Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic writes Why Do Newspapers Keep Publishing Op-Eds by John McCain?
America's most prestigious op-ed pages are run by highly accomplished editors who know a tight argument when they see one. They reject so many pieces each day that even a minor factual error or logical inconsistency is enough to doom a submission—at least a submission from someone who isn't part of the ruling class.
But a much less rigorous standard governs articles written by well-known politicians. Take John McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona. I assume the op-eds he submits to The New York Times or Washington Post or Wall Street Journal are ghostwritten for him. But so long as McCain's byline is attached, the usual standards for subject-matter expertise, internally consistent argument, and factual accuracy are abandoned. In their place, newspaper readers get the ostensible benefit of knowing what a powerful person wants to be seen as thinking. The approach is widely accepted but journalistically indefensible.
For a thorough evisceration of McCain's most recent Times op-ed, co-bylined with Senator Lindsey Graham, see my colleague Peter Beinart's recent article. His critique of the authors' factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations is so persuasive I began to marvel that a reputable newspaper published the piece. Then I looked back at McCain's past contributions to prestigious newspapers. That he's still treated as a foreign-policy expert is not to opinion journalism's credit.
Begin with his uncorrected Times op-ed from March 12, 2003, "The Right War for the Right Reasons." He writes, "Saddam Hussein still refuses to give up his weapons of mass destruction. Only an obdurate refusal to face unpleasant facts—in this case, that a tyrant who survives only by the constant use of violence is not going to be coerced into good behavior by nonviolent means—could allow one to believe that we have rushed to war." As it turned out, of course, there were no weapons of mass destruction, and the argument about having "rushed to war" was premised on the subsequently proven notion that weapons inspectors were given insufficient time to accurately assess what was and wasn't in Hussein's arsenal. […]
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2013—Today in E.W. Jackson news: Is E.W. Jackson throwing the race?
Today in E.W. Jackson news, we learn that the actual, no-foolings Republican nominee for Virginia lieutenant governor doesn't take guff from anyone. He is a one-man non-guff-taker.
The Chesapeake pastor has rebuffed the party’s suggestion that he tone down his rhetoric and steer clear of hot-button issues — much to the delight of his grassroots supporters, the frustration of some GOP loyalists and the surprise of almost no one.
You know, rhetoric such as whether Planned Parenthood is the Klan, whether gay people are "very sick people," whether the post-civil rights era did more damage to black families than slavery, whether the Democratic Party is the "anti-God party," and whether or not people who own toaster ovens are going to hell because everybody knows toaster ovens are actually saunas for the tiny invisible demons that live in your cupboards.
In this case "taking guff" also means "taking advantage of deep Republican knowledge of how crazy-ass crackpots can actually get elected," something that the party has a great deal of experience with and can pull off with some regularity. But Jackson is having none of it, possibly because of Sarah Palin disease, the communicable condition that causes the victim to feel like running for things, but not if there's actual work involved.
Friday, September 5, 2014
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Topeka Goodwill Among 20 Stores Affected By Data Security Breach
(WIBW) -- Goodwill of Topeka is one of 20 stores in Kansas affected by what the company is calling a data security issue.
Goodwill reports a malware attack on its system between February 10, 2013 and August 14, 2014
This is the letter from Goodwill President and CEO Stefany Williams:
September 2, 2014
Dear Goodwill® Customers:
In July, Goodwill Industries International (GII), on behalf of its members, announced that some Goodwill members’ store locations may have been affected by a data security issue. Since that time, we have engaged a third-party forensic expert to conduct an extensive investigation. We have also been working closely with Federal law enforcement authorities and coordinating with the payment card brands to determine the facts.
The forensic investigation has confirmed that a third-party vendor’s systems had been attacked by malware, enabling criminals to access some payment card data of a number of the vendor’s customers. We want you to know that we have taken steps to secure our customers’ data and we have stopped using the affected vendor to process our customers’ payment cards. We also took immediate action to ensure the malware found on the third party vendor’s systems does not present a threat to individuals shopping at our stores.
Based on the investigation, we have determined the following:
Twenty Goodwill members that use the same affected third-party vendor have been impacted.
The investigation found no evidence of malware on any internal Goodwill systems.
The third-party vendor’s affected systems contained payment card information, such as names, payment card numbers and expiration dates, of certain Goodwill customers. There is no evidence that other Goodwill customer personal information, such as addresses or PINs, was affected by this issue.
The malware attack affected the vendor’s systems between February 10, 2013 and August 14, 2014. It affected our stores during this timeframe. Please visit http://mokangoodwill.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KC-Locations.pdf for a list of all our local stores that used the affected vendor during the relevant time period.
We deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause. Our primary concern is for the people we serve — our community, our shoppers and our donors — and we are committed to ensuring that your information is safe and secure. We realize that data security is an issue that every retailer and consumer needs to be more and more aware of today.
We are notifying our customers about this issue so they can take steps to help protect their information. You are entitled under U.S. law to one free credit report annually from each of the three national credit bureaus. We encourage you to remain vigilant by reviewing your account statements and monitoring your free credit reports. If you believe your payment card may have been affected, please contact your bank or card issuer immediately. Additional information and security tips are available at http://mokangoodwill.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/REFERENCE-GUIDE.pdf
If you have any questions or would like more information, please call us toll-free at 1-800-GOODWILL. We will be available to answer your questions from 9 a.m.-9 p.m. on Saturdays; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. on Sundays; and 9 a.m.-9 p.m. on Mondays-Fridays Eastern time.
Protecting the privacy of our customers’ data information is extremely important to us, and we are diligently taking steps to help prevent this type of incident from occurring in the future. Again, we are very sorry this happened and we thank you for your continued support in helping Goodwill meet its mission of helping people with barriers to employment achieve economic independence for themselves and their families.
Sincerely,
Stefany A. Williams
President / CEO
Goodwill of Western Missouri & Eastern Kansas
Dear Goodwill® Customers:
In July, Goodwill Industries International (GII), on behalf of its members, announced that some Goodwill members’ store locations may have been affected by a data security issue. Since that time, we have engaged a third-party forensic expert to conduct an extensive investigation. We have also been working closely with Federal law enforcement authorities and coordinating with the payment card brands to determine the facts.
The forensic investigation has confirmed that a third-party vendor’s systems had been attacked by malware, enabling criminals to access some payment card data of a number of the vendor’s customers. We want you to know that we have taken steps to secure our customers’ data and we have stopped using the affected vendor to process our customers’ payment cards. We also took immediate action to ensure the malware found on the third party vendor’s systems does not present a threat to individuals shopping at our stores.
Based on the investigation, we have determined the following:
Twenty Goodwill members that use the same affected third-party vendor have been impacted.
The investigation found no evidence of malware on any internal Goodwill systems.
The third-party vendor’s affected systems contained payment card information, such as names, payment card numbers and expiration dates, of certain Goodwill customers. There is no evidence that other Goodwill customer personal information, such as addresses or PINs, was affected by this issue.
The malware attack affected the vendor’s systems between February 10, 2013 and August 14, 2014. It affected our stores during this timeframe. Please visit http://mokangoodwill.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KC-Locations.pdf for a list of all our local stores that used the affected vendor during the relevant time period.
We deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause. Our primary concern is for the people we serve — our community, our shoppers and our donors — and we are committed to ensuring that your information is safe and secure. We realize that data security is an issue that every retailer and consumer needs to be more and more aware of today.
We are notifying our customers about this issue so they can take steps to help protect their information. You are entitled under U.S. law to one free credit report annually from each of the three national credit bureaus. We encourage you to remain vigilant by reviewing your account statements and monitoring your free credit reports. If you believe your payment card may have been affected, please contact your bank or card issuer immediately. Additional information and security tips are available at http://mokangoodwill.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/REFERENCE-GUIDE.pdf
If you have any questions or would like more information, please call us toll-free at 1-800-GOODWILL. We will be available to answer your questions from 9 a.m.-9 p.m. on Saturdays; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. on Sundays; and 9 a.m.-9 p.m. on Mondays-Fridays Eastern time.
Protecting the privacy of our customers’ data information is extremely important to us, and we are diligently taking steps to help prevent this type of incident from occurring in the future. Again, we are very sorry this happened and we thank you for your continued support in helping Goodwill meet its mission of helping people with barriers to employment achieve economic independence for themselves and their families.
Sincerely,
Stefany A. Williams
President / CEO
Goodwill of Western Missouri & Eastern Kansas
Goodwill’s Mission – We strengthen individuals, families and communities In need through the Power of Work.
Former Wichita school district safety supervisor faces additional child sex charges
In March — more than a year after his January 2013 arrest — Robinson was charged with eight felony counts involving unlawful sexual contact with children. Two of those counts are for aggravated criminal sodomy, three are for aggravated indecent liberties, one is for aggravated indecent liberties with a child and two are for indecent liberties with a child.SEDGWICK COUNTY JAIL
Prosecutors have filed additional charges in a child sex crimes case against Alex Robinson, a former Wichita police sergeant and Wichita public schools safety supervisor.
Court records show Robinson made his first appearance on two new counts Wednesday during Sedgwick County District Court criminal walk-in docket. The latest charges, both involving aggravated indecent liberties, are alternative counts, meaning that an alleged crime happened in one of two ways, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said in an e-mailed response to questions.
In March — more than a year after his January 2013 arrest — Robinson was charged with eight felony countsinvolving unlawful sexual contact with children. Two of those counts are for aggravated criminal sodomy, three are for aggravated indecent liberties, one is for aggravated indecent liberties with a child and two are for indecent liberties with a child.
Three victims ranging in age from 11 to 14 were named in the original criminal complaint. The alleged crimes occurred between Sept. 18, 2000, and Sept. 17, 2012.
What Hackers Did to Celebs? The NSA’s Been Doing That to All of the U.S. Instead of Predicting ISIL
There has been a lot of justifiable outrage about the invasion of privacy of celebrities and the posting of their private, nude photos at 4Chan by hackers who apparently got into their cloud accounts.
It seems odd to me that the discussion of this issue has been
completely unconnected to the Snowden revelations that the U.S. government has been assiduously spying on everyone’s cloud. It has been massively recording who we call, when we called them, and where we were when we called them on on our smart phones. You can tell a lot from that information (it could be used for insider trading where it came from financiers like Warren Buffett). The NSA has been sweeping up terabytes of data and storing them (some of this in conjunction with British intelligence). Barack Obama’s glib assurances that they haven’t been recording our emails notwithstanding, they’ve been recording our emails (they can actually read them in real time), as well as sweeping up the content of phone calls as data files. NSA personnel routinely passed around nude photos of people captured from the internet, Snowden has revealed, calling it a perk of the job. Some NSA personnel misused their position to spy on ex-girlfriends.
Defenders of this activity insist that it is necessary to protect us from “terrorism.” But the major terrorist threat in the world, ISIL, appears to have surprised them last June by taking over 40% of the major country of Iraq, which the U.S. surely had under intensive surveillance.
more @ on Juan Cole’s Web page.
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