By Matthew Alexander
Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had some tough words for the
Obama administration Monday, saying “I hope they fire” the people responsible
for the many glitches currently plaguing the healthcare.gov website.
“This is excruciatingly embarrassing for the White House and the Department
of Health and Human Services,” Gibbs said on NOW with Alex Wagner.
“This was bungled badly. This is not a server problem like too many people came
to the website, this is a website architecture problem.”
Gibbs noted that in the White House’s defense, buying health care wasn’t as
easy as buying a song on iTunes and referenced a Bloomberg column which noted that in Massachusetts, interested parties
registered an average of 18 inquiries before signing up.
Still, he said, the administration had no excuses.
“This is health care,” he said. “It’s very involved, people are going to take
their time with it, but boy if they don’t get these glitches figured out fast
people aren’t going to come back for visits 15 through 18 and I will say this–I
hope they’re working day and night to get this done and when they get it fixed,
I hope they fire some people that were in charge of making sure that this thing
was supposed to work.”
He added, “We knew there were going to be some glitches, but these are
glitches that, quite frankly, go way beyond the pale of what should be
expected.”
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Monday, October 14, 2013
The GOP's little rule change they hoped you wouldn't notice
Published on Oct 12, 2013
http://twitter.com/ChrisVanHollen
http://facebook.com/ChrisVanHollen
Late in the evening on September 30, 2013, the House Rules Committee Republicans changed the Rules of the House so that the ONLY Member allowed to call up the Senate's clean CR for a vote was Majority Leader Eric Cantor or his designee - all but guaranteeing the government would shut down a few hours later and would stay shut down. Previously, any Member would have had the right to bring the CR up for a vote. Democracy has been suspended in the House of Representatives.
http://facebook.com/ChrisVanHollen
Late in the evening on September 30, 2013, the House Rules Committee Republicans changed the Rules of the House so that the ONLY Member allowed to call up the Senate's clean CR for a vote was Majority Leader Eric Cantor or his designee - all but guaranteeing the government would shut down a few hours later and would stay shut down. Previously, any Member would have had the right to bring the CR up for a vote. Democracy has been suspended in the House of Representatives.
Columbus Day – Top 5 Myths Debunked
By Elisabeth Parker
In 1485, Columbus asked Portugal’s King John II about funding his voyage. He thought he’d found a new, overseas trading route to the Orient. The rise of the Ottoman Empire had blocked the old trade routes by land. Portugal had no interest in Columbus’ plan, nor did Genoa, Venice, or England. Columbus then took his proposal to Spain’s Ferdinand and Isabella in 1486. While the royal pair mulled things over, Christopher Columbus’ name changed to Cristobal Colon, which has a more Spanish ring to it.
As Italians became more “American,” so did Columbus’ name.
--> So why do we observe this holiday every year? And why do we call it “Columbus Day,” and not “Columbo Day?” It all started with our wave of Italian immigrants in the 19th century. New York City’s Italian-Americans first celebrated Columbus Day in 1866. The yearly event spread to other U.S. cities, including San Francisco, CA and Denver, CO. In 1892, Columbus was honored with a statue on New York City’s Columbus Ave., and an exhibition with replicas of his three ships in Chicago, IL.
Colorado was the first state to make Columbus Day an official holiday in 1906, due to the efforts of Angelo Noce. More states followed suit, then the Knights of Columbus pushed for a U.S. holiday, and won it in 1934. As the Italians became more “American,” so did Columbus’ name.
Columbus wasn’t even the first European to set foot on the new world. We’ve all heard about the Viking explorer Leif Erikson founding Greenland in 986 CE. He then discovered Vinland, where the Vikings built a short-lived colony. Now, a newly discovered map shows Portuguese ships visited the new world in 1424. Sorry, Columbus. You didn’t really discover America. Not by a long shot.
Columbus wasn’t even so great at navigation. His planned voyage kept getting shot down because the royal experts thought his proposed distances to Asia were too short. And they were right. Columbus thought Spain’s Canary Islands were 3,000 from Japan. Oops, the real distance is 12,200 miles. When Central and South America got in Columbus’ way, he staunchly claimed he’d reached “the Indies,” despite the evidence right in front of his eyes. Columbus then oddly decided the earth was shaped like a pear.
Hopefully, the ghosts of countless Native Americans can take heart from this small dose of poetic justice. How can a short-lived syphilis epidemic make up for having your society destroyed by smallpox, slavery, rape, and other miseries?
Things took a turn for the worst when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella banned taking slaves from the new lands. Since Hispaniola and the other islands in the Caribbean had little or no gold, our hero was kind of counting on slaves. After exploring a bit of South America, Columbus returned to Hispaniola and faced a cold welcome. His colony had fallen on hard times, and nobody was happy to see him.
Columbus didn’t discover America or prove the earth is round. It isn’t even his real name. Here are the top five myths about Columbus explained. Portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo, via Wikipedia. Piombo painted this in 1519, after the explorer’s death.
1. Christopher Columbus is not his real name.
When the famous explorer was born in 1451, his parents named him “Cristoforo Columbo,” not “Christopher Columbus.” The Columbo family were among the middle class in bustling Genoa, Italy. At age 10, Columbus wrote that he went to sea. When he turned 22, he apprenticed with a leading Genoa trading family and sailed to various cities in Europe.In 1485, Columbus asked Portugal’s King John II about funding his voyage. He thought he’d found a new, overseas trading route to the Orient. The rise of the Ottoman Empire had blocked the old trade routes by land. Portugal had no interest in Columbus’ plan, nor did Genoa, Venice, or England. Columbus then took his proposal to Spain’s Ferdinand and Isabella in 1486. While the royal pair mulled things over, Christopher Columbus’ name changed to Cristobal Colon, which has a more Spanish ring to it.
As Italians became more “American,” so did Columbus’ name.
--> So why do we observe this holiday every year? And why do we call it “Columbus Day,” and not “Columbo Day?” It all started with our wave of Italian immigrants in the 19th century. New York City’s Italian-Americans first celebrated Columbus Day in 1866. The yearly event spread to other U.S. cities, including San Francisco, CA and Denver, CO. In 1892, Columbus was honored with a statue on New York City’s Columbus Ave., and an exhibition with replicas of his three ships in Chicago, IL.
Colorado was the first state to make Columbus Day an official holiday in 1906, due to the efforts of Angelo Noce. More states followed suit, then the Knights of Columbus pushed for a U.S. holiday, and won it in 1934. As the Italians became more “American,” so did Columbus’ name.
2. Columbus didn’t really discover America.
Most won’t feel surprised to see this myth hit the road. Since Columbus found people were already living here, he clearly hadn’t arrived first. While academics hash out the details, most agree that humans came from Asia to the Americas across the Bering Straits. This land bridge between Russia and Alaska was above water at times during the Ice Age. Evidence also supports that Polynesians may have visited South America between 500 and 700 CE. How else could sweet potatoes from South America turn up thousands of miles away in remote Oceania?Columbus wasn’t even the first European to set foot on the new world. We’ve all heard about the Viking explorer Leif Erikson founding Greenland in 986 CE. He then discovered Vinland, where the Vikings built a short-lived colony. Now, a newly discovered map shows Portuguese ships visited the new world in 1424. Sorry, Columbus. You didn’t really discover America. Not by a long shot.
3. Columbus didn’t prove the world was round.
Columbus came down in history as a pioneer who stuck to his guns, and proved the world was round, when others thought it was flat. But, this isn’t true. Educated folks in Europe already knew the world was round, and had known that for some time. Pythagoras and Aristotle from Ancient Greece knew the Earth was round. So did known western scientists like Galileo Galilei and Nicolaus Copernicus.Columbus wasn’t even so great at navigation. His planned voyage kept getting shot down because the royal experts thought his proposed distances to Asia were too short. And they were right. Columbus thought Spain’s Canary Islands were 3,000 from Japan. Oops, the real distance is 12,200 miles. When Central and South America got in Columbus’ way, he staunchly claimed he’d reached “the Indies,” despite the evidence right in front of his eyes. Columbus then oddly decided the earth was shaped like a pear.
Was Columbus our first “fundie?”
History records that Columbus was a very pious man. He believed that God singled him out to explore the new world. When he sailed along the upper East coast of South America, and saw the Orinoco River emptying into the ocean, Columbus thought he’d seen the Garden of Eden. And when facts went against his beliefs, he clung harder to his beliefs. Our hero may not have discovered America, but he may have been our first evangelical Christian.4. Columbus did bring syphilis home to Europe.
Records show the first outbreak of syphilis in Europe occurred in 1495, when the French army invaded Naples, Italy. The dreaded disease is passed through sexual contact, and results in sores, rashes, stiff joints, and eventually madness and death. Syphilis soon swept through Europe, and many blamed Spanish soldiers for bringing the disease from the new world. Up to five million died in the epidemic, as vividly described by Jared Diamond:”When syphilis was first definitely recorded in Europe in 1495, its pustules often covered the body from the head to the knees, caused flesh to fall from people’s faces, and led to death within a few months [...] By 1546, the disease had evolved into the disease with the symptoms so well-known to us today.”If syphilis had already existed in Europe — as some historians claim — this wasn’t your mothers’ syphilis.
Syphilis-Deniers’ Claims Proven False
In recent years, scholars denied that Columbus and others coming back from the new world had brought syphilis home with them. They claimed that history had recorded previous cases of syphilis in Europe and in the Ancient World. They just didn’t call it “syphilis” back then. In 2011, a team from Emory University debunked the syphilis-deniers’ claims, with clear evidence that Columbus’ men did bring this vile disease home with them.Hopefully, the ghosts of countless Native Americans can take heart from this small dose of poetic justice. How can a short-lived syphilis epidemic make up for having your society destroyed by smallpox, slavery, rape, and other miseries?
5. Columbus didn’t die penniless, or in jail.
Many of us would have loved for Columbus to die poor and in chains, as many claimed really happened. Alas, this is wishful thinking from those of us who appreciate poetic justice. Columbus did run into trouble during his third voyage, when even his fellow Spaniards turned on him for being too greedy, brutal, and evil.Things took a turn for the worst when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella banned taking slaves from the new lands. Since Hispaniola and the other islands in the Caribbean had little or no gold, our hero was kind of counting on slaves. After exploring a bit of South America, Columbus returned to Hispaniola and faced a cold welcome. His colony had fallen on hard times, and nobody was happy to see him.
Columbus accused of tyranny and hauled to Spain in chains.
Then Spain sent Francisco de Bobadilla to check on complaints about Columbus’ tyranny, cruelty and poor conduct during his time as governor. And things got worse for Columbus. A lot worse. When de Bobadilla arrived, he found truth in the all of the accusations. He clashed with Columbus, then clapped him in irons and hauled him back to Spain. There, our “hero” talked his royal patrons into setting him free. They even let him keep the wealth he’d “earned.” But Columbus lost all of his power and titles.Columbus’ final voyage
The explorer made his last trip in 1502, in hope of finding the Straits of Malacca and the Indian Ocean. While scouting Central America, hostile natives, ship worms, and storms attacked his ships. The captain and his crew wound up stranded in St. Anne’s Bay in Jamaica for over a year, because no one wanted to rescue him. Help finally came, and Columbus sailed back to Spain in 1504. He died in 1506 at age 54, after struggling with illness, gout, and other health issues.Sunday, October 13, 2013
New 'deadline' for fixing health care glitches seen in mid-November
WASHINGTON |
(Reuters) - The U.S. administration has a little over a month to fix the technology problems crippling its online health insurance marketplace, or jeopardize the goal of signing up millions of Americans in time for benefits under President Barack Obama's healthcare law, experts said on Thursday.
Problems with the federal marketplace's entry portal serving 36 states, the website Healthcare.gov, continued for a 10th day on Thursday despite signs of gradual improvement, keeping a brake on the ability of consumers to shop for federally subsidized health coverage.
Poor turnout in enrollment would provide further ammunition for Republican foes of Obamacare, whose efforts to kill the law have culminated in a federal government shutdown that began on October 1, coinciding with the launch of the health insurance exchanges nationwide.
Already on Thursday, Republican lawmakers in Congress launched a new investigation into the technical glitches, sending letters to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and two of the website's contractors, asking for details on what is causing the failures and any system changes or testing that had been performed.
Up to 7 million Americans are expected to enroll in health plans for 2014 under the law, formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Insurance executives, policy experts and former administration officials said the federal government's technical problems need to be largely sorted out by mid-November.
That would help ensure that large numbers of enrollees - especially healthy young adults needed to make the program work financially - can be processed by a December 15 deadline for January 1 coverage.
"Mid-November would be a time where folks who are getting online or accessing in other ways should really see things move pretty efficiently," Dan Hilferty, chief executive of Philadelphia-based Independence Blue Cross, said in an interview. "As we get closer to January 1, if in fact some of these glitches are not fixed, then I think people will become more and more concerned, and maybe panic about it."
"We have a strong team in place, including external contractors, who are working around the clock to improve Healthcare.gov. We have a plan in place and are making progress, but we will not stop until the doors to Healthcare.gov are wide open," HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters said in a statement on Thursday.
HEALTHCARE.GOV
Healthcare.gov is the entry site for consumers in states that have chosen not to build their own healthcare exchanges. The website was hobbled within minutes of its launch on October 1. HHS attributed the crash to an unexpected surge of millions of interested consumers seeking information on the new benefits, and said it was working to address capacity and software problems to quickly fix the problem.
"There have been a lot of server issues, so I haven't been able to get through," said Ira Barth, 24, a part-time classical music singer in Dover, New Jersey, whose exchange relies on the government site.
"Right now for me it's actually cheaper to visit the doctor without having insurance. I want to see how affordable it is right now."
Sebelius told a gathering in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Thursday that 13 million people have tried to visit Healthcare.gov so far this month in what she called "a sign of great need."
Joe Bourgart, 55, of Murrysville, Pennsylvania, attended the event that was co-hosted by the Pittsburgh Steelers football team, where he was able to register on Healthcare.gov for the first time.
"You have to do something about this," Bourgart said to Sebelius as she walked by, referring to the website problems. "I promise I will," she responded.
Bourgart, who identified himself as a Republican and a supporter of universal healthcare for Americans, said "whether this is the right way to do it, I can't say. But I do think you have to try things before you can say if they work or not."
"I feel like unfortunately the whole government shutdown issue has put this issue to the sidelines while everyone is focused on the mess in Washington," he added. "I am very disappointed in my party at the moment."
INVESTIGATING THE GLITCHES
The House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, in its letters to Sebelius and contractors CGI and Quality Software Services Inc, questioned the nature of the glitches against testimony from federal officials and company representatives ahead of Healthcare.gov's launch on October 1.
"Despite the widespread belief that the administration was not ready for the health law's October 1 launch, top officials and lead IT contractors looked us in the eye and assured us all systems were a go," said committee chairman Fred Upton, a Republican from Michigan. "The American people deserve to know what caused this mess."
CGI said it would cooperate with the committee's request. Officials at QSSI were not immediately available for comment.
Patience has also begun to run thin among Democrats who worry that the administration is not acting decisively enough.
"They don't seem to be addressing these problems quickly enough. They've had three years to get their ducks in a row. It gets to the point where it becomes inexcusable. And we're not at that point yet. But we're getting close to it," said a senior Democratic aide in Congress.
"With the amount of support the president and the White House have from Silicon Valley, you would think they'd be able to nip these problems in the bud. They could call up any of these people and ask for their assistance. Why not put together a blue ribbon panel with all the guys from Google and Twitter? This should have been done beforehand."
Democratic Senator Edward Markey said Obamacare came up very briefly at a White House meeting between the president and Democratic Senators on Thursday.
"They need a geek squad, not a firing squad," Markey told reporters about the administration's IT challenges.
(Reporting by David Morgan; Additional reporting by Elizabeth Daley in Pittsburgh, Lewis Krauskopf and Sharon Begley in New York and Richard Cowan in Washington; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Eric Walsh and Lisa Shumaker)
Saturday, October 12, 2013
MasterChef finalist Josh Marks commits suicide
Exclusive
"MasterChef" finalist Josh Marks has been found dead in a Chicago alleyway -- just a few months after his infamous run-in with University of Chicago police -- and officials believe he committed suicide.
A rep for the Chicago PD says they received a call from a woman screaming for help Friday evening ... and after arriving to the alley found a 26-year old male with a gunshot wound to the head.
Multiple sources involved with the investigation tell us the victim is Josh Marks.
We're told officers also recovered a nearby weapon ... and they're still on-scene investigating.
You'll recall, 26-year-old 7-foot-2 Marks was arrested by U. of Chicago cops in July after allegedly punching an officer and trying to grab his gun. Three officers tried to subdue Marks with batons and pepper spray, but he broke free and took off running.
It eventually took 5 officers to chase him down and handcuff him. Once in custody, cops claim Marks blamed Gordon Ramsay for his outburst, claiming the celeb chef had possessed him and turned him into God. There was no evidence of drug use.
Months before the arrest, Marks released a video for the "Make a Sound Project" -- an organization dedicated to helping people struggling with suicidal thoughts -- revealing he suffered from bipolar disorder.
Police believe Marks was in a manic state during the U. Chicago incident.
12:15 PM PT -- A rep for the Chicago Medical Examiner confirms the body was Josh Marks ... and the manner of death was suicide.
ACA computer code riddled with typos, Latin filler text, desperate programmer comments and disastrous architecture
By Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
If I had told you one month ago that ten days into the launch of Obamacare not a single person could be confirmed to have successfully enrolled, you would have called me a lunatic. And yet, here we are, tens days into the launch, and guess what? The White House cannot produce a single person who has successfully enrolled through the federally-run exchange Healthcare.gov.
Not one.
The real story on the catastrophic IT disaster known as Healthcare.gov is only now beginning to be recognized by the nation. As a person with a strong IT background running large R&D projects, I was among the very first to claim that Healthcare.gov is not just broken, it's DOA because of critical design failures.
It's not merely a "glitch." It's way beyond a SNAFU. This is the defining failure moment of the delusional thinking of democrats and their fantasyland government-centralized economy.
Even ABC News is now calling Healthcare.gov, "nothing short of disastrous," adding, "Media outlets have struggled to find anyone who has been successful."
What I am seeing in this code is nothing short of jaw-dropping. As people are now saying, this code is "CRAAAAAZY!" You almost can't even call it Javascript code. If you sat down 100 monkeys in front of 100 typewriters and told them to start banging away, I'm confident at least one of them would come up with something far better than the Healthcare.gov Javascript code.
In fact, I am practically ROFLMAO just looking at this code. Any competent programmer in the world, upon seeing this, would just burst their britches in knowing the U.S. government spent $600+ million dollars on this project. Inside the code, the Javascript programmer comments are just off-the-charts hilarious. Comments found in the code include (yes, these are actual text comments from the script):
"TODO: add functionality to show alert text after too many tries at log in"
"make sure we don't try to do this before the saml has been posted if (window.registrationInitialSessionCallsComplete)"
"Attention: This file is generated once and can be modified by hand"
"Fill In this with actual content. Lorem Ipsum"
"TODO: maybe modify the below to use a similar method instead"
Even error messages contains their own errors, such as "'Exception in [sic] retreiving REInsurance Plan by criteria."
It also contains brain-dead user instructions such as:
"You need to send the Marketplace proof that you are not enrolled in Medicaid or the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Examples of documents you can send include Letter from Medicaid or CHIP." (Yeah, right. Can you imagine calling Medicaid and asking for a letter stating that you are NOT enrolled in Medicaid?)
"Verify [FN]'s SSN and date of death, if applicable"
"Check all attestations before submitting your application."
"Send the Marketplace proof that [FN] isnt incarcerated (detained or jailed) by [Date]."
I am absolutely thrilled to know that my tax dollars may someday pay for the health insurance coverage of an ancestor of the Gujarati and Rajasthani languages, from the state of Gujarat. So while our "greatest generation" World War II veterans are being barricaded out of national monuments, the Obama administration is prioritizing providing subsidized health insurance coverage to descendants of the state of Gujarat.
resources['ffe.ee.myAccount.home.specialEnrollment.description2'] = 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.'
Latin is used by programmers as filler / placeholder text for unfinished applications. The fact that this Latin is found in the code is yet more proof that the entire system never even entered Alpha testing, much less Beta testing or an official release. This is pre-alpha code requiring possible YEARS of development for final release.
"Exception in inconsistency adjudication process"
"Notices are official messages that lorem ipsum."
"Exception in triggering the Inconsistency Clock Service" (By the way, this error message confirms I was right in my public prediction about the system suffering from time clock synchronization errors.)
"Not Acceptable - Queried enrollment group plan is empty OR Selected plan doesnt existException in calling RetrieveNonFaPlanReviewConfirmDetails service"
"Please wait a few minutes and try again." (Uh, 10 million people tried that already...)
And here's our favorite, which claims that your application can't be processed because somehow gremlins behind the curtain are going to "make sure you get the lowest cost..."
We cant finish your application now -- its going to take us a little longer to make sure we get you the lowest possible costs. We will contact you again soon with more information. If you have questions, please call us at 1-800-318-2596 (TTY: 1-855-889-4325).
For example, the Javascript file loaded for each user transfers all error messages, form field messages and front-end error messages from the server to the user's browser repeatedly for each cultural language supported by the system.
In other words, the entire set of error messages is hard-coded into the Javascript for English, then again for German, then again for French, Spanish, and so on, all the way through Gujarati and who knows how many other unheard-of languages.
I don't even know how to begin to tell you how disastrously idiotic such a design is. It practically guarantees a critical server crash under any kind of real user load. No programmer with an IQ above 100 would design js code in such a manner. This code was designed and written by utterly incompetent people who have built into the system exactly the kind of architecture that will make it fail if anyone tries to use it.
When HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says this code is "functioning," she's actually painting a giant "dunce" sign on her forehead. This code is so far from functioning that all the government programmers in the world couldn't make it work smoothly by January 1.
And yet, at the same time, this project perfectly reflects the foundational philosophy of the Obama administration: sell the dream to get elected, then screw everybody when it comes to implementation.
It also forces you to ask the question: To what lengths will Obama go to try to cover-up this disastrous mess by causing some other crisis as a distraction?
I assure you this system has zero chance of smoothly functioning by January 1, 2014. And that means a massive public backlash is on the way. As the truth comes out on this, the Obama administration is going to be embarrassed like nothing else we've ever seen in the history of government. This failure is so monumental, so critical, and so disastrous that it discredits not just Obama but the entire socialist fantasy of government-run, centrally-planned economies. Healthcare.gov is the ultimate argument for a free market run without government interference. It epitomizes the incompetence of Washington D.C. like nothing else in history.
Obamacare will go down in history as the greatest IT failure in the history of the world. I can already see this outcome reflected in the code. As usual, Natural News is days, weeks or months ahead of the curve on this, so don't expect the mainstream media -- largely staffed by fantasyland Obama worshippers who know nothing about computer code -- to grasp the seriousness of the critical failures that will bring this system down.
By the way, guess how much you and I paid to build this failed, disastrous system? $634 million. It's a bargain!
Editor of NaturalNews.com
If I had told you one month ago that ten days into the launch of Obamacare not a single person could be confirmed to have successfully enrolled, you would have called me a lunatic. And yet, here we are, tens days into the launch, and guess what? The White House cannot produce a single person who has successfully enrolled through the federally-run exchange Healthcare.gov.
Not one.
The real story on the catastrophic IT disaster known as Healthcare.gov is only now beginning to be recognized by the nation. As a person with a strong IT background running large R&D projects, I was among the very first to claim that Healthcare.gov is not just broken, it's DOA because of critical design failures.
It's not merely a "glitch." It's way beyond a SNAFU. This is the defining failure moment of the delusional thinking of democrats and their fantasyland government-centralized economy.
Even ABC News is now calling Healthcare.gov, "nothing short of disastrous," adding, "Media outlets have struggled to find anyone who has been successful."
My analysis of the Javascript running Healthcare.gov
I have personally looked at the Javascript code running part of the Healthcare.gov website. If you are curious how I got the code, I simply typed the URL of the Javascript code into the browser address field. The browser then pulls up the entire code block, because Javascript is client-side code (not server-side).What I am seeing in this code is nothing short of jaw-dropping. As people are now saying, this code is "CRAAAAAZY!" You almost can't even call it Javascript code. If you sat down 100 monkeys in front of 100 typewriters and told them to start banging away, I'm confident at least one of them would come up with something far better than the Healthcare.gov Javascript code.
In fact, I am practically ROFLMAO just looking at this code. Any competent programmer in the world, upon seeing this, would just burst their britches in knowing the U.S. government spent $600+ million dollars on this project. Inside the code, the Javascript programmer comments are just off-the-charts hilarious. Comments found in the code include (yes, these are actual text comments from the script):
"TODO: add functionality to show alert text after too many tries at log in"
"make sure we don't try to do this before the saml has been posted if (window.registrationInitialSessionCallsComplete)"
"Attention: This file is generated once and can be modified by hand"
"Fill In this with actual content. Lorem Ipsum"
"TODO: maybe modify the below to use a similar method instead"
Riddled with typos and errors in the error messages
The code is also full of juvenile typos such as "'Misssing Password" and "This is not a valid organazation ID." Seriously, was this written by eighth graders?Even error messages contains their own errors, such as "'Exception in [sic] retreiving REInsurance Plan by criteria."
It also contains brain-dead user instructions such as:
"You need to send the Marketplace proof that you are not enrolled in Medicaid or the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Examples of documents you can send include Letter from Medicaid or CHIP." (Yeah, right. Can you imagine calling Medicaid and asking for a letter stating that you are NOT enrolled in Medicaid?)
"Verify [FN]'s SSN and date of death, if applicable"
"Check all attestations before submitting your application."
"Send the Marketplace proof that [FN] isnt incarcerated (detained or jailed) by [Date]."
Do you speak Gujarati?
Although this Healthcare.gov computer code fails to function it does however support the language known as "Gujarati." According to an online encyclopedia, "Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, native to Gujarat, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli in India. It is part of the greater Indo-European language family. Gujarati is derived from Old Gujarati (1100–1500 AD) which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages, and is the chief language in the state of Gujarat."I am absolutely thrilled to know that my tax dollars may someday pay for the health insurance coverage of an ancestor of the Gujarati and Rajasthani languages, from the state of Gujarat. So while our "greatest generation" World War II veterans are being barricaded out of national monuments, the Obama administration is prioritizing providing subsidized health insurance coverage to descendants of the state of Gujarat.
Latin filler text
Laughably, the application code is also riddled with Latin used as filler text. For example, one line of code actually says:resources['ffe.ee.myAccount.home.specialEnrollment.description2'] = 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.'
Latin is used by programmers as filler / placeholder text for unfinished applications. The fact that this Latin is found in the code is yet more proof that the entire system never even entered Alpha testing, much less Beta testing or an official release. This is pre-alpha code requiring possible YEARS of development for final release.
Bizarre error messages also found in Obamacare code
Error messages written into the code leave no doubt that the people who wrote the code are masters of chaos and confusion. Here are just a few of the error message I found by casually scrolling through the Javascript publicly posted on the Healthcare.gov website:"Exception in inconsistency adjudication process"
"Notices are official messages that lorem ipsum."
"Exception in triggering the Inconsistency Clock Service" (By the way, this error message confirms I was right in my public prediction about the system suffering from time clock synchronization errors.)
"Not Acceptable - Queried enrollment group plan is empty OR Selected plan doesnt existException in calling RetrieveNonFaPlanReviewConfirmDetails service"
"Please wait a few minutes and try again." (Uh, 10 million people tried that already...)
And here's our favorite, which claims that your application can't be processed because somehow gremlins behind the curtain are going to "make sure you get the lowest cost..."
We cant finish your application now -- its going to take us a little longer to make sure we get you the lowest possible costs. We will contact you again soon with more information. If you have questions, please call us at 1-800-318-2596 (TTY: 1-855-889-4325).
Truly disastrous architecture calls over 1,000 resources just to load one page
Even though I have only seen the public Javascript code and not the server-side processing code, the Javascript itself is truly disastrous -- on an epic scale.For example, the Javascript file loaded for each user transfers all error messages, form field messages and front-end error messages from the server to the user's browser repeatedly for each cultural language supported by the system.
In other words, the entire set of error messages is hard-coded into the Javascript for English, then again for German, then again for French, Spanish, and so on, all the way through Gujarati and who knows how many other unheard-of languages.
I don't even know how to begin to tell you how disastrously idiotic such a design is. It practically guarantees a critical server crash under any kind of real user load. No programmer with an IQ above 100 would design js code in such a manner. This code was designed and written by utterly incompetent people who have built into the system exactly the kind of architecture that will make it fail if anyone tries to use it.
When HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says this code is "functioning," she's actually painting a giant "dunce" sign on her forehead. This code is so far from functioning that all the government programmers in the world couldn't make it work smoothly by January 1.
Was Healthcare.gov designed to fail?
It's almost as if the entire system has been designed to fail. There is no rational justification for writing code like this. It's like someone held a contest to find out "who can write the most inefficient, wasteful computer code" and Healthcare.gov won the top prize!And yet, at the same time, this project perfectly reflects the foundational philosophy of the Obama administration: sell the dream to get elected, then screw everybody when it comes to implementation.
It also forces you to ask the question: To what lengths will Obama go to try to cover-up this disastrous mess by causing some other crisis as a distraction?
I assure you this system has zero chance of smoothly functioning by January 1, 2014. And that means a massive public backlash is on the way. As the truth comes out on this, the Obama administration is going to be embarrassed like nothing else we've ever seen in the history of government. This failure is so monumental, so critical, and so disastrous that it discredits not just Obama but the entire socialist fantasy of government-run, centrally-planned economies. Healthcare.gov is the ultimate argument for a free market run without government interference. It epitomizes the incompetence of Washington D.C. like nothing else in history.
No need to delay Obamacare; it will collapse on its own
Ultimately, this also means we don't have to worry about trying to delay Obamacare. Obamacare is going to destroy itself! Sooner or later, the entire country will realize the absurdity of being fined by the IRS for not buying a mandatory insurance policy that cannot be purchased because the government-run exchange site is utterly non-functional.Obamacare will go down in history as the greatest IT failure in the history of the world. I can already see this outcome reflected in the code. As usual, Natural News is days, weeks or months ahead of the curve on this, so don't expect the mainstream media -- largely staffed by fantasyland Obama worshippers who know nothing about computer code -- to grasp the seriousness of the critical failures that will bring this system down.
By the way, guess how much you and I paid to build this failed, disastrous system? $634 million. It's a bargain!
Friday, October 11, 2013
Thursday, October 10, 2013
McDonald's Worker Arrested After Confronting CEO Over Wages
Nancy Salgado (The Real News screenshot); Jeff Stratton (Courtesy McDonald's)
Jeff Stratton started out working behind a McDonald’s counter in Detroit nearly 40 years ago. Now he’s president of McDonald’s U.S.A. Not bad.
With such roots, it would seem that he would have strong relationships with workers, from those in corporate suites to line cooks. Perhaps he does, but that certainly did not appear to be the case during a recent talk in Chicago, near where the company is headquartered in Oak Brook, Il.
Nancy Salgado, 26, told the Real News that she was arrested last week after confronting Stratton at a meeting amid the cloistered elegance of the Union League Club and telling him she couldn’t afford to buy shoes or food for her children, according to an interview and transcript at the Real News.
A cashier, she has worked for McDonald’s for 10 years and the confrontation was staged as part of the "Fight for $15," an ongoing labor battle to increase the minimum wage for fast food workers across the nation.
"It’s really hard for me to feed my two kids and struggle day to day," she shouted as Stratton was speaking, according to the transcript. "Do you think this is fair, that I have to be making $8.25 when I’ve worked for McDonald’s for 10 years?"
"I’ve been there for 40 years,” Stratton answered from the podium.
"The thing is that I need a raise," Salgado insisted. "But you’re not helping your employees. How is this possible?" After that, someone approached her and informed her that she was going to be arrested.
Stratton did not have to take the bait. He could offered to speak to her later. The company’s image has taken a hit in the minimum-wage battle, even as it reported a 4 percent increase to $1.4 billion in profits last quarter. Over the summer, the company was criticized after the joining forces with Visa to help workers create budgets. The sample budget presumes workers will have a second jobs. Perhaps McDonald’s does not see itself a full-time endeavor, but that’s not the message Stratton just sent.
He’s worked "there for 40 years" and look where it got him.
Watch the video here:
J.P. Morgan – the man and the bank
Posted by Jim Hightower
Listen to this Commentary
J.P. Morgan was recently socked in the wallet by financial regulators, who levied a fine of nearly a billion bucks against the Wall Street baron for massive illegalities.
Well, not a fine against John Pierpont Morgan, the man. This 19th century robber baron was born to a great banking fortune and, by hook and crook, leveraged it to become the "King of American Finance." During the Gilded Age, Morgan cornered the U.S. financial markets, gained monopoly ownership of railroads, amassed a vast supply of the nation's gold, and used his investment power to create US Steel and take control of that market.
From his earliest days in high finance, Morgan was a hustler who often traded on the shady side. In the Civil War, for example, his family bought his way out of military duty, but he saw another way to serve. Himself, that is. Morgan bought defective rifles for $3.50 each and sold them to a Union general for $22 each. The rifles blew off soldiers' thumbs, but Morgan pleaded ignorance, and government investigators graciously absolved the young, wealthy, well-connected financier of any fault.
That seems to have set a pattern for his lifetime of antitrust violations, union busting, and other over-the-edge profiteering practices. He drew numerous official charges – but of course, he never did any jail time.
Moving the clock forward, we come to JPMorgan Chase, today's financial powerhouse bearing J.P.'s name. The bank also inherited his pattern of committing multiple illegalities – and walking away scot free. Oh sure, the bank was hit with that big fine, but not a single one of the top bankers who committed gross wrongdoing were charged or even fired – much less sent to jail.
Banks don't commit crimes. Bankers do. And they won't ever stop if they don't have to pay for their crimes.
"Once Again, Punish the Bank but Not Its Top Executives," The New York Times, September 20, 2013
"As Inquiries Persist, JPMorgan Loses Favor," The New York Times, September 20, 2013.
"JP Morgan's Legal Hurdles Expected to Multiply," The New York Times, September 24, 2013.
"JPMorgan is fined $920m over London Whale fiasco," Financial Times, September 20, 2013.
Listen to this Commentary
J.P. Morgan was recently socked in the wallet by financial regulators, who levied a fine of nearly a billion bucks against the Wall Street baron for massive illegalities.
Well, not a fine against John Pierpont Morgan, the man. This 19th century robber baron was born to a great banking fortune and, by hook and crook, leveraged it to become the "King of American Finance." During the Gilded Age, Morgan cornered the U.S. financial markets, gained monopoly ownership of railroads, amassed a vast supply of the nation's gold, and used his investment power to create US Steel and take control of that market.
From his earliest days in high finance, Morgan was a hustler who often traded on the shady side. In the Civil War, for example, his family bought his way out of military duty, but he saw another way to serve. Himself, that is. Morgan bought defective rifles for $3.50 each and sold them to a Union general for $22 each. The rifles blew off soldiers' thumbs, but Morgan pleaded ignorance, and government investigators graciously absolved the young, wealthy, well-connected financier of any fault.
That seems to have set a pattern for his lifetime of antitrust violations, union busting, and other over-the-edge profiteering practices. He drew numerous official charges – but of course, he never did any jail time.
Moving the clock forward, we come to JPMorgan Chase, today's financial powerhouse bearing J.P.'s name. The bank also inherited his pattern of committing multiple illegalities – and walking away scot free. Oh sure, the bank was hit with that big fine, but not a single one of the top bankers who committed gross wrongdoing were charged or even fired – much less sent to jail.
Banks don't commit crimes. Bankers do. And they won't ever stop if they don't have to pay for their crimes.
"Once Again, Punish the Bank but Not Its Top Executives," The New York Times, September 20, 2013
"As Inquiries Persist, JPMorgan Loses Favor," The New York Times, September 20, 2013.
"JP Morgan's Legal Hurdles Expected to Multiply," The New York Times, September 24, 2013.
"JPMorgan is fined $920m over London Whale fiasco," Financial Times, September 20, 2013.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
The 7 habits of highly ineffective political parties
When it comes to major policy battles, since 2009 the
GOP is 0-3. Before it fails again, David Frum offers up seven ways the
party is shooting itself in the foot.
The three previous losses (in case you’re feeling forgetful) were, in order:
(1) The fight over Obamacare. Result: the most ambitious new social insurance program since Medicare, financed—unlike Medicare—by redistributive new taxes on investment and high incomes.
(2) The 2012 election. Result: Despite the worst economy since the Great Depression, the reelection of President Obama, Democratic retention of the Senate, and 1.4 million more votes cast for House Democrats than for House Republicans.
(3) The fight over the “fiscal cliff” at the end of 2012. Result: In order to preserve some of the Bush tax cuts, Republicans for the first time since 1991 left their finger prints on a tax increase for upper income groups.
Now comes fight (4), the fight over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling. This one isn’t lost yet. But unless Republicans are prepared to push the country into the catastrophe of national bankruptcy sometime around October 17, it’s hard to see how this one does not end in a Republican retreat, clutching whatever forlorn fig leaf they can negotiate from President Obama.
Behind all four defeats can be seen the same seven mistakes: what you might call the seven habits of highly ineffective political parties. Let’s call the roll:
Habit 1: Maximalist goals.
There’s a lot about Obamacare for a Republican not to like. But to demand Obamacare’s outright repeal (which is what “defunding” amounts to) barely 10 months after decisively losing an election in which Obamacare occupied a central place—well, that’s shooting for the moon. we’ve seen equivalent moon shots again and again since 2009. During the original Obamacare legislation, Republicans took the position: no, no, not one inch. During the election of 2012, Republicans were not content merely to replace one president with another. They also campaigned on the most radical platform the party since 1964. They wanted the biggest possible mandate. Instead they got whomped.
Habit 2: Apocalyptic visions.
Republicans have insisted on maximal goals because they fear they face a truly apocalyptic moment: an irrevocable fork in the road, with one path leading to socialist tyranny, the other to the restoration of the constitutional republic. There sometimes are such moments in history of nations. This is not one. If the United States has remained a constitutional republic despite a government guarantee of health care for people over 65, it will remain a constitutional republic with a government guarantee of health care for people under 65. Obamacare will cost money the country doesn’t have, and that poses a serious fiscal problem. But it’s not as serious a fiscal problem as is posed by the existing programs, Medicare and Medicaid, which cover the people it costs most to cover. It’s not a problem so serious as to justify panic.
Yet panic has gripped the Republican rank-and-file since 2009—and instead of allaying panic, Republican leaders have aggravated and exploited it, to the point where the leaders are compelled to behave in ways they know to be irrational. In his speech to the “Bull Moose” convention of 1912, Teddy Roosevelt declared, “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord!” It’s a great line, but it’s not a mindset that leads to successful legislative outcomes.
Habit 3: Irrational animus.
Republicans have lost three major fights since 2009. They seem likely soon to lose a fourth—and all in the same way.
The three previous losses (in case you’re feeling forgetful) were, in order:
(1) The fight over Obamacare. Result: the most ambitious new social insurance program since Medicare, financed—unlike Medicare—by redistributive new taxes on investment and high incomes.
(2) The 2012 election. Result: Despite the worst economy since the Great Depression, the reelection of President Obama, Democratic retention of the Senate, and 1.4 million more votes cast for House Democrats than for House Republicans.
(3) The fight over the “fiscal cliff” at the end of 2012. Result: In order to preserve some of the Bush tax cuts, Republicans for the first time since 1991 left their finger prints on a tax increase for upper income groups.
Now comes fight (4), the fight over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling. This one isn’t lost yet. But unless Republicans are prepared to push the country into the catastrophe of national bankruptcy sometime around October 17, it’s hard to see how this one does not end in a Republican retreat, clutching whatever forlorn fig leaf they can negotiate from President Obama.
Behind all four defeats can be seen the same seven mistakes: what you might call the seven habits of highly ineffective political parties. Let’s call the roll:
Habit 1: Maximalist goals.
There’s a lot about Obamacare for a Republican not to like. But to demand Obamacare’s outright repeal (which is what “defunding” amounts to) barely 10 months after decisively losing an election in which Obamacare occupied a central place—well, that’s shooting for the moon. we’ve seen equivalent moon shots again and again since 2009. During the original Obamacare legislation, Republicans took the position: no, no, not one inch. During the election of 2012, Republicans were not content merely to replace one president with another. They also campaigned on the most radical platform the party since 1964. They wanted the biggest possible mandate. Instead they got whomped.
Habit 2: Apocalyptic visions.
Republicans have insisted on maximal goals because they fear they face a truly apocalyptic moment: an irrevocable fork in the road, with one path leading to socialist tyranny, the other to the restoration of the constitutional republic. There sometimes are such moments in history of nations. This is not one. If the United States has remained a constitutional republic despite a government guarantee of health care for people over 65, it will remain a constitutional republic with a government guarantee of health care for people under 65. Obamacare will cost money the country doesn’t have, and that poses a serious fiscal problem. But it’s not as serious a fiscal problem as is posed by the existing programs, Medicare and Medicaid, which cover the people it costs most to cover. It’s not a problem so serious as to justify panic.
Yet panic has gripped the Republican rank-and-file since 2009—and instead of allaying panic, Republican leaders have aggravated and exploited it, to the point where the leaders are compelled to behave in ways they know to be irrational. In his speech to the “Bull Moose” convention of 1912, Teddy Roosevelt declared, “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord!” It’s a great line, but it’s not a mindset that leads to successful legislative outcomes.
Habit 3: Irrational animus.
Barack
Obama was never likely to be popular with the Republican base. It's not
just that he's black. He’s the first president in 76 years with a
foreign parent—and unlike Hulda Hoover, Barack Obama Sr. never even
naturalized. While Obama is not the first president to hold two degrees
from elite universities—Bill Clinton and George W. Bush did as well—his
Ivy predecessors at least disguised their education with a down-home
style of speech. Join this cultural inheritance to liberal politics, and
of course you have a formula for conflict. But effective parties make
conflict work for them. Hate leads to rage, and rage makes you stupid.
Republicans have convinced themselves both that President Obama is a
revolutionary radical hell-bent upon destroying America as we know it
and that he's so feckless and weak-willed that he'll always yield to
pressure. It's that contradictory, angry assessment that has brought the
GOP to a place where it must either abjectly surrender or force a
national default. Calmer analysis would have achieved better results.
Recently, GOP lawmakers have been pointing fingers at Democrats for a supposed unwillingness to compromise.
Habit 4: Collapse of leadership.
The Republicans have always been the more disciplined of America’s two political parities, and today they still are. But whereas before, discipline used to flow from elected leadership down, today it flows from factional leadership up. An aide to Sen. Mike Lee told the National Review: “The minority of the minority is going to run things until our leadership gets some backbone.”
The Lee aide was specifically referring to the Republican minority in the Senate, but the language has broader implication. According to Robert Costa, a well-sourced reporter at NRO: “What we’re seeing is the collapse of institutional Republican power ... The outside groups don’t always move votes directly but they create an atmosphere of fear among the members [of Congress].” Large organizations are inherently vulnerable to capture by tightly organized militant tendencies. This is how a great political party was impelled to base a presidential campaign on the Ryan plan—a plan that has now replaced the 1983 manifesto of the British Labour Party as “the longest suicide note in history.” It’s the job of leadership to remember, in the words of Edmund Burke, “Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.” That job is tragically going undone in today’s GOP.
Habit 5: Self-reinforcing media.
The actor Hugh Grant once bitterly characterized his PR team as “the people I pay to lie to me.” Politicians do not always need to tell the truth, but they always need to hear it. Yet hearing the truth has become harder and harder for Republicans. It takes a very unusual spin artist to remember that what he or she is saying isn’t actually true. Non-politicians say what they believe. Politicians sooner or later arrive at the point where they believe what they say. They have become prisoners of their own artificial reality, with no easy access to the larger truths outside.
This entombment in their own artificial reality was revealed to the entire TV-watching world in Karl Rove’s Fox News election night outburst against the Ohio 2012 ballot results. It was the same entombment that blinded Republicans to the most likely outcome of their no-compromise stance on Obamacare—and now again today to the most likely outcome of the government shutdown/debt ceiling fight they started.
Habit 6: Politics as war.
The business of America is business, as Calvin Coolidge said. American politics has been businesslike too. Americans understand that the business of the nation is ultimately settled by a roomful of tired people negotiating their differences in the small hours of the morning: everybody gets something, nobody gets everything. It’s a grubby business, unavoidably, and most of the time, Americans understand that. They build statues to Martin Luther King. They elect Lyndon Johnson.
From time to time in American politics, differences arise that are too wide to negotiate. Slavery versus no slavery. Prohibition versus drink. Pro-life versus pro-choice. Professional politicians usually keep their distance from absolutist movements. As George Washington Plunkitt observed, “The politicians have got to stand together this way or there wouldn’t be any political parties in a short time.”
That line was meant as a joke, but it contains truth. Professional politicians are disagreement managers. Since 2009, however, the GOP has given unprecedented scope to those who for their own ideological, financial, or psychological reasons refuse to allow disagreements to be managed—and instead relentlessly push toward the kind of ultimate crises the country so nearly escaped in 2011 and teeters again on the verge of today.
Habit 7: Despair.
The great British conservative historian Hugh Trevor Roper scoffed at the Marxist claim that history runs in one direction only. “When radicals scream that victory is indubitably theirs, sensible conservatives knock them on the nose. It is only very feeble conservatives who take such words as true and run round crying for the last sacraments.” The great conservative poet T.S. Eliot explained that there are no lost causes, because there are no won causes. How many ways can one express that idea? So long as there is life, there is hope; everything old is new again; etc. etc. etc.
The trouble with these assurances, however, is that they contain an implicit moral that politics is very hard work. Free-market economics—so discredited in the 1940's—returned to favor in the 1970's because of tireless research by brilliant economists. The excesses of the 2000's have undone that success, and now it will take serious thinking, and some necessary reforms, to repair the damage. It’s a tempting shortcut to throw up one’s hands and say, “I’ve seen the best of it.
The future holds only darkness.” It’s especially tempting for a party that disproportionately draws its support from older voters. The fact is that for those of us over 50, the future offers us as individuals only decline leading to extinction. It’s natural to believe that what happens to us must happen to the world around us. Who wants to hear that things will become much, much better for humanity shortly after we ourselves shuffle off the scene? Yet of all mental errors, despair is the most dangerous to a democracy. The “politics of cultural despair” lead to authoritarianism and worse, as the German historian Fritz Stern warned in his history of that same title.
The man who has no hope will make the most irrevocable errors—and unnecessarily plunging the United States into the first national bankruptcy since the 1780's would be about as irrevocable as an error as history contains.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)