Lyceum Blog
Welcome to the Lyceum Blog, a commentary on technology, business, and politics.
Closing Guantanamo Prison Jan 27, 2009
Over the last six days, since Obama took office and began the process of closing the prison, it has been repeatedly reported that Said Ali al-Shihri, a former Guantanamo inmate who was released in 2007, is currently leading Al Qaeda in Yemen.
The individuals currently detained at the Guantanamo prison who's sole ambition it is to kill people, particularly Americans, are a serious threat and it is not an issue to be taken lightly. Nonetheless, the conclusions being implied by the media reports about Ali al-Shihri and the effort to close Guantanamo prison are comical.
The issue is that Ali al-Shihri was released from Guantanamo and is now leading an Al Qaeda cell, and the implication is that closing Guantanamo prison is a mistake. Am I the only one that thinks this implication, no matter how obvious or subtle you consider it, is absolutely ridiculous?
I will liken this to a SAT question. Is the logic in the following statement sound?
My car broke down 2 years ago, therefore I should not sell my car
I'm sorry to get parochial on this topic, but there are two HUGE problems with this line of thinking. First, to assume that the environment in which your car broke down 2 years ago is the same as today is a tremendous leap of faith. What if you had thousands of dollars of work done on your car because it holds sentimental value to you and you did not want to replace it - and it is far more reliable today than 2 years ago. Many things could have, and likely did change from the environment that contributed to your car breaking down 2 years ago.
What's further ridiculous about this logic is that the first fallacious premise supports an outcome that is still contrary to the conclusion. Even if you assume that your car is equally likely to break down today as it did 2 years ago, does this support keeping it? Of course it doesn't.
To add to the irritation about these media reports, I must ask you - do we feel that Americans are worthy of more fundamental human rights than other citizens? Isn't what makes us Americans the fact that We the people, promote the general welfare, and that all people deserve these rights we often appreciate, and sometimes take for granted?
It is a blatant cop-out to suggest that non-Americans do not deserve the same rights as Americans because it makes protecting our nation easier. Further, it is a slap in the face to our founders - who were not Americans, but a collection of citizens from other countries who believed in these fundamental rights. Just like these rights are worth the imperfections of our justice system, providing these rights to non-Americans is worth the risk to our nation's security. We have modeled that way that these rights for all must be protected above all else, and it seems that we lose our way from time to time.
Add Your Comments about Closing Guantanamo Prison »
Family Reunion Planning and Websites Aug 8, 2008
I spent a little time searching and evaluating options to launch a family reunion website and the results of my review are below. I did a quick evaluation of three family reunion website services and found a couple of good resources for the process of planning a family reunion.
Resources for Launching a Family Reunion Website
TheFamilyPost.com - $4.95 per month, professional look and feel, appears to be easy setup/friendly interface for editing.
MyGreatBigFamily.com - Decent look and feel, check out "Live Demo" to see how your family reunion site could look. Appears to be good functionality, well-thought out, average to slightly above average on visual design. $140-$160 per year, approx. $11 to $13/month.
FamilyReunion.com - Poor visual design, too busy, "platinum" membership would be required to have a family reunion web page and the cost is not clear.
- A nice touch would be to register a domain name for your family/family reunion web page with a reputable registrar, forward it to the domain name of the reunion web site you set up and apply "domain masking". It is not usually worth bargain shopping domain registrars unless you are registering a large number. Go Daddy is a pretty good registrar (a little heavy on the ads and additional services they throw at you when registering a domain) and the cost for a .com domain is $9.99 per year with other web extensions (top level domains like .net or .info) costing less than .com's.
Resources for Planning a Family Reunion
FamilyFun.Go.Com - what looks to be a very good family reunion planning checklist from Disney.
Family-Reunion.com - A lot of information here about planning, informal/fun type of site.
Add Your Comments about Family Reunion Planning and Websites »
