Poindexter may be on the way out after all

Heard on NPR tonight that it's rumored John Contragate Total Information Awareness Terror Futures Poindexter may in fact be clearing out his desk drawers.

My prediction: he'll become a Fox News talking head. They'll trot him out as a security advisor/terrorism expert whenever they need the neocon spin on the latest trampling of the Bill of Rights.

What the President knew and how he knew it

30 years ago, Howard Baker asked "What did the President know and when did he know it?" Now, surviving Nixon crony Jeb Stuart Magruder says that Tricky Dick had intimate knowledge of the Watergate break-in from the beginning--because he personally ordered it.

The question in the eighties was what another Republican President knew and when he knew it. By law, we ought to have learned a bit about Ronald Reagan and the Iran-Contra affair before now, from Presidential papers that should have been released to the public. But George W., alternately citing Executive Privilege and National Security (the traditional twin refuges of potentially embarrassed Republicans), has refused to hand over documents from when Bushdaddy was veep.

Meanwhile, questions about the younger Bush and his buddies continue to pile up. From the hard-drinking, coke-snorting, AWOL-from-the-Guard years he refuses to discuss, to the shady dealings before and after the 2000 election, to the breakdown of security that led to his "lucky trifecta" of 2001, to the blatant lies of 2002 and 2003, there's a lot to be answered for. You have to wonder, 30 or 40 years from now, what the last surviving Bush Leaguers will have to reveal about this President, how much he knew, and how active a hand he had in the abuses, atrocities, and outrages that have characterized his time in office.

Terror market won't open after all

DARPA, its hand forced by overwhelming negative publicity, today closed the so-called Policy Analysis Market before it opened.

Paul Wolfowitz, according to Reuters, told senators that while the Pentagon was supposed to be iaginative, "it sounds like maybe they got too imaginative." (Gee, ya think?)

Sen. John Warner (R-VA) was quoted as saying it was a plan that "might not be a good idea at this time." After meeting with Warner, Anthony Tether of DARPA declared the terror futures market "finished."

Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas (R-KS) said "I think they are way off base and somebody should bear that responsibility."

The program came under the auspices of Bush crony John Poindexter, the formerly convicted (technically acquitted) felon of Contragate and "Total Information Awareness" infamy; but Tether said he saw no reason why Poindexter's would be the head to roll.

He's right. By this time next week, the Bush League will probably have found a way to make the whole thing go away, or better yet, blame it on Bill Clinton.

DARPA plans to funnel assassination money

If someone bet you $10,000 that a brick would not be thrown through your neighbor's front window this weekend, what would you do?

Me, I'd offer my neighbor $1,000 plus repair expenses to let me heave a brick through his window. I'm sure there are plenty of others who wouldn't ask permission.

What if a group of investors were to bet all comers a few million dollars that a particular Mideast government would not fall, or a particular political leader would not be assassinated, within a few months or a year? Wouldn't that be tantamount to offering a bounty?

But that's just the kind of bet that DARPA, The Economist, and Net Exchange are planning to broker. Starting August 1, they're signing up investors in a "futures market" on terror. An Associated Press report says:

The market would work this way. Investors would buy and sell futures contracts — essentially a series of predictions about what they believe might happen in the Mideast. Holder of a futures contract that came true would collect the proceeds of investors who put money into the market but predicted wrong.

A graphic on the market's Web page showed hypothetical futures contracts in which investors could trade on the likelihood that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat would be assassinated or Jordanian King Abdullah II would be overthrown....

Traders who believe an event will occur can buy a futures contract. Those who believe the event is unlikely can try to sell a contract.

So, of course, can those who believe the event is worth a price.

Best of all (from their point of view), the "investors" would be anonymous. Terrorism for hire, with anonymity and deniability for those doing the hiring.

If this were fiction, nobody would publish it; it's too outrageous to be believed, and too stupid to be seriously proposed. Oh, wait--this is the Bush League's America; nothing is too outrageous or too stupid.

Having already spent over half a million dollars on this program, says the AP, the Pentagon has asked for another $3 million next year and $5 million in 2005. And they'll get it, if the House of Representatives has their way.

OK, last time it was two weeks, this time it was two months. I plead temporary insanity. I've been enjoying myself, playing games, playing with the dogs, playing my guitar...fiddling, as it were, while Rome burned.

But, dammit, this stuff is important. And things aren't getting any better in the homeland. The Bush league is still pulling the wool over America's eyes, and for the most part, the press is still colluding by its silence. It's up to us all to make our voices heard.

So I'm back. I apologize for my negligence of the past few months, and pledge not to go AWOL again.