- Here's How the End of Net Neutrality Will Change the Internet (Wired) "For a glimpse of how the internet experience may change, look at what broadband providers are doing under the existing 'net neutrality' rules. When AT&T customers access its DirecTV Now video-streaming service, the data doesn’t count against their plan’s data limits. Verizon, likewise, exempts its Go90 service from its customers’ data plans. T-Mobile allows multiple video and music streaming services to bypass its data limits, essentially allowing it to pick winners and losers in those categories. ...expect a gradual shift towards subscriptions that provide unlimited access to certain preferred providers while charging extra for everything else."
- The Internet Is Dying. Repealing Net Neutrality Hastens That Death. (NYT) "Because net neutrality shelters start-ups — which can’t easily pay for fast-line access — from internet giants that can pay, the rules are just about the last bulwark against the complete corporate takeover of much of online life. When the rules go, the internet will still work, but it will look like and feel like something else altogether — a network in which business development deals, rather than innovation, determine what you experience, a network that feels much more like cable TV than the technological Wild West that gave you Napster and Netflix. In a letter to Ajit Pai, the F.C.C. chairman, who drafted the net neutrality repeal order, more than 200 start-ups argued this week that the order 'would put small and medium-sized businesses at a disadvantage and prevent innovative new ones from even getting off the ground.' This, they said, was 'the opposite of the open market, with a few powerful cable and phone companies picking winners and losers instead of consumers.' ...a vibrant network doesn’t die all at once. It takes time and neglect; it grows weaker by the day, but imperceptibly, so that one day we are living in a digital world controlled by giants and we come to regard the whole thing as normal. It’s not normal. It wasn’t always this way. The internet doesn’t have to be a corporate playground. That’s just the path we’ve chosen."
- What an Internet Analyst Got Wrong About Net Neutrality (Wired) "The FCC's authority to enforce net neutrality comes from its designation in 2015 of broadband providers as 'common carriers' under Title II of the Communications Act. That means they're treated similarly to telephone providers, although they are exempt from some of the more strict regulations that apply to phone services. The FCC now proposes to throw out nearly all the 2015 rules. There may yet be a better way to enforce net neutrality than Title II. But removing the existing rules without replacing them with something better leaves regulators unable to police all but the worst behavior."
- No, the FCC is not killing the Internet (WaPo) "If the phony claims are to be believed, the FCC is about to unleash a Mad Max version of the Internet in which Internet service providers are free to operate without any legal restraint. Next month’s FCC vote will simply return the Internet to the same regulatory framework that governed in 2015 and for the 20 years that preceded it. ...we’re returning to the tried-and-true framework that protected consumers without the negative results we’ve seen during the FCC’s two-year detour into heavy-handed, utility-style regulation: a diversion that, as the proposed order explains, has seen investment decline, broadband deployments put on hold and innovative new offerings shelved, all to the detriment of consumers."
BUSINESS:
- There’s an implosion of early-stage VC funding, and no one’s talking about it (TechCrunch) "The chart below is dramatic, and accurate. Since 2014, the number of VC rounds in technology companies worldwide has nearly halved, from 19,000 to 10,000, according to PitchBook. During that time, the drop in VC funding amount has been nowhere near as dramatic, highlighting that VCs are concentrating investment into fewer later-stage companies. Overall we believe 2012-16 was a bubble in early-stage funding driven by the fundamental platform shift to mobile. In easy hindsight, too many companies raised 'concept' money, and an unprecedented number failed early and 'failed fast.' Whether the early-stage VC implosion is healthy or disastrous for the tech ecosystem remains to be seen."
CLIMATE CHANGE:
- Two Melting Glaciers Could Decide the Fate of Our Coastlines (Wired) "The glaciers of Pine Island Bay are two of the largest and fastest-melting in Antarctica. Together, they act as a plug holding back enough ice to pour 11 feet of sea-level rise into the world’s oceans—an amount that would submerge every coastal city on the planet. For that reason, finding out how fast these glaciers will collapse is one of the most important scientific questions in the world today. All this could play out in a mere 20 to 50 years—much too quickly for humanity to adapt. ...estimates for how high the seas could rise this century [have risen] sharply higher. Instead of a three-foot increase in ocean levels by the end of the century, six feet [is] more likely... Three feet of sea-level rise would be bad, leading to more frequent flooding of U.S. cities such as New Orleans, Houston, New York, and Miami. Pacific Island nations, like the Marshall Islands, would lose most of their territory. At six feet, though, around 12 million people in the United States would be displaced, and the world’s most vulnerable megacities, like Shanghai, Mumbai, and Ho Chi Minh City, could be wiped off the map. At 11 feet, land currently inhabited by hundreds of millions of people worldwide would wind up underwater. South Florida would be largely uninhabitable; floods on the scale of Hurricane Sandy would strike twice a month in New York and New Jersey, as the tug of the moon alone would be enough to send tidewaters into homes and buildings."
ENTERTAINMENT:
- Now YouTube Kills the Radio Star (Ozy) "...according to Vevo stats, 73 percent of teenagers are saying that music videos are the best platform for the expression of an artist’s creative vision, and 61 percent of them are watching more videos online this year than they were last year. Which is very specifically why, if you’re over 30, you might still think in terms of listening to new music, but if you’re under 30? You’re seeing new music."
- Steven Soderbergh's App Will Change How You Watch TV (Wired) "...Casey Silver, the former head of Universal Pictures, was trying to develop a new way to tell stories. In the summer of 2012, when Soderbergh was promoting Magic Mike, Silver approached him with a fairly rudimentary idea to use the technology available through smartphones and apps to let viewers interact more directly with the characters they were watching. Where they ended up was a smartphone-enabled story [called Mosaic], developed and released by Silver’s company PodOp, that lets viewers decide which way they want to be told [a story]... After watching each segment...viewers are given options for whose point of view they want to follow and where they want to go next."
THE FLYNN AFFAIR:
- Flynn Flipped. Who’s Next? (NYT) "It’s hard to find a precedent for how quickly Mr. Trump’s inner circle has become consumed by scandal. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan made it into their second terms before the indictments of their top aides started rolling in. In contrast, consider what’s happened in the last five weeks alone: The president of the United States’ former campaign chief, Paul Manafort, and an associate have been arrested and charged with multiple federal crimes, including money laundering and tax fraud; one of Mr. Trump’s former foreign policy advisers, George Papadopoulos, has pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with Russians; and now his former national security adviser has pleaded guilty to the same offense, admitting that he committed federal crimes from inside the White House. Who might now be swept up in the investigation? The next obvious candidate is Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and one of his closest advisers..."
- Emails Dispute White House Claims That Flynn Acted Independently on Russia (NYT) "...the emails, coupled with interviews and court documents filed on Friday, showed that Mr. Flynn was in close touch with other senior members of the Trump transition team both before and after he spoke with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, about American sanctions against Russia. The sanctions could also make it much harder for Mr. Trump to ease tensions with Russia, 'which has just thrown the U.S.A. election to him,' she [K.T. McFarland] wrote in the emails... ...it is evident from the emails...that after learning that President Barack Obama would expel 35 Russian diplomats, the Trump team quickly strategized about how to reassure Russia. The Trump advisers feared that a cycle of retaliation between the United States and Russia would keep the spotlight on Moscow’s election meddling, tarnishing Mr. Trump’s victory and potentially hobbling his presidency from the start. Besides the Russian ambassador, Mr. Flynn, at the request of the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, contacted several other foreign officials to urge them to delay or block a United Nations resolution condemning Israel over its building of settlements. It is uncertain how involved Mr. Trump was in the discussions among his staff members of Mr. Flynn’s conversation with the Russian ambassador."
- Trump Says He Fired Michael Flynn ‘Because He Lied’ to F.B.I. (NYT) "Democrats and others on social media read Mr. Trump’s tweet to mean that he was now admitting that he had known of Mr. Flynn’s misstatements to the F.B.I. at the time he fired him in February. But it was unclear what the president meant."
NEWS:
- Jesus’ Parents and Roy Moore’s Gall (NYT) "When [Jim] Zeigler [state auditor of Alabama] was asked by The Washington Examiner about an allegation that the Senate candidate Roy Moore initiated sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32, Zeigler cited the biblical couple to say, essentially: No biggie! This is as old as Christianity. It’s worth pointing out that there is something illegal here: A 14-year-old girl is below the age of consent in Alabama, and that was true as well four decades ago, when the incident is alleged to have occurred. It’s further worth pointing out that millenniums ago, girls were treated as chattel and sold off as child brides, a practice that no one in his or her right mind would regard as inspirational and cite as an exonerating precedent. But such fine points tend to elude people insisting on the most convenient, self-serving narrative available, and Zeigler was rationalizing his sustained support for Moore. Although Christianity as I understand it doesn’t smile on the florid lying, womanizing, hypersexual vocabulary and assorted cruelties that have been prominent threads in Donald Trump’s life, Moore and many other evangelical Christians spared Trump their censure."
- The religious right’s scary, judgmental old men (WaPo) "On sexual harassment, our country is now in a much better ethical place. And how we got here is instructive. Conservatives have sometimes predicted that moral relativism would render Americans broadly incapable of moral judgment. But people, at some deep level, know that rules and norms are needed. They understand that character — rooted in empathy and respect for the rights and dignity of others — is essential in every realm of life, including the workplace. And where did this urgent assertion of moral principle come from? Not from the advocates of 'family values.' On the contrary... Conservatives need to be clear and honest in this circumstance. The strong, moral commitment to the dignity of women and children recently asserting itself in our common life has mainly come from feminism, not the 'family values' movement. In this case, religious conservatives have largely been bystanders or obstacles. This indicates a group of people for whom the dignity of girls and women has become secondary to other political goals."
- No One Knows What Britain Is Anymore (NYT) "Many Britons see their country as a brave galleon... But Britain is now but a modest-size ship on the global ocean. Having voted to leave the European Union, it is unmoored, heading to nowhere... While much poorer in the 1980s, Britain mattered internationally. Now, with Brexit, it seems to be embracing an introverted irrelevance. Britain — renowned for its pragmatism, its common sense, its political stability and its unabashed devotion to small business ('a nation of shopkeepers') — has become nearly unrecognizable to its European allies. Britain is undergoing a full-blown identity crisis. It is a 'hollowed-out country,' 'ill at ease with itself,' 'deeply provincial,' engaged in a 'controlled suicide,' say puzzled experts. And these are Britain’s friends. The European country considered the most outward-looking and globalized is fractured by the backlash against the very model that made Britain strong." and The UK and the EU have reportedly reached an agreement on the Brexit break-up fee (Quartz) "€55 billion."
- Forget Trump and Discover the World (NYT) "So while we’ve been following Trump’s tweets about bringing back 'beautiful coal,' India built a billion-user ID network bigger than Twitter and giant solar power plants that are cheaper than coal. ...while our president has been busy playing golf, tweeting about LaVar Ball and pushing an anything-that-will-pass tax plan, China has been busy creating a cashless society, where people can pay for so many things now with just a swipe of their cellphones — including donations to beggars — or even buy stuff at vending machines with just facial recognition, and India is trying to follow suit."
TRUMPTEL:
- Trump and the Risks of Digital Hate (Wired) "In the year 1929, the Nazi propaganda tabloid Der Stürmer published a caricature of an imaginary group of devious looking Jewish people, peeling off in a car after apparently running over a German boy... In the year 2017, the President of the United States retweeted a video of a dark-haired teenager assaulting a blonde, Dutch teenager on crutches, with the erroneous caption, 'Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!' In the year 1942, the Nazi pamphlet Der Untermensch accused Jews of delighting in destroying churches... In the year 2017, the President of the United States retweeted a video of a bearded Muslim man smashing a fair-skinned statue of the Virgin Mary... Trump's tweets may look like an impulsive and offensive attempt to pander to the Ann Coulter-wing of the Republican party, but looked at through the long lens of history, Trump's messaging has dangerous undertones that could be compared to propaganda tactics found in the well-worn playbook of how to demonize entire categories of humans. ...it's in ignoring history altogether that societies risk falling into the time-tested trap of believing that pending mass atrocities clearly announce themselves in bright neon lighting. History indicates that dangerous rhetoric tends to sound cautionary at the outset, ringing the alarm against what the people in power deem to be a serious threat. ...history provides few excuses for those who fail to anticipate the damage that words and images can do."
- Too Rich for Conflicts? Trump Appointees May Have Many, Seen and Unseen (NYT) "'They’re representing the country,' Mr. Trump said in June at a rally in Iowa. 'They don’t want the money.' Mr. Trump has assembled the wealthiest cabinet in American history... ...the Trump team has holdings that are spread across myriad industries and hidden from the public behind layers of trusts and shell companies."
- McMaster Mocked Trump’s Intelligence At A Private Dinner (BuzzFeed) "The top national security official dismissed the president variously as an 'idiot' and a 'dope' with the intelligence of a 'kindergartner,' the sources said."
- Trump Once Said the ‘Access Hollywood’ Tape Was Real. Now He’s Not Sure. (NYT) "Mr. Trump’s falsehoods about the 'Access Hollywood' tape are part of his lifelong habit of attempting to create and sell his own version of reality. Advisers say he continues to privately harbor a handful of conspiracy theories that have no grounding in fact. Mr. Trump’s journeys into the realm of manufactured facts have been frequent enough that his own staff has sought to nudge friendly lawmakers to ask questions of Mr. Trump in meetings that will steer him toward safer terrain. To the president’s critics, his conspiracy-mongering goes to the heart of why he poses a threat to the country." and Billy Bush: Yes, Donald Trump, You Said That (NYT) "Of course he said it. And we laughed along, without a single doubt that this was hypothetical hot air from America’s highest-rated bloviator. Along with Donald Trump and me, there were seven other guys present on the bus at the time, and every single one of us assumed we were listening to a crass standup act. He was performing. Surely, we thought, none of this was real. We now know better. None of us were guilty of knowingly enabling our future president. But all of us were guilty of sacrificing a bit of ourselves in the name of success. The man who once told me — ironically, in another off-camera conversation — after I called him out for inflating his ratings: 'People will just believe you. You just tell them and they believe you,' was, I thought, not a good choice to lead our country."
- From ‘Access Hollywood’ to Russia, Trump seeks to paint the rosiest picture (WaPo) "His critics accuse him of creating an alternative reality, though people close to the president say he is simply a savvy marketer protecting his brand as any businessman or politician would. Even when presented with irrefutable evidence, Trump finds a way to question unflattering facts."
- Trump veers past guardrails, feeling impervious to the uproar he causes (WaPo) "If there are consequences for his actions, Trump does not seem to feel their burden personally. The Republican tax bill appears on track for passage, putting the president on the cusp of his first major legislative achievement. Trump himself remains the highest profile man accused of sexual improprieties to keep his job with no repercussions. Trump has internalized the belief that he can largely operate with impunity, people close to him said. His political base cheers him on. Fellow Republican leaders largely stand by him. His staff scrambles to explain away his misbehavior — or even to laugh it off. And the White House disciplinarian, chief of staff John F. Kelly, has said it is not his job to control him. The pattern captures the musings of a man who traffics in conspiracy theories and alternate realities, and who can’t resist inserting himself into any story line at any moment. 'Hey, look, I’m president,' Trump said. 'I don’t care. I don’t care anymore.'"
TROUBLE IN FOGGY BOTTOM:
- Diplomats Sound the Alarm as They Are Pushed Out in Droves (NYT) "...Mr. Tillerson launched a reorganization that he has said will be the most important thing he will do, and he has hired two consulting companies to lead the effort. Mr. Tillerson has frozen most hiring and recently offered a $25,000 buyout in hopes of pushing nearly 2,000 career diplomats and civil servants to leave by October 2018. For those who have not been dismissed, retirement has become a preferred alternative when, like Mr. Miller, they find no demand for their expertise. A retirement class that concludes this month has 26 senior employees, including two acting assistant secretaries in their early 50s who would normally wait years before leaving."
- Dismantling the Foreign Service (NYT) "The recent decision by Mr. Tillerson to downsize the Foreign Service by up to 8 percent of the entire officer corps...is particularly dangerous. The Foreign Service, which has about 8,000 officers who do core diplomatic work, is a fraction of the size of the military. The service is already overwhelmed by the growing challenges to the United States on every continent. In our view, Mr. Tillerson has failed to make a convincing case as to why deep cuts will strengthen, rather than weaken, the service, and thus the nation. This is not about belt tightening. It is a deliberate effort to deconstruct the State Department and the Foreign Service."
- How Rex Tillerson Wrecked the State Department (New Yorker) "In the broadest sense, the world we live in was created by the United States. The architecture of international economic and political relations—the United Nations, NATO, the World Trade Organization, and so on—was largely drawn up by American diplomats at the end of the Second World War. The system they devised was meant to encourage the spread of free markets and liberal democracy, and it was premised, more than anything, on American leadership. It’s easy to trash the idea of American global leadership, imperfect and unjust as it has been. But what would the world be without it? Thanks in no small part to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, we are about to find out."
- The national security emergency we’re not talking about (WaPo) "Change within the Foreign Service and the State Department’s civil service is not unusual. In fact, the system is designed to bring in fresh blood on a regular basis. There is, however, a big difference between a transfusion and an open wound. There is nothing normal about the current exodus. President Trump is aware of the situation and has made clear that he doesn’t care: 'I’m the only one that matters,' he told Fox News. The fact is that on trade and climate change, the U.S. government is now irrelevant; on security issues, we are ineffective; and on the use of cybertools to undercut democracy, we have a president who believes Vladimir Putin."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Which countries don't have a McDonald's? (Quartz)
- Two Melting Glaciers Could Decide the Fate of Our Coastlines (Wired) "The glaciers of Pine Island Bay are two of the largest and fastest-melting in Antarctica. Together, they act as a plug holding back enough ice to pour 11 feet of sea-level rise into the world’s oceans—an amount that would submerge every coastal city on the planet. For that reason, finding out how fast these glaciers will collapse is one of the most important scientific questions in the world today. All this could play out in a mere 20 to 50 years—much too quickly for humanity to adapt. ...estimates for how high the seas could rise this century [have risen] sharply higher. Instead of a three-foot increase in ocean levels by the end of the century, six feet [is] more likely... Three feet of sea-level rise would be bad, leading to more frequent flooding of U.S. cities such as New Orleans, Houston, New York, and Miami. Pacific Island nations, like the Marshall Islands, would lose most of their territory. At six feet, though, around 12 million people in the United States would be displaced, and the world’s most vulnerable megacities, like Shanghai, Mumbai, and Ho Chi Minh City, could be wiped off the map. At 11 feet, land currently inhabited by hundreds of millions of people worldwide would wind up underwater. South Florida would be largely uninhabitable; floods on the scale of Hurricane Sandy would strike twice a month in New York and New Jersey, as the tug of the moon alone would be enough to send tidewaters into homes and buildings."
ENTERTAINMENT:
- Now YouTube Kills the Radio Star (Ozy) "...according to Vevo stats, 73 percent of teenagers are saying that music videos are the best platform for the expression of an artist’s creative vision, and 61 percent of them are watching more videos online this year than they were last year. Which is very specifically why, if you’re over 30, you might still think in terms of listening to new music, but if you’re under 30? You’re seeing new music."
- Steven Soderbergh's App Will Change How You Watch TV (Wired) "...Casey Silver, the former head of Universal Pictures, was trying to develop a new way to tell stories. In the summer of 2012, when Soderbergh was promoting Magic Mike, Silver approached him with a fairly rudimentary idea to use the technology available through smartphones and apps to let viewers interact more directly with the characters they were watching. Where they ended up was a smartphone-enabled story [called Mosaic], developed and released by Silver’s company PodOp, that lets viewers decide which way they want to be told [a story]... After watching each segment...viewers are given options for whose point of view they want to follow and where they want to go next."
- Flynn Flipped. Who’s Next? (NYT) "It’s hard to find a precedent for how quickly Mr. Trump’s inner circle has become consumed by scandal. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan made it into their second terms before the indictments of their top aides started rolling in. In contrast, consider what’s happened in the last five weeks alone: The president of the United States’ former campaign chief, Paul Manafort, and an associate have been arrested and charged with multiple federal crimes, including money laundering and tax fraud; one of Mr. Trump’s former foreign policy advisers, George Papadopoulos, has pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with Russians; and now his former national security adviser has pleaded guilty to the same offense, admitting that he committed federal crimes from inside the White House. Who might now be swept up in the investigation? The next obvious candidate is Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and one of his closest advisers..."
- Emails Dispute White House Claims That Flynn Acted Independently on Russia (NYT) "...the emails, coupled with interviews and court documents filed on Friday, showed that Mr. Flynn was in close touch with other senior members of the Trump transition team both before and after he spoke with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, about American sanctions against Russia. The sanctions could also make it much harder for Mr. Trump to ease tensions with Russia, 'which has just thrown the U.S.A. election to him,' she [K.T. McFarland] wrote in the emails... ...it is evident from the emails...that after learning that President Barack Obama would expel 35 Russian diplomats, the Trump team quickly strategized about how to reassure Russia. The Trump advisers feared that a cycle of retaliation between the United States and Russia would keep the spotlight on Moscow’s election meddling, tarnishing Mr. Trump’s victory and potentially hobbling his presidency from the start. Besides the Russian ambassador, Mr. Flynn, at the request of the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, contacted several other foreign officials to urge them to delay or block a United Nations resolution condemning Israel over its building of settlements. It is uncertain how involved Mr. Trump was in the discussions among his staff members of Mr. Flynn’s conversation with the Russian ambassador."
- Trump Says He Fired Michael Flynn ‘Because He Lied’ to F.B.I. (NYT) "Democrats and others on social media read Mr. Trump’s tweet to mean that he was now admitting that he had known of Mr. Flynn’s misstatements to the F.B.I. at the time he fired him in February. But it was unclear what the president meant."
NEWS:
- Jesus’ Parents and Roy Moore’s Gall (NYT) "When [Jim] Zeigler [state auditor of Alabama] was asked by The Washington Examiner about an allegation that the Senate candidate Roy Moore initiated sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32, Zeigler cited the biblical couple to say, essentially: No biggie! This is as old as Christianity. It’s worth pointing out that there is something illegal here: A 14-year-old girl is below the age of consent in Alabama, and that was true as well four decades ago, when the incident is alleged to have occurred. It’s further worth pointing out that millenniums ago, girls were treated as chattel and sold off as child brides, a practice that no one in his or her right mind would regard as inspirational and cite as an exonerating precedent. But such fine points tend to elude people insisting on the most convenient, self-serving narrative available, and Zeigler was rationalizing his sustained support for Moore. Although Christianity as I understand it doesn’t smile on the florid lying, womanizing, hypersexual vocabulary and assorted cruelties that have been prominent threads in Donald Trump’s life, Moore and many other evangelical Christians spared Trump their censure."
- The religious right’s scary, judgmental old men (WaPo) "On sexual harassment, our country is now in a much better ethical place. And how we got here is instructive. Conservatives have sometimes predicted that moral relativism would render Americans broadly incapable of moral judgment. But people, at some deep level, know that rules and norms are needed. They understand that character — rooted in empathy and respect for the rights and dignity of others — is essential in every realm of life, including the workplace. And where did this urgent assertion of moral principle come from? Not from the advocates of 'family values.' On the contrary... Conservatives need to be clear and honest in this circumstance. The strong, moral commitment to the dignity of women and children recently asserting itself in our common life has mainly come from feminism, not the 'family values' movement. In this case, religious conservatives have largely been bystanders or obstacles. This indicates a group of people for whom the dignity of girls and women has become secondary to other political goals."
- No One Knows What Britain Is Anymore (NYT) "Many Britons see their country as a brave galleon... But Britain is now but a modest-size ship on the global ocean. Having voted to leave the European Union, it is unmoored, heading to nowhere... While much poorer in the 1980s, Britain mattered internationally. Now, with Brexit, it seems to be embracing an introverted irrelevance. Britain — renowned for its pragmatism, its common sense, its political stability and its unabashed devotion to small business ('a nation of shopkeepers') — has become nearly unrecognizable to its European allies. Britain is undergoing a full-blown identity crisis. It is a 'hollowed-out country,' 'ill at ease with itself,' 'deeply provincial,' engaged in a 'controlled suicide,' say puzzled experts. And these are Britain’s friends. The European country considered the most outward-looking and globalized is fractured by the backlash against the very model that made Britain strong." and The UK and the EU have reportedly reached an agreement on the Brexit break-up fee (Quartz) "€55 billion."
- Forget Trump and Discover the World (NYT) "So while we’ve been following Trump’s tweets about bringing back 'beautiful coal,' India built a billion-user ID network bigger than Twitter and giant solar power plants that are cheaper than coal. ...while our president has been busy playing golf, tweeting about LaVar Ball and pushing an anything-that-will-pass tax plan, China has been busy creating a cashless society, where people can pay for so many things now with just a swipe of their cellphones — including donations to beggars — or even buy stuff at vending machines with just facial recognition, and India is trying to follow suit."
TRUMPTEL:
- Trump and the Risks of Digital Hate (Wired) "In the year 1929, the Nazi propaganda tabloid Der Stürmer published a caricature of an imaginary group of devious looking Jewish people, peeling off in a car after apparently running over a German boy... In the year 2017, the President of the United States retweeted a video of a dark-haired teenager assaulting a blonde, Dutch teenager on crutches, with the erroneous caption, 'Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!' In the year 1942, the Nazi pamphlet Der Untermensch accused Jews of delighting in destroying churches... In the year 2017, the President of the United States retweeted a video of a bearded Muslim man smashing a fair-skinned statue of the Virgin Mary... Trump's tweets may look like an impulsive and offensive attempt to pander to the Ann Coulter-wing of the Republican party, but looked at through the long lens of history, Trump's messaging has dangerous undertones that could be compared to propaganda tactics found in the well-worn playbook of how to demonize entire categories of humans. ...it's in ignoring history altogether that societies risk falling into the time-tested trap of believing that pending mass atrocities clearly announce themselves in bright neon lighting. History indicates that dangerous rhetoric tends to sound cautionary at the outset, ringing the alarm against what the people in power deem to be a serious threat. ...history provides few excuses for those who fail to anticipate the damage that words and images can do."
- Too Rich for Conflicts? Trump Appointees May Have Many, Seen and Unseen (NYT) "'They’re representing the country,' Mr. Trump said in June at a rally in Iowa. 'They don’t want the money.' Mr. Trump has assembled the wealthiest cabinet in American history... ...the Trump team has holdings that are spread across myriad industries and hidden from the public behind layers of trusts and shell companies."
- McMaster Mocked Trump’s Intelligence At A Private Dinner (BuzzFeed) "The top national security official dismissed the president variously as an 'idiot' and a 'dope' with the intelligence of a 'kindergartner,' the sources said."
- Trump Once Said the ‘Access Hollywood’ Tape Was Real. Now He’s Not Sure. (NYT) "Mr. Trump’s falsehoods about the 'Access Hollywood' tape are part of his lifelong habit of attempting to create and sell his own version of reality. Advisers say he continues to privately harbor a handful of conspiracy theories that have no grounding in fact. Mr. Trump’s journeys into the realm of manufactured facts have been frequent enough that his own staff has sought to nudge friendly lawmakers to ask questions of Mr. Trump in meetings that will steer him toward safer terrain. To the president’s critics, his conspiracy-mongering goes to the heart of why he poses a threat to the country." and Billy Bush: Yes, Donald Trump, You Said That (NYT) "Of course he said it. And we laughed along, without a single doubt that this was hypothetical hot air from America’s highest-rated bloviator. Along with Donald Trump and me, there were seven other guys present on the bus at the time, and every single one of us assumed we were listening to a crass standup act. He was performing. Surely, we thought, none of this was real. We now know better. None of us were guilty of knowingly enabling our future president. But all of us were guilty of sacrificing a bit of ourselves in the name of success. The man who once told me — ironically, in another off-camera conversation — after I called him out for inflating his ratings: 'People will just believe you. You just tell them and they believe you,' was, I thought, not a good choice to lead our country."
- From ‘Access Hollywood’ to Russia, Trump seeks to paint the rosiest picture (WaPo) "His critics accuse him of creating an alternative reality, though people close to the president say he is simply a savvy marketer protecting his brand as any businessman or politician would. Even when presented with irrefutable evidence, Trump finds a way to question unflattering facts."
- Trump veers past guardrails, feeling impervious to the uproar he causes (WaPo) "If there are consequences for his actions, Trump does not seem to feel their burden personally. The Republican tax bill appears on track for passage, putting the president on the cusp of his first major legislative achievement. Trump himself remains the highest profile man accused of sexual improprieties to keep his job with no repercussions. Trump has internalized the belief that he can largely operate with impunity, people close to him said. His political base cheers him on. Fellow Republican leaders largely stand by him. His staff scrambles to explain away his misbehavior — or even to laugh it off. And the White House disciplinarian, chief of staff John F. Kelly, has said it is not his job to control him. The pattern captures the musings of a man who traffics in conspiracy theories and alternate realities, and who can’t resist inserting himself into any story line at any moment. 'Hey, look, I’m president,' Trump said. 'I don’t care. I don’t care anymore.'"
TROUBLE IN FOGGY BOTTOM:
- Diplomats Sound the Alarm as They Are Pushed Out in Droves (NYT) "...Mr. Tillerson launched a reorganization that he has said will be the most important thing he will do, and he has hired two consulting companies to lead the effort. Mr. Tillerson has frozen most hiring and recently offered a $25,000 buyout in hopes of pushing nearly 2,000 career diplomats and civil servants to leave by October 2018. For those who have not been dismissed, retirement has become a preferred alternative when, like Mr. Miller, they find no demand for their expertise. A retirement class that concludes this month has 26 senior employees, including two acting assistant secretaries in their early 50s who would normally wait years before leaving."
- Dismantling the Foreign Service (NYT) "The recent decision by Mr. Tillerson to downsize the Foreign Service by up to 8 percent of the entire officer corps...is particularly dangerous. The Foreign Service, which has about 8,000 officers who do core diplomatic work, is a fraction of the size of the military. The service is already overwhelmed by the growing challenges to the United States on every continent. In our view, Mr. Tillerson has failed to make a convincing case as to why deep cuts will strengthen, rather than weaken, the service, and thus the nation. This is not about belt tightening. It is a deliberate effort to deconstruct the State Department and the Foreign Service."
- How Rex Tillerson Wrecked the State Department (New Yorker) "In the broadest sense, the world we live in was created by the United States. The architecture of international economic and political relations—the United Nations, NATO, the World Trade Organization, and so on—was largely drawn up by American diplomats at the end of the Second World War. The system they devised was meant to encourage the spread of free markets and liberal democracy, and it was premised, more than anything, on American leadership. It’s easy to trash the idea of American global leadership, imperfect and unjust as it has been. But what would the world be without it? Thanks in no small part to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, we are about to find out."
- The national security emergency we’re not talking about (WaPo) "Change within the Foreign Service and the State Department’s civil service is not unusual. In fact, the system is designed to bring in fresh blood on a regular basis. There is, however, a big difference between a transfusion and an open wound. There is nothing normal about the current exodus. President Trump is aware of the situation and has made clear that he doesn’t care: 'I’m the only one that matters,' he told Fox News. The fact is that on trade and climate change, the U.S. government is now irrelevant; on security issues, we are ineffective; and on the use of cybertools to undercut democracy, we have a president who believes Vladimir Putin."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Which countries don't have a McDonald's? (Quartz)
McDonald's Bonus (a bit late, but too good to pass up...)
- Restaurant turns into a McDowell's from 'Coming to America' for Halloween (Mashable) "Hollywood restaurant Fat Sal's turned itself into a McDowell's for the occasion, which you might recall where Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall from the fake African nation of Zamunda get jobs at in the 1988 classic film Coming to America."
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