Apparent End to the Idea of Terrorism FuturesIn the face of withering Congressional criticism and head shaking, the Pentagon is retreating from its bizarre proposal to open an online futures market in which participants could essentially bet on the probability and timing of terrorist attacks. The idea gained wide public attention late yesterday, when two Democratic senators voiced incredulous disapproval, and the bipartisan disparagement on Capitol Hill began to snowball this morning. Finally, Sen. John Warner, powerful Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he spoke with the official heading the agency that oversees the project, "and we mutually agreed that this thing should be stopped." That agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, had spent $600,000 on the Web site for the Policy Analysis Market and wanted another $8 million. On the site, DARPA said the idea was to use a market-based approach to predict when and where terrorist would next strike. - source:
WSJY'know, when I first saw a reference to the idea of "Terrorism Futures", I thought it was a hoax.
In other news, I'm writing in circles trying to come up with a transition and
canacat helped herself to some of my yogurt.