This website does not track you.
It contains no private information. It does not drop persistent cookies, does not collect data other than incoming ip addresses and page views (the internet is a public place), and certainly does not collect and sell your information to others.
Some sites that I link to may try to track you, but that's between you and them, not you and me.
I do collect statistics, but I use a simple stand-alone Wordpress plugin, not third-party services such as Google Analitics over which I have no control.
Finally, this is website is a hobby. It's a hobby in which I am deeply invested, about which I care deeply, and which has enabled me to learn a lot about computers and computing, but it is still ultimately an avocation, not a vocation; it is certainly not a money-making enterprise (unless you click the "Donate" button--go ahead, you can be the first!).
I appreciate your visiting this site, and I desire not to violate your trust.
March 21, 2013 at 3:04 pm
Check the wit and wisdom of Ken Pollack and my old collection of clippings from the media on the run up to war. It’s hard to read without wanting to kill people.
http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2007/03/wit-and-wisdom-of-ken-pollack-much-to.html
I was only reminded of it because of reading the one of many apologies that aren’t apologies that have been running, one by progressive news celebrity Ezra Klein who was a mere college student when the war started. I went off on him as a product of the culture of lickspittle yesterday, justifiably so. Since I, by accident probably, actually got to see some real terrorist intelligence and how it contradicted one claim made by our leaders, I remain angry. The CIA never had to pay a price for being wrong, and being manipulated, so the stuff being written by retired or moved out agents now strikes me as self-serving in the extreme. Just as the people were who engineered the war.
Nothing changed. Things just got worse and worse. The news media, instead of trying to repair itself, simply stopped functioning. When I had some contradictory truth at GlobalSecurity, we tried to take it to the newspapers, notably the New York Times. I was told no thanks. Judy Miller was still an honored citizen. So we had to publish it on the Globalsecurity website, with no support or publicity. Then they cared but it didn’t change anything. American understanding of many of the details still remains horribly damaged.
March 21, 2013 at 5:21 pm
They are hit-and-run drivers who stop, take a look at the wreckage and bodies at the scene, then keep driving and pretend that nothing happened. They did nothing, saw nothing, they weren’t even there, they were in the next room.
March 21, 2013 at 7:33 pm
I got into a rage. I pointed out to John Pike today at GlobalSecurity that 99.8 percent of the people responsible paid no price at all for their horrible conduct, errors and calculating manipulations. In fact, they all kept having it pretty good, even fabulous. What they don’t understand, and apparently don’t care about, is the despair it’s caused, a growing general belief that nothing matters and things are indeed just going to get worse. When that takes root in the population you have what we have, lurching dysfunctional government, a preponderance of extremists and people who believe things that are demonstrably not true because they are so alienated and an irreversible slow but increasing rate of decline.
March 21, 2013 at 10:03 pm
They are the banality of evil, on the hoof and in the chips. There is no penalty for being wrong about everything. Indeed, it seems to be the ticket to success in politics and punditry.
I was not as sensitive to it, not being as close to it, but I remember standing out back at my place of employment ten years ago, with my boss, an ex-sergeant and veteran of the “drug interdiction” efforts in Central America (and one of the two best bosses I ever had–the poor guy passed away of a heart attack a couple of years ago; he was about two decades younger than I).
He was all full of “It’s a good think we have a Texan in the White House!”
I recall looking at him, shaking my head sadly, and saying, “Dave, I don’t have a good feeling about this. Not at all.”
There is no joy in having been correct.