"Ed Snowden", the movie

Movie treatment for Ed Snowden: Government Mole

Ed Snowden is introduced as a high school dropout--a loner who avoids social relationships.

Snowden joins Army to try and please his father, a career soldier, but is discharged after breaking his legs in a training accident.  This rejection further strengthens Snowden's loner behavior.

Snowden, like many of his kind and age, seeks a life in the artificial world of his computer where he further avoids personal contatcts and believes he can control his life and its outcomes.

He lands a job at CIA as a computer analyst, and then moves to NSA.  He soon finds he is allowed access to secretly-captured data.  As he progresses, he is promoted, and his security clearance is elevated to Top-Secret.

He soon realizes that access to secret data affords him the "cred" to impress others.  Though he has few friends, and most are computer nerds like him who have no social life, it still raises his self-importance in his own narrowly-defined world.

Each year, he finds himself needing to copy or download more secret data than he did the year before.  He becomes addicted to amassing data in the same way a bipolar person goes on shopping sprees--the need to buy, not the need for the goods.

As would be expected, the more data he hoards, the more paranoid be becomes.  He is sure his co-workers are watching him.  He believes the NSA is spyng on him the way it spies on others.  His paranoia starts to race, causing him to wonder when he will be caught infiltrating the NSA databank.

When he truly believes the NSA is onto him, he changes jobs to Booz Allen, the NSA consultant.  There he finds a relaxed security atmosphere.  He feels he can now download huge amounts of data without being discovered.

As his paranoia of being caught lessens, his paranoia takes a different form--he soon thinks of himself as a victim of government spying.  Hence, Snowden believes he must tell the world about the NSA spying on everybody. 

Snowden makes plans for escape and his 'whistleblowing' to a newspaper called "The Guardian."

Snowden escapes to Hong Kong and plans his exile.

He is approached by the Chinese.  He sells the data he has stolen.  He further works a deal with the Russians.  Snowden is unrepentant--he only sold the data (for far less than it was worth) to have money to live on for a few years.

All such movies have an unexpected development:

In this case, Snowden had downloaded a big secret that he did not realize.  The NSA spyware also allowed the NSA to track and follow money movements through ATM machines using a backdoor to the banking systems ATM network.  The big banks, which the US government holds great sway over since the 2008 collapse, had no choice but to allow the NSA into their network.

A Chinese computer nerd discovers the ATM backdoor, hacks the password, and finds he can further worm his way into the USA banking system.

One day, the Chinese take control of the ATM network and jam the US banks from transferring funds or making electronic deposits or payments.  The US economy completely shuts down causing total panic and upheaval in the USA.

For the sequel:  The Mole Rises

In a post-apocalyptic world, ..............

Blue Ribbon Commission Needs a Plan B

                In August 2012, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin appointed members of the West Virginia Blue Ribbon Commission on Highways.  He charged that commission with determining the needs of the state’s highway program and evaluating the means to pay for the plan. 

                Recently, the commission reported that the Division of Highways needs about $1 billion additional revenue per year to properly maintain and improve roads and highways.  As for paying for it, the commission suggested raising various taxes by $400 million annually, leaving a huge gap between needs and funds.

                Good grief!  Pippi Longstocking could have mailed that plan in.  I expected more from a blue ribbon commission.  

                Fellow West Virginians, we cannot afford an additional $1 billion in highways expenditures each year.  We can’t even afford an annual $400 million increase in taxes.

                Now if the Marcellus shale starts producing a trillion barrels of crude oil each year, that’s different.  But barring a fracking miracle, we’re still a poor state.

                The blue ribbon commission owed it to the governor to posit that there must be a fundamental change in our highway philosophy.  From top to bottom, we need to question every aspect of our highway program.  We need to examine costs.  We need to examine priorities.  And we must question even the hint of perpetuating the status quo.

                This commission could have given Gov. Tomblin support to go to the people and ask them: “Do you want salted roads in winter, or do you want potholes patched in the spring?  You can’t have both.”

                It’s that simple.  We cannot have everything we want.  

                When I say we need to question highway costs, I mean every cost.  If the Division of Highways spends $500 on paper clips each year, then we need to ask why the division can’t get by on half that amount.

                The Division of Highways might very answer that question with: “Paper clips save money.  Removing staples is labor intensive.”

                Fine.  The question still needs asked and answered.

                The Division of Highways needs to question every aspect of its contracting methods as well as contract plans and specifications. 

The Division of Highways needs to ride herd on design engineers to save money, not build monuments.  

The Division of Highways needs to examine each and every position on the organization chart with an eye on efficient operation, not employing the politically faithful.

There will be public hearings about this subject in the coming months.  If you go to one, ask the state what it’s willing to give up or change before you get mesmerized by doubletalk and open your wallets.  Ask for an accounting of the books.  Ask what you, the taxpayer, get for your present taxes.

It has long been said that when it comes to highways, West Virginia has champagne tastes and a beer bottle budget.  This attitude has brought us to the present dilemma.

When I was fourteen, I walked into Ed’s Package Store on Milford Street in Clarksburg and bought my first six pack of beer.  I picked Pabst Blue Ribbon because I thought it had to be the best.  Ever since, whenever I see the words “blue ribbon”, I go into a mild stupor reminiscent of my teenage years.

Pippi, do you have a Plan B?

Words Matter In Making Kids Smarter

    The average SAT verbal test score peaked in 1967 and has never recovered.  Yes, it is true.  Your college-bound son is dumber than his predecessor who drag-raced his Pontiac GTO on Saturday nights.  All of the excuses that have been made to rationalize lower SAT verbal scores have been debunked.

    Writing in the Winter 2013 issue of “City Journal”, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., a professor emeritus in education at the University of Virginia and the founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation, offers an explanation of lower SAT verbal scores in his essay, “A Wealth of Words.”  I recently read in the “Wall Street Journal” that UVA boasts an 87% four-year graduation rate.  Therefore, I take Dr. Hirsch’s remarks seriously.

     Dr. Hirsch’s philosophy is that a strong vocabulary is all important when it comes to learning and intelligence.  He also stresses that the way we teach students to build a vocabulary has changed for the worse over the past fifty years.  Hence, the dumbing-down that we can no longer rationalize, or worse, ignore.

    In my experience, I have noticed that the first vocabulary a child learns is dependent on the local vernacular.  If you were raised in West Virginia, you probably learned that the grassy strip between divided highway lanes is the medium.  The correct word is median.  West Virginians have generally referred to the road shoulder as the berm.  No matter where one lives, the local vernacular has a strong influence on children.

    Once in school, a child begins to learn the English vocabulary.  This is a necessary step.  We need to learn the English vocabulary and its proper usage if we hope to communicate with people who live outside of our
neighborhoods.

    And then, we learn the vocabulary of our trade or profession.  From jargon to technical terms, every vocation has a specialized vocabulary.  “Stuff” and “things” might get you by for a while, but your job demands that you know specific words for specific objects or tasks.

    A doctor once told me that he counseled an illiterate, male patient who was suffering from spinal meningitis.  The patient later told his wife and family that the doctor told him he had “shinin’ mighty Jesus.”  The patient almost certainly recovered because he believed Jesus had intervened!

    Dare I digress to remind you of the importance of a second opinion?  

    We are well into the digital age.  We have Google.  Most likely, a math-brained nerd invented “google” thinking he wrote “goggle”.  Goggle, a wide-eyed stare, is what the nerd thought.  But to the nerd, a word
requires no etymology or derivation.  In the math brain, a word is nothing more than binary code, a unique set of 1s and 0s.  Google was born a bastard and will live and die a bastard.

    As a nation, we have two full generations who are deficient in vocabulary.  What will our nation’s future be if we have three such generations?  The world won’t end, obviously.  But society will regress.  How far we regress and the severity of regression cannot be predicted.

    In the not too distant future, I see our dumbing-down affecting even the BBC—the stalwart purveyor of classical English drama.  As the demand for shows like “Downton Abbey” and “Upstairs, Downstairs” dissipates because viewers can no longer comprehend the dialogue, the BBC will most likely be privatized.  New programming will be attuned to the digital age, not to the past. 

    “Upstairs, Downstairs” will be re-made.  The upstairs people will text the downstairs people for all their needs instead of ringing bells, or orally communicating their whims to the butler.  The downstairs people, of
course, will serve the upstairs people.  The sequel will be called “The Dumbwaiter of the Baskervilles.”

    I have always believed that the English language is civilization’s greatest achievement.  There is nothing to compare to it because it builds on the best words from all languages.  The British Empire was not shy about
Anglicizing foreign words.  For example, anglicize comes from the Latin “anglici.”

    As well, I have always been fascinated with words.  My aunt Mary, an English teacher, gave me a collegiate dictionary in 1962.  It served me well—I took the SAT in 1967.  My dictionary, now 50 and held together with duct tape, still sits on my desk.

    With a great English vocabulary, you can fully enjoy intercourse.  With the digital texting vocabulary taking over society?  Well, that’s just masturbation.  Or words to that effect.
   

***************************
"A Wealth of Words", by E. D. Hirsch, Jr.:
www.city-journal.org/2013/23_1_vocabulary.html

West Virginia: Where All The Kids Really Are Above Average

Over the years, I have read the semi-annual postings of high school honor rolls with interest. Like you, perhaps, I look to see if anyone I know has made the grade. Occasionally, I notice clips about a local student making his or her college dean's list. It's nice to see youngsters doing so well.

But over the years, I have also noticed that the number of students making the honor roll or dean's list has increased far beyond a reasonable level. I define "reasonable" as being between one-in-eight (12.5 percent) and one-in-six (16.7 percent).

Before you criticize my stringency, consider that the education process is a game of skill. There is competition among students as well as competition against the machine — the memorization of empirical knowledge. The element of inter-student competition is critical to the learning process.

To determine a grade, we test the student. It's just like the game show Jeopardy — competition against the encyclopedia as well as between contestants.

As education is a game of skill, you have to look at the grading criteria with an oddsmaker's eye. What are the odds of a student making one A per semester? Then, what are the odds of a student making As in five disparate courses in one semester? The rules apply to Bs, Cs, and so on.

I have reviewed several high school honor roll lists and found that 45 percent to 50 percent of the students are making a 3.0 GPA or better. What are the odds that half the students in a given high school will make a 3.0 GPA?

This is easy to answer. Impossible. Unless you live in a fantasy world.

Years ago, I read about a West Virginia high school that had a dilemma. The school couldn't decide who to make class valedictorian because about a dozen graduating seniors had a perfect 4.0 GPA. I laughed, and I laughed. The school had a dilemma all right — a bunch of teachers and administrators who didn't realize the folly of their handing out easy As.

West Virginia students score poorly when compared to other American students in national tests. United States students are middle-of-the-pack average when compared to international students. Thus, we can imply that an honor roll student in West Virginia would most likely be an average student in Finland or one of the other five top-scoring nations.

Based on statistical analysis, the fact that half the student body makes the honor roll indicates that the curricula have been watered down. Based on anecdotal evidence, we have the examples of foreign exchange students who come here and find that they took all the advanced math and science courses that we offer to juniors and seniors by their sophomore years overseas.

I happen to believe that American kids are as smart as any kids on the planet. The fact that they have lousy test scores is the fault of the grown-ups. From top to bottom in the education hierarchy to home life and parenting, there is plenty of blame to go around. Unfortunately, the kids pay the price.

If you believe what you read in the newspapers, there is a movement afoot in West Virginia to reform the education system. Translation: The landscape will stay the same; turf battles will redistribute the goodies; our Hansels and Gretels will remain lost, just in a different part of the forest.

Before the powers that be reform the system, I would urge that they maintain the status quo. I look at the situation this way: In twenty more years, it is virtually guaranteed that nearly all of our public school teachers will be former high school honor roll graduates.

We're bound to have better schools if we stay the course. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if 80 percent of the student body in 2033 makes the honor roll.

Bridge Designer Earns Fitting Tribute

In recent years, our state has named bridges for people. Personally, I would never want a bridge named for me. When bad things happen to a bridge, the name sticks. Forever.

Do you remember the Silver Bridge? Or how about "Galloping Gertie"? You wouldn't remember them if they did not have names.

I can see the news report about my named bridge. "The David G. Allen Bridge collapsed today as a result of corrosion of the suspension cables caused by years and years of bird dropping accumulation. Engineers for the West Virginia Division of Highways reported that they believe Mr. Allen's middle name is ‘Guano.' A spokesman for the division said, ‘We thought it was a gesture of honor to name a guano-covered bridge after Mr. David Guano Allen for his past service as assistant highway commissioner.'"

After all these years of naming bridges for people, the state has finally gotten it right.

Recently, the Goff Plaza Bridge in Clarksburg was re-named for the late John C. Giese. Mr. Giese was a civil engineer who designed some 600 highway bridges in West Virginia during his six-decade career.

There is only one drawback in naming a bridge for Mr. Giese. The bar has now been set about a mile higher than anyone else can jump. So who do you honor from this point forward? For that matter, how do you reconcile the selection criteria for past honorees once John Giese's reputation enters the mix?

John Giese designed the Goff Plaza Bridge in the early 1980s. The bridge is a tribute to John's engineering skill as well as his common sense. The Goff Plaza Bridge represents the best mix of form and function that I have ever seen. John Giese did not design bridges to flatter his ego. He designed bridges that were uncomplicated and cost-efficient to build.

The original Goff Plaza Bridge was a long span over Elk Creek and its flood plain. When John was asked to submit a design to replace the bridge, he did what no other modern engineer would do. He proposed shortening the new bridge by half and building an earthen fill and roadway to span the void.

It's much cheaper to build an earth fill than it is to build a concrete and steel bridge. By doing this, John saved the taxpayers some $500,000. Perhaps the savings were even more. But you get the picture.

Of course, it follows that John got a smaller paycheck for his work. Engineering design fees are based on a project's cost. But that was John. Over the years, he saved us millions of dollars.

For a design engineer, John Giese had a remarkable keenness for understanding the construction process. When he designed a foundation slab, he understood that the major cost in pouring concrete is the labor needed to build forms and tie the reinforcing steel bars.

I used to enjoy watching John critique another engineer's fancy footer plans. He usually drew a rectangle around the whole footer area and would say, "Build it this way." Yes, his plan required more concrete. But the cost of extra concrete was always less than building complicated forms. Besides, more concrete makes a stronger foundation. Which is, after all, the purpose of the foundation.

John Giese never designed the biggest bridge in West Virginia. Nor the longest. Nor did he design bridges that appear on postage stamps and quarters. He designed the most important bridges — the ones that get you to and from your home every day.

He designed a lot of the bridges that we take for granted. And we'll always be able to take them for granted as long as the highway department inspects and maintains them.

For the record, I was assistant highway commissioner when the John Charles Giese Memorial Bridge was built. And my middle name is not Guano.

Justices shouldn't split hairs when it comes to the Constitution

I had a dream about the nine U. S. Supreme Court justices.

In my dream, all nine were young. Instead of going to law school, all nine enrolled at Georgetown Barber College. After graduation, all nine set up a barber shop in downtown Washington, D.C., where they worked harmoniously.

One day, I walked by their shop — the Supreme Barber Shop — and decided to go in. My hair had gotten too long; I needed a clip job.

I took a seat and waited for an open barber chair. Finally, John Roberts, the barber, said, "Next."

I told Roberts, the barber, "My hair is too long. I want you to cut off half of it."

"No problem." said Roberts, the barber.

He then split every hair on my head into two and clipped one of them. Half of my hair was cut but not quite the way I expected.

He beamed with pride over his clip job, and he held a mirror for me to see.

It was worse than a Donald Trump-style comb over.

The other eight barbers split hairs the same way, so you can't just blame Roberts, the barber.

Watch out for Georgetown Barber College alumni. And NEVER ask one of them for a shave!



The U.S. Constitution is not a complicated document to read. It is written in English, not Latin, nor any other dead language. But when you ask a judge to interpret what the Constitution says, you have to wonder if judges read off the same pages as do the rest of us.

In the recently decided Affordable Care Act case, the main issue had to do with the constitutionality of the individual mandate. The answer to the question as to whether the government can force individuals to buy health insurance could only be a simple yes or no.

Eight justices read the legislation. Eight justices read the Constitution. Eight justices could not agree on the answer. In fact, the best that they could do was end up diametrically opposed. Four justices emphatically voted "Yes." Four justices emphatically voted "No."

Enter Chief Justice John Roberts, the parser. Only Roberts, the parser, knew what Congress meant. Roberts, the parser, changed some words and declared the individual mandate to be constitutional.

Although Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia were on opposite sides of the debate, they joined together to confront Roberts, the parser, about his convoluted decision. Ginsburg and Scalia were furious, according to the law clerks I interviewed.

Roberts, the parser, told his detractors, "Mongo only pawn in game of life."

If our nation is to be governed by a written constitution, then the document should be easily understood by at least two-thirds of the governed. What good is a constitution if the people don't know what it means?

Historians will remember June 28, 2012, as the day when only one man in America understood the meaning of the Constitution, and further, that he had to re-define key words to make his explanation work.

Can two people really do the same job equally?

The Paycheck Fairness Act failed to advance in the U. S. Senate on June 5.  Proponents of the act said that it would allow equal pay for men and women doing the same work.  Opponents said the act just created more federal bureaucracy and more rules for businesses.

Most news reports declared Republicans defeated the legislation. That is incorrect. The vote taken was for or against:  On Cloture on the Motion to Proceed (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to Consider S. 3220).  Fifty Democrats and two Independents voted "aye."  Forty six Republicans and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., voted "Nay."  Invoking cloture requires a three-fifths majority, or 60 votes.

Before the votes were cast, everyone on Capitol Hill knew the following:

• All Democrats would vote "Aye"
• Both Independents would vote "Aye"
• All Republicans would vote "Nay"
• Majority Leader Reid would first vote "Aye" and then change his vote to "Nay" as a procedural method to bring the vote up again if he so desires.

Yes, this was another episode of election year politics. Tune in next time to see if Mr. Smith goes to Washington to filibuster the Paycheck Fairness Act!

It has always been my observation that no two people actually do the same work. Thus, "equal pay for equal work" is a sophism — an intentional fallacy.

I took Typing I in high school. I was one of two boys in the class. As I struggled to type 50 words per minute using a manual typewriter, there were a dozen girls who were typing at 90 words per minute.

If my classmates and I had been paid by the job classification "Typist," I would have loved paycheck fairness. The girls would have screamed, no doubt. If we had been paid based on productivity, then I would have been the one screaming.

Forty years ago, there were numerous sewing plants scattered throughout Appalachia. The plants had two things in common. All of the seamstresses were women. All were paid by piecework. 

When I was in college, I interviewed seamstresses at a rural Virginia sewing plant for an economics study. What surprised me the most was that the women preferred piecework compensation to an hourly wage. Regardless of their individual outputs, they believed they earned much more by the piecework method. And it did not bother them at all that some women sewed faster and, thus, made more money. 

It's one thing to pay people a wage based on job classification. It's quite another to pay them based on individual production or quality of work. Wages based on job classification merely hides the fact that no two workers produce equally. 

Your local fast food restaurant hires many burger flippers. It goes without saying that the best burger flippers (male or female) are scheduled to work the lunch trade. Lesser flippers, like "Lefty" (so named because of his nose-picking habit), are relegated to the slow shifts. 

If all of the burger flippers are paid the same hourly rate based on job classification, then the best of the lot are penalized to pay for the Lefties of this world. 

When I was in high school, Miss Pearl Custer ran the office almost by herself. She had an electric typewriter, a nice calculator and the help of female students who would volunteer to work in her office during their free periods.

Miss Custer ran a tight ship; she was not known to make mistakes.

Miss Custer retired after I graduated. Later on, I asked Mr. Jim Bennett, the school's principal, what it was like trying to replace Miss Custer. His answer: "It took three people and a computer." (He did not elaborate as to their gender or pay.)

I should mention that my high school enrolled about 1,000 students.

I have never met two people who perform equally in a given task.  On the other hand, everyone that I have met does have a knack for doing something very well. 

Consider these lyrics from the 1946 song "Choo, Choo, Ch' Boogie":

    You take your morning paper from the top of the stack / And read the situation from the front to the back.
    The only job that's open needs a man with a knack. / So put it right back in the rack, Jack!

According to the news reports that I read, the Paycheck Fairness Act does not apply to the federal government.  Maybe it would be a good idea for the feds to do a five-year test drive of the Act.  Then we, the people who can't do anything right on our own, would know whether it works or not