The chart Ackerman reproduces is hilarious.* The X axis is inconsistent, with the first 1400 year period taking up much less than the half the space of the later 2000 year period, and with a 12 year period in the middle way to large. It's not obvious why "violent" should be at the bottom and "non-violent" on the top. And there shouldn't be any crescents in the upper corner since the crescent line ends at the bottom right. It's also erroneous to start the "Bible believers" line in 3 B.C. since there wasn't anything to believe in at least until the crucifiction, and erroneous to start torah in 1400 bc for siilar reasons. The lecturer would have received a low grade in Tufte's course.
*Or would be if it apepared in a nutter blog rather than in FBI training material.
As always the main consumers of government propaganda is it's own security services. Those are the people you have to convince that working full time to spy on and harass Islamic charities is the kind of thing that's a reasonable thing to be doing. I'd like to see what they we're telling them about the civil-rights movement.
I don't even know where to start. It's so depressing that this got past the levels of review it would (you'd think) have to go through? It's not even just that it's wrong; it's that it's so stupid.
Mohammad heard voices -- o noes! Has there ever been a religious prophet who didn't hear voices?
I think the stupidness is itself a bad sign, in that it suggests there is a large benefit to being bigoted in hiring and promotion.
The FBI needs to be disbanded and totally rebuilt (and it needed it after Hoover left as well). I recall as a schoolkid how the FBI Lab was held out as a paragon of advanced Forensic Science. We ate it up, and on a school visit* to Washington DC as a 6th-grader we toured it and all thought it was greats. And then some years later it came out that it fucking sucked and was outdated, biased and worse than useless in general.
*Safety Patrol Boys actually, but that's another story.
That graph makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a clip art crescent. From what I've heard, though, this is about average in terms of design quality for a government powerpoint deck.
Has there ever been a religious prophet who didn't hear voices?
Joseph Smith?
OK, but he had visions, as I recall. [Checking...] Wikipedia confirms.
More seriously, Quis custodet ipsos cutodes? Who is meant to monitor and regulate the agency, and can pressure be put on them to do something about this.
7: I've seen much worse in business settings. I've seen much worse in gov't settings. I've also seen much better in gov't settings.
12: the FBIFBI
Check out blogging colleague Richard Bartholomew on the guy who delivers this "training".
12: Ideally the GAO will look into these kinds of things, but I understand the FBI has the political clout to keep its important activities private from them.
Quis custodet ipsos cutodes?
I wish I knew how to write "I dunno. Coast Guard?" in Latin.
