Wednesday, January 31, 2018

HERMIT KINGDOM UPDATE

TOP OF THE NEWS:


- Disagreement on North Korea policy derails White House choice for ambassador to South Korea (WaPo) "Cha is well-known in Washington’s foreign policy circles, having served as Asia director at the NSC under Bush. He participated in the Six-Party talks with North Korea as the deputy head of the U.S. delegation, and was generally considered hawkish on security issues involving the North."

- Victor Cha: Giving North Korea a ‘bloody nose’ carries a huge risk to Americans (WaPo) "I empathize with the hope, espoused by some Trump officials, that a military strike would shock Pyongyang into appreciating U.S. strength, after years of inaction, and force the regime to the denuclearization negotiating table. I also hope that if North Korea did retaliate militarily, the United States could control the escalation ladder to minimize collateral damage and prevent a collapse of financial markets. In either event, the rationale is that a strike that demonstrates U.S. resolve to pursue 'all options' is necessary to give the mercurial Kim a 'bloody nose.' Otherwise he will remain undeterred in his nuclear ambitions."

BUSINESS/ECONOMY:

- It ‘feels a bit like 2006’ for stocks and the economy. That should scare us. (WaPo) "So what should we be worried about? Several fears were mentioned...in the midst of lavish Davos celebrations. North Korea. China. Beyond a trade war, there's alarm over how much debt China's companies have taken on in recent years. The Federal Reserve. Several bank chief executives warned the market is not pricing in high interest rates yet. Another tech bubble. Over 100 U.S. start-ups are valued at over $1 billion each, according to CBInsights. ...there could be a big awakening on Wall Street and beyond if some of these 'tech unicorns' go public at less than their last private valuation. He predicts that would rile investors and trigger fears of another Dot-com style bust. The bottom 60 to 80 percent go bust. The U.S. failing to invest in the future."

NEWS:

- Democracy in Decline (Economist) "Less than 5% of the world’s population currently lives in a 'full democracy', and more than 30% endures authoritarian rule, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, which is based on 60 indicators across five categories."


-Internal Justice Department probe eyes McCabe’s role in final weeks of 2016 election (WaPo) "A major line of inquiry for the inspector general has been trying to determine who at the FBI and the Justice Department knew about the Clinton emails on the Weiner laptop, and when they learned about them."

- Ryan defends release of memo on alleged surveillance abuses but warns against tying it to Mueller probe (WaPo) "Several Republicans and conservative pundits have seized on the memo as a reason to question the underpinnings and legitimacy of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s ongoing probe of alleged connections between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. But on Tuesday, Ryan firmly warned people against drawing such links. 'This is a completely separate matter from Bob Mueller’s investigation, and his investigation should be allowed to continue,' Ryan said, adding that the 'institution' of the FBI and Justice Department are “very important for American life.'"

READ THIS:

- 4 3 2 1 (Paul Auster) "As inventive and dexterously constructed as anything Paul Auster has ever written, yet with a passion for realism and a great tenderness and fierce attachment to history and to life itself that readers have never seen from Auster before. 4 3 2 1 is a marvelous and unforgettably affecting tour de force."

TECHNOLOGY:

- Qualcomm Is (Almost) Ready To Take On Apple’s AirPods Now (Fast Company) "The company’s upcoming QCC5100 chip is three times more battery-efficient than its predecessor for basic audio playback, and builds in support for new features such as active noise cancellation, fitness tracking, and hands-free voice commands. To handle all those activities, it’s also twice as fast. For companies that don’t have the time or resources to design custom chips–like Apple did with the custom W1 chip for AirPods–Qualcomm’s solution should be a huge step up."

WINTER OLYMPICS:

- Norway Ski Team’s Sweater Gets Tangled in a Neo-Nazi Uproar (NYT) "Designed at a time when public interest in Viking culture is experiencing a renaissance, the theme for Norway’s Alpine ski team uniforms this season is 'the Attacking Viking,' a homage to the team’s nickname. But the sweater features a symbol known as the Tyr rune, which neo-Nazis want to claim as their own."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- This Is What It’s Like To Not Own A Smartphone In 2018 (Fast Company) "While I remain in an ever-shrinking minority, there are are a few people (besides Warren Buffett) who are also committing to dumb phones. The Light Phone, which came out last year, is marketed as an “anti-smartphone.” It only sends and receives calls, can store just 10 phone numbers, and is designed to be used 'as little as possible.' It’s so popular that there’s currently a waiting list to buy one."

TODAY'S SONG:

- Bette Davis Eyes (Rogue Wave)


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WEDNESDAY ART: whimsical tower bridge


Tuesday, January 30, 2018

MEDICAL NEWS

TOP OF THE NEWS:


- Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase join forces to tackle employees’ health-care costs (WaPo) "The independent company would be jointly led by executives from all three companies and would be focused on technology that could increase transparency and simplify health care, according to the joint announcement. It will be free from the need to deliver a profit."and Amazon's new health care business could shake up industry after others have failed (Politico)

- The Mysterious Interior World of Exercise (NYT) "When we exercise, far-flung parts of our bodies apparently communicate with one another, thanks to tiny, particle-filled balloons that move purposefully through the bloodstream from one cell to another, carrying pressing biochemical messages... It is thought that, under the right conditions, fat cells chat with muscle cells, and muscle cells whisper to brain cells and everybody seems to want to be buddies with the liver. These interactions are especially abundant during exercise..."

- Scientists Discover a Bone-Deep Risk for Heart Disease (NYT) "They have learned that a bizarre accumulation of mutated stem cells in bone marrow increases a person’s risk of dying within a decade, usually from a heart attack or stroke, by 40 or 50 percent. The condition becomes more likely with age. Up to 20 percent of people in their 60s have it, and perhaps 50 percent of those in their 80s. The mutations are acquired, not inherited — most likely by bad luck or exposure to toxins like cigarette smoke. But there is little that patients can do."

- The New Health Care: Preventive Care Saves Money? Sorry, It’s Too Good to Be True (NYT) "There are many good arguments for increasing our focus on prevention. Almost all have to do with improving quality, though, not reducing spending. We would do well to admit that and move forward."

NEWS:

- Trump’s First Year: The Ominous Signs Ahead (National Review) "We can’t know what the future holds, but the bad news so far is a bad sign. It suggests that conservatives and Republicans have only begun to drink from the bitter cup that has been poured for them. The polling evidence we have...should raise major alarm bells. Historically...there’s a very strong and consistent relationship between the president’s approval rating and his party’s performance in midterm elections. The second major hazard ahead...is Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. For a variety of reasons, public attention has drifted away from the numerous women who have accused Trump of various types of sexual harassment. But sooner or later...his accusers will resurface... ...there are serious reasons to fear that the identification of Trump with conservative arguments and positions is poisoning the well with a whole generation of younger voters who associate the Right with all of Trump’s character flaws. Finally, we come to the catch-all threat: Trump, even when he is doing a good job as president, remains a man of proven poor character in a multitude of observable ways."

- A wave of retiring Republicans spells trouble for Donald Trump in 2018 (Quartz) "Political strategists say these resignations are a key indicator of how party leaders rate their chances of remaining in control of the chamber next year, regardless of their public rhetoric."

- Melania Trump, Out of Sight Since Report of Husband’s Infidelity, to Attend State of the Union (NYT) "Mrs. Trump and the president have had a tumultuous relationship at times over the years, but few episodes have roiled the peace as much as the news surrounding Ms. Daniels. The reports of a payoff blindsided the first lady, who was furious with her husband, according to two people close to the couple. She has kept a low profile since."

SPORTS:

- Cleveland Indians Will Abandon Chief Wahoo Logo Next Year (NYT) "Cleveland has been edging away from the logo in recent years and has used it less frequently, but beginning in 2019 it will not be seen at all on the team’s uniforms, or on banners and signs at Progressive Field, the team’s stadium. Consumers will still be able to purchase items with the logo on them at the team’s souvenir shops in the stadium and at retail outlets in the northern Ohio market, but those items will not be available for sale on M.L.B.’s website."

TECHNOLOGY:

- Can Mycroft’s Privacy-Centric Voice Assistant Take On Alexa And Google? (FastCompany) "While the goal of creating a privacy-first voice assistant is noble, maintaining tight control over your personal data always comes at a cost. In this case, Mycroft’s all-or-nothing approach to retaining voice data will make speech recognition more challenging, putting the company at an inherent disadvantage against companies that hoover up as much audio as they can."

- The Other Scary Foreign Hacking Threat Trump Is Ignoring (FastCompany) "'Quietly, the Kremlin has been trying to map the United States telecommunications infrastructure,' McCain announced, and described a series of alarming moves, including Russian spies monitoring the fiber optic network in Kansas and Russia’s creation of 'a cyber weapon that can disrupt the United States power grids and telecommunications infrastructure.' When McCain asked if Sessions had a strategy to counter Russia’s attacks, Sessions admitted they did not."

WINTER OLYMPICS:

- Snow big deal: Olympic Alpine race course will be tended to by ‘a magician’ (WaPo) "While Johnston will use a team of helpers and a fleet of large snowcats to move snow, the challenge is understanding the snow at a molecular level and the ever-changing weather. He wants a course that’s fast but not dangerous, which requires constant supervision and attention to the smallest details."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:


- Medieval Times Goes Modern, Replacing Its Kings With Queens (NYT) "For the 34 years Medieval Times has been in business, that monarch has been a man. But the show, which draws an estimated 2.5 million customers each year, is replacing all of its kings with queens. And its peculiar brand of dinner theater — a sort of G-rated 'Game of Thrones' — is taking on an unlikely resonance amid the national jousting over gender equality provoked by the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements."

TODAY'S SONG:

- Hot Blooded (Foreigner)


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Monday, January 29, 2018

TO 5G, OR NOT TO 5G...

TOP OF THE NEWS:


- Trump team considers nationalizing 5G network (Axios) "...America needs a centralized nationwide 5G network within three years. Two options: The U.S. government pays for and builds the single network — which would be an unprecedented nationalization of a historically private infrastructure. An alternative plan where wireless providers build their own 5G networks that compete with one another — though the document says the downside is it could take longer and cost more. It argues that one of the 'pros' of that plan is that it would cause 'less commercial disruption' to the wireless industry than the government building a network. ...a strong 5G network is needed in order to create a secure pathway for emerging technologies like self-driving cars and virtual reality — and to combat Chinese threats to America’s economic and cyber security."

- U.S. Bid to Build 5G Network Opposed by FCC Head, Wireless Lobby (Bloomberg) "If the federal government directly participates in building a wireless network intended for commercial use, it’d be a departure from the decades-long tradition of auctioning licenses to telecommunications companies to build their own networks. The Trump administration is in contact with U.S., European and Asian companies, but not Chinese firms..."

BUSINESS/ECONOMY:


Every One of the World’s Big Economies Is Now Growing (NYT) "No tidy, all-encompassing narrative explains how the world has finally escaped the global downturn. In general terms, improvement owes less to some newfound wellspring of wealth than the simple fact that many of the destructive forces that felled growth have finally exhausted their potency. The United States has been propelled by government spending unleashed during the previous administration, plus a recent $1.5 trillion shot of tax cuts. Europe has finally felt the effects of cheap money pumped out by its central bank."

- There’s a big red flag in this report on the economy (WaPo) "For the duration of this economic expansion, consumer spending has been the dynamo driving growth in gross domestic product, or GDP. But now there are indications Americans are getting a little too dynamic. For the past two years, spending has risen faster than disposable personal income..."

ENVIRONMENT:

Lake Michigan has become dramatically clearer in last 20 years — but at a steep cost (LA Times) "...the emergence of invasive mussels, which number in the trillions and have the ability to filter the entire volume of Lake Michigan in four to six days, has had an even greater effect. While appealing, the clarity comes at a significant cost to wildlife. In filtering the lake, the mussels have decimated the phytoplankton, a single-celled, green algae that serves as the base of the food chain. There is, however, a sliver of hope. Scientists say the invasive mussels may have reached their limits. With less plankton, the concentration of mussels in Lake Michigan dropped 40% between 2010 and 2015..."

HEALTH:

- The Connection Between Retiring Early and Living Longer (NYT) "An analysis in the United States found about seven years of retirement can be as good for health as reducing the chance of getting a serious disease (like diabetes or heart conditions) by 20 percent. Positive health effects of retirement have also been found by studies using data from Israel, England, Germany and other European countries."

MORE SMOKE:

- Trump sought release of classified Russia memo, putting him at odds with Justice Department (WaPo) "Trump and his Republican allies have placed special emphasis on the classified memo, which was written by staff for House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and suggests that the FBI may have relied on politically motivated or questionable sources to justify its request for a secret surveillance warrant in the investigation’s early phase. Democrats have characterized the memo as misleading talking points designed to smear the FBI and said it inaccurately summarizes investigative materials that are also classified. The president has told close advisers that the memo is starting to make people realize how the FBI and the Mueller probe is biased against him and that it could provide him with grounds for either firing or forcing [Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein to leave..."

Trump Ordered Mueller Fired, but Backed Off When White House Counsel Threatened to Quit (NYT) "...the president began to argue that Mr. Mueller had three conflicts of interest that disqualified him. First, [Trump] claimed that a dispute years ago over fees at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., had prompted Mr. Mueller, the F.B.I. director at the time, to resign his membership. The president also said Mr. Mueller could not be impartial because he had most recently worked for the law firm that previously represented the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Finally, the president said, Mr. Mueller had been interviewed to return as the F.B.I. director the day before he was appointed special counsel in May."

- Trump moved to fire Mueller in June, bringing White House counsel to the brink of leaving (WaPo) "Republican Rep. Charlie Dent (Pa.) said in an interview that McGahn 'prevented an Archibald Cox moment,' referring to the special prosecutor ordered fired by President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate investigation. 'I believe now that this revelation has been made public, that there will be increasing pressure to protect Mueller,' Dent added. Trump was initially calm when Mueller was appointed, surprising White House aides, according to a senior administration official. But in the weeks that followed, the president spoke with a number of friends and advisers who convinced him that Mueller would dig through his private finances and look beyond questions of collusion with Russians. They warned that the probe could last years and would ruin his first term in office."

- Missing FBI texts have been recovered, inspector general says (WaPo) "The FBI had told the Justice Department that 'many FBI-provided Samsung 5 mobile devices did not capture or store text messages due to misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning and software upgrades that conflicted with the FBI's collection capabilities,' a Justice Department official told lawmakers in a letter earlier this month. As a result, the letter said, 'data that should have been automatically collected and retained for long-term storage and retrieval was not collected.''

NEWS:

- Why conservative magazines are more important than ever (WaPo) "These publications are highly unlikely to affect the course of Trump, but, by making plausible sense of this moment sooner rather than later, they may affect the course of his successors. As much as their contributors may differ in opinion or even dislike one another, what unites these magazines — and distinguishes them from right-wing outlets like Breitbart — is an almost quaint belief in debate as an instrument of enlightenment rather than as a mere tool of political warfare. With so many Americans today engaged in partisan war, any publication with a commitment to honesty in argument becomes a potential peacemaker. It also becomes an indispensable forum for working out which ideas merit a fight in the first place. ...perhaps what matters more is whether they’ll manage to influence the political discussion writ large."

- Oil Boom Gives the U.S. a New Edge in Energy and Diplomacy (NYT) "This year, the United States is expected to surpass Saudi Arabia and to rival Russia as the world’s leader, with record output of over 10 million barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency. The results go far beyond the economic, offering Washington strategic weapons once unthinkable. The United States and its allies now have a supply cushion at a time when political turmoil in Venezuela, Libya and Nigeria is threatening to interrupt flows to markets. The new energy power also relieves pressure on Washington to act militarily if tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia break out into war. And it gives Washington the leeway to apply sanctions on other producers — as it has in Russia, and may in Iran or Venezuela — with far less risk to the global economy."

- Be like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett: If you’re not spending 5 hours per week learning, you’re being irresponsible (Quartz) "In short, we can see how at a fundamental level knowledge is gradually becoming its own important and unique form of currency. In other words, knowledge is the new money. Similar to money, knowledge often serves as a medium of exchange and store of value."

SPORTS:

- OTL: Spartan secrets extend far beyond Larry Nassar (ESPN) "...an Outside the Lines investigation has found a pattern of widespread denial, inaction and information suppression of such allegations by officials ranging from campus police to the Spartan athletic department... Since [MSU head football coach Mark] Dantonio's tenure began in 2007, at least 16 MSU football players have been accused of sexual assault or violence against women, according to interviews and public records..."

TECHNOLOGY:

- ‘Never get high on your own supply’ – why social media bosses don’t use social media (Guardian) "I used to look at the heads of the social networks and get annoyed that they didn’t understand their own sites. Regular users encounter bugs, abuse or bad design decisions that the executives could never understand without using the sites themselves. How, I would wonder, could they build the best service possible if they didn’t use their networks like normal people? Now, I wonder something else: what do they know that we don’t?"

TRUMPTEL:

- I've Watched Trump Testify Under Oath. It Isn't Pretty. (Bloomberg) "If the president goes mano-a-mano with Mueller, the outcome of that encounter is likely to hinge on how careful, credible and capable he is under oath. Trump sued me for libel in 2006 for a biography I wrote, 'TrumpNation,' alleging that the book misrepresented his business record and understated his wealth. Trump ultimately had to admit 30 times that he had lied over the years about all sorts of stuff: how much of a big Manhattan real estate project he owned; the price of one of his golf club memberships; the size of the Trump Organization; his wealth; his speaking fees; how many condos he had sold; his debts, and whether he borrowed money from his family to avoid going personally bankrupt. He also lied during the deposition about his business dealings with career criminals."

- Trump Launched Campaign to Discredit Potential FBI Witnesses (Foreign Policy) "The FBI officials Trump has targeted are Andrew McCabe, the current deputy FBI director and who was briefly acting FBI director after Comey’s firing; Jim Rybicki, Comey’s chief of staff and senior counselor; and James Baker, formerly the FBI’s general counsel. That Trump may have been motivated to attack specific FBI officials because they were potential witnesses against him could demonstrate potential intent that would bolster an obstruction of justice case."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- Schools and lockers: No longer the right combination (WaPo) "... lockers have all but been abandoned. The trend has expanded so rapidly and widely that schools are now removing individual student lockers from their hallways, and builders and designers for many new high schools don't even include them in their plans. So, why the change? Anyone with a high schooler in their orbit knows that students now want everything they own with them all of the time. For most students, the issue is time and convenience. Lockers are also being left in the dust because schools offer more classes that use online textbooks, or they keep textbooks in the classroom to be shared by students. And the very nature of school is changing."

- 50 Cent realizes he’s a Bitcoin millionaire thanks to sales of a 2014 album (TechCrunch) "On the date of the album’s launch, one bitcoin was worth $657. If reports of his 700 bitcoin haul are accurate, then 50 made around $460,000 in sales at the time — not bad. Today, that same amount of bitcoin is worth $7,770,000."

TODAY'S SONG:

- Human Touch Mokita Remix (Betty Who, Mokita)


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Thursday, January 25, 2018

THE KANSAS TAX CUT EXPERIMENT

TOP OF THE NEWS:


- Kansas Provides Compelling Evidence of Failure of "Supply-Side" Tax Cuts (CBPP) "In 2012 and 2013, at the urging of Governor Sam Brownback, lawmakers cut the top rate of the state’s income tax by almost 30 percent and the tax rate on certain business profits to zero. In sum, there is overwhelming empirical evidence that Kansas’ enormous tax cuts failed to improve the state’s economic performance relative to its neighboring states and all 50 states taken together to any significant degree. This is true whether one looks at job creation, economic output, or new pass-through business formation."

BUSINESS:

- About That Joint: Marijuana Start-Ups Pass (NYT) "Well, obviously: because nobody smokes marijuana anymore. Everyone’s vaping it. Or eating, drinking, sipping, dabbing, sucking on lozenges, chewing on gum... These are a few of the inventions of an increasingly sophisticated set of marijuana start-ups, which argue that by pushing the industry past smoke, they can make cannabis convenient and ubiquitous — the drug of the future, and the next great American bonanza. By breaking marijuana free from smoking and its paraphernalia, new delivery methods — especially portable vapes — are transforming the image and utility of cannabis, and helping it grab a mainstream audience."

- SEC investigating GE charge; company posts $10 billion loss (Reuters) "GE announced the probe after reporting a $10-billion loss in the latest quarter, hurt by a $6.2 billion charge to increase insurance reserves, which it disclosed last week, and steep declines in profit in its power and transportation divisions."

- The Dark Side of America’s Rise to Oil Superpower (Bloomberg) "America is on pace to become the world’s biggest oil producer. ... With shale surging, U.S. imports of Saudi oil plunged to a 30-year low. When OPEC cuts production to raise prices, shale drillers can boost output, undermining OPEC. Biggest loser to keeping prices low is likely Russia. U.S. energy dominance isn’t all that and a bag of chips, particularly since climate change repercussions will only get more expensive and the political influence of erratic petro-states will still persist."

HEALTH:


- New research will radically change response to strokes (WaPo) "The research is upending doctors’ long-held belief that they have just six hours to save threatened brain tissue from lack of blood flow when a major vessel to the brain is blocked. Wednesday’s research suggests they may have as long as 16 hours in many cases; a study published three weeks ago with a different group of stroke victims put the outer limit at 24 hours for some."

IMMIGRATION:


- Mayors Cancel Meeting With Trump as Justice Dept. Squeezes Sanctuary Cities (NYT) "In a letter, the Justice Department asked 23 cities and states for any documents showing whether their law enforcement arms had withheld such information [from federal immigration authorities]. Mr. Sessions said he would subpoena local governments that failed to respond in a full and timely manner."

- Border Wall ‘Off the Table,’ Schumer Says, as Immigration Progress Unravels (NYT) "Mr. Schumer’s decision to renege, made on Sunday but revealed publicly on Tuesday, marked another turn in the fluid debate over how to shield from deportation hundreds of thousands of young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children."

- Trump Should Trade the Wall for Better Immigration Policy (National Review) "The problem with the wall is not necessarily that it’s a bad idea. It’s that it has become a symbol detached from policy considerations. Meanwhile, there are faster and more effective ways to deal with the problem of illegal immigration and the drugs 'pouring' into our country, which mostly come through legal ports anyway. If Trump wanted a clear — and immediate — win on illegal immigration, he’d evolve and recognize that the wall’s greatest utility might be as a bargaining chip."

NET NEUTRALITY UPDATE:


- AT&T wants Congress to draft a net neutrality law. Here’s why that’s a big deal. (WaPo) "In a series of full-page ads Wednesday in major newspapers such as The Washington Post and the New York Times, AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson proposed an 'Internet Bill of Rights' that could help guarantee an open Internet, one in which online content is not blocked or slowed down by telecom or cable companies. The 2015 rules were rolled back late last year by a Republican majority at the Federal Communications Commission... The Senate is expected to vote this year on legislation aimed at overruling the FCC's repeal. AT&T's proposal represents a different legislative path. Lawmakers have periodically considered a national net neutrality law, but so far Democrats and Republicans have failed to produce a meaningful compromise."

- Montana becomes first state to implement net neutrality after FCC repeal (The Hill) "The order makes his state the first to push back on the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to repeal the open internet rules last month. The order says that in order to receive a contract with the state government, internet service providers must not engage in blocking or throttling web content or create internet fast lanes. Those practices were all banned under the Obama-era 2015 net neutrality order."

- Defying the FCC, New York’s governor has signed an executive order on net neutrality (WaPo) "...Andrew M. Cuomo, signed an executive order...designed to flout the Federal Communications Commission's recent decision to repeal its net neutrality rules. ...the orders require state officials to purchase Internet service only from broadband companies that abide by the principles of net neutrality. ...Cuomo's decision is significant because the state is among the country's most populous. As a massive consumer of Internet service, the state government could compel broadband providers who do business with New York to abide by net neutrality, even if federal regulations do not require it."

TRUMPTEL:


- Trump Says He Is Willing to Speak Under Oath to Mueller (NYT) "I’m looking forward to it,' Mr. Trump said of talking to Mr. Mueller, ending months of speculation over whether he would submit to questions from the special counsel, who is also believed to be looking into whether the president sought to thwart the inquiry."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:


- The Absolute F-cking Best Swear Word For You (Time) "Scientifically speaking, swearing is good for you. It deadens pain and enlivens our emotional discourse. The most cathartic swear word is never going to be a universal. It’s always going to be a product of the values of the people who surrounded you growing up."

TODAY'S SONG:

- Bora Bora (Beltek)


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Wednesday, January 24, 2018

ELVIS! ROCK N' ROLL! TV! SMART PHONES...

TOP OF THE NEWS:


- Afraid of Smartphones? Your Parents Felt the Same Way About TV (Wired) "Are these new technologies, which are still in their infancy, harming a rising generation and eroding some basic human fabric? Is today’s concern about smartphones any different than other generations’ anxieties about new technology? Do we know enough to make any conclusions? Alarm at the corrosive effects of new technologies is not new. So it should come as no surprise that concerns about children and smartphones have been rising steadily, and media has picked up on that. There appears to be considerable research suggesting an unhealthy link. It’s worth scrutinizing these conclusions. Widespread parental apprehension combined with studies lasting only a few years, with few data points, and few controls do not make an unequivocal case."

BUSINESS:

- How a Group of Computer Geeks and English Majors Transformed Wall Street (NY Mag) "...the quantitative revolution D.E. Shaw helped spawn has become the biggest trend in hedge funds today, capturing some $500 billion of the industry’s more than $3 trillion in assets and dominating the top tier. Seven out of the top ten largest funds are considered 'quants'... Jeff Bezos, who had joined in 1990, was in charge of the online retailing project at D.E. Shaw. He became so enthused about the possibilities that he asked Shaw if he could take the idea and run with it on his own. Shaw agreed, and Amazon was soon born."

ENTERTAINMENT:

- Jordan Peele’s triple nomination was one of several Oscar milestones (Quartz) "The Get Out filmmaker was nominated for best director, best original screenplay, and best picture, for which he received a producer credit. He’s also only the third person in history to receive those three nominations for a debut movie..."

IMMIGRATION:

- Kimberly-Clark to Cut 5,000 Jobs, Close 10 Factories (WSJ-Paywall) "Watching the immigration debate it’s easy to believe that the U.S. is accepting not just a flood of illegals across the Rio Grande who give birth to instant U.S. citizens, but also massive chains of legal families. So where are they? The U.S. population has been growing very slowly, less than a percent per year since 2010. And what little growth there is lately has largely come from births in the U.S. Even at historically low rates, babies born in the U.S. account for almost four times as many net new Americans as do immigrants."

MORE SMOKE:

- Mueller seeks to question Trump about Flynn and Comey departures (WaPo) "Mueller’s interest in the events that led Trump to push out Flynn and Comey indicates that his investigation is intensifying its focus on possible efforts by the president or others to obstruct or blunt the special counsel’s probe."

- Sessions Is Questioned as Russia Inquiry Focuses on Obstruction (NYT) "The meeting marked the first time that investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, are known to have interviewed a member of Mr. Trump’s cabinet."

- Robert Mueller’s team has questioned Jeff Sessions. Here’s why that matters. (Vox) "Despite Sessions’s recusal from oversight over the Mueller investigation, as attorney general, he still has oversight over the FBI and has been increasingly responsive to President Trump and conservatives’ criticisms of the bureau. And now, this lengthy interview with the special counsel’s team may well have given Sessions a better understanding about just what, exactly, Mueller is looking into — and just how dangerous it may or may not be for President Trump and for Sessions himself."

NEWS:


- Trump’s Midterm Known Unknowns (National Review) "Yet the dilemma is not just that we are ten months out from the election and relative party popularity is already gyrating, but that there are lots of landmark developments in play that we usually do not experience in any midterm election. The first...is Trump and the polls. Anecdotally, most can attest that colleagues and friends still usually look both ways before whispering, 'Wow, Trump is doing great.' Nor does anyone fathom the effect of the booming economy on the midterm election... We have never seen a stock market boom like the present one. Nor has the U.S. experienced all at once record gas and oil production, peacetime unemployment sinking to 4 percent or lower... The new tax code in the ensuing months might ensure more take-home pay for the middle class and fatten further its 401K accounts. ...no one can foresee the ultimate results of the warring investigations by Robert Mueller’s team and by the House Intelligence Committee. Finally, no one knows the exact electoral effect of the rallies, tweets, and leaked broadsides from the mercurial Trump."

- Tensions swell between Sessions and FBI over senior personnel from Comey era (WaPo) "FBI Director Christopher A. Wray has been resisting pressure from Attorney General Jeff Sessions to replace his deputy director Andrew McCabe... As Sessions tried to push Wray to make personnel changes, Wray became increasingly frustrated and conveyed that frustration to the attorney general, these people said."

Trump asked the acting FBI director how he voted during Oval Office meeting (WaPo) "McCabe said he didn't vote... Trump, the officials said, also vented his anger at McCabe over the several hundred thousand dollars in donations that his wife, a Democrat, received for her failed 2015 Virginia state Senate bid from a political action committee controlled by a close friend of Hillary Clinton."

TECHNOLOGY:

- The NSA’s voice-recognition system raises hard questions for Echo and Google Home (The Verge) "If you can get all the voice commands sent back to Google or Amazon servers, you’re guaranteed a full profile of the device owner’s voice, and you might even get an errant houseguest in the background. And because speech-to-text algorithms are still relatively new, both Google and Amazon keep audio files in the cloud as a way to catalog transcription errors. It’s a lot of data... So far, there’s been little transparency about how much data agencies are getting from personal voice assistants, if any. Amazon has been noticeably shifty about listing requests for Echo data in its transparency report. Google treats the voice recordings as general user data, and doesn’t break out requests that are specific to Google Home."

WINTER OLYMPICS:

- Under Armour's Olympic Speed Skating Suit Looks to Defeat Physics (Wired) "In a sport where a thousandth of a second can determine who gets a medal and who doesn’t, athletes rely on technology to give them an edge. Speed skaters wage a battle with physics every time they race. The key to winning (against physics and humans alike) is to reduce the amount of air resistance a body produces."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- Finally, You Can Buy Beer With A Biodegradable Six-Pack Ring (Fast Company) "Plastic six-pack rings are known for trapping and strangling wildlife or being mistaken for food. The new ring, which is biodegradable and compostable, will eventually break down if it’s littered outside or in the water. If an animal eats it, the material won’t harm its digestive system. The current version is made from wheat and barley."

- Doughnut-eating contest winner arrested again after doughnut shop robbery (PilotOnline) "Hardison, 27, of Elizabeth City, was charged Thursday with felony breaking and entering, felony safe cracking and felony larceny of Dunkin’ Donuts on Nov. 21, according to a news release from the Elizabeth City Police Department. In 2014 he won a doughnut eating contest at the Elizabeth City Police Department National Night Out Against Crime event. He devoured eight glazed doughnuts in two minutes, according to reports at the time."

TODAY'S SONG:


- Places (Martin Solveig, ft Ina Wroldsen)


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WEDNESDAY ART: evil eye

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

AND THE DEMOCRATS BLINKED

TOP OF THE NEWS:


- Why the Democrats lost their nerve in the shutdown battle (WaPo) "At a caucus meeting in a room just off the Senate floor, a group of vulnerable Senate Democrats told their leader, Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), that the cost of their effort to protect young undocumented immigrants known as 'dreamers' from deportation was rapidly escalating. It could imperil what was otherwise a promising outlook in November’s midterm election — and with it, the Democrats’ hopes of ending their exile from power. This time, it was the Democrats’ turn to learn what Republicans have before them: First, that bringing the government to a halt is not an advantageous way for the opposition to force through the policy objectives it has not been able to achieve through legislating. And second, that the party that holds the White House has the upper hand."

- Democrats Blink in Shutdown Impasse, Hoping for a Bargain (NYT) "Democrats need to protect 10 Senate Democrats up for re-election in states carried by the president and appeal to the swing voters who could flip control of the House. The president, top Republicans and their allies had some success in framing the showdown as a case of Democrats putting the interests of 'illegal immigrants' ahead of American citizens, a line of attack Democrats felt they could not weather. Over the weekend it became clear that using the shutdown to insist on protections for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants was a serious miscalculation."

- Schumer Sells Out the Resistance (NYT) "Some Democrats in Washington, spooked by Republican accusations that by shutting down the government they were hurting the military to protect noncitizens, think Schumer took the safe, cautious course. They may be right. One poll taken before the shutdown showed that voters were more likely to blame Republicans than Democrats, but another revealed that most didn’t think it was worth shutting down the government to pass DACA. But political cowardice carries its own risk. It emboldens your enemies and disheartens your allies."

BUSINESS:

- President Trump’s Solar Tariffs Are a Big Blow to Renewables (Fortune) "Trump approved duties of as much as 30% on solar equipment made abroad, a move that threatens to handicap a $28 billion industry that relies on parts made abroad for 80% of its supply. Just the mere threat of tariffs has shaken solar developers in recent months, with some hoarding panels and others stalling projects in anticipation of higher costs. The Solar Energy Industries Association has projected 23,000 job losses this year in a sector that employed 260,000. The duties won’t be entirely devastating for the U.S. solar industry, said Hugh Bromley, a New York-based analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. He estimated they’ll increase costs for large solar farms by less than 10%. The expense of a residential system, he said, will rise by about 3%."

- Netflix is now worth more than $100B (TechCrunch) "...the big story here is that [Netflix]  continues to wow Wall Street with impressive growth in its subscriber numbers. The company said it added more than 8 million new subscribers total after already setting pretty robust targets for the fourth quarter this year..."

MORE SMOKE:

- Alleged payment to porn star was illegal donation to Trump campaign, watchdog says (Politico) "An attorney for Common Cause, Paul Ryan, said the payment appeared to be hush money. He compared the situation to the series of events that resulted in the prosecution of former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) over nearly $1 million in payments allegedly made to cover up an affair he had with videographer Rielle Hunter during his 2008 presidential bid. Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, said the complaints were without merit."

- George Papadopoulos is the ‘John Dean’ of the Russia investigation, his fiancee says (WaPo) "But she indicated in an interview that she believes he ultimately will emerge as more than a bit player in the Russia probe — and that his decision to cooperate after he was arrested getting off an airplane at Dulles International Airport in July was a key turning point. 'There’s a lot to come,' she said. 'He was the first one to break a hole on all of this.'"

SPORTS:

- Belichick & Saban: The stories behind a friendship (Sports Illustrated) "'Let’s get together sometime,' Saban suggested to Belichick, 'and talk some ball.' That’s how the secret mission began. Their secret mission turned into one of the most significant friendships in football, one based around the very thing that brought them to that hotel in West Point: the realization that they didn’t have all the answers, and a shared obsession to find them. Saban, surprisingly sheepish for a now 66-year-old head coach, says he’d still rather Parcells and Glanville not know about their West Point mission. 'It’s almost like [getting] caught doing something you weren’t supposed to do when you were a kid,' he says."

NEWS:

Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google spent nearly $50 million — a record — to influence the U.S. government in 2017 (Re/code) "Over the course of 2017, the biggest brands in tech warred with the White House over immigration, tried and failed to save net neutrality and weathered a congressional investigation into the ways in which Russian trolls spread propaganda on their sites during the last election. Amazon...spent more than $12.8 million in lobbying last year — nearly four times what it spent four years earlier... Facebook spent a record amount last year — roughly $11.5 million — as lawmakers railed on the social giant for the 'fake news' and other content that appeared in users’ feeds. And Apple shelled out $7 million — again, more than ever — to lobby the U.S. government over the same period. The iPhone giant continued to press forward on issues like encryption and immigration. And the company — like the rest of the industry — advocated for the tax reform law recently signed by Trump."

TECHNOLOGY:

- Intel Says the Patch Designed to Fix Flawed Chips Is Faulty (Fortune) "The issue of the faulty patches is separate from complaints by customers for weeks that the patches slow computer performance. Intel has said a typical home and business PC user should not see significant slowdowns."

- Apple CEO Tim Cook says he wouldn’t let a child use social media (WaPo) "Yet, the CEO disclaimed, 'I’m not a person that says we’ve achieved success if you’re using [technology] all the time.' Thus his caution about social media, which seems to be one of few forms of popular technology that Apple is not actively trying to develop and sell."

DuckDuckGo Moves Privacy Beyond Search With New App And Extension (TechCrunch) "The Philadelphia-area company promises that it won’t sell, or even store, its users’ search histories or other private information. ...DuckDuckGo is rolling out a browser extension—available for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari as of Tuesday—and smartphone apps designed to filter out tracking code, automatically direct users to encrypted HTTPS versions of sites, and provide privacy ratings for websites. Naturally, users will also be able to search DuckDuckGo from within the extension."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:


- This Parka Keeps Olympians Toasty With Heat-Conducting Ink (Wired) "The heated jacket works almost like an electric blanket—except instead of wires or coils sewn into the fabric, the heat comes through a special type of carbon and silver ink bonded to the jacket lining. The ink conducts heat in the same way a wire would, and connects to a small battery pack sewn into the garment. When fully charged, the jacket itself stores up to 11 hours of heating time. Athletes can adjust the temperature up or down through a smartphone app; designers stress-tested the jacket inside of meat lockers to ensure that, on the highest setting, it could withstand temperatures as cold as 20 below zero."

- Minnie Mouse Gets Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame — 40 Years After Mickey Got His (KTLA) "And while she’s famous for 'playing the damsel in distress,' [Walt Disney CEO and Chairman Robert] Iger said, 'the truth is Minnie can hold her own in any situation.'"

- At Davos, 6 Feet of Snow Brings Limousines to a Crawl (NYT) "In perhaps the most harrowing indignity for the plutocrats who have made the World Economic Forum their favorite winter meeting ground, even the town’s helicopter pad was closed because of the snowstorm. By early afternoon, a quarter-mile trip in one of the ubiquitous black luxury minivans with plush leather seats that shuttle participants around the town took nearly an hour."

TODAY'S SONG:


- When When (Civil Twilight)


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Monday, January 22, 2018

ELECTRIC CAR UPDATE

TOP OF THE NEWS:


- We Calculated the Potential Pitfalls of Electric Cars, in 5 Charts (Wired) "So, as we charge our batteries for a new way of driving, here are the questions we should be asking. 1. How many gas cars can we take off the road? If demand for personal cars stays constant, we can use current sales figures to estimate how many electric cars we will need. 2. Bring on the batteries. So all those new EVs will rely on our current best technology, lithium-ion batteries. 3. What kind of power is charging those cars? If you live in a state that generates electricity from coal your electric car probably won't be much kinder to the environment than a gas gulper that gets more than 35 miles per gallon of gasoline. 4. What are the batteries made of? Even if we switch the entire global energy supply to renewables, we're going to have to mine a lot more cobalt, lithium, and other raw ingredients to create all those batteries..."

- Owning An Electric Car Is Twice As Cheap As Owning A Gas Vehicle (Fast Company) "Drivers in Hawaii pay the most for gasoline ($1,509 a year), followed by Alaska ($1,434), California ($1,407), Washington ($1,338), and Oregon ($1,274). Motorists in Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, and South Carolina pay the least–all about $1,000 a year to cover the average driving distance. EVs are cheapest to run in Louisiana ($367), followed by Washington ($372), Arkansas ($382), Idaho ($390), and Tennessee ($398). Hawaii ($1,106), Alaska ($833), Connecticut ($804), New Hampshire ($751), and Rhode Island ($737) have the highest electricity costs.

- What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World (NYT) "But this electric-car future is still missing some pieces. Some crucial raw materials are scarce. There are not enough places to recharge. Battery-powered cars still cost thousands of dollars more than many gasoline vehicles. The cost of building motors and components will have to continue to decrease. Price of an electric car powertrain: $16,000. Price of a conventional car powertrain: $6,000. Electric cars will go mainstream when the cost of the powertrain — the motor and other guts that make the vehicle move — is the same as owning cars that burn gasoline or diesel. There must be a steady, affordable supply of the resources required to make batteries. Carmakers are racing to secure the essential ingredients in batteries like cobalt, lithium and graphite. More charging stations will need to be built, and they’ll need to charge faster. Even when people can buy an electric car for the same price or less than a gasoline model, they face another problem: where to plug it in. And they won’t want to wait all day for the car to recharge."

BUSINESS:

- The Fall of Travis Kalanick Was a Lot Weirder and Darker Than You Thought (Bloomberg) "As usual with Kalanick, the discussion grew contentious. Jones and his deputies argued that Uber’s riders and drivers viewed the company as made up of a bunch of greedy, self-centered jerks. On a question asking respondents what they thought of specific business leaders, he [Kalanick] ranked dead last among tech CEOs and only slightly above the CEOs of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. Employee morale was falling along with the CEO’s reputation."

- The MoviePass deal: For less than $120 a year, you can see 365 movies. Here’s the catch (WaPo) "During its first six years as a company, MoviePass relied on the idea that most of its 20,000 subscribers wouldn’t use the service. But when Mitch Lowe, a Netflix co-founder, took over MoviePass as CEO in June 2016, he opted to flip this revenue model on its head. Instead of hoping subscribers skip out on the movies, Lowe wants MoviePass customers to visit the theater as often as possible. Because the more movies its subscribers see, the more data the company rakes in. And that’s where the real dough is."

- Richest 1% Took Home 82% of Wealth Last Year, Oxfam Says (Fortune) "Four out of every five dollars of wealth generated in 2017 ended up in the pockets of the richest 1%, while the poorest half of humanity got nothing..."

ENTERTAINMENT:


- Why is Nickelback known to be a bad band? (Quora)


HEALTH:

- This Flu Map Shows How the Biggest Influenza Outbreak in Years Spread Across the U.S. (Time) "The U.S. is experiencing such an active flu season that the CDC held a special briefing on the topic last week, explaining that there’s an uptick in both confirmed cases of the disease and hospitalizations related to it this year. The flu is so widespread, in fact, that the agency has declared it an epidemic, and urged those who have not been vaccinated to seek out the flu shot."

- Can This Biochemist Bypass Organ Donors? (Ozy) "In collaboration with the University of Pretoria, Dzobo is leading efforts to develop a patch made with stem cells that could repair damaged tissue."

MORE SMOKE (The Stormy Daniels Edition):


- The case for taking the Trump-Stormy Daniels saga seriously (WaPo) "But the saga involving Stormy Daniels and Trump is getting more and more difficult to dismiss as tabloid trash with each passing day, and there's a serious case to be made that it's actually been under-covered. That doesn't mean it's true or even that there has been any genuine wrongdoing — just that it's worth asking some very serious questions. First came a series of reports from the Journal about the payment made by Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. It most recently reported Thursday that Cohen created an LLC in Delaware — where LLCs don't have to disclose their managers — and used pseudonyms to facilitate the payment to Daniels. By Friday, the magazine InTouch published what it said was a previously unpublished 2011 interview with Daniels in which she describes having sex with Trump in 2006... What's perhaps most notable about the interview is how many of the details deal with things that weren't and aren't widely known about Trump. So if the story isn't based on actual interactions with Trump, then it's pretty clear Daniels did some real research to make it seem plausible."

- Stormy Daniels' Explosive Full Interview on Donald Trump Affair: "I Can Describe His Junk Perfectly" (InTouch Weekly) "'I had to use the bathroom and I went to the restroom, which was in the bedroom. When I came out, he was sitting on the bed and he was like, 'Come here.' And I was like, 'Ugh, here we go.'" and Porn star Stormy Daniels detailed alleged affair with Trump in 2011 interview (WaPo) "Daniels told Lippe-McGraw she was going public about the alleged affair years after it ended because she was disturbed by comments Trump had made criticizing people in the pornography business, the transcript says."

- Trump’s love of tabloid gossip complicates his denial of affair allegations with Stormy Daniels (WaPo) "'I’ve always said, ‘Why didn't the National Enquirer get the Pulitzer Prize for Edwards?’ Trump said on the campaign trail in 2016. He was referring to the Enquirer’s revelation that John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina and 2008 presidential candidate, had an affair and fathered a child with a campaign aide. Trump told a crowd in Ohio that the National Enquirer 'should be very respected,' as a way of defending his decision, in an earlier interview, to cite an unsubstantiated article about the father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). In short, the president loves tabloid gossip, which makes it harder for him to just brush it off now, when he is the subject of it."

and this...

- Jared Kushner’s firm tied to “suspicious transactions” at German bank, according to explosive new report (Mother Jones) "Manager Magazin, a respected German business magazine, reported in its latest print edition, which hit German newsstands on Friday, that Paul Achleitner, chairman of Deutsche Bank’s board, had the bank conduct an internal investigation and the results were troubling. Those results have been turned over to the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority—Germany’s bank regulatory agency, which is commonly known as BaFin. The article also claims that the investigation into Kushner and his family business is not over, and that internal technical issues are complicating the search, adding that 'Achleitner simply doesn’t have a view of the whole picture.' Deutsche Bank did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Abbe Lowell, Kushner’s personal attorney."

and this...

- ‘Defiance Disorder’: Another new book describes chaos in Trump’s White House (WaPo) "The White House...has just barely stopped reeling from author Michael Wolff’s account of life in Trump’s West Wing...and now another life-in-the-White-House book is about to drop, this one from [Howard] Kurtz [who hosts Fox News’s 'Media Buzz']. Like the books that came before it, and almost certainly like the ones still to come, Kurtz’s book, 'Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press, And The War Over The Truth,' offers a portrait of a White House riven by chaos, with aides scrambling to respond to the president’s impulses and writing policy to fit his tweets..."

NEWS:

- Younger Rs want Trump alternative (Axios) "One year since President Trump's inauguration, a majority of Republicans under age 45 want an alternative in 2020, according to an Axios/SurveyMonkey poll: Most Republicans under 25 want the president to face a primary challenge."


- Is the Public Well-Informed Enough to Be Trusted With Democracy? (Ozy) "The answer is complicated... This is usually where people wax poetic about how the lack of school funding and civics teaching has made people too dumb to vote in their best interests. The other side of the equation is that government must be understandable. Laws remain complicated in part because bureaucrats have a vested interest in finding ever more technocratic solutions that justify their work. Another problem: The wealthy hold more power than ever before, which allows them to wield undue influence. So maybe we shouldn’t be asking whether we can trust the public with democracy. Maybe we need to ask whether we can trust the elites with it."

A year of Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda has radically changed the U.S. role in the world (WaPo) "The overall impact of the policy, say diplomats, politicians and analysts interviewed around the world, has been a clear retrenchment of U.S. power — and an opportunity for U.S. adversaries such as China and Russia. The American role in the world has been diminishing for years as other countries have expanded their economies, militaries and ambitions. Foreign-policy players, however, say they see something different now: a disorderly U.S. transformation from a global leader working with partners to try to shape the world to an inwardly focused superpower that defines its international role more narrowly. A Gallup survey of attitudes in 134 countries that was released Thursday showed a dramatic drop in support for U.S. leadership in the world, from a median of nearly half of people approving under President Barack Obama to fewer than a third doing so under Trump. Across the globe, U.S. adversaries are rushing to fill the America-size void left as Washington breaks from its closest allies on trade and other international pacts. They also seek to take advantage of the confusion caused by what allies and foes alike have called an ill-defined and sometimes chaotic U.S. foreign policy, broadcast by Trump’s tweets. Many diplomats and policymakers say they think Washington will remain the preeminent global power but with greatly dimmed ambitions — even after Trump’s tenure in the White House."

- Military Shifts Focus to Threats by Russia and China, Not Terrorism (NYT) "The new strategy echoes — on paper, if not in tone — a national security blueprint offered last month in which President Trump described rising threats to the United States from an emboldened Russia and China, as well as from what was described as rogue governments like North Korea and Iran. Unlike Mr. Trump, who said Russia and China 'seek to challenge American influence, values and wealth' without mentioning Russian interference in the 2016 election, Mr. Mattis appeared to take direct aim at Russia. 'To those who would threaten America’s experiment in democracy: If you challenge us, it will be your longest and worst day,' he said."

- I wasn’t a Trump supporter. I am now. (WaPo) "Like most people, I don’t particularly like Trump’s rhetorical style, juvenile insults and intemperate disposition... At the same time, having followed his career for decades, I am not surprised that he wakes up each morning as Donald Trump. Ironically, the very lack of conservative bona fides that worried me two years ago means he’s less beholden to a conservative establishment that had grown alienated from the people it is supposed to serve and from the principles it ostensibly exists to promote."

- SpaceX, Boeing face delays and technical challenges as they work to restore human spaceflight for NASA (WaPo) "If SpaceX and Boeing, the companies NASA has hired to fly its astronauts to space, can’t meet NASA’s rigorous requirements for human spaceflight by late next year, the space agency would have to continue to rely on the Russians, who charge more than $80 million a seat to launch Americans to orbit. Failing that, NASA would face the ignominious prospect that the United States would not be able to access the space station, on which it has spent billions of dollars to build and maintain. Heading into 2018, the program is at a critical juncture, as NASA will have to sign off on some key decisions about whether it thinks Boeing and SpaceX’s spacecraft will be able to meet the agency’s rigorous safety standards."

TECHNOLOGY:


- What If Children Should Be Spending More Time With Screens? (WSJ-Paywall) "The American Academy of Pediatrics once recommended parents simply limit children’s time on screens. The new guidance distinguishes between 'passive' screen time, such as viewing videos, and 'active' time. Curbing passive exposure could be the new version of limiting screen time. Instead of enforcing time-based rules, parents should help children determine what they want to do—create art, marvel at the universe—and make those interests a daily part of screen life."

- Inside Amazon Go, a Store of the Future (NYT) "...the technology that is...inside, mostly tucked away out of sight, enables a shopping experience like no other. There are no cashiers or registers anywhere. Shoppers leave the store through...gates, without pausing to pull out a credit card. Their Amazon account automatically gets charged for what they take out the door. Every time customers grab an item off a shelf, Amazon says the product is automatically put into the shopping cart of their online account. If customers put the item back on the shelf, Amazon removes it from their virtual basket. There were a little over 3.5 million cashiers in the United States in 2016 — and some of their jobs may be in jeopardy if the technology behind Amazon Go eventually spreads. For now, Amazon says its technology simply changes the role of employees — the same way it describes the impact of automation on its warehouse workers."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:


- Crazy Bald Eagle Video (NatGeo on Instagram) "A leisurely drive through downtown Unalaska, a small city in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, is an easy way to spot a few of America’s national bird... or a few hundred. The population of bald eagles has exploded over the past few decades in many cities in Alaska as eagles increasingly find easy meals from human food waste and leftover fish from the thriving commercial fishing industry."


- The Nice Guy Booty Call mindset is the right way to fix bad casual sex (Quartz) "But how do we fix the day-to-day power dynamics and the overall creepiness women endure while dating and in the bedroom? Turns out, in a sea of assholes if you’re simply a nice and attentive person, you’re a catch!"

TODAY'S SONG:

- Your Name (Tundran)


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