-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 In my mind the sudden appearance of that momentarily almost-famous "pole dancer girlfriend" of Snowden's is of a piece with the rest of The Snowden Affair: It raises more questions than it answers, and adds more reasons to suspect a double game. Did the "pole dancer girlfriend" ever exist, and is that really her? I will assume so, for the sake of a fun story. What are the odds that she has travelled more than one mile in any direction since Ed went walkabout, without that motion being logged for analysis by a consortium of TLAs? Other than "she has always worked for us and is still passing polygraph exams," how could her bona fides as a person of no interest be so confidently endorsed by the public servants who let her walk away? If on the other hand Russia worked some hocus pocus on her behalf, why have public officials and partisan propaganda mills that already call Snowden a Russian agent remained silent on that subject? Painting the young lady in question as a Russian agent who used her pole dancing skills to steal U.S. secrets would not be hard: The story sells itself. Part two of the story would be how she fluttered away free as a bird to the waiting welcome of her Russian paymasters: First Benghazi, now Boris and Natasha in a Moscow love nest? It's an outrageous story that would suit many of our partisan political propagandists very nicely right about... now. But all I hear so far is crickets. "Those whom heaven helps we call the sons of heaven. They do not learn this by learning. They do not work it by working. They do not reason it by using reason. To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven." -- Ursula K. LeGuin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.14 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJUTFWGAAoJEDZ0Gg87KR0L2eIQAInkvM+0AUswetwBk2VMHf8r 9mu/zMReznVPyGcW0+Yn5hlftTlFkGouw8Eohdc/hlH9Av66Xf65fQD0q060sU8N eC3KuwBjcNsekZxDuinPS0ferwBkn5FQge819S9aTwAN6rJTO3d50AhtkG685udl T+Zm4TufUU5H3a0htckJEgsgwSVUJ71bSPchOovA8uC6ZFo1kTb00AnoixHIJyP1 E26KaaqoddRekut/bmGZoWvujkbqm22DSh5I4+SI1cCesnxezcgEhGShVBazHGFb lkwDrO29KjUHdiFY0qPrx1JBiQFa2tlk8OpeSTWrkWL8BbYgIgtBNxjS9JuljOiV /rZqQNnW9wxhz9xFU+zL3R1WD8oqFohBz9Jj/Jw5EzD+Qws97JFmJEzKUt3u0Q4y xGaS4Ic04pvPFGIH8FPkCTrswoN0ZzOpZyX3d4oBwKf3HO7D8FuRgmSnte4ppqUQ wwS2oCWu8Xd/k3iKbdanCdIfQbb5Pqk3gggEgN3Jo7rIiiqzpx9tjQy+0krxszIn mxnMusEL3vY8zdBf0Hc/n+g2erZAYjP6Lpw5WrvOaZvXj629Zv/UmguZkvF5/x37 FirG7rzAc7a72Xpr2K2P6jkV2zHtuGgeJenWnny8OcK/5mZ3dTNiWgb8F8fFyhgF IoTcBm2ed7/1VbjxEWcB =1T2p -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----