Uh, I had checked that thread when it started, and it sure didn't seem to me as if it was about the Pentagon's website for terrorism futures trading. It seems to be that DG guy, off on a rant about I'm not sure what, so I skipped over it.

But I loved the Nation's spin on it (the link above). Here is a wee excerpt of it:

"Uh ... wait. That can't be right, can it? No, this is simply yet another "unbelievably stupid and offensive" idea from the Donald Rumsfeld Pentagon's own Dr. Strangelove, convicted Iran-Contra liar John Poindexter. Both aisles in the Senate have recoiled in anger from Poindexter's plan to spend millions of US dollars setting up a terrorism roulette wheel. (And talk about "moral hazard"! If I put a million-dollar hedge against someone gunning down Yasser Arafat on Tuesday, don't I have a million-dollar incentive to see that happen? And what if I place a very public bet with the Pentagon bookies against the life of, say, a top US official -- and then he or she is killed? Do I really just get a handshake and a check from DARPA?)"

So, the thing I wondered about is, just who are the people the Pentagon thought would wager bets in this pool anyway? Investment bankers? High level government bureaucrats? Ted Turner?

They say the people they thought would participate, would be people who were knowledgeable about the Middle East. So, just who is that exactly? The ayatollahs? The Saudi royal family?