Monthly Archives: August 2015

There’s a Hint Here

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Boeing Co is scrambling to renegotiate an about $85 million satellite contract that became the first big casualty of the US Export-Import Bank’s loss of its operating charter due to congressional opposition.

Asia Broadcast Satellite last month terminated its order for a Boeing 702SP satellite, although the two say they are continuing to discuss the deal.

On the other hand,

SpaceX played down the threat, and said only two of the 50 launches in its current manifest were due to be backed by the bank.

And

Orbital ATK has recently relied on the bank for about one satellite deal a year, though doesn’t currently have any Ex-Im backed space business.

Hmm….

PC Foolishnesses

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The Agricultural Marketing Service of the USDA has proposed removing the term “midget” from its raisin standards in response to a petition from the Little People of America.

The AMS wants to eliminate five references to the term “midget” in the United States Standards for Grades of Processed Raisins, opting to replace the term with the word “small” instead.

Because some folks might get their precious feeling hurted. Never mind that the LPA admits

[T]he use of the word midget by the USDA when classifying certain food products is benign…

they still want the adjective referring to dinky raisins removed from the descriptions—by government fiat, no less.

What will the FDA propose to do when the LPA or some other sensitive group decides “small” is a terrifying affront? Maybe the FDA should skip that step and go right to labeling the raisins “little.”

And this, which is dangerous, and cynically so.

Santa Clara University says a bias incident is “a speech, act, or harassing action that targets, threatens, or attacks an individual or group because of their actual or perceived race, color, national origin, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sex, gender identity, disability, or sexual orientation.”

Students who experience such incidents should call 911, contact the Office of Student Life, alert Campus Safety Services, and file an anonymous report[.]

“Always call,” SCU insists with their new policy. Because hurt feelings are so vastly important they demand an emergency response by police, who have nothing else to do, anyway, there being no actual risks to life or limb in Santa Clara.

No, SCU knows better, hence the cynicism of their…advice.

SCU’s “policy” can be seen here. There’s an EthicsPoint link to an online incident reporting tool at the policy link. Perhaps the policy is itself a suitable subject for addressing via EthicsPoint.

What Really Happened?

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Regarding the cell phones used by Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, both aides to Hillary Clinton during the latter’s stint as Secretary of State, and other devices,

[T]he State Department said in a court filing that BlackBerry devices used by two former Clinton aides during her time as secretary of state have most likely been destroyed or sold off by the agency.

The devices, used by Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, have not been located by the agency, State Department Executive Secretary Joseph Macmanus wrote in a filing submitted in DC Federal Court, adding that the agency’s “standard procedure upon return of such devices is to perform a factory reset (which removes any user settings or configurations) and then to re-issue the device to another employee, to destroy it, or to excess it.”

“Because the devices issued to Ms Mills and Ms Abedin would have been outdated models, in accordance with standard operating procedures those devices would have been destroyed or excessed,” Macmanus wrote.

And

[Macmanus] also said that Clinton did not have a BlackBerry from the State Department or any other device. That means she did not have a department-issued device certified as secure, raising new security questions as the devices she carried would not have been government-encrypted.

The guy who currently sits in the SecState chair, John Kerry, chimed in through his State Spokesperson John Kirby:

…it is “standard practice” that when employees leave, their personal devices undergo a “factory reset,” as they’re often given to other employees.

“And it’s our understanding that that’s what happened in this case. It’s also likely that because this was a while, ago and that those devices were probably—may have been destroyed,”

“Most likely,” “standard procedure,” “standard practice,” “not State issued,” “often given,” “may have been….”

Yes, yes. We fully understand the speculations. Now stop stonewalling and evading: say what actually happened to the devices. Say, also, what device Clinton actually used and where it is, since you’ve known all along her device(s) weren’t government issued.

Some Black Lives Matter More than Others

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Particularly when there’s no political point to be made from the others.

A crowd gathered Wednesday evening to protest the shooting of an armed suspect by Missouri cops, but no mention was made of the 9-year-old girl who had been shot dead by an unknown assailant just seven miles away the night before.

Racist identity politics matter more than actual lives to protest “movements.”

Another Clinton Lie

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Hillary Clinton’s campaign said Wednesday that emails on the private server she used when she was secretary of state contained material that is now classified, the clearest explanation thus far of an issue that has roiled her bid for the presidency.

At the same time, the campaign sought to play down the disclosure by saying the material had been retroactively classified out of an abundance of caution by US intelligence agencies.

“She was at worst a passive recipient of unwitting information that subsequently became deemed as classified,” said Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs Clinton’s campaign.

This, of course is…nonsense. The material was classified at its inception, and the documents carrying the material was thereby classified at the documents’ creation. They were only marked classified after the fact, and after the material had been recognized—by others—as having been mishandled.

That the material had been being mishandled was well known to Clinton. She has said before that she understands the rules and requirements of handling classified material. That’s what makes her claims above, through her campaign, outright lies.