Blog ... James Blog ... license to ferret

There's a great article in Wired Magazine by reserve Army Capt. Kris Alexander suggesting the military intelligence agencies use blogging to obtain and share realtime field intelligence. Not a bad idea if you think about it. I mean al Qaeda allegedly is using blogs and web sites to recruit spies and disseminate information to its lobotomized suicidal followers.

My friend St. Scott thinks the federal intelligence agencies need to agree on spelling before they can capture terrorists who don't have English surnames. Osama, Usama; Koran, Qu'ran; al Qaida, al Qaeda? Let's agree on a spelling and stick to it folk! Or, let's call the whole thing off.

You'd have to use wildcard searches in your database and then you'd have to take into account any code names bin Laden would have, say like "Duplicitous Bastard" and what not. St. Scott thinks bin Laden's angry at the U. S. because his name begins with USA, which stands for freedom. I wouldn't rule it out buddy! He's more than a few falafels short of a picnic.

What the government could use is a stylebook, like the kind used by many journalists and sold by companies like United Press International or The Associated Press. These are books that set down standards for spelling, capitalization, grammar, punctuation and usage and ensure that everyone's on the same page so to speak. If you stick to a style, you have some sort of consistency in the writing and, obviously, the reading and intelligence gathering. Of course, you have to choose one or the other because even the editors of these books disagree in various areas on spelling, etc.

(And since I'm on the subject ... Editors, please note: The students at the U. S. Naval Academy are midshipmen, an actual rank in the Navy. The students at all the other federal military academies are cadets, which are not actual ranks in their respective services. Get it straight!)

In addition to blogging, the intelligence agencies need a good indexer, like Google, which they do, in fact, have, or Technorati.com. Computer spiders sweep the net seeking information that would be helpful in the war on terror. I was going to put a Technorati search form on my site to let readers more easily search for information but then I read this portion of the Technorati agreement:

14. FEEDBACK OR OTHER SUCH COMMENTS OR MATERIALS:

Any comments, materials, or letters sent by you to Technorati regarding the site, including without limitation, questions, comments, suggestions, criticisms or the like ("Received Materials") shall be deemed to be non-confidential and free of any claims of proprietary or personal rights unless you explicitly state in the correspondence that the letter is "not for publication" and contains "private and proprietary" information that may not be distributed. Technorati shall have no obligation of any kind with respect to such Received Materials and Technorati will be free to reproduce, use, disclose, exhibit, display, transform, edit, abridge, create derivative works from and/or distribute the Received Materials without limitation or restriction.

Furthermore, Technorati is free to use any ideas, concepts, know-how, or techniques contained in any communication you send to Technorati for any purpose whatsoever, including, but not limited to, developing, manufacturing, and marketing products using such information, without compensation or any other obligations to anyone, including you.

If I'm reading this correctly it means that Technorati wants to exchange indexing, linkback and comment logging services for intellectual property rights to anything posted on your blog or website, either as a post or comment. Submitting a URL to them is submitting a communication to them and is thus a "received material." Maybe it's a standard contract inclusion, but I've gotten bitten by "standard contract inclusions" in more than one legal agreement.

I'm forever thinking up strange and useful gizmos, like my Facial Recognition Proximity mines. And if someone develops something based on the germ of my idea, I want to be able to cash in on it.

They probably need to be a little more clear on this section of the agreement considering what some enterprising intelligence agency types did under President Clinton in lieu of tracking Usama and al Qaeda and that other group of terrorists Osama and al Qaida.

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Blog of the Day:

Centauri Dreams

This blog is about the right stuff needed to imagine and plan interstellar space exploration. I nurse dreams of having George Jetson's car; Paul Gilster nurses dreams that your offspring will one day walk on the surface of a planet in the Alpha Centauri system. We're willing to compromise our dreams -- if we're both able to fly George Jetson's car on planets in the Alpha Centauri system.

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Porn spam Easter egg of the day:

Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.