Three things have converged to set me on a course of thinking. The triggering events for these thoughts are real, but the hypothetical scenario drawn should be considered an exercise in rhetorical questions; Real events or people should not be inferred. By no means should this post be interpreted as anti anything or an illustration of cause and ( Read more... )

It appears that he, who purports to be bin Laden has released another tape. To be honest, I've increasingly doubted the authenticity of these things since Tora Bora, but some poorly produced propaganda, no matter the source is really the least of our worries. Instead, I'd like to take this opportunity to interject one of those things that you ( Read more... )

As virtually everyone has heard, last week the New York Times and two other newspapers broke a fairly benign story that revealed federal investigators are following the money trail, when it comes to terrorists. I didn't comment on this earlier because for the life of me, I can't see anything too far out of line in the original story. Why wouldn't ( Read more... )

As the report circulated about a loud bang in the parking garage for a US House office building, the stock market took a breather by showing a sharp dip until things were better defined and as the news coverage got underway. All of the District's schools went into lockdown for two and a half hours, security tightened throughout the city, the ( Read more... )

The USA Today has an exclusive revealing that the NSA has attempted to build a database of every call placed within the United States. The pretense is that they are studying calling patterns and social networking to better identify suspect communications. I am mixed on the reasoning because it makes strategic sense for someone to propose such an ( Read more... )

Breaking NewsStarting someday soon, Homeland Security is going to run the names of all 400,000 workers on American ports against terrorist watch lists and check their immigration status. Criminal background checks could begin at another time. Also, they've announced plans to issue tamper-resistant ID cards to the 750,000 people given unrestricted ( Read more... )

Perhaps Rummy and his "special friend" are over-compensating, but this just in; "The Pentagon Spies on Gays".
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On a semi-related note, from today's Pentagon briefing;
"Woodward's book is not the Bible... Some of you may not know that."
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And, while I'm at it (semi-related to the documentation for the first link);
"Listening to The Clash and ( Read more... )

When it comes to talking heads, I prefer interview shows and programs that alert me to something I don't already know. I really don't like the programs where they discuss only the headlines and which are built around people, or the host expressing their opinion. They are all entitled to their opinion, but I simply don't care. This evening Chris ( Read more... )

A bit of controversy has arisen because Dateline: NBC dressed three people up in Arabic attire and sent them to a NASCAR race to see if they'd experience any problems. Much has been made about the fact that they were trying to create news and that they may have had prejudices about the possibility of a reaction, but am I the only person that ( Read more... )

Earlier, I saw this story about some recently declassified documents which led me to a website, where I found several other things of interest. Among them was an employment contract for those who enlisted with Al Qaeda. Unmarried conscripts were promised 1000 Pakistani Rupee or about $16 and married members were paid a base salary of 6500, plus 500 ( Read more... )