Lost track of all the government investigations into AOL yet? No? Well, just wait, you will. ...

Q  U  O  T  E  D "When I saw that article the other day about a market being established to bet on the probability of wars, terrorist attacks and assassinations, I dissed it completely out of hand as nonsense, incredible nonsense. All I could think of was what the blotter would look like. Let’s see. I’m short the Osama Bin Laden December '04 calls, long 2 ambassadors to Middle East countries and have an Iraq/Iran swap on. I’m also considering some North Korea nuclear incident converts, but they’ve gotten away from me lately. Get me a look at the East Coast Tunnels and Bridges puts, will you?"  Huh? It just could not be true. Nobody is that warped. Well, evidently, they are. Big time." --an anonymous Bear Sterns analyst on the proposed Terror Futures Market (policyanalysismarket.org)

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Poindexter's DARPA Casino: It's going to take me some time to wade through all the messages I've been getting about an item on John Poindexter's DARPA Casino (see "Pssst -- go long on September truck bombings"). I received a number of thoughtful messages on the issue, many of them from folks talking up the benefits of "idea markets." They have been, to a one, quite compelling. But they've failed to convince me that this brainstorm was a good idea. Yes, markets are extremely efficient at aggregating information (given a broad, diverse and informed market).  Yes, futures exchanges sometimes predict events better than other forms of analysis (and are sometimes delusional; take the tech bubble and bust, for instance). And yes, traders on the Hollywood Stock Exchange -- another idea market -- last year correctly picked 35 of the 40 Oscar nominees in the eight biggest categories (out of a very small universe of possibilities with little hidden data). But that doesn't make anonymous speculation on terrorist strikes a good idea. Especially when there are no audit trails or other means for flagging terrorists who bet on their own atrocities. And especially in a nation that still has enough common decency to be repulsed by the idea of wagering on human suffering.

Onward. Here's another sidelight on the topic.

Hey John,

While the Feds were relentless in their pursuit and prosecution of Jim Bell  for coming up with the idea [assassination politics] and publicizing it, they apparently have no problem with stealing and implementing it. I guess it's just another of those things that are ONLY okay if the government does them (though it seems  as if Wolfowitz has "rethought" the issue)

Jim Bell's original essay about assasination politics: http://jya.com/ap.htm

Other articles about the Jim Bell case:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/18104.html
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40102,00.html
http://www.vader.com/jimbell4.htm


Amazing how the government continues in its "do as I say, not as I do" mentality. Though Eric Cartman (of "South Park" fame) springs to mind whenever  I think of our Beloved Leaders: "You Will Respect My Authori-TY"

Tim Weaver
Glendale, Arizona

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What's Poindexter's next great idea going to be? Tell me at John Paczkowski