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.

The Grand Strand bloggers have gotten together and committed to a blogging convention in Myrtle Beach in April 2008. Very cool…I’m hoping that once they nail down the exact date I can work something out to go. Myrtle Beach is fun, it’s close enough to drive, but far enough away to seem like a little getaway. And I’d really love to finally go to a bloggercon. I’ve got some other stuff going on that month, so we’ll have to see if things work out, but I’m really hoping I can go.

More to come (the set behind this pic will increase in number; just click through), but I wanted to get one up ASAP.

Holy crap…I hate it when I let this stuff slip through. I had heard a bit about HR 1955 – Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, but I hadn’t read enough about it; and then it goes and passes the House 404 – 6. Yowch.

One can, in a sense, look at this as just an intent to study the problem…sure. On the other hand, one could have seen McCarthy’s investigations, or the House Un-American Activities Committee, as the same. (To be fair, neither the Church Committee nor the 9/11 Comisison was so bad). Regardless, those National Commissions tend to end up pretty powerful. So what would it do, anyway?

I have to admit I find some disturbing assertions within the findings section of the bill. For example:

• The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.

Ohhhkay. While true, the same statement can be made about satellite television, shortwave, newspapers, novels, and religious groups (note: in none of these cases do I mean ALL members/representatives of a group. Neither all shortwave transmissions, nor all churches, are bad. *grin*) But singling out the Internet here (none of my other suggestions get their own finding, dang it) suggests to me that there’s a considerable chance that it’s going to get special treatment. That is seldom a good thing.

This appears to be a done deal, based on the lopsided voting in the House. But the OpenCongress link has a great news and blog listing that will give you the opportunity to make up your mind for yourself about this. An informed decision is the most important thing, in my opinion. Feel free to disagree with me, as long as you have REASONS.

In addition, it’s votes like this that shine a light on people who vote on principle. In a divided House of Representatives such as our own, I expect there were many odd bedfellows on this bill…from people who just liked the sound of the title, to those who have strong convictions that this is exactly the Sort Of Thing Our Government Should Be Doing. And it’s an intrusive, classic big government solution…have a National Committe to look at the issue.

So who voted against it, and why? You’d have to either HATE big government, or really, really be worried about the consequences of this particular sort of investigation. Hmmm…only 6 voted ‘Nay’…lessee…Kucinich? Kucinich??? Note: his office hasn’t yet spoken on this, and maybe there was some weird, legislative technicality reason that he voted against it…but I’m guessing no. I’m guessing that this universal health care, pull the troops out in a day, hard-left Democrat voted AGAINST this commission because he thinks it’s a bad idea. Heck, even Ron Paul was only a ‘Not present’ vote!

Kucinich has guts, I’ll tell you that much. And, in fact…as soon as I can confirm (and I don’t think it’ll be hard) that he was actually against this thing, I’m tossing his campaign some cash. There’s no way the guy will win, unfortunately, but at least I can give him that positive reinforcement.

And back to HR 1955…we need to watch carefully who is appointed to this Committee, and what they do. And while they may not like it…at least the good old Internet makes that pretty easy.

UPDATE: the associated Senate legislation appears to be S.1959

UPDATE: just in case you don’t know me well enough to be aware of it, I am about as anti hate speech as you can get. I speak up when I hear it used, I find it shameful, and I am ALWAYS against the use of violence as a political tool. I’m by no means saying I’m pro-Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism; anyone who thinks that has a severe disappointment coming. I just happen to kind of respect that whole 1st Amendment thing. Good idea; let’s have more of those!

As of this afternoon, my chumby was in Louisville, KY; en route to me from China via Hong Kong, S. Korea, and Anchorage, Alaska. It’s supposed to be here Friday.

I’ve gotten a tad excited, if you can’t tell. *grin* I’ve had to answer the what IS it? question several times in the past few days, and I’m working through a good explanation myself…but it is, I think, A Big Deal. It’s really among the first generation of non-computer always-on Internet tools that (hopefully, anyway) just work, yet are open, hackable, and extendable by the user. The cell phone could have been this device, (and the gPhone may yet be) but the telcos are for the most part unwilling to give the user freedom to hack on these devices to any great extent. I hope that devices like the chumby show regular users what the freedom to make a device truly your own is like…freedoms that those of us who are willing to compile a kernel once in awhile have had for some time, thanks to GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, etc.

Time will tell, but I have a good feeling about this one…

Jeff Clark’s Transcript Analyzer visualization tool is pretty incredible. It allows you to highlight words used in the Oct. 30th Democratic presidential debate, see who said what when, and how the ebb and flow of topics progressed. It includes the ability to focus on any particular candidate, as well as a popup of the full text at any point. Really, really impressive. I love seeing data sliced and diced in this way, and to do it with such relevant information is especially useful. Thanks, Jeff!