The World's Most Expensive Muffler Shop Waiting Room
This Washington Post series about the rampant growth of the private/public intelligence enterprise since 9/11 drops few investigative bombshells on its first day, but this picture is worth a thousand words:
(Photo: Melina Mara / The Washington Post)
I don't have a television handy, but the current CNN home page includes reports on a rise in stingray attacks and the Silly Bandz toy bracelet craze. Are there evildoers that will slip past our defenses if someone misses one minute of hairsprayed bloviation? Is this how "dots" get "connected?" By subjecting users of intelligence to the information equivalent of elevator music as they work?
Blasting our intelligence analysts -- already bombarded with more data and reports than they can effectively process -- with seven simultaneous news feeds seems like a stunning bit of institutionalized stupidity. But maybe I'm wrong. I remain open to the possibility that Bin Laden and Zawahiri are still at large only because counter terrorism officials can't see ten antacid commercials at once.
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May '10
Re: The World's Most Expensive Muffler Shop Waiting Room
The point is well-taken, but I've got to say, Matt, if that is the comparison, the muffler shops you frequent are a lot classier than the ones I encounter.
Jun '10
Re: The World's Most Expensive Muffler Shop Waiting Room
We say to our security agencies, we can't do anything to identify the 12-million stowaways in our country, more on the way, we can't ask legal residents to carry a biometric national ID, and when we capture terrorist kingpins, we've told everyone in the world (who can read a newspaper,) these are the precise limits of what we can do to get information out of them. So, security agencies find complicated ways to do what would otherwise be a lot simpler. It's both frightening and predictable. For the heads of the agencies, their necks are still on the line if they fail, no matter how hard we've made their job.
Re: The World's Most Expensive Muffler Shop Waiting Room
Matt Frost: This Washington Post series about the rampant growth of the private/public intelligence enterprise since 9/11 drops few investigative bombshells on its first day [...] the current CNN home page includes reports on a rise in stingray attacks and the Silly Bandz toy bracelet craze. Are there evildoers that will slip past our defenses if someone misses one minute of hairsprayed bloviation? Is this how "dots" get "connected?" By subjecting users of intelligence to the information equivalent of elevator music as they work?
Blasting our intelligence analysts -- already bombarded with more data and reports than they can effectively process -- with seven simultaneous news feeds seems like a stunning bit of institutionalized stupidity. But maybe I'm wrong. I remain open to the possibility that Bin Laden and Zawahiri are still at large only because counter terrorism officials can't see ten antacid commercials at once. ·
Ah, total information awareness: the breeding ground of paranoia as coping mechanism. "Those Silly Bandz are a security risk! They must be, right?" Latent crises, like Yossarians, begin to appear everywhere. But information, as they say, is not knowledge.
They do still say that...right?
May '10
Re: The World's Most Expensive Muffler Shop Waiting Room
James Poulos, Ed.
"Those Silly Bandz are a security risk! They must be, right?" Latent crises, like Yossarians, begin to appear everywhere. But information, as they say, is not knowledge.
They do still say that...right? · Jul 19 at 8:35am
If our intelligence agencies are finding out about youth craze security risks from CNN, then they are definitely behind the curve. I wonder if the CIA is keeping tabs on emerging indie band threats from that bastion of hip, up-to-date culture, Time?
May '10
Re: The World's Most Expensive Muffler Shop Waiting Room
I think there is a natural politician's paranoia about being embarrassed by something in the press. They figure if a shopping mall gets blown up -- cable news will be there first. Wall Street trading rooms look the same way. You can't afford to miss anything. My guess is that they can effectively tune out the stupid stuff. Anyway a few flat screens from Best Buy isn't likely setting the taxpayers back much anyway.
May '10
Re: The World's Most Expensive Muffler Shop Waiting Room
Trace has his 401(k) heavily tied up in Best Buy Preferred....
Re: The World's Most Expensive Muffler Shop Waiting Room
Trace, you think they picked those up from Best Buy? Then I have a full-featured, multi-environment, all-weather hammer I'd like to sell you.