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I just received an new action alert from the ACLU regarding the debate over ‘indefinite detention’ that’s going on in Washington right now. Apparently, it’s not so much over whether or not we SHOULD do it…rather, should it be by executive order, or legislation? I can hardly believe it.

I’m sending an action alert email thingie, from the ACLU’s website. I decided to copy the text here…I’m proud to send it. Note: this IS based on “suggested text”, but I’ve personalized it. I can provide a diff on request. *grin*

—BEGIN EMAIL—

It saddens me greatly that I have to send this email.

Unbelievably, there appears to be a debate over indefinite detention heating up in Washington, and I want you to know of my concerns. A debate. Over holding people without trial. Indefinitely. Some of whom we KNOW are not guilty of anything other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Indefinitely. Some of whom we have strong evidence against (which could be used, in perhaps…a trial). Some of whom we’ve tortured. (I say that without the ‘allegedly’ weasel word, because we’ve admitted we did so.)

I believe with all my heart that the administration is going down the wrong path in even considering a policy which would indefinitely imprison individuals without charge or the chance of a trial, beginning with the detainees at Guantánamo Bay. It’s wrong, plain and simple.

Indefinite detention is a violation of due process and the American principles of justice and fairness. It strikes at the heart of what makes us a great nation, and sets a terrible, terrible precedent.

Therefore, I urge you to reject any policy or proposal that would indefinitely imprison individuals without charge or the chance of a trial.

Those who disagree with me on this have every right to do so, though it concerns me greatly that it’s even an arguable point. I have little but contempt, however, for individuals that take this stance out of political expediency. There ARE things worth fighting for, and this is one of them. We are better than this. We have to be.

I realize the issues surrounding the closing of Guantánamo are difficult and complex, but we cannot afford to go down a path that violates our own Constitution. We simply cannot. If we do, we’ve done the terrorist’s job FOR them. Surely you understand that.

I respectfully ask that you do what is in your power to reject indefinite detention — whether through legislation or executive order.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

—END EMAIL—

Everyone should make their own decision on this, and I realize not everyone agrees with me. (It boggles my mind, but I accept it.) If you do agree, however, I encourage you to also share your views via this action alert form. If you disagree, I also encourage you to share your views, but I’d use a different form…you can’t change the subject line.

You can find your Senators and Representatives via this lookup form on the OpenCongress website, and the White House contact form is here. Whatever your opinion, communication with your elected representatives is a critical aspect of our form of government. Please reach out.

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Whether or not the point makes it across, it’s good to see articles like this one at The Atlantic, or Stiglitz’ Vanity Fair piece getting some attention. They highlight the fact that our current dire economic situation isn’t all that novel; we’ve been playing a game that many other nations do, just with more chips and for higher stakes. When you’ve got a bigger bankroll, it’s certainly harder to fail; but when it happens it’s a loonnngg way down the well if you’re not careful.

The Quiet Zone:

Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders. When a country like Indonesia or South Korea or Russia grows, so do the ambitions of its captains of industry. As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise.

Sound familiar? That’s why I’ve always hated terms like “America’s CEO”. America is not a freakin’ corporation; The United States doesn’t have shareholders, employees, and management. It’s better than that. Or should be.

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Atlanta is now a beta site at EveryBlock!

I’ve been a huge fan of EveryBlock since…well, since before they were EveryBlock. The site grew out of Adrian Holovaty’s original local info mashup, chicagocrime.org. Chicagocrime was one of the original Google Maps mashups, and not only showed off the power of map APIs, it provided a huge amount of useful data in a immediately useful visualization, at a very granular level. It was a huge hit, winning awards and immediate acclaim.

In early 2008, Adrian stepped up to the next level, and expanded outward with EveryBlock; a site designed to do what Chicagocrime did (and more), but for more cities.  EveryBlock started in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, with the intent of expanding as data feeds became available in other cities.

Atlanta has gotten a lot of interest through their polling app, and it’s just been released in beta this week. “Beta” isn’t an indicator of the flakiness of the site, as much as the availability of data…the site is the same (Python-powered!) code that runs all the city-sites. But much of the challenge is actually getting good data feeds from city governments and civic organizations, so that screen-scraping is kept to a minimum.

EveryBlock is a great example of a Web 2.0 style tool. It’s far more than a static site; info can be customized by location (zip code, neighborhood, address, etc.), by type (crime types, gov’t info [building permit requests, for example], local news mentions, etc.), pushed into RSS feeds, generated as email summaries, provided on great map mashups…it’s a little overwhelming. But it’s great stuff, and I’m looking forward to using the hell out of it. Thanks, EveryBlock, and welcome to Atlanta.

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Jay Rosen is a journalism professor at NYU who has been watching and thinking about the Web and its impact on the press for years now. He blogs actively at PressThink (among other places), and is a champion of the growing citizen journalism movement. I’ve been following his blog for a while now, but I recently subscribed to his FriendFeed, and the interaction has become that much easier, and much more participatory.

Jay deeply groks the Web; reading his articles on the challenges of journalism, or listening to him speak, provides a look into the growth of collaborative journalism, the art of participatory newsgathering, and future of media itself. He also practices what he preaches; he uses Twitter and FriendFeed not only as webs of potential contacts for stories, but also as a place to develop an insight that may eventually become a blog post (he refers to the process as mindcasting).

One of his recent FriendFeed posts prompted this writeup: as his network on FriendFeed and Twitter continues to grow out from his original niche (news, media and Web geeks like myself), he thought it worthwhile to point out a Rosen primer of sorts. This short (10-minute) panel talk that he gave recently (Feb. 2009) really distills a lot of his Web philosophy down. It’s fantastic! It also reminds me of the themes of Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody”; it’s a worthwhile cribsheet for either. We’re in the middle of a sea change, and it’s rare to get such a quick but thorough overview. Recommended.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/eDeaAOqagww" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

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In one of those weird twists, I somehow got on the topic of talking about my hot food addiction earlier today on Facebook. I like VERY hot food; habaneros, capsaicin extract sauces, the works. Flavor plus heat is great, but OTOH, sometimes you’re just looking for the 100,000+ Scoville unit hit. Today turned out to be one of those days. *grin*

Dinner was casual tonight, so I ended up at (irk!) McDonald’s (but hey, it’s been awhile). I ordered McNuggets and fries and brought them home, along with honey mustard sauce. But as I sat down at the kitchen table I remembered the conversation from earlier, and realized I simply HAD to toss these down with some fire.

Luckily, I received some high-quality goods (Dave’s Insanity Sauces; several flavors) as a gift this past Christmas…I have a fresh supply. (Extract sauces are so hot that even I take some time to get through a full-sized bottle, and often it’s kind of stale before I’m finished.) I started with the Dave’s Total Insanity, which I hadn’t tasted before. It’s not top of the line, heat-wise, but it has a bit more flavor than the strongest sauces, which tend to taste like dirt (fiery hell-dirt, but dirt) to me.

Total Insanity has a nice hint of garlic to it, and I made quick work of about half a dozen McNuggets, with a generous dollop of sauce smeared on each. There’s no WEAK Dave’s sauce, so the heat quickly kicked in, and I sat back for a moment to enjoy it. The sweat, the eye-watering buzz, the tongue-searing heat. Ah.

But Total Insanity is definitely the light end of the Dave’s Gourmet line, so I switched to a bottle of regular ol’ Dave’s Insanity Sauce to finish off the nuggets. I then proceeded to dip my fries down the neck of the bottle, coating them in the powerful gunk. Yowza! THAT kicked it in…the brain stepped up another level as a rush of endorphins hit to try and save what was left of my mouth, lips, and tongue. I’m on fire!! LOL

I’d gotten out of the habit of eating hot sauces regularly; I handle our pet hairless rats daily, and they have both sensitive skin and a habit of licking the tips of your fingers, which wouldn’t be a good idea tonight. I need to remember that, and be a bit more careful…use a BBQ brush or something, I guess. But I’ve still got my tolerance, which is good, and I definitely enjoyed the meal. I finished things off with a crisp Granny Smith apple; the tart fruit was a wonderful change, as I let the remnants of the pepper ebb away.

Thanks to Barry for reminding me what a great idea McNuggets and habaneros can be!

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Been quiet around here, but among other things, we were on vacation last week in Florida (Mouse, et al.). Back now, and I have work in the pipe; both a vacation review, and some posts that have been in draft form for awhile. So more soon! I was also quite pleased with the results and established workflow from my last KAZ podcast episode, and more of that is definitely coming as well.

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Last fall, the Institute For The Future sponsored a massively multiplayer forecasting game called Superstruct that I spent some (though nowhere near enough) time in. The entire set of user data, game scenarios, discussion groups, etc. was frozen at the end of the game, and the information was made available to researchers. The first results have now been released…nice! More to come from IFTF, and there has also been a great deal of non-official commentary and analysis; I think the game was a great idea and a great success. I look forward to more work like it.

Amusing anecdote…the data was released at the Institute’s 10 Year Forecast event, and Jamais Cascio (a prominent futurist associated w/ the Institute, and whose blog I follow) gave several presentations there on Fifty-Year Crisis Scenarios. I just read the post on his presentation, which included the following scenario (I quote his quote):

In this fifty year period, a massive depression, coupled with the collapse of a key resource, undermines traditional economic models. Even as the global economy recovers, a global war erupts, a horrifying accident triggered by political systems overwhelmed by increasingly rapid communications, a tragedy multiplied by the almost casual use of chemical weapons. The end of this war coincides with the emergence of a pandemic the likes of which the world has never seen, killing millions upon millions — and, combined with the war, almost eliminating an entire generation in some parts of the globe.

After the pandemic ebbs, a brief, heady economic boom leads many to believe the worst has ended. Unfortunately, what follows is a global depression even more massive than the previous one, causing hyperinflation in some of the most advanced nations, and leading directly to the seizure of power by totalitarian, genocidal regimes.

What follows is perhaps predictable: an even greater world-wide war, nearly wiping out a major culture and culminating in a shocking nuclear attack.

At this point, you’ve probably already realized that this scenario covers the end of the nineteenth century through the end of World War II.

As he noted, fun stuff. When done well, futurism is a powerful tool for understanding potential future (and past *grin*) trends, issues, and challenges (and can even include things like writing science fiction). I’m always happy when I see someone thinking about the future, and tools like Superstruct will give regular folks new ways to participate and join in.

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This episode is a straight up review/discussion of James Boyle’s newest book, “The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind”. I’ve added a couple of links here to his website, and some of the other authors mentioned in the podcast.

Episode links: direct MP3 download link, or blip.tv page.

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These sorry sons of bitches: In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Inquiry Into Past Use.

I think this article may upset me more than the graphic details of the actual interrogation. (And that’s saying something). This is either insanely gross incompetence, at the level of Cabinet members and the leaders of Congress, or blatent willful ignorance of the facts to avoid responsibility. This article is just chock full of crazy:

According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans.

The top officials [Tenet] briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.

Pardon my French, but…come the fuck ON. Are you serious…this is your defense?? AAhh…they had blowed us up! We waz scared! How were we to know this stuff was bad? Hell, I was a goddamn NROTC midshipman and I knew that SERE training was based on Korean War torture techniques. That was the whole POINT.

It’s time for somebody to go to jail. We tortured people. We tortured people because we could, and we didn’t really think of them as human beings, and we were looking for vengeance. Same reasons as anybody who tortures people, really. And now we’re pulling the but everything happened so fast card.

That’s exactly why people with sense were telling you to slow down before you did something stupid. And instead, you’re going to try to excuse your actions by emphasizing your incompetence. It’s time for the people making those decisions to take responsibility. (and don’t start with me on Cheney’s eh, it worked, so shut up about it argument).

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Obama’s no prosecution vow meets resistance

To say I’m disappointed in this decision is an understatement.

This is a time for reflection, not retribution, President Obama said. No, this is a time for accountability, not for ducking the issue by wrapping oneself in the flag. If we are not a nation of laws, then that flag doesn’t matter much anyway. *sigh*

As usual, the ACLU is doing outstanding work here. They have been one of the organizations working to get the legal memos released that the Bush administration used to justify torture. In appreciation of all their efforts, and on the advice of an old friend that it’s best to respond constructively to situations like this, I’ve made an additional donation to the ACLU today. A birthday present to myself, and a gift intended to support the freedoms of all of us.

I also encourage you to join me in demanding the appointment of a special prosecutor; watch this short video and join me in demanding accountability.

Let’s stand for the rule of law, not of men. Let’s stand for the idea that torture is wrong, period.