Personally, I would not. He's Colin Gunn, a British career criminal who is doing a 35-year sentence for conspiracy to murder, and he has 565 friends on a Facebook account which the authorities in his maximum security prison kindly allowed him to maintain.
The UK Justice Secretary's office says inmates are prohibited from having social network accounts, but it turns out that Gunn wasn't the only felon using Facebook. Critics suggest that prison authorities may have bent the rules because they feared being accused of infringing, even ever so slightly, on Mr. Gunn's human rights.
As was noted tonight on National Public Radio, authorities in Britain have finally taken action against the perpetrator of a murderous fraud, the scam bomb detector that is currently marketed under the name "ADE 651." This device, which consists of an antenna, an empty box, a set of plastic cards and a massive load of snake oil, has been sold to gullible security agencies all over the world. Iraqi agencies have spent $85 million on them and continue to insist, against all evidence, that the ridiculous things work.
The video embedded above is from the BBC's Newsnight program, and my favorite moment comes at about the 7 minute and 30 second mark when the wizened old scientist solemnly notes that the plastic case which houses the operating components of the ADE 651 is, upon his scientific observation, totally empty.
I've posted about this outrageous fraud before and linked to decades-old U.S. government reports, such as this one and this one, that documented the utter impossibility of using the ADE 651 to detect bombs or anything else.
Let's hope the export ban will finally break the evil spell that has been cast on suckers the world over by the ADE 651 - or as I call it, the PLACEBO 60K (Predatory Lucrative Advanced Confusinator Explosive-Detecting Bankable Opportunity @ $60,000). On the other hand, new suckers are being born every minute.
Just saw some bad news in the Washington Post today. Does this court decision mean that the traditional Washington's Birthday Midnight Rave on the Mall will be called off?
Thanks to Diplopundit for locating an official update on U.S. Embassy Haiti's local staff. The status so far: six killed, nine injured, and 28 still unaccounted for. Of course, we should add to that the still-unknown number of family members of our local staff who surely were also killed or injured.
The human impact of that loss needs no comment. As an aside, the loss of so many local staff also hinders the embassy's recovery efforts as administrative functions - even such things as processing purchase orders so that emergency funds sent to post after the earthquake can be spent - go undone as the Foreign Service staff and TDYers concentrate on more immediate concerns.
Is there such a thing as Locally Engaged Staff TDYers who could be sent to fill in after a crisis? Maybe, but I suspect that most of our local staff are truly irreplaceable due to their unique personal relationships with and vernacular understanding of the local environment.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today [January 26] paid tribute to members of the State Department family killed in the earthquake in Haiti. Speaking to State Department and USAID staff at a town hall meeting, the Secretary honored the memories of Victoria DeLong, a Cultural Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, and the family of Andrew Wyllie, a decorated State Department officer working for the United Nations in Haiti. He lost his wife Laurence and his two young sons Evan and Baptiste in the disaster. A transcript of her remarks follows:
"I thank all of you from throughout the Department, our colleagues from AID who have been working literally around the clock since January 12th. The needs are overwhelming. We are trying to meet the humanitarian needs in this period, while at the same time working with the Haitian Government, the UN, and other countries and organizations to plan for the longer term. When I spoke to family members who had lost loved ones – Victoria DeLong – and then I spoke with Andrew Wyllie – they both thanked me as Secretary for the outpouring of support that they had received from colleagues. In Victoria’s case, from people who had served with her, who knew her, who had reached out to the family, who had really demonstrated the closeness of community that exists among us. And for Andrew Wyllie, who inconceivably, unimaginably lost his wife on her birthday and his seven-and-a-half and five-year-old children, he mentioned specifically the names of those who had been working with him in these very difficult days to recover the bodies of his wife and children. And again, the sense that it was not even just a community, but a large and extended family came through in everything he said to me. That certainly is the way I feel after a year here, working with many of you, but of course, many, many more with whom I do not work on a daily or a weekly basis, but who I know are toiling in offices and posts and missions and projects across the world on behalf of our country, our values, our interests, our security, to build that better future that we think every person deserves and to create the opportunity for every child to live up to his or her God-given potential."
I understand that several members of the embassy's locally engaged staff in Haiti were also killed or injured, but so far I've seen no reliable numbers. A co-worker who is helping with the recovery effort tells me that almost half of the LES are not currently at the embassy, which is an ominous sign.
As previously noted, there are plans to build a new Foreign Affairs Security Training Center at a site on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Today, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), which is the State Department's agent in this matter, announced three February public meetings to address public concerns and inform the local community about the project.
Reportedly, GSA has decided that it did not adequately address concerns raised at the previous four or five public meetings, so it has extended the time allowed for public comment until February 19th.
Two public forums will be held at the Queen Anne’s County High School Auditorium, on Saturday, February 6th (3:30-5:30pm) and again on Wednesday, February 10th (6:00-8:00pm). In addition, there will be a small group workshop at the same location on Saturday, February 6th (1:00-3:00pm).
There has been significant local opposition to this development project so far (read about it here), so these last public forums ought to be well attended and lively.
Yesterday, Fox News reported that approximately half of the houses used by the U.S. embassy staff in Haiti were destroyed in the earthquake. And tonight, I heard one of their TV anchors remark that our embassy staffers in Port-au-Prince are not only relief workers in this crisis but are also victims of it themselves, having lost friends and co-workers as well as their homes.
I thought that was a refreshing perspective. Our Foreign Service members are often criticized or derided in the wake of disasters such as the Haitian earthquake, but I hope that at least some of the American public will reflect on the fact that our embassy staffers fully share the personal crisis that the earthquake inflicted on Haitians.
