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Republicans Gut Ethics Body

This is the sort of headline people will look back on in thirty years and say "How very stupid people must have been, back then. How could they not have seen what was going on? Everything was so blatant, so obvious; those senators were acting like villains in really bad b-movie espionage scripts – the kind people poke holes in for being unrealistic."

I don't think it's stupidity. I think it's optimism.

I think it's a misplaced faith in the good of elected leadership (and, come to that, people); a too-strong conviction of "Surely not now, surely not here, when we've come so very far."

This is happening. Yes, now. Yes, here.

House Republicans have gutted an independent ethics watchdog, putting it under their own control, in a secret ballot hours before the new Congress convened for the first time.

The unheralded vote severely weakens the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), which was set up after a lobbying scandal in 2008 to investigate corruption allegations against members of Congress. The move, led by the head of the House judiciary committee, defied the Republican congressional leadership and was reportedly supported by several legislators currently under OCE scrutiny.

Outcry after Republicans vote to dismantle independent ethics body | US news | The Guardian

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I agree with this Rogue One review on all points

Especially in regard to it being the smartest Star Wars film.

Most fun? No.

Most “pop it in on a Saturday afternoon just for the heck of it?” No.

Smartest? I don’t even think it’s a contest.

"It’s not about young people growing up, like essentially all the Skywalker films are, with Luke and Anakin and Padme and Rey and Finn all either coming into their own power or falling out of it. All the primary characters in Rogue One are all already grown up and morally compromised in one way or another. The rebellion is not the simple and clean moral engine for good it was portrayed as before; there’s lots of gray around its edges and in its practices, and its sole moral advantage is that the Empire truly is just plain fascistic evil."

Rogue One, or, the Disneyfication of Star Wars is Complete (and This is a Good Thing) – Whatever
(NOTE: This review of Rogue One is spoiler-free but I will be allowing the conversion in the comment thread to contain spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to skip the comments for now.) As I walked out of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story last night, the male half of a …

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Trump is a Liar. His Transition Team is Composed of Liars.

This is not “news”, but it must still be noted, every time, in part because they base their decisions on those same lies.

President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team was dismissive of the CIA in a response to a Washington Post report that the agency had found in a secret assessment that Russian actors sought to boost Trump in the election.

“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” read the statement. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.'”

Okay, you swarmy, smarmy fuckers: let’s break this down, because literally everything you said is a lie, and I’m in a bad mood.

  • It was George W. Bush’s White House that claimed to be convinced that Iraq had WMDs, not CIA intelligence officers.
  • The election was a month ago — we’re still closer to election day than we are to Trump’s first day in office.
  • Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes.
  • His Electoral College win ranks 46th out of 58 in American history.

Also, if you read their statement (that single paragraph is literally the entire response to a foreign state successfully acting to alter our country’s presidential election) you’ll notice they don’t even claim the report is false — it’s that is doesn’t matter.

And the best part: One of the people who actually did claim Iraq had WMDs was John Bolton, then the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

Trump’s team is considering Bolton for Deputy Secretary of State, serving directly behind an Exxon exec with ties to Russia so flagrant even Republicans are shaking their heads.

So:

  • Trump’s team says the people who claimed Iraq had WMDs in 2002 have no credibility on matters of foreign intelligence.
  • … and are considering one of the people who actually said that as second-in-command at the State Department.

Top. Notch. Thinking.

Trump Disses CIA In Response To Report On Russian Electoral Interferences
President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team was dismissive of the CIA in a response to a Washington Post report that the agency had found in a secret assessment that Russian actors sought to boost Trump in the election.

“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” the statement. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on…

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Well, Dammit

I got a new Pebble back in September. LOVED it. Very happy.

It stopped charging about about a week and a half ago, so… two and half months?

Start the RMA/Support process. Things are progressing toward a replacement unit being sent.

And suddenly, about 4 days ago, nothing. No responses. No emails. Nothing.

And then I hear Fitbit bought Pebble.

Then I hear they bought pieces of Pebble.

Then this.

_ … that leaves Pebble’s loyal customers out in the cold. [T]hose customers are, in fact, royally screwed._

“One-to-one Pebble support is no longer available” and “any Pebble currently out in the wild is no longer covered by or eligible for warranty exchange.” This means, no matter when you purchased or received your Pebble device, you are on your own—and if your device dies, you’re simply out a device. Any warranty you might have been promised from Pebble directly is void.

So that's a fair bit of money for a device that worked for ten weeks, from a company that worked eleven.

Bugger.

Pebble Is Dead, and Its Customers Are Completely Screwed
Pebble, one of the best-known smartwatch brands, is dead. Rumors about the company’s demise have been swirling since The Information reported a potential Fitbit buyout last week. Today in a post on Kickstarter, Pebble confirmed that Fitbit was acquiring “key Pebble assets” and that Pebble would “no longer be operating as in independent company.”

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When Fact Checking is Secondary

This relates back to a conversation I had with +Kate Testerman this weekend – about how people would get so wound up in fact-checking the Nazis in Germany in the early days, and missed that fact checking wasn't accomplishing anything.

What then, we'd ask, should we do. Fact check, sure, but more than that. But what?

I stumbled around that question for awhile, and my answer wasn't nearly as well-put as this: (emphasis mine)

I don’t think journalists should give up on, or refrain from, fact-checking when the president-elect of the United States says something that is false. It’s critical to set the record straight, especially when it’s about a consequential policy issue.

At the same time, journalists obviously run the risk of being manipulated to chase various shiny objects and steer the debate towards topics that the president-elect would like to focus on and away from ones he would like to avoid. Trump’s Twitter can’t become the assignment desk of the national media.

The burden of proof can’t be on the media to disprove every crazy claim that the president-elect makes. The story here is the president-elect yet again made a baseless claim. That is the story. The story is that the president-elect is more factually irresponsible than any political leader in the United States in memory. That’s the story. The details of exactly how this particular claim is false are really, at some point, a second-order concern.

These stories have to de-emphasize the claim itself, emphasize the president-elect being so widely irresponsible.

How Journalists Need to Go Beyond Fact Checking Trump
Podcast: We spoke with political science professor Brendan Nyhan about president-elect Donald Trump’s lies and how reporters should handle them.

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I Had a Great Year – You May Have, Also – and 2016 Was Still Terrible

I posted on Facebook about the Standing Rock action by the Corps of Engineers and, as I did here, noted it as a sliver of good news in an otherwise shit year.

Someone commented:

“I know you are talking about the election when you say “shit year” – or at least I hope you are saying that just for dramatic affect. Because from my perspective- It isn’t a shit year- So… I get where you are coming from- but for me- in the entire grand scheme of things- any day that I have healthy kids, any day or year that my parents are still alive and any year that Bryan and I are healthy, alive and working at jobs we like- well- I call that a pretty damn good year!!

Here’s the thing: if you’re saying “based on my healthy kids, my still-living parents, and the health of my spouse and myself, it was a great year,” then by definition it is not “in the entire grand scheme of things.”

The Grand Scheme of things includes MORE than just you and your family.

2016, even without the election, is like the montage at the start of an apocalypse movie, explaining how things got as bad as they are when the movie opens. To pick only ONE topic, the backwards steps combating climate change and the accelerating heating trends at the poles, far ahead of predictions, mean we have a lifetime of work to give our GRANDkids even a moderate chance to turn things around.

Don’t get me wrong. I have lots of good days, and by any measure, every day has good things in it, even if it’s bad on-balance.

But when I say it’s a bad year, I mean more than just how the year itself turned out, from January 1 to December 31. I mean the impact the events in that year will have on our lives going forward. I look at lasting harm, and what I then need to do.

In other words, when I talk about the year, I’m not just talking about how things went inside my house, and with my immediate family. If I did that, then yeah, 2016 was a banner year. Of course it was. I’m a straight white dude and my family is financially well off. I’m great.

But that point of view is dangerously myopic, and makes it too easy to think everything is going to be fine.

When I have a good day with my daughters, I fight harder to have women’s rights and health defended.

When I have a good weekend with my son, I fight harder for fair and well-funded education systems, with counseling backed by science, led by people earning a good wage, who can help kids when they struggle to succeed (or even make it through a day).

If I have a great Thanksgiving with my family, it means I’m going to fight harder to ensure all of my family have the same rights, and the same protections, everywhere in the country.

Good things don’t make me say “Y’know, over all, I have my health, and things aren’t that bad, and hey WE are having a great year, so why worry about what’s going on over there?”

Good things strengthen my resolve.

One of the best parts of my weekend was when I saw the breaking news on Standing Rock while I was with Sean. Not because of the news itself (which was great), but because it gave me the chance to explain how someone can be happy and crying at the same time, even if they’re guys. Especially if.

I’m not an optimist. That’s established.

I plan for the worst, and most of the time, when it’s not THAT bad, I enjoy myself all the more because I’ve seriously considered how it might have turned out badly.

And when it is just as bad as I thought, I’m prepared.

This year, I’ve been adequately prepared far more than pleasantly surprised.

I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.

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Like wearing a Hug

Our OT suggested a weighted pressure vest for Sean last week, as we start to get a handle on his SPD. The effect has been dramatic. The weekend was great, and even with only a day in the vest last week, his teachers already noticed improvements.

It just grounds him (which I suppose is funny, given what it is), but man what an effect; not a different kid, but him, at his best.

Most importantly, he likes it.

Why Weighted Sensory Pressure Vests Have a Calming Effect for Children – Day 2 Day Parenting
Sensory pressure vests provide constant, even deep pressure to children when their body is craving this important calming and organizing proprioceptive input. Pressure vests promote self-calming, balance, and increased body awareness by enhancing proprioceptive feedback. Children with proprioceptive and tactile integration dysfunction benefit from the sensory feedback they receive when wearing the vest, because it gives the child the input … R…

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A New Arrival in the Testerman Tech Family

I've been very, very happy with my MacBook Air, which I picked up in 2013 and which sailed by its three-year milestone with flying colors, no less capable now than it was when I first got it. It is, without a doubt, the best all around computer I've ever bought. That's not to say it's the most powerful (it isn't, and never was) or best featured (though it might be, if I consider all the apps I use on it that simply don't exist for Windows or Linux). However, for writing and all but the most demanding video stuff I do with a computer, it is my preferred machine. (It's been so good I invested in additional desktop Macs that I otherwise wouldn't have looked at twice.)

With that said, I'm not sure it's the absolute best value-to-cost computer we have in the house. It's a near thing, because I do use use the heck out of the Air, but I think the award might have to go to the Chromebook we picked up a few years ago for Sean. Like the Air, it's been around for a few years, is aging gracefully, and gets more and more use as time goes on and Sean grows more adept with it (so its cost-to-value ratio grows ever more favorable). It cost us $150 bucks at the time (thanks to some Amex points we had stored up), and it's been great.

This Christmas will see a new contender for the Value-to-Cost throne in our house, as we're getting a new Chromebook. It just showed up today, I had a chance to play with it check it out and get it set up for its intended users.

The machine in question is an Acer R11 Convertible. It's a solid Chromebook (same brand as Sean's current machine, though smaller) with (basically) a 10-inch touchscreen that you can flip over and use as a tent display or a nice tablet, with 4GB of memory, and 32 gig drive, all for less than $300.

Two USB ports, HDMI mini out and SD card slot. Battery life is supposed to be in the 10 hour range (we'll see).

And, as a huge bonus, this is one of the models that can run Android apps natively, which means I can install stuff like Jotterpad, Firefox, Skype, Lightroom, and even some cool Android ports of games like Final Fantasy Tactics. (!!!)

All of which is to say that if you’ve been waiting for a perfectly good Chromebook that you can also use as a perfectly good tablet, for under $300, this thing looks pretty good.

Amazon.com: Acer Chromebook R 11 Convertible, 11.6-Inch HD Touch, Intel Celeron N3150, 4GB DDR3L, 32GB, Chrome, CB5-132T-C1LK: Computers & Accessories
Amazon.com: Acer Chromebook R 11 Convertible, 11.6-Inch HD Touch, Intel Celeron N3150, 4GB DDR3L, 32GB, Chrome, CB5-132T-C1LK: Computers & Accessories