There's more to it than that from what I have read. He was married and had three kids and was raising them when most of the murders/rapes occurred. Got divorced in the early 90s, about the time the crimes stopped. Neighbors reported some epic screaming matches from the house that could be heard several houses away.
As further evidence, many of the surviving victims reported at the time that their attacker sobbed and would often talk about a woman named "Bonnie" while raping them. The guy they just arrested was engaged to a woman named Bonnie in the early 70s. They split up, apparently acrimoniously, and he married someone else. Then the rapes/murders started.
Moral? I guess if you are in such a toxic relationship that you have to go out and rape/kill people to chill out, you should probably get divorced before the 20-year rape and murder spree.
Thank you for the helpful link, I learned something today.
I will revert to my backup argument:
I am sure most places don't actually do that because of the time involved verifying every script, and I think the FDA has much much bigger fish to fry. It'd be the rough equivalent of a jaywalking crackdown. Also there is not much incentive for people to outright falsify a bogus prescription, unless of course you are a 'journalist' doing a hit piece on contact lens providers.
I'm not sure that they do... ANd even if they do, I imagine the FDA has much bigger fish to fry.
Consider the reading glasses you can buy at teh pharmacy for $5 a pop. They all have a little number on them. +1, +2, etc. That's the prescription number. If all you have is a +1 or +2 spherical prescription with no astigmatism (minorly farsighted), you can walk into any drugstore and buy them, no prescription necessary. If your eyes are much worse than that (mine are around -11), it really pays to go to the doctor and get the prescription correct. But I'm pretty sure that I can order glasses/contacts online and just enter my prescription numbers, assuming I know them. I'm really not sure what the problem is. If I get the wrong script and can't see, then it sounds like my problem and maybe I should go to a doctor to get it updated. Also, the whole thing is subjective anyhow. I can pretty easily lie to the doctor about which image is the "clearest" and get a bogus prescription from him if I really wanted to have crappy glasses for some reason. Actually, I do this. I have him write a script for glasses that is intentionally a bit weak. I find that they are better for reading.
Done. I doubt he was going to vote for it anyhow, but awareness is good. Thanks for the head's up. There are many things to either love or hate in the proposed tax plan, as is always the case when they want to do something to the tax code. But that's the final straw/dealbreaker for me. I've been out of grad school for several years now, but I couldn't imagine having to pay taxes on my tuition waiver. I simply wouldn't have been able to do it.
Holy crap. I hadn't heard that, but if that is true it will be a death knell for American STEM students. Depending on the cost of the school, you might even wipe out your entire stipend just to pay taxes. That's a horrible idea. Talk about squeezing blood from a stone...
There are hundreds of universities in India and China, and some of them have no scruples and will do anything to get their grads accepted in the US, as it helps their reputation back home even if those students eventually crash and burn. I know that one of the schools I went to for grad school here in the US essentially had a "black-list" of foreign schools that they knew produced fraudulent test scores and/or transcripts. I was told that more than once they accepted an overseas student that supposedly got a very high score on the English component of the GRE, but then it turned out they barely spoke any English at all. You could say that was a red flag in the first place, but remember the caliber of people that are applying is generally very high. I am a native speaker of English, and I got a 600/800 on my GRE language section. But I knew a very bright foreign student that learned English in high school and got a 750. That kind of thing isn't the norm, but is very possible. And you don't want to turn those legitimate students away because of some bad apples.
TL;DR : There are simply hundreds of applicants from hundreds of overseas schools every year, and it can be something of a guessing game.
I call BS on the second one. Not saying you didn't hear that, just saying that I highly doubt that is a very common thing at all. First and foremost because the admissions for grad school in Engineering usually works the other way around. That is, the professors pick what students they want out of the pool of applicants and forward their recommendations to the Dean. Thus the professors get the students they want, and the school doesn't admit any students that completely lack funding. Win-win.
Anyways, for STEM, you really can't do much better than the American university system. Not saying that other nations don't have excellent schools. Oxford and Cambridge are probably both top ten in the world. But the sheer number of very good universities in the US is unparalleled. All of those universities have professors from all over the world who are hired to do world-class research. They get grants to do the research and then they 'hire' the students to perform the work. Grad school applications for STEM is really more of a low-paying job application. But the professors are under pressure to perform the research they promised, and write high-quality papers. So they want the best students they can find. In effect, it is a worldwide marketplace for the best scientific talent. If you insist that universities should only hire American Ph.D. students, or keep their levels to 50% or some other such arbitrary number, you will quickly see the quality of work crater. Not because Americans are dumb. But because we aren't inherently smarter than anyone else. India and China have about 1/3 of the world's population. If you really want the best minds in the world working on your projects, you'd be damn foolish to ignore that.
Fair point. I don't know how much of their battery stuff is patented, but there will certainly be others coming around soon enough that have as good or better battery life/range. I think Tesla tries to differentiate itself with the autopilot stuff, and a bunch of ancillary features, like the supercharger stations. That may be what the coming war of the electric car manufacturers is ultimately waged on.
Again, I won't speak to how good Tesla's stuff on that front is compared to other brands, so please don't take that as a defense along the lines of an Apple fanboy muttering, "But, but, but Tesla has better stuff and is way cooler!!" Just noting where Tesla seems to be drawing the battle lines. As you say, the Leaf looks like a squished lump of clay.
Simpler and more basic than an ICE, absolutely agreed. Won't speak to their self-driving capabilities since I don't know exactly what they are and aren't capable of.
But is simpler a bad thing? In a complex mechanical system, such as a car, a simpler design can have a number of advantages in terms of serviceability, reliability, and longevity. The simpler the system, the less likely it is to have some critical component in the system break. The more complex, the more likely a minor defect can cause the whole system to stop working. A simple design certainly does not imply superiority. You can easily have a half-baked dead-simple design that sucks. That's usually called "oversimplified". But simplicity is not a flaw in and of itself.
I thought 'decimating' historically meant reducing by a factor of ten (i.e., 90%)? I could be wrong about that. I do agree that a 10% reduction is pretty significant at a time when they are supposed to be ramping everything up.
Well, the fancy computers which manage battery power and such are reasonably 'high-tech' for one. The batteries themselves could be argued either way, I guess, but let's just say that the technology for the battery storage and powering they are doing didn't exist 25 years ago.
I hadn't heard that they had reliability problems. In fact, I thought one of the chief selling points of an electric car, generally speaking, is that it should be much more reliable and require significantly less service than an ICE. Maybe Tesla has some issues, but sharing your source would be advisable.
I swear I'm not a Tesla guy. I just don't understand why people get so emotional and pick sides on this company. They took some federal money? So did every other car manufacturer... They are helped by tax credits? Who cares, and that's not their decision anyhow. If you think GM would object if congress gave people a similar credit on buying a new pickup truck you are terribly naive. Don't like the idea of a recharge taking an hour? Neither do I. That's why I don't own one. But that seems like something of a personal preference. You think it's not managed particularly well? I agree, and I don't own their stock.
Bottom line, they sell cars. A significant percentage of people seem to like them and are willing to pay for them. That seems like a foundation for a good business, whether you like their product or not. As it is, they can't seem to get manufacturing scaled up to meet demand, and the future of the company is up in the air because of it.
Personally, I don't like Sony stereo gear. But I don't go on the internet and knock them and spread FUD about them at every opportunity. And I sure as hell don't go into someone's house and call their stereo system garbage.
Not much new in electric motors which drive the car... okay, I'll grant you that. The basic concept of the electric motor has remained the same since they were invented. But a world of difference in battery storage, power management, and charging capabilities. That is all the special sauce that makes them feasible in the modern day. Not to mention all the self-driving features they put into it. That's a complex modern computer algorithm if there ever was one.
I'm not a Tesla fanboi, but their cars are not a simple battery with some wheels and a motor which could have been done 100 years ago. That ancient car is analogous to a golf cart, minus the plastic pieces. You are correct, that is not modern or high tech in any way. Tesla is clearly more than just that, so some credit where credit is due.
I assumed that number was in reference only to its Model 3 production, which was the one they were expecting to ramp up dramatically. It doesn't explicitly say, so you could be right. Could be interpreted either way, I guess. That's modern journalism for you...
And not just people of color! I am a white guy with a very generic name. I've met several different people with my same name on a number of occasions. One guy with my name plays in the NFL. One time, I rented a car from an airport at the same exact time as another person with my name, which caused a massive headache as they got our paperwork mixed up. There's even another person with my name in the same rural town as me, population circa 15k.
So, I guess I'm pretty glad I don't live in Indiana. I would actually be pretty surprised if I don't have a "twin" out there somewhere born on the same day. JFC, what a bad way to trim voter roles...
Interesting insights, and I won't disagree with those conclusions, as I am not an expert in the field, nor have I read the actual journal article.
I will, however, point out that the purpose of the trial phase they were in was not to demonstrate efficacy, but to demonstrate the safety of the procedure. I would presume that many of the criticisms/questions you raise will be studied more thoroughly in the next phase. It would not be the first time that a drug or treatment was found to be safe, but mostly useless.
I agree it is way too early to get excited yet, but then again "Potential anti-aging therapy found to be safe in clinical trials, and despite some hints that it may also work well, many questions linger as to the actual efficacy" doesn't make a good clickbaity headline...
That is a really good idea. Never would have thought of that myself. Conversely, I have thought that it would be really nice to be able to push the iPad display to a projector or other screen on a local network. That could be useful when I want to show off some photos (which would be nice to push to the TV), or give a powerpoint presentation, etc.
I actually use my laptop for parallel programming. That is to say, it is a bit crufty. I have an iPad 2 that I still use. I keep it on the end table by the couch. I use it for checking email (but usually not writing unless it will be very sort), light browsing, and generally killing time with a crossword puzzle or some such. It's essentially replaced the pile of magazines most people used to have there instead. I supposed I could get a netbook or light-duty laptop for the same purpose, but I won't spend the money until the iPad breaks and forces the issue.
And, just to make a point of order. Just because a janitor is cleared doesn't mean it is okay for them to access classified information that they have no business knowing. Ideally, a janitor should not know any classified information. Their schedules should be known, and whiteboards should be erased/covered, documents stored safely, etc, when they come in. They have to have a clearance to be in the building, and to know that they are trustworthy if they ever do accidentally interrupt a meeting or overhear a conversation or some such. But a janitor has pretty much ZERO 'need-to-know' any specific information at all, and for all practical purposes, other employees should treat a janitor as an uncleared person.
Disagree... Bad finances can get your clearance scuttled before it begins, but generally in those cases we are talking about people with gambling debts, multiple bankruptcies, credit card debts, and other more-or-less self-imposed problems that suggest a possible lack of impulse control. Is it possible that someone gets into financial trouble and owes a ton of money through no real fault of their own? Sure. And the process might unfairly target them. But the fact remains that, fair or not, someone who owes more money than they can expect to make on their job will likely be a security risk if given access to valuable information. It's not a perfect system, but allowing people with bad debt to get security clearances isn't likely to improve the situation any... Simply being poor is not a problem, or they'd never be able to find janitors in some of the secure buildings.
I also dispute your assertion that the well-to-do get sailed through. Maybe if you are in the inner circle of the executive branch or something you can get one in short order, but I know one guy who has currently been waiting over a year to hear back anything. No financial issues or debt other than a reasonable mortgage. Nice family, goes to church every Sunday, has a good job. Never did any drugs, doesn't even drink, no black sheep in his immediate family that would cause any problems. One of the most trustworthy and dependable guys I know. His employer even paid for the 'fast-track' which is supposed to cut a few months off. And he's heard crickets. So... counterpoint.
Yeah, I kind of agree. This study should be corrected for the fact that people who value themselves more lowly in relation to others (read: people prone to depression) would probably also be the types to not accept a larger 'reward' in relation to others. The comparison of self vs. others seems to be an inherent part of the study, and would self select depressed people. In other words, it's a study designed not to find selfless people and correlate that with depression, but a study that simply finds depressed people that won't even accept a trivial 'reward' that is bigger than someone else's.
Yeah. I live in a small town of about 15000 people, with a large and stable employer, which has led to a a very strange and hot real estate market for a place 50 miles away from anywhere.
When I was shopping for a home, I made a habit of inspecting the cabinet hinges in every room and bathroom. I don't care about a shiny new granite countertop. Cheap $0.50 hinges means corners were cut, and the place will likely fall apart. Nice Blum hinges on even the smallest cabinet? That's a winner. I am sure there are other things to look at too, but hinges worked for me pretty well as a 'tell'.
The problem scientists have is a lack of a public voice over their own research. How many times have we watched two pundits on the television 'debate' anthropogenic global warming? I don't know about you, but I quite frankly don't trust Tucker Carlson NOR Rachel Maddow to really present the science in any kind of accurate way. That goes for any 'political' issue, not just AGW. By the time it gets to the mass public airwaves, any study is long separated from those who wrote it, and it is subject to the biased interpretations of partisan hacks who aren't trained to know what they are talking about, or even recognize what the study's purpose might have been.
Example: Suppose I test out a new numerical algorithm for oceanic climate modeling. I want to look at diffusion rates across ocean strata, and explore the effect this has on the overall result o the simulation, namely atmospheric transport, temperature, carbon content and the like. Suppose I run a bunch of cases, each with a somewhat different approach to this problem, and publish the results compared to historical data and with projections from each. Suppose one of those simulations shows dramatic and irreversible warming at the surface within the next ten years, and another shows a more or less stable surface environment for the next 50 years. Does it matter which one, I the author, think is correct? Or if I think both of these are extreme cases that are unlikely to be true, but are merely demonstrating the bounds of potential outcomes by varying a single parameter? Does it matter that my primary point may have simply been that some unknown factor could have dramatic effects on the path of global climate, and that we need to further study and understand this effect? Or does it only matter that I produced some computer simulations that people can argue about out of context on the TV? And nobody will bother to invite me on to explain these results because, well, that doesn't benefit any of the talking heads that make those decisions.
TL;DR: Scientists need to better interface with the public. Easier said than done, but I believe that is the crux of the problem.
It might be the policy of your employer, or in your specific line of work. But it's not a general policy. I was asked to be judicious and not talk about it loudly in public places and such when I got mine, but it was clear that it wasn't a "secret" or cause for my clearance being pulled. That said, they can make whatever they want a specific requirement for particular people or different fields of work, so it is entirely possible that is/was true for you.
If that is the case, then congratulations on holding to the terms of your clearance so closely. I'm sure they won't analyze any of your social media posts and bring it up in your next security review... I mean, they might or might not, but it seems like a needless risk.
"Executive privilege" only means that members of the executive branch (or former members, presumably) cannot be compelled to testify about the conversations and decisions they have made in their role as a member of the executive branch. It doesn't mean you can't volunteer the info, which is what Comey has done.
Slashdot Mirror
There's more to it than that from what I have read. He was married and had three kids and was raising them when most of the murders/rapes occurred. Got divorced in the early 90s, about the time the crimes stopped. Neighbors reported some epic screaming matches from the house that could be heard several houses away.
As further evidence, many of the surviving victims reported at the time that their attacker sobbed and would often talk about a woman named "Bonnie" while raping them. The guy they just arrested was engaged to a woman named Bonnie in the early 70s. They split up, apparently acrimoniously, and he married someone else. Then the rapes/murders started.
Moral? I guess if you are in such a toxic relationship that you have to go out and rape/kill people to chill out, you should probably get divorced before the 20-year rape and murder spree.
Thank you for the helpful link, I learned something today.
I will revert to my backup argument:
I am sure most places don't actually do that because of the time involved verifying every script, and I think the FDA has much much bigger fish to fry. It'd be the rough equivalent of a jaywalking crackdown. Also there is not much incentive for people to outright falsify a bogus prescription, unless of course you are a 'journalist' doing a hit piece on contact lens providers.
I'm not sure that they do... ANd even if they do, I imagine the FDA has much bigger fish to fry.
Consider the reading glasses you can buy at teh pharmacy for $5 a pop. They all have a little number on them. +1, +2, etc. That's the prescription number. If all you have is a +1 or +2 spherical prescription with no astigmatism (minorly farsighted), you can walk into any drugstore and buy them, no prescription necessary. If your eyes are much worse than that (mine are around -11), it really pays to go to the doctor and get the prescription correct. But I'm pretty sure that I can order glasses/contacts online and just enter my prescription numbers, assuming I know them. I'm really not sure what the problem is. If I get the wrong script and can't see, then it sounds like my problem and maybe I should go to a doctor to get it updated. Also, the whole thing is subjective anyhow. I can pretty easily lie to the doctor about which image is the "clearest" and get a bogus prescription from him if I really wanted to have crappy glasses for some reason. Actually, I do this. I have him write a script for glasses that is intentionally a bit weak. I find that they are better for reading.
Done. I doubt he was going to vote for it anyhow, but awareness is good. Thanks for the head's up. There are many things to either love or hate in the proposed tax plan, as is always the case when they want to do something to the tax code. But that's the final straw/dealbreaker for me. I've been out of grad school for several years now, but I couldn't imagine having to pay taxes on my tuition waiver. I simply wouldn't have been able to do it.
Holy crap. I hadn't heard that, but if that is true it will be a death knell for American STEM students. Depending on the cost of the school, you might even wipe out your entire stipend just to pay taxes. That's a horrible idea. Talk about squeezing blood from a stone...
Would mod up, but I already commented in here.
There are hundreds of universities in India and China, and some of them have no scruples and will do anything to get their grads accepted in the US, as it helps their reputation back home even if those students eventually crash and burn. I know that one of the schools I went to for grad school here in the US essentially had a "black-list" of foreign schools that they knew produced fraudulent test scores and/or transcripts. I was told that more than once they accepted an overseas student that supposedly got a very high score on the English component of the GRE, but then it turned out they barely spoke any English at all. You could say that was a red flag in the first place, but remember the caliber of people that are applying is generally very high. I am a native speaker of English, and I got a 600/800 on my GRE language section. But I knew a very bright foreign student that learned English in high school and got a 750. That kind of thing isn't the norm, but is very possible. And you don't want to turn those legitimate students away because of some bad apples.
TL;DR : There are simply hundreds of applicants from hundreds of overseas schools every year, and it can be something of a guessing game.
I call BS on the second one. Not saying you didn't hear that, just saying that I highly doubt that is a very common thing at all. First and foremost because the admissions for grad school in Engineering usually works the other way around. That is, the professors pick what students they want out of the pool of applicants and forward their recommendations to the Dean. Thus the professors get the students they want, and the school doesn't admit any students that completely lack funding. Win-win.
Anyways, for STEM, you really can't do much better than the American university system. Not saying that other nations don't have excellent schools. Oxford and Cambridge are probably both top ten in the world. But the sheer number of very good universities in the US is unparalleled. All of those universities have professors from all over the world who are hired to do world-class research. They get grants to do the research and then they 'hire' the students to perform the work. Grad school applications for STEM is really more of a low-paying job application. But the professors are under pressure to perform the research they promised, and write high-quality papers. So they want the best students they can find. In effect, it is a worldwide marketplace for the best scientific talent. If you insist that universities should only hire American Ph.D. students, or keep their levels to 50% or some other such arbitrary number, you will quickly see the quality of work crater. Not because Americans are dumb. But because we aren't inherently smarter than anyone else. India and China have about 1/3 of the world's population. If you really want the best minds in the world working on your projects, you'd be damn foolish to ignore that.
Cool. I mean, not so cool if you were a member of an underperforming Roman legion... But that is a really interesting factoid. Thanks for sharing.
Fair point. I don't know how much of their battery stuff is patented, but there will certainly be others coming around soon enough that have as good or better battery life/range. I think Tesla tries to differentiate itself with the autopilot stuff, and a bunch of ancillary features, like the supercharger stations. That may be what the coming war of the electric car manufacturers is ultimately waged on.
Again, I won't speak to how good Tesla's stuff on that front is compared to other brands, so please don't take that as a defense along the lines of an Apple fanboy muttering, "But, but, but Tesla has better stuff and is way cooler!!" Just noting where Tesla seems to be drawing the battle lines. As you say, the Leaf looks like a squished lump of clay.
Simpler and more basic than an ICE, absolutely agreed. Won't speak to their self-driving capabilities since I don't know exactly what they are and aren't capable of.
But is simpler a bad thing? In a complex mechanical system, such as a car, a simpler design can have a number of advantages in terms of serviceability, reliability, and longevity. The simpler the system, the less likely it is to have some critical component in the system break. The more complex, the more likely a minor defect can cause the whole system to stop working. A simple design certainly does not imply superiority. You can easily have a half-baked dead-simple design that sucks. That's usually called "oversimplified". But simplicity is not a flaw in and of itself.
I thought 'decimating' historically meant reducing by a factor of ten (i.e., 90%)? I could be wrong about that. I do agree that a 10% reduction is pretty significant at a time when they are supposed to be ramping everything up.
Well, the fancy computers which manage battery power and such are reasonably 'high-tech' for one. The batteries themselves could be argued either way, I guess, but let's just say that the technology for the battery storage and powering they are doing didn't exist 25 years ago.
I hadn't heard that they had reliability problems. In fact, I thought one of the chief selling points of an electric car, generally speaking, is that it should be much more reliable and require significantly less service than an ICE. Maybe Tesla has some issues, but sharing your source would be advisable.
I swear I'm not a Tesla guy. I just don't understand why people get so emotional and pick sides on this company. They took some federal money? So did every other car manufacturer... They are helped by tax credits? Who cares, and that's not their decision anyhow. If you think GM would object if congress gave people a similar credit on buying a new pickup truck you are terribly naive. Don't like the idea of a recharge taking an hour? Neither do I. That's why I don't own one. But that seems like something of a personal preference. You think it's not managed particularly well? I agree, and I don't own their stock.
Bottom line, they sell cars. A significant percentage of people seem to like them and are willing to pay for them. That seems like a foundation for a good business, whether you like their product or not. As it is, they can't seem to get manufacturing scaled up to meet demand, and the future of the company is up in the air because of it.
Personally, I don't like Sony stereo gear. But I don't go on the internet and knock them and spread FUD about them at every opportunity. And I sure as hell don't go into someone's house and call their stereo system garbage.
Not much new in electric motors which drive the car... okay, I'll grant you that. The basic concept of the electric motor has remained the same since they were invented. But a world of difference in battery storage, power management, and charging capabilities. That is all the special sauce that makes them feasible in the modern day. Not to mention all the self-driving features they put into it. That's a complex modern computer algorithm if there ever was one.
I'm not a Tesla fanboi, but their cars are not a simple battery with some wheels and a motor which could have been done 100 years ago. That ancient car is analogous to a golf cart, minus the plastic pieces. You are correct, that is not modern or high tech in any way. Tesla is clearly more than just that, so some credit where credit is due.
I assumed that number was in reference only to its Model 3 production, which was the one they were expecting to ramp up dramatically. It doesn't explicitly say, so you could be right. Could be interpreted either way, I guess. That's modern journalism for you...
And not just people of color! I am a white guy with a very generic name. I've met several different people with my same name on a number of occasions. One guy with my name plays in the NFL. One time, I rented a car from an airport at the same exact time as another person with my name, which caused a massive headache as they got our paperwork mixed up. There's even another person with my name in the same rural town as me, population circa 15k.
So, I guess I'm pretty glad I don't live in Indiana. I would actually be pretty surprised if I don't have a "twin" out there somewhere born on the same day. JFC, what a bad way to trim voter roles...
Interesting insights, and I won't disagree with those conclusions, as I am not an expert in the field, nor have I read the actual journal article.
I will, however, point out that the purpose of the trial phase they were in was not to demonstrate efficacy, but to demonstrate the safety of the procedure. I would presume that many of the criticisms/questions you raise will be studied more thoroughly in the next phase. It would not be the first time that a drug or treatment was found to be safe, but mostly useless.
I agree it is way too early to get excited yet, but then again "Potential anti-aging therapy found to be safe in clinical trials, and despite some hints that it may also work well, many questions linger as to the actual efficacy" doesn't make a good clickbaity headline...
That is a really good idea. Never would have thought of that myself. Conversely, I have thought that it would be really nice to be able to push the iPad display to a projector or other screen on a local network. That could be useful when I want to show off some photos (which would be nice to push to the TV), or give a powerpoint presentation, etc.
I actually use my laptop for parallel programming. That is to say, it is a bit crufty. I have an iPad 2 that I still use. I keep it on the end table by the couch. I use it for checking email (but usually not writing unless it will be very sort), light browsing, and generally killing time with a crossword puzzle or some such. It's essentially replaced the pile of magazines most people used to have there instead. I supposed I could get a netbook or light-duty laptop for the same purpose, but I won't spend the money until the iPad breaks and forces the issue.
And, just to make a point of order. Just because a janitor is cleared doesn't mean it is okay for them to access classified information that they have no business knowing. Ideally, a janitor should not know any classified information. Their schedules should be known, and whiteboards should be erased/covered, documents stored safely, etc, when they come in. They have to have a clearance to be in the building, and to know that they are trustworthy if they ever do accidentally interrupt a meeting or overhear a conversation or some such. But a janitor has pretty much ZERO 'need-to-know' any specific information at all, and for all practical purposes, other employees should treat a janitor as an uncleared person.
Disagree... Bad finances can get your clearance scuttled before it begins, but generally in those cases we are talking about people with gambling debts, multiple bankruptcies, credit card debts, and other more-or-less self-imposed problems that suggest a possible lack of impulse control. Is it possible that someone gets into financial trouble and owes a ton of money through no real fault of their own? Sure. And the process might unfairly target them. But the fact remains that, fair or not, someone who owes more money than they can expect to make on their job will likely be a security risk if given access to valuable information. It's not a perfect system, but allowing people with bad debt to get security clearances isn't likely to improve the situation any... Simply being poor is not a problem, or they'd never be able to find janitors in some of the secure buildings.
I also dispute your assertion that the well-to-do get sailed through. Maybe if you are in the inner circle of the executive branch or something you can get one in short order, but I know one guy who has currently been waiting over a year to hear back anything. No financial issues or debt other than a reasonable mortgage. Nice family, goes to church every Sunday, has a good job. Never did any drugs, doesn't even drink, no black sheep in his immediate family that would cause any problems. One of the most trustworthy and dependable guys I know. His employer even paid for the 'fast-track' which is supposed to cut a few months off. And he's heard crickets. So... counterpoint.
Yeah, I kind of agree. This study should be corrected for the fact that people who value themselves more lowly in relation to others (read: people prone to depression) would probably also be the types to not accept a larger 'reward' in relation to others. The comparison of self vs. others seems to be an inherent part of the study, and would self select depressed people. In other words, it's a study designed not to find selfless people and correlate that with depression, but a study that simply finds depressed people that won't even accept a trivial 'reward' that is bigger than someone else's.
Yeah. I live in a small town of about 15000 people, with a large and stable employer, which has led to a a very strange and hot real estate market for a place 50 miles away from anywhere.
When I was shopping for a home, I made a habit of inspecting the cabinet hinges in every room and bathroom. I don't care about a shiny new granite countertop. Cheap $0.50 hinges means corners were cut, and the place will likely fall apart. Nice Blum hinges on even the smallest cabinet? That's a winner. I am sure there are other things to look at too, but hinges worked for me pretty well as a 'tell'.
Close, but I see it slightly differently.
The problem scientists have is a lack of a public voice over their own research. How many times have we watched two pundits on the television 'debate' anthropogenic global warming? I don't know about you, but I quite frankly don't trust Tucker Carlson NOR Rachel Maddow to really present the science in any kind of accurate way. That goes for any 'political' issue, not just AGW. By the time it gets to the mass public airwaves, any study is long separated from those who wrote it, and it is subject to the biased interpretations of partisan hacks who aren't trained to know what they are talking about, or even recognize what the study's purpose might have been.
Example: Suppose I test out a new numerical algorithm for oceanic climate modeling. I want to look at diffusion rates across ocean strata, and explore the effect this has on the overall result o the simulation, namely atmospheric transport, temperature, carbon content and the like. Suppose I run a bunch of cases, each with a somewhat different approach to this problem, and publish the results compared to historical data and with projections from each. Suppose one of those simulations shows dramatic and irreversible warming at the surface within the next ten years, and another shows a more or less stable surface environment for the next 50 years. Does it matter which one, I the author, think is correct? Or if I think both of these are extreme cases that are unlikely to be true, but are merely demonstrating the bounds of potential outcomes by varying a single parameter? Does it matter that my primary point may have simply been that some unknown factor could have dramatic effects on the path of global climate, and that we need to further study and understand this effect? Or does it only matter that I produced some computer simulations that people can argue about out of context on the TV? And nobody will bother to invite me on to explain these results because, well, that doesn't benefit any of the talking heads that make those decisions.
TL;DR: Scientists need to better interface with the public. Easier said than done, but I believe that is the crux of the problem.
It might be the policy of your employer, or in your specific line of work. But it's not a general policy. I was asked to be judicious and not talk about it loudly in public places and such when I got mine, but it was clear that it wasn't a "secret" or cause for my clearance being pulled. That said, they can make whatever they want a specific requirement for particular people or different fields of work, so it is entirely possible that is/was true for you.
If that is the case, then congratulations on holding to the terms of your clearance so closely. I'm sure they won't analyze any of your social media posts and bring it up in your next security review... I mean, they might or might not, but it seems like a needless risk.
"Executive privilege" only means that members of the executive branch (or former members, presumably) cannot be compelled to testify about the conversations and decisions they have made in their role as a member of the executive branch. It doesn't mean you can't volunteer the info, which is what Comey has done.