Peter Principle

This weekend, on A Prairie Home Companion, Randy Newman performed “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country”.

A President once said,
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”

Now it seems like we’re supposed to be afraid
It’s patriotic in fact and color coded

And what are we supposed to be afraid of?
Why, of being afraid

That’s what terror means, doesn’t it?
That’s what it used to mean

Computer security expert Bruce Schneier takes a cynical view of the latest “terrorist” plot on JFK: Portrait of the Modern Terrorist as an Idiot

The recently publicized terrorist plot to blow up John F. Kennedy International Airport, like so many of the terrorist plots over the past few years, is a study in alarmism and incompetence: on the part of the terrorists, our government and the press.Terrorism is a real threat, and one that needs to be addressed by appropriate means. But allowing ourselves to be terrorized by wannabe terrorists and unrealistic plots — and worse, allowing our essential freedoms to be lost by using them as an excuse — is wrong. [...]

This isn’t the first time a bunch of incompetent terrorists with an infeasible plot have been painted by the media as poised to do all sorts of damage to America. In May we learned about a six-man plan to stage an attack on Fort Dix by getting in disguised as pizza deliverymen and shooting as many soldiers and Humvees as they could, then retreating without losses to fight again another day. [...]

The “Miami 7,” caught last year for plotting — among other things — to blow up the Sears Tower, were another incompetent group: no weapons, no bombs, no expertise, no money and no operational skill. And don’t forget Iyman Faris, the Ohio trucker who was convicted in 2003 for the laughable plot to take out the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch. At least he eventually decided that the plan was unlikely to succeed.

I don’t think these nut jobs, with their movie-plot threats, even deserve the moniker “terrorist.” But in this country, while you have to be competent to pull off a terrorist attack, you don’t have to be competent to cause terror. All you need to do is start plotting an attack and — regardless of whether or not you have a viable plan, weapons or even the faintest clue — the media will aid you in terrorizing the entire population.

U.S. Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer

Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who had said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.

But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.

An official of the National Nuclear Security Administration said his agency would review the documents. To the best of his knowledge, he added, none of them had been reviewed by his agency, which is the government’s expert on nuclear secrets.

A classified National Intelligence Estimate confirms what many have suspected: That the war in Iraq, contrary to Administration claims, has increased the threat of terrorism worldwide. The estimate, written last April, is only now becoming public. And it is the first such assessment since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

The estimate’s judgments confirm some predictions of a National Intelligence Council report completed in January 2003, two months before the Iraq invasion. That report stated that the approaching war had the potential to increase support for political Islam worldwide and could increase support for some terrorist objectives.

Thanks to Senator Ted Stevens for his illuminating explanation of how the internet works.

“The Internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck. It’s a series of tubes,” Stevens said during a June 28 committee session.
“And if you don’t understand, those tubes can be filled. And if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material.”
“I just the other day got — an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.”

Nice to know that the head of the Senate Commerce Committee has such a good understanding of technology as they debate “net neutrality” bills.

USA Today – NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls

“We’re not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans,” Bush said….

Lawmakers question collection of phone call records

Hayden, on Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers, told reporters: “All I would want to say is that everything that NSA does is lawful and very carefully done and that the appropriate members of the Congress, the House and Senate, are briefed on all NSA activities, and I think I’d just leave it at that.”

Once again, Comedy Central has done what mainstream reporters are apparently too timid to do: speak truth to power. Stephen Colbert delivered an amazing routine at annual White House Correspondents Dinner. Apparently the head of the Press Club had never watched the Colbert Report. Because Colbert’s performance was completely unexpected by everyone in attendance.

They usually hire a mainstream comedian to do some good-natured ribbing of the President and press corp. It’s all mild, chummy and light hearted. This year they hired a Bush impersonator, who got a lot of laughs imitating Bush’s mannerisms.

Then they brought our Colbert. Like a court jester, he mocked the administration and press alike, with ironic humor. And in the process, he delivered a scathing, pointed roast of the Bush administration policies, its hypocracy, and numerous failures. All with the President sitting 8 feet away. Some of the humor fell flat. Some just provoked nervous laughter from the Washington insiders. But it was an incredibly brave performance. “Like watching a tightrope walker without a net” according to one commentator.

In the persona of the right-wing ideologue he plays on the Colbert Report, Colbert professed his love for the president, and his disdain for the “liberal media”. And point by point, he highlighted the administration’s worst mistakes of the past 6 years.

“Now I know there’s some polls out there saying this man has a 32-percent approval rating,” Mr. Colbert said a few moments later. “But guys like us, we don’t pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking ‘in reality.’ And reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

He talked about the quagmire in Iraq, the NSA wiretapping scandals, the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina, and the Valerie Plame affair. But more than that, he emphasized George Bush’s worst character flaw – how the President seems to come to a decision based on instinct, and then stubbornly hold to that decision in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

“The greatest thing about this man is he’s steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man’s beliefs never will.” (Transcript courtesy Daily Kos).

Over the past few weeks, the Colbert speech has become one of the most popular video downloads on the internet. The usually quiet CSPAN site, known for mind-numbingly boring coverage of congressional speeches, has had to cope with a sudden spike in traffic.