Categories
Events of note Government Media Savannah

Savannah fiddles while the US burns

Next Monday the annual Savannah St. Patrick’s Day parade makes its way down our historic streets. The parade is now celebrating its 201st anniversary, an extraordinary achievement. And though it has had a reputation for being one of the biggest “kiss me I’m Irish” bashes in the country, the wild parties and uncontrolled drinking in the squares is now a thing of the past. Not to say there won’t be parties, and it is St. Patrick’s day, so yes, there will be drinking…but families need not fear bringing down the kiddies to celebrate.

Among the parade participants will be marchers from the armed services, including 200 soldiers from nearby Fort Stewart. Unlike past year’s, the military and the city are working hard to prevent the ambush of red-lipsticked attacks by women—a ‘tradition’ that really is dated and frankly, not fun, cute, or acceptable. My personal preference would be to create a law that any attempted smoocher breaking parade boundaries has to stay behind after the parade and help with clean up.

I won’t be attending the parade. I’m still recovering from a serious case of the flu, and I’m no longer that comfortable in large crowds. I may be half Irish, but I’d rather have a cup o tea and a shamrock cookie at home.

And frankly, even without the flu, I am in no mood to celebrate.  Not after watching what’s happening at the federal level the last few months. I’m also not sure I could look into the faces of the soldiers as they march past and not feel shame at what this country is doing to them.

Women and soldiers of color have had their service degenerated by their new Secretary of Defence boss. They’ve had healthcare removed because of political ideology. They’ve watched excellent commanders stripped of their commands solely because of their sex or the color of their skin.

Comrades-in-arms who have served with distinction beside them are being summarily dismissed from their careers because of anti-trans bigotry—a bigotry that is expanding to all members of the LGBTQ+ community.

And what can they look forward to, once they leave the military? If they need therapy, they’ll have to crowd into a cubicle with their therapist and hope a white noise machine keeps their discussion private. If our soldiers need other veteran care, including health, they’ll be waiting months because of a planned decimation of the Veterans Administration. In addition, veterans have long enjoyed greater access to good jobs in our federal government. Now these same veterans are losing their jobs by the tens of thousands.

And those still serving? They don’t know if they’ll be doing publicity work at the border, or instructed to give some of our nation’s most important secrets to frat boys and foreign operatives. They’re being told our closest allies are really our enemies and that ‘woke’ is a greater risk than Russian cyber hackers.

How can we face the soldiers on St. Patrick’s day, and pretend all of this is not happening? To ignore that these soldiers lives are being brutally unraveled but have no fear, the city will keep them safe from lipstick?

I understand the need for balance. One can’t live in a state of anger all the time, and that the St. Patrick’s parade is an important economic event for our area. But living in Savannah the last two months is like living in the fabled village of Brigadoon—cut off from the rest of the country by a determination not to acknowledge what’s happening to the country and its impact here.

People are being laid off here. Funds are being frozen here. Federal offices are being shut down here. Because of NOAA closures, we’re at greater risk from hurricanes. Our fishing industries will be impacted. Are Fort Stewart support personnel among those being fired? Can we even depend on FEMA the next Debby or Helene?

What impact will the obsessive focus on deporting longtime and law-abiding migrants have on our local economies?

How about our healthcare? Drastic cuts are threatened for Medicaid, we already know the Veterans Administrations health services are being cut, but we’re in the middle of a measles epidemic and told to slug down some carrots and all will be well. I paid the price this last week for forgetting my flu shot this last fall, but will I even have an option for a flu shot next fall?

Can we have clubs for women or Black people in our schools? Can we even mention the word ‘Black’? We can’t mention the word ‘inclusive’.

And don’t even get me started on the bird flu and the latest brainstorm from RFK Jr. I now predict the next time the bird flu hits one of our major egg producers in Georgia, instead of culling the herd to stop the threat, we’ll be spraying the birds with cod liver oil. Perhaps we’ll start a birdy meditation circle.

Feed them carrots.

The latest hit to our sanity is tariffs. Or I should say, will we won’t we tariff yes tariff no that has tanked the stock market.

Our media is filled with local news, and appropriately so. But what’s happening nationally is a local story. Aside from a too-rare piece that squeaks past the news desk now and again, no attempts seem to be made to connect what’s happening in the halls in DC to what we need to know, in the Savannah/Chatham county region or the greater coastal area.

Our leaders are focused on green fountains, too much traffic, and new ship-clearing bridges, which is understandable, and these are important…but communicating with the people about federal actions and their impacts on us here, locally, is also part of their job. Pretending nothing is happening amounts to a dereliction of duty.

(The only person speaking out seems to be Buddy Carter, and he’s reduced to absurdities in his desperate attempts to appeal to Trump’s ego.)

Worse, the silence from our local leaders signals there is no interest in challenging what’s happening at the federal level; that we will be the good little boys and girls and not rock the boat and hope that some crumbs of federal funds make their ways past the DOGE cuts.

Please, sirs, may we have some more?

While a part of me understands about not provoking either Trump or Musk—both known for their egos and their capacity for petty revenge—please, sirs, may we have some more sticks in my throat and leaves a bitter taste.

But … this didn’t start out to be a story about Trump and Musk and the destruction of our government. This is about St. Patrick’s Day and the famous Savannah St. Patrick’s Day parade. It’s about green beer (we can still say ‘green’) and the running of the squares and kissing the Irish and wonderful food and music.

And this is about watching the soldiers marching past, and keeping them lipstick free. Yes, that’s what this is about.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

 

Categories
Government Medicare Money

Georgia Social Security offices on DOGE chopping list

Recent updates to the DOGE.gov ‘savings’ page now list Social Security Administration (SSA) office closures in the following Georgia cities:

  • Columbus
  • Gainesville
  • Vidalia
  • Brunswick
  • Thomasville

There is no rhyme or reason for these closures, other than it’s a simple checkbox on a computer screen and a complete lack of concern about the consequences.

SSA offices provide opportunities for people to get help about Social Security, disability, survivor benefits, Supplemental Security Income, and Medicare. Not everyone has a computer or the skills to do everything online. In particular, if you’re a victim of identity theft, it’s likely you’ll have to visit your nearest SSA office at some point.

Most offices have so many customers, SSA initiated a pilot program for advance reservations in Florida and Georgia. Closing down this many offices is going to have a significant impact on Georgia residents. If the office closures are paired with a 50% reduction in SSA workers, the agency will not be able to meet the needs of our nation’s most vulnerable people.

And the savings? When you’re talking about 4 trillion in tax cuts, primarily for corporations and the wealthy that Trump and the Republicans want to pass, the office closure savings don’t even rate a blip on the same chart.

  • Columbus – $51,023
  • Gainesville – $506,527
  • Vidalia – $228,757
  • Brunswick – $215,383
  • Thomasville – $289,139

Today, Speaker Mike Johnson went on Meet the Press and stated that he and Musk don’t want to cut Social Security and Medicare, but want to eliminate “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Yet SSA’s Inspector General found that only about 1% of Social Security payments were improper. And even then, SSA was able to recover 60% of that amount.

Also today, Elon Musk on Jeff Rogan’s podcast claimed that Social Security is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme, and the real problem is not enough babies and we’re just living too long. What wasn’t said was an acknowledgement of the positive contributions immigrants make to Social Security.

So for there’s no indication that Savannah’s Social Security office is among those to be marked for closure. Yet. I will keep checking for DOGE cuts impacting on the Savannah area.

Categories
Events of note Government Places

What’s worse than Trump/Vance on Ukraine? Congressional Republicans

I watched a partial video of a town hall by Roger Marshall, junior senator from Kansas. The topic was the Russian/Ukrainian war, and the Trump/Vance/Zelenskyy debacle on Friday.

Here’s how Republicans are spinning what happened with Trump and Vance when they ambushed Zelenskyy.

  1. The war did not have a beginning, it just magically happened.
  2. If it continues, it will be World War III, and let’s throw in nuclear to scare people.
  3. Europe should have stepped up. This is Europe’s fight, not ours.
  4. A million people have died.
  5. This is all Biden’s fault
  6. Trump just wants to have peace

This is the stuff you scrape off your boot after walking through a barnyard.

  1. The war did have a beginning. Putin was the aggressor. And when he promised not to be aggressive, he lied and became even more aggressive. What Putin wants is a Ukraine loyal to him, and he will accept nothing else.
  2. Putin is the one tossing out the threat of nuclear weapons, which to me, makes Russia a threat regardless of what’s happening in Ukraine.
  3. In close to three years, Europe has spent $138.7 billion on Ukraine, while the US has spent $119.7 billion. Europe stepped up.
  4. It’s difficult to count the numbers of dead and wounded. Russia isn’t honest with its counts, and Ukraine doesn’t have counts from occupied territories. But the likely number, though tragic and high, is not a million.
  5. This is Putin’s fault. According to Marshall, Republicans wanted funds for Ukraine but Biden said no. In actuality, it is primarily Congressional Democrats who fought for funds for Ukraine, while the GOP bickered among themselves. The only time the GOP pushed Biden to support Ukraine is shortly after he took office when they were the minority party. Once they took over the House, their interest in helping Ukraine drastically declined. It was up to the Democrats to put real money on the table.
  6. Trump wants tax cuts for the rich. Anything that takes money away from this one single goal is trash to him. Our government, our allies, our healthcare, people’s lives…if it takes money away from tax cuts for the rich, it’s trash to Trump. And Trump likes Putin, because Putin makes him feel special.

We supported Ukraine because it was a country with a true democracy invaded by a totalitarian aggressor intent on domination. And we have long known that Putin is a danger to more than Ukraine. I just never thought I would live to see a US President openly embrace Putin.

Sources

Marshall Town Hall video

Putin uses NATO as an excuse for his war against Ukrainian statehood

Bluff and bluster: Why Putin revised Russia’s nuclear doctrine

How much has the US given to Ukraine?

Fact check: Trump makes numerous false claims at Cabinet meeting

Republicans try to out-hawk Biden on Ukraine aid

Can Biden keep U.S. aid flowing to Ukraine amid GOP chaos in House?

Why are some Republicans opposing more aid for Ukraine?

What is the death toll of Russia’s war in Ukraine?

 

Categories
Government People

Dear Buddy Carter

Trust.

Once won, not easily lost. But once lost, forever gone.

In his first month in office, Trump’s greatest harm has been to trust.

Our allies are no longer our allies, but our enemies, and trust between us has been shattered.

We supported Ukraine…until we didn’t, and somehow Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the fault of…Ukraine?

We have insulted our neighbor Mexico, and threatened tariffs that would harm our country as much as it.

We have derided Canada, this country’s closest friend. We have demanded they halt a nonexistent migrant flood or suffer devastating consequences…only to say, Ooops, we didn’t mean it, a week later.

We embrace dictators and celebrate oppressors, while dismissing democracy as some quaint old custom.

Trust has also been broken between government worker and employer. After months satisfying job requirements, and then packing up home and family to move near their job, employees are being summarily fired—not for any good reason, or for lack of ability, or even because the job isn’t necessary. No, the jobs are lost solely because some kids working for a man who is, and is not, working for, and is not working for, the Trump administration needs a bullet point for his “what I did last week.”

We’ve also lost the trust of individuals and organizations, both foreign and domestic. USAID was suddenly cut, stranding US workers in dangerous situations. We let food rot on our docks rather than send it to those who are hungry. A bipartisan government agency that amounted to less than 1% of our budget but resulted in positive outcomes throughout the world is gutted because it’s low-hanging fruit in some kind of DOGE numbers game that more closely resembles Path of Exile 2 than sound fiscal policy.

We’ve lost the trust of US farmers and companies who provided the goods USAID supplied, and whose bills are going unpaid because someone who does not know what they are doing is just stopping everything. It’s so easy to turn something off. Just flick a switch. And then walk away from the result.

States can’t trust that the federal government will follow through on commitments made. States can’t prepare communities for future hurricanes, or clear old mines and reclaim the land, or even ensure their citizens are employed because someone from DOGE thought they’d pad their ‘score’ board.

We’ve lost trust in the US government’s health system, once the finest in the world. Why? Because it’s now led by people who think Cheerios is more harmful than cancer, measles, and e.Coli.

Medical researchers can never trust our government’s commitment to long-term research efforts because the same silly kids who again do not know what they are doing, just stopped funding of efforts that could and would save lives.

Their reason? Because they can.

We can’t even get a break by going to one of our national parks, because we can’t trust they’ll be open because of job cuts.

As for yourself…Congressional Republicans have lost our trust because all of you have not made one move against all of these actions. Buddy, you’re normally a talkative kind of guy, but I’ve not heard a peep from you other than introduce a bill to buy Greenland and call it Red, White, and Blueland. Even though the actions the Trump administration take are blatantly illegal and threaten the Constitutional balance that has kept our country strong for 250 years.

When questioned, some Congressional members assure us that the courts are on the job. The courts will pick up the slack for Congress. Yes, sir, trust the courts.

The same members then move to impeach members of the courts.

When fear of Trump overrides the fundamental obligation Congressional members have to their constituents, Congress might as well not exist.

Trust. In just one month, so much trust has been destroyed. There may come a time in the future when more responsible leadership will work to bring together the remains of trust.

But the world will never look at this country the same way again. Government employees will never believe that doing a good job in a necessary task guarantees stability again. Businesses, farmers,  and nonprofits will never be able to depend on fiscal promises given again. Medical researchers will never know if the study they start now will actually be allowed to finish.

And we can never again fully trust that when we need the government, it will be there for us.

And you, Buddy. Will we in Georgia ever be able to trust you again?

Trust. Once broken, gone forever.

Sources

Trump says Ukraine started the war that’s killing its citizens.

Historian Anne Applebaum breaks down what Trump’s alignment with Russia means

US joins Russia to vote against UN resolution condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine

Trump says Canada and Mexico tariffs are ‘going forward’ with more import taxes to come

Nearly $500m of food aid at risk of spoilage after Trump USAid cuts

Billions of dollars at stake for farmers hit by Trump funding freeze, pause on foreign aid

Small businesses struggle to find their footing one month into Trump 2.0

Iowa pauses work restoring dangerous abandoned mines over federal funding uncertainty

Savannah’s Springfield Canal stormwater project likely casualty of Trump cuts

Amid Chaos, New Report Reveals 40 Percent of DOGE Cuts Save No Money

The Blinding Contempt of the DOGE bros

600 civilian employees at Tinker Air Force Base face termination amid workforce shakeup

A closer look at RFK, Jr.’s stance on ultra-processed foods

Kennedy says panel will examine childhood vaccine schedule after promising not to change it

Trump halts medical research funding in apparent violation of judge’s order

Canceled meetings and confusion: NIH grant funding in limbo despite court injunction

Elon Musk says federal employees must either document their work — or lose their jobs

Fired federal workers hunt for new jobs but struggle to replace their old ones

Federal Personnel Office Tells Agencies That Musk’s Directive Is ‘Voluntary

Fired in Trump’s chaotic purge, an Army vet says he’s never felt more betrayed

GOP lawmakers confronted by constituents angry with Trump-Musk cuts

Trump’s GOP allies bombard judges with impeachment threats

Musk calls for impeachment after Baltimore judge blocks Trump’s DEI executive order

Concern grows as Arizona national park closes visitor centers

 

Messages to Representative Buddy Carson, First District, Georgia

Categories
Government Programming Languages

Rocket go up. Rocket come down.

One consistent thing about Musk and DOGE is the continuously promised use of Large Language model AI technologies to do…something.

The most recent case is Musk’s promise to use AI to analyse the five bullet responses to his “What did you do last week?” question…which government workers may or may not have been told to respond to or not respond to. Maybe. Yes. No. Maybe.

(BTW, there’s a lawsuit for that.)

Remember my reference to GIGO? Garbage In, Garbage Out? When you’re automatically collecting and analyzing data from many different groups with jobs that have no commonality working with hundreds of agencies enforcing rules, regulations, and requirements—all of which come from laws built on top of other laws. which may contradict each other in any number infinitesimal ways…well, the resulting mess will be pure GIGO. Particularly when answering may or may not happen individually, by employee, or by department. Especially when directions in how to respond come via X-witter twip.

The same GIGO applies to every stated use of AI that Musk and DOGE claim will root out waste, Fraud, and abuse (WAF). The same applies to all their claims about ‘modernizing’ the government computer systems.

The idea of being able to reduce decades-old government systems to something that can either be understood or redefined automatically is equivalent to reducing SpaceX software systems to “Rocket go up. Rocket come down.”

I took a deep dive into the systems used in our government agencies. There’s a surprising amount of openly available data about each.

For instance, we know about COBOL used with government systems, but are you aware that the core element of the Treasury fiscal system is down-to-the-metal Assembly code?

More modern systems utilize Java, and many are created using C and C++. However, in 2025 government completed a two year study about what language it should be using because C and C++ are inherently insecure.

Their answer? Rust.

After more than two decades of grappling with memory safety issues in C and C++, the software engineering community has reached a consensus. It’s not enough to rely on bug-finding tools.

 

The preferred approach is to use “safe” programming languages that can reject unsafe programs at compile time, thereby preventing the emergence of memory safety issues.

 

The TRACTOR program aims to automate the translation of legacy C code to Rust.

More here.

I find it interesting that SpaceX primarily uses C and C++. However, it also uses a smattering of Python, Node.js, and FORTRAN so maybe there’s hope the company’s programmers can pick up Rust.

Speaking of FORTRAN … ah, the king of complex computations. Unlike COBOL, FORTRAN will never die…it will just kind of linger for a long, long time. Not as long as C, but long.

FORTRAN was big with the military at one time, along with other languages, many of them proprietary. In the early 1980s, the military created their own language, Ada (not to be confused with Air Defense Artillery), a cousin of Pascal and Module 2.  I don’t know Ada, but I do know Module-2—none of which should be confused with the Module 2 of the coursework for ADA, or the Americans for Disability Act.

(The government is really big on acronyms. So much so, it keeps a list. Well, it keeps many lists. But no worries, there’s a guide.)

FORTRAN is still utilized in government systems, such as those used by NOAA with a callable interface to their MADIS API. In fact, did you know the Commerce department supports 53,752 searchable data sets in their Commerce Data Hub? Who knows the backend language used for each, but they provide either a REST or SOAP interface. And JSON!

NOAA has 46,861 data sets, alone. I wonder what kind of private enterprise would be willing to provide the same?

And these are data sets that DOGE and Trump’s admin haven’t destroyed, yet. Which really peeves me. As a software engineer who primarily worked with data, destroying any data is a sacrilege. It’s also a massive waste of government funding. We, the citizens of this country, paid for the data and documents. We, the citizens of this country that actually pad taxes, paid for the data and documents.

What kind of people would destroy data? Good data, useful data? Not the kind of people I’ve worked with in almost 40 years of software engineering.

Anyway, the point is made: the federal government systems are incredibly large, complex, and most don’t even share a common programming language. The DOGE kids may be wiz bang at making rockets go up, and rockets come down, but these Big Egos have never met Big Iron. They’ve never had to deal with legacy systems like those of the federal government. They’ve likely never had to deal with legacy systems, period.

More importantly, they have no respect for anything outside their experience. They have no respect for the complexity of the systems, the importance of them operating without fail, and all that wondrous data.

They’re lost and it shows by the crude chopping block approach to save a few bucks, and that will cost us double in the long run. And it shows by the number of errors that continue to show up on their cute little scoreboard.

They are outclassed.

I know big systems. I worked on one once for Boeing Military. It was in FORTRAN. I’ve also worked on other big systems, but most of them were in Java or C or C++. I’m fond of Node.js, but I’ve not worked with a big system with it. I’ve only incidentally seen systems created in COBOL. But…I know big systems.

And you couldn’t pay me to walk into any one of the IT departments for these government agencies with a little Starlink-connected laptop and cyber-insecure cloud app, and pretend to be some kind of über intellect who is going to automagically change things for the better. And I know there is more than one old code warrier like me out there nodding their heads in agreement.

Note: not making fun of SpaceX programmers. They do excellent work. But programming new software for a spaceship is not the same as understanding decades-old and complex federal systems created in dozens of programming languages, each of which has to follow law, not logic. Not the same thing.