More evidence for the hypothesis that they have lost sight of reality over at Homeland Security (or never had sight of it): Ensight – Jeremy C. Wright » The End of the Story.
Homeland Security: Keeping America Safe from Canadian Bloggers.
Update: And from dangerous T-shirts too!
You'd think they'd know if they have a black hole or not. But apparently it's only speculation. BBC : Lab fireball 'may be black hole'. Or you can read the rather mathy paper, The RHIC fireball as a dual black hole.
I'm presuming it's not going to eat the earth up because in tiny fractions of a second it doesn't get big enough to be stable and thus flies appart when they turn off the juice.
Anyway, while we wait for the earth to collapse, there's a highly amusing Slashdot discussion of the alleged phenomenon.
We started our rather extreme home renovation project a mere 15 months ago. The contractor predicted it would take eight months. Admittedly we did have three hurricane scares along the way which required we demobilize, setting back the schedule. Even so, it's been a long time.
The interior of our home is now 95% finished, and what's done is on the whole very nice. But random things remain to be done here and there in every room, most cosmetic, a few rather more functional. The exterior is less far along, as the stucco guy left two walls looking tumorous, and other one quite poorly patched. So that needs sorting before painting. And the front of the house is still a gravel pit. I have some faith that our contractor, a man with pride of craft, will make it good in the end. Eventually.
The problem is that as we get closer to completion, the work gets done asymptotically slower. Yesterday, the foreman announced that he would be on our job every day until it finished. Today, no one turned up.
Which is perhaps why I took little joy in this otherwise amusing story, Fort Pierce homeowner gets free roof after contractor mixes up addresses. I can just imagine our work crew somewhere else…
I guess I'm just too simple-minded to keep up with the news. Maybe it's a reading comprehension thing. But my understanding was that the CIA was an intelligence agency. That means that they are supposed to have a clue or two as to what goes on abroad — even to look past official statements sometimes and perceive a hint of reality.
What then to make of the CIA's claims that it is shocked and surprised when the brutal foreign intelligence agencies to whom it hands over prisoners (via 'renditions') break their verbal commitments not to torture the prisoners, and instead proceed in their customary fashion?
At this point I'm left wondering whether the CIA wants us to think of them as really, really stupid or really, really guilty.
Today's Washington Post reports that once the CIA has handed over the victim to foreign torturers, the CIA's delicate sensibilities prevent it from asking too many questions in order that the sensitive foreigners not feel obliged to sully themselves with lies:
CIA's Assurances On Transferred Suspects Doubted: [An] Arab diplomat, whose country is actively engaged in counterterrorism operations and shares intelligence with the CIA, said it is unrealistic to believe the CIA really wants to follow up on the assurances. “It would be stupid to keep track of them because then you would know what's going on,” he said. “It's really more like 'Don't ask, don't tell.' “
At least the House is is beginning to worry about our outsourcing torture:
The House voted 420 to 2 yesterday to prohibit the use of supplemental appropriations to support actions that contravene anti-torture statutes. The measure's co-author, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), singled out renditions, saying “diplomatic assurances not to torture are not credible, and the administration knows it.”
Over in the Senate, however, it's CYA time:
Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee failed to agree Tuesday on whether to open a formal investigation into U.S. interrogation and detention practices.
“It was probably the least constructive meeting of the Intelligence Committee that I have ever been to,” West Virginia Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, the panel's top Democrat, said after a closed committee session.
Rockefeller said the committee was “not facing its oversight responsibilities with sufficient seriousness” on subjects that would affect the country for the next 30 to 40 years.
All seven of the committee's Democratic members have requested a formal review of interrogation and detention practices by the U.S. intelligence apparatus. The Democrats also want to look into “renditions” — a practice of transferring foreigners to other countries for detention and questioning.
…
“I believe the system is working,” [Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat] Roberts said.
Stupid or guilty? Definitely guilty.
Billmon, Whiskey Bar: Scenes From the Cultural Revolution juxtaposes the rantings of our local version of the Red Guards with the substantially similar rantings of the originals.
In what can only be described as a sign of impending doom for the print media, the Associated Press, the major US wire service, has announced that AP will offer two leads for some stories. One will be a straight 'inverted-pyramid' lead with the five W's at the top (who, what, where, when, how much — in order of importance), and the other will be that scourge of modern journalism, the back-in lead:
The other will be the 'optional,' an alternative approach that attempts to draw in the reader through imagery, narrative devices, perspective or other creative means.”
Bad. Bad. Bad.
Let me tell you how I know just how bad this is. I have a third grader. Once a week, my third grader has to do a three-paragraph essay for school about a news story, plus answer a few simple questions such as “Where did it happen” and “When did it happen” At the beginning of the year they get a sheaf of topics, and each week we can pick any one that hasn't been done yet and try to find a story on that topic.
You would not believe how hard it is for him — and sometimes for me — to figure out when and where most of these stories happened. Indeed, with back-in leads getting longer and longer and longer, it gets increasingly hard to figure out what it was that happened at all without reading more than half the story…and sometimes key details never appear at all.
Now, I understand that most newspapers are increasingly aimed at about an average sixth-grade reading level, which might be a little bit above the intelligent third grader, so maybe my son's difficulties here are understandable, even though I think he's pretty smart. But consider that I have three university degrees and even if I'm not all that smart, I have been reading newspapers regularly since I was eleven so I have some relevant experience. And even I can't figure out where or when many of these stories happened.
Print journalism has lost sight of its cardinal virtue of specificity. Until now the wire services tended to be a noble holdout against this trend, at least in their news coverage. This latest move by AP will only make the problem worse.
Jotwell Blenderlaw