The Clearance Story

If you hold a security clearance.....every five years....this 'dimwit' security guy will appear in front of you (doesn't matter if you work for the Pentagon, State Department, Homeland Security, FBI or whoever).....and he'll hand you a disk and demand you spend roughly two hours filling in various questions so they can investigate your background.  They want your addresses, travels, financial information, mortgage information, potential mental health issues, family background, etc.  

The 'dimwit' will take this info....in digital form, and incorporate it into their massive database.  The last time I did this (2009).....I asked the 'dimwit'.....how exactly do you protect this?  In the old days.....it was in paper form and went into a folder.  The 'dimwit' simply said it was protected and I had nothing to worry about.  I just looked at him, the floppy involved, and knew the guy had no idea what he was talking about.  

Well....this past week....the DC crowd came to admit that the Chinese cracked their stupid firewall, and got all the files.....apparently all of the present, future, and past employees (that kinda includes me).

The 'dimwit' crowd?  They are a bit shocked.  They can't explain how this all occurred but an investigation is underway.

No one will talk numbers.....but if they took everything.....there's probably over two million folders of a personal nature involved.  

Hostility and anger?  From what I've read.....there's some senators fairly peeved, and government unions want a 'bill' fixed up......a permanent and everlasting financial check service to protect all present, future and past employees with a clearance, and a one-million-dollar liability insurance for each individual.  

What will the Chinese do with the info?

Every time that some State Department or CIA guy makes it tough for China.....the Chinese will pull the guy's folder, and hand the personal info to some Chinese connection in Las Vegas.  He'll find "Barney" who will take the info and sell it to a ID-theft guy in Dallas.  This Dallas guy will use the ID and info to charge tens of thousands on this CIA guy's account.  Six months down the line.....the poor CIA guy will wake up.....and try to get the cops or FBI to hunt down his ID thief.  With present behavior.....nothing much will happen until the CIA guy hires a P-I and does his own work.  The CIA security department?  They will freeze this CIA employee and suspend his clearance.....possibly for six to twelve months. His value?  After a year.....he'll give up on the CIA as a career and find something new to do.  He's finished with them.

So, start figuring three-hundred such guys a year.  The Chinese aren't stupid....they will start selling their data to the Russians and French.  Eventually.....a whole generation of CIA employees will leave and things will have to be restarted with some new crew.

The damage done?  Worth billions.

All of this......tied back to the security 'dimwits' who kept telling people that they could hold their private information secure.  

The White/Black Gal

Over the weekend, I've tried to read through and make sense out of this Spokane, Washington gal.....Rachel Dolezal.....the NAACP chapter president in Spokane.....who was born white into a Montana family apparently and they had adopted several black kids as part of the family.  Rachel at some point, went off to college and studied black studies.....getting a degree in the area of expertise, and then married a black guy for a couple of years.  For five or six years.....she's cut off her family and mostly pretended for the most part....to be completely black (frizzy hair, dark tan, etc).  Most folks in Spokane thought she was black, so it's come to them as a bit of a shock.....she's a white gal pretending to be black.

I don't see a big deal with this myself.  We have folks who pretend to be religious and they aren't.  We have folks who pretend to be Republicans and they aren't.  We have folks who pretend to have college degrees and they don't have such degrees.  We have folks who pretend to have morals and certainly lack them.  We have folks who claim to be such-and-such.....but aren't who they claim to be.  We have quarterbacks who pretend to be qualified or capable.....signing mega contracts......then fumble around through a season and demonstrate they aren't quarterbacks.  We have news journalists who pretend to know something.....but don't know much of anything.  We have bankers who know just about everything except banking.  We have mechanics who say they can do a simple brake-job, but can't do the simplest of brake-jobs.  And we have think-tank idiots who appear on CNN, but barely can speak to the topic they were brought in.....to chat about.

Course, being the head NAACP person.....means you get a free ticket to the national meeting (wherever they hold the meeting), and you can just imagine this gal flying in, and shaking hands with a hundred black VIPs and they each have some irritation that she's not supposed to be there.  Folks will stand around in the hallway.....gossiping on how they can 'fix' this or prevent this from happening in the future.  It'll consume half the off-camera action for whole weekend.

As for the family angle?  I'm guessing that she just likes being noted as "black" and it's part of some simple gimmick to get noticed.  Heck.....there might be a couple thousand folks looking at this.....buying some frizzy hair stuff.....getting a tan, and showing up at their office HR shop to note their properly ethnic status change.  Personally.....none of this should matter.  But for some odd reason, we've made it matter, which is odd, if you ask me.  If I were her parents.....I'd just send her a note and say that we've made the change too.....becoming Mexican or Hispanic and include some picture of everyone in some Mexican-style clothing.

Why Hillary Doesn't Sell Well

There are five things that generally come up in the average mind of an American with Hillary.

1.  If you had some prioritized list of traits and transparency is at the top......she does lousy and simply doesn't care.  It's proven over and over....she fakes you out with "oh, that was a mistake" or "you know those Republicans".  The problem is....if you have an independent voter standing there and looking for positive character attributes.....her transparency is a virtual zero.

2.  On debate skills.....one to ten....she's a marginal four.  Bill Clinton was a nine to ten on debate skills.  When you compare the two.....you know that she's got limits in debate and isn't that sharp to go knock the opponent while dueling in the middle of a debate.  She's got a message and simply sticks to the message.

3.  When you go and look around her support staff.....they are fiercely loyal.....to the point that they probably won't tell her that she's screwed up and needs to pause and reset the clock.  Having that many 'yes-people' around you.....doesn't help your message or get you popular feelings with the public.

4.  The Clinton Foundation thing is a gimmick.  Just about everyone who reads up on it....realizes that it's a money-maker and asset machine to hide currency and cash.  If there were ever a time to dissolve a foundation....it's now.  But she's not bold enough or courageous enough to part with the foundation.

5.  Four years were spent in the State Department.....what exactly was noteworthy and remembered by the public?  Nothing.  On day one at the State Department, you should have had ten things lined up and made as goals to get people to remember you and your bold actions.  Instead.....no one can recite a single accomplishment over four years, other than you ran your own email server.  It speaks volumes over your decisive nature, your brilliance, and your vision for the nation.

Weaker candidates have run for President, and weaker individuals have actually served as President.  But if you were running against five hefty Republicans with four-star credentials......you need some "beef" in your stew, and she lacks that.

A Poll I Noticed

Sometimes....among my news areas that I review each day.....is WHNT (Channel 19) out of Huntsville.  I grew up in the region and came to have some attraction to WHNT.

There are three basic reasons why I like WHNT: (1) HD Bagley (he's been retired from the station and he passed away last year)....who happened to be the best weather guy that ever walked upon this Earth.  (2) WHNT carried wrestling for years and years in the 1960s when no one else in the region would carry it. And (3), they tend to always ask stupid questions that seem to matter to a typical guy from Alabama.

Well.....I noticed a nifty poll taken on WHNT today and was asking folks what they felt.

The question was:  If the world was ending who would you want to tell you?  (1) Brian Williams, (2) Scott Pelley, (3) Rush Limbaugh, (4) The President, or (5) Your minister.  So far, ministers are leading the other guys by 25-percent.

Naturally, if they'd listed Paul Harvey (he's been dead for six to eight years) or HD Bagley (he's also passed on).....most folks would have picked either one of them.  HD would have encapsulated the whole dialog into 44 words, said 'God Bless', and then suggested a decent tune for the last five minutes of existence.

Rush barely got 11-percent of the vote so far, and you'd have to figure that he'd want you to know this was the fault of Nancy Pelosi.

The President so far....is barely pulling 20-odd-percent.  I'm not sure if folks would believe him.....if he indicate the world was ending.  Most Republicans would tear into the discussion and say it's a fraud and not to worry.

Why this question comes up?  I'm not sure.  About once a year, if you attend some Baptist church in Bama.....some minister will some Revelations topic and scare up a bunch of folks who look for the sign of things ending.  Few realize that for years and years after the New Testament was written....Revelations was left out.  It didn't become part of the accepted text until 419AD, and even now....some folks have particular Bible editions without Revelations.

As for who you'd want to break the news?  I'm not sure if it matters.  Matt Lauer from the Today Show might do Ok.  You might want Terry Bradshaw....the football analyst....to be telling you the bad news (he's spoken up numerous times about bad news for the Cowboys and we've gotten use to that).  Oh, and you might even want some Channel 19 junior anchor gal who seems to always do well with bad stories.

Frankly, I don't see a big necessity to be telling something that might be the end of the world.  If it's that complicated or requires some hour-long speech.....it's probably a waste of time.

Jobs and Politics

Graphics tell a story.  Sometimes, it's a story that amazes you and yet there's virtually no words tied to a graphic.

This week....Verdant Labs did a graphic of occupations and political leanings.

They asked a bunch of folks questions and came to some odd conclusions.

Most pilots are Republican, while most stewardesses are Democrat.  Why?  Unknown.  Maybe it's the social occasions of each where a few drinks works some magic.

The vast number of bartenders are Democrat, but the vast number of beer distributors are Republican.  You might figure that the bartender sits and talks a lot to people and is part of some social scene.....while the beer distributor is a business guy.

Most truckers are Republican, while most taxi drivers are Democrat.  Again, the social setting for the taxi guy invites conversation.  For the trucker......he's a loner for the most part.

Most floral arrangers are Democrat, while most exterminators are Republican.  Most exterminators work alone.....while the floral arrangers work in a heavily social setting.

The vast number of yoga instructors are Democrat.....while the vast number of car salesmen are Republican.

Most park rangers are Democrat, while most sheriffs are Republican.  This might be the law and order scenario where sheriffs tend to enforce daily.....while the park rangers mostly stand around and talk to people and act friendly.

Most farmers are Republican, while most gardeners are Democrat.  Farmers are intensive businessmen at heart.....while a gardener is much lesser the businessman.

Oddly, most train engineers are Democrat.  The vast majority of people in the publishing trade....are Democrat, which is just as odd.

There's a five-hundred page list of questions that a person might have.....after reading over the whole listing.  Why do certain people in certain occupations lean as drastic as shown?  What makes most farmers Republicans?  What about the folks who walk around for three decades as a Democrat and then suddenly come to some life moment where they flip in a short period of time to being a Republican?  How would they figure into this graphic?

Questions, questions, questions.

Simply Observations

First, this Bruce Jenner trans-to-something story?  Well....around five percent of society runs around and tries to be something DIFFERENT.  If they could transform themselves into a Klingon or Cyborg creature.....a thousand guys would line up tomorrow and lay down $15,000 to make it possible.  In the end.....it's a story about.....nothing.  Sorry, if I don't get excited.

Second, some smart guys did a chimp study and found out that if you had a chance to heat up or cook a dish....the chimps would prefer heated food.  Now.....not that it really makes much difference but it shows they'd like to enhance their lifestyle and do something other than plain old regular room-temperature bananas or pudding.

Third, someone came up this week and asked a stupid question and got a stupid answer.  The question is....is there anyone in Washington DC....who counts or knows the true number of Americans in existence?  The answer?  No.....no one counts such people.  Nor does it appear that the US government cares if there is such a number or if they should know it.   This revolves around a case going to the Supreme Court and accepted by them.  The case.....Evenwel v. Abbott, asks if the Constitution's general understanding of “one person, one vote” principle requires equal numbers of voters per district....rather than of numbers of citizen and non-citizen people.  It'll put a strange on things if the Supreme Court says all people count and future Census counts would just go full-throttle on counting people.

Naturally, you'd think that someone knows each guy, his citizenship situation and his address.  Well.....no, no one has such data and I don't think the government even wants to open this door and start collecting such data.

The Chocolate Story

Years ago....I had to skip lunch to make some appointment.....so I grabbed a candy bar and put it inside my jacket.  Ten minutes into this drive....I pulled the chocolate bar out, and of course.....it was all melted up.  You ate what you could and just skipped the rest.

Chocolate has this tendency....with any kind of heat....it melts.

So I noticed in international news today....the Swiss guys (they basically run the developmental side of chocolate) have come to a new recipe of sorts....a chocolate that they claim.....WILL NOT melt.

Now, I admit....I'm skeptical of this.

Sometimes.....you can do things with chocolate that probably isn't a positive thing.....like when the military invented that funny fudge bar for the MRE's.  It's the bar you can eat and get constipated to the maximum degree (you might actually go three days without a bowel movement if you ate two of these bars).

A chocolate bar that won't melt?  It has to have some strange ingredients within it and I'd question what they were.  So far....the Swiss guys aren't saying what it's got or such.