Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Every Cloud Has
It may be hard to believe, but some people have been known to interpret my attention to what they say, as an unfair attack on them — even if I simply quote the exact text of what they said, word-for-word, paragraph-for-paragraph, changing nothing.
Those more sympathetic to my point of view, have criticized me — rightfully so, I think — for allowing my software-development roots to show up a little too much, when I write for the benefit of people. I’m accustomed to a discipline in which, if you leave something out, you create a “bug” — risking the Blue Screen Of Death, null pointer assignments, passing data to a subroutine in an uninitialized state, etc. — so, a good “programmer” leaves nothing out. Consequence: Once my comments are digested, there is nothing more to be said. The better I do my job, as I have applied myself to it, the shorter will be an ensuing discussion amongst people who have read my work.
Let’s address both of these critiques…although, for obvious reasons, I think much more of one of them than the other.
Hat tip to IMAO: Kevin Drum comes up with a hitherto-un-commented-upon benefit for the War on Terror, to be realized from the New York Times’ outing of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program. Kevin Drum’s opinion is reproduced, without augmentation, deletion, or any kind of molestation whatsoever…and in spite of overwhelming temptation, without any subsequent comment from me. At all. None. Zero.
As long as I’m asking dumb questions, here’s another one. No one is going to believe me when I say that I’m not trying to grind any particular axe here, but….I’m not trying to grind any particular axe here. I’m just curious.
OK. So the New York Times has now exposed two anti-terrorist initiatives: the NSA’s domestic spying program and the Treasury Department’s financial tracking program. The administration says that exposing these programs is bad because terrorists will stop using telephones and international credit transfers now that they know the U.S. government can monitor these activities. Thus, we have fewer ways of catching bad guys.
Fine. That’s true. And yet, isn’t there an upside too? If the bad guys stop using telephones and bank transfers, doesn’t that reduce their effectiveness considerably? No phone calls, no wire transfers, satellites watching you, drones attacking out of nowhere, websites hacked, no one who can be trusted � at some point their whole operation grinds to a halt out of sheer paranoia.
Now, I assume that the people running these programs aren’t idiots. If they think that keeping them secret is a net positive, they’re probably right. But nobody even mentions the upside of exposing them. Surely there is one, isn’t there?
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