Becky would appreciate this.
Shared Post: Goal of Quantico Incident Was To Abuse Bradley Manning and Intimidate David House
Portrait of Bradley Manning by Stephen Pitt
I just wanted to say a quick thank-you to everyone today for your support when David House and I were being detained at Quantico.
I don’t think any of this had anything to do with me, or frankly the 42,000 petition signatures. The only thing I did was provide housing and transportation to David House, because he’s just out of college and Glenn Greenwald told him he could stay with me when he comes to visit Manning.
Everyone but David has stopped coming to see Bradley, and it takes a lot of courage to do what David is doing. It’s a very intimidating situation. So I try to support him by giving him a place to stay and driving him to the base when he comes to town. That’s really my only involvement.
There is no doubt in my mind that the primary objective of everything that happened today was to keep Bradley Manning from having the company of his only remaining visitor. The MPs told us they were ordered to do this, the brass showed up to make sure that they did, and they held us until 2:50 by repeatedly asking for information they already had whenever we asked to leave.
Visiting hours at the brig end at 3pm, and don’t begin again until the next weekend. It’s a half hour walk from the front gate to the brig, and although they have allowed David to walk before, they wouldn’t let him do it this time. They said he’d have to catch a cab and come back on the base, but they wouldn’t release him to do that until 2:50.
This was all about detaining David, not me. I would not be surprised to learn they were also punishing him for speaking out about Manning’s conditions. The State Department, the FBI and just about every three-letter government agency has been investigating David and the other Boston hackers since they began organizing support for Bradley Manning last summer, with one witch hunt after another attempting to implicate them in one of Adrian Lamo’s fabulist tales of a physical disk hand-off from Manning to Wikileaks. The New York Times keeps printing that one, over and over again, with the Justice Department whispering in their ear and nothing but the word of the inconsistent Lamo for evidence.
David has been detained at the airport, his computer seized and held for months with no explanation. The McCarthy-esque actions of the security agencies has terrified all of these idealistic young people. It is exceptionally admirable that David and others persist in supporting Bradley Manning despite it all.
The net effect of the MP’s actions today was to escalate the climate of threats and intimidation around David, a 23 year-old who just graduated from college, and cut Manning off from any personal contact with the one person who is still showing up to visit him after the government consciously scared everyone else off.
I am very happy that I went, and could be there to support David, because one of the first things the MPs said to us when we arrived — long before they asked for driver’s license, social security numbers, registration, phone numbers, quizzed us about the addresses on our licenses, etc, etc, was that they had orders to do all of this. Which means they were planning to detain us long before we got there. They were going to use any excuse to keep David from visiting Manning, and try to intimidate him from coming back.
It was really heartening to David to hear of everyone’s support when we were being threatened with arrest, searched and detained for two hours. What happened was not a surprise. It’s sad that this is what we have all come to expect when advocating for the civil rights of someone who has been identified as an “enemy of the state,†without benefit of a trial. But here we are.
It’s important to remember, however, that the true targets of today’s actions were Bradley Manning and David House. What is happening to both of them should be of concern of everyone, so I hope people don’t lose sight of that.
Shared Post: Dear golf,
Current Thoughts on K-State’s Men’s Basketball Team
After I talked with Jackie this morning about K-State’s last game, I thought I’d do a post on my thoughts on our current team.
Asprilla, Freddy
I never particularly cared for you. You looked kind of lazy, that’s probably because you’re nearly 7 feet tall and nearly 300 pounds. You are not quick. Doesn’t really matter as you apparently left the team this weekend. Thanks for that.
Henriquez-Roberts, Jordan
You tall, gangly Avatar. Anyone who says you look like an Avatar said it after me. I was first. I kind of like you, but I wish you were better at the game.
Irving, Martavious
I like your shoulders. They are magnificent. Even though you’re not the best player on the court, I like your enthusiasm.
Judge, Wally (Wall-E)
What the fuck is wrong with you?! You were so much better last year. This year, you are horrible. No wonder you never start games. I bet your sucking has to do with your mental breakdown you had earlier this year. What was that about?!
Kelly, Curtis (Douche)
I hate you. You are the least-likeable player on the team, bar none. First it was your inability to be a team player. That’s why you sat the first few games. Then your fucking stunt with Dillard’s. Are you fucking retarded?! Jesus. I find it unfortunate that you’re a halfway good basketball player. Otherwise I wish you would quit the team. It’s like you’re fucking poison. Speaking of poison, although I have no evidence for this at all, I blame you for roping Jacob Pullen into your Dillard’s decision. I think you poisoned his good judgement.
Kruger, Jarrod
Who are you? Have you ever even played? Maybe next year.
McGruder, Rodney
I’m glad you’ll be around for a few more years. You’re a sophomore, you know. Ever since that game at the Sprint Center where you lost a tooth and came back into the game a few minutes later, you have been my favorite player. You have a team-oriented attitude, unlike that prick Kelly. Also, your name is fun to say.
Myles, Juevol (Huevos Rancheros)
You haven’t played all that much this year, but so far, I like your game. Also, you are not Curtis Kelly, so that’s an extra point in your favor.
Ojeleye, Victor
I only know a few things about you. You used to start and now you don’t. Though you get some playing time. Also, you, too, are not Curtis Kelly.
Peterson, Devon
I bet you hang out with Jarrod Kruger, don’t you? I have no idea who you are either.
Potuzak, Alex
You’re the other white guy, right?
Pullen, Jacob (Pool-in)
I liked you so much more when you didn’t hang out with Curtis Kelly. I bet you miss Dennis Clemente. Despite the fact that Dennis used to take approximately 900 3-point shots per game, you weren’t a half bad pair. Rest assured, though, without you, we probably wouldn’t even make the NIT.
Russell, Nick
You’ve done well this year. I think you even started a few games lately. Keep up the good work. Stay away from Curtis Kelly. (See above)
Samuels, Jamar
There’s something about you that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s like you let that whole “Sixth Man of the Year” shit go to your head or something. You’re no Curtis Kelly, but you have this kind of dickish je ne sais quoi. You’ve been doing better lately, though (See Texas Tech game).
Southwell, Shane
You’re supposed to be this really good freshman, but have you played yet? If so, I don’t remember. I’ll look for you next year.
Spradling, Will (Whitebread)
I like you. I will say I was kind of surprised to see you starting, but hey, I’m not the coach. You seem to do alright, but it seems like you get the ball stolen from you a lot. Also, I’m not trying to be a dick or anything, but seriously: Proactiv, man
Williams, Nino
See Shane Southewell.
Google Reader Shared Links
If you’re one of the few people who happen to subscribe to this, you may have noticed a little uptick in postings. Last night I was able to figure out how to get my shared links out of Google Reader and into a post on here. I “share” quite a few links over there and I think that is partially the reason I don’t post as much here. Problem solved!
Obligatory 2010 Recap and 2011 Predictions
Although a bit belated, this is the type of post most others with blogs have already made. Screw those people; I do what I want, when I want.
2010
Relationships
I’m still very happily married, so nothing really new there. However there is happy news for some of my friends. Most recently, Becky and I attended Josh and Jamie’s wedding. A little before that, John proposed to Paige. Lastly, Ben and Kara are having a baby. So yay to all that.
Sports
This year it seems like we went to more sports games than any other year. Royals games, Chiefs games, K-State games. So much fun. The teams themselves had varying results. The Royals still suck. The Chiefs made the playoffs for the first time since 2003. The 2009-2010 Men’s K-State basketball team made the Elite 8. The 2010-2011 team is currently 11-3 and ranked 17th. Some disappointing losses in there, but still quite good. Hoping for another deep run. Fantasy Football this year was good for me: second place. Sadly, this is the same result as last year. Perhaps even more sad, I could have won if I had started some of the people I had on my bench.
Work
XTEC is still pretty much the same. There were a few notable changes, however. At some point, I don’t recall when exactly, I decided to change my working hours from 8-5 to 7-4. With Becky usually getting home around four-ish, it just made sense for me to try and match our hours a bit better. After the initial dislike of getting up getting up about an hour earlier, I’m quite happy with the decision. I think Becky is as well. The other change is some newer software we’ve been working on. I’ll spare everyone the nerdy details, but I enjoy it.
Fun
My birthday is August 8th. Horrible date, really. When you’re a kid and your birthday is during the summer, you never get the school birthday parties or the assembly recognition. I’ve heard this has changed since I was a kid, too late for me, though. Anywho, to celebrate my birthday we decided to go on a float trip. Awesome decision, if I do say so myself. After Becky and I’s float trip the prior year with Josh and Jamie, we were really excited to go again. I’ll go ahead and leave out details of the trip, but suffice it to say it was a glorious time. This has already been decreed an annual event.
The other fun thing we did was finally go on our proposal hot air balloon ride.
I’ll quickly tangent into a summary of how my plans for that day went completely awry: I took Becky to lunch at Noodles and Company. While there, I call up the balloon guy to confirm we’re on for the secret balloon ride later in the day. He tells me it’s windy and he’s sure we’ll be able to go; he calls it 50-50. I say I kind of have big plans for the day and we’ll risk it. By the way, balloon guy lives like 3 freaking hours away. Fast forward three hours and we’re in a Wal-Mart parking lot. It’s windy. I call balloon guy and the short version is “It’s too windy, can’t do it.” Which, I pretty much already knew, but didn’t want to accept. He says he can come show us the basket we would have been riding in had we actually gone up in it. For some reason, I think this is ok and say sure. In retrospect, what is the fucking point? Seems like rubbing my nose in shit. Whatever. Anyways, at that point I inform Becky that I was going to take her on a balloon ride and she’s happy, but also disappointed. She doesn’t yet know the grand plan. So, we leave the parking lot with the promise that we can go up at a later date when it’s not so windy. A shitty consolation prize, but a prize nonetheless. We decide to tour the grand cityscape that is Parsons, Kansas. While driving around I’m desperately trying to figure out a plan. We find an arboretum, but it’s December, so it pretty much totally sucks. We leave to continue our tour. We find the city park and decide to go play in the playground. Becky, in her infinitely childlike wisdom, decides that the the green T-Rex rocking thing should be played on immediately. She also demands I ride it with her. I, of course oblige her. While sitting behind her on this stupid green thing, I reach in my pocket, slyly pull out the ring box, open it, and reach around her, and ask her to marry me. She says yes, which I totally expected. But what I didn’t expect was that when she tried to put the damn ring on, it wouldn’t fit. Despite telling the jeweler her ring size, they apparently decided not to size the ring. Fucking. Awesome. Could my day be worse? So, all my plans totally went to shit, but she said yes, so I guess that’s the point I guess.
Tangent over.
Anyways, so we finally got back to Parsons, which incidentally was home to the last place on earth where you could find an official Kodachrome development facility. We finally get our balloon ride and Becky couldn’t have been happier. I actually enjoyed myself as well. I guess I haven’t mentioned, I hate heights. A lot. The things men do for women.
School
I had my 10 year high school reunion this year. It was an interesting event to say the least. I actually won an award. The title was something like Most Technically Saavy. Basically I’m the biggest nerd. I may have campaigned for this title. I may also have been incredibly drunk and I may also have wore a pink boa for a while.
Failings
I kind of had a lot of plans for bettering myself in 2010. Most didn’t really come to fruition. I did manage to continue keep my weight down, which I suppose is a good thing. I kind of stopped going to the gym, which is beyond pathetic. Also, I completely failed at making any postings on this site since May I think. That kind of sucks too. What’s the point in having a blog if you don’t post to it? I blame Twitter.
2011
My big plan for 2011 is the whole health bit. This is just like everyone else I suppose. I’ve been working out a bit already with the the weights I have at home, but it’s no real substitution for an actual gym. I’m also going to try and limit my alcohol intake during the week. This will be somewhat challenging. It’s hard to deny the allure of the of a good white Russian. Also, Becky and I are really, really, really hoping we can buy a house this summer. We’d love to be out of our town home. My other goal is to make more posts here on this blog. I enjoy having a blog, but when you’re lazy, you’re lazy. I’ll change that. In general, though, my plans are fairly simplistic and quite attainable. That being said, we’ll see how this year goes.
Burma, Liberia, and the United States
What do these three countries have in common?
Give up?
They’re the only three countries in the world who don’t use the metric system. I knew that there weren’t that many countries that didn’t use the metric system, but I didn’t realize that it was only three. Kind of makes us look a little egocentric, doesn’t it?
I also find it interesting that Liberia is on this short list. But, it kind of makes sense given the origin of the country – founded by freed American slaves, system of government modeled after ours, and their capital – Monrovia – named after our fifth President James Monroe.  But you knew that, right?
Inspired by this post at I Love Charts.
Elena Kagan is the Wrong Choice For Supreme Court Justice
When I read that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens was going to retire, I thought, “I hope President Obama nominates someone decently liberal to succeed him.” There’s been a short list of legitimate, potential nominees floating around ever since Sonia Sotomayor replaced David Souter. You’d think that if you were on the list back then, then you’d again be on the short list for this nomination. The two that met with Obama for this nomination that also met with him for the prior nomination were US Solictor General Elena Kagan and federal appellate judge Diane Wood.
John Paul Stevens, if you are unaware, is considered by many to be the leader of the liberal wing of the Supreme Court. Souter, in comparison, was a much more center-left Justice. Replacing Souter with Sotomayor, a woman with a center-left ideology herself, didn’t really change the ideological makeup of the Court. In order to, at the very least, maintain the status quo of the Supreme Court, you’d have to nominate someone with some fairly liberal views on things. Really, that shouldn’t be that hard to accomplish – the President is a Democrat, Democrats have majorities in the House and the Senate.
From all the reading I’ve done, the best person to maintain the balance of the Court would be Diane Wood as opposed to Elena Kagan. However, if you’ve caught the news at all, we now have Elena Kagan as President Obama’s Supreme Court Justice nominee. I just see so many problems with his choice.
Imagine if you will that it’s your job to nominate someone for a lifetime Supreme Court Justice appointment. How would you do it? What qualifications would you take into consideration?
Keep in mind that it’s not a requirement that you have judicial experience – judge, lawyer, etc. – to be nominated. Many Justices haven’t had any (see interesting list of such folks here), though all of our current Justices have.
Kagan is the current US Solictor General. Basically, that job entails representing the US in court cases in front of the Supreme Court. Prior to that she was Dean of Harvard Law School. Before that she was Associate White House Counsel under then-President Bill Clinton. Before that she did some clerking and blah blah blah.
Diane Wood is a federal judge on the US Court of Appeals. She’s been doing that for something around 15 years. Before that she worked at the Department of Justice doing anti-trust stuff. She did other stuff before that, but it was quite a while ago and I don’t feel like listing it.
Suffice it to say they’re both fairly intelligent people, I’d say that’s a given considering their prior/current careers. I’d probably look at any writings, speeches, or otherwise expressed opinions on key issues.
Kagan hasn’t published much, according to Paul Campos, just three scholarly articles, two shorter essays, two brief book reviews, and two other minor pieces. I would call that not all that much. The few other things we can determine about Kagan aren’t all that positive. Kagan urged then-President Bill Clinton to ban late-term abortions and to deny Medicare funding to abortions in cases where a woman’s health was at risk. During her tenure as Dean of Harvard, Kagan filled 29 positions at the University – 23 white males, 5 white females, and 1 asian-american female. Though, draw what you will from Nate Silver’s statistical analysis of this hiring practice (also, he lists 31 positions, not 29, not sure which one is correct at the moment). Also while Dean of Harvard she banned military recruiters from campus (good), but when the Department of Defense threatened to withhold funding from the University, she backed down (bad). She supports expanding the power of the Executive, something I don’t really agree with. She also supports indefinite detention of so-called enemy comabatants.
Some of these issues are bigger than others, but taken together, there’s certainly enough to question Kagan as a nominee. Perhaps you would say, “Why don’t we just ask her what she thinks about X?” I think that’s a pretty good idea actually. You know who else thought that? Kagan. In 1995 she argued that Supreme Court nominees should have to answer questions about pending cases and other specific issues. You know who else thought that? Then-Senator Barack Obama. He was referring to then-nominee Harriet Miers – who, like Kagan – didn’t have all that much experience. Guess what Kagan is going to do though? Not answer questions, that’s what. Which is, you know, quite helpful.
All in all, I guess my biggest problem with Kagan is that there is just so much about her judicial philosophy that is unknown – and will remain that way until she is officially a Supreme Court Justice. I find that troubling. To me, it seems like a big risk. Yes, she could turn out to be a great Progressive Justice. She could also not. We simply do not know. Why risk it? I don’t get it. Too many people are going to say, “President Obama nominated her, so I think she’s good to go.” That’s fucking stupid. President Obama has become such a centrist that it’s just sad. Sad for those people, like myself, who didn’t think they were voting for a centrist. So what kind of nominee do we get from a centrist president? A centrist nominee. And that’s not what I think this country needs.
I sure hope I’m wrong about all this.
Dear Bob Allen Ford
Thank you for wasting my fucking time. Really. It’s not like I have shit to do.
I’ve been having problems with the Sync system in my 2010 Ford Escape that I bought last August (I think August anyways). Everything was fine initially, then a few months ago when I pressed the phone button on either the dash or the steering wheel, nothing happened. It was a button that simply didn’t do anything – like one of those “extra” light switches in old houses that you have no idea what they’re connected to.
After I noticed this, I took it into my car dealer – Bob Allen Ford. They ran the car diagnostic tool on my vehicle and in the course of doing that “fixed” the problem – so I was told. I thought to myself, “That seems odd, I don’t think that’s how diagnostic tools are supposed to work.” But whatever, the problem was fixed, huzzah!
Only not.
A few weeks later – probably much less than that, I’m kind of lazy – I noticed the problem was back. Aiight, so I take it in again. Explain the same problem. I ask if they can just replace whatever part it is inside that is causing this problem. Yes, they can, however, not for me. Why? Because I’m not on the latest software version for the part. Okay… I can buy that as being the possible cause of this – however, why didn’t they upgrade it when I had it in last time? My guess is it has something to do with them being lazy. However, their magic diagnostic tool / version upgrade did appear to fix my problem. Huzzah part deux!
Only not.
Same problem. Again. Ugh. When I last talked to the technician – Marcus was his name – he said that if the software update didn’t help, then he’d order a new part for me. According to him, we had to see if the latest software update would fix the problem before he was allowed to order a new part. Seems reasonable. Since the update clearly didn’t fix my problem, I hoped I could call the dealership, tell them the issue that I’m having, have them order the part, then I’d show up when it came it and get my vehicle fixed. No dice. According to whomever I talked to on Thursday, I’d have to physically come in so they could order the part – some bullshit about needing some “numbers” off the part I already have. I chalked this up to an issue with their ordering system as opposed to physically being able to order the part. It’s a brand new car, how hard could this be. But whatever.
So I called on Saturday morning to see if they’re busy and how long it would take them to “write down some numbers.” Saturday being the one non-weekday they’re open and the one of the two days I don’t work. TOO FUCKING HARD! According to whomever I spoke to, a technician was required to write down these numbers. Apparently the people who work there on Saturday are capable of doing oil changes and what not, but incapable of “writing down some numbers” to order a part. Jesus.
SO, I go in this afternoon around noon – my lunch hour. You see, while they are open during the week, they are only open from 7-4, you know, normal person working hours. My only window of opportunity is my lunch hour.
When I get there I speak to someone who is training and obviously has no idea what the fuck I’m talking about. He in turn talks to his manager, who apparently also has no idea what the fuck I’m talking about, but refers the trainee to another person. Who is that person? Marcus. The guy I’ve talked to like 3 times in person about this shit. I should have just waited until Marcus got off the phone instead of talking to the trainee. I don’t blame the guy, it’s just like, damn it, I want my fucking car fixed. After about three minutes of talking to Marcus, my part is ordered and he tells me he’ll call me when the part comes in. Wham. Bam. The best fucking part? Marcus doesn’t need to look at my car at all, so I’m free to go. And why was that so easy? Because all this shit is in their fucking computers. If that asshole I spoke to on Thursday would have spent two fucking seconds to look this shit up, I could have had the part installed in my fucking car already.
Jesus I feel like I have fucking Tourette’s or some shit.
Here’s to hoping that the new part – that will be installed at some magic time in the future – will fix this fucking retarded problem once and for all.
However, I am not holding my breath.
An Interesting Statistic
So I’m watching the documentary Bigger Stronger Faster* which is a movie about steroids. Pretty good so far. Anyways, the movie starts talking about steroids in baseball – remember Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds? I do. After they hit all those home runs they were accused of taking steroids – which was pretty obvious when you simply looked at them. After they were accused, they had to go in front of Congress. The interesting statistic from the movie is that Congress held these debates about steroids for 8 days. 8 days was longer than they debated about health care, the levees that failed during Katrina, or ending the Iraq War.