VOCABULARY: “SLUDGE” — the administrivia that make getting things done near-impossible

Friday, March 25, 2022

https://bigthink.com/smart-skills/sludge/

Sludge: How paperwork, wait times, and confusion degrade our well-being

  • Sludge may be inevitable, but there are better ways to manage such frictions in our daily lives.

with Cass Sunstein

*** begin quote ***

As defined by Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, sludge is the amorphous accumulation of daily frictions that separate people from the things that can make their lives easier or better. Think tedious paperwork, long wait times, and bureaucratic procedures to fulfill simple requests. If you’ve ever navigated the layers of an automated answering system to speak with a human representative only to be put on hold for hours listening to public-domain slow jazz, then you know the pains of sludge.

*** end quote ***

Just yesterday, I called Walgreens about an OTC item that ordered on their website.  I had it confirmed then canceled.

I called three times.  Navigated phone choices.  Got a person each time who asked my name and birthdate — despite it wasn’t about a prescription — and they “transferred” me to a number that rang innumerable times then “transferred” me to survey “in order to give you outstanding service”.  Regardless if you took the survey or not, it hung up on you.

So I went to the store — ready for war — a nice lady took my name and birthdate — I have no idea why — and my order number.  She also said that they would fill my order but it would take an hour.

Argh!  So I left to do errands and came back,

New lady.  Took my name and birthdate — Argh! — and had no idea why order was cancelled.  Or why my order wasn’t ready.

Earlier lady returns equally clueless.

Then the pharmacist gets involved.  Also clueless as to why.  (It is an OTC item.)

After another hour, I get my order.  No apologies and no explanations.

SLUDGE in inaction.

Argh!

—30— 

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INSPIRATIONAL: Strollers at the border

Thursday, March 24, 2022

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/strangers-are-leaving-strollers-diapers-and-toys-at-the-border-for-ukrainian-refugee-moms-look/

Strangers are Leaving Strollers, Diapers, and Toys at the Border for Ukrainian Refugee Moms (LOOK)
By  Andy Corbley – Mar 18, 2022

*** begin quote ***

An image recently shared around social media of empty strollers on a Polish rail border crossing has inspired a mountain of donations for Ukrainian refugees.

Now at Przemyśl Station, women, children, and infants fleeing the war are being greeted by mountains of clothes, stuffed animals, strollers, diapers, and more after they step off the train.

ABC reports that the number of spare carriers and strollers from Polish mothers have been particularly inspiring, with many donators leaving handwritten notes behind, with words of support.

“We see on the television and hear on the radio what happened, and we say ‘okay we can help,’” one Polish mother and volunteer told ABC.

*** end quote ***

The beauty of the charitable spirit brings one to tears.

—30—

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TECHNOLOGY: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Medium deplatforming — are they declaring they are NOT a “common carrier”?

Thursday, March 24, 2022

https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/the-final-word-from-twitter-on-my?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0MTQyNTAzMCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NTA3OTYwMjIsIl8iOiJ3dWtjQSIsImlhdCI6MTY0Nzk1Nzc3NSwiZXhwIjoxNjQ3OTYxMzc1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNTQ4MzU0Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.q2jPYmNmrf7OZUiHun3q4AojKCwAdEBBdJr06q7nO5s&s=r

The final word from Twitter on my account (after 13 years): we’re deleting you and everything you ever wrote

  • After 13 years on Twitter, I was suspended for life a second time on Feb 6, 2022 and I was just notified today that there is no appeal. It took them 6 weeks to review my appeal.

Steve Kirsch

*** begin quote ***

Summary

Twitter, LinkedIn, and Medium all believe deplatforming me (and others who share my beliefs that early treatments work and the vaccines are dangerous) is a service to their community.

The message these companies want to send to everyone is that if you stick to the popular narrative, you will not be punished.

This is a new America where you need to conform or you will be deplatformed.

*** end quote ***

I guess it’s time for me to leave ANY platform that “deplatforms” ANY ONE for anything other than a “free speech violation”.

—30—

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MONEY: Can bitcoin stop the “bad guys”? Can anything?

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-the-foundation-of-human-rights?utm_source=Bitcoin+Magazine&utm_campaign=f8fa15ec24-&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f7d45fbb67-f8fa15ec24-357073741&mc_cid=f8fa15ec24&mc_eid=386b7b0895

BITCOIN CAN BE THE FOUNDATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
The bad guys can’t stop Bitcoin, but Bitcoin can stop the bad guys.
GREGOR HERBORT
MAR 18, 2022

*** begin quote ***

60 years ago, it was not Syrians, Afghans, Iranians and people from various African states who had to leave their homes and sought refuge.

It was Kazakhs, Ukrainians, Jews, Poles, Russians and Germans who needed a new home before, during and after World War II. Displaced by an occupying power, by the ruling government and by hunger and war.

Many had to leave their hometowns and were not able to take much with them, let alone transfer money across national borders. This is what happened to many Jews. Refugees were deprived of their remaining possessions in Germany. In a perfidious way, the war and the extermination of the Jews were thus co-financed.

Within experiences of these and other inhuman acts, the Universal Human Rights have been defined. A commission led by Eleanor Roosevelt worked out 30 articles under the auspices of the United Nations in 1948.

Reading these 30 articles, it becomes clear that the potential bad guy is often seen on the side of the state or government.

*** and ***

Everyone has the right to freely access a healthy international currency!

*** end quote ***

I certainly like that it’s inflation proof.  It may be a hopeless gesture to liberty, but what choice do we have?

—30—

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POLITICAL: The Gooferment shouldn’t punish those who dispute the election results

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

https://sharylattkisson.com/2022/03/read-watchdog-group-files-tries-to-overturn-sanctions-on-sidney-powell-trump-lawyer-who-challenged-2020-election-results/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Sharyl+Attkisson+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=Daily+Newsletter&vgo_ee=9GwjIKYNhIK3eFXY6NCvBw%3D%3D

(READ) Watchdog group files brief; tries to overturn sanctions on Sidney Powell, Trump lawyer who challenged 2020 election results
DATED: MARCH 19, 2022 BY SHARYL ATTKISSON

*** begin quote ***

“Courts sanctioning lawyers pursuing election law claims in the heat of an election is a dangerous game that could allow election corruption to go unchecked,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The partisan retaliation and harassment of lawyers involved in litigating the 2020 election dispute is unprecedented and undermines the rule of law – and courts should not take part in it.”

*** end quote ***

How anyone can say that there was no election fraud in the 2020 election is delusional!

The simultaneous “pause” in four key state in the middle of the night and DJT goes from being in the lead before the pause to losing after the pause is prima facie evidence of fraud.

The Deep State, the Corrupt Corporate Media, and Big Tech conspired to rig the election.

It’s obvious that the USA is now, and has been for awhile, a corrupt oligarchy.  

“We, The Sheeple” should wait until they are loading people on the trains destined for camps to begin to resist.

One can only hope that we can get our liberty back.

“Yes. In the end, you will walk out. Because 100,000 Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians, if those Indians refuse to cooperate.” — movie Gandhi (1983)

So to, one city filled with politicians and bureaucrats can not control 320 million Americans if we all refuse to cooperate.  Peaceful non-violent cooperation.

Pick your “battles” but just gum up the works.  The Canadian Truckers expose the tyrannical State in Canada.  Let’s do the same in the USA.

Save your nickels, bullion, and bitcoins.  The may inflate the dollar but it can’t touch real money.

Argh!

—30— 

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VOCABULARY: “Security Theater”

Monday, March 21, 2022

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/03/why-vaccine-cards-are-so-easily-forged.html

Why Vaccine Cards Are So Easily Forged
Bruce Schneier

*** begin quote ***

Back in 2003, at the height of our collective terrorism panic, I coined the term security theater to describe measures that look like they’re doing something but aren’t.

*** end quote ***

Well, for once, he and I disagree.  The smug cheater getting away with fraudulent documents instills in society that some are above the “rules”.  Like when politicians are unmasked but force everyone else to mask up.  One set of rules for me; another for thee. Doe the smug cheater get to run red lights and put others at mortal risk?

As a little L libertarian, I don’t recognize the Gooferment as having the power to mandate a lot of what it does.  I’m for the “night watchman” government if we have to have one at all.  So, when the Gooferment politicians and bureaucrats promulgate their diktats, I feel free to treat them as “suggestions”.

“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” — Robert A. Heinlein

So I stop at red lights and stop signs and expect others to do the same.  Not because the Gooferment has a diktat about it, but it is common sense to cooperate in the real world. 

If a shop keeper feel that masks are need for the well-being of their patrons — even if masks are ineffective and just provide some crazy people psychological comfort — then I’ll either accept their invitation to shop there wearing a mask or go somewhere else. (It’s not my role in society to disturb the peace and preach “any gospel” to the infidels.

Sigh, there are common sense rules that we obey for the benefit of humanity. And, they are way above diktats in moral authority.

But “theater” of any type should be mock, skirted, or just ignored if at all possible.  

(Note: I don’t do bail money. So obey that old knight. “But choose wisely, for while the true Grail will bring you life, the false Grail will take it from you.” Grail Knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097576/quotes)

—30—

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VOCABULARY: The Streisand Effect

Sunday, March 20, 2022

https://www.mindbounce.com/trivia/the-phenomenon-wherein-trying-to-hide-information-makes-it-more-public-is-known-as/

TRIVIA
Hard

The Phenomenon Wherein Trying To Hide Information Makes It More Public Is Known As?

*** begin quote ***

Back in 2002, photographer Kenneth Adelman undertook a massive project wherein he photographed the California coastline in a series of 12,000 photographs. The purpose of the exercise was to document coastal erosion for the California Coastal Records Project, a government-sanctioned project focused on preserving the state’s massive coastline.

*** and ***

In 2003, when it came to the singer’s attention that her home was displayed on the CCRP’s website, her lawyers drafted a lawsuit and sued the photographer, the site displaying the images (Pictopia.com), and even the server company hosting the actual files (Layer42). The total damages sought were for $50,000,000.

*** and ***

Two years later in 2005, Mike Masnick, CEO and founder of the Techdirt blog, immortalized the whole affair when he wrote:

How long is it going to take before lawyers realize that the simple act of trying to repress something they don’t like online is likely to make it so that something that most people would never, ever see (like a photo of a urinal in some random beach resort) is now seen by many more people? Let’s call it the Streisand Effect.

*** end quote ***

An interesting addition to the genre of Unintended Consequences?

—30—

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INTERESTING: Mother Nature always outsmarts humans

Saturday, March 19, 2022

https://news.byu.edu/intellect/state-funded-byu-study-finds-elk-are-too-smart-for-their-own-good-and-the-good-of-the-state

State-funded BYU study finds elk move when hunting season starts — and it’s causing problems
By Todd Hollingshead, February 16, 2022

*** begin quote ***

Utah’s DWR was hearing that hunters weren’t finding elk during hunting season. They also heard from private landowners that elk were eating them out of house and home. So they commissioned a study. Turns out the elk were leaving public lands when hunting season started and hiding on private land.

*** end quote ***

This is pretty funny.

It’s like elephants evolving to have shorter tusks in response to poachers.

—30—

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GOVERNACIDE: Time to put the CDC and FDA out of business; close them down — PERIOD

Friday, March 18, 2022

https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/the-cdc-knew-in-january-2021-that?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0MTQyNTAzMCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NTA0NjY1OTgsIl8iOiJ3dWtjQSIsImlhdCI6MTY0NzUyNDU4OSwiZXhwIjoxNjQ3NTI4MTg5LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNTQ4MzU0Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.VIk4TcHfhGbUFLXpymBo4ACb_TWl2Z-_IOHrH8Lw-WA&s=r

The CDC knew in January 2021 that the vaccines were unsafe, but they said NOTHING

  • The data was in public view in January 2021 that the vaccines were too unsafe for use in humans. By February, it was even more obvious. To this day, the CDC has never acknowledged this safety signal.

Steve Kirsch 3/16/22

*** begin quote ***

If you want clear, compelling evidence of corruption at the CDC and FDA, here it is.

The CDC knew these vaccines were unsafe in January. They cause clotting everywhere. Pulmonary embolism is just a canary in the coal mine for blood clots. I could have picked something else.

It is troubling that the FDA and CDC didn’t spot this signal. It is huge and in plain sight. Even today, they still don’t acknowledge that the risk of pulmonary embolism is elevated. And if they aren’t talking about that, it means they aren’t talking about any of the thousands of other safety signals in VAERS either.

If you wanted proof of corruption and proof that we cannot trust the authorities, this is it in black and white. It doesn’t get any more obvious than this.

*** end quote ***

The Gooferment is killing people to line the pockets of Big Pharma which in turn will make “campaign contributions” to politicians.  The CDC and FDA are a revolving door for bureaucrats going to work in Big Pharma and visa versa.  

The only solution is to terminate the CDC and FDA with extreme prejudice.  Yes, does anyone think that Big Pharma won’t make safer products with the fear of lawsuits is reinstated?

Argh!

—30—

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RANT: The NYT is a shill for the “lizard people” and unworthy of any trust in what it says

Thursday, March 17, 2022

https://nypost.com/2022/03/17/the-times-finally-admits-hunter-bidens-laptop-is-real/

OPINION EDITORIAL
Now that Joe Biden’s president, the Times finally admits: Hunter’s laptop is real
By Post Editorial Board
March 17, 2022

*** begin quote ***

Forgive the profanity, but you have got to be s–tting us.

First, the New York Times decides more than a year later that Hunter Biden’s business woes are worthy of a story. Then, deep in the piece, in passing, it notes that Hunter’s laptop is legitimate.

“People familiar with the investigation said prosecutors had examined emails between Mr. Biden, Mr. Archer and others about Burisma and other foreign business activity,” the Times writes. “Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop. The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation.”

Authenticated!!! You don’t say. You mean, when a newspaper actually does reporting on a topic and doesn’t just try to whitewash coverage for Joe Biden, it discovers it’s actually true?

*** end quote ***

Where do we go to get our election back?

“We, The Sheeple” are such suckers!

—30—

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