Iraq Egress

Am I the only one who thinks that the corporate media coverage of certain US forces leaving Iraq under cover of darkness long since passed the point at which the gag reflex was triggered?

In reviewing my least favorite parts of it, the worst has to be this exchange on the NBC Nightly News on Wednesday [18 Aug] evening:

(anchor) Brian Williams: Richard, I understand your reporting of this, at this hour tonight, constitutes the official Pentagon announcement.

(reporter riding in the back of army truck) Richard Engel: Yes, it is....

[emphasis mine]

This clip from last night's Colbert Report is worth watching.

Given the gleeful cooperation of the MainStream Media with the process of lying the US into this war, I suppose it is only fitting that they would be holding hands with the military during the presentation to the sheep of the meme that the war is now over.

I suppose we should admire the restraint the MSM displayed in not setting a team of CGI wizards to the task of depicting those soldiers riding into Kuwait from Iraq astride unicorns.

An indicator of the worthlessness of The News On TV That We Are Supposed To Believe™ is that the most honest reporting on this comes from The Onion.

Addressing troops at Andrews Air Force Base Tuesday, President Barack Obama claimed victory in Iraq, saying that formal combat operations in the region would end Aug. 31, and that the United States had emerged from the seven-year war triumphant, kind of.

"For nearly a decade, our mission in Iraq has been to root out those who would choose violence over peace, to create a stable Iraqi government, and to transfer power to an incorruptible civilian police force," Obama said. "And, in a manner of speaking, we sort of did some of that, right? More or less?"

"Granted, this is not the definitive, World War II–like victory most of us expected," Obama continued. "But there's a military triumph in there somewhere, I swear. You just have to look at it from the right angles."

[. . . .]

"By the end of this month, victory, to a certain extent, will be ours, and we can finally welcome our troops back home," Obama concluded. "That is unless they are one of the 50,000 U.S. soldiers who will have to stay in the region for the foreseeable future."

Following the president's address, a car bomb ripped through an outdoor market in Baghdad killing eight Iraqis and wounding 32.

Pentagon officials also declared the mission, in a sense, kind of sort of accomplished Tuesday, citing the handful of Iraqi hearts and minds that may have been won over by the U.S. occupancy, and the fact that Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki had not yet been assassinated.

"In cases where we were unable to rebuild infrastructure or quell violent civil unrest, it wasn't for lack of trying," Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said during last Sunday's taping of ABC's This Week. "And trying your best, one could argue, is technically a triumph in and of itself."

[. . . .]

Pentagon and White House sources said the American people should expect more wince-inducing victory-if-you-can-call-it-that celebrations 10 or 15 years from now when we kind of, but not really, win in Afghanistan.

Confessions Obtained by Threatening a Teenager with Rape are OK

Let me clarify. This is at Gitmo, not down at your local county lock-up... not yet, anyway.

And to be specific, the threat wasn't just that the 15 year old boy would be raped. No, the boy's interrogator, U.S. Army Sergeant Joshua Claus has testified that the threat was that he would be "gang-raped to death" if he did not cooperate.

As reported by The Raw Story:

In one of the first military commissions held under the Obama administration, a US military judge has ruled that confessions obtained by threatening the subject with rape are admissible in court.

The case involves Omar Ahmed Khadr, a citizen of Canada who was apprehended in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old and has remained in Guantanamo Bay for the last seven years awaiting trial for terrorism and war crimes.

Read the whole sad, sickening thing at Raw Story.

I have to find some way to get that damned Lee Greenwood song out of my head.

[all emphasis mine]

Google: Technology Good, Anonymity Bad!

Anyone who has been paying attention at all lately knows that Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt is no friend of privacy in general and net anonymity is particular. Still, it is good to be reminded.

Schmidt addressed the start of the Techonomy Conference yesterday in Lake Tahoe, and CNET reported this.

For those concerned with privacy, Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave them a few more things to start worrying about.

At a conference here Wednesday, Schmidt noted that using artificial intelligence, computers can take 14 pictures of anyone on the Internet and stand a good chance of identifying that person. Similarly, the data collected by location-based services can be used not only to show where someone is at, but to also predict with a lot of accuracy where they might be headed next.

"Pretty interesting," Schmidt said. "Good idea, Bad idea?...The technology of course is neutral but society is not fundamentally ready."

[. . . .]

Schmidt said that society really isn't prepared for all of the changes being thrust upon it. "I think it's time for people to get ready for it."

Schmidt said these records are a challenge for everyone....

On balance, Schmidt said that technology is good, but he said that the only way to manage the challenges is "much greater transparency and no anonymity."

Schmidt said that in an era of asymmetric threats, "true anonymity is too dangerous."

[emphasis mine]

What Obamacare Looks Like

What Obamacare looks like... as things stand now, before they get worse.

[The graphic above is linked to a .pdf file with a full-size image.
You will want to view it at 200% minimum.]

Update ::

An anonymous commenter posted August 10th that the link wasn't working. It works for me, so perhaps one has to be signed in on a Google ID to access Google Docs even when they are flagged "public." Whatever that case, the .pdf file is now available at http://drop.io/sebaygo1docs1. That link should be good for the next year.