this piece, about a guy who sold miracle anti-terror software to the bush admin, is very hilarious, but also very revealing. their response to 9.11 was a total freakout accompanied by extreme stupidity, useless random thrashing and pointed brutality. and one characteristic of bush, cheney, rumsfeld etc was that they could only hear what they wanted to hear: everything confirmed them in their prepossessions. like i say, power makes people stupid, which is one reason it does no good to elect "the best and the brightest" (not that that the bush admin featured the best and brightest). one feature i like is that the guy claimed his package could detect the secret terrorist messages on al jazeera. if you had any doubt that we were targeting al jazeera reporters here and there for death and destruction, this should reduce it. shit, people, ain't you even got no common sense? when dick cheney wanted to communicate secretly (like every few minutes) did he do it on good morning america? at any rate, it certainly was an excellent piece of software, a kind of flattery machine. it couldn't detect al qaeda submarines (well, nothing could), but it provided affirmations that pumped everybody full of self-esteem: you're so good; you're so right; you're so effective; you're so pretty.