http://www.slugsite.com Random musings on history, politics and more Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:11:19 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Piracy off the coast of Somalia shows no signs of going away any time soon - in part because nobody can apparently be bothered to take any effective measures against them. I was discussing the recent news reports about the pirates last week with a friend, and we came ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/908 Back in July, I wrote about an implementation of the TOR router that can be used from pretty much anywhere you have internet access. At the time, I wrote that I was having problems getting Privoxy to work. I figured out the problem a few days later, but ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/906 The intelligence community (IC) can't agree on what intelligence is or isn't, but they generally agree that analysis is a process that can be taught. Right now, it's fashionable to emphasize the nearly endless number of trendy "though processes" that people have dreamed up. Apparently - or so ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/905 Amid reports today that an American radar system is being set up in Israel, it's hard not to suspect that there's more to the story than meets the eye. The Israeli news, like Haaretz, are describing the system as being "meant to augment Israel's defenses against Iranian ground-to-ground missiles". ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/904 The situation in Somalia involving a Ukrainian freighter loaded with tanks and other weapons seized by pirates last week is continuing to develop in interesting ways; the U.S. Navy presence seems to be growing - as the Voice of America reports, there are now an "unspecified number" of both destroyers ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/903 The U.S. Coast Guard this week listed its criteria for considering individuals or organizations as "journalists" - at least for the purpose of Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, fees. Perhaps surprisingly, at least to some, they take a fairly hard-line approach to the issue, and do not automatically ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/901 A couple days ago, I pointed out some farcical attempts by the USAF to conceal the location of the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, who are deployed at "an undisclosed air base in Southwest Asia" - actually Al Udied, in Qatar. I believed - and still largely believe - that ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/900 From England comes the fairly amazing details of that country's metal-theft problems - an international crime ring costing authorities around a million dollars a month - and one relatively novel idea for tackling manhole cover theft: making covers and grates out of plastic, which has very, very little value - ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/899 Over the weekend, I was browsing the Air Force Central news website, when I came across an interesting set of human-interest photos of a Senior Airman painting the logo of the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing on "one of two new barriers located in front of the distinguished visitors lounge" at ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/898 Robin Moore, author of the classic special-forces book "The Green Berets" (and co-author of the "Ballad of the Green Berets"), died in February of this year. With much patience and wrangling, I managed to get a copy of, well, at least parts of his FBI file. Some of ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/897 Today, a potpourri of random military stuff, spanning the 1950s to the near future (sorry, time travel not included). For starters, Wikileaks have an interesting powerpoint on security measures in Secure Classified Intelligence Facilities, or SCIFs. Perhaps not the most interesting thing ever, but there are still some ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/896 Today, another FBI document recently released as part of a much larger collection of "stuff" by The Government Attic. As with yesterday's releases, it's extracted from one of the much larger PDF files found here. While yesterday's stuff was concerned with political trivia from the '50s, today's is ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/895 The Government Attic website in the past day or two posted a staggering 342 megabytes of what are described, ostensibly, as records from the FBI concerning the transfer of older Bureau records to the National Archives for preservation. That is in part true, especially of the later documents; much ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/894 Odds are, if you're reading this, you're at least somewhat familiar with reasonably modern technology. The many of you who will read this via RSS feed, or on a Blackberry, iPhone, or PDA, are probably a bit more cutting-edge. Still, if you, like me, are able to appreciate ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/893 In the intelligence community, it seems sometimes as if for every piece of tradecraft or analytic trick of the trade, there are about a dozen cognitive traps or pitfalls for the unwary. For those on the intelligence end of things, this is just one of life's little annoyances; for ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/892 Wikileaks, the love-em-or-hate-em publishers and pushers of previously-unreleased goodies, recently - with little fanfare - made available a handful of Army "Criminal Intelligence Summaries" from the heady, paranoid post-9/11 days of early 2002. They're very interesting, not just in what they contain, but in all the other government intelligence ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/891 Now that the RNC is over with, and I've caught up on both sleep and the coverage of it, there are a couple things that surprise me about the military support to the security efforts. For the most part, these are the absence of things I expected to see ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/890 Normally, I create documents in OpenOffice, format as necessary, and then export as a PDF file. It's easy, it's simple, and except for a few little annoyances - like a handful of fonts that don't show up correctly in PDFs - it works pretty well. Sometimes, especially for work, I ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/889 Yep, I survived the RNC. (They ought to sell t-shirts with that on 'em, don't you think?) I even managed to do so without getting pepper sprayed, tear gassed, hit with an "impact round", blinded or disoriented by a flashbang grenade, or arrested. Nobody got killed, the ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/888 This will probably be my last "real" post before the RNC is over with; work is starting to get a little too hectic, and since I work at a computer, the last thing I'm really inclined to do is spend more time posting stuff to "the tubes". Sorry; it's ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/887 A week ago, the Minnesota chapter of the ACLU said they were unaware of any temporary detention facilities being prepared for the RNC. Well, there is one - and it helps explain why Ramsey County's Sheriff Bob (Fletcher) is getting tens of thousands for his jail. But before ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/886 Look! Random stuff that has (almost) nothing to do with the Republican National Convention! I'd like to point out here - this being as good as any a place to do so - that Entropic Memes will probably be on hiatus from roughly 27 August to 8 September, thanks to ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/885 Look! Stuff that has nothing to do with self-professed anarchists! :) American pilot - who happens to be a convert to Islam - sues government for placing him on a watch list; government responds that "religious and political affiliation does not impact" ones' inclusion on such a list. Don't you ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/884 A post just up on the generally more reasonable Minnesota Independent website covers the "lies" and distortions the so-called "corporate media" are supposedly spreading about the anarchists here in the Twin Cities to try and disrupt the RNC. The only problem is, author Andy Birkey made the mistake of ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/883 So, if you've been following the preparations for the Republican National Convention here in Saint Paul, you probably know that there are questions about the number of officers needed to maintain law and order during the event. The Saint Paul Police are coming in for some criticism over staffing ... http://www.slugsite.com/archives/882