Then I read this firsthand account of the day of execution.

The article itself isn’t what got to me; almost anybody can image the horror of facing one’s own death at the hands of the state, from a healthy body.  Worse even than the event itself is the vast expanse of time spent in agony, turning the impossible situation over and over in your head.  Reading the particulars was interesting, but being of my humanitarian viewpoint, the article didn’t do much to change my mind since I already think the death penalty is reprehensible and barbaric.

I don’t think the hordes of Angry Internet Denizens changed their minds, either.  Let’s see what they had to say:

fry him

Man, I hope reading that heartfelt letter got through to…:(

Awwww. Poor guy. So sad.

Hey! Let’s talk about the person he kidnapped and murdered with a bullet to the head.

This piece of dung should be fried!

Right, because we all make sound, moral life decisions at age 18.  Too bad the inmate’s letter showed more humanity than this Denizen is capable of.

Interesting . . . it was all about him. Gee, I’m sorry he was so scared and had so many things to distract him . . . what about the man he killed? Did he give even one second of thought to him? Did he feel remorse for what he did to him or his family? How many in this scum’s family prayed for the man he shot? Disgusting . . . and the person who granted the stay is to be ashamed of him/herself.

Unfortunately, the letter wasn’t about, nor meant to be about, the victim killed over 20 years ago.  But to push shame onto an official in our justice system for doing their job?  The rage is just unwarranted, especially since this guy wasn’t even removed from Death Row.  He’s going to have to go through that emotional roller coaster ALL OVER AGAIN.

TYPICAL NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY

Not a word about his victim or the family of his victim.

sanjosemike

I know, let me spend my last few precious hours ruminating on the crime I may or may not have actually committed, because clearly I have not done that at all over the last 20 years.

Awwww. you were scared of dying? Too bad scumbag, you should have thought of that before you kidnapped an innocent man and put a bullet in his head. Too bad you are still alive sponging off our tax money. I hope they put you to sleep soon!

There just aren’t any words.  Those are only a few of the comments up to that point on the page, maybe 10% of the way down.

I just don’t get it.  I mean, I’m right so clearly it is they who do not get it, but that’s not really my point.  How does murder justify more murder?  How can a state make one kind of murder legal, and the other kind punishable by death?

Why are people so spiteful?  Why are Christians, people of the faith of ultimate forgiveness (who, incidentally, compliment the inmate’s faith in God) so loath to forgive this man?  How can people be both enraged at the murder this guy committed, and then enraged that he hasn’t been killed yet?

This sort of rage leads to the emotional numbing that allows more violent crimes like the one supposedly perpetrated by this inmate.  However awful the initial crime, the criminal has spent more time paying the price for it than he even spent alive beforehand.  These people strike me as drooling wolves or hyenas; no amount of suffering seems to be enough.  The time behind bars wasn’t enough, nor was the death penalty, nor was the march to death he’s already done once, and will have to do again.  The dying itself isn’t even enough.  What’s next, 20 years of waterboarding and physical contortion as the inmate awaits the great beyond?

I’m out of words.  People this sick in the brain will never listen to anybody who disagrees.  It’s disgusting, and it’s sad.  All I can do is hope that this stringent belief in the justification of state-sponsored murder is dwindling with each coming generation.

It would be somewhat similar to this:

Sorta like this

but where on that there is maroon, my design has natural paper.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

1h

Image via Wikipedia

The NY Times is suggesting Obama won’t be able to use his blackberry once he becomes president due to the nature of the Presidential Records Act and security concerns. However, with a few modifications to his blackberry and a simple adjustment to the IT infrastructure, I believe he could theoretically continue to use his blackberry in a limited capacity while he is president. It would require implementing a proper cryptographic infrastructure between the president and the limited number people who have permission to email him on that account. As well, he may need to ensure that he cannot respond directly with the blackberry as a preventative measure. However, this second part may be unnecessary if the president is mature enough to not abuse the privileges granted him by the email account. (IE. He realizes that anything he sends on the BB can be subpeonaed.)

First concern that is obvious is the security concern:

Diana Owen, who leads the American Studies program at Georgetown University, said presidents were not advised to use e-mail because of security risks and fear that messages could be intercepted.

“They could come up with some bulletproof way of protecting his e-mail and digital correspondence, but anything can be hacked,” said Ms. Owen, who has studied how presidents communicate in the Internet era. “The nature of the president’s job is that others can use e-mail for him.”

I know that this is a bit of an ad hominem attack, but why the hell is the NYT asking a “American Studies” professor about internet cryptography? They should be contacting Bruce Schneier or such about whether or not this is possible. This is as useful as asking a carpenter about the finer points of the Maillard Reaction.

However, it is entirely possible to set up a secure Blackberry infrastructure and it is insulting to the men and women who work for the president to say otherwise. If needed, the United States government could easily modify a Blackberry and set up an IT infrastructure which would be as secure as any other channel the president uses. In fact, I would argue that by hiring some of the best minds in cryptography and IT infrastructure they could set up far more secure systems with the blackberry since technically only the president will be able to see anything which is received on it.

True, “anything can be hacked.” However, by that logic we should put the president into a lead-lined faraday cage, and only allow one advisor to talk with him at any time and that conversation needs to be recorded on a stone tablet using one-time pad encryption. Why? Because otherwise an adversary might have a remote chance of causing problems. Just because things can be hacked, doesn’t imply that they cannot be secured. The NSA is one of the most secure places on the planet and I promise you that they use computers and networks in their offices. It is the same for the pentagon, same for pretty much every other major department which needs to be secure in the US. It is sheer absurdity to say that a small task like securing a BB is not possible.

Now, another complaint they bring up is the Presidential Records Act.

But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas.

As a note, if the concern is that it would be difficult to keep records of all of his emails. Someone from Blackberry needs to call the advisors and let them know that the BES server does have the ability to back data up as needed. So the concern that somehow the records of his messages can’t be kept, like Cheney’s e-mails were “lost”, is an absurd concern.

Now, the other concern is the fact that anything the president sends or receives via email would be subject to public scrutiny. I don’t know about you, but I think Obama is mature enough that if the system was set up for him, he would be aware at all times that anything he sent from his Blackberry was a matter of public record. However, if he doesn’t believe that he can keep his typing thumbs away from doing something potentially embarassing, then set the Blackberry to not allow him to send any emails. That way he can receive the emails right away and filter his responses through his aides without any worries.

The final concern that I am able to see is that the Blackberry will suck up too much of his time.

She added: “It’s a time burner. It might be easier for him to say, ‘I can’t be on e-mail.’ ”

I acknowledge that when I had a Blackberry, it was a massive time suck. However, it wasn’t a time suck in the constantly refreshing, not really useful for productivity way that other email systems can be. It was a time suck, because suddenly I was able to get more work done. Why? When people needed to reach me, it would be automatically queued in my Blackberry. I could work my way through them systematically, and not be interrupted by phone calls or people walking into my office. People also could reach me at any time, and at any location easily.

It was a time suck, because it actually filled more of my work day with things I needed to do.

So, I think this is a non-problem. Limit the number of people with access to the presidential Blackberry email address and it will actually allow the president to be even more effective in his job. He will get updates on every important action that he needs to know about regularly and will be more knowledgeable and capable to respond faster to any presidential matter.

Obama can keep his Blackberry if he wants to. He just needs his White House IT and support staff to start thinking in the 21st century when it comes to computers.

1h

1h in the hizz-ouse

I’m not sure how standard of a practice this is, but it reflects a key part of Obama’s miraculous winning strategy: get a firm handle on absolutely everything the traditional media can, and will, use against you.  Aspiring Canadian progressives should take note!  If we want to win in this country, we’re going to need a campaign with this sort of meticulous detail to even stand a chance.

The American people hate hate hate hate hate hate HATE George W. Bush, having given him and his party the figurative bitchslap heard round the world on November 4^th, 2008. We can piss and moan about climate change and the economy and the war in Iraq, but the point being made is simple, clear, and obvious.

America should have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, as opposed to the government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich of the past few decades.

It’s undisputed that Democrats swept the election because of grassroots, people-powered movements. What could possibly motivate so many individuals to commit themselves to the realm of politics, so full of liars and schemers? As Obama so poignantly noted in his presidential victory speech, the win was not about him but the ordinary citizens who made it happen. People act selfishly.

But what kind of selfishness is this, and how far should it go? Is it with selfishness that we should have hope in those entangled in the American criminal justice system?

In rejecting John McCain (as reinterpreted by Karl Rove, of course), Americans rejected the Neo-Conservative ideal that power should remain in the hands of the privileged few, the only ones privy to “sensitive” information and discussions. Such policies originate from a Randian belief in the supreme power of the individual to the extent of supreme distrust of all other individuals.

They live in fear. Taxes are “stealing” because they trust nobody else with money and its power. The impoverished and homeless are such because they did something wrong, or they’re too lazy to get a job. To admit that it’s due to luck as opposed to ineptitude is to question their strength as an individual, and their deserving the undue power and influence they wield.

It all comes to a head in the penal system. At the outset it seems like it has to be a non-partisan issue, and yet when it’s a state like Texas that displays the most brutal sort of criminal justice system and one of the world’s highest rates of execution, contrasted with the summer camp-like rehabilitation prisons in Scandinavia, the politics behind the penal code are made clear.

To a Neo-Conservative, people are trustworthy to be of good faith and beneficial to society only up until the point where they break the law (except, of course, when the Neo-Conservative lawmaker does so, but that’s besides the point). Whether by coercion, a temporary lapse in judgment, or a true seed of evil, any criminal can be brutalized in the name of the law, whether by execution, incarceration, or a criminal record with which they can’t find a decent job. Even forgetting for a moment that the US and many of its states have far too many laws, and far too many irrelevant and outdated laws among those, treating criminals like wasted human flesh like they do in Texas serves only to reinforce the superiority of the watchers over the watched.

Neo-Conservatives will argue that criminals simply can’t be rehabilitated, that there’s no going back for a person once they’ve killed. As such, criminals in the States often undergo cruel sentencing, seemingly justified by the cruelties they’ve perpetrated. No consideration is given to upbringing, their parents, their environment, their personality, or their potential. The Neo-Conservative disdain for the other thus artificially robs the American population of much of itself, and a disproportionate section of the non-white community.

Any argument for a harsh and punitive system relies on complexities and fear, whereas argument for rehabilitation and ultimate and justified forgiveness only makes sense. To execute an inmate after going through a lengthy legal appeal process is an economic absurdity. To kill in justice against a killer is a moral absurdity. To prevent inmates from rehabilitating, learning, returning to career paths and re-entering society is moral, economic, scientific, and social absurdity to the extreme.

With so many things wrong in America right now, I know this is nowhere near the top of the list of holes to be mended, but it really should be. Hope should extend to the most hopeless of all. Obama talks of slashing funds from programs that don’t work for the sake of the ones that do, so let’s talk of the millions or billions wasted on wasting people and lives behind bars, and recommit it to enhancing our population with the people and resources we already have.

The proof is in the pudding: Scandinavian systems work. In what are often called the best places to live in the world, criminals are simply treated like the human beings they are, and dealt with not punitively, but with hope that they as people can improve and emerge beyond whatever heinous thing they’ve done. Scandinavian criminals are most often released within 15 years of incarceration, do not recommit crimes, and contribute to society in positive ways.

And this is all assuming the convicted criminal was even guilty in the first place. Mistakes are inevitable in our justice system, but to entrench that mistake by treating potentially innocent people they way we do, sometimes even with impending death, is reprehensible.

To repudiate the Neo-Conservative ideal is merely to have faith in other people like you would hope they have faith in you. Good faith can of course be abused, but it’s much easier to respect and respond to when it’s given in the first place. Any true change in America as a whole must happen like the change in government did: from the ground up and from the heart. This change means a refocus of American resources to people rather than corporations and the extraordinarily wealthy. But when we talk of restoring faith and power to the people, we must also restore faith and power to the people currently locked away and forgotten. We as a society must forget hate and fear; they’re what led to these horrible straits we’re in.

Image by Renegade98 via Flickr

After watching the historical Obama win, a lot of movement progressives (as well as ordinary people) around the world were incredibly happy. As he so eloquently pointed out during his acceptance speech, this victory wasn’t his victory, it was the victory of everyone who went out and worked hard every day to make it happen. Obama’s win felt incredible to so many people because his supporters, numbering in the millions went out, worked hard, and proved that with the right hard work, change is possible — big positive events are possible.

As Obama put it:

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.

It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.

It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.

However, it’s important that we all contain the joy we had that night and work in a fashion to ensure that it remains with us in the long term. This won’t happen by being a passive observer. It doesn’t happen by having any one of us insist on ideological purity for our cause, and it doesn’t happen by accepting a single victory in a long fought war between the forces of progress and the forces of destruction. It doesn’t happen by waiting for a leader. As was made clear during this election cycle, it happens through hard work and unity. Go out, start a club, help a progressive politician, develop an open source project, write a progressive blog, work to improve the world and stop those who want to harm the world and our liberties. Work hard, have small victories, and slowly bring not just your country, but the world into the future. We’ve already wasted too much time this millenium fighting the old battles.

If you remember how you felt and want to feel it permanently, then work hard to acheive more small victories. Research has shown that while rare, profound events are exciting and provide happiness in the short term, in general, they won’t make you happy in general. Instead, many small positive events will.

According to Daniel Mochon and colleagues, however, this is not the full story. Mochon’s team have tested the idea that whereas rare, massive events have no lasting effect on happiness, the cumulative effect of lots of little boosts may well have the power to influence happiness over the longer-term.

How can you ensure these small positive events will keep on happening? By working hard, getting involved with your community, and acheiving small changes on your own. It is really that simple. A small success is exactly that little boost. By working hard and consistently acheiving little boosts, your baseline happiness level will go up over the long term. By only aiming for large victories, you may be happy momentarily, but it will be fleeting. This is in essence what Joseph Campbell referred to when he said to find your bliss.

Beyond the simple enjoyment of accomplishment, there is another benefit to taking a task and working hard on it rather than spending all of your time reading the internet or watching TV. You can become “fucking awesome” at something, if you spend enough time on it. Many researchers believe that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice on a task to become an expert at it. This covers everything from piano playing, to mathematics, to handwriting, to community organizing, to blogging. 10,000 hours of hard, dedicated work.

Every hour, you have a little success, and that little success drive you forward. 10,000 hours will pass rapidly as long as you get over the initial hump in any learning curve.

So, what do I learn from this? Don’t go for the big one off, keep on working.

And change the world for the better.

1h

After a night of wrangling with hosts files, a shitty ISP, and such, we were able to get a backup of his old site and I’ve provided him with some space to put it on.

His new domain is http://scottdiatribe.canflag.com/. Obviously, he’ll need to get his template stuff in order, but other than that, things seem to be all there.

You can’t take us progressives out that easily.

1h

Yes we can.

1h

You’ve done it.

You’ve proven to the world that, yes…. we can.

KJR