Thanks to David Rothman at TeleRead for the link to an interesting story: Validators, by Andy Oram. In the vein of Richard Stallman’s The Right to Read, or portions of David Brin’s Earth, Oram’s short story investigates the repercussions of a society in which a group, the Validators, serve as trusted arbiters and advocates of the truth. Of course…there’s always the problem of watching the watchers, and the story digs into the implications. It’s a bit rough around the edges, and the ending is abrupt, but the ideas are good. The challenges of such issues as distributed trust metrics, megadata mining, and information society economics are well-represented here. It’s worth a read.

Sorry it’s been quiet…the holidays make it tough to keep up at
times. But I hope everyone is doing well, and looking forward to the
new year…I know I am. I have some semi-big plans, and I’ve started to
FINALLY get my groove on with some of my personal projects! And
once I get started, it always seems to be easier to keep the momentum
going.

More info as we move along. I think I’ll finally even get another
podcast out this weekend; I probably will ramble a bit about my plans
there.

For those of you who think I’ve completely lost the whole libertarian mojo, consider my response to King County Housing Authority to start smoking ban…which is…WTF??? (yeah, yeah, it’s public housing, blah, blah. I hope that’s not anyone’s defence who approves of this, because these people CLEARLY do not want to stop.)

Thanks to The Agitator for the link! (I think thanks, anyway…it kinda just makes me cranky. But not sick like torture stories, so that’s something…)

Well, Chris Dodd started his filibuster of the FISA bill including telecom immunity this morning; the first true filibuster in 15 years, apparently. Good show, Senator Dodd! And I had promised myself that I would contribute to your presidential campaign if you had to step up for this…so I just did! As I said on your website when contributing, thanks for standing up for transparency and the rule of law. (Note: CSPAN2 has the live feed of the filibuster…I love this stuff! First motion for cloture at noon…if this one fails, then it gets really fun. *grin*)

UPDATE: Doh! I really don’t know the Senate rules very well. Looks like the filibuster won’t start (if necessary) until later today. *shrug* Oh well…Dodd’s still on board, and his comments this morning were inspiring.

UPDATE 2: Sonofabitch. Reid postponed it until January. It’s certainly not over, but you’ve gotta call that one a (at least tactical) victory. I listened to several hours of the debate today off and on (go CSPAN), and it was well worth it. I listened to Senators Sessions (R-AL) and Hatch (R-UT) go all out with their reasoning for granting telecom immunity. I honestly gave them a chance…and was less than impressed. Conversely, Senators Feingold (D-WI) and Dodd (D-CN) both really wowed me. I’d love to have either one as a senator. ( And no, I haven’t just became a bleeding heart Democrat. I don’t agree with everything either Feingold or Dodd say, and yes, there are Republicans whom I respect. But not many, and especially not on this issue.)

Team Fortress 2 is one of my favorite new games, and Valve has just released detailed stats page on gameplay. Which classes are played the most, damage per class…even death maps showing where the kills are on, say, 2 Fort. Cool!! I’m hardly an expert at TF2 (that’s my nice way of saying I suck), but I enjoy it. If you’ve got a Steam account, go ahead and add kenkennedy as a friend!! (It’s not like I’m any competition…*grin*)

Go read Inside the CIA’s notorious black sites, especially if you’re a fan of our Global War on Terror. Own it. Because we all have to own it, unless we stop it. It’s ours. I hope you feel as ill as I do. Cory Doctorow’s comments in his boingboing piece are well put: Torture is a cancer. Extrajudicial imprisonment is a cancer. These things rot democracy. They rot nations.

As I’ve said before…we have lost our way. Oh, and feel free to comment, especially if you want to deny the reality of this. To be honest, I find that extremely unlikely, but bring it on…if you can really prove it, I’ll at least sleep a little better that night. OTOH, prepare to have me rain on your fantasy parade if you bring me crap.

danah boyd has been in my feedreader list for awhile now…she has a great understanding of the social networking space, and also seems like a very nice and together person. She’s recently written a set of very strong posts:

• Overprotective parenting and bullying: Who is to blame for the suicide of Megan Meier?
• Facebook’s “opt-out” precedent
• MacArthur Series on Digital Media and Learning (it’s live!)

If you’re interested in the social networking research space, youth and the digital society, digital media, etc., you could do MUCH worse than subscribing to her blog.

I haven’t said anything about the torture revelations because, well…it hurts to think about it. Unfortunately, I’m completely unsurprised that we not only did it, not only destroyed evidence of it, but did so when under DIRECT judicial order not to do so…and even so, it’s not the knowledge of the incidents that hurts the most right now (those that knowledge hurts terribly). What hurts the most is that I’m unsurprised. What hurts the most is watching us do this to ourselves; to this grand experiment that so many fought and died for.

We’re so far down this slippery slope now that we’re in a twilight zone where headlines like Waterboarding ‘saved lives’ seem uncontroversial. Can I even explain how wrong that is, if someone doesn’t understand? I have no doubt that it’s possible for torture to save lives; I can think of other ways to do so as well…

Capital punishment for repeat DUI offenders…they statistically have a much higher chance of killing others in accidents. Let’s save lives. Immediate execution of prisoners of war (well…after torturing them for info); eliminates any possibility that they could escape (or be freed at the end of present hostilities) and wreak revenge. Heck…based on the demographics of Islamofascists, we could forcibly sterilize women in certain Middle Eastern countries and drastically reduce the chances of future suicide bombers being born…thus saving lives.

There’s a reason that the ends justify the means is a bad idea, folks. Maybe at some point in this dark time, we’ll learn that lesson.

Note: in case I’ve been unclear here, or at any other time; I don’t disagree with torture because it puts our troops in harm’s way, or because it’s not particularly useful…though I happen to believe that both of those things are true. I disagree with it because it is ethically repugnant to me to do that to another human being, regardless of what they’re done. Yes. Regardless. Period. It’s wrong…that’s why it’s wrong. Funny…some people say I’m the one who lacks moral convictions…

UPDATE: Never fear, steadfast readers…er, reader. Whatever. I haven’t given up. I tossed some cash in the ACLU‘s coffers, I’m checking out more anti-torture organizations to support, and I’m emailing and snailmailing my Congresscritters. We may be in a bad place, but I don’t think the Bad Guys of any stripe have a lock on things. Not by a long shot. There are a lot of good people around, who wake up slowly, and reluctantly sometimes…but they wake up.

I was sharing some links and camaraderie with my friends tonight, and it wasn’t on Facebook, or MySpace, or even Twi…ok, there was a little Twitter goin’ on. *grin*. But mainly…it’s mailing lists! Mostly created by me, using the awesome and easy to use GNU Mailman tool; you get easy web-based admin, online archives, etc. for free. I LOVE mailing lists…I have them for groups of friends I hang out with on weekends, groups I play games with, groups I chat with. I dunno…I guess that’s not normal anymore, but I find mailing lists to be pretty nice for managing social activity. *shrug* I guess I’m old now. *grin*

PS: Chumby update coming. Short of it…it is awesome. But I’m showing it to some less bleeding edge friends over the next few days, to get a more mainstream opinion, before I post longer. I think it’s a mainstream winner as well, though.

PPS: And yes, I’m goofy enough to have a subdomain for my lists.