So, while everyone is watching Iran, Syria, and North Korea, our good buddies the Chinese have been developing the ability to shoot down our satellites. From CNN: U.S. official: Chinese test missile obliterates satellite.

And what exactly is the Shrubbery going to do about the country that controls such a huge chunk of the American debt that he ran up, if they decide to start knocking our intel and GPS satellites out of the sky?

Update: Melanie at Just a Bump in the Beltway has an interesting catch with Just Trust Us: the Pentagon “laundered” $1.4 billion through other government agencies to avoid oversight.

Update 2: In The Emily Litella Strategy Karen points to The Bully Presidency by Jack Balkin that makes the same point about the Shrubbery’s kabuki on warrant-less wiretapping, but more completely.

I have spent most of my working life looking for and using patterns. In intelligence you find the patterns that the “enemy” uses to makes decisions to determine what they will do in a given situation. In law enforcement, patterns can tell you where to expect a criminal to strike next. In computing you look for patterns to move among computer hardware and software, and to check your programs for consistent and accurate performance.

When watching the Shrubbery, the patterns fairly scream at you. The consistency is manic. They continue to follow their routine, whether or not it was successful.

They were told to close down Total Information Awareness, but that guaranteed that they wouldn’t. Since I posted on it earlier in the week, more pieces are becoming obvious. Steve Bates has posted on the Talon project in Pentagon Spies On Antiwar Groups, which is more data for TIA, and Crooks and Liars reports that J. Michael McConnell, the man chosen to replace Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence, comes to the job from Booz Allen, the main contractor on the Total Information Awareness program.

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