Everybody Dance Now...

[Andi]

A soldier says to me, "the kid's got talent, but they really need to shut that academy down now." Wouldn't see that at West Point, he says.... Heh.

Noonan, I know you're a VMI man, but what say you?

"Worth all the time we spent here"

[Mrs Greyhawk]

Patriot from A soldier's Perspective points us to A MUST SEE VIDEO
Orphans Left To Starve In Iraq -- U.S. troops found an orphanage full of starving, neglected children in Baghdad, where it appears the orphanage director may have selling the facility's supplies to local markets.
This is just one of the many examples of what our troops do daily, Mr. Reid, Ms. Pelosi, Miss O'donnell and the rest that feel our troops are failing or believe our troops are the terrorists.

UPDATE: Labor and Social Affairs minister lashes out, calls the US Iraq's the enemy

Labor and Social Affairs minister of Baghdad does not except responsiblity for orphanage, instead lashes out, calls the US Iraq's the enemy. Says boys of orfanage are all perfectly healthy and report is a lie.

Sixty Years of Stove-Pipe

[Dadmanly]

It isn't often that I stumble across some open source information about subject area I actually know something about. (As opposed to just talking out some rearward portion of my anatomy.)

Mike McConnell, US Director of National Intelligence (DNI), calls for a dramatic overhaul of the US Intelligence Community (IC) in the July/August edition of Foreign Affairs.

On July 26, 1947, President Truman signed the National Security Act.

The DNI explains what that allowed:

With the proper tools and public support and the help of allies, the United States built the world's premier intelligence establishment. It put spy planes in the sky, satellites into space, and listening posts in strategic locations around the world. It also invested in its people, developing a professional cadre of analysts, case officers, linguists, technicians, and program managers and trained them in foreign languages, the sciences, and area studies.

The DNI explains what went wrong since:

But by the time the Cold War ended, the intelligence establishment that had served Washington so well in the second half of the twentieth century was sorely in need of change. The post-Cold War "peace dividend" led to a reduction of intelligence staffing by 22 percent between fiscal years 1989 and 2001. Only now is staffing getting back to pre-Cold War levels. The National Security Act mandated that information be shared up the chain of command but not horizontally with other agencies. At the time of the act's passing, little thought was given to the need for a national-level intelligence apparatus in Washington that could synthesize information from across the government to inform policymakers and help support real-time tactical decisions. That reality, coupled with practices that led to a "stovepiping" of intelligence, arrested the growth of information sharing, collaboration, and integration -- patterns that still linger.

Few Americans seem to have paid attention to ongoing efforts to reform, improve, and redirect the efforts of the US IC, as reflected most recently by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA), which itself created the post of director of national intelligence (DNI), currently inhabited by McConnell. However much change has already been implemented, McConnell advocates for much more.

(For more excerpts from the DNI Article, and extended commentary, stop by Dadmanly.)

re: bumperstickers

[CDR Salamander]

Andi, bumper stickers politics is starting to get to me. They tell you a lot about someone - but you expect some consistency. Take a look at what I had to spend what seemed like a decade behind in traffic the other day.

How you find Dale Earnhardt fan, Twoopherness, and Trekie all in one clapped out car? Just my luck.

When I finally passed him, on the right, I noticed that he had a goatee, two hoops in his right ear and a pot belly. We are the last, best, hope for the West....right?

We know all about Star Trek fans anyway.