Steve, I see your point, but some important distinctions are that
whatever we do at a private company doesn't have to fit within the
boundaries of the US Constitution, and the company's role isn't
dictated by a legal statute.
Congress is supposed to be in charge of where money is spent. The
president can ask congress for money for one thing or another and use
the veto power as a stick to encourage congress to pass a budget
they're willing to sign. The executive branch also has some latitude
on interpretation, implementation, and enforcement of whatever
missions they've been assigned by the legislature.
So it goes back to what I said earlier: Do you trust that they're
actually cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse"? Are they just deciding
not to spend money on things regardless of the law? I'm willing to
withhold judgement until they produce some documentation of the waste,
fraud, and abuse. I do want something with a little more heft than a
tweet though.
-Adam
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> on behalf of Steve Jones
<thatoneguyst...@gmail.com>
*Sent:* Tuesday, February 18, 2025 2:35 PM
*To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website (www.doge.gov)
This isnt new. NPR succeeded here for sure.
Its a weird thing to see people manipulated so easily.
Our industry pays consultants all the time, but apparently cant figure
this one out without NPR telling them what to feel.
I laugh really hard because im currently in a similar role. Im 1099 at
a company, Im advising, I sit in the leadership committee meetings, I
direct their staff. My decisions are pretty much pre-approved with the
leadership committees approval as long as those decisions align with
the company vision....... sounds oddly familiar, that is why I laugh
at the NPR flock.
The board of advisors at first was apprehensive, but then they were
professional adults and actually listened to the leadership committee
about what I was doing. Then they were like "oh, thats, thats really
common" and they went about their day.
Its weird that people who live in a hybrid role world cant comprehend
that somebody can be in charge of a team, while not being a formal
team lead. its like everybody decided that now being a boomer is ok,
to that I say "OK Boomer" and roll my eyes
On Tue, Feb 18, 2025 at 1:11 PM Bill Prince <part15...@gmail.com
<mailto:part15...@gmail.com>> wrote:
So now the administration is claiming Elon is NOT in charge of
DOGE....
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/18/g-s1-49450/elon-musk-doge-leader
<https://www.npr.org/2025/02/18/g-s1-49450/elon-musk-doge-leader>
Shall we call this the Keystone Cops administration, or maybe the
Whack-a-mole administration?
I suspect it is going to get stranger and stranger as this farce
goes on.
bp <part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 2/16/2025 5:23 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote:
Boring Company says they have a MOU for a 17 km tunnel in Dubai.
https://www.boringcompany.com/dubai
<https://www.boringcompany.com/dubai>
*From:* AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com>
<mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> *On Behalf Of *Robert
*Sent:* Sunday, February 16, 2025 7:11 PM
*To:* af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website (www.doge.gov
<http://www.doge.gov>)
I should reply with a picture of Lucy with the football and
Charlie Brown...
On 2/16/25 3:26 PM, Chuck wrote:
Read an article today about him admitting AD has been a
failure but vowing to get it right on the next iteration.
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 16, 2025, at 4:57 PM, Robert
<i...@avantwireless.com>
<mailto:i...@avantwireless.com> wrote:
I think at this point, Tesla is a few brain cells
for him. He'll show up for publicity or to smother
revolt, but it's on autopilot otherwise for him. He
rips off any talent that shows up, the only way he
delivers self drive is through removing regulation,
and legal responsibility. We had a cybertruck go
into a power pole with no real cause, as far as the
driver could tell. The driver took responsibility for
not watching over the truck but that's not really AD.
That bar has moved as much as the stock price.
On 2/16/25 2:29 PM, Bill Prince wrote:
and if Tesla was selling as many cars as BYD is
right now, the Tesla numbers would double. BYD is
running circles around Tesla right now, and is
killing pretty much every other car maker on the
planet.
If he put as much energy into making Tesla as he
did in tearing down all those whining lefties,
Tesla would be a barn burner.
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 2/16/2025 1:50 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote:
OK, maybe you’re right.
Hard to tell where his head’s at. What he did
at X/Twitter seemed more like running it into
the ground out of spite than trying to make
money. And he’s trying to say Tesla is an AI
company not a car company.
His net worth is cited as around $400 billion,
but that’s stock valuation, right? Not
liquid. Not like Scrooge McDuck swimming in
gold coins. I seem to remember he had to
borrow money to buy Twitter.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/how-will-elon-musk-pay-twitter-2022-10-07/
<https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/how-will-elon-musk-pay-twitter-2022-10-07/>
*From:* AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com>
<mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> *On Behalf Of
*Bill Prince
*Sent:* Sunday, February 16, 2025 3:29 PM
*To:* af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website
(www.doge.gov <http://www.doge.gov>)
Think he doesn't care? Right now Tesla annual
revenue is $97 billion/year, of which about
$17 billion of that is considered profit.
SpaceX might be doing great, but Tesla dwarfs
SpaceX by almost an order of magnitude.
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 2/16/2025 1:05 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote:
Not sure he cares. Besides, SpaceX is
supposedly his big moneymaker, and its #1
customer thinks quite highly of him.
I’ve also read that Starlink has started
to be a cash cow.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/starlink-profit-growing-rapidly-as-it-faces-a-moment-of-promise-and-peril/
<https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/starlink-profit-growing-rapidly-as-it-faces-a-moment-of-promise-and-peril/>
Other Musk companies like Boring Company
and Neuralink don’t seem like genius
business ideas. But something has to
finance his missions to Mars.
https://people.com/human-interest/elon-musk-once-said-mars-needs-people-after-mark-cuban-asked-how-many-kids-he-wants/
<https://people.com/human-interest/elon-musk-once-said-mars-needs-people-after-mark-cuban-asked-how-many-kids-he-wants/>
It is being claimed he is up to 13 kids
now, that would put him ahead of Nick Cannon.
https://people.com/parents/all-about-nick-cannon-kids/
<https://people.com/parents/all-about-nick-cannon-kids/>
But I don’t think Elon is the white Nick
Cannon, more like the white Kanye West?
*From:* AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com>
<mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> *On
Behalf Of *Bill Prince
*Sent:* Sunday, February 16, 2025 2:08 PM
*To:* af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website
(www.doge.gov <http://www.doge.gov>)
Seems Elon may be backing himself into a
hole. People who have been the biggest
buyers of Tesla vehicles are now being
repulsed by his antics. People who have
not, and probably will not buy electric
vehicles aren't going to start buying them
because, well, they're electric.
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/02/15/tesla-troubles-mount-as-musk-goes-full-rogue/
<https://cleantechnica.com/2025/02/15/tesla-troubles-mount-as-musk-goes-full-rogue/>
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 2/15/2025 3:58 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote:
https://www.wired.com/story/doge-website-is-just-one-big-x-ad/
<https://www.wired.com/story/doge-website-is-just-one-big-x-ad/>
DOGE’s Website Is Just One Big X Ad
*The source code for the new
Department of Government Efficiency’s
“official US government website”
points to X as its primary source of
authority, while sharing links to the
site sends users to x.com <http://x.com>.*
At a press conference in the Oval
Office
<https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/12/tech/elon-musk-x-oval-office/index.html>
this
week, Elon Musk promised the actions
of his so-called Department of
Government Efficiency (DOGE)
<https://www.wired.com/tag/doge/> project
would be “maximally transparent,”
thanks to information posted to its
website.
At the time of his comment, the DOGE
website was empty
<https://bsky.app/profile/joncooper-us.bsky.social/post/3lhwsmk4iac2u>.
However, when the site finally came
online Thursday morning, it turned out
to be little more than a glorified
feed of posts from the official DOGE
account on Musk’s own X platform,
raising new questions about Musk’s
conflicts of interest in running DOGE
<https://www.npr.org/2025/02/12/nx-s1-5293382/x-elon-musk-doge-cfpb>.
DOGE.gov claims to be an “official
website of the United States
government,” but rather than giving
detailed breakdowns of the cost
savings and efficiencies Musk claims
his project is making, the homepage of
the site just replicated posts from
the DOGE account on X.
A WIRED review of the page’s source
code shows that the promotion of
Musk’s own platform went deeper than
replicating the posts on the homepage.
The source code shows that the site’s
canonical tags
<https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization>
direct
search engines to x.com
<http://x.com> rather than DOGE.gov.
A canonical tag is a snippet of code
that tells search engines what the
authoritative version of a website is.
It is typically used by sites with
multiple pages as a search engine
optimization tactic, to avoid their
search ranking being diluted.
In DOGE’s case, however, the code is
informing search engines that when
people search for content found on
DOGE.gov, they should not show those
pages in search results, but should
instead display the posts on X.
“It is promoting the X account as the
main source, with the website
secondary,” Declan Chidlow, a web
developer <https://vale.rocks/>, tells
WIRED. “This isn't usually how things
are handled, and it indicates that the
X account is taking priority over the
actual website itself.”
Advertisement
All the other US government websites
WIRED checked used their own homepage
in their canonical tags, including the
official White House website.
Additionally, when sharing the DOGE
website on mobile devices, the source
code creates a link to the DOGE X
account rather than the website itself.
“It seems that the DOGE website is
secondary, and they are prodding
people in the direction of the X
account everywhere they can,” Chidlow
adds.
Alongside the homepage feed of X
posts, a section of Doge.gov labeled
“Savings” now appears. So far the page
is empty except for a single line that
reads: “Receipts coming soon, no later
than Valentine's day,” followed by a
heart emoji
<https://www.wired.com/story/heart-emoji-lost-all-meaning/>.
A section entitled “Workforce”
features some bar charts showing how
many people work in each government
agency, with the information coming
from data gathered by the Office of
Personnel Management in March 2024.
A disclaimer at the bottom of the page
reads: “This is DOGE's effort to
create a comprehensive,
government-wide org chart. This is an
enormous effort, and there are likely
some errors or omissions. We will
continue to strive for maximum
accuracy over time.”
Another section, entitled
“Regulations,” features what DOGE
calls the “Unconstitutionality Index,”
which it describes as “the number of
agency rules created by unelected
bureaucrats for each law passed by
Congress in 2024.”
The charts in this section are also
based on data previously collected by
US government agencies. Doge.gov also
links to a Forbes article from last
month that was written by Clyde Wayne
Crews, a member of the Heartland
Institute, a conservative think tank
that pushed climate change
disinformation
<https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/heartland-institute-leak-exposes-strategies-of-climate-attack-machine/>
and
questioned the links between tobacco
and lung cancer
<https://www.tobaccotactics.org/article/heartland-institute/>.
It is also a major advocate for
privatizing government departments
<https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/in-shift-key-climate-denialist-group-heartland-institute-pivots-to-policy/>.
The site also features a “Join” page
which allows prospective DOGE
employees to apply for roles including
“software engineers, InfoSec
engineers, and other technology
professionals.” As well as requesting
a Github account and résumé, the form
asks visitors to “provide 2-3 bullet
points showcasing exceptional ability.”
The website does not list a developer,
but on Wednesday, web application
security expert Sam Curry outlined in
a thread on X
<https://x.com/samwcyo/status/1889527715029557607> how
he was able to identify the developer
of the site as DOGE employee Kyle Shutt.
Curry claims he was able to link a
Cloudflare account ID found in the
site’s source code to Shutt, who used
the same account when developing
Musk’s America PAC
<https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-america-pac-election-denial-community-x/>
website.
On Thursday, Drop Site News
<https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/doge-fema-funding-access-social-security-numbers>
reported,
citing sources within FEMA, that Shutt
had gained access to the agency’s
proprietary software controlling
payments. Earlier this week, Business
Insider reported
<https://www.businessinsider.com/doge-staff-list-white-house-2025-2> that
Shutt, who recently worked at an AI
interviewing software company, was
listed as one of 30 people working for
DOGE.
Neither Shutt, DOGE, nor the White
House responded to requests for comment.
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