Monthly Archives: September 2021

Inflation

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The subheadline on a recent wall Street Journal editorial claimed

Voters know how much prices are rising even if politicians don’t.

As some might expect, I have a couple things to say about that.

One thing is that politicians certainly do know prices are rising, and they know the rate of rise; they just don’t care.

The other thing is that there is a world of difference between price rise, inflation, and price level, what we actually pay.

It may be the case that price rise/inflation is abating, and to the extent it is, that’ll be useful for us consumers’ planning for our future expenses. But until price levels return to the status quo ante Wuhan Virus, we’ll still be paying those higher prices, and that still will continue damaging our pocketbooks.

Is Justice Served?

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Marc Baier, Ryan Adams and Daniel Gericke, who illegally transferred computer-hacking technology to the United Arab Emirates, have successfully pled out their crimes of computer fraud and violating export control laws, and they’ve received their sentences.

The men will have to pay $1.7 million to resolve the criminal charges in the “Hacking for Hire” operation.

Their deal also includes

a deferred prosecution agreement also requiring the men to cooperate with the investigation, sever ties with any UAE intelligence or law enforcement agencies, and forego security clearances. The Justice Department will abandon the prosecution if they comply with those and other terms for three years[.]

Never mind that computer fraud, on a first conviction, is punishable by prison terms of up to 10 years, and that export control violations are punishable by prison terms of up to 5 years.

This compares with a navy sailor who ignorantly took souvenir pictures in a classified area of a submarine, and then actually did a year in jail.

Justice most assuredly was not served. The three men, with their wealth, were able to buy their way out into light sentences and a supervision period much less than the jail time for which they were eligible.

In Which I Disagree

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There is a bipartisan bill afoot that would cut all taxpayer-based funding for any gain-of-function research into any virus or bacterium for at least next five years.

I disagree.

As the Wuhan Virus, which the People’s Republic of China government released onto the world (whether by design or by incompetent lab carelessness) demonstrates, we need, desperately, to understand such plussed up biologics, whether they’ve been…enhanced…for politico-military use, as our enemies are surely researching, or they’ve naturally jumped from their animal origins to human infectiousness.

That requires gain-of-function research because that’s the only way we’ll be able quickly to understand and then to respond to a new disease. We just need to do the research entirely domestically rather than relying on, or paying, our enemies to do the research for us.

The VA Fails Again

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Just when you thought maybe it was getting better, too. Nope.

Not only did one of our veterans die in a VA facility, in a stairwell 60 feet from the door to his residential room, the Bedford, MA, VA hospital in which he was resident couldn’t be bothered even to search for him. His

decomposing body wasn’t found until a month after his disappearance in an emergency stairwell just 60 feet from the door of his residential room at the facility.

The VA didn’t even take care of routine business—which likely would have led to locating the man sooner, even if maybe not in time to save his life. That lack even of the routine

prevented anyone at VA from encountering [the deceased veteran] during the month after he was reported missing through routine patrols or cleaning of the emergency exit stairwell in which his body was found.

The VA’s IG report can be read here.

 

Veteranos Administratio delende est.

Tech in the Classroom

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In a Wall Street Journal article centered on the classroom distractions provided by the smart watches students bring into their classrooms, Julie Jargon asked,

Which tech option makes more sense for students, smartwatches or phones?

I say neither of the above. Technology that jams the radio signals these devices depend on so that only 911 calls can get in or out is the option that’s needed. The kids need to stop being pupils and need, instead, to be students, and their parents need to step back and let them.

That move by the parents is, of course, entirely different from the parents’ need to be actively involved in their kids’ education itself, from monitoring the schoolwork they bring home (or should be bringing home) to monitoring the curriculum the school and teachers are pushing and correcting that curriculum where necessary.