I'm posting this on June 23 at about 7:00am.
Just curious when you'll post it on my wall.
Maybe this is the opposite of the Google beta-update-surprise approach. This is the don't do anything at all approach.
Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts
6/23/2011
4/22/2011
midwesterners for manning
So I haven't been able to sleep through the storm this morning. Maybe I'm excited to go home for Easter.
For whatever reason, I've decided to put down my two cents on the government's move of Pfc. Bradley Manning from Quantico to Leavenworth. For most folks, that's like the middle of nowhere. But I happen to be from a few miles east of there! So I put together a Facebook page and attached this description. If I've done this right, you can even click the Facebook link right here to like it.
With the government’s surprise announcement in April of 2011 that Private First Class Bradley Manning would be transferred from Marine Corps Base Quantico to the Army’s Fort Leavenworth, you may be wondering, where the heck is Fort Leavenworth? For the 99% of the population that doesn’t live in the Kansas City metropolitan area, here’s a brief primer on the military assets in the nation’s midsection.
Scattered around the region are a couple of army ammunition plants, underground storage facilities courtesy of various limestone mines and caves, the old Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base, and Honeywell’s nuclear weapons plant. The major military bases are Whiteman Air Force Base and Fort Leavenworth. Whiteman, a little over an hour east of the KC area, is home to one of the world’s most unique military assets – the fleet of B-2 stealth bombers. On the Kansas side, Leavenworth (also the town’s name), in the northwest corner of the KC area, is the oldest Army post west of the Mississippi River. It serves as one of the Army’s most important training facilities.
But this page isn’t about these installations. This is about a particular human being, raising awareness of his circumstances.
You see, Leavenworth is also home to THE federal prison, the prison of prisons, the Place To Be. Sure, there are infamous prisons like Alcatraz, historic prisons like la Bastille Saint-Antoine, and the superduperultravaluemealmax security facilities that have sprouted all over the country. But if you have been a VIP of the United States Federal Government, you have paid a visit to Leavenworth. (Technical note: there are several separate correctional facilities in the Leavenworth area, so if you are ever writing to or visiting someone, make sure you know exactly where they are, but collectively, it’s easiest to simply refer to them all as ‘Leavenworth’).
Naturally, surprise announcements can cause worry and concern, but two key things about Leavenworth do not need to cause alarm. First, it’s true that this relocation moves Manning away from his attorney and the nation’s capital. But Leavenworth isn’t in the middle of nowhere isolated from the rest of the world. It’s actually closer to a major civilian airport than Quantico. Second, Leavenworth is a major destination for military and civilian prisoners. Places like Quantico and Fort Knox are for lesser sentences of military personnel, and on the civilian side, for much of the 20th century, there were few other United States Penitentiaries of note. (Another technical note: in 2005, the civilian federal prison system expanded and reorganized, building larger maximum security facilities and changing United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth to a medium security installation, ending the prison’s century long role as the largest maximum security prison run by the federal government. The United States Disciplinary Barracks remains the military’s sole maximum security facility.)
In other words, the military has taken now 23 year old Bradley Manning out of the purgatory of indefinite detention amongst run of the mill detainees to move him to the place of the federal government’s worst offenders.
Now, I don’t know whether Manning is ‘guilty’ or ‘innocent’ – I don’t even understand exactly what laws the government claims have been broken. As of the time of this transfer, the government hasn’t even started prosecuting him yet, even though he has been imprisoned since May of 2010. What I do know is that every American citizen, every human being, deserves a few basic rights:
1. Due process
2. A speedy trial
3. Humane treatment
4. Protection from cruel and unusual punishment
5. Access to visitors, including legal counsel, friends, and international observers
6. Equal protection under the law
I also know that information about the activities of our government belongs to We the People, not to our employees in Washington. After all, we don’t imprison Daniel Ellsberg, we celebrate him. The government acted so heinously in the Ellsberg case back in the 1970s that the federal judge hearing the trial dismissed all the charges against the man who leaked what we call the Pentagon Papers.
These principles form the bedrock of our justice system, of our way of life, and not just in DC. We Midwesterners happen to believe in them, too.
Thanks for sharing this page with your family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and elected representatives.
(Note: This summary was compiled by a civilian (me) with no detailed knowledge of either the military or civilian correctional systems. If you have expertise in editing this to be more precise, please feel free to share!)
For more info about the ongoing treatment of Manning, see this website or this one.
For whatever reason, I've decided to put down my two cents on the government's move of Pfc. Bradley Manning from Quantico to Leavenworth. For most folks, that's like the middle of nowhere. But I happen to be from a few miles east of there! So I put together a Facebook page and attached this description. If I've done this right, you can even click the Facebook link right here to like it.
With the government’s surprise announcement in April of 2011 that Private First Class Bradley Manning would be transferred from Marine Corps Base Quantico to the Army’s Fort Leavenworth, you may be wondering, where the heck is Fort Leavenworth? For the 99% of the population that doesn’t live in the Kansas City metropolitan area, here’s a brief primer on the military assets in the nation’s midsection.
Scattered around the region are a couple of army ammunition plants, underground storage facilities courtesy of various limestone mines and caves, the old Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base, and Honeywell’s nuclear weapons plant. The major military bases are Whiteman Air Force Base and Fort Leavenworth. Whiteman, a little over an hour east of the KC area, is home to one of the world’s most unique military assets – the fleet of B-2 stealth bombers. On the Kansas side, Leavenworth (also the town’s name), in the northwest corner of the KC area, is the oldest Army post west of the Mississippi River. It serves as one of the Army’s most important training facilities.
But this page isn’t about these installations. This is about a particular human being, raising awareness of his circumstances.
You see, Leavenworth is also home to THE federal prison, the prison of prisons, the Place To Be. Sure, there are infamous prisons like Alcatraz, historic prisons like la Bastille Saint-Antoine, and the superduperultravaluemealmax security facilities that have sprouted all over the country. But if you have been a VIP of the United States Federal Government, you have paid a visit to Leavenworth. (Technical note: there are several separate correctional facilities in the Leavenworth area, so if you are ever writing to or visiting someone, make sure you know exactly where they are, but collectively, it’s easiest to simply refer to them all as ‘Leavenworth’).
Naturally, surprise announcements can cause worry and concern, but two key things about Leavenworth do not need to cause alarm. First, it’s true that this relocation moves Manning away from his attorney and the nation’s capital. But Leavenworth isn’t in the middle of nowhere isolated from the rest of the world. It’s actually closer to a major civilian airport than Quantico. Second, Leavenworth is a major destination for military and civilian prisoners. Places like Quantico and Fort Knox are for lesser sentences of military personnel, and on the civilian side, for much of the 20th century, there were few other United States Penitentiaries of note. (Another technical note: in 2005, the civilian federal prison system expanded and reorganized, building larger maximum security facilities and changing United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth to a medium security installation, ending the prison’s century long role as the largest maximum security prison run by the federal government. The United States Disciplinary Barracks remains the military’s sole maximum security facility.)
In other words, the military has taken now 23 year old Bradley Manning out of the purgatory of indefinite detention amongst run of the mill detainees to move him to the place of the federal government’s worst offenders.
Now, I don’t know whether Manning is ‘guilty’ or ‘innocent’ – I don’t even understand exactly what laws the government claims have been broken. As of the time of this transfer, the government hasn’t even started prosecuting him yet, even though he has been imprisoned since May of 2010. What I do know is that every American citizen, every human being, deserves a few basic rights:
1. Due process
2. A speedy trial
3. Humane treatment
4. Protection from cruel and unusual punishment
5. Access to visitors, including legal counsel, friends, and international observers
6. Equal protection under the law
I also know that information about the activities of our government belongs to We the People, not to our employees in Washington. After all, we don’t imprison Daniel Ellsberg, we celebrate him. The government acted so heinously in the Ellsberg case back in the 1970s that the federal judge hearing the trial dismissed all the charges against the man who leaked what we call the Pentagon Papers.
These principles form the bedrock of our justice system, of our way of life, and not just in DC. We Midwesterners happen to believe in them, too.
Thanks for sharing this page with your family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and elected representatives.
(Note: This summary was compiled by a civilian (me) with no detailed knowledge of either the military or civilian correctional systems. If you have expertise in editing this to be more precise, please feel free to share!)
For more info about the ongoing treatment of Manning, see this website or this one.
12/29/2010
hr manager needed, too
One of the reasons I have long liked Apple is that their business model makes sense. They sell stuff that customers pay for. So long as both parties are happy with that relationship, things will continue indefinitely; what will ebb and flow are simply users at the margins who move with fads and technological changes and so forth.
One of the interesting business models that's developed more recently in the tech world is one built upon advertising. Google is an advertising company; they compete with newspapers and radio stations much more than Microsoft or Apple. Like Google through its flagship Search product, Facebook delivers a valuable product in its core offering - the social network - but one that, like Google, isn't valuable because of the tech aspect. It's valuable because of the network effect, because 'everybody does it'. And like Google trying to monetize outside of search, Facebook faces the intriguing challenge of trying to monetize an idea that everybody knows. The phone book and the little black book and even contact management software have been around for ages. Heck, even digital directory programs predate Facebook; the program at my school was called Faces.
So when you're built on a model of extracting value discretely from users rather than billing customers directly, there's enormous pressure to cut corners at the expense of quality. When I saw this ad, I thought it beautifully captured the ongoing strategic challenges for an ad-based world.
They need a secretary themselves.
One of the interesting business models that's developed more recently in the tech world is one built upon advertising. Google is an advertising company; they compete with newspapers and radio stations much more than Microsoft or Apple. Like Google through its flagship Search product, Facebook delivers a valuable product in its core offering - the social network - but one that, like Google, isn't valuable because of the tech aspect. It's valuable because of the network effect, because 'everybody does it'. And like Google trying to monetize outside of search, Facebook faces the intriguing challenge of trying to monetize an idea that everybody knows. The phone book and the little black book and even contact management software have been around for ages. Heck, even digital directory programs predate Facebook; the program at my school was called Faces.
So when you're built on a model of extracting value discretely from users rather than billing customers directly, there's enormous pressure to cut corners at the expense of quality. When I saw this ad, I thought it beautifully captured the ongoing strategic challenges for an ad-based world.
They need a secretary themselves.
5/01/2010
if you're an insecure nerd
you may like this. I found it searching a Target wedding registry. It's classic.
Also, this is a good test of Facebook's importing of blog posts. The 'ole book o' faces seems to be taking longer and longer to actually capture these suckers, kind of undermining the handiness of the automatic nature of the process. This is being posted at 11:30am on Saturday, May 1, 2010. I put the over/under on FB's bots at about Monday afternoon.
Also, this is a good test of Facebook's importing of blog posts. The 'ole book o' faces seems to be taking longer and longer to actually capture these suckers, kind of undermining the handiness of the automatic nature of the process. This is being posted at 11:30am on Saturday, May 1, 2010. I put the over/under on FB's bots at about Monday afternoon.
3/31/2010
3/31/2009
anybody else find this amusing
This ad was on Facebook this evening. Just wondering if you found it as funny as me.
3/28/2009
temporary bracket awesomeness
After some rough moments the first weekend, my NCAA bracket is momentarily looking in decent shape. I wanted to pull this screen shot from ESPN tourny challenge before things fall apart heading into the Final Four. Check it out.
And after a perfect 8 for 8, my Facebook bracket has become competitive again. With the right bit of luck, I might knock off Andy and Brian.
I find myself in an interesting fan position, too. I think it looks like there's a really good chance all four #1s make it again to the Final Four. Yet, I find myself rooting for all four of the other teams, Missouri and Michigan State on the left hand side and Oklahoma and Villanova on the right. Isn't March great! Every year, it brings spring, professional unpaid amateur sports, and of course, the last day of the month.
And after a perfect 8 for 8, my Facebook bracket has become competitive again. With the right bit of luck, I might knock off Andy and Brian.
I find myself in an interesting fan position, too. I think it looks like there's a really good chance all four #1s make it again to the Final Four. Yet, I find myself rooting for all four of the other teams, Missouri and Michigan State on the left hand side and Oklahoma and Villanova on the right. Isn't March great! Every year, it brings spring, professional unpaid amateur sports, and of course, the last day of the month.
3/23/2008
happy easter
Among other things, Easter is a good time to put things in perspective. A time to think about cleansing and newness. A time to distinguish small things from the big picture.
It was with this mindset that I started doing a little reading this afternoon, and the first article I ran across was from the Boston Globe about credit problems. It's a good, straightforward article highlighting various issues people are running into. In fact, it's noticeable for being so straightforward it's almost cliched. The same story could have been written months ago, or months from now, in any paper in the country.
We all know the language by now. We're in a 'credit crunch', a 'subprime crisis'. Lending standards are being 'tightened'. During the 'housing boom', lenders 'relaxed their standards'. Some of the more sarcastic reference a 'subcrime' crisis. Even the title of the article is interesting in how we are supposed to have a conditioned response to it, 'Qualified borrowers face credit squeeze'. The problem, we are told ad nauseum, is that qualified people can't get credit. There's just no money out there.
Now, it's good that the financial press and corporate media generally are talking about this issue. That's much better than ignoring the problem.
But after so many months of stories like these, the complete picture still isn't being told. The problem at its core isn't that there's a shortage of money; there's lots of liquidity for things that have value. Visa just had one of the largest IPOs in history. Corporations are sitting on something like $1.6 trillion in cash and $2 or $3 trillion more in short-term cash equivalents. As savings rates for average households were declining, corporate savings rates were hitting all time highs.
No, the key in that Boston Globe headline is not 'credit crunch'. It's 'qualified'. The obstacle we face, that we have been facing for many years, is a dearth of qualified borrowers. The 'housing bubble' was created precisely by lenders who gave money to people who can't afford what they're buying. Some specific policies related to interest rates and deregulation and so forth heightened the problem and explain the timing, and likely there was some criminal malfeasance involved as well as the usual predatory lending, too, but there's more to it than just that.
All the fancy technical analysis and long-winded answers and financial jargon can certainly serve as a useful distraction for particular actors that may have engaged in outright fraud or otherwise broken the law and may find themselves testifying before Congress, or other actors writing a book to explain why it's not their fault, but we are a very rich country. To become a crisis where people are literally being kicked out of their homes, it takes something more fundamental.
The fundamental question is this. Should someone willing to work full-time be able to comfortably afford decent housing? [And related to that, particularly in our tax code, do we place value on owning that residence?] Savings are low, people live paycheck to paycheck, and ultimately, people default on their mortgages, because the job they're in doesn't pay enough to afford their home. Wages, not credit, explain our current difficulties. The rest just makes the scale of the crisis more profound.
Now that's a question I would love to see headlining CNN this evening. I would love to see people talk about why we have people without homes, construction workers without jobs, and corporations with nothing to spend money on. There's no one right answer. But the first step is talking about the whole picture.
At least, after basketball. Gotta keep my facebook standing.
It was with this mindset that I started doing a little reading this afternoon, and the first article I ran across was from the Boston Globe about credit problems. It's a good, straightforward article highlighting various issues people are running into. In fact, it's noticeable for being so straightforward it's almost cliched. The same story could have been written months ago, or months from now, in any paper in the country.
We all know the language by now. We're in a 'credit crunch', a 'subprime crisis'. Lending standards are being 'tightened'. During the 'housing boom', lenders 'relaxed their standards'. Some of the more sarcastic reference a 'subcrime' crisis. Even the title of the article is interesting in how we are supposed to have a conditioned response to it, 'Qualified borrowers face credit squeeze'. The problem, we are told ad nauseum, is that qualified people can't get credit. There's just no money out there.
Now, it's good that the financial press and corporate media generally are talking about this issue. That's much better than ignoring the problem.
But after so many months of stories like these, the complete picture still isn't being told. The problem at its core isn't that there's a shortage of money; there's lots of liquidity for things that have value. Visa just had one of the largest IPOs in history. Corporations are sitting on something like $1.6 trillion in cash and $2 or $3 trillion more in short-term cash equivalents. As savings rates for average households were declining, corporate savings rates were hitting all time highs.
No, the key in that Boston Globe headline is not 'credit crunch'. It's 'qualified'. The obstacle we face, that we have been facing for many years, is a dearth of qualified borrowers. The 'housing bubble' was created precisely by lenders who gave money to people who can't afford what they're buying. Some specific policies related to interest rates and deregulation and so forth heightened the problem and explain the timing, and likely there was some criminal malfeasance involved as well as the usual predatory lending, too, but there's more to it than just that.
All the fancy technical analysis and long-winded answers and financial jargon can certainly serve as a useful distraction for particular actors that may have engaged in outright fraud or otherwise broken the law and may find themselves testifying before Congress, or other actors writing a book to explain why it's not their fault, but we are a very rich country. To become a crisis where people are literally being kicked out of their homes, it takes something more fundamental.
The fundamental question is this. Should someone willing to work full-time be able to comfortably afford decent housing? [And related to that, particularly in our tax code, do we place value on owning that residence?] Savings are low, people live paycheck to paycheck, and ultimately, people default on their mortgages, because the job they're in doesn't pay enough to afford their home. Wages, not credit, explain our current difficulties. The rest just makes the scale of the crisis more profound.
Now that's a question I would love to see headlining CNN this evening. I would love to see people talk about why we have people without homes, construction workers without jobs, and corporations with nothing to spend money on. There's no one right answer. But the first step is talking about the whole picture.
At least, after basketball. Gotta keep my facebook standing.
4/13/2007
news from the home front
My sister seems to have gotten a little too trigger happy with the Facebook photos. I'm going to have to watch her. Photos keep appearing with me tagged in them.
And if I'm going to complain about cable and telecommunications companies rewriting Missouri laws so that local cities can't negotiate on behalf of school districts to get cable channels (among other things), then perhaps I should share some of the cool stuff that KLPS does. Like a telethon happening today and tomorrow.
In case you were too lazy to click that link, students across the district have put together their own programming, and they're even streaming this particular event live over the web. Did you know we were voted the country's top high school football telecast for the 2006-2007 school year? Now you do. It's no wonder the telcos are scared of the kiddies.
And of course, a certain brother gets his birthday on Friday the 13th every once in awhile. This time, it's number 21.
And if I'm going to complain about cable and telecommunications companies rewriting Missouri laws so that local cities can't negotiate on behalf of school districts to get cable channels (among other things), then perhaps I should share some of the cool stuff that KLPS does. Like a telethon happening today and tomorrow.
In case you were too lazy to click that link, students across the district have put together their own programming, and they're even streaming this particular event live over the web. Did you know we were voted the country's top high school football telecast for the 2006-2007 school year? Now you do. It's no wonder the telcos are scared of the kiddies.
And of course, a certain brother gets his birthday on Friday the 13th every once in awhile. This time, it's number 21.
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