Truth Like The Dark

On this Memorial Day, perhaps the best way to honor the fallen soldiers of the past, is to think of the soldiers of the future, and the damage that has been done to their reputation and safety by the dangerous ideologues who are now in power.

This government we foolishly elected, the people who led our country into this shame, must be swept away, while we still have the necessary democracy.

And then we must all work very, very hard to atone in the eyes of the world, for our own sake, for our children’s sake, and for the sake of human rights worldwide.

From a colleagues blog:
An Affront To American Values
Albert Mora, recently retired as Navy general counsel, made the following remarks upon receiving a 2006 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award . (This year’s other recipient was John Murtha.)

His remarks were reprinted in the Washington Post.

[Formal government] documents justifying and authorizing the abusive treatment of detainees [at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and elsewhere] during interrogation were approved and distributed. These authorizations rested on three beliefs: that no law prohibited the application of cruelty; that no law should be adopted that would do so; and that our government could choose to apply the cruelty — or not — as a matter of policy depending on the dictates of perceived military necessity.

The fact that we adopted this policy demonstrates that this war has tested more than our nation’s ability to defend itself. It has tested our response to our fears and the measure of our courage. It has tested our commitment to our most fundamental values and our constitutional principles. [Emphasis added.]

In this war, we have come to a crossroads — much as we did in the events that led to Korematsu [the Supreme Court decision allowing the detention of Japanese Americans during World War II]: Will we continue to regard the protection and promotion of human dignity as the essence of our national character and purpose, or will we bargain away human and national dignity in return for an additional possible measure of physical security?
In other words, do we really stand for freedom and human dignity as Bush claims, or is that commitment something we discard when we find it inconvenient?

I’m removing a9 (amazon’s column-based search front end) from my list of recommended software today. Without any announcement to their users, they’ve switched the “Google” web search to “Windows Live”. To understand why this is bad deal, you don’t have to be of the opinion that Google’s search results are better (they are). All you have to do is understand the direction that a9 seemed to be headed in, and how they’ve strayed from that promising path.

a9 worked through the idea of “opensearch” allowing for lots of columns that accessed different search engines. Now, rather than adding Windows Live as a new level of flexibility, they’ve shoved Windows Live down all users throats as the “default web search”, adding no options to still use google as an alternative, and lost other useful columns, like Google Images.

I haven’t dropped a9 completely yet. I’m hoping they haven’t hooked themselves into a restrictive deal with Windows Live, and that they’ll provide renewed functionality (including Google options) soon.