Le Show; 2018-04-01

From deep inside your audio device of choice. Ladies and gentlemen, what's really threatening our democracy? Apathy? Ignorance? Well, I don't know and I don't care. No, the organizers of last year's DEF CON voting village, a corner of an annual conference where hackers easily hacked into electronic ballot boxes are preparing for a similar session at this year's event, according to the British tech journal, the register. Finnish programmer and village organiser Harry Husty said the team was having trouble getting voting machines to compromise for this year's hackfest, because manufacturers aren't eager to sell machines that could expose their failings. In some cases, the manufacturer said letters to people selling election systems on the eBay, claiming selling the hardware was illegal, which is not true.

His team, Husty, finished programmer, is still scouring the web for voting gear. One e-cycling company had bought 1,300 voting machines, which had acquired when the ceiling of the warehouse in which they were being stored collapsed. We found the company had already sold 400 of the machines in some cases back to counties for voting duties. He says one of the machines was duly bought for the hacking competition. The seller is also touting packets of 25 official election machine seals for the state of Michigan for less than $5. You'd think said the Finnish programmer. You could only buy these if you had a government ID and were in the state of Michigan, but no anyone can buy these. Another member of the DEF CON village voting team, Margaret McAlpen, found complete lists of the default admin passwords for electronic ballot boxes

in their training manuals. Election officials in one such manual are instructed not to change the default password and if someone had already to reset passwords to the defaults, this manual covered machines used to count 18% of the votes in US elections according to the register. Screw the Russians. We can muck up our elections all by ourselves because USA, USA, hello, welcome to this show. I've been working for three days and you're lonely nights.

You know that I'm minded man, but I got a woman waiting for me. That's gonna make this trip worth a while. You see she's got the kind of loving and the kisses. I'll make a man who's going wild so I got to keep on walking. I got to walk on. I got to walk on. I'm so tired, but I just think who's my start. I got 15 miles to go now. And I can hear my baby calling my name. It says if it's no, I'm standing at a fun door. I can hear a bad doggo playing. Now I'll be so glad to see my baby. And hold her in my arms one more time.

Now when I kiss her lips, I turn her back full of them. And I'll forget about these feet of mine. I got to keep on walking. Hey, I got to walk on. And I can hear your baby calling my name. I got to walk on. I got to keep on walking. I got to walk on. I got to walk on. I got to walk on. Hey, that's for me! That's for tortellotel! That'sta say that Hey! I have I'm on faster tone now Open your heel, that's the round to feel Uff! I'm on my feet on the outside I can't lose my nod

I've got to give you my baby again I've got to keep bold Walk in I've got to walk O Please let me tell you I'm on my own, I'm on my own, so time But I just can't keep my strength Walking in I've got to walk on Let me tell you I see my baby was lost around I've lost the point in walking Walking in I've got to walk on Let me tell you Get me Celebrating the number 25 For personal reasons I'm Harry Scherer walking you To this edition of the show And now it isn't gentlemen News of the Olympic movement Produced by Jim Mebersol, Jr

Well Well Next Olympics as you probably know Is in Tokyo Asia is running the whole Olympic thing for a while And this week A Tokyo Olympic official promised A clean games No Not what you think He's pledging to improve water quality In the venue for marathon swimming And triathlon Oh and also to ban four large Japanese construction companies that have been charged Going on bids So clean both ways But not about the doping Toshiro Moto The CEO of the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee Spoke At a meeting Of the executive board Last year eat coli concentrations were found to be 21 times Above the accepted limit In Tokyo Bay That's just the venue for triathlon and marathon swimming

Swimming, I said Fical coliform bacteria were also detected But not fetal, interesting Officials have blamed much of the problem on heavy rains last year A surprise sanitation problem in a country known for cleanliness Asked me about that sometime Organizers say underwater screens Will be experimented with this year Why not on ice wall? It's worked so well at vook We're going to put in place some special filtering screens To build any impurities Moto said We think that's probably one of the effective measures we can take I say ice wall Test carried out last year showed Water quality standards required for marathon swimming were met on only 10 of 26 days And only 6 of 26 days for triathlon So I'll take marathon Moto said organizers would make sure that water quality is a high level The IOC has mentioned water quality As one of Tokyo's few problems As you may recall The Rio Olympics were plagued by severe pollution in Guanabara Bay The venue for sailing

Moto said also that four companies have been banned By the Tokyo metropolitan government for bid rigging And they would not be involved in future bids on Olympic projects Tokyo prosecutors pressed charges in fact this past Friday against the four companies for allegedly colluding Tom, they were colluding Yes, they were colluding on bids for a high-speed train line The four are also major contractors on Tokyo Olympics projects For the time being said Moto We will refrain from offering new contracts to the four companies And then he hedged Saying the companies might be allowed to join new bidding If their participation is needed To meet Olympic deadlines The deadlines he said Cannot be moved Well of course not it's the Olympics And we all need one Every day I wonder if the water knows it has to meet that deadline Ladies and gentlemen, I think it was in the New York Times this week

A propos of one of the stories I'm about to share with you That we learned, at least I learned for the first time That Saudi Arabia Are freedom-loving friends in Saudi Arabia The Saudi Arabia is known in some circles Because of the huge size of the royal family and its relatives As the land of 15,000 princes So news of our friends Our freedom-loving friends in the land of 15,000 princes Rubat Murdoch this past weekend hosted a dinner For Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman At his, I don't know, it's going to be Monday night At his Bel Air estate The list includes the head of Disney The head of Warner Brothers The 32-year-old prince, Prince Salman Not King Salman, that's his dad

And it's not in season yet He's courting American business leaders and investors As part of his effort to modernize Saudi Arabia's economy His west coast swing also includes meetings with Jeff Bezos and Seattle And Tim Cook and Silicon Valley The prince, as said he's going to end Saudi Arabia's 30-year ban on movies And movie theaters Hence his meeting with movie moguls And he's also going to be investing The top US general in the Middle East, meanwhile testified before Congress this week And dropped a couple of bombshells He says, says General Joseph Votel That he supports the agreement, the Iran nuclear deal But also, in a stunning exchange with Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren Votel admitted that sent comm, that is central command And Votel is the top general in the Middle East He says central command doesn't know

When US fuel and munitions that we sent to Saudi Arabia Are used in Yemen, where thousands and thousands and thousands of civilians Are dying General Votel does sent comm track the purpose of the missions its refueling As Senator Warren, in other words Where a US refueled aircraft is going What targets its strikes and the result of the mission Senator, he replied, we do not She followed up, signing reports that US munitions have been used against civilians in Yemen General Votel, when you receive reports like this from credible media organizations are outside of observers Is sent comm able to tell if US fuel or US munitions were used in that strike? He replied, no Senator I don't believe we are Because we're friends with the land of 15,000 princes Our freedom-loving friends in Saudi Arabia And now, ladies and gentlemen, news of the war, won't you? Some good news, unless you own an oil company, wind farms and solar panels produced more electricity

than Britain's eight nuclear power stations for the first time At the end of last year, according to official figures reported by the Guardian Britain's greenhouse gas emissions also continued to fall, dropping 3% last year As coal use fell, there it is, falling right now And the use of renewables climbed Energy experienced the biggest drop in emissions of any UK sector, 8% Pollution from transport and businesses stayed flat Energy efficient energy supply Energy industry chief said the figures show the government should rethink its ban on onshore wind subsidies Let's subsidize everybody, shall we? By the way, if you're thinking there's nobody's making as the real estate people say They're not making any more land And it's just getting more expensive to find a place to live Here's good news, the Sahara Desert is expanding They're making more of that, it's expanded by about 10% since 1920 According to a new study by a University of Maryland scientists

Research is the first to assess century scale changes to the boundaries of the world's largest desert And it suggests other deserts could be expanding as well Let's not be desert, let's be desert rats, come on So it was published online and the Journal of Climate Deserts are typically, well you know what deserts are The researchers analyzed rainfall data recorded throughout Africa from 1920 to 2013 Found that the Sahara expanded by 10% during this period When the authors looked at seasonal trends over the same time period The most notable expansion occurred in summer Resulting in the nearly 16% increase in the desert's average seasonal area Over the nearly century span covered by this study Our results are specific to the Sahara but they likely have implications for the world's other deserts Says lead researcher The study suggests human cause climate change As well as natural climate cycles such as the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation Uremole caused the desert's expansion

The geographical pattern varied from season to season Most notable differences occurring over the northern and southern boundaries So let's all move to the desert New data show that extreme weather events have become more frequent over the last 36 years The significant uptick in floods and other hydrological events compared even with 5 years earlier According to a new publication Extreme weather events in Europe by the European Academy's Science Advisory Council This is reported by Eureka Alert Given the increase in frequency of extreme weather events The European Academy's Science Advisory Council calls for stronger attention to climate change adaptation across the European Union Well not Britain then Leaders and policymakers they say must improve the adaptability of Europe's infrastructure and social systems for changing climate The number of floods and other hydrological events have quadrupled overall on the globe since 1980 And if doubled again or doubled at least since 2004

Highlighting the urgency of adaptation to climate change Climateological events such as extreme temperatures droughts and forest fires have more than doubled since 1980 Media or logical events such as storms have doubled since 1980 And a marine heat wave Those marines are hot No, a marine heat wave in Western Australia 8 years ago set off a massive carbon bomb Damaging the world's largest sea grass meadow Releasing millions of tons of carbon that had been collected for thousands of years below the surface According to the Guardian, although Australia doesn't currently count carbon release from damaged sea grass meadows in its official greenhouse gas emissions If it did, the results mean those figures might need to be revised upwards by more than 20% Sea grass, well you know sea grass, it's flowering grass like plant that grows in shallow waters It gathers carbon dissolved in the sea and buries it below the surface Unlike forests that store carbon for about 60 years before releasing much of its sea grass meadows often star the carbon for thousands of years until they're disturbed That process is thought to offset up to 2% of humanity's greenhouse gas emissions

So don't disturb the sea grass and now an early onset apologies of the week Steve Smith is a member of the Australian national cricket team He returned home this week after a ball tampering scandal that rocked his Australian cricket and had a tear-filled news conference at the Sydney airport It sounded something like this To all of my teammates to fans of cricket all over the world and to all Australians who had disappointed and angry I'm sorry What happened in Cape Town has already been laid out by cricket Australia Tonight I want to make clear that it's captain of the Australian cricket team I take full responsibility

I made a serious error of judgment and I now understand the consequences It was a failure of leadership of my leadership I'll do everything I can to make up for my mistake and the damage it's caused If any good can come this If they can be a lesson to others then I hope I can be a force to change I know I'll regret this for the rest of my life I'm absolutely gutted I hope in time I can earn back respect and forgiveness I've been so privileged and honored to represent my country and captain the Australian cricket team

Cricket is the greatest game in the world It's been my life and I hope it can be again I'm sorry and I'm absolutely devastated One of his teammates had used a smuggled sandpaper onto the pitch as they call the playing surface to scuff up the ball I'm sorry Mark Zuckerberg has apologized many times It turns out according to Fast Company Before he started Facebook at Harvard he started face smash The site that briefly led his fellow students rates each other's looks He apologized I hope you understand this is not how I meant for things to go When I apologize for any harm done as a result of my neglect to consider how quickly the site would spread and his consequences thereafter I definitely see how my intentions could be seen in the wrong light

Then he starts Facebook, opens it up to everyone over the age of 13 aggregating activity from each member's friends into a new feature called The News Feed Some users fight it creepy In a post title Calm Down we hear you Zuckerberg informs the users or the users that they're worked up over a work in progress that doesn't make the service less private But then he says after a few days we really missed this one up Somehow we missed this point with News Feed and many feed and we didn't build in the proper privacy controls right away This was a big mistake in our park and I'm sorry for it December 2007 Facebook develops a strategy to monetize its 50 million users introducing beacon of technology It automatically tells your friends about your activity At third party sites like a pecurious in travelosity Without getting permission or allowing opt out We've made a lot of mistakes building this feature but we've made even more with how we've handled them

He admits in a blog post We simply did a bad job with this release and I apologize for it The feature disappears altogether after less than two years May 2010, Facebook privacy violations are again in the news as the Wall Street Journal's reporters say the company Devolge unique user IDs to advertisers which can be used to track consumers He publishes a Washington Post op-ed allowing that the company's privacy options quote just missed the mark But under a line of the company's goal is to make the world more open We will keep building, we will keep listening and we'll continue to have a dialogue with everyone who cares enough about Facebook to share their ideas September 2010 After Silicon Valley insider publishes old instant messages in which Zuckerberg makes incendiary remarks Calling the earliest Facebook members dumb F's for trusting him with their information He issues kind of an apology with the New Yorkers Jose Antonio Vargas He absolutely regrets the six-year-old exchanges but shouldn't be judged by them

If you're going to go on to build a service that is influential then a lot of people rely on Then you need to be mature, right? I think I've grown and learned a lot November 2016 at a conference days after the US presidential election Zuckerberg dismisses concerns about Facebook's role in its outcome People are smart and they understand what's important to them February 2017 he publishes a 5,000-word manifesto that never mentions Donald Trump by name But does allow Facebook has been overwhelmed by the task of policing its content on a variety of fronts September 2017 Zuckerberg says the fact that both the president and his critics are mad at Facebook shows the service is informed for free expression He backpedels on his initial comments about the possibility that misinformation on Facebook influenced the election results Calling that crazy was dismissive and I regret it This is too important an issue to be dismissive Also, same month he atones for his own failings on the lab on that young kipper In a Facebook post post but also mentions

Others abusing Facebook for divisive means For those I hurt this year I ask forgiveness and I will try to be wetter I ask for forgiveness and I will work to be better October 2017 after Puerto Rico is devastated by Hurricane Maria He broadcasts a video in which cartoon versions of himself and a colleague teleport to witness the damage Commenters criticized the effort as insensitive He chimes in via a comment of his own to say his goal was to show VR's potential for increasing empathy Reading some of the comments I realized this wasn't clear and I'm sorry to anyone this offended January this year Facebook has a lot of work to do No kidding, he's getting good at it Groupon, another website that uses, well it gives you discount coupons and purchases Published a listing of some shoes that use the N word repeatedly

It was used to describe according to Daily Beast The color of several pairs of boots on an e-commerce site Based on Chinese based enterprises in addition to other third-party sellers A spokesperson for Groupon told Insider.com The product description containing the N word was provided by a third-party seller Via the company's self-service platform Regardless, this is completely unacceptable and violates our policies to say nothing of our values We are appalled that this language was displayed on our site Language like this has no place on Groupon and we're strengthening our self-service controls To ensure it doesn't happen again Apology by Groupon In Atlanta Charter's school is apologized for a black history program that featured second graders with masks depicting them in blackface The kindazy school said it will provide cultural competency training for teachers

After parents expressed concern about the performance during which children recited Paul Lawrence Dunbar's poem We wear the mask while holding up masks that looked like minstrel show make up These schools said it is investigating the matter And it's committed to making sure this never happens again It apologizes and accepted responsibility for the hurt, anger, frustration and disappointment caused by the poor judgment we made And having students use masks that mimic blackface Next time, just actually paint their faces A Malcolm Bridge middle school teacher in Georgia has resigned after inadvertently displaying pornography in his classroom earlier this month's sixth grade teacher Who had also coached softball informed Okone County Georgia schools of this resignation need been absent from the school since March 22 While they investigated the principal Mary Blackburn and Meal comments with details of the incident

Last week there was an unfortunate incident where an image of a topless adult female inadvertently appeared on a projection screen in one of our classrooms The teacher closed the image and resumed teaching for the remainder of the class Blackburn said the teacher self reported the incident that day and a thorough review by technology personnel found no other inappropriate images Blackburn called the parents whose children were in the room to discuss the incident I apologize that this inappropriate incident occurred She said, if you have concerns specific to your child, please do not hesitate to contact me And I will take off my butt No, no she did not say that Dataline Blackspurg, Virginia Virginia Tech's women's lacrosse coach, has apologized after a video surface showing white team members singing a song by Lil Dickie That prominently features a racial slur Coach John Sung apologized for his team's actions and said members of Virginia Tech's athletic administration have met with the team And his confident players will learn from this mistake and understand these actions reflected poorly on our women's lacrosse program A radio host in San Diego was poised to make his debut in that city, apologized for a promotional tweet that centered around a gag about suicide jumps off the Coronado bridge

Kevin Klein scheduled to begin a new show on 97.3 FM tweeted a photo of the bridge overlaid with texturs and urging listeners to jump to a new morning show The tweet was posted Monday night and deleted by late Tuesday morning, resulted in swift backlash from many San Diegans I'd like to assert sincerely apologize to San Diego and listeners of 97.3 for distasteful and insensitive social media post Klein said on his Twitter page The comment was reprehensible and inexcusable I've failed at making a good first impression but I hope you'll give me another chance to provide entertainment a good natured laugh when I go on the air Thursday morning More than 400 people have jumped to the deaths since the bridge went up five decades ago But Klein wasn't in town for that, you know, DJs They travel Killer Mike, a rapper posted two videos Sunday apologizing for a video interview he did with the National Rifle Association Rapper, who was born Michael Render, Michael Rangy, had faced backlash after NRA TV shared the piece

On the same day of the march for our lives, rallies were held across the country He said the interview had been shot a week before Rapper is frequently spoken on on various topics including police brutality He criticized in the video National School Walkout Day in which students left classes to pay tribute to the 17 people killed at Marjorie Stone in Douglas High School a month earlier I'm sorry that an interview I did about a minority, Black people in this country and gun rights was used as a weapon against you guys He said that was unfair to you and it was wrong and disparaged some very noble work you're doing Savannah Guthrie is asking today viewers to forgive her and what appeared to be a production mistake The NBC Morning Show co-host was heard saying S blank T Sorry guys while preparing for a segment on the live broadcast It wasn't long before she apologized for the incident in a humorous tweet Check, check, is this thing on? Yeah, I guess it is So sorry guys, thanks for being kind and understanding

And I guess it's a good thing I don't wear a mic all day Hashtag, oh darn The Mayor of Vancouver, Gregor Robinson will formally apologize next month for past discrimination against residents of Chinese descent The apology will acknowledge the wrong doings of past legislation, regulation and policies of previous Vancouver City Councils And Wichita Kansas Police Chief has apologized after explosives were used in training exercises in a residential area Boom, the apologies of the week copyrighted feature of this broadcast I want to tell you that I'm thankful for your fingers on those strings

I want to whisper low until you hear all these forbidden things But I'll stand right here at home at home for all I know I'm the only one, but do you feel this undercurrent and the changing of the tides? When I'm with you baby we got everything to hate When I'm running out of time is when I wanna do it all When I'm running through my mind is when I wanna hear you call Well you're always running through my mind so why don't you call now It ain't right but it feels good let's do this anyhow

But I'll stand right here at home at home for all I know I'm the only one, but do you feel this undercurrent and the pulling of the tides? When I'm with you baby we got everything to hate Well I never really thought that I could be a child of sin Now here I come confessing of these childish hopes within But you said hope is always there so what's a girl to do? I should quit while I'm ahead with you I guess I'll stand right here at home at home

Maybe I'm not the only one Cause do you feel this undercurrent and the changing of the tides? When I'm with you baby we got everything to hate So pour another baby we got everything to hate Well it's a holiday weekend and a particular holiday weekend at time of year when we're all encouraged to think of cute little animals like bunnies Consider this ladies and gentlemen no little animal is cuter than the wallaby, the adorable Australian marsupial What?

At a holiday weekend we had a cute animal feet Ladies and gentlemen I'm informed we have an incoming call in the newsmaker line kind of have to take it The baby wallaby will have to stand by hello you're on the air I think I recognize this voice Oh my goodness it's been several years since we've heard from you New listeners you should know this gentleman started calling in around the start of the Iraq war He had been one of Saddam Hussein's 32 lookalikes Oh I can imagine and since the toppling of Saddam he's been keeping us informed on his life in the new Iraq but as I say We haven't heard from you in quite a while Shab Shab Yes I have been extremely busy liquidating my high end audio equipment business Mr Sir I haven't had time for the nice piece of life like expensive call to obscure public radio programs in the United States Well not quite obscure but I take your meaning

So you've got out of the high end audio business Mr Sir here there is one thing without which you cannot enjoy any kind of audio high end or normal consumer garbage And that would be what CDs and vinyl That's two things No the one thing is electricity without electricity all high end audio can offer you High end silence yeah got it but I thought in Baghdad by now what with what with what with what What with us has to stop Mr. Shereer we have 10 hours a day of electricity here We are approaching summer of time again what do you think even the most affluent Iraqi is going to do with those 10 hours Listen to a pristine recording of posca on beautiful tube driven electronics or blast the freaking AC Okay good question well I know you didn't call just to complain about the electricity Mr. Shereer it has been 15 years since your country invaded mine I called to give you a status report on Iraq 15 years on Hmm well I would say that that's a little superfluous what with all the media attention to Iraq 15 years on except that there hasn't been nearly any

So thank you shop shop now as I recall you had had plastic surgery to look like Saddam's successor to carry on with your Yes many people indicated that I was the spitting image of Mr. Al Maliki really did they did they say that too? No they spat at me but Mr. Shereer I just want to follow up on this Yes you haven't had plastic surgery to look like the current leader Mr. Al Abadi have you sure Near the rival leaders had Saddam's proclivity for avoiding public appearances The look alike business has tanked faster than my space Okay so in terms of Iraq 15 years on yes what are you doing now shop shop? I'm talking to you no no no I mean what are you doing for a living? I'm a tech startup I have a business called all the Iraq dot com old Iraq dot com I'm glad you asked we sell artifacts of pre invasion Iraq recovered from the museums and galleries of the country Sculpture statuary household items from the Mesopotamian era ancient waffle iron when when you say recovered from them

Yes okay I mean looted okay but somebody's got to sell them and at least if they're sold through all the Iraq dot com as opposed to the black market Taxes can be paid on them although not by me Okay all right now you'd mentioned electricity I read yesterday that Iran was helping to supply electricity to some Iraq cities near the border Yes as you know Mr. Shereer we have a government very much aligned shall we say with our Iranian neighbors? Well now this just a few years after Iraq and Iran fought a decade long very bloody war right? Imagine Mr. Shereer if after your civil war your government will run by sympathizers of the losing side I can't even begin to imagine that but but speaking of Iranians they of course are a Shiite country A lot of the resistance to the new Iraq came from Sunnis who'd been favored under the old Saddam Hussein regime It was Sunnis who seemed to be the biggest part of the so-called Islamic State President Trump

President Trump now says that the Islamic State has been one of his in one of his favorite words Decimated so what are relations like now between Sunnis and Shiites? Mr. Shereer I know enough from reading American papers by candlelight I should add To know that your baseball season has just begun that is a sport which they will there's much of the rest of the world But I would say we are like Yankees fans and Mets fans or Cobb fans and White Rock fans We stay on our side they stay on theirs I know that former Vice President Biden had often said that in his view Iraq would probably end up being broken up into a Sunni land, a Shiite land Apart with the oil yes I know Mr. Shereer and of course this is a country that was made up by the British and the Turks at the end of World War One But there is an Iraqi spirit that you can feel just being in the presence of an ancient pottery shard or other liberated artifacts It's public radio shop shop you can't sell anything but ideas here

But so wrapping up because it's told almost the baby wallabies nap time if you had to summarize whether Iraq is better off or worse off after 15 years What would you say? You know we have the original mission accomplished banner through it in near new condition just one bullet hole Just if you would respond to my question Mr. Shereer let me take this down to the personal level If you did not be in for this invasion this war this bloodshed this destruction The sea of refugees this erection of endless barricades across the streets by beautiful Baghdad I would never have gotten to know you telephonically and I would never have been able to build up an international mailing list But it wasn't a cake walk it wasn't an entire bakery walk but I'm a philosophical man as you may have noticed And focusing on the failures of the past prevents us from embracing the failures of the future Shop shop thank you for calling I hope we can talk again on the 30th anniversary

There's a 25th anniversary sale at Odilak.com this meeting I am told that the baby wallabie has fallen asleep so the show continues He's not a general, he commands no truth, he's not an inspector He picks up no stoops, he's an inspector Oh yeah U.S. officials, I know, are you sitting down? You better sit down for this because it's from the military times U.S. officials did not effectively manage $3.1 billion of U.S. funds provided to the Afghan government No, really? This is according to the Department of Defense Inspector General who released report Wednesday It was the last in a series of audits by the IG that identified systemic challenges in how officials oversee funding to the government of Afghanistan for fuel, ammunition, vehicles, and other commodities Like puppies. In one such instant of misuse, officials did not implement controls to properly account for and maintain vehicles provided by the defense department to Afghan national defense and security forces

For example, an Afghan national defense vehicle that was reported as destroyed in battle and removed from the property books was later brought in for maintenance Well that could happen anywhere Additionally, the DOD spent roughly $21 million to replace engines and transmissions on vehicles in Afghanistan Because U.S. officials did not provide sufficient training to the Afghan national police to independently maintain its fleet of vehicles Well, you just turned the thing, right? In another revelation, the DOD IG noted that since 2005, U.S. officials obtained approximately 95,000 vehicles for the defense forces However, officials did not have an accurate inventory of the vehicles Well, that would mean you would have U.S. officials could not determine the types and quantities of vehicles transferred to Afghan forces Nor did they have controls in place to ensure that Afghan Ministry of the Interior and Defense officials consistently followed proper accountability procedures

Well, why would they have to when we don't? The issues identified in the report were found to have occurred largely for two reasons A, stupid, no, first U.S. officials did not establish a realistic and achievable conditions for Afghan ministries to meet in order to receive funds Second, U.S. officials did not enforce non-compliance penalties that did exist due to fear negatively impacting the Afghan security forces readiness Additionally, U.S. officials stated that they could not oversee all bilateral financial commitment letter requirements because of inadequate staffing As a result, officials did not have assurance that 3.1 billion in U.S. direct funding was used entirely for the intended purposes, according to the Inspector General, you see A new watchdog report reveals that the Department of Veterans Affairs employed thousands of workers at medical facilities without properly performing background checks The Inspector General report faults the VA for employing an estimated 6,200 workers over five years through 2016, so this would not be under the current administration

Who did not go underground, sorry, sorry, he did not undergo background checks within the mandated first 14 days of their employment Some of them were on the job for years before a proper background check was completed, many with access to personal and private data of America's veterans You'd think, maybe you could let the vets vet them They're there, in one case a registered nurse was on the job at a VA facility in Ohio for nearly four years before undergoing the review Without completed background checks to determine employee suitability, says the IG, the VA lacks assurance that the VA work force is properly vetted and appropriate for providing health care to the nation's veterans In addition, initiating background investigations in a timely manner is critical to mitigate the risk to veterans of administration and ensure that unsuitable staff may be removed during the probationary employment period Investigators blame the backlog on the VA's operations security and preparedness office, which they say is rife with mismanagement and lack of oversight

The officials in that office told the IG that it hopes to reduce the backlog by October to 2500 employees that are unvetted And when then FBI director James Coney testified before Congress about Apple refusing to unlock the cell phone of a suspect in the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist shootings He was incorrect, but he didn't lie That's the nuanced conclusion from a Department of Justice Inspector General Report The FBI exhausted all avenues to break into the cell phone before taking Apple to court, that's what Coney said It was not borne out by the facts, because one part of the FBI was buying an off the shelf solution to crack the iPhone while another part of the FBI didn't know that was happening And now

News of our friend the atom Clean, safe, too cheap to meet Safe, too cheap to meet Will the South Carolina saga of people, consumers, citizens being charged money to pay for new nuclear plants which are never going to be built continues Now a Virginia power company Dominion Energy Dominion says if South Carolina legislators pass a bill removing the monthly charge for the two nuclear plants that will not be built It will withdraw an offer to buy the South Carolina power company Dominion Energy CEO Tom Ferrell says the company's offer to return up to $1,000 to the customers and promise not to raise rates for three years is fair State senators started debating a proposal that would remove the $37 million a month that South Carolina electric and gas charges for the nuclear plants that were abandoned last summer after ten years of planning and construction

The bill has passed the House Customers of the power company have already paid about $2 billion for reactors which will never be built A report by the South Carolina newspaper The Post and Courier showed that the power company could cut electric rates at least 13% without going bankrupt Maybe they'd rather go bankrupt They'd like to lead Ohio another US utility has announced plans to close its nuclear power operations as the industry struggles to compete with plants that burn natural gas which is plentiful The company said it's willing to work with both states to find a way to keep the plants open but lawmakers remain unwilling to offer a financial rescue It appears the plants are nearing a shutdown The natural gas boom and the increasing use of renewable energy have squeezed the nation's aging nuclear reactors

Well that would make them work harder wouldn't it? This is according to the Washington Post which are expensive to operate and maintain New York and Illinois have responded to the situation by giving out billion dollar bailouts that will be paid by ratepayers, i.e. you, me, John Q, you To stop unprofitable nuclear plants from closing but similar proposals have been met with resistance in Connecticut, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania because such subsidies would cause a rise in utility bills You don't want that? What the hell is wrong with you? Clean, cheap, too expensive to meet our friend the atom Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to present Let us try a ballot of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Let us try to stem the tide to beautify our countryside We offer you our hand Let us try

Next month the agency that oversees the hurricane protection system so-called around New Orleans has expected to take over new pumping stations At the miles of the three canals that carry stormwater into Lake Pontchartrain This will mark the end of a decade-long saga of broken and corroded pumps, construction delays and millions of dollars in repairs that may have been preventable according to the lens in New Orleans Since 2006, as you may know, if you saw the big uneasy, temporary pumping stations have experienced serious failures due to problems including rust, pumps in the water Who would have thought rust would happen? Pumps have been removed for repairs during hurricane season, sometimes for months causing critics to venture that communities weren't properly protected Many of those repairs could have been prevented if the Army Corps of Engineers had chosen stainless steel pumps that resist corrosion That's according to among others, Matt McBride, who is chronic of the problem, sees a mechanical engineer and has a blog called Fix the Pumps

Thank goodness for the Freedom of Information Act, he says, because it allows us to push past the well-financed public affairs curtain and see the entire Rusty Pump story Wasn't she a friend of Stormy Daniels for what it is if he asked go six years in the making? It would have taken more time to get better pumps, the Corps was racing against the clock to get the temporary pumps installed for the 2006 hurricane season By McBride's count between 2006 and this, sorry, last year, the Corps removed pumps about 50 times from the canals in New Orleans to repair or replace them By 2012, it concluded the corrosion problem was a fiasco six years in the making, some pumps had been pulled for repairs three times Now, all the pumps at the mouth of the outfall canals in New Orleans used stainless steel, that is according to the spokesman for the Army Corps That came just in time for those corrosion-resistant replacements to be irrelevant as the temporary pumping stations are about to be shut down

And disassembled as the permanent ones, which have been under construction for the last three or four years, start up The Corps announced an expected to finish work on the permanent stations by 2013, the contract wasn't even awarded until 2013 In New Orleans, all the hydraulic pumps with carbon steel components at the mouths of the three canals were pulled out and repaired or refitted The boy at the spokesman for the Corps of Engineers never answered questions from the lens about how much those repairs cost According to McBride, the engineer slash blogger, the cost of corrosion-related repairs was at least 8.5 million, but that doesn't include every pump that was repaired H.J. Bosworth and engineers closely followed the Corps through his work with levies.org, said the agency dropped the ball installing the temporary pumps, quote, it was just a complicated mess of a lot of things that can go wrong

Louisiana Flood protection authority should have been made with carbon steel because that material will corrode. McBride raised questions about corrosion more than a decade ago, well before the pumps should have required repairs He filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the Corps and obtained reports, emails, memos, receipts and photographs They revealed the Corps had found a corrosion as early as June 2006, when the pumps first went online And the Corps said, hey, we've done something to prevent Katrina from happening again And a blog post in 2010, McBride criticized the company that had built the pumps moving water industries based in Florida after its employees claimed they had not been informed that their equipment would sit in brackish water

McBride pointed out that its employees were in New Orleans right after the storm and would have seen how the flood water killed everything it touched Critics said the political connections of the company played a role in it winning the contract company once employed Jab Bush, it's a low energy company, the government accountability office of the US government investigated the course decision to buy those pumps and concluded the Corps had valid reasons for deciding to buy those pumps Believing it would provide some immediate protection even if it couldn't handle a severe storm, well who needs protection against that? McBride wrote in his blog in 2012, the Corps would rather the public didn't bother with such details as whether the pumps work under storm conditions, or if they have crippling design flaws, or if the salt, water and lake punch attorneys turning them into rusty heaps That's because they know if the public were privy to all those pesky details, they might freak out over how scary the story is

When asked about whether the Corps made a mistake procuring pumps made with carbon steel, Bosworth said, you don't use toy parts in your car, you use real automobile parts You don't use little engines for big trucks and your exhaust systems in your cars don't rust out anymore because you use stainless steel Let us try, ladies and gentlemen, the motto of the United States Army Corps of Engineers Well ladies and gentlemen, that's cream, it's gonna conclude this week's edition of the show, the program it turns next week at this Same time, if you listen to it at the same time over your audio device or choice, that's kind of up to you, why do you love freedom so much?

And it would be just like pumps working if you'd agree to join with me then Would you already thank you very much, a hot tip of the show'sapp, bow to the San Diego, Pittsburgh Chicago next aisle and Hawaii desks, thanks as always to Pam Holsted and to Jenny Lawson The email address for this program the one that can reach me personally Playlist of the music heard here on heard by you personally and you're chance to get cars. I talk to shirts Just in time for Memorial Day really all at harryshare.com and I'm on Twitter Relentlessly tweeting at the harryshare If you have not heard

Spinal to have the band has Disappointed, hate to say, broken up but dissipated and Derek Smalls the lead basis in the band is Embarking on a solo project which has its first iteration first performance in the known world April 14th Luke Warmwater live and adventure in loud music with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra Seriously at the Sanger Theatre New Orleans Will I see you there? And you'll be joined by special New Orleans musical guests of course because it's New Orleans. The show comes to you from century of progress productions that originates through the facilities of

WWW and own New Orleans flagship station of the changes easy radio network so long from the home of the homeless