#13660: — 01/18  at  06:48 PM
Wouldn't it be nice if "human intellegence" started at the top?

#13665: Lubos Motl — 01/18  at  07:21 PM
Well, although I think that the owner of this blog is not one of the brighter people, let me admit that this story copied from CNN is pretty funny. I wonder whether CNN chose this headline deliberately.

#13666: — 01/18  at  07:26 PM
Here's a little synopsis of "spook-speak", taken directly from http://www.intelligence.gov/2-business_cycle2.shtml:

Signals Intelligence (SIGINT)
Imagery Intelligence (IMINT)
Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT)
Human-Source Intelligence (HUMINT)
Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)



To which I'd like to add...

Rumor intelligence (RUMINT)
Fib intelligence (FIBINT)
"Whopper" intelligence (WHOPINT)

Most of the "intelligence" used by Bush administration to justify going to war with Iraq was of the WHOPINT variety.

#13667: — 01/18  at  07:46 PM
I wish I could laugh, but the cruel fact is that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Wolfowitz, Chalabi, etc. knowingly exaggerated and intentionally misled the American people about the alledged WMD threat Saddam Hussein posed to the U.S. Those who voted for Bush should be ashamed that they helped to put and keep such manipulative scoundrels in power. For all the stupid hype about 'moral values', the fact that we were so clearly fooled by Bush and his gang tells me that Republicans are either truly stupid, or that they're in truth just childish and cruel war-loving hypocrites.

And yes, I'm talking directly to all those who now wring their hands and buy into the Bush cop-out that it was merely out intelligence that was lacking. Bullshit. Anyone with even half a skeptical eye could see how Powell's U.N. presentation was nothing more than assertions backed up with assertions, and when it was becoming too clear that the U.N. inspections were turning up nothing the war was started so the American people wouldn't reconsider going to war. Well, the blood of over 1350+ U.S. soldiers, 10,000 additional wounded GI's, and thousands more killed and maimed Iraqis is on your hands. You wanted it, so you get to eat the bitter that's only your just desserts. May you digest it well.

#13668: — 01/18  at  08:07 PM
Hilarious, PZ. I saw the CNN article and had the same reaction.

#13669: Nanovirus — 01/18  at  08:11 PM
GIS for "Bush intelligence":

#13671: — 01/18  at  08:41 PM
OH MY GOD I NEED THAT HAT.

Seriously, that's an awesome hat right there.

#13672: Archosaurian — 01/18  at  08:46 PM
Hahahaha! "Better human intellegence needed" This headline is absolutely brilliant.

#13681: Jan Theodore Galkowski — 01/18  at  10:57 PM

I wish I could laugh, but the cruel fact is that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Wolfowitz, Chalabi, etc. knowingly exaggerated and intentionally misled the American people about the alledged WMD threat Saddam Hussein posed to the U.S. Those who voted for Bush should be ashamed that they helped to put and keep such manipulative scoundrels in power. For all the stupid hype about ‘moral values’, the fact that we were so clearly fooled by Bush and his gang tells me that Republicans are either truly stupid, or that they’re in truth just childish and cruel war-loving hypocrites.

Consider:

"Be convinced, then, that we shall augment our power at home by this adventure abroad, and let us make the expedition, and so humble the pride of the Peloponnesians by sailing off to Sicily, and letting them see how little we care for the peace that we are now enjoying; and at the same time we shall either become masters, as we very easily may, of the whole of Hellas through the accession of the Sicilian Hellenes, or in any case ruin the Syracusans, to the no small advantage of ourselves and our allies. The faculty of staying if successful, or of returning, will be secured to us by our navy, as we shall be superior at sea to all the Siceliots put together. And do not let the do-nothing policy which Nicias advocates, or his setting of the young against the old, turn you from your purpose, but in the good old fashion by which our fathers, old and young together, by their united counsels brought our affairs to their present height, do you endeavour still to advance them; understanding that neither youth nor old age can do anything the one without the other, but that levity, sobriety, and deliberate judgment are strongest when united, and that, by sinking into inaction, the city, like everything else, will wear itself out, and its skill in everything decay; while each fresh struggle will give it fresh experience, and make it more used to defend itself not in word but in deed. In short, my conviction is that a city not inactive by nature could not choose a quicker way to ruin itself than by suddenly adopting such a policy, and that the safest rule of life is to take one's character and institutions for better and for worse, and to live up to them as closely as one can."

Thus spake Alcibiades, son of Clinias, as reported by Thucydides, who counselled and convinced the Athenian democracy to undertake the disaster of Sicilian conquest, one of the closing episodes of the Peloponnesian War.

#13688: paperwight — 01/18  at  11:44 PM
I have been reading Thucydides (Project Gutenberg translation converted for Palmpilot, and it's true -- there is nothing new under the sun.

#13690: — 01/18  at  11:56 PM
Speaking of nothing new under the sun ... I think Shrub bears a strong resemblance to the guy who ordered cutting down the last tree on Easter Island. No doubt to be used to lever up a statue of himself.

(That Diamond guy writes a pretty decent book, BTW)

#13693: — 01/19  at  04:40 AM
The CBB continues:

Out of that commission, hopefully, this president and future presidents will get the best possible intelligence," he said.

Apparently, he hopes to get better intelligence from ... a commission.

We engineers have a saying: "What is a giraffe? An antelope designed by a commission."

#13696: Mutant Cat — 01/19  at  06:11 AM

"The propagandists have done a better job of depicting America as a hateful place, a place wanting to impose our form of thought and our religion on people," he said.

I wonder which propagandists he's talking about? And better than who? Is he actually claiming that some crazy arabs are better at making America hated by the world, especially the Muslim world than his own gang? He's selling himself short for once.

"We're behind when it comes to selling our own story and telling the people the truth about America."

No shit! Of course that depends on what the truth about America is.

#13707: — 01/19  at  10:16 AM
Hmm. I guess Bush intelligence is bushint. Or something like that.

#13825: Jan Theodore Galkowski — 01/20  at  01:59 AM
Quentin Peel: Bush has full agenda but no ideas