Oooops...

[Lamplighter]

Where have all the flowers gone ?

The POLITICS forum seems to be my own personal space lately.
So I ask myself this question:

With the ubiquitous N.S.A. spying on telephone and internet and US Mail
and street camera's and facial recognition software and Google- and
MicroSoft- and Apple- and Facebook- data collections and back-doors
to proprietary software and who knows what else...

... why did NSA not detect and stop the Boston Bombers ?

Incompetence - too much $ - or just Oooops ?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Because they have neither the manpower nor the money to analyze all the info they have. They file it, then when something happens they go back and try to ferret out everyone involved from the stored information.

[sexobon]

And here I thought they just didn't want to tip their hand about having mind reading capability until something bigger was going to happen.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Because they have neither the manpower
nor the money to analyze all the info they have.
They file it, then when something happens they go back and
try to ferret out everyone involved from the stored information.

I hope that's not the case (i.e., the NSA program design).

That would be like banning high capacity assault rifle magazines.
... We'll give you the first 6 or10 or 20 shots for free,
but then you have to re-load if you want more ... or carry more guns

It's hard for me to believe the NSA doesn't have the manpower or money (2013 - $53billion),
but it is believable to me that for whatever reason, NSA dropped the ball with Boston,
or that will be all they can do after future bombs have gone off.

That is hardly the level of protection the current NSA budget should provide.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by sexobon

And here I thought they just didn't want to tip their hand about having mind reading capability until something bigger was going to happen.

... or CYOA

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Where have all the flowers gone ?

I think you answered your own question. The joke about getting on a government list doesn't seem so funny anymore.

[tw]

I could not even get on Nixon's enemy's list. Does that mean the NSA also cannot list me?

[sexobon]

NSA is checking its list
And checking it twice
Gonna find out if tw's
Been naughty or nice

[tw]

OMG! Only 100 days till Christmas. Soon we will have non-stop weeks of this music. Enough to make me want to rip the christ out of Christmas.

[Lamplighter]

tw, some people already beat you to it...


Modern Readers
David Romanski
September 14, 2013

United Airlines Shuts Down Site After Posting $0-10 Fares

<snip>The airline said that it erroneously filed certain fares for $0.
This has happened to a number of airlines before, and is typically due to an airline
accidentally dropping a digit when entering fare prices into its online system.

Customer Maura Leahy was able to book a ticket from Houston to
Washington, D.C. (at Christmas, no less) for a whopping $5.
“It was $5 round trip, no fees, nothing. This is nuts,” she said.
She also noted that two of her co-workers learned about the glitch
and bought their own discount tickets for the holidays.

United won’t say yet whether or not it will honor the zero-cost tickets it sold.
“As always, we will do what is appropriate,” company spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said.

United experienced a similar outage in 2008. In that instance,
the airline mistakenly dropped its fuel surcharge,
which reduced ticket prices by as much as $130.
It ultimately decided to honor the tickets that were sold during that period.

[xoxoxoBruce]

“As always, we will do what is appropriate,” company spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said.

Bwahahahahahaha Ahahahahahahaha

[Lamplighter]

Washington Post
10/9/13
Oops: Azerbaijan released election results before voting had even started

Azerbaijan's big presidential election, held on Wednesday,
was anticipated to be neither free nor fair.
President Ilham Aliyev, who took over from his father 10 years ago,
has stepped up intimidation of activists and journalists.
<snip>
Even still, one expects a certain ritual in these sorts of authoritarian elections,
a fealty to at least the appearance of democracy, if not democracy itself.

So it was a bit awkward when Azerbaijan's election authorities released vote results
– a full day before voting had even started.

The vote counts – Aliyev was shown as winning by a landslide –
were pushed out on an official smartphone app run by the Central Election Commission.
It showed Aliyez as "winning" with 72.76 percent of the vote.
That's on track with his official vote counts in previous elections:
he won ("won"?) 76.84 percent of the vote in 2003 and
87 percent in 2008.

[BigV]

bwaaaahahahahahahhahaha!!

[glatt]

It's like something from a Saturday Night Live skit.

[Lamplighter]

NY Times
GAIA PIANIGIANI
October 11, 2013

Coins Celebrating Pope Misspell Name Above All Names

ROME — It seems absurd that any official Vatican memorabilia would misspell the name Jesus.
Or that the Italian institute that mints coins, passports and postage stamps would make such an error.
And yet the fact remains: a new series of special commemorative coins honoring Pope Francis got it wrong.

They call him Lesus.



“Everybody makes mistakes,” said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, on Friday.
“Even people who make coins.” <snip>

The sentence, by the Venerable Bede, a seventh-century theologian,
contains Pope Francis’ self-chosen motto, “miserando atque eligendo,
which loosely translates as “lowly but chosen.”<snip>

Daniel Burke, who co-edits a religion blog on CNN.com, wrote,
“For the love of Lesus, the Vatican could sure use an infallible copyeditor.”