Wanted: Firefighter in Chief

Several weeks into the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, it appears that the Bush Administration has no interest in modifying their initial plans to work towards a “lasting solution” rather than an “immediate ceasefire.” While it has long been obvious that Bush is dead set on leaving a historic mark on U.S. history, he must learn that sometimes it’s necessary to achieve short-term results while developing long-term solutions.

Here in Los Angeles, our biggest problem during the summer tends to be wildfires (second only to overwhelming demands on the power companies). It’s an ongoing problem, the result of a variety of factors including increased temperatures, the expansion of housing developments into fire-prone areas, careless smokers and the occasional fame-seeking arsonist. When they occur, firefighters are immediately called in, and they bravely battle the flames until the fire has been contained and ultimately extinguished. But until they are able to get the situation under control, residents are evacuated, homes are destroyed and horrible clouds of toxic smoke ascend into the air for the whole city to breathe.

Now, if we took the Bush Administration approach, southern California would be nothing more than a giant charred wasteland. Rather than trying to quickly put out the fires, our local authorities would take a “longview” approach, sitting in meetings and discussing plans to prevent any possible outbreak of fires in the future. In the meantime, residents’ homes, possessions and livelihoods would be destroyed. Most likely, the authorities in power would lose their re-election campaigns, ultimately reducing their chance of implementing any brilliant longterm solutions they might develop.

Of course, it’s natural for leaders to want to solve big-picture problems and leave a lasting legacy. But sometimes they also have to roll up their sleeves and put out the short-term fires that threaten the overall well-being of the world. That’s why it’s time for the Bush Administration to realize that calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon doesn’t preclude the possibility of a lasting peace. If anything, it allows the parties involved to conduct calm, rational discussions about how to achieve longterm solutions. For who could have a focused debate on whether or not to re-finance their mortgage when they know that a casserole is burning in the oven?

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Technorati Tags: Lebanon, Israel, Hezbollah, Middle East, Fighting, War, Ceasefire, Bush, Bush Administration, Peace

A "High Degree" of Suspicion

Last week, an associate of mine had the pleasure of visiting a State of California Employment Development office. This one of those places where state employees help out-of-work citizens create resumes, search online for jobs and prepare for an interview.

Not surprisingly, the place was somewhat of a joke — apparently the people who worked there didn’t even know how to format a resume for printing. But beyond the stories he told me about job-seekers who couldn’t land work if they had Bill Gates’ resume, the thing he found most interesting was this flyer the office was giving out to veterans:

Now we all remember the big story about the veterans data that was stolen from the home of an employee who had taken the information home without authorization. It was the first of what would be many stories about unsecure government computers and laptops having been stolen or compromised. Later, we found out that there was data on active duty personnel on the same computer. So concerned was the government about identity theft, the Veterans Affairs Department announced that they would provide a year of free credit monitoring services to those affected by the data loss. Of course, that type of large-scale program doesn’t come cheap.

First, they proposed taking using funds that was normally spent on veterans’ health and benefits. That didn’t fly in Congress. Next, the White House put forth a plan to use funds that would otherwise go to food stamp services, student loans and farmers to cover the costs of the monitoring. Congress wasn’t thrilled about that either, although I suspect that the anger over this plan was less bipartisan than the first.

Needless to say, the VA was in quite a pickle. But then, their funding problems were miraculously solved! The stolen laptop was recovered, the FBI determined with a “high degree of confidence” that the data had not been comprised and the free credit monitoring offer was withdrawn. Viola! No more funding problems.

Of course, the flyer in the EDD tells another story. One could easily write it off as the VA simply encouraging veterans to be cautious, since a “high degree of confidence” isn’t absolute certainty. But where would “phishers” get the email addresses of veterans, if not from the stolen data itself? I have to assume that it would be difficult to find a public database of veteran names and emails (although in light of all the data breaches, who knows), available for any Tom, Dick or Harry to utilize for personal or professional reasons. Maybe “phishers” are taking a shotgun approach, emailing every address they have on file, figuring they’ll hit some veterans eventually?

This wouldn’t be a new strategy for spammers, as is clear from my bulk mailbox full of Viagra ads and mortgage approvals. But a quick search of the 1700 spam emails in my account retuns zero speaking to me as a potential veteran. With the wide variety of content found in my bulk email folder, it seems that I would have received at least one message of that variety, if in fact the spammers are taking the shotgun approach. So what does all this mean?

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but the only conclusion I can draw from this sequence of events is that the data from the laptop was indeed compromised, but because the VA couldn’t find funds to pay for the free credit monitoring, the FBI said everything was hunky-dory so that no such monitoring would be needed. I know, it sounds crazy, but the miniscule amount of trust I once had in this administration has completely disappeared. Considering their “what’s the problem?” attitude after culling through our personal phone records, bank statements and political activities, I’m probably not the only one who wouldn’t put this type of stunt past them.

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Technorati Tags: Veterans, Vets, Data Breach, Identity Theft, VA, FBI, Phishing, Credit Monitoring, Congress, Bush Administration, Bush, Conspiracy

Who Needs Facts When You’ve Got Opinions?

So Bush actually did it. He finally vetoed his first bill. And if it wasn’t for such an asinine reason, I’d actually be proud of him. And Congress, well I’ve got to give them props as well. The GOP-controlled House and Senate finally stood up to their supreme leader on an issue that most Americans feel strongly about. The only people I can’t congratulate on the Stem Cell bill situation are the incompetent White House staffers who either wrote or posted the “Fact Sheet” about the bill on the WhiteHouse.gov website.

First, it’s not factual at all. It’s a summary of Bush’s opinions on the bill and his position on stem cell research. The only thing factual about it is that it accurately portrays Bush’s feelings on the matter. But statements describing stem cell research as “One Of The Most Egregious Abuses In Biomedical Research” and references to Bush’s “Balanced Policy On Embryonic Stem Cell Research” are biased in a way that inherently prevent them from being facts. The only thing more appalling than this page being called a “Fact Sheet” is Yahoo’s link to it as such from their “Full Coverage” section on stem cell research.

Second, the press release/fact sheet looks like it was written by an intern who was clearly hired because he/she wouldn’t make Bush feel bad about his lack of English comprehension. I’m pretty sure from my limited memory of grammar and capitalization lessons in grade school that words like “a” and “the” aren’t supposed to be capitalized, even in titles. As an example, let’s take this bullet point:

“It Makes No Sense To Say You Are In Favor Of Finding Cures For Terrible Diseases As Quickly As Possible And Then Block A Bill That Would Provide Funding For Promising And Ethical Stem Cell Research.”

Not only is it not a fact, it’s quite difficult to read with all those caps. That “fact” was in reference to Bush feeling:

Disappointed Congress Failed To Pass A Bill That Would Have Authorized Additional Federal Funding For Promising New Research That Could Produce Cells With The Abilities Of Embryonic Cells, But Without The Destruction Of Human Embryos.

Hey staff writers, every heard of a run-on sentence? But I guess we can’t expect a White House that’s proven itself uninterested in quality education to care about something like writing skills, even if it is for the leader of the free world’s official website.

Third, the repeated references to the “Destruction Of Human Embryos” that this bill would (in Bush’s opinion) cause are just wrong. I will freely admit that one of my biggest concerns about cloning is the potential for unethical organ farming, but this bill dealt with embryos that are currently being thrown out and destroyed. Where is the response to that part of the bill in the White House’s “fact sheet”? Where is their explanation of why tossing extra embryos in a dumpster is better than using them for scientific research? I certainly won’t hold my breath for that press release.

For all these reasons and more, I sent an email to the WhiteHouse.gov webmaster. I concisely stated (as a fact, not to be confused with an opinion) that their “Fact Sheet” was anything but. I linked to the page, cited some of the above examples and recommended that they add a disclaimer at the top of the page informing visitors that the content was based on opinions, not facts. Somehow I doubt they’ll take my advice, but maybe if enough people join me and send an email to the Web Development Team over there…

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Technorati Tags: Stem Cell Research, Stem Cells, Ban, Veto, White House, Congress, Embryos, Bush, Fact Sheet, Bias, Politics, Poor Writing, Grammar

Can We Trust the Government With Our Data?

With the New York Times’s new assertion that the U.S. government has been tracking financial information from international banks, American citizens are once again left wondering if our government knows best how to handle our most personal data.

Like the stories that broke a few months ago regarding international and possibly domestic NSA phone tapping and call record data mining, this revelation is probably not shocking to us closet conspiracy theorists. If you’re like me and inherently suspicious of the NSA’s activities, you probably already refrain from saying things on the phone that might trigger an alert from whoever is listening in.

Now, I can’t deny that one of the government’s main responsibilities is to protect its citizens from criminals, whether they come in the form of al Queda or identity thieves. But when taken with the Patriot Act’s flagrant lack of oversight, these programs require us to completely trust those that monitor our activities, whether physical, digital or otherwise.

Personally, I don’t think that the Bush administration has earned that kind of trust. Between the bad intelligence on Iraq’s WMD capabilities and the unbelievably incompetent response to Katrina, I don’t think I’d trust them to watch a pet fish while I was gone for a long weekend. But beyond that, we’ve seen story after story in recent months that detail how they’ve failed to safeguard the basic data they already have about us. From social security numbers to medical records, our information is apparently being taken home from government offices on laptops and left in personal cars for the common auto thief to steal way more often than we all probably throught (and would prefer).

It all comes down to the simple notion of credibility. If the Bush administration is going to ask us to trust them with not only our personal data, but our lives, they need to start earning that trust. Bush and Tony Snow’s responses to the most recent NY Times story implied that people’s lives were at risk now that terrorists know we’re tracking their finances. First, do Bush & Co. really expect us to believe that the people who carried out 9/11, an attack that was obviously well researched and meticulously planned, are too clueless to realize that major banking institutions might be looking at transactions and notifying government agencies of suspicious activities? Second, in the real world (not the Little Red Riding Hood realm of good vs. evil that’s often used as a scare tactic), what’s the more likely scenario — another 9/11 attack or a person’s identity being stolen from an unsecured government laptop? Bin Laden was living in a cave the last time I checked.

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Technorati Tags: Data Breach, Identity Theft, New York Times, NY Times, Vets, Veterans, NSA, Phone Tapping, Wire Tapping, Financial Records, al Queda, Patriot Act, Security, Bin Laden, September 11, 9-11,