Betting on assassinations and terror attacks

Thomas
The article is full of what if's, they didn't mean, people misunderstood , presented poorly, try it you may like it and etc. Apparently the congress did not see it that way and in fact neither did Wolfowitz

In any event, assassination futures were not among the planned securities, contrary to most press reports. The market design allowed traders to propose securities in various events, and the Policy Analysis Market Web site speculated that some traders might propose to add securities in assassinations. That off-the-cuff speculative remark had fatal consequences, alas.

More importantly however, it informs us that what caused the popular outrage wasn't actually part of the project. The morale-mongers, including yourself, didn't bother to check their facts before pointing their fingers in righteous anger.

Scrat wrote:

I fail to see what is wrong in tapping any resource we can that might help predict--and thereby prevent--future acts of terrorism.

au1929 wrote:

Scrat
My friend unfortunately you fail to see anything that this administration does as wrongheaded. Apparently members of congress did. Rumsfeld [little Caesar] has allowed the power he wields to infect him mentally. His next assignment should be in an asylum, as an inmate.

au -- if you're right and nothing except Scrat's alleged pro-Bush bias explains his favorable opinion of this futures market in terrorism, how come the leading liberal newspapers of the country agree with Scrat and disagree with you? ?

Given that the choice of op-ed contributors is itself an editorial decision, this adds up to a picture that's somewhat weaker than what I originally said. But not weak enough by a long shot to justify your claim of borderline dishonesty -- especially since I was explicitly saying they were Op Eds! You might also want to reconsider the context I was referring to and which I cited. Reacting to a factual point Scrat had made, AU responded with a personal attack and attributed Scrat's dissent to his alleged Bush bias. My point was that if this had been all there was to it, the New York Times and the Washington Post wouldn't have published the opinions they did. I continue to stand by this point even now.

The morale-mongers, including yourself, didn't bother to check their facts before pointing their fingers in righteous anger.

And wouldn't you also agree that saying what you said there distorts the reality of what the Washington Post and New York Times actually did say with regard to the issue -- which you now say is nothing.

That is rather an important element of what you said, wouldn't you agree, Thomas.

Killer Idea

HAVING TRIED INTELLIGENCE to win the war on terrorism and achieved mixed results -- bad and worse -- the defense establishment has decided to go the other way and give stupidity a chance.

To effect the delicate switch required someone with proven credentials. Luckily, Rummy and cohorts didn't have far to look for just such a man -- Adm. Pointyhead.

Adm. Pointyhead runs a semi-clandestine operation within the Department of Defense known as Darpa (an acronym for Determinedly Asinine Research Projects Administration). Pointyhead -- this may surprise you -- isn't his real name. It's a nom de guerre (but refrain from using that phrase, as the admiral might see that you get sent to Guantanamo for consorting with an enemy language).

Pointyhead's bona fides for the assignment were impeccable. He's a man of notable conviction. He was, for example, convicted of lying to Congress (the conviction was annulled on the eminently just grounds that Congress, in its wisdom, had granted immunity to the admiral to lie to it).

To his great credit, moreover, it was on Pointyhead's watch that Darpa launched one of its most determinedly asinine projects, Total Information Awareness, aimed at nothing less than protecting America from the evilest of evildoers. The idea was to compile the most complete electronic dossiers, including every conceivable bit of vital dope, from shoe size and blood-alcohol content to the sincerity of acts of compassion (do they help old people cross the street or only rich old people?) on millions of American citizens deemed possible terrorists or short sellers.

To date, Total Information Awareness has had rather a meager yield -- two recovering short sellers and one suspected tall terrorist (the name on his driver's license, Irving bin Laden, struck the gimlet-eyed electronic surveillers as not quite kosher). To be fair, all the bugs have yet to be worked out of the surveillance system (and we're not talking about the ones actually running the system).

The admiral's latest and most daunting mission was to advance the war on terrorism by coming up with a bold and unorthodox approach to gathering intelligence, since the old way wasn't doing the job. For help, he turned to the California Institute of Technology, famed far and wide for out-of-the-box solutions to seemingly insuperable problems.

Aided and abetted by that prestigious center of learning, Darpa devised the Policy Analysis Market, which was not only way out of the box but completely off the wall. The stunning concept called for the creation of a futures market where traders could bet on war, assassination or the monster terrorist act of their choice.

The grave responsibility for running this online casino of catastrophe fell on Net Exchange, an entity made up of 10 stalwart Cal Tech faculty members, all of whom, as evidence of expertise, had to have consistently lost money going long pork bellies. Their grand vision called for some 10,000 traders taking positions on the likelihood of potential calamities in that normally tranquil part of the world encompassing Iraq, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Turkey.

And, why, you might wonder as we did, would commodities traders desert their usual wholesome fare of oil, wheat and the like to take a flier on Middle Eastern mayhem? For the sheer thrill of it, of course. But also because, down deep, they're keen to do their part in the war on terrorism.

We must confess to being a trifle bemused, though, as to just how buying a contract, say, on Yassar Arafat's assassination or the fundamentalists putting the sword to the royals in Saudi Arabia or a suicide bombing in Jerusalem constitutes a blow against terrorism. But, then, we never went to the California Institute of Technology or broke bread with Pointyhead or any of the other Darpa doyens.

If we had, we'd have instantaneously known the answer and recognized the awesome elegance of the concept, brilliant in its simplicity, of turning your average normal murderous terrorist into a holy terror of a speculator by luring him to trade in calamity. A concept marvelously captured in the slogan Darpa adopted to promote its new exchange: "Make money, not war."

What's that? You think that's plain silly. You're right, of course. But no more silly than any of the other rationales being served up to gloss what was, is and always will be an absolutely daft idea. Apparently, once our alert congressfolk found out what they had voted for, their agitation knew no bounds, assuring the futures exchange had no future. As for dear old Adm. Pointyhead, rumor has it he's due to walk the plank.

This misbegotten creation, as noted, was spawned in academe and a smattering of professorial types, mostly from business schools, rose to its defense with an impressive array of specious reasoning. Which once again proves the wisdom of George Bernard Shaw's dictum that those who can't do, teach.

There's more to this matter than just moral outrage, and AU was a dumbass to reduce Scrat's stand to political bias.

The New York Times and The Washington Post have, for many years, often published op-eds by people whose views were diametrically opposed by the editorial pages directly beside them.

Thomas
There's more to this matter than just moral outrage, and AU was a dumbass to reduce Scrat's stand to political bias.

Scrat wrote:

I fail to see what is wrong in tapping any resource we can that might help predict--and thereby prevent--future acts of terrorism.

au1929 wrote:

Scrat
My friend unfortunately you fail to see anything that this administration does as wrongheaded. Apparently members of congress did. Rumsfeld [little Caesar] has allowed the power he wields to infect him mentally. His next assignment should be in an asylum, as an inmate.

au -- if you're right and nothing except Scrat's alleged pro-Bush bias explains his favorable opinion of this futures market in terrorism, how come the leading liberal newspapers of the country agree with Scrat and disagree with you? The New York Times and the Washington Post have both defended these markets in their op-ed pages. The New York Times article will become unfree soon, so I'll quote it in full length here. The Washington post is similar in spirit. There's also an article on Tech Central Station that addresses the concerns raised by the senators in somewhat more detail.

Would you mind posting a link please? I'd like to read the full article.

As for Scrat ... AS to his bias there is no doubt that it is full bore in favor of Bush and the republicans.