First of all, let me express my profoundest sympathies and regrets for
anyone who was injured, traumatized, or lost someone in this tragedy.

That being said, I have a few thoughts on the issue, mostly in response to
the recent idea proposed by various CMs that we get involved in an
analytical way.

I'm mixed. Obviously, there are thousands of governmental forces being
applied to this problem, all of whom have been trained and have access to
the best materials. Getting in their way would probably be an insult to the
pain and suffering many people have endured. There are much better ways of
having a real and immediate effect on the situation. If you haven't donated
blood, haven't given what funds you feel comfortable giving, then you
haven't done the right thing.

That said, I'm going to give blood tomorrow and I've already donated to the
cause. What is left for me to give?

I'm a CloudMaker. What I do best is look at the world like a CloudMaker.
Perhaps that's taking group identity to the next step, and perhaps that's
something a lot of other people won't agree with. But I've been permanently
changed. Web-games, people will say, are not sufficient training for
forensic science, and they'd be right. There are counter-arguments, however,
not the least of which is the cliche in the intelligence community that
says, "all information considered sensitive or secret can eventually be
deduced from publicly available knowledge."

I wouldn't have sent this e-mail unless I thought we could make a
difference. We like to flout our 7,000 members and our voracious appetite
for difficult problems, but when the chips are down can we really make a
difference? Someone talked about the FBI having around 11,400 agents. If it
takes perhaps five CMers to come up with the knowledge of a special agent,
we're talking about improving their abilities 12%. That's roughly a full day
/every week/.

I realize that not everyone will be willing to do this. It would be, and is,
hard for us all. I'd ask that those who're thinking about persuing this to
add a tag at the beginning of their line to identify the nature of the post.
S11 (S standing for September) is both sufficiently different and similar
for everyone's purposes. This is what I'll be doing.


John - who is unable to give a witty or interesting tagline at this time.