The WSJ describes how a doctoral student, working on his own time, put together a dossier on North Korea better than anything in open source, and possibly, better than many classified studies. Curtis Melvin did it by creating a “go to place” for intelligence fusion on North Korea and carefully piecing the puzzle together.
Mr. Melvin is at the center of a dozen or so citizen snoops who have spent the past two years filling in the blanks on the map of one of the world’s most secretive countries. Seeking clues in photos, news reports and eyewitness accounts, they affix labels to North Korean structures and landscapes captured by Google Earth, an online service that stitches satellite pictures into a virtual globe. The result is an annotated North Korea of rocket-launch sites, prison camps and elite palaces on white-sand beaches. … An economist who studies developing countries and has traveled from Turkmenistan to Zimbabwe, Mr. Melvin started his project in early 2007 to designate places he visited on two group tours to North Korea earlier this decade. He shared it on several North Korea-related Web sites. …
People soon started sending him locations they knew, from tourist sites to airfields tucked into valleys near South Korea. Mr. Melvin says that sadness for North Koreans’ plight, and the fascination of discovery, motivated him to continue.
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(27) Comments
3. mac:
The system is changing even as I write this. Starting in the 80’s, I realized that the NYT of my youth was not to be accepted as gospel. That feeling has progressed to the point where I don’t trust them any more than Kim Jong Il’s press flacks. If something I might buy would benefit them, I refuse to purchase it. Using facts, I denigrate them at every opportunity to anyone who doesn’t understand what they’ve done to truth in America. I’m proud to think I’ve played a small part in bringing those lying, America-hating criminals down, and I’ll be a happy man when I see them go bankrupt.
I’m doing the same thing with Obama and I’m seeing that people are beginning to realize what an existential threat he and his accomplices are. It’s amazing what happens when you start telling people that the government in power is ruining the currency–and back it up with facts. That CBO chart of the pending red ink just scares the Hell out of them. That picture truly is worth more than a thousand words.
I’m thinking that by the time this clown leaves office he’ll make Jimmy Carter’s popularity records look high by comparison. The real question is what we’ll have left to work with after he’s done. We’ve got a lot of problems ahead of us as a nation and nothing Obama has done will do anything but make them worse and harder to fix.
National Geographic is airing
"Inside 9-11" tonight:
"Inside 9/11" takes viewers into the last moments of those who died and the thousands of others who survived.
Watching this you just can't help but think about America on 9-11 and America on 9-12. It was a day that changed everything. What a powerful production.
Thank God we had leadership at that time who understood this threat. And, with the juveniles in charge today, God help this country in the days ahead.
May 24, 2009 11:40 PM by Michelle Malkin26 Comments
"Does Anyone here think they would have done this if Dubya and Cheney were still in office?"
"I wonder which of our enemies will take out a U.S. city first - N Korea, Iran, or a terrorist who snuck in from Mexico. In any event, it’ll be Boosh’s fault."
Why Jeff Can’t Give Up [Dan Collins]
HR 1913, The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, and its companion bill S. 909, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act threaten us with targeted censorship, attacks on religious freedom, and outrageous protections for pedophilia and other deviant behavior. Even prominent gay activists like Andrew Sullivan say that this legislation is unnecessary and dishonest. But if these arguments aren’t enough to cause you to grab a pitchfork and march on Washington (or at least call your Senators), then perhaps you need a bigger perspective about what’s really at stake.
As a reminder, the bill has been passed in the House, and is now in process in the Senate. The legislation contains provisions that will increase the penalties for acts committed against certain protected groups, punishing motives as well as acts, and giving special legal stature to homosexuals and those with sexually-related “disabilities”. The language of the bill arguably undermines Fourteenth Amendment “equal protection of the law,” making some groups more equal than others. Pedophiles are elevated to a protected class, but a mother who slaps a child rapist can go to jail for a hate crime. Rep. Alcee Hastings was even so brazen as to align the purpose of the bill with acts of sexual deviancy, saying that it is time to protect “‘philias and fetishes.’”
At the same time, amendments that would have protected faith-based groups from antagonistic prosecution were voted down. This has caused many advocates of religious expression to fear this legislation, drawing on examples of hate crimes laws in Britain and Canada where pastors and other persons of faith have been arrested for religious speech in public places.
These are all good reasons to oppose this bill.
But S. 909 must be stopped for reasons that go far beyond the issues attached to this particular legislation. This proposed law will set a precedent that can be broadened to encompass potentially any idea, belief, or viewpoint. Today hate, tomorrow fill in the blank.
And a refresher course on the mood after 9-11.
"So now what happens if someone from a protected class attacks someone from a different protected class? Is there some kind of victim hierarchy? Because I’d hate to see a black guy not get full justice because his lesbian Puerto Rican assailant had more victim points."
