{"id":1368,"date":"2006-02-09T09:23:57","date_gmt":"2006-02-09T17:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2006\/02\/its_all_in_the_links\/"},"modified":"2006-02-09T09:23:57","modified_gmt":"2006-02-09T17:23:57","slug":"its_all_in_the_links","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2006\/02\/its_all_in_the_links.html","title":{"rendered":"IT&#8217;S ALL IN THE LINKS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what a friend calls <a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2006\/0209\/p01s02-uspo.html\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>some pretty scary shit<\/font><\/strong><\/a>, what I call James Risen&#8217;s weird <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cfr.org\/publication\/9760\/us_intelligence.html\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>hems and haws<\/strong><\/font><\/a>, what Sam Harris calls <a href=\"http:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/report\/item\/20060207_reality_islam\/P0\/\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399> the reality of Islam<\/strong><\/font><\/a>, what Doug Ireland calls <a href=\"http:\/\/direland.typepad.com\/direland\/2006\/02\/threats_to_pres.html#comment-13781645\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>threats to press freedom on both coasts<\/strong><\/font><\/a>, what David Ehrenstein calls fait divers &#224; la Cronenberg, <a href=\"http:\/\/fablog.ehrensteinland.com\/2006\/02\/03\/fait-divers-a-history-of-violence\/\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>a history of violence<\/strong><\/font><\/a>, plus the <a href=\"http:\/\/fablog.ehrensteinland.com\/2006\/02\/05\/fait-divers-it-doesnt-look-good-right-now\/\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>continuation<\/strong><\/font><\/a>, what Filmstrip International calls <a href=\"http:\/\/filmstripinternational.com\/\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>American Civics Volume II<\/strong><\/font><\/a> (a video) and, finally, what Current TV calls <a  href=\"http:\/\/www.current.tv\/studio\/media\/684.htm\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>The Battle for America<\/strong><\/font><\/a> (also a video).<br \/>\n<strong>Postscript:<\/strong> Uh, dint mean to forget popcult maven Ryan McGee&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ryan-mcgee.com\/movable\/archives\/002040.html\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>running nitpick<\/strong><\/font><\/a> on last night&#8217;s 2006 Grammys (a marathon shitfest I had the wisdom to avoid).<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2006\/0209\/p01s02-uspo.html\" class=inline target=new\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"GOP Rep. Curt Weldon (l.) and Democrat Sen. Russell Feingold want details on federal data-mining. [AP file photos]\" src=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2006\/0209\/csmimg\/p10a.jpg\" width=160 align=left border=0\/><\/a><strong>PPS:<\/strong> Regarding the first link above (&#8220;some pretty scary shit&#8221;), a military and intelligence analyst I know with statistical expertise writes: &#8220;After reading the first few paragraphs of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2006\/0209\/p01s02-uspo.html\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>US plans massive data sweep<\/strong><\/font><\/a> &#8212; &#8216;Little-known data-collection system could troll news, blogs, even e-mails. Will it go too far?&#8217; &#8212; I wondered whether it has occurred to any of the (rightly concerned or alarmed) observers that these systems may well be worthless for their advertised purpose?&#8221; He continues:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Numerous supporters [of data mining] babble such things as &#8220;we have to &#8216;connect the dots.'&#8221; Data-mining systems do not connect the dots. They create more dots, probably 99.99% of  which do not belong. The resources wasted trying to eliminate the bum &#8220;dots&#8221; is potentially enormous.<br \/>\nThe intelligence failure that was memorialized with &#8220;a failure to connect the dots&#8221; was addressing the &#8220;dots&#8221; the FBI and CIA already had. More &#8220;dots&#8221; that in fact belonged might have helped but probably not. The failure &#8212; and it was huge &#8212; is analytical incompetence throughout top management at both agencies.  Wholesale, automated data mining is more of the same.  Both the country and the false positives are likely to pay a high price for the unabated analytical incompetence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what a friend calls hems and haws, what Sam Harris calls threats to press freedom on both coasts, what David Ehrenstein calls fait divers &#224; la Cronenberg, continuation, what Filmstrip International calls The Battle for America (also a video). Postscript: Uh, dint mean to forget popcult maven Ryan McGee&#8217;s PPS: Regarding the first link [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-m4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}