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2. oktober 2003
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FBI: No profiteering from 9/11 attacks
Just before 9/11-01, there was a suspicious spike in the volume of trading in airline stock options, and somebody made big money from the disaster. Did people with deep connections to al-Qaeda decide they could just as well get rich off the planned attack? Bin Laden himself was, after all, from a wealthy and powerful Saudi business family (which, I hasten to add, have disowned him).
After the attacks, in which terrorists commandeered planes owned by the two biggest airlines, United and American, traders in the Chicago options market noticed suspicious pre-Sept. 11 spikes in volume. Put options for stocks in the airlines' parent companies, UAL Corp. and AMR Corp., registered huge trading increases in the week before the attacks.
Investors can use puts, which confer the right to sell a stock at a pre-determined price, to make money when the underlying share price falls, similar to shorting a stock. The terrorist attacks and their effect on the travel industry caused shares of UAL and AMR to fall dramatically when the markets reopened Sept. 17.
Cogswell said most of the options trading was carried out by hedge funds with bearish outlooks. He did not name any of the funds, which pursue risky investment strategies on behalf of wealthy clients.
However, the FBI has now, to very little fanfare and attention, concluded that nothing suspicious was going on Nobody with foreknowledge of the incoming disaster had been trying to make money of the terrorist act. It was, the agency concludes, just a coincidence that high-risk hedge funds happened to trade heavily on airlines on that day.
On Sept. 10, 2001, put options on AMR were 17 times their average volume of 269 contracts. On Sept. 6, 2001, UAL put options were traded at more than four times their average volume of 711 contracts.
Some coincidence! Unlike many, I do believe coincidences can happen, and they do all the time, but I find this one hard to swallow. On the other hand, if I had seen the evidence the FBI has worked through, I may have had to conclude the same. Is such investigations covered by some US public disclosure act?
I would have lost this story if not for The Memory Hole.
11:58:12 PM 
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Schwarzenegger apologises amid sexual harassment charges
There has been hints that the LA Times had an article that was devastating for Arnold Schwarzenegger's gubernatorial chances, and was just waiting to drop it at the right time. Well, now the story is all over the Net: Six women, four of them anonymously, says that the former Mr Universe sexually harassed them on movie sets, including unwanted touching and fondling, over three decades. None of the women had pressed charges.
In comments to supporters as he kicked off a four-day bus tour, Schwarzenegger dismissed the report as "trash politics," but he then went on to apologize.
"Yes, I have behaved badly sometimes, yes it is true that I was on rowdy movie sets ... and I have done things I thought were playful that now I recognize that I have offended people," Schwarzenegger said.
He added, "I am deeply sorry about that and I apologize."
Republicans, who surely thought they had the win in the box, will now be anxiously looking at the polls to see how this sits with the Californian voters.
11:12:45 PM
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Another mystery solved by science
Qasim Saleem, a PhD student at Loughborough University, and his supervisor Ricky Wildman has solved one of the big mysteries in life: why cookies crumble. Using a laser and some detailed analysis, they identified the culprit: moisture.
Next week: why banana skin is slippery.
I propose an Ig Nobel nomination, an award for achievements in science that "cannot or should not be reproduced."
1:56:54 PM
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Another class of fanatics graduate
A scary story on the BBC about an Islamic seminary, Darul Uloom Haqqania in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, turning out another class of fanatics who want nothing more in life than killing "infidels" (that is, us).
Among them was 15-year-old an Afghan refugee, Javed Ullah.
"I wish to fight the infidels," he said as he left the seminary in Akora Khattak, 50 kilometres east of the provincial capital, Peshawar.
Javed is among 600 students who have completed studies in different fields over the past year.
Wearing white turbans and dress, all the new graduates looked satisfied and seemed to brim with hope for a bright future.
"I want to go back and fight the Americans," Javed said wearing a garland. "I can't wait anymore."
Musharraf has some work yet to do in his country. For a long term solution to the terrorist problem, shutting down these schools should be a top priority.
11:22:49 AM
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Plame — operative or desk spy?
Columnist Robert Novak has argued that Valerie Plame was a CIA analyst, not an operative or spy, so revealing her name didn't do any real damage. CalPundit has summarised the details that have been made public so far, and they clearly point in the opposite direction.
So was Valerie Plame just an agency desk jockey whose identity was no big deal? On the contrary, the evidence so far rather strongly suggests that her cover was real, she ran a network of informants specializing in WMD proliferation issues (either currently or in the past), and that her network has now been blown for the sake of petty political payback.
Hopefully, there will be payback for this, whoever is responsible. He has more here.
PS: Eugene Volokh, who certainly knows the subject, says that Novak probably can be sent a subpoena and ordered to reveal his sources in court, if there is no other way to find out who called him.
8:54:23 AM
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Blackout: How to make news out of thin air
One of the top news stories here a couple of days ago was that hackers are threatening our power supply. Of course this made headlines in the wake of the Italian power blackout, which again followed similar incidents in Denmark and North America.
The power grid operators report, probably on questions from journalists, that their online computers experience daily attacks, that is, attempted breakins from the Internet.
We have used large resources on preventing them, and so far has no one managed to break in,” said Rangvald Nærø, group chief executive at Statkraft, the national power supplier.
Also Statnett, which runs the Norwegian electric network, experience daily attacks.
“We have daily visits by uninvited individuals who tried to enter our systems,” said Tor Inge Akselsen, information director at Statnett.
This, while undoubtedly true, is extreme alarmism and very misleading. Every computer network which is placed on the Internet, and especially if it has web sites, experience daily "attacks", mostly probing from various toys that script kiddies use to find and exploit vulnerable systems. Regreattable, but it is life on the net.
None of the journalists made any attempt to find out if there is more to these attempted breakins, that is, if any are obviously targeted with the intention of disrupting the power system, by someone who could be able to do so. Perhaps that would ruin a good alarmist story?
I should also hope, even assume, that it takes more than breaking into Statkraft's web server to get access to computers controlling the national power grid. That is, if the power engineers do a better job than journalists. Yup, my light switch still works.
6:29:25 AM
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Interview with Wesley Clark
Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall has a very interesting interview with Democratic candidate Wes Clark. I think he is making some good points on a number of issues, even if I don't agree with him about everything.
Nod to Marprelate Tracts.
4:21:17 AM
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From the colour of money?
There has been a lot of attention to the excesses of corporations (and rightly so), but much less so to the abuse of tax-exempt money flowing to non-profit organisations like Greenpeace.
2:36:39 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.11.2003; 03:18:05.
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This is my blogchalk:
Norway, Bergen, Norwegian, English, Jan, Male, 31-35.
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