Blog-IT-o ergo sum

	7/29/2003

Why Toyotas and Hondas are better than Fords and Chevys

While the many of the best and the brightest in Japan find their way into key positions at Honda and Toyota (and Sony etc.) a good percentage of our smartest citizens end up expending their talents working under brilliant people like Mr. Poindexter...so they can generate things like this:

"The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is interested in improving on existing techniques for predicting future events and for assessing the issues that underlie and influence what might happen. DARPA has funded the development and operations of PAM. U.S. government agencies will not be allowed to participate in PAM and DARPA will not have access to the identities or funds of PAM traders."

3:12:38 PM

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A picture named PAM_stripped_dryerase.jpg

DARPA 0? - Sanity 2

This was shaping up to be the next killer app for the Mafia, but it now looks like reason in this rare case (for a remarkable second time against DARPA) has prevailed. It might have been worth registering as a Terrorist Threat Futures trader just for kicks. Maybe more exciting than day trading on the NASDAQ. Bottom line though: Can you believe that your tax dollars were spent to pay the salaries for some of the people who came up with this hair brained scheme? Here's a good quote from the NYT article link above that pretty much sums things up:

One of the two senators, Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, said the idea seemed so preposterous that he had trouble persuading people it was not a hoax. ``Can you imagine,'' Mr. Dorgan asked, ``if another country set up a betting parlor so that people could go in - and is sponsored by the government itself - people could go in and bet on the assassination of an American political figure?''

P.S. Note that the DARPA people managed to work their discredited TIA pyramid and all seeing eye icon back into the PAM logo above.

2:18:38 PM

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