Molespotting: Ed Kohler at The Deets gives an exclusive sneak peek at Steve Perry’s soon-to-launch site The Daily Mole. Screengrabs show a sidebar of “partner sites,” which include the new music site Reveille and Overheard in Minneapolis, a navigation bar with tabs like “Multimedia Lounge” and — gulp — “Media Mole,” and a gallery of user-submitted photos. But Perry, who applauds Kohler’s detective work, comments that these aren’t the final tags and blogroll titles.

Minnpost’s props: The chatter about the other online news startup continues as MinnPost gets props in an interview with VoicesofSanDiego.org executive editor Scott Lewis, who tells Media Life Magazine that the site is among a “new breed” — “funded organizations that are hoping to be the new face of local journalism and the answer to the angst many people are feeling as they watch their local news sources wither.”

Iraq Op-Ed writers killed: The Rake’s Tom Bartel delivers sad news: Two of the eight active-duty soldiers who wrote a controversial op-ed piece for the New York Times a few weeks back about their experiences on the ground in Iraq have been killed. Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, 26, and Sgt. Omar Mora, 28, died in Baghdad Monday — the first day of Gen. Petraeus’ testimony on prospects for progress in Iraq — when their cargo truck flipped. In the op-ed piece, the soldiers wrote, “[W]e are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day.”

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