Quick note to #OWS: you're alienating people.

The whole idea behind the 99% movement is that it's supposed to be an expression of popular discontent with the way that the abuse of capital is corrupting, and systematically destroying, our government, our economy, our environment, and our democratic institutions.

Thing is....if you're protesting the President while he's in Harlem, and saying nothing about Mittens while's he's at the house of the dude who compared financial re-regulation to naziism, you're really, really doing it wrong.

I do get it that Obama made big mistakes by not pushing harder for a public option (on ACA) and for reinstatement of Glass-Steagal (on Dodd-Frank), and by not doing more to prosecute the Wall Street bankers that created the 2008 mess in the first place.

But you don't protest him in Harlem. And if you do, don't call him a Nazi. That doesn't send any kind of message to the President. What it does is piss off and drive away the very people you're trying to bring into your cause. You know, the 99% in Harlem.

And when, contrariwise, the very embodiment of Wall Street greed, a corporate raider who made his fortune destroying jobs, shows up in New York at the house of your movement's arch enemy, you can't leave that dude alone and still sound consistent and on message.

I was hoping that OWS would keep its momentum the way that the Arab Spring has. Instead, it looks like it's losing focus and relevancy, and is trying to make up for it with shock value. This is a the classic sign that you've jumped the shark.

Fortunately, there's still time to get your act together. Start by having an adult conversation about the message you're trying to send and how to send it. I realize that this is difficult to do when the rules of discussion mean that a few insane assholes can dominate the conversation and the politicking, but better that than continuing blindly on the course you're on now and ending up completely irrelevant.

Quick note to #OWS: you're alienating people.

The whole idea behind the 99% movement is that it's supposed to be an expression of popular discontent with the way that the abuse of capital is corrupting, and systematically destroying, our government, our economy, our environment, and our democratic institutions.

Thing is....if you're protesting the President while he's in Harlem, and saying nothing about Mittens while's he's at the house of the dude who compared financial re-regulation to naziism, you're really, really doing it wrong.

I do get it that Obama made big mistakes by not pushing harder for a public option (on ACA) and for reinstatement of Glass-Steagal (on Dodd-Frank), and by not doing more to prosecute the Wall Street bankers that created the 2008 mess in the first place.

But you don't protest him in Harlem. And if you do, don't call him a Nazi. That doesn't send any kind of message to the President. What it does is piss off and drive away the very people you're trying to bring into your cause. You know, the 99% in Harlem.

And when, contrariwise, the very embodiment of Wall Street greed, a corporate raider who made his fortune destroying jobs, shows up in New York at the house of your movement's arch enemy, you can't leave that dude alone and still sound consistent and on message.

I was hoping that OWS would keep its momentum the way that the Arab Spring has. Instead, it looks like it's losing focus and relevancy, and is trying to make up for it with shock value. This is a the classic sign that you've jumped the shark.

Fortunately, there's still time to get your act together. Start by having an adult conversation about the message you're trying to send and how to send it. I realize that this is difficult to do when the rules of discussion mean that a few insane assholes can dominate the conversation and the politicking, but better that than continuing blindly on the course you're on now and ending up completely irrelevant.

Jan 20, 2012 CHEERS and JEERS!

JEERS to fallout from the Libyan Civil War. Last February, Gaddafi hired just a hell of a lot of mercenaries to suppress protests and then fight the Benghazi insurgency that would ultimately be his undoing. Since that war ended, the mercenaries have gone home .. with the weapons Gaddafi provided them .. and are now fighting in civil wars of their own. Unfortunately, we can expect a lot more of this crap in the next few years.

CHEERS to the near-defeat of SOPA! Congress decided to suspend SOPA and the Senate version, PIPA, indefinitely, or at least until they can work out some of the thorny issues. Post hoc ergo propter hoc and all that, but the SOPA blackouts and the emails they generated certainly had something to do with this. Now we just need to make sure that it doesn't come back.

Feh to the takedown of MegaUpload. The good: it has been argued that this demonstrates why SOPA is unnecessary. The bad: for all the illegitimate uses this site had, it 10-100 times as many legitimate uses. The takedown is akin to razing an apartment building because one tenant is making meth. The sheer lost productivity that has resulted has got to be staggering. The ugly: over the next year, web sites will start to deploy, and enforce, policies that make it harder to use their services for piracy; but we can expect a lot of very ugly examples to be made in the near future.

CHEERS to the once and future space age! No, we don't have faster than light travel or trade agreements with the nearest galactic power, but thanks to a the Sprite and the Kicksat, you can send your own satellite into space for $300. That's three hundred US dollars. Between being able to do more with a kilogram of stuff, and the privatization of launches making a kilogram of stuff cheaper to send into orbit, a revolution in space utilization akin to the PC revolution in computing is right around the corner.

Jan 20, 2012 CHEERS and JEERS!

JEERS to fallout from the Libyan Civil War. Last February, Gaddafi hired just a hell of a lot of mercenaries to suppress protests and then fight the Benghazi insurgency that would ultimately be his undoing. Since that war ended, the mercenaries have gone home .. with the weapons Gaddafi provided them .. and are now fighting in civil wars of their own. Unfortunately, we can expect a lot more of this crap in the next few years.

CHEERS to the near-defeat of SOPA! Congress decided to suspend SOPA and the Senate version, PIPA, indefinitely, or at least until they can work out some of the thorny issues. Post hoc ergo propter hoc and all that, but the SOPA blackouts and the emails they generated certainly had something to do with this. Now we just need to make sure that it doesn't come back.

Feh to the takedown of MegaUpload. The good: it has been argued that this demonstrates why SOPA is unnecessary. The bad: for all the illegitimate uses this site had, it 10-100 times as many legitimate uses. The takedown is akin to razing an apartment building because one tenant is making meth. The sheer lost productivity that has resulted has got to be staggering. The ugly: over the next year, web sites will start to deploy, and enforce, policies that make it harder to use their services for piracy; but we can expect a lot of very ugly examples to be made in the near future.

CHEERS to the once and future space age! No, we don't have faster than light travel or trade agreements with the nearest galactic power, but thanks to a the Sprite and the Kicksat, you can send your own satellite into space for $300. That's three hundred US dollars. Between being able to do more with a kilogram of stuff, and the privatization of launches making a kilogram of stuff cheaper to send into orbit, a revolution in space utilization akin to the PC revolution in computing is right around the corner.