jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:

In article <3F2AEF13.106FCF9F@hate.spam.net>,
Uncle Al <UncleAl0@hate.spam.net> wrote:

Sam Wormley wrote:

WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 1 Aug 03 Washington, DC

(Andrew Essin contributed to this issue of What's New.)

1. THE POINDEXTER FILE: WOULD ANYONE CARE TO BET ON HIS FUTURE?
An $8M Pentagon plan to set up a futures market in Middle Eastern
developments was hastily scrapped when it was met with derision
and revulsion. Called the Policy Analysis Market, the plan was
to base intelligence judgements on betting patterns. Uh fellas,
the alleged predictive value of futures activity is merely a sign
of illegal insider trading.

[snip]

Hell yes! It was a brilliant move - and not just for being a Delphi
experiment. Poindexter would use anomalous market movement to track
and trace insider information. The assumption is that bandits are too
stupid to keep it in their pants, certainly when money is involved.

This assumption is why I think Poindexter has reality filters.
These terrorists aren't studid people. To have the scheme detect
any pattern would require members in the lower levels of the
organizations to know what the plans are. Based on how the
orgs are split up into cells of 6-8 people and the fact that
the "workers" aren't ever told what is going down, there wouldn't
any betting from the "workers". So now, assuming upper management
is going to bet, the detection system has interpolate from one or
two data points. I don't see how it could work at all.

They are playing out of a Marxist casebook. They are no more capable
of erecting an effective terrorist empire than a stiff-necked MBA can
build a successful company.

..The bottom operatives are pitiful.
Capture of middle and upper management shows they are pitiful too.
Money must flow and all of it is punctiliously traceable.

..There are
280 million poeple resident in the US. Delete all but Muslims and
ethnic ragheads and that is your raw surveillance database. It's a
modest assignment for a competent police force, and therefore a
massively impossible undertaking for the FBI.

Prior to 11 September they worked out in the open with little attempt
to disguise anything. More to the point, US intelligence gathering
had the whole plot in its disjointed hands as each *****-ant
bureaucracy jealously guarded its isolated and therfore useless
fragments of information. We are 911.

Do you want to quash the sand niggers?

..Forge a threat to the
President's life and have the Secret Service cut loose. I doubt there
would be any conspiracy remaining at all after 30 days. Ship the
whole lot to Gitmo and wring them dry, run the bodies through a wood
chipper, dehydrate, weight and bail, then dump at sea.

.. Put the
military in charge and deny everything. Sometime later a series of
major disasters would strike foreign dignitaries, concentrating on
mysterious disappearance of huge hoards of personal wealth via
hacking. Be smart enough to strike at the head of the beast.

In sci.physics,

In article <coutv-00p.ln1@lexi2.athghost7038suus.net>,
The Ghost In The Machine <ewill@sirius.athghost7038suus.net> wrote:

In sci.physics, Uncle Al
<UncleAl0@hate.spam.net>
wrote
on Fri, 01 Aug 2003 15:52:03 -0700
<3F2AEF13.106FCF9F@hate.spam.net>:

Sam Wormley wrote:

WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 1 Aug 03 Washington, DC

(Andrew Essin contributed to this issue of What's New.)

1. THE POINDEXTER FILE: WOULD ANYONE CARE TO BET ON HIS FUTURE?
An $8M Pentagon plan to set up a futures market in Middle Eastern
developments was hastily scrapped when it was met with derision
and revulsion. Called the Policy Analysis Market, the plan was
to base intelligence judgements on betting patterns. Uh fellas,
the alleged predictive value of futures activity is merely a sign
of illegal insider trading.

[snip]

Hell yes! It was a brilliant move - and not just for being a Delphi
experiment. Poindexter would use anomalous market movement to track
and trace insider information. The assumption is that bandits are too
stupid to keep it in their pants, certainly when money is involved. A
giant of a man was nibbled to death by ducks.

[snip]

Uncle Al says, "The average person has an IQ of 100. At least half of
all people are too stupid to make rational informed decisions."

It may have been a brilliant idea tactically, to lure the terrorists
out into the open. It was a very stupid idea politically, given
the current climate.

A pity, for we could use an easy method to get the terrorists
out of our hair. Of course, that's one of the risks: the easy
methods could be employed by our enemies, too.

I'll admit I wonder what the terrorists see in terror.

Added in with clever use of PR (declaration of the "poor me"s),
it's an effective tactic. Annoying enough to make life miserable
and expensive but not blatant enough to convince Europe and
the USSR that complete retaliation is required. Russia is the
curious one in this group. And everybody seems to forget about
China.

We sure did, in the First Korean War. (I sure hope there's
not a Second. :-) )

..There are
many issues here, from simple envy to outright hatred at the
abandonment of the muhajadeen after the collapse of the USSR.

I know what I'd want: more money, more recognition. I'm not
sure I'd want it at that cost.

The goal is complete control and revenge. The last one absolves
all responsibility for one's actions and the consequences.

Hmm...yes. The Taliban did want to control just about everything,
and weren't above smashing things they didn't like to do so
(e.g., those historic statues).

But, as Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) once said: "The more
you tighten your grip the more will slip through your fingers."

(Star Wars IV: A New Hope)

(I can't think of a more authoritative reference right now. :-) )