We don't have a TV so even though Sinclair doesn't have a station to black out in the Miami market, I wasn't able to see Nightline's list of the US casualties in Iraq. The web site doesn't offer a stream of it, but they do have an online list of U.S. Military Deaths in War With Iraq.
It's long.
As an abstract matter, Lockergnome’s Price Drops RSS Feeds seem like a great idea. But who has time to monitor these on a regular basis? Not even relatively obsessive price-sensitive consumers like me, that's for sure.
It seems I wasn't real clear in the previous post. I don't mean to suggest that the right answer to the Fallujah crisis was starting a major urban campaign and killing lots of civilians. I do mean to say that:
1. If this is the end state, the seige was a blunder.
2. But, because I don't think the administration is willing to accept the likely consequences of this move — it will be seen as the weakness that it is — I fear even more what this seems likely to lead to, which is bloodier consequences in Fallujah and especially elsewhere. And I suspect that the US administration's response to those facts — when faced with possible widespread chaos as Iraqis decide the US can be driven out — will end up with more casualties on both sides. Therefore, I think that leaving in these circumstances has very bad side-effects. That doesn't mean that turning up the violence (“going in” to urban warfar) made any sense either.
3. Putting a Baathist in charge doesn't seem real smart unless he's a very unusal one. Is this a calculation that Baathists are better than Islamicists? Is the best-case exit scenario now reduced to a Saddam-like regime without Saddam? Is Saddam lite really the best we can do?
George W. Bush today, defending the famous flight suit speech announcing the end of major combat operation in Iraq:
“we're making progress, you bet” in bringing stability to Iraq.
What the grunts say about about today's pullout from Fallujah, turning the town over to a Baathist general (source: UK Daily Telegraph, Saddam's man takes over in Fallujah )(reg. req.):
Many ordinary marines said they did not believe the initiative would work and it could endanger their lives when they had to revert to the “plan A” of a full-scale offensive to take Fallujah.
“Honestly, I don't think they're going to be able to do it,” said Cpl Elias Chavez, 28.
“We had the insurgents cordoned off, they couldn't go anywhere, we had a chance to get them. Now they can flee wherever they want and we're still going to have to deal with them.”
He said the new force, largely made up of Fallujah residents, would be unlikely to apprehend or clamp down on anti-coalition fighters.
By leaving without defeating the insurgents, their deployment since April 5, following the killing and mutilation of four US defence contractors, “was a waste of time, of resources and of lives”.
“Everyone feels the same, especially those who know someone who was killed.”
L Cpl Julius Wright, 20, said: “Now it's going to get worse. We pulled out when we should of gone in.”
I'm with the grunts on this one. This is “progress”?
After a week or two of trying (and failing) to be fair and balanced by finding a flaw in Firefox to match the problems with IE, User Friendly explains why we don't have Lynx -friendly cartoons.
Not trying to make this an all Google day, but given what a clean reputation google has, and given all the stuff in their IPO about how they plan to Be Good and not be short-termists, it's a little disturbing to read this Joi Ito item collating various bits of info suggesting that Google colludes in government censorship.
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