The media leaked it 23 years ago that we were cracking terrorist communications with Iran.

And then the terrorists stopped their chattering. And then 241 Marines died in the barracks bombing.

Goldstein writes: “surely the terrorists must have known we were listening in on them. That’s what our spy agencies do, after all.”

Bill Keller's and the left's collective defense -- of course the terrorists know we're watching their money transfers, etc. -- is absurd and dishonest.

All terrorists -- and all criminals, frankly -- know the CIA (or FBI, or local cops) are always trying to bug their offices, capture their cell-phone transmissions, watch their hideouts, photograph them, trail them, etc. The "of course they know" defense would suggest that all terrorists, and all criminals, should and do stay indoors 24 hours per day, seven days a week, and do nothing criminal at all, because of course they know we're trying to catch them, and a rational response to this state of affairs would be to give up all criminal activity whatsoever.

But they don't.

So what gives?

Well, the key word is obviously trying. Terrorists and criminals of course know we're trying a hundred different methods of monitoring, tracking, shadowing, and apprehending them, but they don't know, until someone tells them, which methods are actually working.

A criminal or terrorist faces a hundred risks per day. But some of these are low risks, some are moderate risks, some are high risks, and some are very high, possibly deadly, risks.

Of course they know that virtually anything they do exposes them to some risk. But how much? Which activities and methods of movement or plotting or bomb-building are relatively safe, and which are relatively dangerous? This they don't know.

One of the main functions of counterintelligence is to determine what the enemy knows about our spying, and which of our spies are in jeopardy, and which of ou spies can operate more freely. Which drop points are compromised, and which are still safe. What safe houses are indeed still safe, and which are being watched by the intelligence aparatus of the countries they're located in.

Does the New York Times, aka Al Qaeda Intelligence Service, suggest that of course we know the precise intelligence capabilities of our enemies?

Of course we don't.

And, until the AQIS broke the banking suveillance story, neither did Al Qaeda know the precise capabilities of the United States in regard to international electronic money transfers.

Now they do.

Now they know, among the many risks they face, this is a high-risk endeavor and must be avoided at all costs.

This is all so obvious it shouldn't need to be said. But when an arrogant, treasonous organization offers up such transparently dishonest defenses for its reckless partisanship and treasonous communications to the enemy, the obvious needs to be stated.

A Question For The AQIS: Doesn't the "of course they know" defense mean we should stop all sex education in schools?

Consider: Of course they know that all sexual behavior is dangerous. Ergo, there's hardly any reason to explain which sexual behaviors are less dangerous and which are more dangerous. Of course they know all sex behavior is dangerous, therefore there's no good reason to tell kids precisely which behaviors rank where on the danger-spectrum.

Right?

Right. That's what I thought.

The AQIS is now, it seems, urging the strange proposition that Knowlege is not power.

If that's so, why publish any "news" at all? Of course we know everything, right?

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (22)
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Although I scoffed at the story a couple of days ago, it appears that the allegations are true. A man has been arrested in connection with the rape of an Iraqi girl and the murder of her family.

Jawa updates as well. Jawa wrote, intially, that it was statistically certain there had been rapes by soldiers in Iraq, but he had trouble giving credence to this particular tale.

Posted by: Ace at 09:52 AM | Comments (77)
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They didn't just sit around all day braiding friendship bracelets, smoking the peace-pipe, and gettin' all mellow as they discussed the Gaia oversoul.

It turns out -- and frankly, I have trouble believing this -- they were pretty warlike and spent a large amount of their time and resources butchering each other.

Posted by: Ace at 09:46 AM | Comments (23)
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Horse-sex case to be made into a movie. Yup, the guy who had the wrong kind of sex with a horse, and then died from it, is gonna be wearin' gold-plated diapers. In heaven.

Thanks to RLW.

Sci-fi dating service. No, it's not the fornication-transporter from Logan's Run, but it does help lonely geeky morons -- like yourselves -- meet up with other lonely geeky morons to have coffee, see a movie, and compare Bionic Woman paraphrenalia.

The glam shot on the homepage: a milky-white alien with an enormous head. The motto: Love Long and Prosper. The disclaimer: Xenophobia Strictly Prohibited. Welcome to Trek Passions, an online dating site for the science-fiction set.

...

It was after a wildly unsuccessful run with Esquire.com Personals, a paid service affiliated with the men's magazine, that "S" (he asked that his name not be used) sought out Trek Passions. The final straw came when he was rejected by a woman with whom he had nothing in common. "She was the complete and total opposite of me in every way," he confesses. When the self-proclaimed "Spock-like personality" turned out not to be "fashionably ironic," she was disappointed. (He doesn't think his day job as a janitor helped his cause any.)

"S" says that he's been told: "Weird people should date other weird people — the normals don't quite understand."

So one night, after Googling "geek" and "nerd" and "dating," he came across Trek Passions — one of more than 100 niche sites launched in 2004 under the umbrella of a larger service called Passions Network. (Jdate for Jewish singles, considered the yenta of the niche world, goes back to 1997.)

Initially "S" signed up for a number of the free sites, including Nerd Passions and Intellectual Passions. A bit like Goldilocks and her porridge, though, he found Nerd Passions to be "too generic" and Intellectual Passions to be "even more generic." But Trek Passions felt just about right.

"People seem to resonate with that one," he says. "They're more likely to look for people based on" an interest in science fiction.

Set phasers for romance.

I'd like to think of this site as a geek dating service.

Well, it's not that I like to think of it that way, so much as I'm horrified to realize that's what it's become.

Thanks to JackM. of Desolation Row, who's not only a tipster, but also a member, under the DateTrek name of "Captain'sLog69."

Link fixed.

Posted by: Ace at 09:30 AM | Comments (23)
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I wonder if this is true. I don't dismiss it out of hand; it seems plausible enough to me.

A sociological study from Duke and the University of Arizona found that most Americans have only two close confidantes, the New York Times reported Sunday.

With the rise of the Internet, an increase in work hours and long commutes, and technology that discourages face-to-face interaction, the average American's connection to his or her community is weakening, the Times reported from the study.

Americans have been growing much less involved in their communities for years; neighbors are much less friendly with each other than they were 50 years ago. And, anecdotally, it does seem to me that people are tuning each other out for pastimes in which they are physically alone.

I'm not sure if this is cutting out unnecessary small talk with casual acquaintances or losing something important. Or both.

Posted by: Ace at 01:39 PM | Comments (60)
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The Degeneracy of American Conservatism
02 Jul 2006 01:50 pm

This piece of hysterical support for an unlimited executive power in a permanent war [referencing this NRO piece criticizing the SC's Hamdan decision], and contempt for the critical role of the judiciary in a constitutional republic reveals the depth of the rot in the American conservative mind and soul. From conservatism being a political tradition rooted in freedom from government control, and in the checks and balances of a constitutional order, conservatism has now morphed in America into a defense of unfettered executive power, in which all judicial checks are regarded as a form of tyranny. Yes: an executive empowered to be judge, jury, torturer and executioner is no problem. A Court attempting to uphold the constitution, in contrast, is a sign of outrageous tyranny. We truly have passed through the Looking Glass.

Got that?

Now go back and read his deeming of NRO's piece as "hysterical."

As the saying goes, projection isn't just a river in Egypt, Andy.

If life were a 1950's sci-fi movie, Andy would be the woman going all to pieces shrieking "We're all gonna die!" But someone with a big jaw would have slapped the silly bitch out of her hysteria by now.

Thanks to Greg.

Posted by: Ace at 01:33 PM | Comments (34)
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I guess that means that the theaters won't be as full when I rouse myself to see it.

I'm getting a King Kong vibe off the movie.

At least it's not the famously godawful Superman IV: The Quest For Peace, which made moviegoers pine for the excellence and subtlety of Superman III: The Quest For Richard Pryor.

The Agony Booth has written a new review of this old bomb for your enjoyment.

Cannon Films, co-founded by Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, churned out an astonishing amount of B-movie cheese in the '80s. Cannon was famous mostly for Chuck Norris action pictures, Death Wish sequels, and an inordinate number of movies featuring ninjas, but they released everything from Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo to Franco Zeffirelli's Otello. Golan and Globus had no specialty when it came to producing films. If they thought it could make a buck, or help turn Cannon into a "legitimate" studio, they financed it.

Golan and Globus scored a major coup when they got the rights to Superman, and they were eager to put a new film into production. But they knew that no matter what, they had to get Christopher Reeve to play Superman. Any other actor in the role would have seemed like a cheap imitation, and the resulting film would have surely bombed. So they proceeded to use any means necessary to lure Reeve back to the role he had sworn off years ago.

First, they offered him a paycheck comparable to what he had earned on the previous films. Then they offered to produce and release any pet project of his choosing. (That film, Street Smart, came out the same year as Superman IV and garnered Morgan Freeman his very first Oscar nomination.) And lastly, they offered Reeve the opportunity to develop the story for Superman IV. And that would be the true death knell for the Superman franchise.

Reeve was a staunch liberal who had protested the Vietnam War, been an activist for environmental causes, and lobbied for funding in the arts. Unfortunately, he was also the kind of liberal that conservatives love to pick on: the wide-eyed, naïve kind, who thinks all the world needs now is love, sweet love, and all we have to do to bring about peace in our lifetimes is link hands, smile on your brother, and sing songs 'round the campfire.

Reeve couldn't turn down Cannon's offer, of course. And finally given the opportunity to create his own story for the character he had portrayed so memorably, he made the ill-fated choice of turning Superman into a crusader for Reeve's own liberal agenda.

Eeesh. I remember interviews with Chris Reeve in which he proudly told of his shaping of the story of Superman IV, and how he had always had his "fingers in the pot" unofficially for past movies. I can only take that to mean he was responsible for a lot of the bad parts of Superman through Superman III, because, really, have you seen Superman IV?

Thanks to Asher for the review tip. A lot of good reviews of very bad movies on that site.

Posted by: Ace at 09:38 AM | Comments (38)
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An attack on the New York Times is a stealth attack on Jews. Because, um, Jews live in New York.

An attack on Nancy Pelosi is a stealth attack on gays because gays live in her district of San Fransisco.

Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

Posted by: Ace at 03:19 PM | Comments (74)
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