Quotulatiousness

September 6, 2010

When “informers” become “enablers”

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Media, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:12

Stephan Salisbury writes that many “foiled” terror plots could never have become actual threats . . . without government assistance:

Informers have by now become our first line of defense in our battles with the evildoers, the go-to guys in the never-ending domestic war on terror. They regularly do the dirty work — suggesting and encouraging the plots, laboring as bag men to move the money, fashioning the bombs, and eliciting the flamboyant dialogue, even while following the scripts of their handlers to the letter. They have attended to all the little details that make for the successful and now familiar arrests, criminal complaints, trials, and (for the most part) convictions in the ever-distracting war against . . . what? Al-Qaeda? Terror? Muslims? The inept? The poor?

The Liberty City Seven, the Fort Dix Six, the Detroit Ummah Conspiracy, the Newburgh Four — each has had their fear-filled day in the sun. None of these plots ever came close to happening. How could they? All were bogus from the get-go: money to buy missiles or cell phones or shoes and fancy duds — provided by the authorities; plans for how to use the missiles and bombs and cell phones — provided by authorities; cars for transport and demolition — issued by the authorities; facilities for carrying out the transactions — leased by those same authorities. Played out on landscapes manufactured by federal imagineers, the climax of each drama was foreordained. The failure of the plots would then be touted as the success of the investigations and prosecutions.

It’s often been observed that war is the health of the state. Can we now also say that the war on terror is the health of the intelligence agency?

H/T to Bruce Schneier for the link.

The start of the Blitz, 1940

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:44

September, 1940: the start of the Blitz:

The London Blitz started quietly. Less than 100 incidents reported by the London Fire Brigade up to 5pm on September 7, 1940. Only a few weeks after the British victory in the Battle of Britain, what came then must have been a terrible shock for Londoners. You can read the original Guardian archive report of the night here.

At 5.30pm, some 348 German bombers escorted by 617 fighters pounded London until 6.00pm. Guided by the flames, a second group attacked with more incendiary bombs two hours later, lasting into the next day.

Note, that link to the Guardian archive is a bit badly behaved: it resized my browser window.

Update: Rare colour footage of the Blitz.

Fifteen albums/fifteen minutes

Filed under: Media, Randomness — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:58

I got tagged with this Facebook meme by David Stamper a little while ago, but I’m only now just getting around to addressing it. Here’s the description I was sent:

The rules: Do this if it’s fun. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums you’ve heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends, including me, because I’m interested in seeing what albums you choose.

So, because I’m too lazy to do it in Facebook, I’m doing it here (eventually, through the magic of Twitter, the link’ll appear in Facebook anyway). Roughly in chronological order:

  • Rush, A Farewell to Kings
  • Al Stewart, Past, Present & Future
  • Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin IV
  • The Alan Parsons Project, Tales of Mystery and Imagination
  • Dire Straits, Dire Straits
  • Kate Bush, Hounds of Love
  • Neil Young, Live Rust
  • Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
  • King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King
  • Kitaro, Silk Road
  • Stan Rogers, Northwest Passage
  • Dead Can Dance, The Serpent’s Egg
  • The Pogues, If I Should Fall From Grace With God
  • John Coltrane, A Love Supreme
  • Charles Mingus, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

I had to take it in chronological order to limit it to only fifteen, so no really recent stuff . . . but perhaps that’s fair as it’ll take time to show if more recent stuff will hold up to long-term listening. Not quite making it onto the list was Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis & Gil Evans.

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