Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it. Lets do it.....

Flirts: doing what comes naturally

What follows are excerpts from Paul Pillar's essay, "Intelligence, Policy,and the War in Iraq", which appears in the March/April 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs. I originally posted about this article on Friday.

What is most remarkable about prewar U.S. intelligence on Iraq is not that it got things wrong and thereby misled policymakers; it is that it played so small a role in one of the most important U.S. policy decisions in recent decades.

Congress, not the administration, asked for the now-infamous October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's unconventional weapons programs, although few members of Congress actually read it. (According to several congressional aides responsible for safeguarding the classified material, no more than six senators and only a handful of House members got beyond the five-page executive summary.)

In the shadowy world of international terrorism, almost anyone can be "linked" to almost anyone else if enough effort is made to find evidence of casual contacts, the mentioning of names in the same breath, or indications of common travels or experiences. Even the most minimal and circumstantial data can be adduced as evidence of a "relationship," ignoring the important question of whether a given regime actually supports a given terrorist group and the fact that relationships can be competitive or distrustful rather than cooperative.

I made a similar comment in 2004.

Although distance from policymakers may be needed for objectivity, closeness is needed for influence.

The intelligence community should be repositioned to reflect the fact that influence and relevance flow not just from face time in the Oval Office, but also from credibility with Congress and, most of all, with the American public.

Excerpts from 'Intelligence, Policy,and the War in Iraq'

All Music Guide begins her bio with:

Vocalist Madeleine Peyroux can best be thought of as a Billie Holiday for the 1990s.

From the promo on her web site:

The album "Careless Love" seamlessly weaves strands of acoustic blues, country ballads, torch songs and pop into a vibrant fabric that is both classically vintage and thoroughly up to date.

AMG wraps up its bio of Peyroux with this:

However she is marketed, blues, jazz or "roots music," look for more great things to come to this young and promising 20-something vocalist, guitarist and songwriter.

Madeleine Peyroux

The Founding Fathers anticipated debates such as the one stemming from George W. Bush's illegal spying. Well acquainted with the excesses of mad monarchs named George and the excuses for tyranny peddled by their partisans, Benjamin Franklin warned, "They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." James Madison understood how seductive the claims of national security could be, pointing out that wartime is "the true nurse of executive aggrandizement."

A good editorial is hard to find.

Madness of King George

The FBI learned that Clark was interested in robbing banks to fund the activities of the Neo Millennium Liberation Army, whose stated goal was to "free the oppressed minority population of Atlanta."

There was another firebombing today. Its not clear if they are connected, but it sounds like an Anarco-Terrorist group is attacking Atlanta.

Anarchist May Have Set Atlantic Station Fire

A Vatican paper????

Vatican paper article says 'intelligent design' not science

Zombie Slave roaches...wow...this kicks total ass. Sometimes biology is so much more sci-fi than fiction

The wasp slips her stinger through the roach's exoskeleton and directly into its brain. She apparently use ssensors along the sides of the stinger to guide it through the brain, a bit like a surgeon snaking his way to an appendix with a laparoscope. She continues to probe the roach's brain until she reaches one particular spot that appears to control the escape reflex. She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears.

From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach's antennae and leads it--in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex--like a dog on a leash.

Boing Boing: Wasp performs roach-brain-surgery to make zombie slave-roaches

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=56210

Here is a post from The Nation which I thought was fitting...

The War is Over

Technically we are still at "war", in that we have troops stationed in two foreign countries engaging in military activity. But the slight of hand that the administration has used is to conflate these military actions with the "war on terror" and thus be able to claim a never ending state of war.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are over. What we have now is post-war occupation and policing. If the wars weren't over would we be engaged in reconstruction activities? I don't remember the allies rebuilding parts of Germany in 1943.

Rebuilding starts when the enemy has been subdued and the war is over.

The other war (on terrorism) is a metaphorical war, like the war on drugs or the war on crime. Groups of people, "terrorists", wish to engage in committing illegal activities which may cause harm to others. The only effective response is some combination of policing and investigation. A traditional military response won't work since there are seldom military targets to attack. Thus, this is not a "war" as such, but an ongoing effort to maintain public order and security. It is what all countries do as a matter of course. Criminal enterprises are never entirely eradicated, that's why every society has a police function.

So we are not at war, anymore. We are engaged in an ongoing effort to prevent harmful and illegal actions by those who wish to pursue their own objectives. These people can be drug dealers, the mafia, or "terrorists". The techniques for countering their threats are the same and don't require extraordinary federal powers.

So let's not play into the hands of those making a power play and stop using their slanted terminology. The US is not at war. Let's not let those who wish to abuse their power continue to use this as an excuse for civil liberties abuses.

Posted by RDF 02/03/2006 @ 5:03pm

Discuss....

RE: 20 Year Plan for Iraq?

Hermoso!

In a bookstore in the funky California beach town of Venice, larger-than-life-sized color photographs of masked Mexican wrestlers are the focal point of a very different art exhibit.

Lucha Libre

You know in every relationship exists a struggle for power.

Google Agrees to Censor Results in China