Class-Action Highwaymen

After reading through that email inviting me to “participate” in a class-action lawsuit against Facebook, I figured it was a shyster scam.  But it’s actually worse than I thought:

First, the most anyone can receive is $10. Getting the $10 requires a rather complex process of filling out forms. Why would anyone take the trouble? The lawyers behind the suit know perfectly well that hardly anybody will; the $20 million is just sitting there to be siphoned off elsewhere.

Second, the lawyers haven't yet bothered to locate the people whom they say were damaged. The notice says, "No one knows in advance how much each Authorized claimant will receive" because nobody knows how many there are. If it wasn't worth the lawyers' time to find out who the plaintiffs even are, just how much merit could this case possibly have? At least ambulance-chasing lawyers have to catch the ambulance and find out who's inside so as to file a claim in their name.

Third, . . . if too many people try to benefit from the class action suit, none of them will get any money at all. Facebook's $20 million will be given to various not-for-profit organizations instead of benefiting the people who were harmed.

This is a perversion of the stated purpose of class action lawsuits. The design of the suit and the settlement virtually guarantees that nobody "harmed" will receive any relief whatsoever.

. . . .

The lawyers get their cut first, other hangers-on get paid, and claimants' payments will be cut pro rata if lots of people write in asking for $10. If anything's left - a big if - it'll go to "charity."

Hagel Nomination a Snoozer

From the LA Times:

As former Sen. Chuck Hagel seeks to fend off critics aiming to derail his confirmation as Defense secretary, he has an incongruous ally: a Pittsburgh philanthropist who made his fortune as one of the world's top horse-race bettors.

Bill Benter, a prolific donor to Democrats and liberal groups who keeps a low public profile, financed an ad campaign by a group of centrist national security veterans who hailed Hagel's "bipartisanship and independence of conscience and mind."

A cluster of opaque groups, some of which recently sprang into existence, have run television ads blasting Hagel as weak on Israel and hostile to gays. His critics include some of the conservative advocacy organizations that fought vigorously against President Obama's reelection, such as the Iowa-based American Future Fund, whose donors remain a mystery.

Good grief.  This spectacle is shaping up to be an intramural struggle between one group of billionaire Israel-firsters and another group of billionaire Israel-firsters who think the first group is insufficiently warmongering.

Somebody wake me when we actually have a discussion about what’s in the interest of the American nation.

It's all in the wording . . .

From the AP (via Military.com):

American Deaths in Afghan War Drop to 4-Year Low

. . . which could be reworded as:

American Deaths in Afghan War Remain Higher under Obama than during Bush Administration

. . . but it doesn't have quite the same spin, does it.

Legit Pickup

I've watched the first few episodes of the new FX series Legit, starring British comic Jim Jefferies, playing himself.

I hesitate to recommend the series; I'm reasonably confident that the show is the dirtiest thing I've ever seen on basic cable. But I wanted to write a post about episode #3, wherein Jim gives his two American friends advice on how to attract women (clip SFW if I set the brackets correctly):

The episode handles this topic pretty well. It starts by showing Billy and Steve bungling the execution, which I think is fair. The concept of the "neg" leads a lot of people astray.

Billy, who has muscular dystrophy, wants to use these techniques on the internet to develop a "real relationship", a concept that mystifies the more, um, goal-oriented Jim.

What surprised me was that the episode then shows the techniques actually working. Better, in fact, than expected: Steve has to sneak a call to Jim in a panic as a pretty coworker starts to show interest. (I can certainly relate to the sheer terror of finding myself inexplicably out of my depth in social situations involving women.)

But watch at your own risk, but put the women and children to bed first and keep a pillow handy to bury your face in during the cringe-inducing parts.

Democrat Nativism

Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) (email him) is the only member of the Ohio delegation with an “F-“ rating from NumbersUSA.  But Senator Brown has at least one illegal invader he doesn’t like:

Stopping the Threat of Asian Carp

[A]ccording to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, some 450,000 people fish in Lake Erie annually – contributing about $680 million to Ohio’s economy. But our fishing and tourism industries are threatened by Asian carp.

Protecting the Great Lakes region and the Ohio River basin from Asian carp is about protecting our regional economy and the livelihood of thousands of Ohioans. These invasive species, with their voracious appetites, significantly alter the habitat – by crowding-out native bass, catfish, and walleye – and are also a threat to boaters. The time to act is now as Asian carp have already been identified in the Ohio River – at the mouth of the Little Miami River, near Cincinnati.

Although several federal agencies have already been combating Asian carp, we have yet to designate an agency as the lead. Simply put, we need a coordinated federal response.

Last June, I helped pass the bipartisan Stop Invasive Species Act to expedite a strategy to block Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes. And though the bill was signed into law last summer, there is still more we must do. While we rightly focus on keeping the carp out of the Great Lakes in the Chicago region, we must also protect other pathways into the lakes.

That’s why I’m re-introducing bipartisan legislation, Strategic Response to Asian Carp Invasion Act, with Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania, to stop Asian carp from entering streams and rivers in our states.

The Strategic Response to Asian Carp Invasion Act would coordinate a new federal effort with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Army Corps of Engineers, and state wildlife agencies to share best practices and technology to stop the threat of Asian carp. It would also require a yearly report to Congress on the efforts and movement of Asian carp within the Ohio and Upper Mississippi River region.

We must all work together to protect the Great Lakes region and the Ohio River basin from this invasive species. The Strategic Response to Asian Carp Invasion Act is another much needed step to secure the economic drivers shoring up Ohio’s multi-million dollar fishing and recreation industries.
Sincerely,

Sherrod Brown
U.S. Senator

Emphasis added.  Obviously.

Diversity Propaganda Watch: Φville Edition

My daughter came home from school all giggly about a wall poster she had spotted there and whose contents she had carefully copied down for our mutual amusement:

Our community is made up of people from many cultures and diverse backgrounds.  Look around.  We are all different!  These differences can enhance our relationships.  Diversity makes us unique!

For the record, here are my town’s demographics from City-Data.com:

• White alone - 8,655 (94.1%)
• Hispanic - 163 (1.8%)
• Two or more races - 139 (1.5%)
• Asian alone - 124 (1.3%)
• Black alone - 83 (0.9%)
• American Indian alone - 17 (0.2%)
• Other race alone - 21 (0.2%)

Candidly, I didn’t know we had 83 black people living here.  I’m curious where we keep them.

I’m proud that my daughter has developed an eye for this nonsense.

DOD Budget Follies

I have been saying for a while now, and will stipulate here again, that the federal budget must be cut, and defense spending, being a big part of the federal budget, must necessarily be a big part of the cuts.

How to go about this . . .

The smart way would be to, say, cut out the DBE programs that make the government overpay for everything by 10%, or cut the negative-value operations like “information assurance”.

But of course, we won’t do the smart things.  So, among the range of remaining alternatives, taking 10% off the top of everything is probably the least bad option among the likely courses of action.

Pursuant to this, there is talk of “furloughs” (i.e., unpaid leave) for civilian personnel.  Now, there is always a lot more talk of furloughs than there are actual furloughs.  A bit of Googling only found one actual DOD furlough back in 1995-1996, and I think the eventual budget agreement paid the furloughed civilians anyway.  I’m not smart enough to predict whether this particular round of furlough talk is just fear mongering (although I’m sure fear mongering is involved), or a warning of things to come.

On the one hand, a furlough would suck.  A furlough in the range being discussed -- 3-4 weeks – would suck a lot, but after taxes it’s not as bad as you might think.  Having said that, 3-4 weeks of extra vacation could be nice, so its a trade-off.  And Pentagon bluster to the contrary, if the furloughs are staggered, the mission will still get done well enough.

Except that the DOD’s decision making process is guaranteed to make the furloughs as unpleasant as possible.  Nobody will stand up and say, “okay, we’ll do the furlough.”  This was one of the lessons my very first division chief taught me 20+ years ago:  any concession will quickly become the new baseline for further negotiations.  But the drawback is that since the leadership refuses to plan for a furlough, we employees can’t plan for one either.    We will likely learn about the furloughs the night before they go into effect.  We won’t know for how long, and we’ll have to stand by the phone every evening to find out if we can come in to work the next day.  And get this:  the furlough days will be “non-consecutive”.  A day here, a day there:  no taking the two weeks off in Florida.

That’s what makes this process so painful watch, let alone go through.  Nobody – not the politicians, not service secretaries and chiefs – will make a decision until the absolute last possible minute.  Guaranteeing maximum pain for the rest of us.