THE ARCHITECT OF TOMORROW

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- Elon Musk: The Architect of Tomorrow (Rolling Stone) "...Musk's master plan: to create habitats for humanity on other planets and moons. And that's just one of Musk's ambitions. Others include converting automobiles, households and as much industry as possible from fossil fuels to sustainable energy; implementing a new form of high-speed city-to-city transportation via vacuum tube; relieving traffic congestion with a honeycomb of underground tunnels fitted with electric skates for cars and commuters; creating a mind-computer interface to enhance human health and brainpower; and saving humanity from the future threat of an artificial intelligence that may one day run amok and decide, quite rationally, to eliminate the irrational human species. So far, Musk, 46, has accomplished none of these goals. He's probably the only person who has started four billion-dollar companies – PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX and Solar City.

ENTERTAINMENT:

- Farewell to Malcolm Young, the Mastermind of AC/DC (New Yorker) "The guitarist...was the soul of the seminal rock band, its leader on and off the stage."

NEWS:

- Cult Leader Charles Manson Dies at 83 (AP) "Once a petty criminal, Manson became a horrifying symbol of drug-induced madness after commanding his followers to kill Hollywood elite...in an attempt to spark a race war."

- Eric Holder’s Battle Against Gerrymandering (New Yorker) "Democrats slumbered through redistricting in 2010, but they’re awake now."

- Today’s biggest threat to democracy isn’t fake news—it’s selective facts (Quartz) "During the 2016 US presidential election...[m]edia organizations on the right and left followed their favored politicians’ cues when deciding which stories to cover. Rather than fake news or alternative facts, the primary danger of these times are selective facts. Selective facts are 'true' facts that only tells us part of the story... As readers, we...suffer from what’s called confirmation bias: We tend to seek out news organizations and social media posts that confirm our views. Business leaders of media organizations therefore consciously focus on what readers want, not what they need to make the best decisions. Selective facts are worse than outright fake news because they’re pervasive and harder to question than clearly false statements. To make good decisions in this era of social media and personalized news, you have to realize that selective facts surround us."

- Security Breach and Spilled Secrets Have Shaken the N.S.A. to Its Core (NYT) "The agency regarded as the world’s leader in breaking into adversaries’ computer networks failed to protect its own. ...officials still do not know whether the N.S.A. is the victim of a brilliantly executed hack, with Russia as the most likely perpetrator, an insider’s leak, or both. ...there is broad agreement that the damage from the Shadow Brokers already far exceeds the harm to American intelligence done by Edward J. Snowden... ...the Shadow Brokers have released the actual code...they have loosed the weapons themselves. Experts believe more attacks using the stolen N.S.A. tools are all but certain."

- White House struggles to explain Trump’s silence on Moore allegations (WaPo) "President Trump — not usually one for holding his fire — has not tweeted or spoken publicly about Moore since The Washington Post first reported on the accusations against him. Trump’s reaction stands in stark contrast to his tweets about Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), which came within hours of Franken’s acknowledgment of sexual misconduct toward Los Angeles radio host Leann Tweeden years ago. Why the different response?"

- The Trump Administration Is Making War on Diplomacy (NYT) "Rex Tillerson is widely seen as ill suited to diplomatic leadership and determined to dismantle his own department, which has been central to America’s national security since Thomas Jefferson ran the place. In recent weeks, alarming new data from the American Foreign Service Association, the union representing diplomats, shows just how far Mr. Tillerson has taken things. Since January, more than 100 senior foreign service officers have left the department, depleting the ranks of career ambassadors, the diplomatic equivalent of four-star generals, by 60 percent, while the number of career ministers (akin to three-star generals) is down 42 percent. The hiring of new foreign service officers has slowed almost to a halt, and the number of young people seeking to take the foreign service exam has fallen to less than half the 17,000 who registered two years ago. The near-term hope of arresting or reversing this slide lies with Congress. More lawmakers are raising their voices, warning about the dangers to national security and demanding answers."

- Here’s the incredibly unpopular GOP tax reform plan — in one graph (WaPo) "The plan appears to be not just unpopular, but also distinctively — almost historically — unpopular. The only thing that was less popular was…the Republican health-care bill that was intended to replace the Affordable Care Act."

SOCIALIZED MEDECINE:

- Nearly 1.5 million sign up for ObamaCare in first 11 days (MSN) "...nearly 500,000 more than at the same time last year. The final sign-up picture will not be clear until the enrollment period ends Dec. 15, which is about half as much time as people had to sign up last year."

TECHNOLOGY:

- I tried out Google’s translating headphones. Here’s what I found (WaPo) "The translation feature is promising but not perfect. Still, it is much better than a phrase book.

TRUMPTEL:

- Everything Jeff Sessions Has Forgotten Under Oath (Wired) "...the attorney general's peculiarly porous memory inspired much frustration among members of Congress... ...Sessions ha[s] said 'I don't recall,' in some form, upwards of 85 times."

- Senate Judiciary panel: Kushner had contacts about WikiLeaks, Russian overtures he did not disclose (WaPo) "In the letter, Grassley and Feinstein instruct Kushner’s team to turn over 'several documents that are known to exist' because other witnesses in their probe already gave them to investigators."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- A Navy pilot drew a penis in the sky. It’s not the first time something like this has been investigated (WaPo) "Residents of Washington state turned their eyes to a clear blue sky Thursday and found themselves staring at a cartoonish rendering of male genitalia, sketched in smoke by at least one Navy EA-18G Growler jet flying out of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island."

TODAY'S SONG:

- Helter Skelter (The Beatles)

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YELLOWCAKE!

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- There are no grounds for a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton (WaPo) "Mr. Sessions’s appearance Tuesday before the committee should put some of those concerns to rest. Mr. Sessions pushed back against demands for a special counsel to investigate Ms. Clinton, confirming that he intends to abide by Justice Department guidelines requiring a factual basis for initiating an investigation. In this light, the letter to Mr. Goodlatte may be read less as the Justice Department’s caving to political pressure than as a polite rebuff of the House Judiciary Committee’s request. Even if the Justice Department handles this particular inappropriate request appropriately, Mr. Trump shows no intention of letting up his efforts to degrade the democratic cornerstone of independent law enforcement."

- Sessions won't take sides on GOP demands for Clinton probe (Politico) "Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) pressed Sessions on why it had taken the Justice Department months to hint, as it did Monday, at the prospect of considering a special counsel to probe years-old matters connected to Clinton. 'Looks like' is not enough basis to appoint a special counsel,' Sessions responded."

- Fox News’s Shepard Smith debunks his network’s favorite Hillary Clinton ‘scandal,’ infuriates viewers (WaPo) "'Hillary Clinton’s State Department approved the transfer of 20 percent of America’s uranium holdings to Russia. Well, nine investors in the deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.' Smith called the statement 'inaccurate in a number of ways,' noting that 'the Clinton State Department had no power to veto or approve that transaction.' Rather, it must be approved by an interagency committee of the government consisting of nine department heads, including the Secretary of State."

Fox News BONUS

- Even Sean Hannity has had it with Roy Moore, gives candidate 24 hours to explain ‘inconsistencies’ (WaPo) "'You must immediately and fully come up with a satisfactory explanation for your inconsistencies,' Hannity said. 'You must remove any doubt. If he can’t do this, then Judge Moore needs to get out of this race. You know I do not and will never rush to judgment, because we have seen the media and politicians get it wrong so many times,' he said. But Moore’s conflicting accounts demanded a full explanation, he said."

BUSINESS:

- Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have more wealth than the bottom half of the country combined (LA Times) "To put an even finer point on it: That’s three people versus about 160 million people. To really comprehend just how insane the wealth concentration has become, consider Bezos, the head of Amazon. Worth about $90 billion, he recently was declared the richest man in the world. In October alone, his wealth jumped by $10 billion — or about $4 million per second." and America's wealth gap is bigger than ever (CNN) "In 2016, median household net worth improved across all income brackets -- up 16% overall since 2013 -- but those on the higher end of the income spectrum did the best. The top 10% of earners saw their household net worth increase 40% over the three-year period, according to the Fed. Here's another way of understanding it: The Top 1% now holds 38.6% of the nation's wealth, up from 33.7% in 2007. The bottom 90% now holds only 22.8% of the nation's total wealth, down from 28.5% in 2007. There are also differences within those income brackets. Low-income white people have seen their wealth nearly cut in half since the recession, while the net worth of black and Hispanic families who make a similar amount of money remained basically stable."

- U.S. Manufacturing Rides Rising Tide, Buoyed by Global Growth, Optimism (WSJ - Paywall) "Makers of everything from bulldozers to food products are on an upswing as production, spending and sentiment improve. Business investment has risen, a sign companies are spending to increase productivity. The gains have happened even though important parts of Mr. Trump's manufacturing agenda haven't come to fruition."

CLIMATE CHANGE:

- 15,000 scientists just signed the largest-ever warning about Earth’s destruction (Quartz) "Maybe the second time’s the charm? Twenty-five years after a letter from the Union of Concerned Scientists urged mankind to take action against environmental damage, the world’s researchers are at it again. Yesterday’s letter, signed by 15,365 scientists from 185 countries, says humans have failed to prevent 'potentially catastrophic' climate change, even warning that many species could be extinct by the century’s end. It’s not all bad news, though: They note that humans have stabilized the ozone layer, reduced extreme poverty and made significant gains in renewable energy."

- The seven megatrends that could beat global warming: 'There is reason for hope' (Guardian) "...a series of fast-moving global megatrends, spurred by trillion-dollar investments, indicates that humanity might be able to avert the worst impacts of global warming. 1. Methane: getting to the meat. The major source is livestock farming, in particular belching cattle and their manure. 2. Renewable energy: time to shine. Production costs for solar panels and wind turbines have plunged, by 90% in the past decade for solar, for example, and are continuing to fall. 3. King coal: dead or dying. Production now appears to have peaked in 2013. 4. Electric cars: in the fast lane. ...a surging market for battery-powered cars is starting to bite... 5. Batteries: lots in store. a megatrend is crushing prices for lithium-ion batteries, which are down 75% over the past six years. 6. Efficiency: negawatts over megawatts. ...good progress is being made in places such as the EU, where efficiency in homes, transport and industry has improved by about 20% since 2000. 7. Forests: seeing the wood. ...destruction of forests around the world...is the biggest megatrend not yet pointing in the right direction: annual tree losses have roughly doubled since 2000."

ENTERTAINMENT:

- Who Was Prince in Private? (New Yorker) "We knew only what Prince wanted us to know. ...whether after a show, on a plane, in a rehearsal, or in the early hours, Prince is always performing, always on."

NEWS:

- As gunman sprayed school with bullets, quick action prevented mass bloodshed (LA Times) "Teachers and staff had heard shots a quarter of a mile away, then rushed the children into classrooms and under desks, and locked the doors. When the gunman arrived, officials say, he shot at walls and windows, wounding two students, but could not enter the buildings and moved on to other targets. Police would later fatally shoot him."

- The next Davos forum will be co-chaired by seven women—and zero men (Quartz) "The forum, held in the posh Swiss resort of Davos every January, has in recent years been criticized as much for its gender imbalance as for its elitism. At its most recent gathering, women accounted for just over 20% of the 3,000 participants—a record for the event—and that was after the organizers offered special incentives to delegations that included at least one woman."

- Tillerson’s ‘redesign’ for State looks a lot like a retreat (WaPo) "In response, a State Department spokeswoman said that 'suggestions that drastic cuts to our Foreign Service ranks are taking place are simply not accurate,' that freezes on hiring and promotions 'are only temporary,' and that Mr. Tillerson’s commitment will be 'reinforced once the freezes on personnel movement, including hiring, are lifted at the appropriate time.'"

TRUMPTEL:

- Donald Trump Jr.’s incredible history of dumb decisions (WaPo) "This week brings word that the Trump campaign was in direct contact with WikiLeaks... This follows the discovery in July that Junior met with Russians during the campaign." and WikiLeaks Hitting Up Donald Trump Jr. Shouldn't Surprise You (Wired) "For the president's son, it’s yet another sketchy (and vaguely Russia-linked) dalliance that makes him look more like a fall guy than a conspirator. And WikiLeaks? Despite branding itself as a neutral conduit of information, WikiLeaks has spent the last few years acting (and tweeting) like an internet troll with a political agenda."

- Trump’s Voter Fraud Commission Has One Brave Member Who's Poised to Take It Down From the Inside (Slate) "On Thursday, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, a Democratic member of the voter fraud commission, filed a bombshell lawsuit against the commission and its chairs, alleging that the group has been violating federal law. Dunlap alleges the committee is a cynical partisan effort to exaggerate the frequency of fraudulent voting, that it flouts legal regulations, and that its token Democratic participants have been systematically shunned."

- Taxpayers pay legal bill to protect Trump business profits (USAToday) "Taxpayers are footing the legal bill for at least 10 Justice Department lawyers and paralegals to work on lawsuits related to President Trump's private businesses, placing them in the unusual position of making legal arguments to protect his companies' ability to keep collecting profits from foreign governments and officials."

TECHNOLOGY:

- IT Transformation Altering Investment Forecast Across Industries (WSJ - Paywall) "As of Oct. 31, seven of the 10 largest companies by market cap come from the tech sector, up from two in 2009. More significantly, their influence is spreading throughout the economy in new ways."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- Weight Watchers debuts diet wine to toast the holidays (USAToday) "The company — which assigns values, called SmartPoints, to foods and then has members lose weight by limiting the number they consume — says Cense has 85 calories a glass compared to 120 calories for other white wines."

TODAY'S SONG:

- Raspberry Beret (Prince)

Prince BONUS

- Kiss

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THE (AUTONOMOUS/ELECTRIC) CAR ISSUE

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- What the Car Did — And What It Might Do (NYT) "More perversely still, the suburban lifestyle that the Interstates enabled also gave rise to an atomized, individualistic politics, which soon bred a revolt against the taxation and central planning that made their construction possible in the first place. After a century in which the car radically remapped American society, creativity about its own future got stuck in a cul-de-sac. ...we’ve also indulged in some sci-fi speculation...trying to imagine what would happen if this unprecedented engine of American society — the machine that, more than any other, for better or worse, has given shape to American life for a century — really does undergo this radical transformation. The consequences would touch crime and punishment, work and leisure, exercise and partying and sex. In the past five years, the headlong push toward self-driving technology has swept up not just Google’s tech rivals but the world’s automakers as well. Tesla, Cadillac, Volvo, Audi and Nissan have already rolled out models with autonomous modes for highway driving, akin to cruise controls that can also steer and brake; next year, more brands and models will join their ranks."

- When 100% of Cars Are Autonomous (NYT) "What does it feel like to live in that world? And how does 21st-century society — which has been built, in ways large and small, around human drivers — change and reconfigure when they all become mere riders?"

- Inside the Races That Jump-Started the Self-Driving Car (Wired) "Daily news reports about self-driving cars no longer surprise. What retains its shock value is how quickly we've gotten here."

- Forget Cars, Self-Driving Shuttles Are Be the Future of Transportation (Wired) "...the shuttles have greater potential, as viable tools of mass transit. They could be used on college campuses or in retirement communities. Or to supplement public transportation in the suburbs."

- A Self-Driving Truck Might Deliver Your Next Refrigerator (Wired) "Since early October, autonomous trucks built and operated by the startup Embark have been hauling Frigidaire refrigerators 650 miles along the I-10 freeway, from a warehouse in El Paso, Texas, to a distribution center in Palm Springs, California."

- Can Ford Turn Itself Into a Tech Company? (NYT) "...Ford has invested hundreds of millions in self-driving cars and is making surprising progress. In a report earlier this year, Navigant Research placed Ford at the top of its leader board, ahead of tech companies like Waymo and Uber as well as auto rivals like GM and Toyota, based on Ford’s advanced manufacturing capabilities coupled with its strides in software development. Ford’s big, blinking target is 2021 — the year it hopes to release a vehicle that meets the Society of Automotive Engineers International’s definition of Level 4 autonomy (no human operator required in the area and conditions it’s programmed for). ...in a series of interviews with nearly a dozen executives, barely anyone mentioned cars or trucks at all. Instead, I heard the Ford Motor Company described as a 'mobility solutions provider' that engages in 'multimodal journey planning.' People spoke about 'whiteboarding' and 'blue-skying' big ideas. ...Ford has spent the past several years quietly snapping up tech talent. Most industry observers believe these are the right moves for Ford to be making. But it’s still tough to reconcile today’s Ford — which makes money by selling millions of combustion-engine trucks and S.U.V.s every year, along with a handful of sedans and hybrids — with the eco-tech-mobility conglomerate Hackett [Ford CEO] envisions it becoming."

- Google's Self-Driving Car Dream Is Finally Coming Real (Wired) "And once you’ve taken the driver out, putting a rider in becomes something like an afterthought. ...the technology has to be damn near perfect to get to this point. Then it’s just a matter of buttoning things up—and reaping the safety benefits and dollars that come with it."

- Tesla’s Dangerous Sprint Into the Future (NYT) "To hear its executives tell it, Tesla is misunderstood because it is still perceived as a car manufacturer, when its goals are more complex and far-reaching. Tesla’s goal has always been focused on going green, rather than creating the driverless future. Tesla’s grand plans in many respects depend on how much innovation the company can bring to the process of battery making. Musk has promised that before the end of this year, a Tesla vehicle will drive itself coast to coast completely on autopilot. A number of competitors — especially Waymo and General Motors — seem to be closing in on similarly ambitious goals. Long before anyone saw Tesla as a legitimate player in the auto industry, Musk also appears to have understood that in taking chances that no established carmaker would, Tesla could be an innovative force to quicken our slow, plodding progress in transportation." and Will Traditional Auto Makers Steal the Future From Tesla? (Barrons - Paywall) "

BUSINESS:

- Trump's biggest mistake in Asia: rejecting trade (Axios) "...when the history of Trump's trip is written, it will be his decision to opt out of an Asian trade framework, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that has the gravest and most lasting consequences. Why it matters: His approach marginalizes the United States in a region that will define the 21st century. American businesses will find themselves unable to compete in Asian markets, and no laundry list of one-off deals and bilateral accords will compensate for the losses." and Susan Rice: Trump Is Making China Great Again (NYT) "Played correctly, his ambitious five-country, 12-day trip could have steadied his administration’s rocky start in this vital region. Instead, it left the United States more isolated and in retreat, handing leadership of the newly christened 'Indo-Pacific' to China on a silver platter. He blamed his predecessors rather than China for our huge trade deficits... Such scenes of an American president kowtowing in China to a Chinese president sent chills down the spines of Asia experts and United States allies who have relied on America to balance and sometimes counter an increasingly assertive China. At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting, he delivered a vitriolic, nationalistic speech on trade that made the United States look angry and rendered us more isolated. ...the leaders of the 11 remaining Trans-Pacific Partnership countries announced a framework to remake their deal without the United States, leaving America outside the largest trade agreement in the world."

NEWS:

- How American politics went batshit crazy (Axios) "...six seminal events in the past 24 years that steered us here: Newt Gingrich, in the early 1990s, weaponized warfare politics in a methodical and sustained way. Fox News, created in 1996, televised and monetized this hard-edged combat politics. Facebook and later Twitter, both products of the post-2000 Internet revolution, socialized rage and argument. John McCain picking Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008 celebritized rage politics. Facebook, with command of so much of most voters' time and attention, algorithm-ized rage starting around 2015. Twitter + Trump, igniting in 2016, habitualized and radicalized the moment-by-moment rage and reaction of politicians, voters and the media."

- Warnings of a weaker, poorer Britain emerging ahead of breakup with European Union (LA Times) "...as negotiations move slowly toward a March 2019 breakup date, it is becoming increasingly clear to some observers that Britain risks becoming weaker, poorer and, most damaging of all, increasingly irrelevant. The Bank of England recently warned Brexit would probably hamper productivity and put a brake on economic growth, estimating up to 75,000 job losses in the financial services industry alone and a drop in business investment of up to 20%."

READ THIS:

- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (Yuval Noah Harari) "...Harari recounts the course of history while describing events and the individual human experience, along with ethical issues in relation to his historical survey. Homo Deus...deals more with the abilities acquired by humans (Homo sapiens) throughout its existence, and its evolution as the dominant species in the world; the book attempts to paint an image of the future. Many philosophical issues are discussed, such as the human experience, individualism, human emotion and consciousness. The book describes the current abilities and achievements of mankind."

TECHNOLOGY:

- Sean Parker unloads on Facebook "exploiting" human psychology (Axios) "It's a social-validation feedback loop ... exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. The inventors, creators — it's me, it's Mark [Zuckerberg], it's Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it's all of these people — understood this consciously. And we did it anyway."

- This is what happens when Facebook eats your business (Quartz) "Facebook attempted to buy Snapchat for $3 billion in 2013, but was rebuffed... ...Facebook has tried time and again to mimic multiple functions of Snapchat’s in standalone apps, but never found much success. ...until it outright copied Snapchat’s Stories structure for its own apps. Since Facebook copied Snapchat, it’s gone public and has lost roughly $3.1 billion through the first three quarters of the year—more than Facebook wanted to buy it for four years ago."

- Al Franken Just Gave the Speech Big Tech Has Been Dreading (Wired) "'Everyone is rightfully focused on Russian manipulation of social media, but as lawmakers it is incumbent on us to ask the broader questions: How did big tech come to control so many aspects of our lives? Franken asked... A handful of companies decide what Americans 'see, read, and buy,' dominating access to information and facilitating the spread of disinformation, he added. 'Last week’s hearings demonstrate that these companies might not be up to the challenge they created for themselves...'"

TRUMPTEL:

- How Donald Trump is remaking the federal courts in his own image (Mother Jones) "When Donald Trump took office, he inherited more than 100 federal judicial vacancies. It was a nearly unprecedented number, roughly twice the number that President Barack Obama inherited in 2009. Trump has moved quickly to fill these lifetime appointments with a slate of the most conservative and least diverse nominations since Reagan. While Trump’s legislative efforts can be repealed and his executive orders undone, federal judges are rarely removed from the bench. By working to install judges with remarkable speed, Trump and his grateful conservative allies are creating a durable legacy that will last long beyond his administration. Trump’s nominees are, so far, roughly 90 percent white and 80 percent male." and Trump Nominee for Federal Judgeship Has Never Tried a Case (NYT) "Brett Talley, is the fourth judicial nominee under President Trump to receive a 'not qualified' rating from the bar association and the second to receive the rating unanimously. Mr. Talley will now face a full hearing in the Senate." and Trump is dangerously cutting corners in his quest to remake the Judiciary (LA Times) "Past presidents have shared information about prospective judicial nominations with the ABA before nominations were announced so the bar group could make a confidential report to the White House. The Trump administration, however, refuses to give the ABA advance information about potential judges. The ABA isn’t infallible, but it has a record of evaluating prospective judges in a fair and bipartisan way."

- Donald Trump Jr. Exchanged Messages With WikiLeaks (WSJ - Paywall) "On Sept. 20, 2016, WikiLeaks contacted the son of President Donald Trump through a direct message on Twitter to advise him about the pending launch of a website that would highlight ties between the elder Mr. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the email. The exchange marks the first evidence of direct contact between senior Trump campaign officials and the Sweden-based WikiLeaks."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- You Love ‘The Simpsons’? Then Let’s Talk About Apu (NYT) "The feelings of South Asian Americans toward the character and the show he inhabits are the focus of 'The Problem with Apu,' a documentary debuting Nov. 19 on truTV. The unintended result: a generation of Indian actors being asked to channel Apu in countless auditions."

TODAY'S SONG:

- Cars (Gary Numan)

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THE EXISTENTIAL BATTLE ON FACTS

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- How America Lost Its Mind (Atlantic) "When did America become untethered from reality? The great unbalancing and descent into full Fantasyland was the product of two momentous changes. The first was a profound shift in thinking that swelled up in the ’60s... The second change was the onset of the new era of information. Just before the Clintons arrived in Washington, the right had managed to do away with the federal Fairness Doctrine, which had been enacted to keep radio and TV shows from being ideologically one-sided. With the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, a new American laissez-faire had been officially declared. If lots more incorrect and preposterous assertions circulated in our mass media, that was a price of freedom. If splenetic commentators could now, as never before, keep believers perpetually riled up and feeling the excitement of being in a mob, so be it. ...absent a Fairness Doctrine, Rush Limbaugh’s national right-wing radio show, launched in 1988, was free to thrive, and others promptly appeared. Limbaugh’s virtuosic three hours of daily talk started bringing a sociopolitical alternate reality to a huge national audience. Four years later, when NBC hired someone else to launch a cable news channel, Ailes, who had been working at NBC, quit and created one with Rupert Murdoch. Now TV and radio were enabling a reversion to the narrower, factional, partisan discourse that had been normal in America’s earlier centuries. Before the web, institutionalizing any one alternate reality required the long, hard work of hundreds of full-time militants. In the digital age, however, every tribe and fiefdom and principality and region of Fantasyland—every screwball with a computer and an internet connection—suddenly had an unprecedented way to instruct and rile up and mobilize believers, and to recruit more. False beliefs were rendered both more real-seeming and more contagious, creating a kind of fantasy cascade in which millions of bedoozled Americans surfed and swam. Starting in the 1990s, America’s unhinged right became much larger and more influential than its unhinged left. There is no real left-wing equivalent of Sean Hannity, let alone Alex Jones. Moreover, the far right now has unprecedented political power; it controls much of the U.S. government. Why did the grown-ups and designated drivers on the political left manage to remain basically in charge of their followers, while the reality-based right lost out to fantasy-prone true believers? Religion aside, America simply has many more fervid conspiracists on the right, as research about belief in particular conspiracies confirms again and again. Only the American right has had a large and organized faction based on paranoid conspiracism for the past six decades."

an aside... - Fox News' Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson programs violated Britain's broadcast standards, watchdog says (LA Times) "Britain’s Office of Communications said Monday that it found a January episode of Fox News’ 'Hannity' and a May episode of 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' in breach of Britain’s broadcast standards. The programs were part of the lineup of the Fox News Channel, which was carried by European pay-TV giant Sky until late August. British media laws, unlike those in the U.S., require television presenters to provide fair and balanced reports."

- America is facing an epistemic crisis (Vox) "Epistemology is the branch of philosophy having to do with how we know things and what it means for something to be true or false, accurate or inaccurate. The U.S. is experiencing a deep epistemic breach, a split not just in what we value or want, but in who we trust, how we come to know things, and what we believe we know — what we believe exists, is true, has happened and is happening. The pretense for the conservative revolution was that mainstream institutions had failed in their role as neutral arbiters — that they had been taken over by the left, become agents of the left in referee’s clothing, as it were. As the massive post-election study of online media from Harvard showed, media is not symmetrical any more than broader polarization is. 'Prominent media on the left are well distributed across the center, center-left, and left,' the researchers found. 'On the right, prominent media are highly partisan.' That insular partisan far-right media is also full of nonsense like Pizzagate that leaves the base continuously pumped up — outraged, infuriated, terrified, and misled. At this point, as the stories above show, the conservative base will believe anything. And they are pissed about all of it. ...to this day, no one knows how to stop or counter it. Mainstream institutions seem as unable as ever to resist its warping effects. It’s all playing out like some morbid script that we can only watch, stupefied. As long as Republican politicians are frightened by the base, the base is frightened by scary conspiracies in right-wing media, and right-wing media makes more money the more frightened everyone is, Trump appears to be safe."

- Mass Shootings, Climate, Discrimination: Why Government's Fear of Data Threatens Us All (Wired) "It’s hard to imagine a good argument for knowing less—about anything, really, but especially about difficult problems with profound policy implications. The government is supposed to base policy on the best data possible, along with political concerns, budget concerns, social priorities ... the usual warp and weft of running a country. Yet the Trump administration is running in the other direction. Any data that has even the faintest whiff of potential contradiction goes right out the window. Dataphobia chills them to the bone, I suspect because they hope to undermine not only some truths but all truth. Now, though, even more stands at risk. This isn't just about undermining data anymore. It's about abandoning its collection."

- The Gerasimov Doctrine (Politico) "General Valery Gerasimov—Russia’s chief of the General Staff...took tactics developed by the Soviets, blended them with strategic military thinking about total war, and laid out a new theory of modern warfare—one that looks more like hacking an enemy’s society than attacking it head-on. ...Russia’s modern strategy, a vision of total warfare that places politics and war within the same spectrum of activities... The approach is guerrilla, and waged on all fronts with a range of actors and tools—for example, hackers, media, businessmen, leaks and, yes, fake news, as well as conventional and asymmetric military means. Thanks to the internet and social media, the kinds of operations Soviet psy-ops teams once could only fantasize about—upending the domestic affairs of nations with information alone—are now plausible. The Gerasimov Doctrine builds a framework for these new tools, and declares that non-military tactics are not auxiliary to the use of force but the preferred way to win. That they are, in fact, the actual war. Chaos is the strategy the Kremlin pursues: Gerasimov specifies that the objective is to achieve an environment of permanent unrest and conflict within an enemy state. Does it work? Former captive nations Georgia, Estonia and Lithuania all sounded the alarm in recent years about Russian attempts to influence their domestic politics and security... In Ukraine, Russia has been deploying the Gerasimov Doctrine for the past several years. The United States is the latest target. They are not aiming to become stronger than us, but to weaken us until we are equivalent. It’s hard to muster resistance to an enemy you can’t see, or aren’t even sure is there. But it’s not an all-powerful approach; the shadowy puppeteering at the heart of the Gerasimov Doctrine also makes it inherently fragile. Its tactics begin to fail when light is thrown onto how they work and what they aim to achieve. For now, though, America is still in the dark—not even on defense, let alone offense."

BUSINESS:

- Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why (NYT) "...we need to talk about this money because, boy, is there a whole lot of it — and as the world’s moneyed dictators, oligarchs and other characters look for more places to park their billions, mountains more will be coming to Silicon Valley. Tech companies are fond of pseudo-revolutionary mission statements that extol the virtues of diversity, tolerance, freedom of expression and other progressive ideals. The money from regimes that have been criticized for their human rights records — from Saudi Arabia’s government in particular, which has plans to funnel potentially hundreds of billions of dollars into tech companies through its state-controlled Public Investment Fund — stands in stark contrast to those aims. ...many of today’s tech companies have lost a moral compass."

CLIMATE CHANGE:

- As Syria embraces Paris climate deal, it’s the United States against the world (WaPo) "The move comes after the only other holdout, Nicaragua, announced plans to join the Paris agreement in September. Nicaragua initially had refused to join the agreement in 2015 because its leaders felt the accord did not go far enough in compelling nations to reduce their carbon emissions. But in joining the deal this fall, the country’s president noted that it is the 'only instrument we have' to unite the world around the goal of staving off the most catastrophic effects of global warming."

- EPA's Pruitt vows to continue rolling back rules despite alarming climate report (USA Today) "...Pruitt said a newly released government report that lays most of the blame for the rise of global temperatures to human activity won't deter him from continuing to roll back the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, a major rule aimed at combating climate change."

NEWS:

- Democrat Ralph Northam Elected Governor of Virginia and Democrat Phil Murphy Is Elected New Jersey Governor (WSJ - Paywall) "In off-year elections, Democrats won comfortably in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday. Ralph Northam captured the Virginia governorship, beating Republican Ed Gillespie in the first major test of how the Trump presidency has affected swing-state politics. With 99% of the precincts counted, Mr. Northam had 53.9% of the vote and Mr. Gillespie had 45%. Mr. Northam, a physician who is Virginia’s lieutenant governor, will succeed Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, giving their party another four years in the governor’s mansion. In New Jersey, voters elected Democrat Phil Murphy governor over Republican Kim Guadagno, ending two terms of GOP control by Gov. Chris Christie. The results are an abrupt change in fortune for Democrats, who have been frustrated this year in House special elections in Republican districts. Party officials are hoping the twin victories prove a harbinger of success in the 2018 midterms."

SOCIALIZED MEDECINE:

- Maine Voters Approve Medicaid Expansion, a Rebuke of Gov. LePage (NYT) "Mr. LePage and other opponents, including several Republicans in the state Legislature, said Medicaid expansion would burden the taxpayers and the state budget, and described it as a form of welfare. Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of the few Republicans who firmly opposed the [Affordable Care Act] repeal efforts, has been an outspoken defender of Medicaid, although she did not take a position on the ballot question. Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government picked up the cost of new enrollees under Medicaid expansion for the first three years and will continue to pay at least 90 percent. States cover a significantly larger portion of the expenses for the rest of their Medicaid population."

TECHNOLOGY:

- To Save the Most Lives, Deploy (Imperfect) Self-Driving Cars ASAP (Wired) "Cars crash a lot: Nearly 37,500 Americans died on the roads last year. If humans cause 37,462 car deaths a year, and driverless cars cause 37,461, let ‘em roll.

TRUMPTEL:

- Another Trump campaign aide acknowledges meeting senior Russian officials in mid-2016 (LA Times) "Former Trump campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page is the latest to belatedly acknowledge direct contact with senior officials in President Vladimir Putin’s government during the campaign or after the election. Page had repeatedly denied to reporters that he met with Russian government officials in Moscow on a campaign-approved trip in July 2016. But according to a House Intelligence Committee transcript of his testimony, he acknowledged doing so and had even emailed other campaign officials about the 'incredible insights and outreach' he got from Russia’s deputy prime minister and several legislators."

- The Case of Wilbur Ross' Phantom $2 Billion (Forbes) "A year earlier, Forbes had listed his net worth at $2.9 billion on The Forbes 400, a number Ross claimed was far too low... Now, after examining the financial-disclosure forms he filed after his nomination to President Donald Trump's Cabinet, which showed less than $700 million in assets, Forbes was intent on removing him [from the Forbes 400 list] entirely. It seems clear that Ross lied to us... And based on our interviews with ten former employees at Ross' private equity firm, WL Ross & Co., who all confirmed parts of the same story line, his penchant for misleading extended to colleagues and investors, resulting in millions of dollars in fines, tens of millions refunded to backers and numerous lawsuits."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- Girlfriend To Stay Underneath Blanket For Next 5 Months (Onion) "'I am cozy right now, this is my ideal state of warmth and comfortability, and I shall remain underneath this blanket for the next 150 days or until such time as the cold weather season has fully transpired.'"

TODAY'S SONG:

- She Blinded Me With Science (Thomas Dolby)

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MADAM PRESIDENT?

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- Will America Ever Have a Woman President? (Politico) "The highest glass ceiling remains firmly in place, and President Donald Trump’s theatrically alpha-male leadership style has made a crack seem even more remote."

- It Might Be a While Until There’s a Female President (Wired) "...the frenzy among pundits to explain Donald Trump’s victory has obscured another, equally important question—why Clinton lost, and the role that being a woman played in that loss."

BUSINESS:

- Jeff Bezos Sells $1.1 Billion Amazon Shares With Stock at Record (Bloomberg) "The sale represented 1.3 percent of his holding and leaves Bezos with a 16.4 percent stake in the retailer. The world’s richest man said in April he would sell $1 billion a year in Amazon stock to fund Blue Origin LLC, the rocket company fueling his dream of sending people into space."

- After a Tax Crackdown, Apple Found a New Shelter for Its Profits (NYT) "Tim Cook was angry. 'We pay all the taxes we owe, every single dollar, Mr. Cook declared at the hearing. 'We don’t depend on tax gimmicks,' he went on. 'We don’t stash money on some Caribbean island.' True enough. The island Apple would soon rely on was in the English Channel." and Apple had five burning questions about the best tax haven for its billions (Quartz) "All five questions seem to show a concern with secrecy, the ability to not pay taxes, and the stability of any tax-avoiding arrangement."

- Trump Is Leaving Japan Empty-Handed on Trade (Bloomberg) "...throughout Trump’s two-day visit, Abe publicly ducked any talk of major trade concessions even though Trump kept bringing it up. 'Right now our trade with Japan is not fair and it isn’t open,' Trump told business leaders in Tokyo Monday. But Abe hasn’t forgotten that it was Trump who pulled out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact... Abe spent significant political capital to back the deal... Japanese officials...say the TPP would’ve helped narrow the trade gap."

NEWS:

- Our political parties can’t save themselves (WaPo) "Where does this leave us at Year One of the Trump era? With two very sick political parties that have a monopoly on political power and little prospect for reform and recovery. The stakes are quite high. If America really develops a political competition between ethno-nationalism and identity socialism, it will mean we are a nation in decline — likely to leave pressing problems (educational failure, unconstrained debt, a flawed criminal-justice system) unconfronted. Likely to forfeit global leadership, undermine world markets and cede to others the mantle of stability and firm purpose."

- President Is Losing Support in ‘Trump Counties,’ a WSJ/NBC News Poll Finds (WSJ- Paywall) "... support for Donald Trump is eroding in counties that were most responsible for his election, as disapproval of his performance in loyalist precincts reaches 50%, surpassing the 48% who approve."

- The Trump Administration’s Looming Political Crisis (New Yorker) "It requires fortitude to accept the likelihood that the Trump Presidency is about to become more eventful still. The investigations into Vladimir Putin’s interference in the 2016 election, and the possibility that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia, are intensifying. The accusation that Russian covert operations influenced the Presidential vote clearly drives Trump to distraction. He has repeatedly denied that his campaign collaborated with Russia, and he insists that Putin’s activity contributed nothing to his victory. Yet the latest revelations do not bode well for the President. In all probability, the country’s most dangerous trials during the Trump Administration lie ahead."

- Is Tom Cotton the Future of Trumpism? (New Yorker) "If Rand Paul is the leading Republican isolationist in the Senate, Cotton, in short order, has become heir to the opposing wing of the Party, the one associated with Senator John McCain... For the moment, at least, Cotton appears to be a hybrid of insurgent and old guard, who can play successfully to the warring constituencies of the Republican Party. As [Steve] Bannon put it, 'How many guys in town can give a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations and also get kudos in the pages of Breitbart? The answer is, one guy.'"

- Military Is Overhauling Its Retirement Systems (NYT) "Beginning in January, the military is switching from just a traditional pension system, in which retirees receive a monthly check for life based on their pay and years of service, to one that also includes investment accounts, like those commonly available to civilian workers. The new 'blended' system is based, in part, on recommendations by the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission."

- Why It’s Too Soon to Predict What the Tax Changes Will Mean for You (NYT) "...we should express great skepticism toward anyone who claims to know how this tax bill will evolve, and how any bill would actually change our behavior and our financial lives. I count at least six major areas of uncertainty." and In GOP plan, taxes go down for most Americans, but wealthy get the biggest cut (WaPo) "House Republicans' tax bill would increase taxes for 12 percent of Americans next year, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The vast majority of Americans would get a tax cut if the bill becomes law, TPC found, but the rich would benefit the most."

TECHNOLOGY:

- How to Spring Clean Your Digital Clutter to Protect Yourself (Wired) "Clean up your digital junk. ...holding on to accounts and files that you don't actually want anymore needlessly exposes you to all sorts of risks. Destroy old CDs, thumb drives, and external hard drives you don't need anymore. Sort through your desktop and clean out your documents folder. Get into applications, Internet services, and the cloud. The most important account to consider is your email, the central data hub of your online life. Look for apps you don't use anymore and shut them down."

- Congress Assigned a Lot of Homework to Facebook, Twitter, Google (Bloomberg) "The companies’ lawyers didn’t have answers at the ready for some of the queries, and offered to follow up with the members’ staff."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- Presidential Limo Guns It Around Corner In Attempt To Toss Robert Mueller From Roof (Onion) "Witnesses at the scene said the 73-year-old former FBI director—who is leading the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia—relentlessly pursued the presidential limo on foot and eventually heaved himself up onto the car, trying to question the commander in chief about his contacts with foreign entities known to have interfered in the 2016 election."

TODAY'S SONG:

- Kids (OneRepublic)

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TRUMPTEL 4.0

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- The Trump administration is up to its neck in Russians (WaPo) "The blizzard of Russia connections between members of Trump’s team, including his son Donald Trump Jr. (who attended the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting and received an ample speaking fee from French allies of the Russian government) and son-in-law, top members of his administration (the attorney general, former national security adviser Flynn) and his campaign (Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Page), coupled with the utter lack of candor about such ties, all take place in the context of an election in which Russia executed a sophisticated plan to interfere in our democracy. Trump tried to stop Comey from investigating Flynn and then fired Comey, who was investigating the Russia connection."

- At least nine people in Trump’s orbit had contact with Russians during campaign and transition (WaPo) "Experts who have studied Russian tactics see something...: a picture emerging of a concerted and multifaceted Kremlin effort to infiltrate Trump’s campaign."

- Russian Twitter Support for Trump Began Right After He Started Campaign (WSJ - Paywall) "Russian Twitter accounts posing as Americans began lavishing praise on Mr. Trump and attacking his rivals within weeks after he announced his bid for the presidency in June 2015..."

- Trump Jr. Hinted at Review of Anti-Russia Law, Moscow Lawyer Says (Bloomberg) "Her [Veselnitskaya] June 9, 2016 encounter with Donald Trump Jr., President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and then campaign manager Paul Manafort in New York plays a key role in allegations that the campaign worked with Russia to defeat Clinton. 'Looking ahead, if we come to power, we can return to this issue and think what to do about it,' Trump Jr. said of the 2012 law... ...the so-called Magnitsky law that punishes Russian officials for the murder of a Russian tax accountant who accused the Kremlin of corruption. In the past, Trump Jr. has said that he had wasted his time seeing the lawyer because she provided no useful information." and What did Donald Trump Jr. ask for at that meeting? The Russian lawyer just spoke out (WaPo) "There are a number of lingering questions about the account, and healthy skepticism about the messenger and her message is certainly warranted. However, this is a notable moment, because it would appear to constitute a direct allegation that Donald Trump Jr. actively requested Russian assistance in harming Hillary Clinton... ...Veselnitskaya is not a particularly trustworthy character, and it should be stressed that by her account, she did not furnish any such documents. We know now as a matter of fact, however, that the June 2016 meeting was held for the explicit purpose of getting a dump-truck’s worth of Russian 'dirt' on Clinton — Donald Jr.’s email chain confirms it. And let’s not forget...that Trump himself helped dictate an initial statement from Donald Jr. that misleadingly claimed the meeting was 'primarily' about Russian adoptions. This was later proven false, which means Trump himself has been directly implicated in an effort to mislead the country about his own top campaign officials’ eagerness to benefit from help from the Russian government."

PARADISE...LOST:

- A massive trove of data on offshore transactions is leaked (Economist) "This latest batch of revelations...began on November 6th and will be rolled out over a week. It shines light on offshore transactions linked to hundreds of wealthy clients of Appleby, a Bermuda-based law firm. These include politicians (Wilbur Ross, America’s commerce secretary), entertainers (U2’s Bono) and even royalty (arise, Queen Elizabeth). The most eye-catching early stories concern Mr Ross, social-media firms and Britain’s monarch. Mr Ross, a private-equity boss turned senior member of the Trump administration, is reported to have held a 31% stake (through a buy-out firm he owns) in a company called Navigator, which received tens of millions of dollars for shipping oil for a Russian client. That client, a firm called Sibur, was part-owned by Russians with alleged Kremlin ties who are subject to American sanctions... Stories about such connections are guaranteed a wide audience at the moment given heightened scrutiny of possible ties between the Trump campaign and Moscow. There is no suggestion of illegal activity by Mr Ross, or of improper contact between him and Russian interests. A spokesman for Mr Ross said he recuses himself from any matters focused on transoceanic shipping vessels, has had no contact with the sanctioned individuals, and was not even aware of them until this week."

- Commerce Secretary’s Offshore Ties to Putin ‘Cronies’ (NYT) "As WL Ross & Co. expanded over the years, it used Appleby, the offshore specialist, to set up an increasing number of entities in tax havens..."

- Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has stake in firm tied to Putin orbit (LA Times) "Commerce Department spokesman James Rockas said Ross 'never met' Shamalov and has generally supported the Trump administration's sanctions against Russia... The details are likely to add to the questions about ties between Russia and the Trump administration... In financial disclosure forms he filed with the government this year, Ross valued his holdings in the Cayman Island entities, which include other companies besides Navigator, at no more than $10.1 million."

- Kremlin Cash Behind Billionaire’s Twitter and Facebook Investments (NYT) "...Russian billionaire investor Yuri Milner...when someone asked a question that had swirled around his Silicon Valley ascent — Who were his investors? — he did not answer... Now, leaked documents examined by The New York Times offer a partial answer: Behind Mr. Milner’s investments in Facebook and Twitter were hundreds of millions of dollars from the Kremlin. Ultimately, Mr. Milner’s companies came to own more than 8 percent of Facebook and 5 percent of Twitter... Among Mr. Milner’s current investments is a real estate venture founded and partly owned by Jared Kushner... ...his use of the state-directed apparatus employed by so many Russian oligarchs to enrich themselves shows how the Kremlin has extended its long financial arm not only to his company but to some of America’s technology giants. There is nothing illegal about foreign state-owned institutions investing in American companies. The Facebook deal was a case study in the way Russia’s oligarchs have mixed public and private roles for their own, and their government’s, benefit..." and Russia funded Facebook and Twitter investments through Kushner associate (Guardian)

ENTERTAINMNT:

- The night AC/DC stormed CBGB (Salon) "An hour after the Palladium show, the guys surprised CBGB management by showing up uninvited. AC/DC plugged in and hastily played a handful of songs, including 'Live Wire' and 'She’s Got Balls,'...with long guitar solos pushing the limits of the edgy punk ethos. Bon Scott was wearing his standard stage attire (he’d probably just wrung it out after the Palladium show): crotch-choking jeans and a sleeveless denim vest, soon removed to give his chest hair and medallion more exposure. His hair was shaggy and shoulder-length. He was covered in ink. And the band was loud."

NEWS:

- ‘Bullies’ and boiling points: How Bob Corker left President Trump, and why it may not be over (WaPo) "Corker seized the role of presidential critic-in-chief last month, when he accused Trump, in a rapid-fire series of conversations with reporters, of 'debasing' the country with his 'untruths' and 'name-calling.' Now, Corker has his party on edge, wondering where and when he will strike again and what it will mean... No one, not even Corker, seems sure where this one will lead."

- Detroit: From Motor City to Housing Incubator (NYT) "...as home prices soar across the United States — particularly on the coasts — Detroit remains a poster child for the economic crisis and housing collapse of a decade ago. Boarded up homes and rubble-strewn fields litter the landscape. What is truly surprising...is how difficult it still is for buyers to actually buy. Basically, prices are too low for lenders (who see the deals as too small or risky) but too high for buyers (who may be cash-poor). There aren’t enough houses in move-in-ready condition — and not enough money to fix them up. ...while Detroit is worse off than most big cities, housing-policy makers nationwide are keeping a close eye to see what lessons can be learned. Homes are certainly worth more in Detroit now than they were a few years ago. Citywide, the median value for a house here is $47,700, a 40 percent gain over the past two years, according to Zillow. But progress is largely limited to a small cluster of neighborhoods."

- Can Republicans Escape Trump in 2020? (NYT) "...if someone who had slept through the 2016 campaign were suddenly awakened and given a few key facts about the state of Donald Trump’s administration, they would instantly suggest that he should expect not just a Republican challenger in 2020, but one with decent prospects of success. But unlike our fictional Rip Van Winkle, we were all awake in 2016... Trump’s unpopularity is stark, but not among his party’s voters. ...the biggest reason for Trump’s support from core Republicans is likely the simple pull of partisanship. This is a difficult environment in which to imagine a primary challenger flourishing. ...no rising figure in the G.O.P. is likely to consider sacrificing their career to make a protest or start an intellectual debate — leaving the task to retirees and elder statesmen..."

- When ‘Conservatives’ Turned Into Radicals (NYT) "For centuries, conservative politics has considered itself a means of preserving something — a culture, a way of being, an imagined notion of what once was and should be again. Conservatism has told us again and again that what came before us was most likely better than what will follow, and that old ideals are the basis of who we are as a people. ...conservatism has long had two faces — one for its ideological elites and another for its voters. ...Republicans have worked to maintain a two-tiered party — one for the ideologues who believed in Burke and Buckley, free markets and free minds, and one for the voters, who are often moved less by a system of ideas than by id and grievance. It was always the voters, though, who really mattered. And it was the voters who won."

TECHNOLOGY:

- Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (Atlantic) "Typically, the characteristics that come to define a generation appear gradually, and along a continuum. The biggest difference between the Millennials and their predecessors was in how they viewed the world; teens today differ from the Millennials not just in their views but in how they spend their time. The experiences they have every day are radically different from those of the generation that came of age just a few years before them. What happened in 2012 to cause such dramatic shifts in behavior? ...it was exactly the moment when the proportion of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent. The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health. More comfortable in their bedrooms than in a car or at a party, today’s teens are physically safer than teens have ever been. Psychologically, however, they are more vulnerable than Millennials were: Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. There is compelling evidence that the devices we’ve placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives—and making them seriously unhappy. Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy. There’s not a single exception. All screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness. The more time teens spend looking at screens, the more likely they are to report symptoms of depression. What's the connection between smartphones and the apparent psychological distress this generation is experiencing? For all their power to link kids day and night, social media also exacerbate the age-old teen concern about being left out."

- How Facebook’s Oracular Algorithm Determines the Fates of Start-Ups (NYT) "...social-network advertising is an assumed prerequisite for anyone studying marketing at a tech incubator these days — or at any business school across the country. The process is easy, cheap and effective. With a few hundred dollars and a morning’s effort, an entrepreneur can place his or her ads before social-media users that same afternoon. The ease of opening a business on Facebook has in turn spawned a wild proliferation of specialty digital sellers that depend on the social network’s algorithm to find their early customers. Facebook’s sales pitch — putting the right ad in front of the right person, thanks to the wonders of data technology — isn’t exactly new. What sets Facebook (and Google) apart are scale and sophistication."

- How Netflix works: the (hugely simplified) complex stuff that happens every time you hit Play (Medium) "...as much as it means building top-notch infrastructure at a scale no other Internet service has done before, it also means that a lot of participants in the experience have to be negotiated with and kept satiated — from production companies supplying the content, to internet providers dealing with the network traffic Netflix brings upon them. Netflix estimates that it uses around 700 microservices to control each of the many parts of what makes up the entire Netflix service: one microservice stores what all shows you watched, one deducts the monthly fee from your credit card, one provides your device with the correct video files that it can play, one takes a look at your watching history and uses algorithms to guess a list of movies that you will like, and one will provide the names and images of these movies to be shown in a list on the main menu."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- She flipped off President Trump — and got fired from her government contracting job (WaPo) "Her bosses...showed her the blue-highlighted section 4.3 of their social media policy when they canned her. Wait. It gets even more obscene. Because Briskman was in charge of the firm’s social media presence during her brief, six-month tenure there, she recently flagged something that did link her company to some pretty ugly stuff. As she was monitoring Facebook this summer, she found a public comment by a senior director at the company on an otherwise civil discussion by one of his employees about Black Lives Matter. 'You’re a f****ing Libtard a**hole,' the director injected, using his profile that clearly and repeatedly identifies himself as an employee."

TODAY'S SONG:

- Highway to Hell (AC/DC)

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