Paul M. Jones

The federal Department of Education doesn’t employ a single teacher but it does have a SWAT team: They kicked down a front door in Stockton, Calif. last week and handcuffed Kenneth Wright (erroneously) in connection with a student-loan “investigation.” “We can confirm that we executed a search warrant,” said Department of Education spokesperson Gina Burress.

The Department of Education issues search warrants? Who knew? The Brokest Nation in History is the only country in the developed world whose education secretary has his own Delta Force. And, in a land with over a trillion dollars in college debt, I’ll bet it’s got no plans to downsize.

via Obama’s Road to Nowhere - Mark Steyn - National Review Online.

Most people expect agencies like the FBI to be well armed for law enforcement purposes.  But the Railroad Retirement Board?  He reports that federal agencies far and wide now have armed agents, including the Small Business Administration.  For what?  To scare away phony 8(a) applications??  The United States Department of Education bought 27 Remington Model 870 12-gauge shotguns last year.  Here is the request for proposals to sell the weapons.  Perhaps the contracting officer, Holly Lee, knows why on earth the Department of Education needs a weapons arsenal. Maybe for the Department of Education SWAT team.

via The PJ Tatler » Weaponizing the Small Business Administration and Railroad Retirement Board.

When the cops notice Benoit filming, they demand that he stop. Benoit puts his phone down by his side and returns to his car. As he's walking, he repeatedly says that he's filming the police and not doing anything wrong. The area is well lit, and Benoit isn't the only person filming. He is, however, the only person ignoring police commands to stop filming. 

The next time Benoit raises the camera, it’s to capture an adrenaline-fueled and agitated-looking Miami police officer circling his Ford Expedition, pointing a gun through the windows at Benoit and his girlfriend. Pretty soon, cops swarm the car and force Benoit and his girlfriend to exit the vehicle. 

Benoit’s girlfriend told the Miami Herald that police then “put guns to our heads and threw us on the ground.” According to Benoit, one officer handcuffed him, grabbed his phone, “smashed” it on the ground, and then put it back in Benoit’s pocket.

via Miami Police Shoot Man to Death, Attempt to Steal/Destroy All Video Evidence of Shooting Man to Death - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine.

Why is the Education Department purchasing 27 Remington Brand Model 870 police 12-gauge shotguns (all new, no re-manufactured products, thank you)?

The guns are to replace old firearms used by Education’s Office of Inspector General, which is the law enforcement arm of the department.

via The Answer Sheet - Education Department buying 27 shotguns.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying a good old-fashioned political sex scandal. They're entertaining, and they may even be edifying--reminding us that self-styled "public servants" are often less responsible, more venal, and just plain dumber than those they seek to rule.

via The Lessons of Weinergate - Reason Magazine.

After more than 5 months of the judge's ruling, the bank still hadn't paid the legal fees, and the homeowner's attorney did exactly what the bank tried to do to the homeowners. He seized the bank's assets.

"They've ignored our calls, ignored our letters, legally this is the next step to get my clients compensated, " attorney Todd Allen told CBS.

Sheriff's deputies, movers, and the Nyergers' attorney went to the bank and foreclosed on it. The attorney gave instructions to to remove desks, computers, copiers, filing cabinets and any cash in the teller's drawers.

After about an hour of being locked out of the bank, the bank manager handed the attorney a check for the legal fees.

via Bank of America Gets Pad Locked After Homeowner Forecloses On It | digtriad.com.

[T]he high-risk pools, which were meant to tide people over until 2013, have signed up just 18,000 people as of March.

There were supposed to be millions of people who were uninsurable because of pre-existing conditions.  We heard lengthy testimony about their terrible plight.  I don't think it's too strong to say that this fear--that you could get sick and no one would insure you, that's right, you, Mr. & Mrs. Middle-Class Voter--was one of the main reasons offered for the health care overhaul.  It was estimated by Medicare's Chief Actuary that around 400,000 would sign up (the CBO estimated 200,000, but only because they assumed that HHS would use its authority to limit enrollment in order to stay within the $5 billion budgeted for the program).  So where are all the uninsurable people?

via Why Hasn't Anyone Signed Up For the High-Risk Health Insurance Pools? - Megan McArdle - Business - The Atlantic.

A senior Egyptian general admits that "virginity checks" were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this spring, the first such admission after previous denials by military authorities.

The allegations arose in an Amnesty International report, published weeks after the March 9 protest. It claimed female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks.

...[A] senior general who asked not to be identified said the virginity tests were conducted and defended the practice.

"The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine," the general said. "These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs)."

The general said the virginity checks were done so that the women wouldn't later claim they had been raped by Egyptian authorities.

"We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place," the general said. "None of them were (virgins)."

Meet the new boss, same as (worse than?) the old boss. Via Life in the New Egypt: "Virginity Checks" - Ricochet.com.

... It is not, in the modern world, enough to be a lone visionary.  Under modern conditions, strategic genius must necessarily be linked with bureaucracy.  The greatest genius needs a military machine and a state structure.  More, as Henry Kissinger discovered to his frustration, a hostile bureaucracy can frustrate and sabotage a brilliant leader’s initiatives in many ways.  Commands given by a great general or initiatives envisioned by a great diplomat must under modern conditions be executed by great throngs of non-genius employees and functionaries.  There is no other way.

Remember this: your idea has to be executed by people who do not necessarily share the entire scope of your vision. Via Clausewitz: Master of War | Via Meadia.

Some of the best few paragraphs on codebase quality and style I have read in a long time:

Computer programs are the most complex things that humans make. Programs are made up of a huge number of parts, expressed as functions, statements, and expressions that are arranged in sequences that must be virtually free of error. The runtime behavior has little resemblance to the program that implements it. Software is usually expected to be modified over the course of its productive life. The process of converting one correct program into a different correct program is extremely challenging.

Good programs have a structure that anticipates — but is not overly burdened by — the possible modifications that will be required in the future. Good programs also have a clear presentation. If a program is expressed well, then we have the best chance of being able to understand it so that it can be successfully modified or repaired.

…

The long-term value of software to an organization is in direct proportion to the quality of the codebase. Over its lifetime, a program will be handled by many pairs of hands and eyes. If a program is able to clearly communicate its structure and characteristics, it is less likely to break when it is modified in the never-too-distant future.

From JavaScript: The Good Parts (chapter 9, "Style") by Douglas Crockford.