THE CIA STRIKES BACK – against Fox News’ fake “Benghazi-gate”

From Politico’s Playbook. To all the gullible idiots who still get their information from Fox News and are buying into Fox’s attempts to pump up a last-minute fake “Benghazi-gate.”

“At one point during the consulate siege, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telephoned the CIA director directly to seek assistance.”

–THE CIA STRIKES BACK I – N.Y. Times A4, “C.I.A. Played Major Role Fighting Militants in Libya Attack,” by Eric Schmitt : “Within 25 minutes of being alerted to the attack against the diplomatic mission, half a dozen C.I.A. officers raced there from their base about a mile away, enlisting the help of a handful of Libyan militia fighters as they went. … C.I.A. officers joined State Department security agents in a futile search through heavy smoke and enemy fire for Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens before evacuating the mission’s personnel to the apparent safety of their base, which American officials have called an annex to the mission. Mr. Stevens was one of four Americans killed in the attack.” http://nyti.ms/Vi4UIc

-THE CIA STRIKES BACK II — WashPost A1, “CIA rushed to rescue envoys in Libya siege,” by Greg Miller: “The CIA rushed security operatives to an American diplomatic compound in Libya within 25 minutes of its coming under attack and played a more central role in the effort to fend off a night-long siege than has been acknowledged publicly … The decision to give a comprehensive account of the attack five days before the election is likely to be regarded with suspicion, particularly among Republicans who have accused the Obama administration of misleading the public by initially describing the assault as a spontaneous eruption that began as a protest of an anti-Islamic video. U.S. officials said they decided to offer a detailed account of the CIA’s role to rebut media reports that have suggested that agency leaders delayed sending help to State Department officials seeking to fend off a heavily armed mob.” http://wapo.st/YvpUtG

–THE CIA STRIKES BACK III — “U.S. says CIA responded within 25 minutes to Benghazi attack,” by L.A. Times’ Ken Dilanian: “CIA security officers in a Benghazi post responded within 25 minutes to a call for help from a nearby State Department compound after it came under attack Sept. 11, officials said Thursday, seeking to refute a Fox News report asserting that CIA managers ordered them to stay put. In releasing a detailed timeline of CIA actions that night, senior intelligence officials have put aside long-standing concerns about revealing the extent of the agency’s presence in Benghazi in order to push back against what officials say are baseless allegations that aid was withheld. …

“Fox News asserted in a story last week that CIA managers had ordered agency security officers to ‘stand down’ and remain in their own facility, known as the Annex, when the attack on the diplomatic compound began about 9:40 p.m. and that there was an hour delay before officers disobeyed orders and went to help repel the attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and State Department officer Sean Smith. Among those who rushed to help was Tyrone Woods, a former Navy SEAL who was part of the CIA security team and who later died in the attacks.”

Using Internet harms memory

There was an article somewhere today on how using the Internet adversely affects your memory because you can easily look things up instead of trying to remember information. Or something like that. I can’t remember where I saw it, but you can Google for it.

doug

Is it time to unsubscribe from my daily newspaper?

Is it finally time to end my print newspaper subscription?

This is a problem that has been bothering me more and more over the past few months. The answer seems simple, but I have been a print subscriber for, well, decades now. So I have an emotional attachment to my daily newspaper delivery.

For many years it was the Japan Times. Then, oh, maybe 10 or 12 years ago I realized the Daily Yomiuri was a better bargain. The monthly cost was not only substantially less, I think it is a better paper, with weekly sections from The Independent, Washington Post and L.A. Times.

Anyway, for over a quarter century now I’ve been getting a daily English newspaper delivered to my door in the pre-dawn hours.

But… is it time for this too to pass? Is the age of printed newspapers over for me?

From any practical point of view there is no need to subscribe to the paper. The exact same articles – in fact even more information and photos in color – can be seen online – on my computer or when comfortably lounging around on my iPad by just visiting http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/. Everything’s there – the same articles, the columns, the weather reports, the exchange rates. And it’s all free.

Just a month or so ago, the printed subscription rate went up to about 2,900 yen/month. In dollars, that’s about $36/month or $432/year. We’re talking almost the cost of the iPad itself, just to see the same news I can see on the iPad for free.
Plus there are other nice news aggregators for the iPad (my favorite is Zite) which include articles from all the Japanese English newspapers. Also for free.

So for practical reasons, I think it’s time to pick up the phone and bid farewell to the daily print delivery.

Yet… I keep hesitating. It feels sad in a way to see it go.

And one has to consider – who is paying for all the news to be collected and published? The daily print subscriptions are falling all over the world. In fact, my newspaper delivery guy has been including the Japanese Yomiuri Shinbun for free every day – just so they can keep their subscriber numbers up. If everybody unsubscribes, are the online ads going to pay for production of news?

The New York Times now allows just 20 article reads a month before you have to subscribe. (Though that is trivially easy to get around because they allow people to come in from outside links, so all you have to do is copy an article link, go to another site, paste the URL into your browser and you are in – referred from elsewhere.) I wonder if their latest attempt to charge for digital subscriptions will succeed.

I would pay for the New York Times if it were a reasonable cost. But they charge on par with print subscriptions, and I think there should be substantial savings with electronic delivery. As I do with eBooks.

I’ll probably call and cancel the Daily Yomiuri before the end of the month. I’ll still read the paper every day though. Yet I feel a sense of sadness about this inevitability.

The question then is… what will I use to line the bottom of Hao and Mon’s bird cage?

doug

Fox News really is off in its own little world, isn’t it?

Headlines at major news sites just now:

NY Times – In Joplin, Obama Offers Healing Words to Residents
MSNBC – OBAMA VOWS US WILL HELP JOPLIN REBUILD
Yahoo News – Obama tours twister-ravaged neighborhood in Joplin
Google News – Obama Tours Joplin, Promises Sustained Federal Help
USA Today – Obama tours Joplin devastation
ABC News – Obama Tours Tornado-Torn Joplin
CBS News – Obama tours tornado-ravaged Joplin

Fox News (big banner headline) – McCain: Palin Could Defeat Obama

doug