Tag Archives: responsibilities

Facebook Revamp?

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Christopher Mims had a piece on this, that Facebook MFWIC Mark Zuckerberg says he’s interested in doing.  Mims opened his article with an important question:

So here’s the multibillion-dollar question: is Mr Zuckerberg willing to sacrifice revenue for the well-being of Facebook’s two billion-plus users?

Unfortunately, his piece centered on the potentially addictive nature of Facebook (among other virtual, interactive social media).  Important as money is to running a business, and important as addiction is to handle, Mims missed a number of larger questions—which bear on addiction, but not exclusively so.

  1. making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent Whose definition of “time well spent?” Is Facebook going to dictate that to its users?
  2. encourage meaningful social interactions Whose definition of “meaningful?” Is Facebook going to dictate that, too?
  3. push us away from harmful ways of using the service Whose definition of “harmful?” Will Facebook dictate that to users, going beyond the possibly addictive nature to other definitions convenient to Facebook?
  4. steps include [what] Facebook…believes will reduce engagement on the service, including hiding click bait and fake news Whose definition of “click bait?” Of “fake news?” How will Facebook prove it’s not merely censoring? It already has been exposed as having an unbalanced coterie of “content moderators” who censor what they personally view as unacceptably conservative.

All of this, also, elides Facebook’s well-known lack of concern for user privacy, invading it at will for “business” purposes.

Porch Dogs

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Some of you may be aware of the protests in Iran, protests that are growing in size and becoming subject to increasingly violent attempts at suppression by the Iranian government.  “Some of you” because the NLMSM isn’t talking much about the protests.

It turns out that Iranian women are playing a prominent leading role in those protests.

  • a young Iranian woman standing atop a container and shedding her hijab…while simultaneously waving it as a flag
  • a woman confronting security forces and proclaiming “Death to Khamenei” while crowds around her join in
  • Another woman was seen on tape declaring “You raised your fists and ruined our lives. Now we raise our fists. Be men, join us. I as a woman will stand in front and protect you. Come represent your country.”

And on and on.  These women are risking their freedom, such as it is in Iran, risking arrest, beatings, perhaps their lives just to be in these protests, much less to lead many of them.

But, where are the Western “feminists” who were willing—anxious, even—to protest loudly against the inauguration of a President of whom they disapprove, protest against the perceived evils of Civil War heroes of the Confederacy, against sexism and sexual harassment and assault in the halls of Hollywood and Congress?

Never mind that these protests all were conducted wholly within the safety of a nation that proudly protects the freedom to speak one’s mind, to protest against government or any other ill, real or imagined.

Where, now, are Linda Sarsour?  Elizabeth Warren?  Nancy Pelosi?  Kathy Griffin?  Kamala Harris?  Kirsten Gillibrand?  Amy Klobuchar?  Debbie Stabenow?  Debbie Dingell?  Madonna?  Amy Poehler?

Others, like Catherine Ray, Federica Mogherini’s spokesman, has uttered only bland platitudes about rights to peaceful protest and free speech.  The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy herself has chosen, so far, not to speak at all in her own voice.

What are these women, safe and sound in the bosom of the United States and Europe, saying and doing in support of those Iranian women?  Not much.

Susan Rice, ex-President Barack Obama’s (D) National Security Advisor and UN Ambassador, says the timidity is proper:

Stephen Miller, the author of the piece at the link, wants to know why these modern “feminists” don’t speak up or act concretely in support of those Iranian women.  I have a different bit of advice: stay up on the porch, ladies.  It’s safe there.  Real women are taking action.

Even porch dogs yap, though.

A More Bipartisan Senate?

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Senator Doug Jones (D, AL) was sworn in on Wednesday, and he claimed to be “starting fresh” and wanted to be the voice of reason.  Buried in that WSJ piece, though, was this unadorned comment by the piece’s author, Siobhan Hughes, and that is the point of this post:

Democratic leaders started 2017 expressing a desire to find common ground with Mr Trump, and ended the year so alienated from the legislative process….

They alienated themselves by rejecting all efforts at bipartisanship.  A couple of interviews at the end of the year gave the Progressive-Democrats’ game away.  Congresswoman Debbie Dingle (D, MI) said that she wanted bipartisanship and was anxious for Republicans to work with her.  Senator Ben Cardin (D, MD) said that he was interested in bipartisan solutions and he wanted Republicans to work with him to achieve them.

Not a syllable of interest in these Progressive-Democrats, or their fellows in either House of Congress, in their working with Republicans.  It’s strictly one-way.

The EPA Failed Again

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Quite apart from the pseudo-science that the Environmental Protection Agency’s previous Administrator, Gina McCarthy, so cynically used to rationalize her agency’s rules, and the frequent eschewing of the cost effectiveness analysis that’s supposed to underwrite or block Agency rules, the Obama administration personnel in management positions in that facility have routinely and for the duration ignored basic security rules and practices.  According to the EPA’s Inspector General,

Hundreds of contractors holding important information security jobs at the US Environmental Protection Agency have for years been working as high-level operators of its computer systems without the appropriate security background checks—a situation the agency is still scrambling to correct.

During all that time, the agency apparently did not even have a complete list of all the “high-risk” positions where detailed background investigations of outside contractors were required.

Among the IG’s findings:

As recently as last February,

nearly 70% of 484 contractors carrying a special, embedded-chip card allowing “elevated access” to EPA computer systems for their work still had not gotten their higher-level background checks.

In one sample,

five of nine contractor personnel were given sensitive access to EPA computer systems without strict background checks, even though they had worked for the EPA “for over five years.”

And

  • “a lack of oversight by responsible offices” within EPA to confirm that background investigations were initiated and eventually completed when contractors got the supposedly temporary right to special access cards
  • conflicting totals among various EPA offices about how many working contractors would require high-level background checks
  • a “breakdown in communication” among various EPA computer system managers and oversight personnel over verification of the checks
  • a refusal on the part of one EPA bureau to provide a listing of personnel who did not even have the special computer access cards but nonetheless still had privileged access to EPA computers.

Note to the IG: offices don’t do anything; the personnel manning those offices do things.  Name names.

Regarding that fourth bullet, it’s a mystery to me why the management personnel running that bureau, blatantly insubordinate as they are, haven’t been fired for cause.

Come to that, the management personnel in those other bullets also should have been fired long ago for their failure to perform, whether deliberate or not.

It’s also a mystery to me why those without the required background checks or clearances haven’t had their accesses canceled.

This is one more reason to abolish the EPA altogether.

The Veteran’s Choice Program

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This is a program that would give veterans the option of going to a private sector doctor in lieu of playing the delay wait game at a Veterans Administration facility, after the veteran has jumped through the requisite VA hoops.  After a political tussle in Congress over increasing/renewing its funding, some additional money was provided.  That additional funding was necessitated because

its popularity depleted the allocated funds more quickly than anticipated. Patient visits through the program increased more than 30% in the first quarter of fiscal year 2017, according to the VA.

Extra points for those of you who can say why the program is so popular.

Despite the success of this limited program, the Progressive-Democrats in Congress want to get rid of it.  Congressman Mark Takano (D, CA), for instance,

argued on the House floor in July that it’s a “mistaken belief that the private sector is better equipped to care for our nation’s veterans than specialized VA doctors.” But while the VA provides high-quality specialized care in certain areas, for the most part veterans’ needs are similar to everyone else’s.

Indeed.  Takano and his fellow Progressive-Democrats just want to maintain control over OPM. It’s a mistaken belief that the private sector cannot care for our nation’s veterans better than specialized VA doctors. As Burgess and Cleland (authors of the piece at the link) note, mostly our veterans’ needs are similar to everyone else’s.

Those few specialized needs unique to a veteran’s particular military history? The VA’s specialists, functioning in the private sector, can deal with those at least as well as they do now, and probably better and faster without the VA’s bureaucratic impediments.

Make the Veteran’s Choice Program functionally universal: privatize the VA, and use its current and what would have been its future budgets for veterans’ vouchers.

Veteranos Administratio delende est.