Category Archives: Technology and Society

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

The Lying Obama Administration

5 Comments

Yes, it looks like they did spy on Trump, just like they did with Sheryl Atkisson.

[Update a few minutes later]

What we still don’t know about the Obama administration’s unmasking. I think it’s unlikely that it will turn out to be innocuous. I agree with Rush Limbaugh that this (combined with the IRS abuse) is much worse than Watergate.

[Update a few more minutes later]

Samantha Power sought to unmask Americans on an almost-daily basis. And hey, remember when Clapper (you know, the guy who lied about spying on other Americans) categorically denied wiretapping the Trump campaign?

[Update a couple minutes later]

Congress needs to learn more about how the FBI interfered with the 2016 campaign. This, not what the Russians did, is the real scandal.

[Saturday-morning update]

This is Obama’s Watergate, in which he (so far) got away with what Nixon could only dream of doing.

And the FBI is still stonewalling:

I can’t imagine why Speaker Ryan wouldn’t want to get to the bottom of the apparent misuse of the FBI by Barack Obama and his corrupt Department of Justice. But this is what I really don’t understand: the FBI is part of DOJ, which is run–in theory, at least–by the Attorney General. Why doesn’t Attorney General Jeff Sessions simply order the FBI to comply with the House Intelligence Committee’s subpoena, promptly?

If we had real journalists, instead of Democrat operatives with bylines in the WH press corps, they’d be asking Sarah Huckabee Sanders that question every day.

Administrative, Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

Totalitarian Twitter

10 Comments

The service has just blocked all of my accounts (including my parody @HealthDotGov) account from posting, with no explanation other than:

Tweet from @HealthDotGov failed: To protect our users from spam and other malicious activity, your account is temporarily locked. You cannot use the team account while your account is locked.

This is outrageous. No moron who objects to something that I tweet should be allowed to do this.

[Thursday-morning update]

It didn’t seem to last long, and things are back to normal now. Still no idea what happened, though.

Business, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

My Computer Problems

75 Comments

One of the reasons that posting has been non-existent (in addition to prepping for a hurricane) is that we came to Florida with a broken laptop. Our Toshiba Satellite (a year and a half old) is flaking out, refusing to boot, and when you can cajole it to, it will die in mid session. That means that the only computers we have are our phones and Patricia’s iPad. Which means that I haven’t had a keyboard (other than finger painting on glass, which is largely useless).

I ordered a Bluetooth keyboard from Amazon on Sunday, and it arrived today. I’m typing this with it on the iPad, and I don’t feel crippled any more, but I still have to stab at the glass to make things happen. The mouse is supposed to arrive tomorrow, which will allow me to clear out my mailbox.

I’ll probably write a long essay sometime soon about how much I hate Steve Jobs and his hatred of useful user interfaces over aesthetic ones.

[Late Saturday evening update, as the storm approaches]

It’s not utterly impossible to blog from an iPad, but it’s close enough to it that it’s not going to happen. It is almost impossible to copy and paste, or to embed a tweet. Because apparently Steve decided that mice would not be allowed with His Preciousssss.

[September 19th update]

Welp, the authorized Toshiba repair place says it needs a new mobo and battery. Over $500 for a machine we paid $350 for a year and a half ago. I’m going to go pick it up and see if I can find some used parts. Despite the fact that it only had a year’s warranty, you’d think that Toshiba would be a little embarrassed to have it fail so soon.

[Bumped]

Business, Economics, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Global Warming

9 Comments

…may be happening more slowly than the models predicted.

You don’t say. But those of us who were appropriately skeptical about the models at the time were called “deniers” and worse.

[via Iain Murray]

[Update a few minutes later]

Tim Ball: Climate models can’t even approximate reality. The hubris of these people who think they can model climate with any confidence whatsoever is astounding.

Popular Culture, Space, Technology and Society

Service For Pournelle

An email I missed from Alex when I was on the plane Tuesday:

As you have probably heard, my father, Jerry, passed away on Friday, September 8, 2017. He had attended DragonCon as a guest, was lauded by thousands, and had a tremendously good time. As an author, it would be difficult to think of a better way to be sent off.

Our family also appreciates the outpouring of memorials and reminiscences, both public and private, which have followed.

The public service will be this Saturday, September 16:

12N PT: Services at St. Francis de Sales Church, 13368 Valleyheart Drive Sherman Oaks, CA 91423

We will be working to livestream the service as well.

Please let those who should know about the service. If you will be in town, we hope to see you there.

I’ll be going, hope to see a lot of old (in both senses of the word) friends.

[Late-evening update]