I fired up the Facebook application for the iPhone. There’s a big “What’s on your mind” box that appears at the top. Enter something, like “I hate my boss,” and that message goes to your Wall — and to the world.

Unlike Facebook itself, there are no privacy settings that I can find in the application, no share with “Only Friends” choice. If you share via the iPhone — and perhaps other mobile devices — you share with the world. That’s also true if you use Facebook’s mobile site on the web. There’s no option there other than to share with the world.

So, status updates you do via the Facebook app are always visible to everyone and appear in searches. I’m not using Facebook on the iPhone for status updates any more.

DHS said all “aliens” in the U.S. are subject to the biometric requirements of the US-VISIT program, and that lawful permanent residents – even though their backgrounds have been thoroughly examined — are technically still considered aliens.

“US-VISIT enables DHS to determine if an LPR seeking entry has been convicted of any crime that would render him or her subject to removal from the United States,” says the final rule.

Great.  I worry enough about speeding fines and parking tickets enough as it is, without making it ammunition for a surly border guard.  And then there’s this:

LPRs have generally been allowed to use the line designated for “U.S. Citizens” when they arrive on an international flight at a U.S. airport, and this treatment is likely to continue, but that doesn’t give the two groups identical rights, says DHS. “This accommodation does not mean that LPRs are, or will otherwise be treated as, United States citizens,” says the final rule.

I mean, come on. I pay taxes.  I contribute to society. I’m a good citizen legal permanent resident. The least you can do is let me enter the country in the company of my husband.

Pretty please?

Full article:  Green card holders will be fingerprinted and photographed at U.S. borders

(Click on the image for the large animated view.)

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.”

Mr Greenspan — may I call you Al? — I have a little bit of news for you. Banks are not people. They don’t have brains, or consciences, or any sense of self-interest.  As it turns out, banks are actually run by people.  Collections of individual people, in fact, each whom often have a very well-developed sense of self interest. As in, an interest in themselves, not the bank as a whole. And unsurprisingly, Al, many of them saw an opportunity to do well by themselves, even if it conflicted with the long-term goals of the bank, or even the economy as a whole. As an S&P employee said to a coworker in 2006:

“Let’s hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters.”

So let’s not anthropomorphize any more financial institutions, eh Al?