YEAH, I’M NOT SURE WE’RE READY: The “Internet of Things” Has Arrived — And So Have Massive Security Issues. “And it’s not just security: it’s privacy, too. As the objects within the IoT collect seemingly inconsequential fragments of data to fulfill their service, think about what happens when that information is collated, correlated, and reviewed.”
Archive for 2013
January 14, 2013
WASHINGTON MONTHLY: HAS OBAMA REALLY HELPED BLACKS? “If whites and minorities were once on different economic and social tracks, they sure aren’t anymore. Downward mobility is now a shared American experience.” He’s a uniter!
EATING CAULIFLOWER like popcorn.
CHANGE: Virginia Governor’s Plan To Eliminate Gas Tax Finds Many Fans Among Small Businesses. “McDonnell recently proposed eliminating Virginia’s gas tax of 17 cents per gallon in exchange for raising the state’s 5 percent sales tax to 5.8 percent. He would also assess an annual fee of $100 on alternatively fueled cars.”
FRIENDLY TALK BETWEEN TEA PARTY AND MOVEON: “It’s possible because there is more common ground between left and right in this country than you might think.”
DEMOGRAPHICS: The Unforeseen Social Effects Of China’s One-Child Policy. “In addition to sweeping social and economic instability, the policy has proven problematic on an individual level. An entire generation of Chinese has essentially grown up spoiled and without siblings.”
DO YOU REALLY NEED A VOICE PLAN WITH THAT FANCY SMARTPHONE? Barely, given Skype.
IN ADVERTISING-LAND, THE ANSWER IS A CLEAR “NO.” Can Dads Do Anything Right? Reflections on a Volkswagen Passat commercial featuring that TV staple, the doofus dad.
THIS WEEK IN THE FUTURE.
MICHAEL TOTTEN: The Game of Thrones in North Africa. “It feels strange visiting a country like Morocco and listening to people extol the virtues of a political system my country waged a revolution against. Morocco has a king, and he’s a real one too, not some kind of a figurehead. But I went there, I listened, and after almost ten years of visiting Middle Eastern countries wracked by tyranny, terrorism, botched revolutions, and wars, I was perhaps a bit more willing to hear what they had to say than I might have been a decade ago.”
TAX CODE HITS THE RICH, BUT NOT THE VERY RICH: “While the affluent will pay more in taxes this year, that is probably not the case for the very wealthiest — those worth hundreds of millions or more. They may still be paying a lower tax rate than Warren Buffett’s secretary. Many millionaires are certainly paying at least 30% of their income in taxes, a goal President Obama set out in last year’s State of the Union address. But they’re more likely to be doctors, lawyers and people working in the financial services industry who get the bulk of their earnings in the form of paychecks. Partners in private equity firms and hedge fund managers, on the other hand, earn much of their money as a share of their funds’ earnings. And that income gets preferential tax treatment as so-called carried interest. A similar special tax treatment still holds true for Mr. Buffett as long as the bulk of his income comes from his investments and not a paycheck.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Climate Change Doesn’t Have To Be All Bad. “What if climate change isn’t the disaster we fear but instead one more obstacle that humans can meet, one that may spur innovation and creativity as well as demand ever more resilience? What if it ultimately improves life as we know it?”
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD ON the death of Aaron Swartz. “Like many of the incredibly talented, larger-than-life people who have emerged from the tech sector in the past two or three decades, Aaron Swartz was the product of an America that encourages wild free-thinking and risk-taking. And while we certainly wouldn’t go so far as to say that his suicide signals the end of that particularly American ethos (as the Washington Post‘s Wonk Blog does), it’s terribly sad that he met his end like this.”
HARRY REID DENIES INVOLVEMENT IN BRIBERY CASE.
ESPIONAGE: Cybersleuths Uncover 5-Year-Old Spy Operation Targeting Governments. “The main purpose of the operation appears to be the gathering of classified information and geopolitical intelligence, although it seems that the information-gathering scope is quite wide. . . . They are compiling the modules right before putting them into the booby-trapped documents, which are also customized to the specific target with a lure that can be interesting to the victim. What we are talking about is a very targeted and very customized operation, and each victim is pretty much unique in what they receive. . . . Inside the modules they are using several Russian slang words. Such words are generally unknown to non-native Russian speakers.”
ANDREW MORRISS: Ethanol Scam Driving Up Food Prices. “An inconvenience for wealthy people, rising corn prices are disastrous for the poor, at home and abroad.”
CHANGE: U.S. Playing Second Fiddle In Panama Canal Rebuild?
The original Panama Canal was a revolution in geopolitics and economics; before it was built, the sea voyage was shorter from London to San Francisco than from New York to California, and the Caribbean was a strategic dead end that nobody in world politics cared much about.
A generation of U.S. foreign policy involved extending power by building bases to secure it. And of course the original canal involved huge U.S. political engagement, enabling Panama’s independence from Columbia and the establishment of the Canal Zone so that the U.S. could keep full control.
Now, a century later, the Canal is being dramatically expanded, and the U.S. government is much less involved. . . .
Some might look at that and see a decline in U.S. power. But they would be very wrong. The U.S. has been so successful in building a global system of politics and trade, and its naval power in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific is so supreme, that we don’t need to build more bases, annex more land or otherwise interfere with a multinational process that serves our interests well.
Barry Goldwater said that America “stole it fair and square” when he was fighting Jimmy Carter’s proposal to give control over the Canal to Panama. These days, we don’t even have to do that. The Panamanians run the Canal without needing any prompting from us, and they have seen through a massive improvement that benefits the American economy because it also benefits them.
That’s the best way to have things, when you can.
LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Head Of Lousy MA Law School Makes $867,000, Grads Make Bupkis. No, it’s not about Harvard.
AT AMAZON, New Year, New You.
Also, today only: 50% Off Lucky Brand Jeans for Men and Women.
MATT LEWIS: Wal-Mart And Gun Control. I think Wal-Mart has been hearing from a lot of their customers over the past week.
21ST CENTURY JUSTICE: ‘Anonymous’ and Steubenville: Online Lynch Mob Complicates Rape Case. “Even as a digital lynch mob is denouncing law enforcement for allegedly protecting members of the ‘Big Red’ football team, Lee Stranahan reported Thursday that some hackers have published the name and photo of the alleged victim in the Steubenville case.”