Unlike the common narrative, the entire Apple vs. FBI fight is not about privacy versus security, but actually about security vs. "allow every actor (including bad ones) easier access to what should be secure".
"Revelations" costing tech companies?
The New York Times has an article with the following headline: "Revelations of N.S.A. Spying Cost U.S. Tech Companies".
While I don't have issue with the article itself, I'm going to have to disagree with the headline. Ultimately, it's not the revelations themselves that are the problem, it's the NSA's actions that have been costing U.S. tech companies ...
Debt ceiling prediction
The presumably upcoming vote on raising the debt ceiling is the big news story of the US today. Personally, I think they should just go with an up and down vote, but there is all these messy fights about wanting to attach conditions to the debt ceiling. Despite the ugly political fights, however, I have a feeling that things will go like this:
- The August 2 deadline will continue to approach, with no end in sight to the debt ceiling fight. In fact, Republicans will make increasingly outrageous demands, making it seem even more likely that the United States might default on part of its debt.
- With the huge amount of uncertainty and fears of a default by the United States government, the stock market will plummet drastically near the August 2 deadline.
- Goldman Sachs will make a killing with all the shorts it would have made. Right before the deadline, they will also buy up a whole lot of stock at rock bottom prices.
- In a dramatic vote immediately before the deadline, Congress will agree to raise the debt ceiling. Republicans may or may not be trying to deliberately cripple the American economy for working class people for their own political benefit, but they would never be allowed to actually block the raising of the debt ceiling. Goldman Sachs might like destroying parts of the economy to gather wealth from shorts, but even they might balk from a default which could threaten the wealth of even the incredibly rich.
But what do I know? I'm just a poor, cynical guy with no first-hand experience with the inner workings of any political or financial system, who probably has no idea what he is talking about.
Worst blurb ever (maybe)
Without even having read the book, the blurb for the The Annunaki Enigma Armageddon 2010 is enough to make me sure that it would quite a disaster. I definitely would not have seen it if I weren't subscribed to the science fiction section at Fictionwise, but the blurb was so much of a train wreck that it was hard to ignore:
Somewhere near the end of the year 2012 world governments are on the precipice of all out war. The United States has become a socialist state — a part of a "One World Order". The global economies are falling apart and there is an effort to correct a pseudo-scientific theory that the world is suffering from global warming brought on by the industrial countries. The politicians have attempted to create a significant revenue source by correlating the warming theory to the burning of carbon-based fuels. A carbon tax is invented and those in power are pleased. This adds further injury to the failing world economies. As this cataclysmic series of events further destroys the once vigorous monetary systems of the world, healthcare in the United States becomes state run. ...
And this is only half of the blurb! It might actually good if it were a satire, but it doesn't appear to be one. With the entire blurb basically a litany of extreme ideology (and quite a bit of delusional ideology at that), along with the complete absence of any indication of a plot, I have to wonder what the blurb writer was thinking. Did he (or she) really think anyone would want to read the book after that blurb?
Declaration of war in Korea (yet again)
In response to a South Korean defense minister raising the possibility of a first strike if North Korea showed clear signs of attacking with nuclear weapons, North Korea accused the South of declaring war. The defense minister was being unwise: he should have been vague enough to make North Korea wonder if South Korea would ever strike first, while not making statements that the North could unambiguously use in accusations without making themselves look like even bigger jerks than they usually come across as. On the other hand, North Korea is yet again vastly overreacting (as usual).