Intelligence?!

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The Man Who Conned The Pentagon by Aram Roston
The weeks before Christmas brought no hint of terror. But by the afternoon of December 21, 2003, police stood guard in heavy assault gear on the streets of Manhattan. Fighter jets patrolled the skies. When a gift box was left on Fifth Avenue, it was labeled a suspicious package and 5,000 people in the Metropolitan Museum of Art were herded into the cold.

DHS secretary Tom Ridge announced the terror alert. “There’s continued discussion,” he told reporters, “these are from credible sources—about near-term attacks that chttp://www.bettybowers.com/graphics/cp_boo.jpgould either rival or exceed what we experienced on September 11.” The New York Times reported that intelligence sources warned “about some unspecified but spectacular attack.”

The financial markets trembled. By Tuesday the panic had ratcheted up as the Associated Press reported threats to “power plants, dams and even oil facilities in Alaska.” The feds forced the cancellation of dozens of French, British and Mexican commercial “flights of interest” and pushed foreign governments to put armed air marshals on certain flights. Air France flight 68 was canceled, as was Air France flight 70. By Christmas the headline in the Los Angeles Times was "Six Flights Canceled as Signs of Terror Plot Point to L.A." Journalists speculated over the basis for these terror alerts. “Credible sources,” Ridge said. “Intelligence chatter,” said CNN.

But there were no real intercepts, no new informants, no increase in chatter. And the suspicious package turned out to contain a stuffed snowman. This was, instead, the beginning of a bizarre scam. Behind that terror alert, and a string of contracts and intrigue that continues to this date, there is one unlikely character.
The man’s name is Dennis Montgomery, a self-proclaimed scientist who said he could predict terrorist attacks. Operating with a small software development company, he apparently convinced the Bush White House, the CIA, the Air Force and other agencies that Al Jazeera—the Qatari-owned TV network—was unwittingly transmitting target data to Al Qaeda sleepers.
Read the whole, bizarre story

Via Dvorak

Sophisticated, eh?

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I see Twitter is still a place for political bollocks. There is a new hashtag campaign called #kerryout which is something to do with trying to unseat Kerry McCarthy, Labour MP for Bristol East and the party's 'Twitter Tsar'.  The campaign, started by Tory Bear comes complete with website and the obligatory crappy and meaningless YouTube video.

I would have thought the aim of Tory supporters would be the unseating of every Labour MP. Has Ms McCarthy done something terrible that I'm not aware of or is this, as I suspect, just another example of silly, pointless fifth form political blogbollocks?




Re-imagining Holmes

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Andrew Collins walked out of 'Sherlock Holmes', Guy Richie's latest directorial effort. ("What a terrible film. Unengaging, overly fond of itself, miscast, and actually rather dull".)

I'm surprised he even bothered to go and see it. I was sure it was going to be a pile of cack and, notwithstanding it's decent box-office performance in the States, It seems I was right. It's a movie for youngsters (12 cert) with absolutely no idea about Sherlock Holmes or Conan Doyle. Fair enough, I suppose, but Jeremy Brett, the poor man, must be turning in his grave. As one of the commenters said: "Continuously in print for over 100 years. Does Sherlock Holmes need re-imagining? By Guy Ritchie? Exactly.

I Say A Little Prayer For You

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There is almost always more to this kind of story than meets the eye. We usually only manage to get one side, initially. In many cases it is simply not possible, for a variety of reasons, for the others side's version of events to be aired in the early stages of a dispute or inquiry. But, in time, we get a fuller picture.
Bob Piper:
Remember the story of Mrs Jones... supposedly sacked for being a Christian, that the Daily Heil, Iain Dale and his slavering commenters got so excited about? Well, Jeremy Blatchford, the Conservative spokesperson on Education for the Council concerned, comments on my blog, and it makes very interesting reading. It would appear that not only wasn´t Mrs Jones sacked, she was actually insisting on continuing to force her religion on parents who had asked her not to.

Cheer up, it ain't so bad

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Marginal Revolution: "Fruitful Decade for Many in the World"
Tyler Cowen: My NYT column today is about how good the last ten years have been for China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, and much of Africa. It is not, as Time magazine has suggested, the worst decade in human history. Here is a brief excerpt:

One lesson from all of this is that steady economic growth is an underreported news story — and to our own detriment. As human beings, we are prone to focus on very dramatic, visible events, such as confrontations with political enemies or the personal qualities of leaders, whether good or bad. We turn information about politics and economics into stories of good guys versus bad guys and identify progress with the triumph of the good guys. In the process, it’s easy to neglect the underlying forces that improve life in small, hard-to-observe ways, culminating in important changes.

Better than a cardboard box

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For Some of Japan’s Jobless, Homes Just 5 Feet Wide
When Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 opened nearly two decades ago, Japan was just beginning to pull back from its bubble economy, and the hotel’s tiny plastic cubicles offered a night’s refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home.

Now, Hotel Shinjuku 510’s capsules, no larger than 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide, and not tall enough to stand up in, have become an affordable option for some people with nowhere else to go as Japan endures its worst recession since World War II.

Alles klar?

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Liberal Conspiracy -  2010: A crunch year for us progressives
A General Election which always is a watershed moment in any countries political history. (sic)

This one will see a resurgent Conservative Party face an increasingly tired looking Labour Party and a Liberal Democrat Party that has aspirations to greatness.
Meanwhile, the Green Party could well be on the cusp of a breakthrough moment in Brighton Pavilion.
Read the whole piece and then ask yourself: how the fuck does this incoherent twaddle get published at LibCon?

PS: The author writes a blog titled, I kid you not, "Moments of Clarity".

Bourgeois guilt

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You can 'aspire', but don't you dare achieve
...(the new-style class war) is seriously flawed even in Gordon Brown's own terms. In modern Britain, most of the people whom Mr Brown calls the "privileged" are just those who were once aspirational and who, through hard work, talent, and sometimes self-sacrifice, made their wishes come true. In other words, they are precisely the sort of people with whom he and his alter ego Ed Balls are supposed to sympathise.

Of course, there are still a small number of players who win the lottery of life by virtue of their birth – and it is David Cameron and George Osborne's political liability to be among them – but the huge majority of those fortunate enough now to be highly educated, highly paid and professionally influential got where they are by some combination of merit, industriousness and, most important, positive attitude.


Yet another 'racist'. Yawn.

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Muslim writers say La Plante attack on BBC is 'insulting'
A row broke out yesterday after the creator of Prime Suspect stoked allegations that the corporation favours Muslims by complaining that its drama commissioning team would rather read a script by a "little Muslim boy" than one she had written. "If my name were Usafi Iqbadal and I was 19, then they'd probably bring me in and talk," the scriptwriter, who has mainly worked for ITV, told The Daily Telegraph.

But Muslim writers hit back, accusing La Plante of "old-style racism" for reinforcing stereotypes. Max Malik, a novelist and playwright, called her comments "divisive, unhelpful and discouraging for young writers". Mr Malik, who won the Muslim Writers' Award two years ago, added: "She's trying to force me and my ilk into a corner. I don't call her a ginger-haired, middle-aged, female writer. That would be insulting."
Eh? It wouldn't actually. She is, after all, ginger-haired, middle-aged, female and a writer. And how, exactly, is she trying to back anyone into a corner?  She may be wrong. She may have a chip on her shoulder but calling her an 'old style racist' is tired, lazy and just plain wrong.