“You should resign”, Senator Elizabeth Warren told Stumpf, who had injured his right hand while playing with his grandchildren. “You should give back the money you took while this scam was going on and you should be criminally investigated by both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

But of course he won’t. He just ‘didn’t know’. (He being the CEO of Wells Fargo, who have just admitted fraud against millions of customers.)

I wonder why acts like Sarbanes-Oxley can’t be used in cases like these …. after all S-O was introduced so that criminal penalties for certain misconduct could be applied to the board of directors of a public corporation.

Oh wait - of course …. ‘certain misconduct’ - it probably doesn’t refer to fraud against millions of customers - but instead focuses on a few multi-millionaire shareholders that need this kind of protection.

Nobody will even go to jail - because there probably won’t be an investigation. (New Yorker)

Read Even More About It. (Bloomberg)

And finally - The Daily Show’s Take … pretty much mine - with humour .. or humor - whichever floats your boat!

I don't intend this site to become home to movie commentaries - so this will likely be the last on this topic. But, I wanted to publish something about Oliver Stone's new 'biopic' as a 'compare and contrast' to Eastwood's Sully. Unlike Sully - I have seen 'Snowden'. Excellent. 

 Here's a review of the movie from the Intercept - Glen Greenwald's site. I haven't done a fact check on the movie, but I suspect that if it deviated too much from the truth (rubik cube and other film points aside), I think Glen and his team would be all over it.

Meanwhile - it is apparent that the Washington Post has no shame .... publishing this article this weekend. They believe that he should be prosecuted to the full. 

They miss two key points ... (well probably more - but lets go with two)

1) They were one of the newspapers who originally published his story - even accepting a Pulitzer for their story. If they feel they way that they suggest in their editorial - why did they do the story to begin with?

2) They want him to come home and face the music ...

Ideally, Mr. Snowden would come home and hash out all of this before a jury of his peers. That would certainly be in the best tradition of civil disobedience, whose practitioners have always been willing to go to jail for their beliefs. He says this is unacceptable because U.S. secrecy-protection statutes specifically prohibit him from claiming his higher purpose and positive impact as a defense — which is true, though it’s not clear how the law could allow that without creating a huge loophole for leakers. (Mr. Snowden hurt his own credibility as an avatar of freedom by accepting asylum from Russia’s Vladi­mir Putin, who’s not known for pardoning those who blow the whistle on him.)

For the record - so does he - but in an open court with  jury - which The American Government has not agreed to. They want it behind closed doors - probably those same un-checked closed doors where it all started.

Oh - and the asylum in Russia thing ... he was on his way to somewhere else - when he landed in Russia - the state department revoked his passport. So the only way he now can travel is back to the US direct to the US authorities. (see above).

Apart from the PR bennies - I suspect that Russia didn't want to turn one of their airports into a real life case of this other Hank's movie.

This will become a major article on the Beyond Bridges site. Shameful.

Bottom line - donate your lifetime work to the Smithsonian - for people to use with no charge.

How did Carol found out? When Getty sent her a bill for using her own picture.

Read All About It.

I haven't seen Sully. I don’t' intend to. I like Eastwood Movies ... generally .. but I tend not to like Hanks movies. Normally Eastwood would win me over but when I saw the clips, it looked boring. And there was something else. The film was emphasizing things that happened post crash. Things where the authorities were questioning decisions that Sully took. 

As the article says:

With Sully, the film-makers were faced with a problem: how to make a feature-length movie about a six-minute flight?

Answer - focus on the actions after the crash.

“Until I read the script, I didn’t know the investigative board was trying to paint the picture that he had done the wrong thing. They were kind of railroading him,” says Eastwood in one promotional trailer. 

That's it - neither did I. I was surprised that I hadn’t .. very surprised.

It's not surprising Eastwood (and me .. 'ed') was ignorant of any railroading by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), since it’s a narrative absent from Highest Duty, or anything actually said or written by the NTSB.

And that's the problem. In the future like so many of these fictional accounts of history - they will over take real history and facts will be forgotten. It’s the substance of future conspiracy theory.

Around the world, the NTSB’s investigations are regarded as setting the gold standard for impartiality, perceptiveness and making recommendations with important safety benefits. The NTSB has saved countless lives. Yet the NTSB has no regulatory ability: to turn its recommendations into practice, the board relies solely on a moral authority founded on its reputation for diligence. The stakes are high – the board currently has a list of 10 critical safety improvements that it’s trying to get implemented, including, for example, positive train control, something that would have spared 243 people last year from a deadly Amtrak derailment.

Sully has smeared this reputation for the sake of a hero who needed no defending. It will create a headwind in the minds of the public and policymakers that the NTSB will be struggling against for years to come.

Read All About It.

This is so sad ....

When the African-American history museum opens on September 24th, there will be no major artifacts from the civil rights icon on display.

A sad dysfunctional family. 

Well that is something I never knew ..... and it has been doing it for 60 years.

Read All About It At Futility Closet.

BTW - before you click through - any idea what I'm talking about? The clue is in the title. It really is the crazy little stuff that you never knew - but then again - why would you?

I miss Keith Olbermann. I guess I need to spend more time seeking him out. Still - this video received via David Freer is just great. Olbermann is great with this kind of schtick.

Watch It Here.

Ordered ...

Blackfield V sees the duo of Steven Wilson and Aviv Geffen return to full collaborative mode. Written and recorded over a period of 18 months, the album contains 13 linked songs that form a flowing 45 minute ocean themed song cycle. 

The duo handle vocals, guitars, and keyboards, alongside guests Tomer Z, Eran Mitelman, and string performances by the London Session Orchestra. 

Producer / engineer Alan Parsons works on three of the album's key tracks. 

HELL YES!

Read All About It.

And here is another way of looking at it .....

... during an inspection by the Food and Drug Administration earlier this month, regulators concluded that Theranos had collected some data supporting the accuracy of the Zika test without implementing a patient-safety protocol approved by an institutional review board, according to the people familiar with the matter. 

Really, I know nothing about this world - but I do keep up with the news. A company that is run by a CEO who has been banned for two years from operating labs just weeks later is found out again. Cue - "Where Have All The Flowers Gone".

Maybe she should have stuck with Stanford.

Read All About It.

Via Kottke

and I agree - great chase.

But Steve's was nearly 50 years ago.

If you live in the UK you might recall the News International hacking scandal that ultimately brought down The News of the World. Though the editor - Rebecca Wade (now Brooks) - was protected by Murdock and has now reappeared as his CEO of News UK.

... what is News UK?  The publisher of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and - if it hadn't been forced to close due to that hacking scandal - The News of the World. So that's alright then.

And so what has all this to do with 2016 in the USA ?

Turns out that Fox News seem to have borrowed some of those dirty tricks ....

New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman reported on September 2, that Fox News had “obtained the phone records of journalists, by legally questionable means,” including the home and cell phone records of Media Matters’ senior reporter Joe Strupp, in an effort to find Strupp’s anonymous sources at the network.
Media Matters president Bradley Beychok responded to the egregious allegations and said that the organization is “considering all legal options” available and that “anyone involved in the illegal hacking should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Read All About It.

I am in the process of writing an article on engagement. You know - that thing we are all meant to do in this wonderful social web of ours. I post an article - you comment on it - we end up in a dialogue etc .... Except it doesn't seem to work like that ... which is why I am writing the article.

Meanwhile, this post from Dave Winer appeared in my feed.

It is about what 'nice internet users' do. He has a list of twelve - and I have repeated the four below that fit into my 'engagement' thinking.

- They comment on other people's posts.
- They like other people's posts.
- They share them.
- They read posts before responding to them.

The irony of course is that I couldn't post this post as a comment on Dave's post, because he has comments switched off. Still, I did 'like it' and 'share it' - and 'link back to it' with this post.

EMail me if you can connect the image and content of this post.

And another set of comments on comments. This time from the Washington Post.

This is part of the magic of Apple. They tell us the future without telling us their future.

A truly wireless future .... Read All About It

The former Genesis man wrote the song specifically for the upcoming Oliver Stone-directed film Snowden based on the experiences of Edward Snowden, the computer professional who leaked classified information from the US’s National Security Agency in 2013.

“Snowden’s revelations shocked the world and made it very clear why we need to have some way to look over those who look over us. With increasing terrorist attacks, security is critical, but not without any accountability or oversight.”

Looking forward to the movie - of course - and delighted to see Gabriel part of the music .... but the point of this post is to remind us all of this quote ....

“As we become so visible in the digital world and leave an endless trail of data behind us, exactly who has our data and what they do with it becomes increasingly important.

#VRM

Read All About It.

Steven Wilson has confirmed that the fifth Blackfield album will arrive on November 18 via Kscope.

CANNOT .. repeat CANNOT ... wait.

Read All About It.