(CNN) -- Bullets were pinging off our armor, all over our vehicle, and you could hear multiple RPGs being fired, soaring through the air every which way and impacting all around us. All sorts of crazy insane Hollywood explosions were going off. I've never felt fear like this. I was like, this is it, I'm going to die.

When U.S. Army machine gunner Colby Buzzell began blogging about his combat experiences from a military base in Mosul, Iraq, he wasn't looking for attention or trouble. Buzzell just wanted a way to chronicle what he saw and did and felt during the Iraq war.

But his visceral, first-hand accounts were a bracing antidote to dry news reports and bloodless Pentagon news releases. In the first major war of the Internet age, Buzzell and other soldier bloggers in Iraq offered readers around the world unfiltered, real-time glimpses of an ongoing conflict.

"Here's a soldier in a combat zone ... writing about it and posting it on the Internet. I don't think that's ever been done in previous wars," Buzzell said.

"It just provides another perspective that no embedded journalist can ever do," said the veteran, now a freelance writer in San Francisco, California, and the author of "My War: Killing Time in Iraq." "An embedded journalist is just there observing. But a soldier writing about it -- you can't get more embedded than that

A suburban skateboarder with punk-rock sensibilities, Buzzell had no background in creative writing before he joined the Army in 2002. Inspired by a Marine buddy and burned out by a string of dead-end jobs, he signed up after a smooth-talking recruiter offered a signing bonus and sold him on the Army "like it was some [expletive] Club Med vacation."

When Buzzell arrived in Iraq in November 2003, he didn't know what a blog was. But after he read an article about a blogger in Time magazine in June 2004, he began posting anonymous journal entries on the Web under the nickname CBFTW (Colby Buzzell F--- The War).

"The only writing I knew how to do was ... like I was telling a story to the person next to me," he said. "I'd go to the Internet cafe [at the Army base], and my ears would still be ringing from whatever the experience [was] that day. There were times when I couldn't type fast enough."

Over the next six weeks, Buzzell wrote brutally frank, profanity-laced posts about the terror, tedium and misadventures of an infantryman's life in Iraq. At first, few people seemed to notice. But word spread, and before long he was getting hundreds of e-mails a day from readers.

Parents of troops in Iraq wrote to thank him for helping them understand their children's wartime perspective. One reader said they found Buzzell's blog more informative than the war coverage in The New York Times. Buzzell even heard from a sympathetic Iraqi in Baghdad who prayed for his safe return to America.

But almost nobody -- not even Buzzell's wife -- knew that he was the blogger.

Then came August 4, 2004. Mosul erupted in gunfire, and Buzzell's platoon survived an ambush by swarms of black-clad insurgents wielding rocket-propelled grenades. Buzzell witnessed his platoon sergeant survive a bullet through his helmet and narrowly missed being killed himself.

The next day, Buzzell went online and found a few brief news reports of the firefight that killed at least 22 Iraqi insurgents and civilians. In his mind, the stories didn't begin to capture what happened. So he wrote a long blog post, titled "Men in Black," about the ambush.

I observed a man, dressed all in black with a terrorist beard, jump out all of sudden from the side of a building, he pointed his AK-47 barrel right at my f------ pupils, I froze and then a split second later, I saw the fire from his muzzle flash leaving the end of his barrel and brass shell casings exiting the side of his AK as he was shooting directly at me. I heard and felt the bullets whiz literally inches from my head.

The "Men in Black" post attracted media attention, and Buzzell was flooded with e-mails and interview requests from around the world. Based on his descriptions of the Mosul attacks, his commanding officers soon figured out that he was the blog's author.

The Army confined Buzzell to the base and began monitoring his posts. Then, after he posted an anti-Iraq war rant by Dead Kennedys singer Jello Biafra, they ordered him to stop blogging.

Buzzell's Iraq blog lasted just 10 weeks, but it helped pave the way for others to follow. Today, according to the Army, thousands of active-duty soldiers write some form of online journal, often known as a military blog or "milblog."

Pentagon security policy forbids soldiers to publish sensitive information, such as unit locations or the timing of military operations, that might put troops in harm's way. But beyond that, soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are encouraged to blog about military life, said Army Public Affairs Spc. Lindy Kyzer.

"We're actually entering an era of transparency, where we need to have our soldiers talk. It does open up risks. Once you post something, you can't get it back. But we trust our soldiers with a lot," she said. "They are our best spokespersons. They know what the life of a soldier is like, and it's important to convey that to the American people."

Blogging also helps soldiers process traumatic combat experiences that can be hard for them to talk about, Kyzer said.

Since leaving Iraq, Buzzell collected his wartime blog posts and journal entries into "My War," which was published in 2005. Excerpts from his Iraq blog also appeared in the Oscar-nominated documentary "Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience."

The war cost Buzzell his marriage and left him with post-traumatic stress disorder, a diagnosis that helped him avoid being redeployed to Iraq last spring. Now 32, he contributes regular features to Esquire magazine and hopes to write another book, the contents of which he's not ready to discuss.

Buzzell is no fan of the Iraq conflict, although he's heartened that active-duty soldiers are still reading "My War."

"The book is being passed around over there, which is kind of surreal," he said. "I do get e-mails from soldiers over there. Guys will say, 'Thanks for getting our story out,' or 'Things haven't really changed that much since you were here.'

"Looking back now, I don't think we had any business [in Iraq]," said Buzzell, who wants to see President-elect Barack Obama end the war. "Hopefully, he gets us out of Iraq in a way that's not a disaster or that gets a lot of soldiers killed."

It cost him eight stitches, a severed fingertip and several bruised ribs, but Craig has once again stepped into the shoes of James Bond for "Quantum of Solace," set to debut in U.S. theatres Friday.

According to Craig -- who did his interview with an arm in a sling -- the pain is just part of making a Bond film.

"I've always liked the physicality of the Bond movies," Craig said, "and as a film fan, I've always liked it when you're not being snapped out of the story line because you suddenly see it's a stunt man." Watch Craig address the world of 007 »

The 22nd Bond flick picks up where "Casino Royale" left off. After being betrayed by the woman he loved, British spy 007 pursues the truth behind the organization that blackmailed her -- all the while fighting the urge to make the mission personal.

Director Marc Forster ("Monster's Ball," "Finding Neverland") said that he wanted this Bond to have a raw emotional side to go with the action-movie propulsion.

"I think that I wanted the film to feel sort of like a bullet. It ... keeps us on the edge of the seat until the last frame. But at the same time, that there is sort of an emotional texture to Bond's character, which was very important to me," he told CNN. "And that we feel that emotional texture, because Bond is a character who doesn't really open up, and doesn't really spill his guts out and tell people how emotionally he feels about things.

"But I think it was still important to feel that, and get a little hint of his pain he is carrying around. Because in the last one he lost the love of his life and he's out there trying to search for an answer."

Moviegoers haven't seen the last of Craig. In addition to the Bond series, he's also taking the lead role in two other major pictures this year. "Defiance," slated for release next month, is a story set during World War II; "Flashbacks of a Fool" is a British film about an overindulging American actor.

"It's a story I'd never heard of ... about a group of brothers who survived the war in the forests of Belorussia with 1,500 other Jews," Craig said of "Defiance." "[They] created a society in the woods, and survived."

Craig, Britain's highest paid celebrity according to Men's Vogue, may be recognized around the world -- but that doesn't make finding his next role any easier. To Craig, it isn't the payday that's important -- it's the story.

"If there were a dearth of really good scripts out there, and being Bond could get me those really good scripts, it would be easy," he said. "But there aren't. They're few and far between, and I have to go out and look for them." iReport.com: Will you see Bond's latest?

Agent 007, Craig's most widely known role, is one he admits was enjoyable to develop in "Quantum of Solace," with its reported $230 million budget.

"He's had his heart broken, and he's been betrayed," Craig says of his character. "The relationships he's had are not defined, and so he's not defined." Craig says Bond moves to a place of understanding in this latest film -- a "sort of peace within himself," hence the marquee "Quantum of Solace."

Olga Kuryenko, who plays the mysterious Camille in the film, told CNN she admires Craig's looks -- and his mettle.

"I actually think he's one of the best Bonds ever," she said. "I really liked 'Casino Royale.' I remember I watched it [and] I had no idea I was going to be in the next one. ... And I loved the film, he was great.

"He's a very good-looking blond, you know. And his eyes [are] just piercing. And he has this toughness, you know. ... His body's very strong and he's just, he looks like he can really break your neck."

Forster said that Craig "humanized" the often coldblooded character.

"He really put a three-dimensional feel back into Bond," he said. "And collaborating with him and working on the script and on the character, it dawned on me that he really has a deep understanding of what this character is like and ... he understands its details. ... He lends Bond this sort of realistic nature that we all can relate to the character. And I think that's really important in the times we live in right now."

Jim Jones enthralled followers

With the cadence and fervor of a Baptist preacher, the charm and folksiness of a country storyteller and the zeal and fury of a maniacal dictator, Jones exhorted his followers to a fever pitch, audiotapes recovered from Jonestown reveal.

As he spoke, they applauded, shouted, cheered. One follower who survived the "revolutionary suicide" at Jonestown on November 18, 1978, said that Jones was the most dynamic speaker he had ever heard.

Like all powerful speakers, Jones' greatest asset was his ability to determine what listeners wanted to hear and give it to them in simple language that appealed to them on an almost instinctual level.

"He was very charismatic, very charismatic," said Leslie Wilson, who survived that fateful day in Jonestown by walking away from the settlement before the cyanide that killed more than 900 Peoples Temple members was distributed. She was one of 33 people who began the day in Jonestown and lived to tell the tale.

"He could quote scripture and turn around and preach socialism," she said. "He appealed to anyone on any level at any time." Hear Jones declare "I am God" »

Many of his followers were elderly African-Americans drawn to his cause by his soulful delivery and Pentecostal preaching style, including at times speaking in tongues. That hair-raising fervor was perhaps only overshadowed by what he said.
When I say, I am God, then I feel [faith] well up within my soul. And I see it well up in you, and I see the sick healed, and the blind see, and the dead raised. ... You wanna know how I feel, I never feel so good as when I say I am God," he shouted in a full-throated roar in a 1972 sermon.

Jones further enraptured crowds with faith healings -- laying hands on disabled or sick people who would miraculously be cured of any ailments. Though insiders later revealed that these healings were staged, Jones' mastery of word and presentation left few in attendance with any doubts about his abilities.

He also indoctrinated many young, idealistic liberal white people in progressive 1970s California with the themes of socialism, equality and political activism. And he justified his brand of socialism with the Bible for those recruited from more conservative religious factions, who might have found such left-wing ideas tough to swallow.

"The only ethic by which we can lift mankind today is some form of socialism," he said in another 1972 sermon. "There's a smattering of it in the, in the New Testament. It's very evidently clear on the day of Pentecost that they that believed were together and had all things common."

Socialism, he said, is "older than the Bible by far."

But by the time Jones and many of his followers completed a lengthy relocation from California to Jonestown in Guyana in 1977, he had begun to change as a speaker. His trademark passionate delivery gave way to blind fury and incredible rage.

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (AP) -- A judge cleared the way Wednesday for gay marriage in Connecticut, a victory for advocates stung by California's referendum that banned same-sex unions in that state.

Some couples planned to celebrate by immediately marching to New Haven City Hall to get marriage licenses. At least one ceremony was scheduled Wednesday morning on the New Haven green.

Some of the eight couples who successfully challenged a state law prohibiting gay marriages last month wept as Judge Jonathan Silbert entered his judgment, based on a state Supreme Court ruling.

The judge's order marks "the end of a very long journey toward equality," said their attorney, Bennett Klein.

"Each of the plaintiffs asked me to convey to the court how proud they are to be citizens of this state," Klein said.

"It's a great day for Connecticut," plaintiff Robin Levine-Ritterman said.

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on October 10 that same-sex couples have the right to wed rather than accept a civil union law designed to give them the same rights as married couples.

Peg Oliveira, 36, a yoga teacher and educational consultant, and Jennifer Vickery, a 44-year-old lawyer, planned to wed on the New Haven green Wednesday. They have a 3-month-old baby.

"We're thrilled and we don't want to wait one minute," Oliveira said earlier. "I want to show the folks who worked so hard to make this possible that we are very grateful and we don't want to wait any longer to be able to say the words 'We are married."'

Manchester Town Clerk Joseph Camposeo, president of the Connecticut Town Clerks Association, said clerks were advised by e-mail shortly after 9:30 a.m. they could start issuing the licenses.

"The feedback I'm getting from other clerks is that we're all at the ready, but no one really has a sense yet of what kind of volume we're going to get," he said.

According to the state public health department, 2,032 civil union licenses were issued in Connecticut between October 2005 and July 2008.

The health department had new marriage applications printed that reflect the change. Instead of putting one name under "bride" and the other under "groom," couples will see two boxes marked "bride/groom/spouse."

Only Connecticut and Massachusetts have legalized gay marriage. The unions were legal in California until a statewide referendum to ban gay marriage narrowly passed last week. The vote has sparked protests and several lawsuits asking that state's Supreme Court to overturn the prohibition.

Constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage also passed last week in Arizona and Florida, and Arkansas voters approved a measure banning unmarried couples from serving as adoptive or foster parents.

However, Connecticut voters last week rejected the idea of a constitutional convention to amend the state's constitution, a major blow to opponents of same-sex marriage.

The Family Institute of Connecticut, a political action group that opposes gay marriage, condemned the high court's decision as undemocratic. Peter Wolfgang, the group's executive director, acknowledged banning gay marriage in Connecticut would be difficult but vowed not to give up.

"Unlike California, we did not have a remedy," Wolfgang said. "It must be overturned with patience, determination and fortitude."

The state's 2005 civil union law will remain on the books, at least for now. Same-sex couples can continue to enter civil unions, which give them the same legal rights and privileges in Connecticut as married couples without the status of being married.

State Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the legislature's Judiciary Committee, said lawmakers will have to decide the fate of the civil union law.

"We'll definitely be taking this up," he said. The new legislative session opens in January.

Jones plotted cyanide deaths years before Jonestown

JONESTOWN, Guyana (CNN) -- Cyanide was being bought and shipped to the Rev. Jim Jones' jungle compound in South America for at least two years before 900 Americans died there at the command of their cult leader, CNN has learned.

Sources in Guyana said the Jonestown camp began obtaining shipments of cyanide -- about a quarter to a half-pound of the deadly poison each month -- as early as 1976, well before most of Jones' followers made the move there.

CNN's Soledad O'Brien tells the story of the last hours of Jonestown -- and the few who did survive out of desperation and daring -- as CNN Presents "Escape from Jonestown."

Jones led his followers to their death after his gunmen killed a visiting congressman, Rep. Leo Ryan, and four others, including an NBC News correspondent and his cameraman, on November 18, 1978.

Jones told the members of his Peoples Temple church that the Guyanese Army would invade their settlement after the murders. He demanded that parents kill their children first, then take their own lives, rather than face the authorities because of what Jones had done.

Of the 909 who died, 303 were children -- from teens to toddlers. Many were killed by Jones' loyalists, who used syringes to squirt cyanide down their throats. Jones stockpiled cyanide »

CNN was told Jones obtained a jeweler's license to buy cyanide. The chemical can be used to clean gold. But there was no jeweler's operation in Jonestown.

Six months before Ryan arrived on a one-man investigative mission, the settlement's doctor wrote in a memo to Jones:

"Cyanide is one of the most rapidly acting poisons. ... I would like to give about two grams to a large pig to see how effective our batch is."

The purchases are "strong evidence that the Rev. Jim Jones had been plotting the death of his followers long before that fateful day," O'Brien reports.

Ryan, the only U.S. representative assassinated in office, was shot at a nearby airstrip as he tried to leave with 15 church members who told him Jones was holding people captive in the remote jungle encampment.

"That was literally a jungle prison," said Gerald Parks, whose wife, Patricia, was shot to death in the airport attack. How did he escape death? »

Four other members of his family survived, including two young daughters who were lost in the jungle for three days after running away from the airstrip to hide from the killers. Woman returns to scene for first time »

"It was a dictatorship," said Vernon Gosney, who was badly wounded in the airport shootings. "It was supposed to be socialism, but it really was fascism."

Jones was a phony faith healer who moved his Indiana church to northern California in the mid-'60s in search of a safe place to survive the possibility of nuclear warfare. In the mid-'70s, when a magazine raised questions about church beatings and financial abuses, Jones moved his flock to Guyana, in South America, to the jungle settlement he called his "beautiful promised land."

"It was a slave camp run by a madman," said Leslie Wilson, a young mother then only 21, who began walking away from Jonestown early on the day that ended in the suicides and murder.

She and 10 others trudged almost 30 miles through the jungle to another town. Wilson carried her 3-year-old son on her back. "It was a freedom walk," she said. "It was a walk to freedom."

Tim Carter, a Jones aide, stayed in the camp almost to the end and saw his wife and his 1-year-old son die before he was sent away on an errand.

Authorities made him return two days later to help identify bodies. Carter saw Jones lying with a bullet hole in the side of his head.

"I remember thinking the son of a bitch didn't even die the way everybody else died," Carter said.

(CNN) -- A ballot initiative to ban gay marriage in California appears headed for a narrow defeat, exit polls showed.

Proposition Eight, which would eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California, was losing -- 53 percent to 47 percent, according to the polling. If it were to pass, it would undo a state Supreme Court ruling in May legalizing same-sex unions.

The projections in California differed from Arizona, where voters approved a measure to amend the state constitution so that only a union between one man and one woman would be recognized as a marriage, CNN projected.

The measure passed by 56 percent in a reversal of direction from 2006, when a similar measure on the ballot failed.

Arizona, California and Florida were the only states to weigh constitutional amendments banning same-sex unions, down from 11 states in the 2004 election. Results are still pending in Florida.

The projected results were just some of the hot-button issues in an election where ballot measures were dominated by social issues from abortion and affirmative action to suicide and drug policy.

As of 1:30 a.m. ET, CNN had projected results on most major initiatives, based on actual results and exit poll data from key areas.

Fifty-seven percent of voters in Arkansas supported a measure to prohibit unmarried sexual partners from adopting children or from serving as foster parents. The measure specifies that the prohibition applies to both opposite-sex as well as same-sex couples.

Voters in Colorado rejected a measure defining a person to "include any human being from the moment of fertilization," which would have applied to sections of the Colorado Constitution that protect "natural and essential rights of persons."

Nebraska voters approved a measure to prohibit state governments from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to people based on race, ethnicity, color, sex or national origin. Results on a similar measure in Colorado have not been announced.

Michigan chose to become the 13th state to legalize marijuana for medical purposes by a 64 percent margin. Massachusetts also had a proposed initiative to decriminalize penalties for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana.

Voters in Michigan also chose to amend the state constitution to permit human embryonic stem cell research with certain restrictions. The embryos, which must have been created for fertility treatment purposes, would have to have been discarded otherwise, and they may not be used more than 14 days after cell division has begun.

South Dakota rejected a proposal to prohibit abortions except in cases of rape or incest or where the mother's life or health is at risk. A similar measure that did not include exceptions for rape or the health of the mother was on the ballot in 2006, but voters rejected it 44 to 56 percent

Results are still pending for California's Proposition 4, which requires physicians to provide parental notification to guardians of minors at least 48 hours before performing an abortion.iReport.com: Watch Prop 8 debate in Utah

In Washington, 58 percent of voters supported a citizen initiative to allow adults with six months or less to live to request lethal medication prescribed by a physician. A physician is not required to comply, but anyone participating "in good faith" with the request would not risk criminal prosecution.

Many states also weighed budget-related proposals that could significantly affect how state revenues are generated.

In Massachusetts, voters have rejected a measure to cut the state personal income tax rate in half for 2009 and eliminate the state personal income tax starting in 2010. A similar ballot measure failed in 2002.

A citizen-initiated measure in North Dakota also proposed cutting personal income tax rates by half. Voters in Colorado and Minnesota were asked to consider increasing sales taxes. Oregon's Measure 59 would allow taxpayers to deduct the full amount of their federal income taxes on their state income tax returns.

Voters in eight states considered proposals related to gambling and lotteries, including Maryland, where current law prohibits the operation of commercial slot machines. Voters approved a constitutional amendment to authorize the use of video lottery terminals, or slot machines, at certain locations in the state, to fund public education.

Californians could face jail time if voters approve Proposition 2, which outlaws the confinement of pregnant pigs, calves raised for veal, and egg-laying hens "in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely."

Teenagers who watch a lot of television featuring flirting, necking, discussion of sex and sex scenes are much more likely than their peers to get pregnant or get a partner pregnant, according to the first study to directly link steamy programming to teen pregnancy.

The study, which tracked more than 700 12-to-17-year-olds for three years, found that those who viewed the most sexual content on TV were about twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy as those who saw the least.

"Watching this kind of sexual content on television is a powerful factor in increasing the likelihood of a teen pregnancy," said lead researcher Anita Chandra. "We found a strong association." The study is being published today in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

There is rising concern about teen pregnancy rates, which after decades of decline may have started inching up again, fueling an intense debate about what factors are to blame. Although TV viewing is unlikely to entirely explain the possible uptick in teen pregnancies, Chandra and others said, the study provides the first direct evidence that it could be playing a significant role.

"Sexual content on television has doubled in the last few years, especially during the period of our research," said Chandra, a researcher at the nonpartisan Rand Corp.

Studies have found a link between watching television shows with sexual content and becoming sexually active earlier, and between sexually explicit music videos and an increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases. And many studies have shown that TV violence seems to make children more aggressive. But the new research is the first to show an association between TV watching and pregnancy among teens.

The study did not examine how different approaches to sex education factor into the effects of TV viewing on sexual behavior and pregnancy rates. Proponents of comprehensive sex education as well as programs that focus on abstinence said the findings illustrate the need to educate children better about the risks of sex and about how to protect themselves, although they disagree about which approach works best.

"We have a highly sexualized culture that glamorizes sex," said Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association. "We really need to encourage schools to make abstinence-centered programs a priority."

But others said there is no evidence that abstinence-centered programs work.

"This finding underscores the importance of evidence-based sex education that helps young people delay sex and use prevention when they become sexually active," said James Wagoner of Advocates for Youth. "The absolutely last thing we should do in response is bury our heads in the sand and promote failed abstinence-only programs."

Chandra and her colleagues surveyed more than 2,000 adolescents ages 12 to 17 three times by telephone from 2001 to 2004 to gather information about a variety of behavioral and demographic factors, including television viewing habits. Based on a detailed analysis of the sexual content of 23 shows in the 2000-2001 TV season, the researchers calculated how often the teens saw characters kissing, touching, having sex, and discussing past or future sexual activity.

Among the 718 youths who reported being sexually active during the study, the likelihood of getting pregnant or getting someone else pregnant increased steadily with the amount of sexual content they watched on TV, the researchers found. About 25 percent of those who watched the most were involved in a pregnancy, compared with about 12 percent of those who watched the least. The researchers took into account other factors such as having only one parent, wanting to have a baby and engaging in other risky behaviors.