No, It Wasn't Like Apple Maps

White House officials declined to identify the private contractors who had built the acclount creation function, citing a decision to keep that information private. They said the contractors had moved that part of the new system to beefed-up hardware and were busy rewriting the software code to make it more robust and efficient.

Computer systems are not new. They have been around a while: banks manage to have systems that serve millions of people without a glitch; even government has programs that work.  Social Security checks arrive on time, Medicare pays thousands of doctors, hospitals, and labs.  The VA runs arguably the best health care system in the U.S.  So why was the roll out of Obamacare just a disaster?

The success of this program depends on millions of people signing up, so shouldn't that have been a basic priority - that the system could handle that amount of traffic. Hell, ask Zuckerberg how to do it!  I think it's important for us to know how this happened.  Was there simply not enough time for any company to complete this task successfully?  Do we not have enough computer programmers?  Did the government hire a company who outsourced the coding, so that no one ends up taking responsibility?

If anyone out there (inside the beltway, perhaps) knows WHY this happened, I would appreciate a response.  I don't really care about the WHO, but I don't see how we can trust the government to do anything much if we think this can happen again and again.

What does God's voice sound like?

Kudos to Aaron Sorkin for writing an amazing rant for the character of Maggie on the HBO series Newsroom.  If you haven't caught any of the episodes, watch for HBO to run it again and be sure you don't miss a single line of this well-written script.

In this episode, the staff is rehearsing possible questions for potential Republican candidates if their network is awarded the presidential debate.  Maggie's suggestion for a question for Michelle Bachman is "What does God's voice sound like?" She convinces the staff that she is serious by pointing out that if Bachman is being truthful when she says that God told her to run for President, then she is a prophet and we should pay attention to everything she says.
 

And, of course, if she cannot answer the question, then she is not telling the truth and no one should vote for someone who lies to the American people. In response to criticism that the news anchor could not denigrate Christians in such a way, Maggie responds that she is standing up for herself, her family, her church and her congregation by revealing this "false prophet."


You may say that Aaron Sorkin is simply one of the liberals that run the media and television and so, of course he is going to get his punches in against the conservative Bachman supporters.  But the important question here is "What DOES God's voice sound like?" Would you want your news anchor to ask such questions of candidates and hold their feet to the fire of public scrutiny?


Does anyone out there remember Ross Perot?  In 1992, 20 years ago, he gained a following by talking to voters as if he believed they could actually understand the issues.  I remember because it made such an impression on me.  He went on national television and for one half hour did a presentation that now would be done with Power Point, but he used charts and an old-fashioned pointer to explain in clear language what his economic policy was. He advocated a novel idea: that we do away with Medicare and Social Security for "those who don't need it." those like Warren Buffet, no doubt.  Twenty years and we are still having the same conversation!