perfidy

Begging to Differ notes a norbizness post that references this Time Magazine article about this email*.

The email was sent to Pentagon staff in the wake of Fox News' posting of the Taguba Report (detailing prisoner abuses at the Abu Gharaib prison by people who really should have known better). It exhorted Pentagon staffers NOT to download the Taguba Report from FOX News, where it was available to read to anyone in the world with access to an internet connection, and in fact was being downloaded by everyone and their dog at at exact moment, because.... wait for it.... the memo is still classified. So if you work for the DoD, just remember, just because a memo has been read by millions of people worldwide doesn't mean it's not still secret!

Snuh?

The email reads, in part,

From: Information Services Customer Liaison, ISD
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 12:45 PM
To: MLA dd - USD(I) - ALL; MLA dd - NII ALL
Subject: URGENT IT BULLETIN: Tugabe Report (FOUO)
Importance: High

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

AUDIENCE
All ISD Customers

SUMMARY
Fox News and other media outlets are distributing the Tugabe report (spelling is approximate for reasons which will become obvious momentarily). Someone has given the news media classified information and they are distributing it. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED. ALL ISD CUSTOMERS SHOULD:

1) NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY
2) NOT comment on this to anyone, friends, family etc.
3) NOT delete the file if you receive it via e-mail, but
4) CALL THE ISD HELPDESK AT 602-2627 IMMEDIATELY

This leakage will be investigated for criminal prosecution. If you don't have the document and have never had legitimate access, please do not complicate the investigative processes by seeking information. Again, THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED; DO NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY.

I especially love the advice on how to cope with dealing with this no longer secret yet still very classified report in four easy steps.

And whatever you do, for God's sake, do NOT visit FOX NEWS DOT COM. (EVER.)

* ain't the internet grand?!?

[wik] Commenters below have now broken the LAW a combined... lessee... 11 times. And counting. Oops-- thirteen.

Traitorous eggheads at the New York university have succeeded in creating tiny robots made of DNA, and only 10 nanometers long. (10 nanometers is, in human terms, really, really goddamn small.) These robots are so small, we probably couldn't even kill them. And to me, that is a major defect in their design. At least we'd have a chance against the giant fighting robots...

Go here to make your own Mr. Picassohead!
 

Haw!

A cheap-ass pun merely to inform you that Major League Baseball has decided, after fan outcry, that Spider-Man bases are a no-go. The rest of the promotion will go off as planned but the bases, the perfect white diamonds that in their perfection are perfect miniatures of the perfect greater diamond they define, and whose perfect presence is the reason for the (perfect) game in the first place in all its hallowed glory and perfection yea forever and e'er amen, will not be touched.

Damn straight.

KOS puts the cost of the war in perspective.

Key figures: Cost of War in Iraq (so far): $149 Billion. Cost of all law enforcement in the United States, including police, prisons and courts, is $167 Billion.

So when it comes to making Americans safer, where should we be spending our money?

If I know Bush (and I don't), then I know what's coming -- a tax cut!!!. What better time could there possibly be for a heavy tax cut for the wealthy, again? No time like now! Stupid socialists! Don't you know that if we give the wealthiest people in this country yet another tax cut, it will...well...turn out...better....for them? And maybe their heirs...but...you could marry into one of their rich families and then you'd be better off...and then everyone can do that! Yay!

Bush likes having his cake and his turkey, and he wants to eat them both.

This Presidency is turning out to be the biggest scam ever perpetrated on the American people.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Bush was reportedly upset that he learned of the extent of the prisoner abuses and saw the incriminating photographs by watching "60 Minutes II" last week, with no advance warning. He is also reported to be upset with Rumsfeld that the Pentagon had not acted on recommendations that Iraqi prison conditions be improved. All eyes will be on Rumsfeld Saturday when he testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

That is an absolutely astonishing quote. What it means that Bush's team keeps key decision-making information from the President. They're either doing it because they have bad judgement, they're incompetent, or they're doing it deliberately. Take your pick.

Which makes me wonder: Exactly what else has Bush not been told? If we take a "delegating", CEO-style President who relies on and trusts the opinions of his inner circle and then combine that with an inner circle that is less than candid with their President, it starts to explain a hell of a lot about the continuing policy screwups of this administration.

My gut feel is that his inner circle people are not "bad people". My gut feel is that his inner circle people are gamblers. They don't know what's going to happen as a result of their policies, and they're willing to take the risk. They present to the President scenarios and characterize them as fact, when they are in fact supposition. I suspect that this behavior is not limited to the inner circle; it likely pervades the political structure in this White House.

Can anyone else apply Occam's Razor and find a simpler answer?

Yesterday I went to one of those office farewell parties where everyone stands around gabbing and snacking and some nebbish has to go without cake. The snacks were the usual fare, nachos and a taco dip, desserts and drinks, except for the pork rinds. Pork rinds! For the life of me I couldn't imagine what pork rinds had to do with the apparently faux-Southwestern culinary theme the rest of the eats had going on, nor could I see a connection between pork rinds and a degree in Poetry, which is what my departing cow-orker is leaving to pursue.

So I asked. "Why the heck are these nummy pork rinds here?" The answer I got: "No carbs. Atkins friendly."

Take a minute to let that sink in. No carbs. Atkins friendly.

I look upon the Atkins craze with grave suspicion and faint disdain, and view the new food-industry embrace of it as sheer lunacy. Low carb beer! Low carb bread. Low carb effing cheese! Moreover, many people seem to take Atkins' dietary rules as license to eat as much steak with a side of cheese as they can get, to the exclusion of such delicious low-carb alternatives as green vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. The entire Atkins industry is more than a little ludicrous.

No offense to those hardy souls who have enthinned themselves at Atkins' knee, but if you need more proof that the Atkins diet in the popular interpretation is the fad-diet peer of alchemy, orgones, EST, the jackalope, and the extended warranty, consider this: Pork rinds are now a health food.

I guess I should expect that Orgasmatron any day now.

A woman I work with, her husband, and I were thinking about cool names for punk bands the other day. Here's what we came up with; feel free to add your own or modify, fold, spindle or mutilate those listed. Favorites among those who have seen the list are "Changing Table" and "Practice Head" (from a King of the Hill episode)

The list:
1. Helper Monkey
2. Killing Timmy
3. Bronx Science
4. Practice Head
5. Mister Furley
6. Regime Change
7. Chandra Levy
8. Neutral Drop
9. Attention Shoppers
10. Changing Station
11. Fen-Phen
12. Monkey's Double
13. Buhrka Assasins
14. Full Release
15. Chechen Rebels
16. Jonestown Mazzacerz
17. Dangling Babies
18. Stem Sleeper Cell
19. DC SniperZ
20. Boxcutter
21. Guarini Gorilla
22. Nylo Bone
23. Aunt Nancy
24. Peacewrecker
25. Pray for Mojo
26. Cracker Factory
27. Musing Meme (for your cerebral punks)
28. Sickle Cell
29. Fisted Nurse
30. Pony Rode Hard
31. Every Swingin' Richard

And for some local flavor:
1. Tom Bevacqua's Hairpiece
2. Turnpike-Fuckpipe

LOOSE wire quotes Microsoft's and Yahoo's answer to questions about their use of email content to deliver "targetted" advertising. My thought of the day is this: google is big. Microsoft is big. The various content-oriented ad companies seem to be pretty capable.

Why doesn't google allow me to set ad preferences? I am fifty times more likely to click an ad for, say, a computer component, than I am for Sean Hannity's latest campfire-starter. Why doesn't the google toolbar, in particular, do this? (By the way, if you use IE, you need the google toolbar; perfect popup blocking).

I have no problems with ads being on the sites I visit. The reason their click through rates are so low is that they keep showing me stupid ads for crap I am not interested in . Sometime in the year 2029 this is going to sink in for these idiots.

So how do we fix this? Simple. Every PC in the universe, practically, has Flash on it. So let's start there, as a tech base. "Generic" advertisers (those who are paid by others to show ads on their site, who do not direct content), simply insert a link to a little Flash code, wherever they want an ad. That Flash code can connect to a server and pull in generic ads, or do content-driven advertising. So far so good. The bottom of that little Flash ad can contain "Interested" and "Not Interested" buttons, which can be used to influence further ad delivery. It can also link to a more complex UI (possibly manifested right inline), that allows more precise selection of general topic areas.

None of this particularly requires Flash, of course, but it can be made very unobtrusive by using it (as in, no web page alterations). None of this is particularly original, either. I am just completely mystified as to why a user's basic interests are not taken into account, and the only conclusion I can come up with is that it's been poor usability and functionality that has prevented it from really taking off.

Imagine how much more effective advertising would be if it operated the same way that Amazon's ratings do. You can click on "I already own it", or "not interested", and have a much higher chance of seeing something that you ARE interested in...

You know George Will, serious conservative political commentator. His latest in the Post, Time for Bush to See The Realities of Iraq, demonstrates the uncertainty yet another serious conservative has about this administration. The current leadership's hard line has real costs associated with it. Their no-fault, no-error, no-problem monoposition causes real damage, and has real consequences.

Will:

This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts. Thinking is not the reiteration of bromides about how "all people yearn to live in freedom" (McClellan). And about how it is "cultural condescension" to doubt that some cultures have the requisite aptitudes for democracy (Bush). And about how it is a "myth" that "our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture" because "ours are not Western values; they are the universal values of the human spirit" (Tony Blair).

"Thinking is not the reiteration of bromides" is definitely my quote of the day. George Bush's bizarre, bumper-sticker solutions to complex, real-world problems have damaged this country for a generation or more, economically and culturally.

Which brings me to this point: One of the most important reasons to vote for John Kerry this fall is an unfortunate, indirect one. The election of Kerry represents a real opportunity for America to reset itself in global culture. A voter rejection of Bush's policies will be seen by the rest of the world as demonstrative of the true nature of the citizenry; quarter will be given, and success is dramatically more likely.

Can this country really afford to bury itself under four more years of faith-based government?

During Spider-Man(R) 2 Weekend, which has been scheduled during a segment of the 2004 Major League Baseball Interleague Play schedule, ballparks will feature in-park and on-field Spider-Man(R) signage and each Club will feature special Spider-Man(R) promotional events, including giveaways with the
world-renowned web crawler. In addition, highlights from Spider-Man(R) 2 will run on stadium video boards to promote the motion picture's June 30 release. Major League Baseball Properties and the 15 participating Clubs will promote Spider-Man(R) 2 Weekend locally in each market and nationally.

Muckracker Matt Drudge translates.

In a move that has purists howling, Major League Baseball has agreed to decorate its bases -- and pitching-mound rubbers and on-deck circles -- with a spider-web pattern as part of a promotion for the release of Sony Corp.'s "Spider-Man 2" next month.

The superhero sequel is set to open in theaters June 30. "`Spider-Man 2' Weekend" will start Friday, June 11, and all 15 MLB teams playing at home have agreed to participate for one or more games, the WALL STREET HOURNAL reported on Wednesday.

The deal is baseball's latest attempt to develop a splashier national marketing image. "In an ultracompetitive sports-entertainment environment, you have to take risks," says Tim Brosnan, MLB's executive vice president for business.

Count me among the howlers. Tacky, tacky, tacky.