Decius wrote:

The media is a megaphone. Input goes in and is amplified. Its interest is in the dramatic, not the true. Its agents create drama where none exists. Those who are skilled at manipulating the media know how to point it toward favored drama. Those who are unskilled risk being the drama pointed at. The media's focus can bring wealth or recrimination, depending on how it comes. Mastering this is the key to mastering the broadcast society.

Who has displayed their mastery?

"The last topic in this message of mine has to do with the controversy that began a few days ago about the weapons of the resistance."

[...]

"We were surprised that some ministers leaked this topic [of the weapons]- the discussion and the difference of opinions - to several local and Arab TV channels, and thus the dispute and discussion on this began to grow more and more. What should have been a discussion behind closed doors became a public debate, and this, in my opinion, does not serve the national interest, and is totally inappropriate. In any event, I reiterate my call to restore this debate to its natural channels, which are well known."

[...]

"I would like to point out to some of those gentlemen and political groups that shifted the debate to the media and the public domain... I would like to point out some of their mistakes in this matter. First of all, there was a mistake in their timing, both psychologically and morally. In other words, today... Especially since this debate began before the ceasefire, or the so-called 'cessation of hostilities'... Lebanon was being bombed, its infrastructure was destroyed, all the Lebanese areas were hit, all the Lebanese were hit, but most of all the people of South Lebanon, of the Beqa' Valley, and of the southern suburb of Beirut."

[...]

"Do these people have no feelings, no emotions? Can these people possibly be viewed as political leaders with a high level of awareness, devoid of any feelings or emotions? What are they supposed to say and do?

Nasrallah upset about media leaks

"We haven't lost, but we're losing [the war on terror]," says Marc Sageman, the author of "Understanding Terror Networks" and a former CIA case officer who served as a liaison to the Afghan mujahideen in the late 1980s.

"The old Al Qaeda is basically neutralized. Now the danger comes from self-generated groups, they stay at home and they don't need to contact Al Qaeda -- they know what Al Qaeda thinks. So in a way it's more ubiquitous and the theater of operations is now the whole world."

A new generation of jihad seekers

The Hong Kong government has unveiled a plan to use 200,000 young people from organizations like the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides as watchdogs for internet copyright infringement. Many civil liberties advocates question the use of teenagers in state-sponsored law enforcement. While Hong Kong authorities claim that the program encourages good citizenship among a population with a high rate of internet piracy, others compare it to youth-informant programs from China’s Cultural Revolution. The Hong Kong customs agency has no plans for legal action against those who download copyrighted material, yet prescribes criminal penalties for those who provide copyrighted materials to others via file-sharing software. The entertainment industry applauds the program, while other nations express interest in a youth patrol for piracy.

I missed this story when it appeared in NYT ...

Dare Violate a Copyright in Hong Kong? A Boy Scout May Be Watching Online

In case Spc. Ziegler is still reading ...

The number of roadside bombs exploded or found in Iraq rose in July to the highest monthly total since the war began, offering more evidence that the anti-American insurgency has continued to strengthen despite the killing of the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June.

"The insurgency has gotten worse by almost all measures, with insurgent attacks at historically high levels," said a senior Defense Department official who was not authorized to speak for attribution.

The new reports by the military and the intelligence community provide evidence that insurgent attacks and sectarian violence are at their highest levels.

This is a significant rise since the time of expectation that followed parliamentary elections in December.

The bombs planted in July represent a near-doubling from January.

Iraqi bomb numbers paint grim picture

HASSAN NASRALLAH and Ehud Olmert both say they won. But in asymmetrical warfare, the test of victory is asymmetrical too.

Nasrallah wins the war | Economist

HANDY ONE-LINERS FOR SED (Unix stream editor) Apr. 26, 2004 compiled by Eric Pement - pemente[at]northpark[dot]edu version 5.4

This puts the K in K-rad.

SED one-liners

The Department of Homeland Security Institute for Discrete Sciences is a research institute focused on select topics in data sciences, discrete simulation, and discrete mathematics. These topics, collectively labeled "discrete sciences," represent enabling computational technologies for present and future challenges in homeland security.

Vision: A tightly coupled partnership harnessing the characteristic strengths of select national laboratories, universities, and industrial partners in discrete sciences R&D for homeland security.

Mission: Enable scalable, integrated simulation and information analyses for science-based threat characterization and response while creating a human and institutional plant for discrete sciences technology.

Worth a look ...

Institute for Discrete Sciences

Decius recently asked:

What the hell is this world coming to?

Well, it's coming to this: in Britain, at least, being a feminist probably means you're also pro-Hezbollah.

The peace movement lost a foe in Reagan but has gone on to find new friends in today’s Stop the War movement. Women pushing their children in buggies bearing the familiar symbol of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament marched last weekend alongside banners proclaiming “We are all Hezbollah now” and Muslim extremists chanting “Oh Jew, the army of Muhammad will return.”

For Linda Grant, the novelist, who says that “feminism” is the one “ism” she has not given up on, it was a shocking sight: “What you’re seeing is an alliance of what used to be the far left with various Muslim groups and that poses real problems. Saturday’s march was not a peace march in the way that the Ban the Bomb marches were. Seeing young and old white women holding Hezbollah placards showed that it’s a very different anti-war movement to Greenham. Part of it feels the wrong side is winning.”

As a supporter of the peace movement in the 1980s, I could never have imagined that many of the same crowd I hung out with then would today be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with militantly anti-feminist Islamic fundamentalist groups, whose views on women make western patriarchy look like a Greenham peace picnic. Nor would I have predicted that today’s feminists would be so indulgent towards Iran, a theocratic nation where it is an act of resistance to show an inch or two of female hair beneath the veil and whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is not joking about his murderous intentions towards Israel and the Jews.

On the defining issue of our times, the rise of Islamic extremism, what is left of the sisterhood has almost nothing to say. Instead of “I am woman, hear me roar”, there is a loud silence, punctuated only by remonstrations against Tony Blair and George Bush — “the world’s number one terrorist” as the marchers would have it.

Wimmin at War

Rattle wrote:

It seems that the key factor was cooperation between intelligence agencies in multiple countries.

Or, as Brian Ross put it to Charlie Rose (jump to around 6:40):

Ross: The US was brought in; the US was asked to use its elaborate electronic eavesdropping apparatus to run checks on the phone calls and the bank transfers, which I am told were _very_ helpful.

Rose: One more argument for the Bush administration in terms of --

Ross: well, it is, they do have that ability. Generally, what happens is, we spy on the British, and the British spy on our citizens. We exchange information, [and] nobody breaks their own laws.

RE: Big Talk, Little Will | Thomas Friedman | NYT

The disconnects between headline and article were just too great not to pass along. You'll forgive the sarcasm.

Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, of Multinational Force Iraq, said operations in and around Baghdad are designed to reduce murders, kidnappings, assassinations, terrorism and sectarian violence in the capital.

My, what lofty goals you have! Who needs kindergarten and women's rights when you can have a 50% reduction in the assassination rate?! Honestly!

Caldwell said the core conflict in the country has changed from an insurgency to a sectarian struggle.

In other words, the sovereign central government is firmly enmeshed in a civil war. "Keep up the good work!," says Caldwell. "Our job here is almost done."

Shiite death squads and Sunni terrorists in Baghdad are locked in a mutually reinforcing cycle of sectarian strife, Caldwell said.

If you look at my chart here, you'll see it's clear that both targeted assassinations and random violence are strongly on the rise over the last six months, and our analysts expect this trend to continue into the fourth quarter.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has launched a propaganda campaign that seeks to portray the terror group as a legitimate political organization and an alternative to the legitimate, democratically elected government of Iraq, Caldwell said.

You know, like Hamas and Hezbollah.

However, the group does not protect citizens, but kills them.

Ah, the old bait and switch. How many election cycles does it take to learn that everyone breaks their campaign promises?

Al Qaeda in Iraq is still bringing in foreign fighters to randomly kill innocent Iraqis.

If only we could get them to do something productive; we could certainly use the cheap immigrant labor. But it turns out these foreign fighters are rather lazy; they make a few killings, and then they think they're entitled to sit around all day sipping tea and reading classic literature.

The group has encouraged sectarian violence and sees it as a road to civil war.

Those fools! Here they are trying to build a road, and I've just told you we're already there! Why can't they see that?

Coalition Officials See Positive Trend in Baghdad | DefenseLink