Variety Pack: Iraq, Gordon Bell, Wie

End of combat in Iraq, whether it makes sense or not

Prez Obama today, as you all know, announced the end of combat operations in Iraq -- over seven years after Bush gave his famous mission accomplished speech on an air craft carrier. Bush was jumping the gun just a little bit back then, but is Obama? He is drawing a line and pulling troops out, which you have to do sooner or later, but some people feel it should be later, including Iraq's most senior military officer:

"At this point, the withdrawal is going well, because they are still here," Zerbari told the AFP news agency on Wednesday.

"But the problem will start after 2011 - the politicians must find other ways to fill the void after 2011. If I were asked about the withdrawal, I would say to politicians: the US army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready in 2020." link

Maybe he's just a little nervous about going it alone. We can hope.

*****

Beginning of combat with Free Press mods

Another article today about Gordon Bell where everybody in the comments are arguing about whether a field will fit there or not. A debate that I could constructively assist if I were able to post a link to my post with the pictures of a field super-imposed on the area. But I can't because the Free Press mods are being a bunch of cunts. They allow ex-Green Peacer Ron Thiessen to post a link to his web site filled with lies and propaganda about bipole III in their comments section a while back, but I'm not good enough for them. Bitches.

Anyhow ... good to see that they're finally getting a start on the "Field of Dreams". Driving past that site makes me think of an abandoned Detroit inner-city school yard.

Although, given that consultations on what to do haven't even started yet, the tractors tearing up the concrete may just be a "hey look! We are doing something!" reaction to the negative publicity last week that started on the New Winnipeg forum and spread to the Freep. Not unlike the new stadium, actually. What can we do to make it look like there has been some kind of progress? Hmmm, let's rent a backhoe and dig a hole.

I wonder how much consulting there is to do though. After they shoe-horn a field in there, all they will be left with are three small triangles of land. They're going to hire land-scape architects for that?

*****

And the Wie-ner is ...

I made a comment in my last post about Michelle Wie ... something about her perhaps drawing attention that was not proportional to her skill level. Well, perhaps it was warranted after all. Congratulations to Michelle on her outstanding win at St. Charles.

Now, I shall study my video of her for many many hours to see if I might capture some of that magic myself.