Well, we know the SEC analysts check out company figures; we just didn't know they were focusing on nude models from porn sites. Over the past two years, over 2 dozen civil servants and contractors (including a regional supervisor who averaged over 100 porn-related actions daily over a two-week period) have been investigated and sanctioned for abusing Internet usage with government resources. A recent Washington Times article, among other things, mentioned various rationalizations offered (e.g., an employee might say that he already put in his 40 hours, so the porn viewing was on his own time...) and workarounds to implemented Internet filters (e.g., certain unfiltered blogs feature sample pictures or video clips from pay porn sites).
Now, to be fair, Internet porn viewing is not peculiar just to the SEC within government or the government itself; one estimate suggests up to 25% of private-sector employees with access to the Internet have accessed porn-related websites or blogs during business hours. There are serious issues with these types of activities, aside from any moral issues intrinsic to porn viewing itself: in particular, lost employee productivity; sexual harassment issues; and computer security risks.
As someone who has worked on a number of federal computer servers and has used government network accounts, I have participated in various required computer security and network account policies sessions, and one routinely has banner messages on PC's or servers specifically warning users against using federal property and access for unauthorized purposes, one has no privacy right in using government equipment, etc. Most civil servants and contractors follow the rules. For example, a few years back one of my nieces wrote an email, and I did a reply-all, not realizing she had included her civil servant mother's work email address in the mail list. Soon thereafter I got an angry response from my sister, blasting me for sending a personal email to her government email account.
As far as I'm concerned, there's no tolerance for porn on the job. Working for the federal government is a privilege, not a right. If people want to spend time at their residence, using their own PC, Internet connection, and money to look at porn, fine; but don't waste the taxpayer's money pursuing some personal indulgence; the American people deserve better.
Obama, Gambling and Las Vegas
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana
Obama, for the second time in just a year, decided to use Vegas as the whipping boy for irresponsible spending (not in Las Vegas, of course). The first time was in terms of corporate meetings in Las Vegas in the aftermath of the economic tsunami and related company bailouts; then, more recently, speaking at a high school, Obama found it necessary to remind families with college-bound students not to blow college nest eggs on trips to Vegas. Should it surprise anyone that a dedicative progressive like Obama should see gambling as antithetical to progressive goals as alcohol abuse led to early twentieth-century progressives embracing the cause of Prohibition? I guess it's all those news stories of families cashing in college funds for a weekend in Vegas... After all, we need the secular humanist professional elite to "educate" those people clinging to their guns and Bibles not to drink or gamble.
Of course, if you want to talk about real gambling, how about families investing in T-bills, propping up the progressive Democratic Big Government bubble or voting for politicians embracing a high-cost progressive agenda in the middle of a deep recession? The unrealistic economic security promises that Democrats have made to millions of Baby Boomers and existing senior citizens, with an unfunded Medicare mandate of some $38T and entitlement reserves melting down faster than the Himalayan glaciers?
Political Cartoon
Clayton Jones finds "Joe Six-Pack" Wilson, private citizen.
Musical Intertude: Eddie Rabbit Songs
"I Love a Rainy Night"
Elvis Presley Original Cover, "Kentucky Rain"
