- Our Automated Future (New Yorker) "Meanwhile, the global economy kept growing, in large part because of the new machines. As one occupation vanished, another came into being. Employment migrated from farms and mills to factories and offices to cubicles and call centers. Economic history suggests that this basic pattern will continue, and that the jobs eliminated by Watson and his ilk will be balanced by those created in enterprises yet to be imagined—but not without a good deal of suffering. If nearly half the occupations in the U.S. are 'potentially automatable, and if this could play out within 'a decade or two,' then we are looking at economic disruption on an unparalleled scale. Picture the entire Industrial Revolution compressed into the life span of a beagle. Speaking of the next wave of automation, Amazon’s chairman, Jeff Bezos, said recently, 'It’s probably hard to overstate how big of an impact it’s [automation] going to have on society over the next twenty years.' The best we can hope for...is a collective form of semi-retirement...a guaranteed basic income for all, to be paid for with new taxes, levelled, at least in part, on the new gazillionaires. To one degree or another, just about everyone writing on the topic shares this view."
BUSINESS:
- Trump Victory Sends Small Business Optimism Skyrocketing (Breitbart)
ENTERTAINMENT:
- Review: 'Rogue One' Leaves 'Star Wars' Fans Wanting More (NYT) "All the pieces are there, in other words, like Lego figures in a box. The problem is that the filmmakers haven’t really bothered to think of anything very interesting to do with them." and The Alt-Right Hates Rogue One, Because of Course It Does (Wired) "Yes, in response to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’s diverse cast and female lead, the alt-right is boycotting the movie, spending the last month tweeting #DumpStarWars and encouraging their followers to skip the film when it opens this weekend. When you ask prominent alt-right mouthpieces why they’re boycotting, they say the Star Wars franchise has become too politicized, and even explictly anti-Trump."
LIFE:
- What Do Teenagers Want? Potted Plant Parents (NYT) "They wish their parents were around more often. That there’s value in simply being around should come as a source of comfort for parents raising adolescents. With younger children, we have plenty of opportunities to put our parenting muscles to work. We can read stories together, make up knock-knock jokes, build towers, or go to the museum. Our youngsters still like to join us for a trip to a grocery store and they usually come to us first with their questions or problems. Many parents of adolescents instinctively know this to be true and find ways to be present without advancing an agenda. One friend of mine quietly folds laundry each evening in the den where her teenagers watch TV. They enjoy one another’s company without any pressure to make conversation."
NEWS:
- Trump wasn’t happy with his State Department finalists. Then he heard a new name. (WaPo) "'I recommend Rex,' Gates told Trump, referring to Rex Tillerson, the chief executive of ExxonMobil. Gates said in an interview that he had not gone to the meeting intending to recommend Tillerson, and he did not recommend anyone else. Separately, on the previous day, former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice had proposed Tillerson to Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Rice and Gates, who run a consulting firm that counts ExxonMobil as a client, had jointly concluded that Tillerson might give Trump a fresh alternative. The result was an unexpected decision, nominating as the country’s top diplomat a multinational corporate chief executive who had previously been on nobody’s short list for the job. It provided an object lesson in the decision-making process and leadership style of a president-elect who has never worked in government and is applying his unorthodox style to decisions that could shape the world." and Rex Tillerson Is ‘Wrong Man for State’ (Breitbart)
- Trump Likely To Succeed In Mideast Peace Process Where Obama Failed (Breitbart) "Dershowitz also criticized President Barack Obama for being the only president who has managed to alienate so many leaders in the region, remarking: 'Obama alienated the Israelis, the Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, and the Saudis. The only country he didn’t alienate is Iran.' Dershowitz said that during the Obama administration, it became 'obvious' that the stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians would not be resumed. 'But I believe that during Trump’s administration it certainly could,' he said."
- Michael Flynn Is Harsh Judge of C.I.A.’s Role (NYT) "'They’ve lost sight of who they actually work for,' Mr. Flynn said in an interview with The Times in October 2015. 'They work for the American people. They don’t work for the president of the United States.' He added, speaking of the agency’s leadership: 'Frankly, it’s become a very political organization.' Mr. Flynn’s assessment that the C.I.A. is a political arm of the Obama administration is not widely shared by Republicans or Democrats in Washington. But it has appeared to have been internalized by the one person who matters most right now: Mr. Trump."
BUSINESS:
- Trump Victory Sends Small Business Optimism Skyrocketing (Breitbart)
ENTERTAINMENT:
- Review: 'Rogue One' Leaves 'Star Wars' Fans Wanting More (NYT) "All the pieces are there, in other words, like Lego figures in a box. The problem is that the filmmakers haven’t really bothered to think of anything very interesting to do with them." and The Alt-Right Hates Rogue One, Because of Course It Does (Wired) "Yes, in response to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’s diverse cast and female lead, the alt-right is boycotting the movie, spending the last month tweeting #DumpStarWars and encouraging their followers to skip the film when it opens this weekend. When you ask prominent alt-right mouthpieces why they’re boycotting, they say the Star Wars franchise has become too politicized, and even explictly anti-Trump."
LIFE:
- What Do Teenagers Want? Potted Plant Parents (NYT) "They wish their parents were around more often. That there’s value in simply being around should come as a source of comfort for parents raising adolescents. With younger children, we have plenty of opportunities to put our parenting muscles to work. We can read stories together, make up knock-knock jokes, build towers, or go to the museum. Our youngsters still like to join us for a trip to a grocery store and they usually come to us first with their questions or problems. Many parents of adolescents instinctively know this to be true and find ways to be present without advancing an agenda. One friend of mine quietly folds laundry each evening in the den where her teenagers watch TV. They enjoy one another’s company without any pressure to make conversation."
NEWS:
- Trump wasn’t happy with his State Department finalists. Then he heard a new name. (WaPo) "'I recommend Rex,' Gates told Trump, referring to Rex Tillerson, the chief executive of ExxonMobil. Gates said in an interview that he had not gone to the meeting intending to recommend Tillerson, and he did not recommend anyone else. Separately, on the previous day, former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice had proposed Tillerson to Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Rice and Gates, who run a consulting firm that counts ExxonMobil as a client, had jointly concluded that Tillerson might give Trump a fresh alternative. The result was an unexpected decision, nominating as the country’s top diplomat a multinational corporate chief executive who had previously been on nobody’s short list for the job. It provided an object lesson in the decision-making process and leadership style of a president-elect who has never worked in government and is applying his unorthodox style to decisions that could shape the world." and Rex Tillerson Is ‘Wrong Man for State’ (Breitbart)
- Trump Likely To Succeed In Mideast Peace Process Where Obama Failed (Breitbart) "Dershowitz also criticized President Barack Obama for being the only president who has managed to alienate so many leaders in the region, remarking: 'Obama alienated the Israelis, the Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, and the Saudis. The only country he didn’t alienate is Iran.' Dershowitz said that during the Obama administration, it became 'obvious' that the stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians would not be resumed. 'But I believe that during Trump’s administration it certainly could,' he said."
- Michael Flynn Is Harsh Judge of C.I.A.’s Role (NYT) "'They’ve lost sight of who they actually work for,' Mr. Flynn said in an interview with The Times in October 2015. 'They work for the American people. They don’t work for the president of the United States.' He added, speaking of the agency’s leadership: 'Frankly, it’s become a very political organization.' Mr. Flynn’s assessment that the C.I.A. is a political arm of the Obama administration is not widely shared by Republicans or Democrats in Washington. But it has appeared to have been internalized by the one person who matters most right now: Mr. Trump."
- Bashar al-Assad’s forces crush the last resistance in Aleppo (Economist) "Mr Assad junior has systematically starved, bombed and shot his own people, laying siege to civilians in rebel-held areas while bombing their hospitals, markets and schools. His scorched-earth tactics have killed the vast majority of the war’s 400,000-plus dead and driven millions of Syrians abroad. The fall of Aleppo, if it has indeed fallen, will not end the war. While the capture of Aleppo will leave the government in control of all the country’s main population centres, including its four largest cities, large swathes of territory remain beyond the regime’s authority." and Aleppo Is President Obama's Rwanda (Breitbart) "Many Syrian rebels blame President Obama for this tragedy. 'History will never forgive Obama for what he has done to the Syrian people… [Obama] abandoned the Syrian people and gave Bashar the green light,' Syrian rebel leader Riad Hijab told the Wall Street Journal last week. A Syrian government official, in a way confirming that President Obama’s inaction on Syria benefits Damascus, told Reuters last week that 'The Russians want to complete the [Aleppo] operation before Trump takes power.'"
- Europeans greatly overestimate Muslim population, poll shows (Guardian) "The average French estimate was that 31% of the population was Muslim – almost one in three residents. According to Pew Research, France’s Muslim population actually stood at 7.5% in 2010, or one in 13 people. The French were not the only ones to hold such misconceptions: Italian, German and Belgian respondents all guessed that more than a fifth of the resident population was Muslim, while in reality the figure ranges from 3.7% in Italy to 7% in Belgium. All three countries also greatly overstated the expected proportion of Muslim residents in 2020. British respondents put the current Muslim population at 15%, three times the 2010 figure, while they overestimated the projected 2020 population by an even greater margin (22%versus an actual projection of 6%). In the U.S. the average estimate was Muslims accounted for one in six people, whereas Pew put the actual figure at one in 100, while the future projection was even further off the mark."
- Ethics experts warn that Trump is ‘courting disaster’ (WaPo) "In a letter to Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) took issue with Trump’s notion of letting his kids run his businesses. 'Transferring operational control of a company to one’s children would not constitute the establishment of a qualified blind trust, nor would it eliminate conflicts of interest under 18 U.S.C. § 208 if applicable,' the director wrote. He acknowledges that this provision does not specifically cover the president. However, he writes that 'it has been the consistent policy of the executive branch that a President should conduct himself 'as if' he were bound by this financial conflict of interest law. Given the unique circumstances of the Presidency, OGE’s view is that a President should comply with this law by divesting conflicting assets, establishing a qualified blind trust, or both.”" and Listen to this: Federal Agencies Pressure Trump To Address Conflicts Of Interest (NPR)
- ‘Real America’ is its own bubble (WaPo) "After the election, I was repeatedly told that I live in something called a 'bubble' and, because of that, I know nothing about my fellow Americans. Well, in the first place, my bubble is bigger than theirs — size ought to matter in this instance — and in the second place, I know plenty. Among the things I know is that Trump voters were played for suckers. After lambasting Clinton as a tool of Wall Street, Trump has so far named four Wall Street figures to his administration — three from Goldman Sachs alone — and an oilman is under consideration. And for the Labor Department, Trump has chosen Andrew Puzder, a fast-food magnate (Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.) who is opposed to a decent minimum wage. This is fast shaping up as a Cabinet of billionaires and, just for leveling, the occasional millionaire. So far, ain’t no one who works with his hands."
SCIENCE:
- Donald Trump’s War on Science (New Yorker) "Taken singly, Trump’s appointments are alarming. But taken as a whole they can be seen as part of a larger effort to undermine the institution of science, and to deprive it of its role in the public-policy debate."
SPORTS:
- He’s the Michael Jordan of Darts. He Just Has to Prove It (NYT) "He has been ranked No. 1 since 2014, when he won his first Professional Darts Corporation World Championship. For the last 12 months, he has been on a run of dominance nearly unprecedented in the history of the game. He has won an eye-popping 25 tournaments this year, earning roughly $1.56 million in prize money."
TECHNOLOGY:
- Trump Is Meeting With Tech CEOs, and It's Gonna Be Awkward (Wired) "The meeting is the first Trump has taken with a group of executives from a single industry—an industry with which he was constantly at odds throughout his campaign. During a photo op at the meeting’s outset, Trump sounded a harmonious note. 'We want you to keep going with that incredible innovation,' Trump said. 'There’s nobody like you in the world. There’s nobody like the people in this room.'" and Silicon Valley CEOs didn't hide their distaste for Donald Trump. Now comes the reckoning (LA Times)
- Amazon makes its first drone delivery to a real customer (WaPo)
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- A treasure hunter found 3 tons of sunken gold — and can’t leave jail until he says where it is (WaPo) "The wreck of the S.S. Central America waited 130 years for Thompson to come along. The steamer went down in a hurricane in 1857, taking 425 souls and at least three tons of California gold to the sea floor off South Carolina. But before long, some of Thompson’s bankrollers began painting a very different picture of the man. Two of the expedition’s biggest investors took him to court in the 2000s, accusing him of selling nearly all the gold and keeping the profits to himself."
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- Ethics experts warn that Trump is ‘courting disaster’ (WaPo) "In a letter to Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) took issue with Trump’s notion of letting his kids run his businesses. 'Transferring operational control of a company to one’s children would not constitute the establishment of a qualified blind trust, nor would it eliminate conflicts of interest under 18 U.S.C. § 208 if applicable,' the director wrote. He acknowledges that this provision does not specifically cover the president. However, he writes that 'it has been the consistent policy of the executive branch that a President should conduct himself 'as if' he were bound by this financial conflict of interest law. Given the unique circumstances of the Presidency, OGE’s view is that a President should comply with this law by divesting conflicting assets, establishing a qualified blind trust, or both.”" and Listen to this: Federal Agencies Pressure Trump To Address Conflicts Of Interest (NPR)
- ‘Real America’ is its own bubble (WaPo) "After the election, I was repeatedly told that I live in something called a 'bubble' and, because of that, I know nothing about my fellow Americans. Well, in the first place, my bubble is bigger than theirs — size ought to matter in this instance — and in the second place, I know plenty. Among the things I know is that Trump voters were played for suckers. After lambasting Clinton as a tool of Wall Street, Trump has so far named four Wall Street figures to his administration — three from Goldman Sachs alone — and an oilman is under consideration. And for the Labor Department, Trump has chosen Andrew Puzder, a fast-food magnate (Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.) who is opposed to a decent minimum wage. This is fast shaping up as a Cabinet of billionaires and, just for leveling, the occasional millionaire. So far, ain’t no one who works with his hands."
SCIENCE:
- Donald Trump’s War on Science (New Yorker) "Taken singly, Trump’s appointments are alarming. But taken as a whole they can be seen as part of a larger effort to undermine the institution of science, and to deprive it of its role in the public-policy debate."
SPORTS:
- He’s the Michael Jordan of Darts. He Just Has to Prove It (NYT) "He has been ranked No. 1 since 2014, when he won his first Professional Darts Corporation World Championship. For the last 12 months, he has been on a run of dominance nearly unprecedented in the history of the game. He has won an eye-popping 25 tournaments this year, earning roughly $1.56 million in prize money."
TECHNOLOGY:
- Trump Is Meeting With Tech CEOs, and It's Gonna Be Awkward (Wired) "The meeting is the first Trump has taken with a group of executives from a single industry—an industry with which he was constantly at odds throughout his campaign. During a photo op at the meeting’s outset, Trump sounded a harmonious note. 'We want you to keep going with that incredible innovation,' Trump said. 'There’s nobody like you in the world. There’s nobody like the people in this room.'" and Silicon Valley CEOs didn't hide their distaste for Donald Trump. Now comes the reckoning (LA Times)
- Amazon makes its first drone delivery to a real customer (WaPo)
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- A treasure hunter found 3 tons of sunken gold — and can’t leave jail until he says where it is (WaPo) "The wreck of the S.S. Central America waited 130 years for Thompson to come along. The steamer went down in a hurricane in 1857, taking 425 souls and at least three tons of California gold to the sea floor off South Carolina. But before long, some of Thompson’s bankrollers began painting a very different picture of the man. Two of the expedition’s biggest investors took him to court in the 2000s, accusing him of selling nearly all the gold and keeping the profits to himself."
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