Archive for March 2nd, 2009
Fark Headline: “Obama plans to bring back all the troops from Iraq by August 2010… except for the 50,000 he is leaving there forever. Change you can believe in!”
But he was gonna bring them home the day after his inauguration!
Straight from CNN: “President Obama told congressional leaders Thursday he’s planning to pull all combat troops out of Iraq by August 2010, according to three congressional officials.
Under this scenario, all combat troops will be withdrawn within 19 months of Obama’s January inauguration, three months longer than his promise on the campaign trail.
In a meeting at the White House Thursday evening, Obama also told lawmakers that he plans to keep a range of 35,000 to 50,000 support troops on the ground in Iraq after combat troops are out, the officials said.
All U.S. troops have to be out of Iraq by December 31, 2011, under an agreement the Bush administration signed with the Iraqi government last year.
White House officials confirmed the president will deliver a speech about Iraq to troops at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina on Friday, his first visit to a military base since being sworn into office.
The officials refused to comment on the details of Obama’s plan.
While liberals may be frustrated that Obama is not keeping his campaign promise to the letter, the president could win credit from lawmakers in both parties for giving military commanders more time and flexibility to finish the mission.
What may turn out to be more controversial is the number of noncombat troops that will remain in Iraq under Obama’s plan.
Military officials have stressed that residual, noncombat forces would focus on supplies and logistics to protect U.S. interests in the region. But senior Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have expressed concern over such a large number of troops staying in Iraq after combat forces have left.
One source familiar with the discussion told CNN that Democratic lawmakers complained in private to the president about the remaining troops just as they have in public.
Fark Headline: “Man partied and had sex with lots of women at work. Which might be cool if he wasn’t working at the morgue”
Kenneth Douglas
Straight from Cincinnati.com: “On many nights over 16 years, Kenneth Douglas engaged in his own personal macabre workplace party.
He often brought drugs or alcohol to work and sometimes had sex with women.
At least three of those women were dead, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said Thursday.
But if Douglas is to be believed, he could have had sex with as many as “over a hundred” bodies in the 16 years he worked as night attendant at the Hamilton County morgue.
“I am sure there are more (victims). I’m certain of it,” Deters said Thursday in announcing new indictments against Douglas.
“This guy’s just a pig. I can’t explain why someone would do something like this. … This is off-the-charts weird.”
Are they “victims” if they’re dead? Fark user I.M.APseudonym sums it up nicely in the comments: Necrophilia – Lay back and crack open a cold one.
French President Busted For Copyright Violation
Sarkozy
Straight from Slashdot: “ZeroPaid has an interesting take on the story of Nicolas Sarkozy being accused of copyright infringement. The irony, of course, is Sarkozy’s pushing of a 3-strikes law — disconnecting from the Internet those accused of file sharing — in France and across the EU. The French president had apparently offered to settle the copyright infringement accusation for one Euro, but the band rejected the offer, calling it an insult. The article notes that each year since 2006, a high-profile anti-piracy entity has been on the wrong end of a copyright infringement notice. In 2008, Sony BMG was sued for software piracy. In 2007, anti-piracy outfit BASCAP received a cease and desist order related to pirated software. And in 2006, the MPAA was accused of pirating ‘This Film is Not Yet Rated’.”
Sony Makes It Hard To Develop For the PS3 On Purpose
It's the PS3 Grill! Why play shitty video games when you can grill delicious food?!
Straight from the ‘Sony’s a genius’ department, by way of Slashdot: “CNet reports on a bizarre comment from Sony’s Computer Entertainment CEO in response to complaints from developers on how hard it is to develop games for the Playstation 3. ‘We don’t provide the “easy to program for” console that (developers) want, because “easy to program for” means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is, what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?’ Given that games heavily drive console sales, and the fact that the PS3 is already 8 million units behind the Xbox 360, I think making a developer’s job harder is the last thing Sony needs.”
Hearst To Launch E-Reader For Newspapers
Amazon's Kindle 2
Straight from Slashdot: “The credit crisis couldn’t have come at a worse time for newspapers, which were already suffering at the hands of the Internet. Now it seems that the Hearst Corporation is planning to launch an e-reader later this year to try to save its dwindling newspaper readerships. Apparently the e-reader will have a bigger screen than the Kindle, helping it to accommodate ads. It’s not clear whether Hearst will go it alone, or try to gather wider industry support for its venture. As one pundit observed, ‘it seems a slender thread on which to hang the entire American newspaper industry.’”
