Not much going on. It’s a grey, blustery day here in OKC. Light rains off and on. We’re hoping they can get the footers dug out in the next couple of days and maybe pour concrete for footers on Friday, when it’s supposed to be in the 60’s here. At work, we are in a full court press to update the entire medical center and outlying clinics to Windows 7 with Office 2010 from XP/Office2007. It’s mostly going smoothly, but we are running into the usual teething pains involved in replacing or upgrading 2300 computers and 14 servers spread over western Oklahoma. Lastly, with the weather change, my left shoulder and arm are fucking killing me. You all remember the accident I got in last June. Well, I’m service-connected on my shoulders anyway (occupational illness of Infantrymen) and I can’t get into the Neurology or Pain clinics till next month. It was so bad yesterday that I had to take a couple of oxycodone and hang out doing nothing. Today is a little better.
The current hearing for PFC Bradley Manning’s impending Court-Martial has some new revelations after yesterday. First, that the trial will likely be postponed (again) to June, and second, that apparently, the Government intends to introduce evidence that Osama Bin Laden worked to obtain a copy of the Wikileaks archive. I haven’t found anything as to why they intend to introduce this evidence, but it’s probably intended to buttress their case on the Aiding the Enemy specification. I am not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure they would have to show that he either intended specifically that the enemy get that information, or that he specifically knew they enemy would get that information, not just that he was merely reckless in releasing it. I don’t know if they can point to his training where he would probably have been told that such was likely in order to prove that element. It has also been revealed that Manning has put forth an amended plea offer to plead guilty “by exceptions and substitutions” to even more of the charges that he is facing. The original offer was to plead guilty to seven of the twenty-one charges, for a total maximum penalty of sixteen years. This new blind plea offer would set his potential maximum sentence for those charges at twenty years. The Government can accept that deal in whole or in part, and can choose to proceed (or not) on any remaining charges at the sole discretion of the Convening Authority, the Major General who commands the Military District of Washington.
ruemara
I feel sorry for the boy. He should never have been anywhere near secret documents. It’s a terrible price to pay but anyone who was doing covert stuff and who’s cover was blown, they probably paid a higher price.
As it’s an open thread, I think I finally got the last of my hospital bills. Sums up to about $1700. I earn about $1066 a month. It’s going to be a hell of a negotiation. One thing confuses me. Why do you get a bill from the hospital, a bill from a doctor’s organization and a bill from some other medical thingy? Don’t hospitals just provide a bill anymore? Are doctors now day labour? I’ve 3 billing parties, no idea which is for what and I am very thankful for having insurance.
Mandalay
Someone escaping prosecution based on a technicality who didn’t deserve prosecution in the first place….
Ms Slater will be reunited with her mannequin, which is currently being held by Grampian Police, at a later date
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
Military prosecutors preparing to try Pfc. Bradley Manning said on Wednesday that they would introduce evidence that Osama bin Laden requested and received from a Qaeda member some of the State Department cables and military reports that Private Manning is accused of passing to WikiLeaks
I think this is good news for Manning. This seems a desperate move to augment the notion that security was breached. Mentioning the anti-christ’s interest in what Manning’s docdump provided is designed to create prejudice.
Apparently, there is a dearth of examples of harm, resulting from the leak.
henqiguai
From the top
Why not go with Office 2013? It’s coming soon, and there’s not much, if any, difference (i.e. deprecated items in the object model) in moving to 2013 than 2010.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Is it just me, or does it seem like Wikileaks is just begging to be exploited by intel professionals for the purpose of leaking fake data to mislead the opposition. I can only imagine what sort of crap would have been leaked by the Allies during WW2 if something like Wikileaks had existed back then.
Don
Better yet, replace ’em all with Macs, and relax.
Connor Cochran
Regarding your pain problems, you might want to explore Active release Techniques as a physical therapy method. My wife and I have both gotten incredibly positive results — she had chronic pain from several horse riding accidents for more than 20 years, and after a couple of months of A.R.T. work that pain is now gone; similarly I had once had serious carpal tunnel in both wrists and after five A.R.T. sessions was fine (not so much as a twinge now in 13 years). Go to http://www.activerelease.com/ for more details and to find a practitioner near you. (If you do try it, make sure you go to someone who has gone through all the certifications.)
MikeJ
@henqiguai:
Because there aren’t any chumps out there who have had to live with it and find the bugs yet. Never, ever, ever install new software on any scale larger than a few guinea pigs in dev or IT.
MattR
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Is that an Operation Mincemeat reference?
Punchy
I see these post titles and and think “What? Is something wrong with Payton’s neck again?”
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@MattR:
That, and dozens of other examples (like the fake Cross-Channel invasion that was supposed to land at Calais instead of Normandy) come to mind. It seems to me that in the long run the signal-to-noise ratio on Wikileaks is going to end up being whatever the professional intel community feels like is optimum for their purposes.
Cassidy
@ruemara: My guess is that the Provider is a contractor, either working contract with the hospital or working for an agency contracted with the hospital. So, you’re being charged by the hospital for use of the facility, supplies, nursing/ support staff, etc. The Doctor/ Agency is billing you seperately for their work, and no clue on the third without more details.
grape_crush
> …apparently, the Government intends to introduce evidence that Osama Bin Laden worked to obtain a copy of the Wikileaks archive. I haven’t found anything as to why they intend to introduce this evidence…
It’s a poor attempt to prove collusion by inferring that bin Laden and Manning (and Wikileaks) were somehow in cahoots, as if a bad guy who’s trying to glean intel is actually working directly with a media outlet or whistleblowers.
By that standard, this GOPer should still be in prison.
japa21
@ruemara: Quick answwer on the billings. The hospital bills for the specific facility charges the accompanied your treatment. However, if you had any of these things done in conjunction with that treatment, you will receive other billings:
ER treatment
Radiology
Lab tests
Anesthesia
A doctor other than your own (if you were inpatient)
All of these services are where the physician involved (ER doc, radiologist interpreting the tests, pathologists reviewing results, anesthesiologist) is an independent contractor and will bill separately.
ETA: Cassidy beat me to it. As to number three, that could many things, depending if there were ancillary services.
MikeJ
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Don’t forget Patton’s inflatable tanks.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
Then there’s this…..
Mr. Kiriakou first stumbled into the public limelight by speaking out about waterboarding on television in 2007, quickly becoming a source for national security journalists, including this reporter, who turned up in Mr. Kiriakou’s indictment last year as Journalist B. When he gave the covert officer’s name to the freelancer, he said, he was simply trying to help a writer find a potential source and had no intention or expectation that the name would ever become public. In fact, it did not surface publicly until long after Mr. Kiriakou was charged.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/us/former-cia-officer-is-the-first-to-face-prison-for-a-classified-leak.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Key words here for Kiriakou, stumbled and water-boarding…esecially WB, that which must be supported and never spoken of.
That’s key…..
Onihanzo
*sigh* Some of the recommendations made here (Macs? Seriously?) remind me why I hate dealing with the woefully uninformed committees at my place of work.
FlipYrWhig
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): don’t forget that Kiriakou “stumbled into the limelight” as a defender of water-boarding, not a critic of it.
Amir Khalid
@ruemara:
I believe it was the US Army’s mistake to accept Bradley Manning in the first place. That kid never belonged in the military.
Sooner, if I understand correctly, you said before that to prove Manning deliberately leaked to al-Qa’idah prosecutors might need to show some kind of collusion took place. And (so far) there doesn’t appear to be any evidence of that — no communication between them, or any hint of ideological ties. Why would they pick such a weak argument? That only leads the judge to thik they’ve got nothing.
Cassidy
Scrap the computers, everyone gets a Nexus 10. Done deal.
Suffern ACE
@japa21: Thus leading to my friend’s trouble a few years back when he failed to demand an in-network anesthesiologist for his surgery and the insurance company decided he should pay full price for that oversight.
Bmaccnm
@ruemara: I was going to comment on the 3 providers, but others have covered that better than I could. But a word about medical bills. The first bill you get, or even the first two or three bills you get, is not the final bill. It can take a few weeks to get a final bill after all the payers and weird deductions work their way through the system. I’ve been through this a few times, and my strategy is to get a file- even a file folder or a big mailing envelope, and put all the bills in it. If you are organized, you can paper clip like bills together. When a bill is marked final, call the provider and TELL them what you can afford to pay- $25,$50,$100/month, and then stick to it. As long as you are paying according to your agreement, they shouldn’t come after you. Good luck.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@FlipYrWhig:
Which kind of proves my point…..What have you done for us, lately?
Original Lee
Vis-a-vis the contraception mandate, I am truly puzzled as to why Hobby Lobby doesn’t just get rid of their health benefits and add back the portion of their employees’ compensation that would have gone for health insurance into paychecks, letting everyone out into the exchanges.
Other than FYO, I don’t think there’s any reason to cling to employer-provided healthcare, especially since they could have very easily said, “oops, didn’t see that contraception coverage in there, oh, well, we can’t be facilitating THAT”. Or is there a penalty in Obamacare for employers that try to do that?
I know the mandate doesn’t apply to small employers (fewer than 50 employees), even though there are a ton of “Christian” businesses that are using Obamacare as an excuse to cut everybody back to part time. As Fred Clark has pointed out on his Slacktivist blog, trying to micromanage what employees do with their paychecks is not new, but it’s also not Christian.
red dog
Why install a 5 year old windows 7 when everything is coming out in Windows 8. My Christmas laptop has windows 8 and I admit I liked 7 better. Maybe it is just the familiar.
Lee
@ruemara:
Just another suggestion.
You can go with $25/month route or if you have some savings. Tell them you’ll pay them X amount to settle.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
“No Penalty for Torture,” New York Times editorial, August 9, 2012
“At the start of his administration, President Obama said he wanted to ‘look forward,’ not back, on the actions of C.I.A. interrogators. In practice, the administration has chosen to look back selectively, eschewing prosecutions and civil relief for victims while pursuing criminal charges against a former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, on charges he disclosed the identity of other C.I.A. officers who participated in the interrogations.”
More Secrecy, Less Democracy,” Miami Herald editorial, August 9, 2012
“What’s worse is the Obama administration’s war against whistle-blowers. The president’s team has set a record for prosecuting leaks to the news media, with six cases to date, more than under all previous presidents combined. Mr. Obama’s Justice Department tried and failed to prosecute a former National Security Agency employee for the alleged leak of information about electronic eavesdropping and ‘data mining’ that appeared to bypass Constitutional safeguards. The most recent example is that of former CIA officer John Kiriakou, accused of disclosing “classified” information to journalists about the widely known practice of water boarding.”
japa21
@Suffern ACE: Most insurance companies now recognize that a patient does not have any control over who they get these services from and will treat them as in-network, even if they are not contracted with the insurance company. Many states, like Illinois, now have required by law, that they be treated that way, although they can reduce the amount of the claim.
Skerry
Another school shooting near Bakersfield, CA. At least 2 shot.
MikeJ
@red dog: It will be three years before any corporate customer installs Win 8 in any numbers, and then it will be locked down disabling the metro interface.
Onihanzo
@red dog: Your setup at home is no panacea to a full-scale business environment, especially a medical center and outlaying clinics. Not by a country mile.
Roger Moore
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I hadn’t thought of it as a disinformation release service, but it seems like a completely plausible idea. I suspect that the only reason it hasn’t been used that way yet is because it’s only come onto intel professionals’ radar recently. But yes, I expect it to be used to release carefully designed false information all the time.
Murphoney
Aiding the Enemy is a broad statute with loopholes going to the prosecution’s advantage. Cornell Law defines it:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/904
In the first definition, no intent is necessarily required — only that an action is made or attempted that would aid the enemy, including an attempt that employs “other things.” I think the prosecutor would only need to prove the potential for benefit to the enemy to satisfy the charge.
Steeplejack
@Cassidy:
The third could be an anesthesiologist, a lab (e.g., biopsy), a radiologist, etc., depending on the procedure.
PurpleGirl
@japa21: When I had an arthroscopic procedure on my left knee, the insurance company at first refused to pay for the hospital’s own pathology lab. (They didn’t have a separate contract with the lab, they said.) When I agreed to pay the lab charge, the insurance company turned around and paid the whole charge. Like I had control over where the pathology sample was sent, to begin with!
Cassidy
@Steeplejack: True. It really depends on what the hospital has in house. If they have their own lab, *you’ll usually only be billed for time and materials, etc.
*This is completely anecdotal from working in hospitals, so it is entirely possible that my experience(s) are not consistent with the rest of the country.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Murphoney:
I think the prosecutor would only need to prove WB is torturing
the potential for benefit tothe enemy to satisfy the charge.Fixed. Oh, wait….there is no charge.
Omnes Omnibus
The more I read of the Manning case, I am becoming convinced that the only thing the prosecution can really prove here is the counts dealing with improperly handling classified info. The fact that they are trying to shoehorn OBL into this smacks of desperation on the scary counts. They have Manning dead to rights on the downloading and dessiminatong classified info. The rest, doubtful.
FWIW I think Manning should win on the motion to bring in evidence as to motive, but not on the overclassification issue.
Murphoney
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): Sorry, I don’t follow. Who’s the what-now?
PurpleGirl
@red dog: I doubt that the VA medical system is able to buy all new touch screen monitors. Besides Windows 8 changes a lot of stuff around and the last thing the system needs is to require everyone to learn all new routines.
In my last job I worked in an organization with 50-odd staff and everyone had a computer. Not everyone was a user at the same level and you HAD to consider that when it came to the software being used. The “regular” office staff had to have experience with any program so they could help the field staff when they were in the office and using their computers.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Murphoney:
If the obvious inconsistency escapes you, there is no further need for inquiry.
Carry on. That is all……
Murphoney
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin):
Since I don’t know what you’re saying, I cannot tell whether an inconsistency has escaped me.
If you don’t want to tell me, I’m not concerned about it.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Murphoney:
I’m not concerned about it.
That was obvious from your first comment; hence my response.
Murphoney
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin):
First base.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Murphoney:
Third base.Triple…
Omnes Omnibus
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): Not prosecuting people for torture is wrong. That being said, the idea that, if one type of crime goes unprosecuted
trollhattan
Freedom(tm) comes to lowly Taft, CA.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/01/10/5105790/shooting-reported-at-high-school.html#storylink=cpy
Gex
So far it has been a good day here in the hospital. It is day 7, and the blood work for my GF shows improvement in many areas.
White blood cells are up.
Hemoglobin is up.
Platelets rose instead of fell after yesterday’s transfusion. Apparently that is one of the last components to rebound as your marrow heals.
We don’t have the neutrophil count yet, but they showed up in the tests for the first time yesterday. We finally have an immune system that is coming online and joining the fight.
Game on, germs.
I did notice when posting updates to friends on Facebook, that spell check likes to offer up “necrophiliacs” for the word “neutrophil.” It is bad if her neutrophils are uncountable. It is preferable if her necrophiliacs are uncountable.
sharl
@Murphoney: You provided a relevant link and discussion; thanks for that, it is appreciated. And unless you did a cold Google search, it might even be reasonable to conclude you know a thing or two about the topic.
As far as confusing exchanges at this place:
…Forget it,
JakeMurphoney, it’sChinatownBalloon-Juice.Roger Moore
@Bmaccnm:
It can take longer than that. I know somebody who’s gotten corrections and adjustments to bills more than a year after the treatment. Wingnuts will tell you that the solution to out of control medical costs is for the magic of the market to do its work. That would be a more plausible solution if medical providers could decide what a procedure costs before you have it.
Culture of Truth
I believe it was the US Army’s mistake to accept Bradley Manning in the first place. That kid never belonged in the military.
I believe their real mistake was in giving him and so many others, needlessly, full access to so much information. All state dept. cables? It’s really amazing. They practically disclosed it themselves.
Gex
@MikeJ: Our IT department has a policy of never adopting MS products before SP 1 comes out.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gex: Good thoughts for you and your gf.
Roger Moore
@Original Lee:
Because that would put employees in control of their own health care decisions. Assholes like Hobby Lobby don’t want that. If they could get away with it, they’d happily go back to paying employees in scrip that could only be redeemed for goods in the company store and rent in company housing. Their goal is to be like Feudal Lords ruling over the smallest details of their
serfs’employees’ lives.Gex
@Suffern ACE: This points me to some of the worst aspects of our health care system.
The GF and I are fortunate to have good insurance. But we are also hurting financially as she has been out of works since 2008. We can’t afford to give BCBS *any* openings to deny coverage, so you do what they tell you.
Further, we have found it critical for her to use marijuana medically. It was the only thing that gave her any kind of appetite. And we needed it to reduce the nausea enough to allow her to keep her anti-nausea medications down.
But…we don’t dare tell our doctors about it. If one note makes it onto a chart, I’m pretty sure BCBS could find a way to start denying claims. Forcing patients to withhold information from their doctors is terrible health care policy outcome.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I thought you would edit, but will assemble.
I think Selective Prosecution should be a crime, in-and-of-itself.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin):
Once again, simply leaking classified information, irrespective of any demonstrable harm to the US or any of her agents, is enough to put you away for 10 years or so.
The government is desperately trying to save face over the conditions of Manning’s confinement, so they’re trying to sex up the “aiding the enemy” part of the complaint. As if that would somehow justify it.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@sharl:
He wasn’t confused. He was evasive.
sharl
@Culture of Truth: Yeah, by putting full focus on Manning, the spotlight gets conveniently shifted away from a number of inconvenient facts about this whole business. The loose control over classified information – even the relatively low-level classified stuff in question here – is one of those issues. And I also wonder if Manning’s superiors were ever sanctioned or otherwise disciplined over this. Not being a hard-core student of this case, I could have missed a discussion of this in the news, but this aspect definitely hasn’t gotten the more intense attention it deserves.
One thing that I do remember reading is that this situation came about in part because of the post-9/11 analysis of intelligence failures. One of those identified failures was excessive “stovepiping” of intelligence. The Army’s handling of what was previously handled exclusively by the State Department came about in response to that. Unfortunately, there was apparently not much thought and/or effort put into that de-stovepiping process.
Cassidy
@sharl: That’s not exactly the way it works. Intel people work in a secure environment. Theoretically, they’ve already ben checked out prior to being stationed there, so they are trusted with information within that environment. For all intents and purposes, his ability to handle classified info and sneak it out was based on the trust of the people he worked with/ for who never conceived that he would do something like that.
ruemara
@Gex: Good news, indeed. Pulling for you guys.
I don’t think we need a new thread but…Pete King, still an asshole.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/05/1402821/rep-steve-king-opens-new-congress-with-unconstitutional-bill-to-end-birthright-citizenship/
Thanks in regard to the billing question. I wish they just lump summed it, but I do understand why that is probably not feasible. I still think that if I’m paying that much, I should have had at least 1 prescription for a fun drug.
Soonergrunt
@henqiguai: above my paygrade, but essentially it hasn’t been tested in our environment yet. I’m sure it wouldn’t be a problem, but it takes forever to do anything in a medical environment. The liability risks are so high it’s ridiculous.
Soonergrunt
@Don: except for the massive security holes that the vendor won’t admit to or patch in a timely manner, and the complete unwillingness to give access to the kernal or any other part of the OS that the vendor displays, yeah. That would be great.
There are a lot of reasons that Macs are not the staple system in the corporate environment. Cost is but one.
Bmaccnm
@Roger Moore: I’m in the field (CNM= Certified Nurse Midwife). You can’t always know what a procedure will cost before hand because you don’t always know all the variables. People really are different on a structural, cellular level. One woman may breeze through a birth needing nothing, another woman (or the same woman in her next birth) may need a multiplicity of interventions and repairs.
Roger Moore
@Gex:
Neutrophils are good. They’re the shortest lived immune cell- they last only about 24 hours- so having them around is proof that her marrow is actually growing new cells. It’s definitely good news, though not as good as having a nice, high count would be.
And a helpful tip, assuming your doctors don’t tell you: have a cleaning service go to your house and clean it a while before you take GF home. Your house is likely to be dirty from you being too busy to clean it, but cleaning can stir up mold spores that are very dangerous to anyone with a compromised immune system. Get some professionals to do it for you long enough in advance that any dust they stir up has time to settle before GF gets there.
sharl
@Cassidy: Fair enough, although I think that folks inside the State Department “intelligence family” would have felt more possessive about this information, and introduced safeguards accordingly (including being more sensitive to someone acting hinky around their precious intelligence assets).
[Of course, it wasn’t all State Department embassy cables, so there still would have been some stuff for BM to release even if the old agency stovepiping were still in place.]
Do you think that, due to desperate personnel/staffing shortages, the Army got too loose in its security clearance investigations, in the same way that it got loose in its recruiting standards? From what little I have read, Manning had flashing red warning lights all over him from Day One. Amir is right: the dude should have never been let into the Army.
Soonergrunt
@Amir Khalid: Honestly, I don’t know. I suspect that it’s an intentional over-charging to scare the accused and his counsel into pleading to lesser charges (and possibly co-operating with the government, against Assange or other parties but this last part is pure speculation on my part) and I’ve had a couple of civilian lawyers who do defense at the military bar tell me that they suspect the “overcharge to scare him into pleading” scenario as well.
Soonergrunt
@red dog: It took this long just to get all the medical software in line. That stuff takes forever, due to the liability issues.
Roger Moore
@Bmaccnm:
I understand that. I’m not saying that it’s necessarily unreasonable for medical providers to be unable to provide prices in advance; there’s always a chance of an unexpected complication. But it’s certainly unreasonable to say that the solution to medical price inflation is comparison shopping when patients don’t and can’t know what something will cost in advance.
Gex
@Omnes Omnibus: Many thanks. Feeling a lot better after two days of good news.
Omnes Omnibus
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): I blame my phone.
Prosecutors use their discretion all the time. Not every crime is prosecuted; resources just aren’t there. Prosecutors choose who they will go after and what charges to file. This has always been the case.
Now, the question of whether prosecutorial resources are aimed in the right direction is something else. As I said above, I think the lack of torture prosecutions is wrong. I doubt that anyone at the very top willeverbe held accountable; just being realistic. I would like to see some flag level military and SES level civilians nailed to the wall as an example.
Soonergrunt
@Murphoney: In the military context, it is charged under Article 104, UCMJ:
ART. 104. AIDING THE ENEMY
Any person who–
(1) aids, or attempts to aid, the enemy with arms, ammunition, supplies, money, or other things; or
(2) without proper authority, knowingly harbors or [protects or gives intelligence to or communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly;
shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ucmj2.htm#904.%20ART.%20104.%20AIDING%20THE%20ENEMY
Note that this charge was referred specifically as a non-capital offense.
henqiguai
@Soonergrunt (#63): but essentially it hasn’t been tested in our environment yet.
Yeah, well, it hasn’t really been tested in most places yet, I would wager. I’m busily going through Microsoft’s published compatibility issues document (for migration purposes) and it’s driving me to distraction. And I’m just QA, not a developer having to implement the stuff.
Cassidy
@sharl: I have a couple of responses.
Information isn’t nearly as classified as it’s portrayed to be. In 99, I was in bosnia and we got a “classified” brief about Serbian Special Forces slipping into Bosnia and Croatia to harass NATO forces, wreak havoc, etc. The very next day, the same thing was reported on CNN. This was obviously pre-9/11, but even after that, if you walked into a unit’s Oepration Center, there is all kinds of classified information to be seen and the reality s that people get lax and comfortable with who they’re working around.
No, I don’t think the military got loose in it’s security guidelines. I think his Chain of Command a) needed butts in seats to deploy and b) got lax in enforcing security protocols. For all intents and purposes, he met the requirement needed to be cleared to work in his position. When it was noticed that he was an at risk Soldier, he should have probably had his clearance suspended and moved to a less secure job. That might ave resulted in a MOS reclassification, though, and his unit would have been short one more person for manpower purposes.
For me, the end result is this. He did something wrong and knew he was doing something wrong and that broke the law. He deserves punishment for it. As a former AD NCO (current Reservist)I am disgusted at the abuse he recieved under confinement and outraged that his leadership didn’t do their job back when they could have intervened in this kid’s life. He should not have been in the Army in the first place. Prior to the wars, this was someone who would have washed out of Basic for being not being…Type A, enough. I don’t know how to put that better. Once he was in, his leadership should have recognized that he was not suited to be a Soldier and chaptered him out and let him go his merry way, no harm no foul. This kid’s life is ruined and essentially over, but he’s not the only one to blame.
Gex
@Roger Moore: That is a great suggestion. I am going to do just that.
My friends and family have gently mocked the lengths to which I’ve gone to manage this situation. I’ve designed daily forms to ask her the questions that need to be asked and record the info that needs to record. I packed a rolling suitcase with the file folders and supplies I needed to take care of any question or nearly any need of hers that came up. OCD can be a great thing if you can find a good outlet for it!
I think part of me just decided early on that this is cancer. If you really want to beat it, you bring your A game. So your suggestion is really appreciated.
Bmaccnm
@Roger Moore: I don’t think comparison shopping by the consumer is the solution to medical price inflation period. Consumers, i.e., patients, are in no position to be comparison shopping. Reducing price inflation is the role of providers, and if they can’t reduce inflation, the role of regulators.
Soonergrunt
@Cassidy: Yup. And while I agree that there should have been much better controls in place over who gets to access what information, the fact remains that the availability of that information on the SIPR and/or the Centrix to PFC Manning does not relieve him of the legal responsibility to not expose that information to persons not cleared to see it.
If the cops in my town are lazy and ineffective, that does not give me the legal right to knock over a 7/11.
Roger Moore
@Gex:
I work doing research at a cancer hospital, and one of my colleagues works on secondary fungal infections in immunocompromised patients. He says that they’re the single most dangerous thing facing patients once they get through their primary treatment, and that the available treatments are hellaciously expensive and not very effective. By far the best shot is to avoid infection, and beyond basic stuff like breathing masks, hiring professionals to clean the patient’s house a day or two before they come home is by far the most cost effective intervention they’ve found. I figure it’s also nice to come home to a professionally cleaned home, which is a nice bonus.
schrodinger's cat
@Gex: If you have pets, give them a bath. Also make sure that patient is getting enough protein, Add skim milk powder to regular milk to get more protein. I have cared for a patient with lymphoma whose neutropenia was acute after treatments. Good luck!
Maude
@Soonergrunt:
Win 8 has a Vista smell.
Win 7 is okay.
I stuck with Word 2003. No funky code that causes problems. But, I am home, not where you are.
Gex
@Roger Moore:
@schrodinger’s cat:
Awesome info. We have been working really hard on nutrition, but I hadn’t tried the skim milk powder yet. Part of the problem is that the first chemo was too strong and we ended up here really fast. But I will need these tools going forward.
sharl
@Cassidy: Thanks, that all makes sense. And I agree with you, including the bit that Manning should not get off scot-free on this. Damn shame though; it didn’t have to come to this.
Barry
@ruemara: “As it’s an open thread, I think I finally got the last of my hospital bills. Sums up to about $1700. I earn about $1066 a month. It’s going to be a hell of a negotiation. One thing confuses me. Why do you get a bill from the hospital, a bill from a doctor’s organization and a bill from some other medical thingy? Don’t hospitals just provide a bill anymore? Are doctors now day labour? I’ve 3 billing parties, no idea which is for what and I am very thankful for having insurance. ”
Frequently doctors bill separately. The third thingie might be a mistake, as various offices within the hospital do their stuff.
Talk with the billing department of the hospital. I’ve been billed for charge which should have fallen under my insurance, probably just due to complexity, chaos and confusion.
schrodinger's cat
@Gex: You are welcome, the skim milk powder was a suggestion by the nutritionist who worked with patients who were getting chemo. Check out what extra services the hospital offers.
Gex
@schrodinger’s cat: I mentioned in the other thread how amazing it is to see our health care system do what it does when it is at it’s best. (We’re nowhere near the bill settlement portion of this so it’s easy to appreciate right now.)
It is amazing the resources they make available to you now. And how much of the process of walking you through cancer care is automated. As soon as we got a diagnosis and selected an oncologist, they have driven the care and the scheduling. We just need to put one foot in front of the other.
Nutritionists, palliative care, counseling. It can be really amazing to see what we are capable of.
schrodinger's cat
@Gex: Some hospitals even have arts programs. BTW don’t forget to take care of yourself, being a caregiver is exhausting.
Soonergrunt
@sharl: No, it didn’t. Had his chain of command done their jobs, they would have done right by him and by us.
Sometimes, removing a Soldier from his/her job, or even from the Army, is the best thing a leader can do for that Soldier.
schrodinger's cat
@Soonergrunt: Good I found you, I have a question for you, after I updated my Dell 700m
to Windows 7 the DVD player stopped working, Dell does not make Windows 7 Drivers for 700m, so the DVD drive does not work, is there an easy fix to this problem? It is not a major problem since I have other computers, but I like to take this little laptop with me when I travel so having a workable DVD drive is a nice bonus.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Cassidy:
Well put. Yes, Manning should be punished because he broke the rules and he knew that he was breaking them. As you mentioned, there were people all along the way who should have recognized that he was troubled and yet they just passed him along rather than getting him out of the Army. Those people failed him and they ought to get their asses reamed for that.
Soonergrunt
@schrodinger’s cat: Well, it doesn’t make drivers for Win7 for that system, but that normally doesn’t matter. The drive should work for data. For viewing DVDs, you’ll need software, but Win 7 should be able to do that with Windows Media Player, but if not, there are plenty of shareware/freeware options available, and the best source for those is http://downloads.zdnet.com/category/13570/
Mnemosyne
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin):
Poor, poor John Kiriakou, who went on national TV to let us all know that torture works.
You guys sure can pick your martyrs.
Soonergrunt
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Several of them did.
His First Sergeant was administratively reduced from E-8 to E-7, and his Company Commander was relieved from his post and had a General Officer’s Letter of Reprimand entered into his personnel record.
In both cases that’s the effective end of promotions, and their careers.
schrodinger's cat
@Soonergrunt: It works for data but I cannot use it to see movies, I have the Media Player, I should try some other software.
Gex
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Similar to the RCC. No one is saying the pedophile priests are not culpable. But leadership clearly failed in their duties. It doesn’t have to be an ‘or’ situation.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Soonergrunt:
Good to hear. Thank you for updating me.
Although I was only a lowly NCO in the Navy. When I got my stripes my division officer took the good time and trouble to give me a nice, long talk about how being in charge of people meant that I was also responsible for them. My Chief subsequently gave me the same talk, albeit in much more colorful anchor-clanker language.
T Bombadil
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): My thought too as I read it. Why the dramatics?
Especially since they are not trying to corral and entire jury.
Soonergrunt
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: When I was promoted to Corporal, my Squad Leader said to me “When your Soldiers fuck up–and they WILL fuck up–I’m coming to tear a piece off of YOUR ass. Welcome to the NCO Corps!”
Onihanzo
@schrodinger’s cat: Give VLC or GOM a shot.
WaterGirl
@Gex: Your “Game on, germs” brought to mind the explanation of the good germ soldiers and the bad germ soldiers that my mom used to give us when we sick when we were little. Thanks for the memory!
Awfully glad that things to seem to be turning a corner for you guys.
WaterGirl
@Gex: We have a little saying in our family that is part self-mockery and part acknowledgement of a good coping mechanism:
When the going gets tough, the tough start organizing.
We didn’t start out to do that intentionally, but over time we discovered the the 3 sisters and daughters of the sisters all happen to share this little trait. When all the big stuff is out of control, we control what we can! :-)
mclaren
Inasmuch as you explicitly told me you hoped I “die in a fire” screaming in unbearable agony, I guess I should tell to f*** off and deal with your pain…but, unlike you, the rest of aren’t sociopaths. So I really do hope you find a way to alleviate your chronic pain.
There’s been some research with “brain pacemakers” that send signals to areas of the brain that light up in chronic pain. Let’s hope this kind of research progresses fast enough to give some help soon. Chronic pain is terrible and life-destroying, and my heart goes out to you.
handsmile
Huh. Last night on “The Best Revenge” Open Thread, I posted an update on the Manning case including details not mentioned above (though soonergrunt does expand upon elements from today’s NYT article) and not a single reply. I get home tonight and discover that there’s serious interest in the matter after all. And Manning’s court marital trial has been postponed now to at least June 3.
Clearly I don’t understand how this works. And sooner, since you don’t reply to my comments directly to you, I regret any unintended previous offense.
WaterGirl
@handsmile: I just checked the Best Revenge thread to see if I’d seen your comment. For what it’s worth, I remembered reading 4 of your 5 comments and had thought they were interesting. I just didn’t reply!
I forget sometimes how often I feel when I comment – and maybe others feel this, too – that I am talking to no one, or maybe to myself. :-)
Tehanu
@henqiguai:
Office 2010 was designed by and for illiterate morons, and they actually reduced the amount of control over defaults (e.g., table properties) that you had in previous versions, without fixing any of the weird workarounds they have been carrying since approximately the 1st iteration of Word. Why on earth they think people want to memorize a shitload of non-intuitive pictures (ooh, shiny?) instead of just reading the names of things, I have no idea. No, on 2nd thought, I do have an idea: to suck yet more money out of corporate I.T. departments, also run by illiterates.
David Koch
Free Mumia!
Soonergrunt
@mclaren: Thanks for the advice, and here’s some from me: Don’t tell a Vet that his brothers who’ve died in combat deserved it. Don’t suggest that he’s a rapist because he wears a uniform. Don’t suggest that he should be tortured.
Don’t do any of these things, and that person, Vet or not, probably won’t suggest that you die screaming in fire.
Most of all, don’t whine and act like your feelings are hurt when you get the exact emotional response you were trolling for.