This is a profoundly different war."

No one sees the situation improving. Many news organizations have escape plans should American and Iraqi forces completely lose control of Baghdad, a squalid city brimming with weapons and sectarian animosity. For the media, security concerns have become an obsession....

Should I Snort My Dad?The dangers of inhaling a cremated parent. at Slate. Keith Richards is probably in no more danger than usual, if he did that.

GOP-issued laptops now a White House headache. L.A. Times.