Video of the day

Toy Soldiers on Vimeo.

Footage of a French military parade made to look like stop motion miniature animation using a technique called tilt-shift photography.

This seems important

I'm no Iraq expert. I mean I know the important stuff: blame Bush, bitch about it not making us safer, "RUMSFELD!!!!", cryptically allude to oil prices, "it had nothing to do with 9/11", and casually joke about the kind of chaos that will reign when we leave. But other than that I'm of no particular genius about the situation. So, uh, doesn't US troops officially withdrawing from every city seem like something that should have been mentioned once or twice by our government? No aircraft carrierlandings, maybe just a post-it note on the communal fridge. It seems fairly important.

Iraqi forces assumed formal control of Baghdad and other cities Tuesday after American troops handed over security in urban areas in a defining step toward ending the U.S. combat role in the country. A countdown clock broadcast on Iraqi TV ticked to zero as the midnight deadline passed for U.S. combat troops to finish their pullback to bases outside cities.

"The withdrawal of American troops is completed now from all cities after everything they sacrificed for the sake of security," said Sadiq al-Rikabi, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "We are now celebrating the restoration of sovereignty."

The Pentagon did not offer any comment to mark the passing of the deadline.

This was a big day for Iraqi's, filled with many celebrations and bitchy comments about how mean we are. I say celebrations, but the only people who celebrated were those who weren't afraid to go outside because they feared large scale violence. Hell there was even a ceremony where we handed over keys to the Defense Ministry. I'm not sure if they were the real keys or ceremonial keys, but there could be awkwardness if the Iraqis lose the keys and we have to make them copies from the set we secretly kept. At least we didn't hand them a crowbar and handwritten instructions from a private on how to jimmy the door open. We even threw a military parade to celebrate....so people were told. It was in the Green Zone, inaccessible to citizens, and media was essentially barred from covering it, but it was alleged to have happened.

So congratulations Iraq on your kinda sorta "sovereignty". Sure we're just over the hill watching you, you don't really control anything, and we'll take it all back if we deem you unable to properly run things, but enjoy it. Sure we barely even remember we're still in Iraq, but I'm sure this might have been an important day for you that we totally would have covered if not for a musician dying.

All you ever needed to know about Pittsburgh

As of now we are about one hour out from the start of the Steelers Super Bowl parade through downtown Pittsburgh. Every single channel is not only there, but has started their coverage an hour ahead of time. They have all their people positioned every 20 feet, and have them delivering reports about something that isn't going to happen for an hour. What do those reports sound like? "Yeah, I'm cold and there's people lining up everywhere. These people sure love their Steelers!" then they cut to a guy 20 feet down the street who repeats the exact same information, only from 20 feet up the line.

Then they cut to the main parade hosts (Sally motherfuckin' Wiggin!!!!!) where they dish out some information like "Ben and Santonio are going to be in the last car holding the trophy", then they go through the entire lineup of sidewalk standers who repeat the "Yeah, I'm cold and there's people lining up everywhere. These people sure love their Steelers!" thing, but adding "These people can't wait to see Ben and Santonio at the end with the trophy." This sequence will continue until the hosts add a new slice of information which the chain will also add to their spiel.

This will go on for an hour. No commercials. It will be among the highest rated programming blocks for the year. I am watching intently as we speak. This is normal Pittsburgh behavior.

Pittsburgh: where we do a pre-game for our sports parades.

EDIT: Epic. Mike Tomlin walking the streets like a South American dictator, Dan Rooney emotionally grabbing Woodley and telling the audience a story about him, Alby Oxenreiter stepping in horseshit, Sheldon Ingram threatening to fuck up Tomlin because he was riding briefly in a cardinal red convertible, William Gay/Brian McFadden dance off, James Farrior stealing the mike from emcee Bob Pompeani then proceeding to emcee 45 minutes worth of the parade, Pitt center Dejuan Blair hopping into one of the cars and joining the parade, Troy Polamalu serenading the audience with the entirety of Styx's Renegade despite not knowing any of the words, Jeff Reed telling inside jokes and apologizing to the crowd because they wouldn't get them, awkward mic performances by backups, and the final words from the stage: "Barack Obama, we coming to get ya! Get ready!"