Month: April 2019

People Are Stunned that Sanders States the Obvious

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It appears that it is news that Bernie Sanders has called out the Center for American Progress’s jihad against progressives, and the delicate flowers in the commentariat are having the vapors over this:

Senator Bernie Sanders, in a rare and forceful rebuke by a presidential candidate of an influential party ally, has accused a liberal think tank of undermining Democrats’ chances of taking back the White House in 2020 by “using its resources to smear” him and other contenders pushing progressive policies.

Mr. Sanders’s criticism of the Center for American Progress, delivered on Saturday in a letter obtained by The New York Times, reflects a simmering ideological battle within the Democratic Party and threatens to reopen wounds from the 2016 primary between him and Hillary Clinton’s allies. The letter airs criticisms shared among his supporters: that the think tank, which has close ties to Mrs. Clinton and the Democratic Party establishment, is beholden to corporate donors and has worked to quash a leftward shift in the party led partly by Mr. Sanders.

“This counterproductive negative campaigning needs to stop,” Mr. Sanders wrote to the boards of the Center for American Progress and its sister group, the Center for American Progress Action Fund. “The Democratic primary must be a campaign of ideas, not of bad-faith smears. Please help play a constructive role in the effort to defeat Donald Trump.”

Mr. Sanders sent the letter days after a website run by the action fund, ThinkProgress, suggested that his attacks on income inequality were hypocritical in light of his growing personal wealth. The letter is tantamount to a warning shot to the Democratic establishment that Mr. Sanders — who continues to criticize party insiders on the campaign trail — will not countenance a repeat of the 2016 primary, when he and his supporters believe party leaders and allies worked to deny him the Democratic nomination.

CAP, and its president, Neera Tanden, have been a cancer of American politics since its founding by uber-lobbyist  (and poster child for poor IT security) John Podesta.

It’s goal has always been the promotion of neoliberal DLC type politics and the sabotage of progressives.

They are funded by the owners of Walmart and various Persian Gulf potentiates.

They are claiming that Sanders’ letter, “threatens to undo a delicate rapprochement, and could presage another bitter primary battle.”

That is complete bullsh%$.  CAP has been targeting progressive Democrats since its founding.

CAP is not, as the headline asserts, a “Liberal Think Tank,” it’s a full-employment scan for former Clinton, and now Obama, administration toadies.

As to Tanden, she’s just a horror show:

Since Mr. Trump’s victory, Ms. Tanden has recast herself and her organization as leaders of the anti-Trump “resistance,” and has sought to harness the energy of liberal activists who backed Mr. Sanders in 2016, even as she has continued complaining about his supporters.

Ms. Tanden, in an email Sunday morning, deferred comment to the editor in chief of ThinkProgress, which she said is “editorially independent” of CAP and its action fund.

Neera Tanden is lying about ThinkProgress being editorially independent.

We actually have evidence (from Wikileaks) of CAP, and Neera Tanden meddling in ThinkProgress.

Also, this is not just about Bernie.  They are going after anyone who they have deemed “unworthy” in the most scorched-earth manner possible:

Mr. Sanders also accused ThinkProgress of “personal attacks” on two other Democratic presidential candidates who have espoused progressive policies, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. He cited a February post on the website accusing Mr. Booker of undermining a bill he wrote with Mr. Sanders that would allow the importation of medications from Canada and other countries. Mr. Sanders further accused ThinkProgress of playing into President Trump’s hands by publishing op-eds criticizing Ms. Warren for claiming Native American heritage.

So, this appears to be a a “Liberal Think Tank” thet embraced Trump’s “Pocahontas” comments about Warren.

CAP, and ThinkProgress, are a cancer on American Politics, and they need to be called out

The Best Argument for Forfeiture Reform is an Argument for Forfeiture

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Case in point, retired police chief Robert Stevenson who argues that reforms to asset forfeiture will make it too hard for the police to steal your money:

One of the worst defenses of civil asset forfeiture has been penned by retired police chief Robert Stevenson for the Michigan news site, the Bridge. It’s written in response to two things: pending forfeiture reform bills in the state legislature and the Supreme Court’s Timbs decision, which indicated forfeiture may fall on the wrong side of the 8th and 14th Amendments.  

………

First, Stevenson argues that cops should be able to take money they feel deeply in their hearts is derived from drug dealing even if it can’t find any evidence linking the person carrying it to a crime. 

………

That part comes in his second argument for forfeiture — one that says even if cops have all the evidence they need to push for a conviction, they still should just be able to take the cash instead. 

I have always thought that the first step in reforming a larcenous asset allocation system is to ensure that the proceeds do not remit back to the courts and the cops who make the decision. (I would suggest scholarships to state schools)

There are probably other reforms after that, but once law enforcement stops making money from the process, the incentives to abuse the process are much reduced.

Once Again, May Chooses the Stupid Option

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Given the clusterf%$# that is Brexit, it’s not surprising that there was someone toiling away in a back office trying to plan for a no-deal scenario.

Well, now that May has been given 6 more months to get nothing done, she has shuttered the office planning for a no-deal.

May is being short sighted and stupid, but I am repeating myself:

Emergency planning for No Deal was called off today after the Brexit delay was written into law.

Civil servants were reportedly told to stand down from urgent meetings meant to ensure the UK is ready to leave the EU without a deal.

The move comes after the Brexit date was moved from April 12 to October 31 following a late-night Brussels summit.

The decision comes as citizens and businesses – including L’Oreal, Tesco and BMW – were continuing to stockpile for No Deal.

………

Officials had been working around the clock to make sure Britain would not suffer if we crashed out of the EU without a withdrawal agreement.

Government sources today said the work has been put on the back burner now the cliff edge deadline has been pushed back.

A Cabinet source told The Sun: “We’re easing off on the No Deal preparations because it’s not the priority at the moment.

Six more months of incompetence and inaction does not  justify abandoning preparation for the worst case.

Not planning for the worst case scenario on something as potentially disruptive as Brexit is governmental malpractice.

Linkage

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Eggs Woodhouse from Archer:

I Know That the French Are Nuts on Copyright, but This Is Ridiculous

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French internet cops have demanded that the Internet Archive remove more than 550 instances of “terrorist propaganda” from its site.

There’s only one problem: the illegal and offensive content they have identified includes live recordings of the Grateful Dead, archives of TV news shows and pages from Project Gutenberg – which archives plain text versions of books as horrifying as The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Alice in Wonderland.

The organization is not amused. “It would be bad enough if the mistaken URLs in these examples were for a set of relatively obscure items on our site,” it said in a blog post, “but the French IRU’s lists include some of the most visited pages on archive.org and materials that obviously have high scholarly and research value.”

It then provides some of the links that it points out it would be obliged to remove within one hour if new legislation passing through the European Parliament is approved. It is painfully obvious that the requests are overly broad and misguided.

“The European Parliament is set to vote on legislation that would require websites that host user-generated content to take down material reported as terrorist content within one hour,” the Internet Archive notes. “We have some examples of current notices sent to the Internet Archive that we think illustrate very well why this requirement would be harmful to the free sharing of information and freedom of speech that the European Union pledges to safeguard.”

………

There is another chilling component too, highlighted by the Internet Archive: a separate takedown notice sent by the French L’Office Central de Lutte contre la Criminalité liée aux Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (OCLCTIC).

In this case, it demanded that the organization take down a video that discussed whether the Islamic holy text, the Quran, included “provocation of acts of terrorism or apology for such acts”.

If you place this authority in the hands of law enforcement officials, it will be abused, and it will be used stupidly.

It is the very nature of law enforcement.

Bad Day at the Office

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The Brereshet space probe crashed into the moon.

There was some sort of failure, and the engine shut down on descent:

On April 11, an Israeli lander named after the Hebrew word for “Genesis” attempted to mark a new beginning for space exploration by becoming the first privately funded spacecraft to touch down on the moon. Built by the Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL, the Beresheet lander tried to softly land within Mare Serenitatis, a vast volcanic basin on the moon’s northern near side—but as it made its descent, the spacecraft’s main engine failed. Engineers reset the spacecraft but lost communications, and the 330-pound lander ultimately crashed.

On April 12, SpaceIL released preliminary data from the last few moments of the mission, which show that despite resetting Beresheet, the spacecraft was descending at more than 300 miles an hour while it was less than 500 feet from touchdown, leading to “the inevitable collision with the lunar surface.”

This really sucks wet farts from dead pigeons.

Live in Obediant, Fear, Citizen

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Amazon is routinely listening to your Alexa without your knowledge:

Tens of millions of people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia. Millions more are reluctant to invite the devices and their powerful microphones into their homes out of concern that someone might be listening.

 Sometimes, someone is.

 Amazon.com Inc. employs thousands of people around the world to help improve the Alexa digital assistant powering its line of Echo speakers. The team listens to voice recordings captured in Echo owners’ homes and offices. The recordings are transcribed, annotated and then fed back into the software as part of an effort to eliminate gaps in Alexa’s understanding of human speech and help it better respond to commands.

The Alexa voice review process, described by seven people who have worked on the program, highlights the often-overlooked human role in training software algorithms. In marketing materials Amazon says Alexa “lives in the cloud and is always getting smarter.” But like many software tools built to learn from experience, humans are doing some of the teaching.

 The team comprises a mix of contractors and full-time Amazon employees who work in outposts from Boston to Costa Rica, India and Romania, according to the people, who signed nondisclosure agreements barring them from speaking publicly about the program. They work nine hours a day, with each reviewer parsing as many as 1,000 audio clips per shift, according to two workers based at Amazon’s Bucharest office, which takes up the top three floors of the Globalworth building in the Romanian capital’s up-and-coming Pipera district. The modern facility stands out amid the crumbling infrastructure and bears no exterior sign advertising Amazon’s presence.

Well, that’s reassuring, isn’t it, Romanian hackers and Indian robocallers listening in on your home.

The work is mostly mundane. One worker in Boston said he mined accumulated voice data for specific utterances such as “Taylor Swift” and annotated them to indicate the searcher meant the musical artist. Occasionally the listeners pick up things Echo owners likely would rather stay private: a woman singing badly off key in the shower, say, or a child screaming for help. The teams use internal chat rooms to share files when they need help parsing a muddled word—or come across an amusing recording.

And then, you become a running gag at the next Christmas party.

If they want people in a petri dish so that they can tweak their algorithms, all they need to do is get their informed consent, pay them, and tell them when it is on or off, but that is inconvenient and expensive, so once again Eric Arthur Blair is spinning in his grave.

You May Not Be Allowed to Know the Law

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The International Code Council is trying to enforce copyright over law2s, which means that people cannot freely read or shore, or(more importantly) understand the law:

UpCodes wants to fix one of the building industry’s biggest headaches by streamlining code compliance. But the Y Combinator-backed startup now faces a copyright lawsuit filed against it by the International Code Council, the nonprofit organization that develops the code used or adopted in building regulations by all 50 states.

The case may have ramifications beyond the building industry, including for compliance technology in other sectors and even individuals who want to reproduce the law. At its core are several important questions: Is it possible to copyright the law or text that carries the weight of law? Because laws and codes are often written by private individuals or groups instead of legislators, what rights do they continue to have over their work? Several relevant cases, including ones involving building codes, have been decided by different circuits in the United States Court of Appeals, which means the UpCodes lawsuit may potentially be heard by the Supreme Court.
………

UpCodes’ first product, an online database, gives free access to codes, code updates and local amendments from 32 states, as well as New York City. For building professionals and others who want more advanced search tools and collaboration features, UpCodes sells individual and team subscriptions. In 2018, UpCodes released its second product, called UpCodes AI. Described as a “spellcheck for buildings,” the plug-in scans 3D models created with building information modeling (BIM) data and highlights potential errors in real time.

………

It argues that its use of building codes is covered by fair use. The ICC, on the other hand, claims that products like UpCodes’ database harm its ability to make revenue and continue developing code. The ICC wants UpCodes to take down the building code on which it claims copyright, and has also sued for damages.

The law should be freely sharable, period.

If the ICC does not like that, then it should sue the code authorities making copies of its code, which they won’t because then code authorities would find some way to develop common code without out the ICC looting them.

As an aside, this is a potential application for AI, so for example the section of code from the ICC (Chapter 10, Section 1003.2), which reads “The means of egress shall have a ceiling height of not less than 7 feet 6 inches (2286mm),” could be automatically rewritten to read, “A ceiling height of at least  7 feet 6 inches (2286mm) is required.”

The information (2286mm) is not subject to copyright, just the exact expression is.  (It’s why, for example, the exact text of a recipe is copyrighted, but instructions that are functionally identical are not.)

I either case, I would like to see Congress change copyright law to explicitly make all regulatory code public domain.

Assange Expelled from Embassy and Arrested

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The British charges are for jumping bail, which is not in dispute, he spent 7 years in the Ecuadoran embassy avoiding an extradition hearing.

However, the US government also has an extradition request, claiming conspiracy to hack (but not actual hacking of) government servers.

According to the indictment filed by the Department of Justice this consisted of: (See also this tweet storm)

  • Receiving leaked documents from Manning.
  • Using encrypted communications.
  • Deleting logs to protect Manning’s identity.
  • Encouraging Manning to dig up more documents.

It looks increasingly like the jailing of Chelsea Manning is an attempt to get her to testify (lie) that Assange engaged in a specific conspiracy with her to hack government computers.

Assange is a complete asshole.

He is also a biased* journalist, thought it is understandable:   while Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton called for his apprehension and/or murder.

But he is still a journalist, and what he is being prosecuted for is classic journalism.

Here are links from from Craig Murray, Matt Taibbi, Just Security, and The Intercept.

Murray is a SitRep on Assange, and the other 3 are on the potential 1st amendment issues, which are legion.

My guess is that the Poodles in the UK will extradite Assange, and he will be convicted at a trial where he won’t have meaningful access to the evidence against him, and the judge will disallow any arguments that his actions were journalistic in nature.

Also, he will be tortured through prolonged solitary confinement while in custody.

*Kind of understandable though, since many avatars of conventional political and foreign policy wisdom were calling for his assassination.

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn

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Scientists have reconstructed an antediluvian creature from fossil, and it looks a lot like something from the mind of HP Lovecraft:

A creature with more than a passing resemblance to HP Lovecraft’s terrifying Chthulu once actually existed, palaeontologists have revealed – although at just three centimetres wide, it was hardly a danger to shipping or buildings.

Not, of course, that there were any human-made structures around when Sollasina cthulhu prowled across the ocean floor some 430 million years ago.

The creature, a very distant ancestor of sea cucumbers and sea slugs, is revealed in a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

It was found in fossilised form in the UK county of Hereford. A team of researchers led by Imran Rahman from the University of Oxford then spent months painstakingly grinding it away, taking photographs at every stage, resulting in an accurate 3D computer reconstruction.

It has a face only a mother could love:

The Eye of Sauron?

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Separated at Birth


High rez version

Using a sh%$ load of radio telescopes and image processing software, astronomers have released the first images ever of a black hole:

Astronomers announced on Wednesday that at last they had captured an image of the unobservable: a black hole, a cosmic abyss so deep and dense that not even light can escape it.

For years, and for all the mounting scientific evidence, black holes have remained marooned in the imaginations of artists and the algorithms of splashy computer models of the kind used in Christopher Nolan’s outer-space epic “Interstellar.” Now they are more real than ever.

“We have seen what we thought was unseeable,” said Shep Doeleman, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and director of the effort to capture the image, during a Wednesday news conference in Washington, D.C.

The image, of a lopsided ring of light surrounding a dark circle deep in the heart of a galaxy known as Messier 87, some 55 million light-years away from Earth, resembled the Eye of Sauron, a reminder yet again of the implacable power of nature. It is a smoke ring framing a one-way portal to eternity.

To capture the image, astronomers reached across intergalactic space to Messier 87, or M87, a giant galaxy in the constellation Virgo. There, a black hole several billion times more massive than the sun is unleashing a violent jet of energy some 5,000 light-years into space.

………

To see into the shadows, astronomers needed to be able to tune their radio telescope to shorter wavelengths. And they needed a bigger telescope.

Enter the Event Horizon Telescope, the dream child of Dr. Doeleman. By combining data from radio telescopes as far apart as the South Pole, France, Chile and Hawaii, using a technique called very long baseline interferometry, Dr. Doeleman and his colleagues created a telescope as big as Earth itself, with the power to resolve details as small as an orange on the lunar surface.

In April 2017, the network of eight telescopes, including the South Pole Telescope, synchronized by atomic clocks, stared at the two targets off and on for 10 days.

For two years, the Event Horizon team reduced and collated the results. The data were too voluminous to transmit over the internet, so they were placed on hard disks and flown back to M.I.T.’s Haystack Observatory, in Westford, Mass., and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, in Bonn, Germany. 

Get your astronomy geek on.

Corruption Much?

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In their infinite wisdom, Congress is planning to outlaw government offering free online tax filing, because Turbotax gives lots of campaign donations:

Just in time for Tax Day, the for-profit tax preparation industry is about to realize one of its long-sought goals. Congressional Democrats and Republicans are moving to permanently bar the IRS from creating a free electronic tax filing system.

Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., passed the Taxpayer First Act, a wide-ranging bill making several administrative changes to the IRS that is sponsored by Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Mike Kelly, R-Pa.

In one of its provisions, the bill makes it illegal for the IRS to create its own online system of tax filing. Companies like Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, and H&R Block have lobbied for years to block the IRS from creating such a system. If the tax agency created its own program, which would be similar to programs other developed countries have, it would threaten the industry’s profits.

“This could be a disaster. It could be the final nail in the coffin of the idea of the IRS ever being able to create its own program,” said Mandi Matlock, a tax attorney who does work for the National Consumer Law Center. Experts have long argued that the IRS has failed to make filing taxes as easy and cheap as it could be. In addition to a free system of online tax preparation and filing, the agency could provide people with pre-filled tax forms containing the salary data the agency already has, as ProPublica first reported on in 2013.

This is unbelievably f%$#ed up.

When Government Works

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Unfortunately, it’s not my government, it’s the government of New Zealand, which just passed a law banning semi-auto weapons in response to the terrorist attack on a mosque in Christchurch:

Less than a month after 50 Muslim worshipers in the city of Christchurch were fatally shot in terrorist attacks on two mosques, New Zealand passed a law banning most semiautomatic weapons on Wednesday — a measure supported by all but one of Parliament’s 120 lawmakers.

The passage of the bill means temporary restrictions imposed by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern six days after the massacre, to prevent New Zealanders from stockpiling guns before the law went into effect, will now be permanent. The swift action by lawmakers stands in stark contrast to similar efforts in the United States, where nationwide gun control proposals have stalled despite a series of mass shootings in recent years.

………

The law outlaws military-style semiautomatic weapons and assault rifles, and violators face five years in prison. Some semiautomatic guns will still be allowed, including .22 caliber rifles with magazines holding less than 10 rounds, and shotguns with internal magazines that hold no more than five rounds. All of the weapons used by the Christchurch gunman will be banned, as well as parts and magazines that can convert lower-powered guns to higher-powered versions.

………

But while sports shooters and farmers were among those who pleaded for exemptions to the restrictions, lawmakers allowed just two: for commercial pest-control businesses and for licensed collectors of guns, or those who want to keep particular guns as heirlooms or mementos. Collectors will be required to remove a part, making the weapons nonoperational, and store that part at a different location.

And in our case, we had elementary school students, and all we got were insincere thoughts and prayers.

F%$# that.

Also, F%$# the NRA.

Another Stopped Clock Moment

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[UPDATE: I did not look at the date on the article.  It was from over a year ago, but he is looking at cutting its budget again this year.]

In Trump’s latest budget request, he is cutting the funding to the National Endowment for Democracy by ⅔.
Seeing as how the NED is, and always been, little more than a front group for CIA, this is a good thing:

Thank you, President Trump! Finally you have made a foreign policy recommendation that is logical, overdue, and in the long-term interest of the United States. Congress will probably reject it, but you deserve credit for making the effort.

Trump’s budget for the coming fiscal year proposes to gut the National Endowment for Democracy by cutting two-thirds of its budget. The endowment is one of the main instruments by which the United States subverts and undermines foreign governments. In a less Orwellian world, it might be called the “National Endowment for Attacking Democracy.” Cutting the budget would signal that we are re-thinking our policy of relentlessly interfering in the politics of other countries.

That kind of interference is the National Endowment’s mission. Whenever the government of another country challenges or defies the United States, questions the value of unrestrained capitalism, limits the rights of foreign corporations, or adopts policies that we consider socialist, the Endowment swings into action. It pours over $170 million each year into labor unions, political factions, student clubs, civic groups, and other organizations dedicated to protecting or installing pro-American regimes. From Central America to Central Asia, it is a vivid and familiar face of US intervention.

President Ronald Reagan established the program in 1983, following years of scandals that tarnished the Central Intelligence Agency. Soon it took over many of the tasks that the CIA used to perform. When the United States wanted to interfere in the Italian election of 1948, for example, the CIA did the job. Decades later, when Washington sought to push its favored candidate into the presidency of Nicaragua, our instrument was the National Endowment for Democracy. More recently, it has sought to influence elections in Mongolia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia. “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” one of the organization’s founders explained during the 1990s.

………

Because its job is to shape the course of other countries, the Endowment has become a darling of Washington’s regime-change crowd. Shortly after ordering invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, President George W. Bush pushed to double its budget. That made sense, because bombing and organizing “peaceful” revolutions are two ways of achieving the same goal: forcing countries to bend to our will. Both reflect our insistence on judging foreign governments, deciding which may survive and which must be attacked.

Leaders of the Endowment include some of our country’s most militant interventionists. One of its board members is Elliott Abrams, who helped direct anti-Sandinista projects in Nicaragua during the 1980s and was later convicted of lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair. Another is Victoria Nuland, who as assistant secretary of state in 2016 flew to Ukraine to encourage protesters to overthrow their government.

The US efforts at regime change have been a constant source of misery for their targets, and a constant source of blow-back for US foreign policy goals.

The only thing wrong about reducing the budget of the NED by ⅔ is that it’s not been completely defunded.

Bad Day at the Office

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Japan has grounded its F-35 fleet after one of the aircraft crashed:

The Japan Air Self-Defense Force confirmed Wednesday morning local time that a missing F-35A has crashed, pointing to debris sighted and recovered Tuesday night by ships and helicopters searching for the aircraft.

The pilot remains missing. U.S. military assets have also joined the search, including a U.S. Navy Boeing P-8A Poseidon multi-mission aircraft on temporary duty in Japan.

The crashed aircraft, which the JASDF identified as serial number 79-8705, was the first of 13 Japanese F-35As assembled so far by Mitsubishi’s final assembly and check out facility in Nagoya. In addition to the 12 JASDF F-35As affected by the temporary Japanese grounding order, the 14th aircraft assembled, which is still at Nagoya and undergoing pre-delivery flight tests, has also been grounded.

Local media reported Tuesday that contact with the Lockheed Martin-made stealth fighter was lost just before 7:30 p.m. local time, with the aircraft’s last reported location identified over the Pacific Ocean about miles 85 miles east of Misawa city in Aomori prefecture, in the northern part of Japan’s main island of Honshu.

Japan’s national public broadcaster, NHK, quoting Japan Air Self-Defense Force officials, reported that the missing F-35A was one of four JASDF F-35As that had taken off from nearby Misawa Air Base for a training mission at 7:00 p.m. local time.

The squadron has been operating the JSF for only about a month.

 Not good.

Cue Queen Again

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Another One Bites the Dust

So now the acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security has quit ……… or was fired ……… I’m not sure which:

Claire Grady, acting deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), offered President Trump her resignation Tuesday as the agency finds its upper ranks thinned after a string of departures.

Her exit comes after DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced Sunday she was leaving her post. Trump subsequently withdrew his nominee to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the White House announced that Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles would be departing the agency.

“For the last two years, Claire has served @DHSgov w excellence and distinction. She has been an invaluable asset to DHS – a steady force and a knowledgeable voice,” Nielsen tweeted in announcing Grady’s resignation, adding it will be effective Wednesday.

“Her sound leadership and effective oversight have impacted every DHS office and employee and made us stronger as a Department. Clair has had a remarkable career in public service – 28 years at the Departments of Homeland Security & Defense – that is coming to a close. I am thankful for Claire’s expertise, dedication & friendship & am filled w gratitude for her exemplary service to DHS & to our country,” she continued in a series of tweets.

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Claire Grady, acting deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), offered President Trump her resignation Tuesday as the agency finds its upper ranks thinned after a string of departures.

Her exit comes after DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced Sunday she was leaving her post. Trump subsequently withdrew his nominee to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the White House announced that Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles would be departing the agency.

“For the last two years, Claire has served @DHSgov w excellence and distinction. She has been an invaluable asset to DHS – a steady force and a knowledgeable voice,” Nielsen tweeted in announcing Grady’s resignation, adding it will be effective Wednesday.

“Her sound leadership and effective oversight have impacted every DHS office and employee and made us stronger as a Department. Clair has had a remarkable career in public service – 28 years at the Departments of Homeland Security & Defense – that is coming to a close. I am thankful for Claire’s expertise, dedication & friendship & am filled w gratitude for her exemplary service to DHS & to our country,” she continued in a series of tweets.

Grady’s departure was expected after Nielsen’s resignation became public, though it means the department will still be without a Senate-confirmed deputy secretary as the White House works to replace the agency’s top leadership. It also clears the way for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) head Kevin McAleenan to come on as the new acting DHS secretary.

Ernst Röhm would call this brutal.

And Now it Goes to the Floor

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Net neutrality legislation just cleared the Commerce Committee, beating back Republican attempts to emasculate the bill.

I expect that there will be a further push by lobbyists before it hits the floor, and after that, it has to go to the Senate, so I am not optimistic.

Between big cable, the Baby Bells, and the other rat-f%$#ers out there, I do not expect it make it through the legislative process unscathed.

Welcome to the 3rd World

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The newest career path in the Bay Area is picking through billionaire’s trash:

San Francisco trash pickers rummage through their billionaire neighbours’ garbage and sell the discarded treasures they find, The New York Times revealed in a story published Sunday.

One man The Times profiled – Jake Orta, a 56-year-old military veteran – lives in government subsidized housing near Mark Zuckerberg’s roughly $US10 million home. Orta has uncovered a hair dryer, a vacuum cleaner, and a coffee machine (all still in working condition) in the Facebook CEO’s trash, and an iPad in someone else’s.

Orta sells what he finds, with a goal of earning about $US30 to $US40 a day, according to The Times.

Yeah, the whole “Welcome to the 3rd World seems to be approaching meme status, but this sounds like something out of a Delhi slum.

Why Ordinary People Don’t Believe Scientists

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Because they correctly observe that our whole society is profoundly corrupt, and this includes the most prestigious scientific and research institutions.

Seriously, it does not get any more “White Shoe” than Sloan Kettering:

Top officials at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center repeatedly violated policies on financial conflicts of interest, fostering a culture in which profits appeared to take precedence over research and patient care, according to details released on Thursday from an outside review.

The findings followed months of turmoil over executives’ ties to drug and health care companies at one of the nation’s leading cancer centers. The review, conducted by the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, was outlined at a staff meeting on Thursday morning. It concluded that officials frequently violated or skirted their own policies; that hospital leaders’ ties to companies were likely considered on an ad hoc basis rather than through rigorous vetting; and that researchers were often unaware that some senior executives had financial stakes in the outcomes of their studies.

In acknowledging flaws in its oversight of conflicts of interest, the cancer center announced on Thursday an extensive overhaul of policies governing employees’ relationships with outside companies and financial arrangements — including public disclosure of doctors’ ties to corporations and limits on outside work.

Welcome to the wages of the neo-liberal society, where everything, including scientific integrity, is for sale, or at least for rent.

As a result, on issues where we are dependent upon expertise, we live in George Akerlof’s Market for Lemons, where the level of fraud results in the degradation of the “market” for scientific research.