“Before 9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste talked about the ‘menu of horrible possibilities’ at the Aspen Security Forum,” blogs the Con Man, “I had already met the guy in the stained suit running for President since he was 12 years old and the guy asking a client on the phone if he could bill him for printing something out. National security is now a bonafide made-in-America industry with crackpots included, and that means the dreaded public-private partnership is well underway and holding sway. The national security industry, resident here for a handful of days, is the only industry in the civilized world that will boom during the promised doom soon to come. Believe it or not, this is also an industry that tells you something unspeakable is going to happen—and soon—and then asks you to pony up so as to prevent it.”