Still, it's quite important, politically; nobody believes anything he says anymore, and certainly not denial of spying or knowledge. However, in the political world, from sovereign leader to sovereign leader, you can't just *say* the other one is lying. At least not if you're allies, even if one of them isn't taking the whole ally thing too seriously.
Well said. There's a serious credibility gap that seems to grow every day.
Healthcare enrollment website has massive problems, well yeah, I'm sure the President knew as much from press reports as the rest of us. But I'm guessing that his subordinates at several levels down the chain were minimizing the problem so what at the level of the people directly responsible for working on the problem looked like a total nightmare was regarded with decreasing severity at each level up the chain. Like this:
webmasters: Website is fucked. Needs basic redesign that will take months to fix.
direct managers: Website has major problems. Some elements will need to be overhauled.
middle managers: Website has significantly underperformed. Some changes will be needed before it performs as expected.
Who hasn't seen pretty much this same scenario play out in their own organizations?
The problem I have with this scenario is that this is the president's baby. I don't see why he wouldn't demand regular progress reports and/or demos to people he trusted.
I've been involved in a few website roll-outs. I've mostly done UAT testing and bug hunting. Why wasn't the site sufficiently stress-tested? Why were their multiple companies being dealt with, rather than the government simply picking a Web designer and saying, "Build this site"? And how did it happen that they picked a vendor so shady that they would hide major problems with the website rather than saying, "Look, we need more time"? It's not as if Web projects always run on schedule. The website being delayed would be the most ordinary thing in the world.
It just seems to me like the administration left it up to HHS, and HHS didn't exercise any diligence at all - let alone due diligence.
Who the hell would want to spy on Obama? He isn't exactly hot grits...
I can't really imagine the NSA spying on him, but I could certainly imagine political enemies wanting to do it.
I can hardly believe that the President of the USofA will know all. Could be that it is in his line of command to know. But I would not be surprised if it was just a general 'we can spy on whomever we want' kind of thing.
I would hope that spying on another country's leader isn't something the U.S. would do as a matter of course - especially if that leader was an ally. How could something like that be done and the president not be told? It's an incredibly risky venture (as we can see now).
And spying on some Afghan village leader is just as bad in my book. Just because he is an Afghan does not mean he is a terrorist or has anything to do with terrorism.
Spying on an Afghan leader might be just as bad morally, but it has nothing like the same international diplomacy consequences.
I had Vista when it first came out. I never thought it was total crap, but it was more cumbersome than it should've been. They screwed up the user rights. Not every little thing you do should have required UAC. Plus, while I didn't have this problem, they should've done more with hardware compatibility.
The way Microsoft has positioned Windows 8 is just moronic, as far as I can tell. One version for the desktop, one version for tablets, and don't mess with the frigging Start Menu. Seriously, how hard would that have been? Now you've got millions of users for whom Windows 8 is a joke, because they don't have touchscreen monitors on their PCs, and worse, they put out two different versions of Windows 8 for tablets, one of which is just slightly less useful than a Cracker Jack toy.
Men who were in the lower half of the ACC activity ranking had a 2.6-fold higher rate of rearrest for all crimes and a 4.3-fold higher rate for nonviolent crimes.
My math may be off, but I don't think it is higher for violent offenders, if I'm reading this sentence right.
Rate * normal for non-violent offenders = 4.3
Rate * normal for all offenders = 2.6
Rate * normal for violent offenders = X
(4.3 + X )/2 = 2.6
4.3 + X = 5.2
X = 5.2 - 4.3
X = 0.9
Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none.