“Classify my dissertation? Crap. Does this mean I have to redo
my PhD?”
The Daily KOS does a fine
write-up of HREF=”http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23689-2003Jul7.html?nav=hp
top_tb”>this
story about a geography PhD student who asked the question “If I were
Osama bin Laden, where would I want to attack?” There’s a lesson about the
Manhattan Project and nuclear proliferation that hasn’t really been
learned yet…

The Secretary announced the members of
his Homeland Security Advisory Council. Amongst the politicians, academics
and captains of industry (Dow Chemical , UBS Paine Webber, Ad Council, Eli
Lilly, U.S. Energy Association, Lockheed Martin, Union Pacific…) there
are two people with law enforcement background: one out of Florida and one
out of the FBI/CIA. It strikes me as odd that there isn’t a single person
on the Advisory Council who has ever worked in one of the bureaus they are
advising about. There’s no Agriculture guy, no Customs guy, no Immigration
guy, no Secret Service guy… This is an executive body to figure out how
to protect against industrial sabotage, not to fight terrorism. That’s
fine, but you’d have thought SOMEONE who understood what is happening in
the majority of the Department would have made it up to the Council. Oh
well.

The GOP and DNC conventions in New York and Boston will recieve HREF=”http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/verify_redirect.jsp?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dhs
.gov%2Fdhspublic%2Fdisplay%3Fcontent%3D1066&title=Read+more”>extra-special
attention from the DHS. Headline: “Secretary Ridge Announces National
Special Security Event for New York Convention Site” [Ahem.]

HREF=”http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/press_release/press_release_0211.xm
l”>Operation
Predator: good stuff. The number of enforcement successes recently
suggests that ICE is working pretty well. Last month a huge fraud doc
seizure, this month a couple hundred scum-of-the-earth criminals. They’re
on a roll. Rock on.