Close Guantanamo...Yesterday!

Now that the spineless democrats have joined with their colleagues across the aisle in opposing the immediate closure of Camp X-ray at Guantanamo Bay, it is time for us all to snap out of this political theatrical event and realize that we must close it, and we must close it now. I decided to do my best to sum up some of the arguments against closing Gitmo immediately, coupled with my counter-arguments.

1. They're terrorists!

* Unfortunately for the proponents of this argument, and more unfortunately for many of the captives themselves, they are not all terrorists. For those of you who, unforgivably don't follow the news, there was a messy period during and after the invasion of Afghanistan when the American military was offering cash money for Al Queda or Taliban members (just like Ed McMahon does for gold). Given the extreme poverty found across much of Afghanistan, the presence of corruption, and the disinterest the American military had for fact checking, dozens, if not hundreds of people were literally sold to the invading army and labeled as terrorists. While a good number of them have since been released (some after spending over 6 years in detention without any charges) some of the remaining 250 could well fall into this category. As recently as May 2008, a journalist was finally released after being held since December of 2001. That's right, it took 6 and a half years for the American military to realize that he was not a terrorist.

2. I don't want them in my state!

* Look, let's be reasonable. The men at Gitmo are people who had AK-47s in some patch of scrub land in Afghanistan. That's what got them classified as terrorists, or, "the worst of the worst." They are not super villains with laser beams that shoot from their eyes, or possess super human strength to bend the bars of a pitiful American prison. They are no more likely to escape from an American prison than was Timothy McVeigh or Ted Kaczynski (the unibomber for those of you living in the United States of Amnesia). This fabricated notion that by putting them in American prisons, they'll somehow manage to escape and immediately blow up your precious Wal-Mart is laughable at best, and sad at its worst.

3. Well, maybe they weren't terrorists then but they are now.

* This is by far the most offensive argument made to continue to hold people at camp X-ray. The argument is essentially that we, through our over-zealous policies, have created brand spankin' new terrorists by torturing them and solidifying their hatred of the West, and specifically America. This is where we get to set an example to the future administrations that this will not be tolerated. We have had to eat so many piles of steamy, smelly shit from the previous administrations actions and it is time to say ENOUGH. We cannot continue to cement the position that even though you are warned not to do something due to the possible ramifications, and you do it anyway, that we must then absolve you of the responsibility of ownership of that mess. I believe the old adage must apply to these situations, from the invasion of Iraq to the clustf@#k that has become the detainee situation, and that is "you break it? You buy it." Instead of continuing to hold these people who were not Al Queda or Taliban or any other "terrorist" group member until the day when they will certainly want to seek revenge, we should work with programs like those of the Saudis and try to rehabilitate these young men. If successful, they would become extremely powerful voices on America's behalf in the Islamic world.

Finally...a use for twitter

This morning, like many mornings, I tried to browse over to google news to pass the time, but instead I was smacked with a 503 Server Error. I thought about doing a google search to see what was up, but then I thought, where can I get the most up to date information possible? Twitter! Did a Twitter search and I got hundreds of results of people all over the world discussing, or tweeting, about the fact that Google News was down for many of us.

So while many of us were unable to access our morning dose of news a la Google, many in the twitter community who were still able to access Google News were trying to help out the rest of us by tweeting news stories:

nilsafeeds: Google News: Pope meets Israeli prime minister in Nazareth (Extra) - Monsters and Critics.com: Teleg.. http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/8-2-0&fd=R&u... (contract)
half a minute ago from twitterfeed · Reply · View Tweet

nilsafeeds: Google News: Tornadoes kill 3 people in Missouri - The Associated Press: The Associated PressTornado.. http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/2-0-0&fd=R&u... (contract)
half a minute ago from twitterfeed · Reply · View Tweet




Finally, here are some tweets that shared my sentiments:

strawberryMae: Why has google news been down for almost 15 minutes now? I need my morning updates!

lundregan: Google news is down! oh boy, I'm surprised I'm not hearing wailing in the background at the office.

simonashton: I keep seeing 503 errors trying to search Google News - is it working for others?

The banned SNL Big 3 bailout sketch

Because NBC refuses to allow this to live on Hulu, NBC.com, or youtube, I thank DJKonservo for providing this video which is not only hilarious but insightful as well.

60 Minutes - When did you lose your spine?

I just watched a feature on 60 Minutes about Saudi Arabia's approach to dealing with inmates released from Guantanamo.  While it showed some of the progress being made by the Saudis' attempts to rehabilitate the former Gitmo detainees, the underlying tone of the piece was very hostile and David Martin's questioning seems to completely ignore the fact that many of the detainees that have been guests of Gitmo were sold the Americans by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan with no actual links to terrorism or the Taliban.  Those people were then held in terrible conditions and subjected to torture and other intensive interrogation that would undoubtedly make an inmate harbor angry feelings towards his former captors.  The fact that our detention policies have created angry young men is not a blank check to then throw away the key and we should be doing our best to encourage similar programs to those of the Saudi government's so that these young men can be released and rehabilitated as soon as possible.  The longer we keep them in Guantanamo and abuse them, the more likely they will in fact become terrorists when released.

Spelling mistakes that get me peeved

This has nothing to do with the putrid pundits that infest our airwaves (and cable lines) and much, much more to do with the crumbling state of America's education system.  America's institutions of learning, coupled with an "auto spell-checker" generation are threatening the very fabric of the English language.  I do not claim to have impeccable grammar or perfect spelling but I do expect at least that much from the news organizations that surround us.  

Recently, I have been unable to read an entire daily newspaper without coming across blatant errors ranging from the inability to differentiate between "affect" and "effect", to the misuse of phrases like the one I pointed out in my last post ("worse" and "worst").  If only newspapers still had editors who proof read submissions before sending them to print much of these problems would disappear.  

The fact that a google search for the term "worse case scenario" produces over 200,000 results is a testament to the fact that people do not think about what they write, nor do they re-read what they have written to make sure there aren't these mistakes.  Pause, and think for one moment about what "worse case scenario" literally means.

You got it yet?  Ok, take another 30 seconds and think it over...

Ok, time's up.  It means a "not as good" scenario, or a slightly more bad scenario.  That would be fine if that was what they meant to say, but clearly when flashing enormous graphics across the screen in an effort to terrify the public and stoke fears of Mexicans carrying deadly diseases, the message they were attempting to communicate was the very "baddest" of the bad scenarios....the "worst" possible outcome.

So where does this lack of ability to communicate effectively come from?  Part of it, I believe, comes from the laziness with which people enunciate these days.  If when you say the word "worst" you sort of drop the 't' at the end, soon you will begin to think you are saying "worse".  Now, I'm not saying that everyone should go around saying "ay-fect" and "ee-fect" but certainly the lack of proper enunciation contributes to the lack of proper spelling.  

The real problem is probably our complete and total reliance on the spell checker.  In that sense, Microsoft has become the grand authority on spelling and grammar.  After all, if you don't get a little green or red squiggly under what you write, it must be correct.  Too bad Gates and company were unable to figure out the user's intent in their writing.

As for a solution to this dilemma, I can not think of any actions that will properly affect the media industry to resume editing their work, nor can I think of something that can be done that will have the desired effect on the public and encourage them to enunciate clearly and correctly.  For now, I will continue to announce the most egregious errors here and on any forums available where the offending article is located.  I invite you all to do the same.

CNN's graphic's department needs a 3rd grade education

I'm hoping that I'll come across a picture of this at some point and be able to update this post, but CNN this morning had a segment on the economic ramifications of this Swine Flu business. Christine Romans was talking about the damage Swine Flu could do on the international economy and what the "worst case scenario" could be when a GIANT graphic flew across the television wall behind her that read "WORSE CASE SCENARIO". I think she noticed it because when she looked up from her desk at the monitor she paused a little while saying "worst case" and emphasized the 't' a little more than usual.

Well done CNN.

STOP REGION FILTERING FOR VIDEOS

Enough is enough! We need to come together and put an end to this nonsense of blocking streaming videos based on country of origin. The very same douchebags that gripe about China, Cuba, Venezuela or Iran blocking some websites from being displayed are also behind the commercial powers that cause so much content to be blocked based on where you are accessing it from.



I understand all the arguments for the blocks that exist today, and they mostly stem from broadcast licensing, but it is hurting the medium and resulting in diminished viewing of content to the detriment of the content creators.

While I have noticed this problem for some time, it only really started to bother me this past summer during the Olympic games when I was prevented from viewing the opening ceremonies as they were going on and instead had to wait until NBC, who had both the television broadcast and internet broadcast rights, decided it was time for America to see what the rest of the world had seen 12 hours earlier.

This archaic model of licensing out one company in one country to broadcast content makes some amount of sense in the television model, where the cost to broadcast is a fixed cost and the return on investment stems from how many people you can get to watch during the allotted time. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for the NBA to allow 3 or 4 networks to broadcast the final game of the playoffs because that would result in all the networks splitting the viewing audience of a closed market.

But we don't like in a quaint little "Leave it Beaver" world anymore. Times have changed, technology has advanced and the global audience deserves global content. Content providers should look past the short term money they can make by charging extra for country-specific exclusivity deals and instead look towards meeting the demands of their audience who want to view their content from a myriad of different sources.

Unlike Television, which consists of a fixed cost by the network to broadcast no matter how many people decide to tune in, internet streaming puts additional costs on the broadcaster for each user that is watching. In a way, this should be a disincentive to hold an exclusive online streaming license for content because it means that everyone in your market is forced to log onto your servers and add operating costs to your IT infrastructure. It's also conceivable that the servers of one particular company in one country might not be sufficient to provide high quality streams to all the people in the market that demand that content therefor causing the viewing of that content to suffer for the audience.

This petty blocking of streaming content across borders also degrades the consumer's ability to practice brand loyalty. When traveling abroad those viewers that would normally watch something on television are prevented from watching that same source as they travel and must instead hunt around for a local source, which may or may not exist.

Breaking down these licensing borders would be a strong test of our supposedly free market, capitalist system as it would allow the broadcaster with the highest quality transmission and production to attract the biggest audience. It would also enhance the global community by providing more shared experiences between people all around the world.

It seems that even as technology to deliver high quality streaming content has improved, the availability of content from beyond one's borders has diminished resulting in a dangerous regression that threatens both the sustainability for content providers to hold onto their increasingly fickle audiences as well as straining the content providers in the busier markets.

And while all of this may seem selfish on my part, the fact remains that the CBC just does a better of commenting on Hockey than FoxSports Atlanta ever will.