OPM director Katherine Archuleta resigns over Thursday’s “Well, you remember that 4 million people’s personal data hacked thing? Turns out it was 21 million plus in addition to that” story.
Ms. Archuleta went to the White House on Friday morning to personally inform Mr. Obama of her decision, saying that she felt new leadership was needed at the federal personnel agency to enable it to “move beyond the current challenges,” the official said. The president accepted her resignation.
Beth Cobert, the deputy director of management at the Office of Management and Budget, will step in to temporarily replace Ms. Archuleta while a permanent replacement is found.
Ms. Archuleta, who assumed her post in November 2013, had been under pressure to resign since last month, when she announced the first of two separate but related computer intrusions that compromised the personal information of 4.2 million current and former federal workers, including Social Security numbers, addresses, health and financial histories and other private details.
On Thursday, she divulged the breach had also led to the theft of personal data of 21.5 million people who had applied for government background checks, likely affecting anyone subjected to such an investigation since 2000.
So yeah, that was going to happen.
Open thread.
Bobby B.
Haven’t we all “divulged the breach” at one time or another?
Germy Shoemangler
Tom Selleck, best known as Magnum P.I., has apparently settled, at least tentatively, with the Ventura County water district after the actor was accused of stealing water from a fire hydrant and trucking it to their 60-acre ranch.
——————————————————————————–
And here is a handy guide on how to piss off Donald Trump:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122268/how-piss-donald-trump
MattF
Well, someone had to take responsibility. It’s a huge failure, but I think it’s a systemic problem– if you combine an enormous bureaucracy, an enormous heterogeneous database, and an enormous multi-source software system and then attempt to upgrade while enforcing a high level of security, you’re doomed, pretty much.
Elie
@MattF:
I agree. I suspect that probably someone has foreseen this somewhere along the way. BTW, State data infrastructure aint so hot either.. Let us also not forget the Blue Cross data with personal identifiers that was also recently stolen/hacked. Its a big problem.
Germy Shoemangler
http://mashable.com/2015/07/09/jimi-hendrix-in-bed/
Zandar
@MattF: It’s that enforcement of data security part that loses every time.
I’ve been in IT for some time and I can tell you doctors, executives, bankers, managers, everybody is universally terrible at infosec and hate hate hate hate “their” PC being locked down because it’s “a pain in the ass”. IT is then told to make exceptions for people (and is even worse about locking down their own accounts) and that’s exactly how somebody that shouldn’t have access gets it.
Boom, data breach.
I’m only surprised that it took this long.
Brachiator
Donald Trump is peeling off from the main Klown Kavalcade and will be appearing in Brentwood, California tonight to speak to GOP grandees here. Interesting little group:
Hilarity will no doubt ensue.
Ruckus
@MattF:
One thing I like is that when there is a problem, real or imagined, in a government agency someone at the top has to be fired or quit, that’s the only way to fix whatever is wrong. When someone screws up in business, and the finance business comes to my mind first, many may lose their jobs but the top rarely if ever suffers. HP Carly would be another prime example. Damn near runs a decent company into the ground, walks away with a nice large reward.
Brachiator
@MattF:
Also, the dirty little secret is that all computer systems are vulnerable to attack, and hackers look for the weakest point. Individuals are using more security up front, using better passwords, there is better encryption for email, etc. But institutions, from banks to Target and Home Depot, to the government, often have less secure systems, and even databases that have private information are often less secure, or once you get pass a certain level, the information is just there for the grab in plain text or easily decipherable information.
MomSense
@Germy Shoemangler:
I’m still sad they tore down the Drake Hotel to put in some kind of luxury condo mess.
mai naem mobile
@Brachiator: maybe Victoria Jackson will be the entertainment. Well, the warm up comedy act for the yuuuuge Comedy Superstar, The Donald.
Ella in New Mexico
She should resign, but not because she’s “responsible” for the data breach. It’s for her own sanity and dignity that she bail now because there will be nothing but frustration and stonewalling in any leader’s attempt to fix this.
I am willing to be that she has never received, nor will ever be given, the proper funding and resources to make sure this doesn’t happen. Everything in the Federal Government is being run on the cheap today, even in what we all would think should be some of the most well funded agencies. They’re all just crossing their fingers that a dam doesn’t break on their watches. OPM is one of those organizations that are woefully neglected for the enormously important tasks they perform.
My husband is a 30 year DOD employee in R and D. He buys his own toilet paper, hand soap and cleaning supplies for his work site because there is no money allocated for bathroom cleaning. Last year, he nearly got disciplined because he lost his temper after weeks of having a broken toilet which necessitated his only female employee drive 8 miles to the nearest facility to use the bathroom–they were avoiding hiring a plumber to save money and until he emailed every higher up on his range something about “menstrual cycles” they could have cared less, he was expected to piss in the desert. He buys many of his technical gear and repair supplies out of his own pocket to maintain his equipment. He’s been told to give up on getting a widely advertised benefit–student loan repayment assistance–because it would come out of his department’s local budget and would look bad to higher ups if he was awarded it.
I don’t know where all the trillions go, but I will say that the “money saving” private contractors who work parallel to him make twice his pay, have housing allowances and full kitchens at their sites.
katdip
As someone who works in government, I find these ritualistic, symbolic firings/resignations really depressing. From all accounts the com sec problems at OPM predated her arrival in late 2013. She was unlucky enough to be the one caught holding the bag and had to deliver the painful message. But she also may have been the leader than helped clean the past mess up enough to discover the breach. The calls for her head make legislators feel like they are “doing” something, but in reality all they are doing is creating more leadership chaos at an inopportune time, and turning the reins over to the very career bureaucrats who probably contributed to the mess in the first place. As an alternative, why not judge her performance on how well the agency actually fixes the problem? If it doesn’t make good progress in 6 months or a year, then fire her. But now someone new has to come in with little of the background on the problem, and no political clout internally to fix it, and will be dependent on the very-same people who worked in the agency for decades to help solve it.
Davis X. Machina
I blame Obama.
No, wait, that’s Jonathan Bernstein.
JPL
Will the right call on Comey to resign?
The man accused of killing nine people in an historically black South Carolina church last month should not have been able to buy a gun, the F.B.I. said Friday in what was the latest acknowledgment of flaws in the national background check system…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
A loophole in the check system allowed the man, Dylann Roof, to buy the .45-caliber handgun despite his having previously admitted to drug possession, the bureau said………………………………………………………………………
“We are all sick this happened,” said the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey. “We wish we could turn back time.”
nytimes.com
Mandalay
@Ruckus:
This is just not true; people at the top in business are constantly fired, including Fiorina. She may have walked away with a nice large reward, but she was she was brutally and humiliatingly fired.
Jamie Dimon would be a much better example to support your argument.
Davis X. Machina
@JPL: Their response will to be to call for the end of any checks at all…
Belafon
@Ella in New Mexico:
Has he ever read Snow Crash?
Belafon
@Mandalay: When Nortel fell apart, not only was the head fired, he was indicted.
But Nortel was small potatoes compared to the banks.
Humboldtblue
I am always amazed when the director of a massive federal agency like the OPM is forced to resign because of some terrible thing that happened on their watch like a breach of computer security or SSN numbers having been stolen or some other absurd release of personal data. Each time it happens it’s the guy or gal at the top who is responsible and is forced to step down, and I guess that’s understandable but still a bit confusing because it’s not like they are running the IT section.
But when the fuck is this going to start happening with the fucking police chiefs across this country? Data breaches are bad, sure, but the steady killing, abusing, harassing and maiming of citizens at the hands of men and women given extraordinary authority including the authority to take a life continues una-fucking-bated and instead of watching as the men and women in charge of these goddamn goon squads step down because they failed in their duties to properly lead, they remain in place.
How the fuck does that happen?
Hacker got your SSN oh shit, fire the director!
Two dozen cops brutalize a black man on the street? We’ll investigate ourselves and you can goddamn guarantee we will find our officers acted in accordance with department policy and did nothing wrong. It’ll happen again next week and three weeks after that but Chief Protect and Serve will never fucking step down and the officers will never be held accountable.
God fucking bless America indeed.
Betty Cracker
@JPL: Wingnuts will definitely use that fuck-up as evidence that no further gun control legislation is needed. Jesus, what a fucking shame. Not that the insane little pissant murderer wouldn’t have just bought a gun at a gun show or via a straw purchaser anyway, but still.
JPL
@Davis X. Machina: Yup.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Dat sounds very, very classy and could be yoooge!
Belafon
@Humboldtblue: When I was the Navy, the XO on an aircraft carrier backed the carrier into a nearby ship. The CO, who was asleep because it was night time, was forced to retire.
Mandalay
@Belafon:
You may be on to something with that argument, and it doesn’t matter whether its government of business. Jamie Dimon and James Clapper are both apparently too big to fire – a pair of corrupt and incompetent assholes who seem to be coated in teflon.
At the very highest levels the unwanted are sometimes given the opportunity to depart gracefully so they don’t need to be pushed, Tony Blair and Steve Ballmer being prime examples.
Belafon
@Brachiator: “Friends of Abe” I’m assuming they mean Abe Simpson, right?
trollhattan
@Belafon: Why didn’t the other ship see the CV’s backup lights and get outta the way? Stupid little ship.
MattF
@trollhattan: Not to mention the “I’m backing up” horn.
catclub
@MattF:
also no budget for any upgrade, but keep doing all the other jobs we told you to do yesterday, and we cut your budget.
Congress will cut the OPM’s budget because of the failures, and blame them for any further failures.
Belafon
@Betty Cracker: No system is perfect. 5% of the time, a seat belt will either not save you or will be the thing that kills you. That doesn’t mean we should get rid of seat belts.
Mandalay
@Humboldtblue:
Well it actually happened this week in Baltimore:
But that is an exception, and your point is valid.
Brendan in Charlotte
@Belafon: I think that if I attended this shindig, I’d be joining the “Friends of Bill W.” group by the end of the night…
Betty Cracker
@Belafon: You know that. I know that. But the NRA hasn’t allowed logic and facts to loosen their grip on America’s balls, and they aren’t going to start now.
JPL
postandcourier.com, The Charleston paper has this
Roof’s narcotics charge, a felony by federal definition, should have prevented him from buying a gun, Comey told reporters at the agency’s Washington headquarters………………………………………………………………….
But Comey said that the information was not properly entered into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System or was mishandled by an analyst…………………………………………………………………………….
“Because of an error on our part that allowed the gun to be used to slaughter those people is very painful,” Comey said, according to USA Today.
Heliopause
I picture in my mind her first week in office, she convenes a meeting with her IT team and asks, ‘how’s our cybersecurity,” and they say, “awesome,” and that’s the last she thinks about it. I don’t know if this constitutes a defense of Ms. Archuleta or not.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: If the error originated when he was arrested, the NRA won’t say a peep. Why complain about law abiding, gun toting police officers.
Kay
I got a letter that my info had been revealed, stolen, whatever, and I haven’t worked for the Postal Service for years.
I got that letter about a month after I got the letter from my health insurance company that my info had been stolen.
So it’s pretty much over for me and any quaint notions of “privacy” I may have had :)
Humboldtblue
@Mandalay: Yeah, the rare case indeed.
catclub
@Kay: I have not, yet, but will, freeze my credit accounts with the credit rating agencies.
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/06/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-embrace-the-security-freeze/
Another Holocene Human
@Germy Shoemangler: All for those tasty, tasty testicle pears.
Another Holocene Human
@Zandar: Why would “their” PC have God-user-level access anyway?
Shouldn’t they be doled out only what they need to know from The Server?
Kay
@catclub:
Really? I haven’t done anything yet. I read the letter and put it aside. I have to re-read because I’m not sure if it was “has” been revealed or “could have been” revealed. I’m bad with this stuff because I’m not shocked. I just assume huge systems can (will) fail. One of my sons actually works in this field, he does payment processing systems on a large scale so he’s Mr. Security but honestly it makes my eyes glaze over. I’m looking at him and nodding but nothing is getting in.
Poopyman
@Kay:
I wouldn’t worry too much about that one. The Chinese are looking for folks with high-level clearances. Of course, they could file 21 million credit card applications at once, in your and everyone else’s name/SSN.
The insurance company? Wellll ……?
Belafon
@Betty Cracker: According to this, http://www.wsbt.com/news/politics/fbi-dylann-roof-should-not-have-been-cleared-to-purchase-a-weapon/34097216, if a dealer receives a ‘delay’ determination on the background check, the store can still sell the gun after three days. The final determination was not completed in this time, and the seller chose to sell the gun.
So, the FBI failed to get the background check out in time, but the store owner thought it was OK to sell the gun.
Kay
@Poopyman:
That’s what I thought. I think I am a dead end as far as crucial info about the US. They could just read the Domestic Mail Manual if proper placement of a collection box is an area of interest for them :)
tam1MI
Hillary settling up a private e-mail server is looking smarter by the day…
trollhattan
@Belafon:
Mentioned in a previous thread California presently has a quarter-million case backlog of reviews for mental fitness to own a gun. We’re all too aware of the consequences of not separating the mentally ill from their Precious.
trollhattan
@Kay:
Hopefully the worst consequence is being among the Very First to learn of the latest deal on fake Nikes.
Southern Goth
@Another Holocene Human:
Good luck arguing that 90’s era client/server applications with direct access to the database need to be rewritten to the CIO/CTO.
Especially when the institutional knowledge of what exactly those programs did went out the door a decade ago for whatever reason.
boatboy_srq
So the 21st century choice for public sector IT is either: a) underfund the agency so that they’re too far behind/disorganized to prevent a breach; r b) outsource the work and risk some inappropriately-cleared Paulbot with a chip on his shoulder about Big Gummint Overreach swiping the data and giving it to everybody.
@Another Holocene Human: God-level access is required so they can get their New Shiny Object to talk to their desktop: either they have to be able to install the software, the USB/Bluetooth connector needs read/write permissions, or they don’t want their tech’s grubby paws on their new plaything because Sensitive Information (which not infrequently translates as the kiddie porn, the mistresses’ phone numbers, or the Cayman Islands “personal banker”).
trollhattan
And speaking of guns and their infinite magic.
So, either I never knew or forgot US pilots can pack heat. A policy I’d like to revisit in light of the Germanwings murder-suicide.
Poopyman
Thanks, CNN:
No. No you really shouldn’t be. You should be arranging your life like none of your online data is private. Because it’s not.
JPL
@Belafon: Thanks.
Sounds like an easy fix for Congress, you can’t purchase a gun until the back ground check is completed.
Of course, I am being sarcastic.
Zandar
@Another Holocene Human: You’d be surprised how many end users, particularly the guys that sign your paychecks, believe they are important enough for admin access. The rules of data security simply don’t apply to them and they know just enough about networks to cause magnificent screwups.
Unfortunately, it’s an even worse case of false confidence and hubris among IT professionals in my line of work, and that’s usually far more dangerous when the watchmen with the keys to the network blow it.
TL;DR: Your data is only as secure as the ego of the IT guy with access to it all.
Mike in N
Water thief Tom Selleck is a board member of the NRA. Such a putz.
Kay
@trollhattan:
I’m on vacation (last day) and all week I have been corresponding by email with a lawyer I work with a lot because we are trying to reach agreement. He’s part of a small family firm where I live and he’s easy to work with- blunt- so we dispensed with formality a long time ago in emails. This morning I got an email that began: “Good Morning, hope you are well” so I was stumped until I read it and realized it isn’t for me and he sent it in error. There’s an attachment which I won’t read, but boy, speedy emails are a dangerous thing.
pamelabrown53
@MomSense:
What???!!! Are you kidding me? I had NO IDEA that the Drake was torn down. How can a city so blithely obliterate its heritage?
@Belafon: Loved your anecdote about the XO’s mistake and the captain was fired. While I agree, in general, with the” buck stops here”, I also have a question to national security people: shouldn’t cyber security for ALL the executive branch be under the umbrella of protecting the executive branch?
Why does each cabinet have to deal with their own security? There may be a reason so I’m open to hearng it.
mai naem mobile
Do people really think your personal info is safe? There are so many places where you use your info – insurance,job applications,loan applications, health places,court stuff etc. I’ve seen paychecks/ paystubs out in the open at several places I’ve worked at. My sister owned a small business with a few employees. She had a short term employee who stole her info and bought a car, opened up credit cards. My sister only found out when she was trying to open a new bank account. She’s not careless woth her info but this employee was looking and got the info. I shop at Target, Home Depot, I took a class at my community college which also had a data breach. I just consider it a cost.of.modern life. I have one of those id protection deals. Not sure if it does much good.
Gravenstone
@trollhattan: “Turn your key, sir. Turn your goddamned key, sir!”
WaterGirl
@Ruckus:
Nice work if you can get it!
trollhattan
Something great happened in New York today when our Women’s Soccer Team got their much-deserved parade..
boatboy_srq
@mai naem mobile: The pervasiveness (and persistence) of personal data is so far below the ordinary person’s radar it’s not funny. Look at everything that requires a SSN these days, when that was originally supposed to be a highly confidential piece of information. Privacy advocates have a very good point resisting data gathering – but the damage is largely done.
boatboy_srq
@Ruckus: @WaterGirl: Reminds me of what a certain person named Bush did with the country he was in charge of.
Gin & Tonic
@pamelabrown53: Why does each cabinet have to deal with their own security?
Worse. Each one is handled by the lowest bidder.
dedc79
@JPL: Yeah, sadly this is unlikely. I’m about as pro gun control and cynical about its prospects as they come. I do wonder whether there are actually any people out there who are anti gun control purely because they think the govt does a lousy job of enforcing the laws that are on the books. I’m skeptical that it’s that large of a group, but stories like this would seem to give them additional ammunition.
Gin & Tonic
@boatboy_srq: Look at everything that requires a SSN these days
I very rarely encounter a transaction *these days* that even requests it, let alone requires it, and unless you’re the IRS or my employer, I don’t give it. It used to be more of a general-purpose ID number, but is seldom used for that purpose any more.
gene108
@Kay:
I think it’s the autofill feature on Outlook.
I want to e-mail Karen, so I start with entering the letter ‘k’ and Kay pops up and not paying attention, I click on Kay and you get my e-mail meant for Karen.
I’ve sent and gotten a few this way.
japa21
@mai naem mobile: It is, in truth, part of modern life. The main thing I have going for me is my credit is so bad anybody trying to use that information is going to get nowhere.
Working in the health insurance industry, keeping track of and securing data is critical. Even though I am not in, say the claims area, I still have to deal with some claim problems and have to print out stuff on the printer which is a ways from my desk. I am usually pretty good with picking up my stuff right away, but I would walk over there and see all sortts of stuff just laying there that should not be.
Our company recently moved to a new printing system. Nothing is actually printed until you walk to the printer, log in, and release your printing jobs. That way, that stuff isn’t left spread all over the place.
May not be a big thing, but definitely one of those little things that can make a difference.
japa21
@boatboy_srq: It used to be such a highly private piece of information that it was included on your mailing labels when the government sent out your paperwork to fill out for tax returns.
Fortunately, they stopped that.
shell
Eternal question answered
So…how many licks does it take to reach the center of a Tootsie Pop.
According to todays Science Friday on NPR…about 1,000 licks (slight variations depending on lickers PH and tongue consistency.)
Its SCIENCE, people!
Paul in KY
@Belafon:Agree that it is a travesty that the supplies aren’t there, but can’t the poor woman use the men’s bathroom, rather than driving 8 miles? Was the men’s bathroom that bad?
Edit: See that there was no working bathroom. Never mind…
LWA
Man oh man:
“Pope Francis Calls Unbridled Capitalism The ‘Dung Of The Devil’ in Speech”
The folks over at NRO are in a world of butthurt.
Paul in KY
@Belafon: That’s typical in military. Even though he didn’t do it, he’s now in the bucket of ‘captains who have had their ship unintentionally hit another ship’. That’s not a good bucket to be in, if you want to be promoted to O-7. Since there now was no way he would ever make O-7, he had to retire.
boatboy_srq
@Gin & Tonic: IRS, employer, bank, lender, credit bureau, auto dealer, accountant, landlord/seller…. there WAS a time not so very long ago when that information was handed out frequently. Nowadays SSN gets pulled up from a name search in most of those systems: the damage is already done and below the consumer’s radar.
@japa21: Geez. Not as if the IRS expected that SSA or USPOD would have a problem with that… /snark
Paul in KY
@trollhattan: He should have ate them.
Iowa Old Lady
@Gin & Tonic: My student ID at Michigan was my SS# plus an added digit. Looking back, I’m astounded.
trollhattan
@japa21: When I was in college the university used out SSN as our student ID#. That’s how I committed it to memory. Later, when I joined a credit union my account number was my SSN; not only was it on every statement, it was on every check and deposit slip. They eventually yelled “Do-overs” on that system but of course every piece of paper is immortalized on microfiche, somewhere..
jibeaux
At this point, it’s more realistic just to hope that your info gets leaked in a really huge breach so it’s statistically less likely your identity will be used, than it is to hope it won’t be breached at all.
trollhattan
@Paul in KY:
Heh. I’m envisioning the pilot being a dead ringer for Yosemite Sam. “Yee-haw folks, we done just landed in Burr-Lynnie, by crackie!” Kerpow
Brachiator
@boatboy_srq:
Sometimes I wonder what universe privacy advocates live in.
People willingly, happily give up their private data in order to use social media, location based, and various useful apps and utilities. If you use Uber, your pick-up and final destination are noted (so if you are having an affair and ride to a lover’s apartment or to a hotel, a permanent record of your itinerary is noted). And of course, various apps encourage you to build a profile, keep a personal history of your photographs, etc.
Facial recognition software can identify you and everyone else in a snapshot with you. And what was that recent story about a young woman whose apps revealed that she was probably pregnant based on her purchases and web searches?
So daily tech use encourages you to compile a dossier on yourself.
And even if we are talking about businesses, not governments, data can be sold, and government could be just another customer.
Paul in KY
@trollhattan: Or Slim Pickens!
Betty Cracker
@LWA: I’ve been waiting in vain for K-Lo to address it. So far, she’s pretending it didn’t happen. The commenters are hounding her.
trollhattan
@Paul in KY:
Hoo-boy. “And how will you be exiting the plane today, captain?”
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Between this and the commie crucifix it’s been quite the week for the Opus Dei crew.
Pogonip
@Elie: I was hacked when I lived in Ohio–an intern, i.e. unpaid kid, left a computer full of citizens’ data in an unlocked car and it was, of course, stolen. The state paid for a year or two of credit monitoring. I don’t think anything happened to the kid–it’s difficult to fire someone who isn’t getting paid! Kids do dumb things; I was more upset with the supposedly responsible adults who let him cart that computer around in the first place.
Ruckus
@japa21:
Hard to steal your credit card info when you don’t have one. And as cash is still accepted most everywhere, not needed. A little easier at places like gas stations, but not necessary.
And as you said even if they steal your info, it’s not like they can do much with it.
Ruckus
@Paul in KY:
They’d still end up in the same place.
boatboy_srq
@Brachiator: Exactly. The modern life is entirely public and searchable, which makes privacy largely a joke. But any chance to address this evaporated decades ago. So while privacy advocates are absolutely correct in insisting that publicly available data on you can compromise your identity, your finances and possibly your life, there’s no good way to stuff the genie back in the bottle.
raven
@Ruckus: My credit is so bad they won’t take my cash!
Iowa Old Lady
@raven:
Good news!
Botsplainer
Old cat is at vet – he’s been more and more addled lately. He disappeared for a couple of days, and when I left today he was hiding under Mrs Botsplainers jeep. She said when he came out he was addled and lurching, so she took him to the vet.
The vet said he’s got a urinary blockage caused by either a mass or infection, a heart murmur, a thyroid problem and would need blood workups. He’s 16, mostly blind and more than a little senile. As I’m the household agent of pet payment and the pet Angel of Doom every time to date, I was comfortable with It Must Be Done. Plus, she hates that cat, never wanted him to get near her and anguishes over any money spent on pets.
Surprises happen. She said she’d pay the thousand plus, wanted to do the thing, felt bad.
Iowa Old Lady
@Botsplainer: Botsplainer, was it you who has the daughter in Greece? I’m wondering how the young woman is doing.
RSA
@Southern Goth:
And we generally do have a good idea about how institutional knowledge goes out the door. One reason, not uncommon from what I’ve heard, is that a manager asks, “Why is this 50-year-old guy with stale programming knowledge still on the payroll when we could hire one, maybe two 25-year-old hot shots to do his job for less money?”
Chris
@Mike in N:
Oh, Tom Selleck. One of a thousand reasons I laugh at the bitching about “liberal Hollywood” and how a conservative just can’t get a fair shake in the movie/TV business.
Botsplainer
@Iowa Old Lady:
She’s back! Had a grand time and is coming to us this weekend.
Iowa Old Lady
@Botsplainer: Excellent.
danielx
A burning question – why is a man with a comb over that looks like a dead muskrat on top of his head running second among Republican candidates? Not that any of them are bent over double by the weight of their personal warmth and empathy, but Trump stands out even among them for the depth and width of his douchebaggery.
An even more burning question, with emphasis on burning – has anyone here had any experience with polyps in the bladder? Since I have to get biopsied….and no, the process of finding out about them was not fun, no. Not fun, would not recommend.
J R in WV
@Botsplainer:
I don’t know if that’s doing him a favor or not, given that health summary.
I know she’s a little upset, but $1K on a 16 y o cat with issues… even if I loved him, I think I would do him the final biggest favor and keep him from getting any more ill before he passes on.
PurpleGirl
@Mandalay: Carly Fiorina deserved to be humiliated when she was fired. In addition to the damage she did to HP, the BRIBE she took to leave was insanely huge. That much money should have soothed her feelings quite well. Believe when a secretary level worker is let go, they are also humiliated but there is no bribe for them to leave. (When I was let go from my most recent job, they thought that giving me the Cobra medical benefit for a year would suffice; I told them that after being there 15 yrs and some months, the least they could do was give me 2 weeks pay for every year. Believe me Carly Fiorina was treated very differently. But any humiliation she experienced was well deserved.)
ETA: Can you name any one else beside Carly Fiorina. Jamie Dimon also should have been fired, along with other financial head honchos.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: @Botsplainer: Most of that seems fixable, except maybe the heart murmur and even people can live decades with that. I hope your kitty takes this extra life and makes something good out of it.
WaterGirl
@PurpleGirl: Good for you! Did they end up giving you anything extra?
LAC
After the two weeks we had dealing with personnel security matters and setting up a manual based system on our agency and also finding out my information was compromised, I would have happily launched her into space. Buh bye archeleta.
lou
@katdip: This. I know someone who works in OPM. From what he told me it was only because she *was* trying to clean up the system that this was uncovered. If she had kept kicking the can down the road as other politicos had, it could very well have gone undiscovered. So the sad moral of this tale is don’t try to solve problems. It might land you in hot water.