June 2015

There were 35 posts published in June 2015 (this is page 2 of 4).

The Confederate monument has no place on the State House grounds

The N&O’s Josh Shaffer wrote yesterday about keeping the Confederate monument on the state house grounds. I’ve mentioned before how garish I think the monument is so I disagree with Shaffer.

Perhaps we should retire the towering, out of place Confederate monument from the state house grounds to a place of honor in the Confederate portion of Oakwood Cemetery. Perched prominently on the state house grounds, it stands as a giant middle finger aimed towards equality.

North Carolina was a reluctant successionist, even then a Vale of Humility between Two Mountains of Conceit. This helped persuade Sherman from burning Raleigh to the ground. In light of our state’s lukewarm support for the Confederacy one has to wonder what the monument really celebrates.

It’s rare that I agree with conservative N&O columnist J. Peder Zane but even he has called for the monument to be removed. Because the N&O’s website has never figured out how to preserve historical links to its content, I am reposting his column here (as seen on FreeRepublic.com).
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William Rivers Pitt | Don’t Believe the Hype: Candidate Clinton’s Sudden Populism

William Rivers Pitt of Truthout compares the donor lists of Hillary Clinton and her would-be Republican challengers and finds little difference.

For reasons some may argue are not entirely fair, the Post article about those preposterous people helped crystallize a few things as I encompassed the rhetoric contained in Secretary Clinton’s big campaign speech this past weekend. Despite her long history of association with these kinds of people, Mrs. Clinton on Saturday deployed the sort of populist bombast that one might have heard at an Occupy Wall Street rally not so long ago.

[…]

Interesting, that … especially the stuff about hedge fund managers and CEOs and billionaires and fair compensation. Heady stuff; she sounded for all the world like Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders.

Yet a peek at her donor list is revealing. The roll-call of Mrs. Clinton’s top twenty campaign donors is topped by Citibank, and includes Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse Group … basically, a cohort of the worst people in the United States, the ones who gamed the system by buying politicians like her and then proceeded to burn the economy down to dust and ash while making a financial killing in the process.

Source: William Rivers Pitt | Don’t Believe the Hype: Candidate Clinton’s Sudden Populism

Public education

Little_Greenbrier_School.-1936I have a confession to make. At one point, fifteen years ago, I was on the verge of being a Libertarian. Up until then I was a left-leaning independent raised in a Republican household. My friend and roommate Scott sang the virtues of libertarianism and some of it appealed to me. I like the idea of personal responsibility and wasn’t too fond of the massive growth of government. The idea of Al Gore as President didn’t wow me and I’ll never forget the deer-in-the-headlights look George W. Bush showed during a debate when the question of foreign intervention was raised.

So I voted for the Libertarian Harry Brown. Ever since, I’ve blamed my miscast vote for the subsequent Presidency of George W. Bush, Iraq, and the current drift of America. But that’s a post for another day.

But back in my pre-kid days, libertarianism sounded intriguing. Why shouldn’t everyone do things for themselves? AFter all, I was successful. If I could do it anyone could do it, right?

Then slowly I began to consider the enormous advantages I’d had growing up, with a loving family, a decent education, a safe home, and little want for anything. I realized that not everyone shares the same advantages. No one ever really makes it on his own. Not in this world, anyway. We all stand on the shoulders of giants.
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Cheap Thoughts: variable-current EV charging

I’ve been mostly happy with our Siemens Level 2 EV charger. It’s simple to use with only two buttons, which I rarely need to press. Still, there is one feature the Siemens does not offer that I wish it had: the ability to adjust the current used based on my electricity rate plan’s Time of Use schedule.

Duke Energy offers a Time of Use – Demand (TOU-D) electric plan (which I’ve discussed in-depth before), meaning an electric customer gets socked with high fees based on how much electricity gets used at the same time.
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National Archives mailed me sensitive records of other veterans … twice

Pvt. Hardy's DD-214 (redacted)

Pvt. Hardy’s DD-214 (redacted)

Starting in February, I decided to enroll in the Veterans Administration healthcare system. In order to review my health history, I submitted a form to the National Archives and Records Administration to get a copy of my military medical records.

A packet soon arrived from NARA and I marveled at how quickly it had arrived. My pleasure quickly turned to disbelief, though, when I saw the name on the record was not mine!
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Surfing into Adolescence – The New Yorker

The budget for moving our family to Honolulu was tight, judging from the tiny cottage we rented and the rusted-out Ford Fairlane we bought to get around. My brother Kevin and I took turns sleeping on the couch. I was thirteen; he was nine. But the cottage was near the beach—just up a driveway lined with other cottages, on a street called Kulamanu—and the weather, which was warm even in January, when we arrived, felt like wanton luxury.

Source: Surfing into Adolescence – The New Yorker

The Pulitzer Prize In Bullshit FUD Reporting Goes To… The Sunday Times For Its ‘Snowden Expose’ | Techdirt

Rupurt Murdock’s Sunday Times published a whopper on Sunday in an effort to smear Edward Snowden and was promptly shredded by other journalists for its fabrications and shoddy reporting.

Let’s start with this. Soon after Daniel Ellsberg was revealed as the source behind the Pentagon Papers, White House officials started spreading rumors that Ellsberg was actually a Soviet spy and that he’d passed on important secrets to the Russians:None of it was true, but it was part of a concerted effort by administration officials to smear Ellsberg as a “Soviet spy” and a “traitor” when all he really did was blow the whistle on things by sharing documents with reporters.

Does that sound familiar? Over the weekend, a big story supposedly broke in the UK’s the Sunday Times, citing anonymous UK officials arguing that the Russians and Chinese got access to all the Snowden documents and it had created all sorts of issues, including forcing the UK to remove undercover “agents” from Russia. That story is behind a paywall, but plenty of people have made the text available if you’d like to read the whole thing.

Source: The Pulitzer Prize In Bullshit FUD Reporting Goes To… The Sunday Times For Its ‘Snowden Expose’ | Techdirt

Why the “biggest government hack ever” got past the feds | Ars Technica

Ars Technica takes an in-depth look at the “biggest government hack ever,” the OPM hack that exposed over 4 million records of federal government employees.

As I posted to Twitter, while the NSA was busy monitoring Grandma’s phone calls, the Chinese made off with 4 million federal government employee records. Tell me again why we are spending billions on the NSA?

n April, federal authorities detected an ongoing remote attack targeting the United States’ Office of Personnel Management (OPM) computer systems. This situation may have gone on for months, possibly even longer, but the White House only made the discovery public last Friday. While the attack was eventually uncovered using the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Einstein—the multibillion-dollar intrusion detection and prevention system that stands guard over much of the federal government’s Internet traffic—it managed to evade this detection entirely until another OPM breach spurred deeper examination.

Source: Why the “biggest government hack ever” got past the feds | Ars Technica

Tom Apodaca: Senate’s enforcer uses muscle, humor to deliver GOP agenda | The Charlotte Observer The Charlotte Observer

Nice profile of North Carolina Senate majority leader Tom Apodaca.

In another life, Tom Apodaca chased knife-toting bail jumpers and once found himself in a cheap motel staring into the barrel of a shotgun.
The conservative Republican used to be a Jimmy Carter Democrat. And for a long time, Tom Apodaca wasn’t even Tom Apodaca. But now the Hendersonville Republican is the North Carolina Senate’s enforcer, the muscle for President Pro Tem Phil Berger of Eden.

Along with Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore, he’s one of the state’s three most influential lawmakers. As Rules Committee chair, he’s the ultimate gatekeeper. At one point last month, more than 460 House and Senate bills sat parked in his committee. Few measures become law without his blessing.

Source: Tom Apodaca: Senate’s enforcer uses muscle, humor to deliver GOP agenda | The Charlotte Observer The Charlotte Observer

City council dodges patio bar hot potato

I don’t know what the Raleigh city staff was thinking. Honestly, this recent attempt to ban patio seating for bars was bound to blow up in their faces. Anyone who’s worked in city government and played the political game should’ve seen it coming, yet staff happily tossed this hot potato right into the laps of the Raleigh City Council.

In an election year. Yes, an election year.

Of course, a huge groundswell of bar owners and their fans spoke out against this draconian measure and Council wisely backed down, but it all could’ve been avoided.

Me? I don’t see much difference between a bar’s patrons clogging the sidewalks and a restaurant’s patrons clogging the sidewalks. Both businesses’ patrons are likely swilling alcohol and both businesses are contributing to the economy and lifestyle of the City of Oaks. If the city allows one, I see no reason why they should not allow the other.

As for people who moved downtown to enjoy a lively downtown scene and then complain that the lively downtown scene keeps them awake at night, I don’t know what they’re thinking, either.

City staff should’ve known better than to spring this on the public with little warning and on Council during election season. It wasn’t that long ago that the Council took the city staff’s bait and outlawed garbage disposals. Yeah, that went over well. Some staffers apparently didn’t learn the lesson.

I remember the ghost town Raleigh’s downtown used to be not that long ago. The fact that there’s controversy over the sidewalks being too popular is almost laughable. As far as problems go this is a nice one to have. I’m glad the city is taking another approach to this and I’m glad the Council didn’t fall into the trap of approving this.