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As part of its Friday News Roundup, Jackie Lyden and guests will discuss the White House beer summit. Listen online starting at 10 am EDT.

In response to his comment that the officer’s actions were “stupid,” President Obama invited Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and James Crowley to the White House for beers. Now, as The Wall Street Journal reports, even that move is causing some uproar.

As it turns out, no American-owned beers will be served. According to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, Red Stripe, Blue Moon, and Bud Light are on tap. The first is brewed by Diageo PLC of London, the second by a partnership majority owned by SABMiller of London (even more ironic considering SAB stood for South African Breweries), and the last is now brewed by the Brazilian-Belgian-US conglomerate Anheuser-Busch InBev NV.

Among those breweries raising complaints over the selection: Boston Beer Company (Sam Adams, Twisted Tea), Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, and Genesee Brewery. For the companies’ official comments, see Robert Tomsho’s article “White House ‘Beer Summit’ Becomes Something of a Brouhaha.”

In defense of the President and his guests, the selection represents their personal preferences, as Mr. Gibbs pointed out. Let’s just hope that some cold brews and frank discussion with the president can bring some resolution to the situation in Cambridge. Already, that city’s mayor has called the incident a “turning point.”

In social media’s ongoing expansion beyond the tech-oriented and internet-savvy, the Department of Defense (DoD) continues to struggle to find its role. As Noel Shachtman of Wired.com writes in today’s Danger Room article “Military May Ban Twitter, Facebook as Security ‘Headaches’,” the DoD may prevent access to certain social media sites from its internal networks (secure and nonsecure—see the article for specifics and links to Wikipedia).

This potential ban comes at an interesting time for a number of reasons. First, as the article mentions, the DoD is preparing to launch a new website with a focus on social media. Second, on May 18 of this year, the Army directed its network operators to provide access to five popular social media sites effective May 22, while simultaneously blocking access to 12 other sites (see the Danger Room article “Army Orders Bases to Stop Blocking Twitter, Facebook, Flickr” from June 10, which includes the full text of the Army order). Third, as Mr. Shechtman alludes to, various departments and individuals within the DoD are using social media for a variety of reasons.

With the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (http://twitter.com/TheJointStaff) and USForces Afghanistan (http://twitter.com/usfora) on Twitter, among other DoD officials and commands, blocking access could potentially disrupt what has become a useful tool for both disseminating information and recruiting new soldiers. It becomes an even more critical problem when one considers those soldiers now using the services to keep in touch with family and friends. As the Army order concerning Iraq demonstrates, the interest is only in those services used to keep in touch and share information. None of the popular video sharing or music sites are accessible in Iraq, largely for bandwidth concerns. Should the Army move forward with this decision, it may create more headache than concerns it resolves.

For many of the individuals and departments using Twitter, Facebook, and other social media, denying them access via the internal DoD network means they will need access to a “dirty” computer, as the Wired.com article describes terminals with access to the internet the rest of us use. As a result, DoD will be forced to place secure and unsecure terminals in proximity to each other. After all, Admiral Mike Mullen still needs access to the secure DoD network when he’s not twittering.

Undoubtedly, Danger Room will follow up on this story, and I’d be interested to see how this develops. With a brother in the Army, Facebook is one of the few ways we have to keep in touch.

I’ve been using Google Voice (http://www.google.com/voice) for a month now and I love it. With the service, you are provided a central phone number that allows you to receive your calls on a variety of phones.

In my case, I have a smartphone and a dumbphone. When I’m using the GPS on my smartphone, I don’t want to take calls because it interrupts my data connection (the joys of CDMA). With Google Voice, I can take the calls on the dumbphone and still use the smartphone for data purposes. The callers are none the wiser. If I need to switch phones during an incoming call, it’s as easy as pressing star.

It’s also useful if one travels to areas where cellphone service can be spotty. I, for example, am spending a few days in New Hampshire. While cell service is spotty, there is a landline phone where I’m staying. With Google Voice, I can add temporary phones for just this situation. By doing so, I can still be reached by phone without having to give out a different number or worry about checking various voicemail systems.

Invites are going out now with fury, so if you’re interested, add your name to the list at https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/.

During the transition from multiple sites to a consolidated disparate.info, we came across a number of items we had saved with the intent of publishing them on one of the predecessor blogs. In the spirit of moving forward, these ideas won’t be turned into full-blown posts, but we will publish what we have.

The category “Interrupted Thoughts” will contain the random snippets that never became articles. Enjoy.

Welcome to my newest blogging endeavor. I’m still configuring the site, so check back regularly.

In the meantime, the posts from my previous blogs are archived below. The author indicates which blog the post came from. These posts should provide some idea of what this site will become.

If you’ve landed on this page while trying to reach content at either http://www.disparatenews.com, http://www.disparateviews.com, or http://lifeinnumbers.net, you have been redirected because those blogs are no longer maintained. Instead, the posts from those previous efforts are included in the archives for disparate.info. For a list of posts that previously appeared at DisparateNews.com, go to http://disparate.info/author/disparatenews.com/. For posts from life in numbers (lifeinnumbers.net), go to http://disparate.info/author/lifeinnumbers.net/.