Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[csyphrett]

Greene states they don't know enough to condemn air guardsman for putting classified documentation on Discord and allowing it to be leaked out. 

 

Apparently his friends leaked the information from the Discord and got him arrested when all he wanted to do was go look at this. I guess he forgot the thing about secrets.

CES 

[unclevlad]

Considering that there was a security marking on EVERY page of every classified document I handled, back when I was involved in that...that should be...well...kinda hard to forget....

 

Besides...I only had a Secret clearance, and we got *inundated* with security reminders.  TS is significantly harder to get, and I suspect has a much higher burden of updates, briefings, etc.  

 

NPR is reporting, too, that he was worried that making transcriptions at work would get him in trouble.  Well, DUDE...if that would, then how can discussing it on social media be OK???

 

<sigh>  It's beginning to look like there's no malice per se, just abject stupidity or complete lack of judgment.  Even if the kid gets out of prison reasonably young, it feels rather unlikely he'll get a job much better than a janitor.  

[Pattern Ghost]

They need to remove her from the  Homeland Security Committee immediately. Preferably from office, but that attitude isn't appropriate to sitting on that committee or anything intelligence or security related. ETA: I've seen people actually lose top secret clearances for way less than the views expressed in the article below.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/marjorie-taylor-greene-defends-national-052635902.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACpacYumG7-4ot4_37AdHQMcQ4ooc_GvPSDvMoQWEDSKr9kHbrKzT1wlHQE7YJkYsMw_7D8CCubyY9o9JaLwZyauW4Lvpiz7NF4ekzXDCTA-dKmuFuRdx8z2CNQ6v8nzBarva4yGWgdX4PGbeFzifYqqPXaLvPB2X6ruABHGE3eU

Edited April 16, 2023 by Pattern Ghost

[unclevlad]

Twitter killed their old APIs, and instituted new rules...and prices...to use the new ones.  There's a VERY basic level that allows very limited access...but to get more costs $42,000 *per month.*

 

Right now, this means National Weather Service emergency bulletins...like tornado warnings...can't be sent out automatically.  

 

https://mashable.com/article/twitter-api-removal-public-safety-twitter-accounts

 

The story also notes that the New York and San Francisco mass transit services send similar alerts as needed.  

 

Elsewhere...Minnesota Public Radio, which is a pretty big content creator, joined NPR and PBS in boycotting Twitter.  NPR and PBS had a combined 10 million followers.

[Ternaugh]

49 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Twitter killed their old APIs, and instituted new rules...and prices...to use the new ones.  There's a VERY basic level that allows very limited access...but to get more costs $42,000 *per month.*

 

Right now, this means National Weather Service emergency bulletins...like tornado warnings...can't be sent out automatically.  

 

https://mashable.com/article/twitter-api-removal-public-safety-twitter-accounts

 

The story also notes that the New York and San Francisco mass transit services send similar alerts as needed.  

 

Elsewhere...Minnesota Public Radio, which is a pretty big content creator, joined NPR and PBS in boycotting Twitter.  NPR and PBS had a combined 10 million followers.

 

By Musk's own estimation, he had reduced T(w)itter's valuation to $20 Billion, or less than half of what he paid for it around six months ago.

[Lord Liaden]

5 hours ago, csyphrett said:

Greene states they don't know enough to condemn air guardsman for putting classified documentation on Discord and allowing it to be leaked out. 

 

 

Any assertion made by the Jewish-space-laser lady should be... well, I guess you can't definitively discount it out of hand, but "treated with skepticism" just isn't adequate.

[Iuz the Evil]

2 hours ago, Ternaugh said:

 

By Musk's own estimation, he had reduced T(w)itter's valuation to $20 Billion, or less than half of what he paid for it around six months ago.

And given the aforementioned function of business, he should be fired. The shareholders ought to be absolutely livid, that is gross incompetence.

[unclevlad]

1 hour ago, Iuz the Evil said:

And given the aforementioned function of business, he should be fired. The shareholders ought to be absolutely livid, that is gross incompetence.

 

I think a knockdown drag-out fight among the shareholders would be quite amusing to watch.

 

 

[Ternaugh]

1 hour ago, Iuz the Evil said:

And given the aforementioned function of business, he should be fired. The shareholders ought to be absolutely livid, that is gross incompetence.

 

16.9% of Twitter is owned by the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund, which is considered the second largest investor after Musk. Not folks one would want to make lose a large amount of money.

[Old Man]

Really enjoying this dystopian reality where we're all scrambling around like mice trying not to get stepped on by ultra-wealthy kaiju as they have city-destroying fights with each other.

[Cygnia]

Kaiju Billionaire would be a helluva band name...

[csyphrett]

17 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Any assertion made by the Jewish-space-laser lady should be... well, I guess you can't definitively discount it out of hand, but "treated with skepticism" just isn't adequate.

You don't have to tell me. The word is if Greene pulls her support McCarthy can't hold on to the Speaker position. I don't know how real that is, but if I were McCarthy I would be sweating bullets every night I left the office

CES

20 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Considering that there was a security marking on EVERY page of every classified document I handled, back when I was involved in that...that should be...well...kinda hard to forget....

 

 

It looks like you did too, Vlad. The main rule about keeping secrets is not telling.

CES 

[Lord Liaden]

Unclevlad told no secrets. All he said was that he used to handle them. What his job was isn't classified.

[unclevlad]

1 hour ago, csyphrett said:

It looks like you did too, Vlad. The main rule about keeping secrets is not telling.

 

Not telling anything meaningful.  I said nothing meaningful.  There's lots of things you can say *broadly* even if the details would be a serious violation.  

 

Saying I had a clearance is also not a problem.  Everyone had badges in the building...the badges were color coded to show clearance level.  Now, yeah, you were to take the badge off on exiting, but plenty of people without a clearance would know people who had them...including the occasional TS.

 

Plus:  I retired from that 10 years ago.  Any specific things I saw, that would clearly be classified?  LONG!!! forgotten.  And most of it would be obsolete.  Like...oh, around 2009 or 2010, we got a classified briefing about drones.  Lot of it was fairly general.  Don't remember word 1 now.  And almost certainly, all of the info has LONG!!! been superseded.  

[tkdguy]

 

[Clonus]

On 4/15/2023 at 6:52 PM, Ternaugh said:

 

By Musk's own estimation, he had reduced T(w)itter's valuation to $20 Billion, or less than half of what he paid for it around six months ago.

To be fair it was never worth what he paid for it so it isn't as steep a decline as it sounds.  

[unclevlad]

43 minutes ago, Clonus said:

To be fair it was never worth what he paid for it so it isn't as steep a decline as it sounds.  

 

OK, so instead of a 55% drop in value, it's maybe only a 40% drop.  So...around as successful as Boeing has been in the last 4-5 years, give or take.

[Lord Liaden]

Why has Big Pharma inserted itself in the abortion fight?

 

Note that Republicans receive significant donations from major pharmaceutical companies because of their pro-business stance. When their donors are upset, watch Republicans backpedal.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[unclevlad]

Yeah, absolutely no one benefits if the drug approval process can be thrown out on a political whim.  

 

NYT has a story today about a professor who advocates for a new approach to urban planning, which has been gaining support.  But in the last few years, his theories have been twisted by the conspiracy theorists in outlandish, outrageous directions, and he's become a target of death threats.  This isn't isolated, either:

 

Quote

Many of the recent threats have been directed at scientists studying Covid-19. In a survey of 321 such scientists who had given media interviews, the journal Nature found that 22 percent had received threats of physical or sexual violence and 15 percent had received death threats. Last year, an Austrian doctor who was a vocal supporter of vaccines and a repeated target of threats died by suicide.

 

One epidemiologist keeps a folder on her computer to store all the death threats she receives just “in case.” A professor of atmospheric science who studied global warming received a letter containing white powder (it looked like anthrax but turned out to be cornstarch). A professor of health law and science policy, in an article touching on his experiences with death threats, lawsuits and online trolling, wrote: “My skin is thick. I’m used to the hate.”

 

The conspiracy theorists connect to the usual themes...climate denial, vaccine denial, general paranoia.  There's little new *there*...but the point to me is to realize that these <BLEEP>s are having larger negative impacts than many of us might realize.  Their numbers might be small, particularly the principal actors, but social media is a powerful amplifier.

[Cygnia]

 

[Lord Liaden]

So many Republicans apparently can add "indoctrination" to the list of words they don't understand the meaning of: "the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically." Teaching young people about different beliefs, and how to examine and compare them to determine if they're credible, is the opposite of indoctrination. But they also don't seem to understand irony. As has so often been said in recent years, every Republican accusation is actually a confession.

[Pattern Ghost]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

Teaching young people about different beliefs, and how to examine and compare them to determine if they're credible, is the opposite of indoctrination.

 

I'm not seeing a whole lot of that critical thinking element from the younger generation. I've been seeing a whole lot of "shout down the opposition" in the last decade or so, though.

[Iuz the Evil]

I’ve come to the conclusion that essentially political beliefs have become something of a faith tradition versus an intellectual exercise in policy decision making. It’s profoundly unacceptable and even offensive to question doctrine, or even seek to understand the thinking behind it more deeply with any form of critical question. 

[Ternaugh]

 

[Lord Liaden]

12 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I'm not seeing a whole lot of that critical thinking element from the younger generation. I've been seeing a whole lot of "shout down the opposition" in the last decade or so, though.

 

Only the last decade? 

 

You can't really blame the purpose and value of education for the shortcomings in the American education system. That's a whole other subject. Or for the flaws in human nature. The biggest jackasses are the ones who bray the loudest, but while they're the minority they're the ones we notice.

Edited April 18, 2023 by Lord Liaden