Another counter-point would be that I eat meat and in our society meat (and food in general) is more entertainment than nourishment, but that's stretching it.
I hope that all of your meat, eggs, milk, and other animal-based products come from small farms where you can verify the treatment of the animals. Otherwise, you're simply outsourcing your animal torture to ADM and Cargill.
You are clearly no beekeeper, or have even read much about the hobby/profession.
I am a beekeeper and your statement remains meaningless. I might disagree with "requires almost no interaction with the bees" but the GP's basic point remains.
I don't assume, I read a number of descriptions of what happened.
Then you should keep reading because you've obviously missed some details.
The lawyers you engage in step 3 would be happy to explain why trying to "creatively" make bad-faith efforts is not a smart approach.
The fact that they essentially thumbed their noses at the FBI, NSA, and federal courts without legal ramification tells a thinking man that their attorneys were very much engaged in making sure they toed the line without crossing it. Believe it or not, there are actual attorneys out there who are willing to operate on the edges of a broken system in the fight for what's right.
I don't think so. There's a big difference between the legal firepower available to a small service provider like Lavabit and someone like Yahoo or Google...
Then you should think again. The difference is the willingness of a small company to stand up for their values versus a large company's desire to continue making money. Yahoo! challenged the so-called "Protect America Act" in 2008, arguing that the broad, warrantless Internet surveillance (in which they were required to participate) was unconstitutional. The case was sent to the FISA Court, which rejected their arguments. They were allowed to appeal to the FISA Court of Review (one of only two meetings of the court in 33 years), where they also lost. The ruling included this gem: "...efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts."
...and handing over the ability to read everything is definitely not something that a simple warrant can legally require.
Wrong again. A good deal of the data collected and stored by the NSA's PRISM program didn't even require a warrant. Other items were obtained with overly broad and legally unsound "warrants". For example, Verizon has been providing detailed telephone records to the NSA on every call in its systems for months.
The FISA courts were created by Congress, the same as any other Federal court besides the Supreme Court. The FISA court is accountable to both its appeal court and the Supreme Court like other Federal Courts, and the Judges can be removed by Congress as can other Judges. In fact, the Judges on the FISA court are ordinary Federal judges that rotate through the FISA court from other Federal courts.
The FISA Court is accountable to no one. The FISA Court meets in secret and only one side is represented, so there is no possibility of appeal for those whose rights are trampled. The FISA Court has denied only 11 of 33,942 requests in its 33 years of operation and the FISA Court of Review has met a total of twice in that time period. The design and operation of the FISA Court provides no path for accountability to the Supreme Court. Even if the telecom companies that were required to provide customer data to the government wanted to appeal, there is no requirement that their arguments are considered (the FISA Court allowed Yahoo! to appeal in 2008 so that the law in question could be ruled okay and a heavily redacted ruling released to make sure no one else bothers to try). No FISA-related case has ever gone to the Supreme Court and it isn't clear how one could.
Congress has no oversight of the judges. Each judge is appointed by the Supreme Court Chief Justice with no oversight or confirmation by anyone else, including Congress. In the 33 years of FISA, we've had three chief justices, all conservative Republicans. John Roberts appointed every single FISA Court judge currently serving.
Your dishonesty regarding FISA is troubling. Either you are ignorant of something you strongly support or you are lying in hopes of deceiving others.
No. You should have a good reason for telling them "no", then you should tell them "no" with your reason, and get lawyers involved. Pretending to technically comply with a court order while making an obviously obstructive, bad-faith effort is a good way to ensure that things go rapidly downhill for you.
Why do you assume that Lavabit did not say "no", provide the reasons, and engage lawyers? When you are told by a judge that your arguments do not matter and you must compromise both your values and your core business model, creatively dragging your feet can be the only option left.
Did those 2 seats belong to the Democratic party? No? Why is that? Neither a Democratic, nor a Republican candidate owned those seats.
Pretending Joe Lieberman was an Independent is laughable. He was a hair's breadth from being the nation's Vice President as a Democrat and was supported by the Republicans in his campaign as an "independent". He lost the support of the local Democrats because of his war hawk and neo-con positions. Bernie is indeed outside the mainstream and a legitimate independent politician. He's also an anomaly. 1 out of 535. Let's talk when he's one of 30 or 40.
You're also conveniently pretending the Tea Party has had no effect on U.S. politics.
I said that? I said nothing about the Tea Party because I had no interest in that part of your comment. Of course they've had an impact. But they're also a movement within the GOP that is shaping the GOP's platform from within. They are not a third party.
If I recall correctly, Obamacare's vote was divided by party lines. The only way it passed was by courting independent seats into joining the democrats. Courting independent seats means you need to offer them some red meat to bring them to your side.
You are aware that this block of independent seats does not exist, right? The House of Representatives hasn't had a non-R/D in almost a decade and hasn't had more than 2 (out of 435) since WWII. The Senate has a single Independent (Bernie Sanders, who considers himself a democratic socialist) who caucuses with the Democrats. Joe Lieberman also was considered an Independent for his last term in office because he lost the Democratic primary but won the general election with support from the national Republican party.
Basically, third party voters don't even need to win elections to make a difference.
Your post in no way actually supported this conclusion.
You can disagree but you're wrong. When Perot made a reasonable showing in 1992, the R/D party changed the rules to virtually eliminate third parties from all future televised debates. At the national level, there is no means for someone outside the R/D power structure to get elected.
The guy who installed my septic system used to help his father-in-law drill water wells. A guy wanted a well and fancied himself a water witcher. He told them where to drill. When the first hole came up dry he claimed they drilled off of his mark. When the second hole came up dry he said they were drilling slightly crooked. When the third hole came up dry the driller made the guy an offer - let him pick his own spot to drill the next hole: if it comes up dry too the guy doesn't owe him a dime but if he hits water he has pay for all four holes. They agreed and the well driller hit water on his first try.
Japan's reaction is ridiculous, and blatant protectionism. A tiny amount of GMO contamination in 2 billion bushels isn't a crisis.
How exactly is this blatant protectionism? Japan is the world's sixth largest importer of wheat and one of the US's largest customers. Japan's domestic wheat market accounts for 10% of their usage and there isn't much they can do to increase that. Your statement makes no sense.
Not even the US has approved GMO wheat. Despite Monsanto's press release claiming that this particular gene has been tested and approved, this is not true in the organism in which it was found in Oregon. Monsanto's GMO wheat trials were canceled largely due to the world's largest wheat importers making clear that they would not accept GMO wheat.The EU has said it will begin testing US wheat and will reject any found to contain GMOs. Many nations still refuse to accept any GMO food imports.
Your analogy of the architect is close, but even then you'd still be foolish not to have any record of what you asked for in the first place (did you really just recite what you wanted from your head, having made no notes at all?)
Now you're starting to get it. You just agreed that the grant team for the State failed dramatically.
...in the WV situation it's confused by multiple people and bureaucracy being involved, with all the plausible deniability that entails.
There is zero plausible deniability for those truly at fault. Read the auditor's report. Politics kept the report from recommending any action against Jimmy and his group, but the report makes it clear who failed, how, and why.
Oh it certainly looks very plausible that there was corruption somewhere in the State Office of Technology (not Homeland Security)
Then you should look closer. The head of Homeland Security, Jimmy Gianato, was the grant administrator and this is but one of several gross abuses of the federal money. OT didn't even know about the purchase until the last second. They initially resisted then the head of the department suddenly signed off on it despite objections from the staff, meaning political pressure was brought to bear.
the Cisco engineer in question can't produce any documentation that backs up his claims that he was just following the spec he'd been given by the state. Given this documentation would exonerate him, it seems telling that he can't provide it - specifications for a $24 million bid don't just go missing...
Read the auditor's report - they don't exist. Most of his work was based on two days of meetings. The spec was what he produced from those meetings and the state signed off on it. Why would you think it is his responsibility to maintain this, even if he had it?
If I meet with an architect, describe my dream home, then sign off on the blueprint he creates, would you later say he cheated me because he has no detailed documentation of my original request? I accepted the blueprint. I said it is what I asked him to do. I own it now.
I'm not saying I support Cisco in this, but I can't say I blame them much.
How was their quote inflated? They didn't overcharge for the equipment provided and they provided the equipment the customer wanted.
I agree completely that the equipment is oversized and inappropriate. That the money could have been better spent on a mixture of bandwidth and lower-tier equipment. That the State and the US taxpayers got a raw deal on how the money was spent. However, it was the grant administrator in the state's Homeland Security department that decided to spent $X on Cisco equipment instead of bandwidth or other things. He decided that there was no need to consult those who would know the state's needs. He decided to use Cisco and Verizon rather than go through the legal purchasing process. He decided to just get the same oversized model for every single location.
I'd love to see Cisco help improve the situation by providing the appropriate equipment and taking the other stuff back for trade-in. But before anyone considers a punitive action against them, and particularly the engineer caught up in this mess, I expect to see terminations and prosecutions of the political appointees that caused it.
That argument is pretty much the same as claiming an unlocked door makes theft the fault of the home-owner i.e. you're blaming the victim and absolving the perpetrator of any responsibility.
No, it is exactly nothing like that. The perpetrator was the State's group charged with spending the federal stimulus money, and Jimmy Gianato specifically. The victim is the US taxpayer who's money was given to politically-connected companies (the boondoggle is much bigger than this router purchase). The State employees charged with managing the grant did not do any needs assessments or verification that the equipment they were purchasing would be useful. They went to Cisco with a dollar amount that they needed to spend and a few ideas of what they might want. They got what they wanted - money disbursed, a bunch of it going to the state CTO's previous employeer (Verizon), and some toys for the state if they can figure out what to do with them.
In this case, they have a federal stimulus grant to spend so the process was much different.
1) The state Homeland Security people do not consult the state's IT folks, instead working directly with Cisco (and perhaps consultants) to create a project that spends the money they need gone and seems defensible. 2) The equipment is sold through the VAR who used to employ the state's CTO. 3) So much money was spent on unneeded equipment, most locations have insufficient connectivity to even use it.
I'm getting tired of people translating this meme into reasons why a sales rep performed jackassery like the sale in question. Yes, the company owes its shareholders a true and ongoing effort to make their shares valuable. Part of that effort includes making the company valuable by maintaining its market-worthiness through the stewardship of its reputation with its customers.
But when the customer comes to Cisco with a giant federal stimulus grant check and tells them they need to spend it all ASAP, is it really in their best interest to say "No, we won't take your money. Go give it to one of our competitors."? I don't disagree that this was a huge waste of money and corrupt from the core, but the corruption is on the part of the Homeland Security folks in state government.
The problem is that the citizens of the state and all US taxpayers (since this was a federal stimulus grant) were taken. The political appointees running this boondoggle got exactly what they wanted, minus the spotlight now shining on it. And the State is (successfully so, judging from media coverage) shifting the blame to a single Cisco engineer.
No, the way to win would have been to conduct a proper tender exercise. Write a specification, and hire an independent consultant to help review bids against it, if you aren't smart enough to do that in house.
But you're missing the basic point - the State's goal was to spend a lot of federal grant money on technology related to homeland security. In keeping with the long-standing tradition, a huge sum of that money personally profited friends and family of those in charge. A formal specification, RFP, and review process would have opened the door to others who weren't supposed to get a piece of the pie, and risked shining light on the process. By doing it under the table with the State CTO's former employer, they were able to do what they wanted and apparently get away with it since the blame is being heaped on a Cisco engineer instead of the actual culprits.
I likewise call WV home and I've been in IT here for nearly two decades. I've worked directly with Mark Williamson, the Cisco engineer being scapegoated in this mess, many times over the years. I'll say going in that I know I may come off as a Cisco shill. You're welcome to review my post history to see otherwise. I have purchased, implemented, and managed their products at my jobs over the years and I'm fairly agnostic about brand at this point. However, a few things need to be said about this issue and how it is being presented.
The politicians in Charleston are responsible for this. Period. The auditor's report blames Cisco for undermining the purchasing process because the government employees didn't follow the law. It isn't Cisco's responsibility to put a purchase out to bid. The state government approached them with the grant money and a request to help them spend it. This exact routine happens regularly. This one just happens to be so egregious that local newspaper reporter (Eric Eyre with the Charleston Gazette) refused to let it pass unnoticed.
The bloggers who are personally attacking Mark (and posting his email and phone numbers with urges to tell him what you think) are allowing the state's shuffling of blame to work. In half a dozen projects that he's helped me spec over the years, he was never the least bit underhanded or disingenuous. I know my stuff and do not take well to bullshit from vendors. I occasionally had to put the local Cisco rep in his place, but I never had to do that with Mark.
Mark is an engineer, not a salesman. He builds quotes based upon the needs of the customer. The customer's need in this case was to spend a pile of grant money on technology somehow related to homeland security. Show me the State's RFP and agreement with Cisco that contradicts what Cisco ultimately sold and I'll concede a lot of this. Until then, I fail to see how Cisco, and Mark personally, is at fault for doing exactly what they were asked to do.
By focusing the blame on Cisco, the State is successfully deflecting attention from the countless other scandals in this grant. The state Homeland Security chief, Jimmy Gianato was the grant administrator and led the project. Despite the position taken by the auditor, he still defends the purchase as appropriate. Mr. Gianato also defended paying his 25 year old son $73,000 of grant money across four months to help design and build a dozen microwave towers. He then defended hiring his son at $37,500 per year to inspect the same towers for the State. His son worked out of his home and was provided all expenses (rental vehicles, meals, lodging, gas, and other incidentals on his personal credit card) paid out of the grant.
One last tidbit that everyone seems to be ignoring - the equipment was specced and provided by Cisco but it was not sold to the state by Cisco. They work through their partner network for the sales. The primary VAR for that in WV is Verizon's Network Integration group. Our state CTO, Gale Givens, was a career Verizon executive, recently in charge of the territory that includes WV. VNI made a pretty penny for little effort on this deal.
This stimulus money was treated as a windfall by Jimmy Gianato and abused like every pork barrel project in WV has been for as long as anyone remembers. Allowing the State to pin the blame on one (genuinely nice) engineer at Cisco is only continuing the abuse of the system by those really guilty here.
When my dad was a kid, his uncle kept bees in hollowed out logs and used absolutely no protective gear when he worked them. I helped Dad occasionally with his when I was younger but only recently got involved again. My oldest is 12 and will have his own bee suit this year.
I don't ever see us getting by on nothing but farm income. We raise a small herd of cattle, raise chickens, grow a large garden, keep bees, and do countless other self-sufficient activities but I still have a full-time job. Last week I had some t-bone steaks from a young heifer we raised and butchered this past fall. She lived her life on pasture and was two-years old (ancient in the commercial beef market) when slaughtered. Those t-bones were, without a doubt, the most tender steaks I have ever had the pleasure to cook and eat. Yesterday's dinner was a pork roast from the pig we raised last year. Breakfast today was eggs from our chickens.
I know, with reasonable certainty, what went into the production of a good portion of my food. I know the life it lived. I am able to select varieties that are more flavorful (in the case of vegetables) or more self-sufficient themselves (in the case of animals). I know the level of antibiotics used and why.
I likewise love dark and flavorful honey. We keep about 20 hives and always grow multiple plantings of buckwheat in the end our garden. It is especially nice in late summer when few other things are blooming. The bees have something to work and the honey is almost nothing but buckwheat.
We have about 20 hives and likewise occasionally feed sugar water, particularly during periods of limited blooms, to maintain the health of the hive. However, there is a big difference between what hobby producers and large commercial producers do. You can get a lot more honey if you feed cheap HFCS instead of relying on the fickle natural blooms. Bee keepers who care about the quality of the honey do need feed during the production of honey that will be extracted because honey made from refined white sugar is not the same as honey made from the nectar of a locust or basswood tree. Bee keepers we care only about production do indeed feed year around, and use the cheapest HFCS-based syrups they can source.
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But that's still a failure on the part of the so-called parent. If you can't outwit a 5 year old, you have no business trying to raise one.
Another counter-point would be that I eat meat and in our society meat (and food in general) is more entertainment than nourishment, but that's stretching it.
I hope that all of your meat, eggs, milk, and other animal-based products come from small farms where you can verify the treatment of the animals. Otherwise, you're simply outsourcing your animal torture to ADM and Cargill.
The things that produce honey are not toys, we shouldn't control them to make our delicious honey?
Those "things" are called bees. And they are not toys. They are livestock, raised for their output just like dairy cows and chickens.
You are clearly no beekeeper, or have even read much about the hobby/profession.
I am a beekeeper and your statement remains meaningless. I might disagree with "requires almost no interaction with the bees" but the GP's basic point remains.
I don't assume, I read a number of descriptions of what happened.
Then you should keep reading because you've obviously missed some details.
The lawyers you engage in step 3 would be happy to explain why trying to "creatively" make bad-faith efforts is not a smart approach.
The fact that they essentially thumbed their noses at the FBI, NSA, and federal courts without legal ramification tells a thinking man that their attorneys were very much engaged in making sure they toed the line without crossing it. Believe it or not, there are actual attorneys out there who are willing to operate on the edges of a broken system in the fight for what's right.
I don't think so. There's a big difference between the legal firepower available to a small service provider like Lavabit and someone like Yahoo or Google...
Then you should think again. The difference is the willingness of a small company to stand up for their values versus a large company's desire to continue making money. Yahoo! challenged the so-called "Protect America Act" in 2008, arguing that the broad, warrantless Internet surveillance (in which they were required to participate) was unconstitutional. The case was sent to the FISA Court, which rejected their arguments. They were allowed to appeal to the FISA Court of Review (one of only two meetings of the court in 33 years), where they also lost. The ruling included this gem: "...efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts."
...and handing over the ability to read everything is definitely not something that a simple warrant can legally require.
Wrong again. A good deal of the data collected and stored by the NSA's PRISM program didn't even require a warrant. Other items were obtained with overly broad and legally unsound "warrants". For example, Verizon has been providing detailed telephone records to the NSA on every call in its systems for months.
The FISA courts were created by Congress, the same as any other Federal court besides the Supreme Court. The FISA court is accountable to both its appeal court and the Supreme Court like other Federal Courts, and the Judges can be removed by Congress as can other Judges. In fact, the Judges on the FISA court are ordinary Federal judges that rotate through the FISA court from other Federal courts.
The FISA Court is accountable to no one. The FISA Court meets in secret and only one side is represented, so there is no possibility of appeal for those whose rights are trampled. The FISA Court has denied only 11 of 33,942 requests in its 33 years of operation and the FISA Court of Review has met a total of twice in that time period. The design and operation of the FISA Court provides no path for accountability to the Supreme Court. Even if the telecom companies that were required to provide customer data to the government wanted to appeal, there is no requirement that their arguments are considered (the FISA Court allowed Yahoo! to appeal in 2008 so that the law in question could be ruled okay and a heavily redacted ruling released to make sure no one else bothers to try). No FISA-related case has ever gone to the Supreme Court and it isn't clear how one could.
Congress has no oversight of the judges. Each judge is appointed by the Supreme Court Chief Justice with no oversight or confirmation by anyone else, including Congress. In the 33 years of FISA, we've had three chief justices, all conservative Republicans. John Roberts appointed every single FISA Court judge currently serving.
Your dishonesty regarding FISA is troubling. Either you are ignorant of something you strongly support or you are lying in hopes of deceiving others.
No. You should have a good reason for telling them "no", then you should tell them "no" with your reason, and get lawyers involved. Pretending to technically comply with a court order while making an obviously obstructive, bad-faith effort is a good way to ensure that things go rapidly downhill for you.
Why do you assume that Lavabit did not say "no", provide the reasons, and engage lawyers? When you are told by a judge that your arguments do not matter and you must compromise both your values and your core business model, creatively dragging your feet can be the only option left.
Did those 2 seats belong to the Democratic party? No? Why is that? Neither a Democratic, nor a Republican candidate owned those seats.
Pretending Joe Lieberman was an Independent is laughable. He was a hair's breadth from being the nation's Vice President as a Democrat and was supported by the Republicans in his campaign as an "independent". He lost the support of the local Democrats because of his war hawk and neo-con positions. Bernie is indeed outside the mainstream and a legitimate independent politician. He's also an anomaly. 1 out of 535. Let's talk when he's one of 30 or 40.
You're also conveniently pretending the Tea Party has had no effect on U.S. politics.
I said that? I said nothing about the Tea Party because I had no interest in that part of your comment. Of course they've had an impact. But they're also a movement within the GOP that is shaping the GOP's platform from within. They are not a third party.
If I recall correctly, Obamacare's vote was divided by party lines. The only way it passed was by courting independent seats into joining the democrats. Courting independent seats means you need to offer them some red meat to bring them to your side.
You are aware that this block of independent seats does not exist, right? The House of Representatives hasn't had a non-R/D in almost a decade and hasn't had more than 2 (out of 435) since WWII. The Senate has a single Independent (Bernie Sanders, who considers himself a democratic socialist) who caucuses with the Democrats. Joe Lieberman also was considered an Independent for his last term in office because he lost the Democratic primary but won the general election with support from the national Republican party.
Basically, third party voters don't even need to win elections to make a difference.
Your post in no way actually supported this conclusion.
You can disagree but you're wrong. When Perot made a reasonable showing in 1992, the R/D party changed the rules to virtually eliminate third parties from all future televised debates. At the national level, there is no means for someone outside the R/D power structure to get elected.
The guy who installed my septic system used to help his father-in-law drill water wells. A guy wanted a well and fancied himself a water witcher. He told them where to drill. When the first hole came up dry he claimed they drilled off of his mark. When the second hole came up dry he said they were drilling slightly crooked. When the third hole came up dry the driller made the guy an offer - let him pick his own spot to drill the next hole: if it comes up dry too the guy doesn't owe him a dime but if he hits water he has pay for all four holes. They agreed and the well driller hit water on his first try.
Experience > magic sticks
Japan's reaction is ridiculous, and blatant protectionism. A tiny amount of GMO contamination in 2 billion bushels isn't a crisis.
How exactly is this blatant protectionism? Japan is the world's sixth largest importer of wheat and one of the US's largest customers. Japan's domestic wheat market accounts for 10% of their usage and there isn't much they can do to increase that. Your statement makes no sense.
Not even the US has approved GMO wheat. Despite Monsanto's press release claiming that this particular gene has been tested and approved, this is not true in the organism in which it was found in Oregon. Monsanto's GMO wheat trials were canceled largely due to the world's largest wheat importers making clear that they would not accept GMO wheat.The EU has said it will begin testing US wheat and will reject any found to contain GMOs. Many nations still refuse to accept any GMO food imports.
Your analogy of the architect is close, but even then you'd still be foolish not to have any record of what you asked for in the first place (did you really just recite what you wanted from your head, having made no notes at all?)
Now you're starting to get it. You just agreed that the grant team for the State failed dramatically.
...in the WV situation it's confused by multiple people and bureaucracy being involved, with all the plausible deniability that entails.
There is zero plausible deniability for those truly at fault. Read the auditor's report. Politics kept the report from recommending any action against Jimmy and his group, but the report makes it clear who failed, how, and why.
Oh it certainly looks very plausible that there was corruption somewhere in the State Office of Technology (not Homeland Security)
Then you should look closer. The head of Homeland Security, Jimmy Gianato, was the grant administrator and this is but one of several gross abuses of the federal money. OT didn't even know about the purchase until the last second. They initially resisted then the head of the department suddenly signed off on it despite objections from the staff, meaning political pressure was brought to bear.
the Cisco engineer in question can't produce any documentation that backs up his claims that he was just following the spec he'd been given by the state. Given this documentation would exonerate him, it seems telling that he can't provide it - specifications for a $24 million bid don't just go missing...
Read the auditor's report - they don't exist. Most of his work was based on two days of meetings. The spec was what he produced from those meetings and the state signed off on it. Why would you think it is his responsibility to maintain this, even if he had it?
If I meet with an architect, describe my dream home, then sign off on the blueprint he creates, would you later say he cheated me because he has no detailed documentation of my original request? I accepted the blueprint. I said it is what I asked him to do. I own it now.
I'm not saying I support Cisco in this, but I can't say I blame them much.
How was their quote inflated? They didn't overcharge for the equipment provided and they provided the equipment the customer wanted.
I agree completely that the equipment is oversized and inappropriate. That the money could have been better spent on a mixture of bandwidth and lower-tier equipment. That the State and the US taxpayers got a raw deal on how the money was spent. However, it was the grant administrator in the state's Homeland Security department that decided to spent $X on Cisco equipment instead of bandwidth or other things. He decided that there was no need to consult those who would know the state's needs. He decided to use Cisco and Verizon rather than go through the legal purchasing process. He decided to just get the same oversized model for every single location.
I'd love to see Cisco help improve the situation by providing the appropriate equipment and taking the other stuff back for trade-in. But before anyone considers a punitive action against them, and particularly the engineer caught up in this mess, I expect to see terminations and prosecutions of the political appointees that caused it.
That argument is pretty much the same as claiming an unlocked door makes theft the fault of the home-owner i.e. you're blaming the victim and absolving the perpetrator of any responsibility.
No, it is exactly nothing like that. The perpetrator was the State's group charged with spending the federal stimulus money, and Jimmy Gianato specifically. The victim is the US taxpayer who's money was given to politically-connected companies (the boondoggle is much bigger than this router purchase). The State employees charged with managing the grant did not do any needs assessments or verification that the equipment they were purchasing would be useful. They went to Cisco with a dollar amount that they needed to spend and a few ideas of what they might want. They got what they wanted - money disbursed, a bunch of it going to the state CTO's previous employeer (Verizon), and some toys for the state if they can figure out what to do with them.
In this case, they have a federal stimulus grant to spend so the process was much different.
1) The state Homeland Security people do not consult the state's IT folks, instead working directly with Cisco (and perhaps consultants) to create a project that spends the money they need gone and seems defensible.
2) The equipment is sold through the VAR who used to employ the state's CTO.
3) So much money was spent on unneeded equipment, most locations have insufficient connectivity to even use it.
I'm getting tired of people translating this meme into reasons why a sales rep performed jackassery like the sale in question. Yes, the company owes its shareholders a true and ongoing effort to make their shares valuable. Part of that effort includes making the company valuable by maintaining its market-worthiness through the stewardship of its reputation with its customers.
But when the customer comes to Cisco with a giant federal stimulus grant check and tells them they need to spend it all ASAP, is it really in their best interest to say "No, we won't take your money. Go give it to one of our competitors."? I don't disagree that this was a huge waste of money and corrupt from the core, but the corruption is on the part of the Homeland Security folks in state government.
So they got boondoggled
The problem is that the citizens of the state and all US taxpayers (since this was a federal stimulus grant) were taken. The political appointees running this boondoggle got exactly what they wanted, minus the spotlight now shining on it. And the State is (successfully so, judging from media coverage) shifting the blame to a single Cisco engineer.
No, the way to win would have been to conduct a proper tender exercise. Write a specification, and hire an independent consultant to help review bids against it, if you aren't smart enough to do that in house.
But you're missing the basic point - the State's goal was to spend a lot of federal grant money on technology related to homeland security. In keeping with the long-standing tradition, a huge sum of that money personally profited friends and family of those in charge. A formal specification, RFP, and review process would have opened the door to others who weren't supposed to get a piece of the pie, and risked shining light on the process. By doing it under the table with the State CTO's former employer, they were able to do what they wanted and apparently get away with it since the blame is being heaped on a Cisco engineer instead of the actual culprits.
I likewise call WV home and I've been in IT here for nearly two decades. I've worked directly with Mark Williamson, the Cisco engineer being scapegoated in this mess, many times over the years. I'll say going in that I know I may come off as a Cisco shill. You're welcome to review my post history to see otherwise. I have purchased, implemented, and managed their products at my jobs over the years and I'm fairly agnostic about brand at this point. However, a few things need to be said about this issue and how it is being presented.
This stimulus money was treated as a windfall by Jimmy Gianato and abused like every pork barrel project in WV has been for as long as anyone remembers. Allowing the State to pin the blame on one (genuinely nice) engineer at Cisco is only continuing the abuse of the system by those really guilty here.
When my dad was a kid, his uncle kept bees in hollowed out logs and used absolutely no protective gear when he worked them. I helped Dad occasionally with his when I was younger but only recently got involved again. My oldest is 12 and will have his own bee suit this year.
I don't ever see us getting by on nothing but farm income. We raise a small herd of cattle, raise chickens, grow a large garden, keep bees, and do countless other self-sufficient activities but I still have a full-time job. Last week I had some t-bone steaks from a young heifer we raised and butchered this past fall. She lived her life on pasture and was two-years old (ancient in the commercial beef market) when slaughtered. Those t-bones were, without a doubt, the most tender steaks I have ever had the pleasure to cook and eat. Yesterday's dinner was a pork roast from the pig we raised last year. Breakfast today was eggs from our chickens.
I know, with reasonable certainty, what went into the production of a good portion of my food. I know the life it lived. I am able to select varieties that are more flavorful (in the case of vegetables) or more self-sufficient themselves (in the case of animals). I know the level of antibiotics used and why.
I likewise love dark and flavorful honey. We keep about 20 hives and always grow multiple plantings of buckwheat in the end our garden. It is especially nice in late summer when few other things are blooming. The bees have something to work and the honey is almost nothing but buckwheat.
We have about 20 hives and likewise occasionally feed sugar water, particularly during periods of limited blooms, to maintain the health of the hive. However, there is a big difference between what hobby producers and large commercial producers do. You can get a lot more honey if you feed cheap HFCS instead of relying on the fickle natural blooms. Bee keepers who care about the quality of the honey do need feed during the production of honey that will be extracted because honey made from refined white sugar is not the same as honey made from the nectar of a locust or basswood tree. Bee keepers we care only about production do indeed feed year around, and use the cheapest HFCS-based syrups they can source.