Why FBI and CIA didn’t connect the dots

Posted on May 4, 2013 by mea

Rather than thinking of intelligence as a simple connect-the-dots picture, think of it as a million unnumbered pictures superimposed on top of each other. Or a random-dot stereogram. Is it a sailboat, a puppy, two guys with pressure-cooker bombs or just an unintelligible mess of dots? You try to figure it out.

via Opinion: Why FBI and CIA didn’t connect the dots – CNN.com.

Before we start blaming agencies for failing to stop the Boston bombers, and before we push “intelligence reforms” that will shred civil liberties without making us any safer, we need to stop seeing the past as a bunch of obvious dots that need connecting.

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Dens of Bureaucracy

Posted on April 27, 2013 by mea

It has been estimated that drug related crimes currently account for roughly one third of the U.S. prison population. At the same time, prescription drug sales continue to skyrocket, with a particularly sharp increase over the past decade (up by about 250 percent). The distinction between legal and illegal drugs (and the respective bureaucracies that flourished around it) has produced highly lucrative spheres: prisons overwhelmingly populated by drug offenders, a major (primarily U.S.) market for illegal drugs, and, at the same time, an ever-expanding arena of R&D, patenting, and marketing for pharmaceuticals (tested on those desperate enough to enter clinical trials, enjoyed by those able to afford them).

via Dens of Bureaucracy – The New Inquiry.

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Baghdad Burning

Posted on April 12, 2013 by mea

For those of you who have been asking about me and wondering how I have been doing, I thank you. “Lo khuliyet, qulibet…” Which means “If the world were empty of good people, it would end.” I only need to check my emails to know it won’t be ending any time soon.

via Baghdad Burning.

She’s back after 5 1/2 years, her last post on 10/22/2007.   Back during the start of the Iraqi war Riverbend’s blog had insights into life in Baghdad for regular Iraqis during the invasion.   Her blog was very well written and descriptive.  Her last post in 2007 mentioned how she had to escape Baghdad to Syria and then that was it.  I feared something happened to her.  Today google news alerts sent me an email that she’s active once again and still alive.  That made me happy.  From the masthead of her blog:

… I’ll meet you ’round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend…

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Will Ware be stuck with the bill?

Posted on April 1, 2013 by mea

As the civil rights historian Taylor Branch put it in his landmark analysis of the NCAA, “the real scandal is the very structure of college sports, wherein student-athletes generate billions of dollars for universities and private companies while earning nothing for themselves.” Those players are treated as worse than mere commodities — because at least commodities are given a financial value. They are treated as indentured servants, who do not get their fair share of the revenues and who can be discarded if they dare get hurt doing a job for the very school that refuses to guarantee them a full college education.

via Will Ware be stuck with the bill? – Salon.com.

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4-Billion-Pixel Panorama From Curiosity Rover Brings Mars to Your Computer Screen

Posted on March 29, 2013 by mea


Mars Gigapixel Panorama – Curiosity rover: Martian solar days 136-149 in The World

After several technical glitches shut down operations for a while, Curiosity resumed its science investigations earlier this week. Before the shutdown, the rover had been hard at work drilling into the Martian surface and discovering excellent evidence that the planet was once a place that could have hosted life. Though the probe is back up and running, it will be ceasing operations for a while beginning in April, when Earth and Mars are on opposite sides of the sun, which can mess with communications.

Via 4-Billion-Pixel Panorama From Curiosity Rover Brings Mars to Your Computer Screen | Wired Science | Wired.com.

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