This might not be self-evident to some, so a study has been done to prove the point:
Customers of companies which lose credit card data to hackers are voting with their wallets and taking their business elsewhere, suggests a survey.
French reveal more evidence on 9/11
We’ve all known for some time that the French were warning the US about the threat in 2001 of an attack. Now details are emerging that nine months prior to the Trade Center bombing the US intelligence community was told a US airline might be involved. The article in the SFGate tries to emphasize how hard it was for American leaders to make sense of the information:
The warning was another example of how intelligence agents sensed al-Qaida was hard at work in the months leading up to Sept. 11 but were unable to piece together fragmented warnings into a coherent plot.
Le Monde first reported the story Monday as it published excerpts of 328 pages of classified documents from France’s main foreign intelligence agency, the DGSE. One note, dated Jan. 5, 2001, reported that al-Qaida was plotting a hijacking.
Perhaps what is most interesting is that the article leaves out crucial details about other pieces of the puzzle. For example, it does not mention that the French considered Chechen militants terrorists, while the US refused to make the same determination due to political posturing with Russia. It also does not tie in the fact that Greek intelligence (NIS-EYP) uncovered a cartoon depicting planes flying into the twin towers, and finally it does not mention the FBI agents’ attempts to communicate that some suspicious folks (who were considered terrorists by the French, back to my first point) were doing suspicious things and needed to be investigated.
The lesson here should be that the Bush administration failed to heed the information and manage the risk to protect the country with the tools it had available at the time. Anyone can see how bad Bush is at deciding what to do in the face of danger and how he relies on a cabal who refuse to listen to anyone outside their inner circle.
Nowhere does the evidence suggest that wiretap laws needed to be changed or more intelligence would have helped at the time. Wonder why you never hear about that Greek cartoon anymore or why Israeli intelligence was so favored at the time…
Mobile phones suspected in bee colony collapse
I’ve been curious about the bee news for a while, but today’s Independent has the first story that suggests a possible cause for the sudden death of bee colonies across America:
The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.
CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London’s biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.
Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: “There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK.”
The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world’s crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, “man would have only four years of life left”.
Nice Einstein quote, but apparently he actually said something more like “No bees, no food for mankind. The bee is the basis of life on this earth.”
Doesn’t that sound more like something he would say?
Another quote I found (related to an insecticide ban due to sudden death of bees) suggests Einstein said “if bees were to disappear, man would only have a few years to live.” That’s even closer to the Independent but the important thing is that the great relativist is unlikely to have suggested a specific timeline like four years. Surely it depends.
German research has long shown that bees’ behaviour changes near power lines.
Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a “hint” to a possible cause.
Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: “I am convinced the possibility is real.”
I think we are seriously underestimating the environmental impact of radical increases in power and wireless radiation. The question will be how quickly people can move past a state of denial, or a state of shock and anger, in order to reach a period of scientific inquiry and then enlightenment. I suspect some people will focus entirely on what Einstein really said and demand detailed proof and evidence of his exact words, but miss the point of the news and fail to seek any proof and evidence of the exact cause of bee death. Kudos to Landau University for bringing the discussion forward, and to the Independent for covering it, but I am now curious whether companies in the US will move to support the research and find a happy solution or will they take the tobacco/utility approach…
Masters of War
I was listening to a live performance and was shocked to hear a young guy belting out these old Dylan phrases as if they were freshly inked:
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masksYou that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets flyLike Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drainYou fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mudYou’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veinsHow much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you doLet me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soulAnd I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead
Harsh. I think I was expecting something more like Metallica One interpretations from younger generations, but given the Bush administration’s affinity for revisiting mistakes from the 1960s it is easy to see why kids might find poetry of that period most compelling.