T?G?IF

either it's me or the world has been quiet of late - aside from the BugBear worm, media ownership deregulation dooming democracy, upcoming U.S. fiscal trainwreck, cutting families of poor kids from the $400 tax credit, and saber rattling re nuclear capabilities of Iran, there doesn't seem to be much going on.

From the BBC, CIA spies shun computers:

In the movies, spies and intelligence agents are the ones with the cool gadgets and state-of-the-art equipment, but their real life counterparts are far behind
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the search system of the main database is so "primitive" that analysts searching for information get better results calling other workers than they do by querying the computer system.

Dan Kennedy of Boston Phoenix on The elusive truth about those missing Iraqi antiquities ("So what happened, exactly? It’s hard to say...") - does a good job of pulling the pieces together and putting them in context.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich's open letter to Rumsfield, Does the Pentagon Have Amnesia on Lynch? on the discrepancies in the accounts of her rescue:

there is a wide gap between the facts as reported initially and the manner in which they are being reported now. As I understand the Defense Department's position, these recent accounts are "outrageous, patently false and unsupported by the facts."(3) At the same time, Defense Department officials now seem to be qualifying their earlier statements...

I believe it is time for the Department of Defense to fully disclose what happened.
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First, I request that you order the public release of the unedited footage taken by the military cameraman of the military operation to recover Private Lynch.
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Second, I would like you to answer formally the following questions about the health status of Private Lynch and the military operation to recover her.
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Finally, I understand the Department has ordered an investigation into the facts surrounding Private Lynch's capture by Iraqi forces. I also understand, however, that investigators were not asked to examine the circumstances surrounding Private Lynch's rescue...

No word on any response.