HMM: America Is Well Within Range of a Big Surprise, So Why Can’t It See?

It is 2020. Tensions have been rising steadily in Northeast Asia. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un resume exchanging insults as North Korea falls into another famine. U.S. attention is focused on the Korean Peninsula. As the United States reinforces its forward-deployed units in Japan and Korea, China begins moving troops toward Taiwan.

Early one Monday morning (Sunday Washington time), Japan, Guam, and Taiwan wake up to a half-dozen small drones orbiting each of their military air bases and several of their commercial airfields. The drones emit no signals. They identify parked aircraft and key command and maintenance nodes and mark them with paint. Having proved their point, they simultaneously scatter and crash in international waters. At the same time, harbormasters throughout Japan, Taiwan, and Guam report the presence of “gliders” surfacing in their ports. Upon examination, they are found to not be visibly armed, but clearly are capable of carrying significant payloads that could disable shipping. Similar devices appear in San Diego, Bremerton, and Pearl Harbor.

Through discrete channels, Beijing informs Washington and Tokyo that it will be occupying Taiwan immediately. Any effort by U.S. forces to engage from Japanese bases will result in drone swarms augmented by cruise and ballistic missiles strikes on U.S. facilities, runways, and ships in port. U.S. preparations to launch military aircraft will result in immediate attack.

China tells Japan that as long as her forces stay out of the fight, they will not be attacked. China also warns that if American aircraft or ships sortie from Japanese ports, China will shut down Japan’s airfields with drones and missiles and its ports with the already deployed smart mines.

When queried by Japanese and U.S. political leaders, military commanders admit they cannot protect their airfields or ports, nor can they preempt the mobile Chinese drone or missile launching systems.

It’s an interesting and dangerous scenario, and one we can hope the Pentagon is already working to defend against.

Then again, from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the surprise start of the Korean War to 9/11, some of America’s adversaries attack on the premise that we’ll give in if they hit us hard enough and without warning, that we’ll just give in.

But that premise has been tested and found wanting — hopefully wanting enough to prevent Beijing from launching a costly and unnecessary war.

THE HILL: Members Of Congress Press For Action On FBI Bias.

MOTHER JONES: California Secessionists Are Hoping For A Trump Bump. “We’re not Americans, we’re—different.”

GET WOKE, GO REPUTATIONALLY BROKE: Apple, Google see reputation of corporate brands tumble in survey. “IPhone maker Apple dropped to 29th from its previous position of No. 5, and Google dropped from 8th to No. 28. Apple had ranked No. 2 as recently as 2016, according to the annual Harris Poll Reputation Quotient poll released on Tuesday.”

CHANGE: Working Again: A Flood Of Americans Back Into The Workforce.

U.S. businesses have been searching high and low for workers. Friday’s jobs report from the Labor Department says that in February Americans came back into the labor market in droves. It’s hard to find a bad word to say about this latest economic reading, which exceeded almost all expectations.

The U.S. economy added 313,000 jobs, the most since July of 2016. Perhaps just as encouraging was the surge in people eager to get to work. The Journal reports:

More than 800,000 Americans joined the labor force for the month, according to the report, many bypassing unemployment and jumping straight into jobs. It was the largest one-month increase in the labor pool since 1983, outside months that included one-time Census hiring.

1983 marked the start of the Reagan boom. It’s still way too early to compare this economy to that one, but the current surges in job creation and in the number of willing workers are remarkable, arriving so late in what had been a historically slow recovery.

The big surge in the labor force is just not supposed to happen according to the new normalists—the secular stagnators who keep telling us a slow-growth economy is as good as it gets. It’s the same crew of former Obama economic advisers who say that we can’t enjoy robust growth in the labor force because too many Baby Boomers are retiring. But last month Americans weren’t listening.

Well, stay tuned. I’m certainly not tired of winning yet.

I THINK I’M OK WITH THIS: Mother Director Darren Aronofsky Says ‘Never Stick a Gun in a Movie Star’s Hands.’

Of course, he doesn’t want anyone else armed, either. Except maybe Hollywood security guards, I assume.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: As traditional community hangouts shrink, supermarkets are becoming the place where people meet to socialize—and even fall in love.

When Bob Schneider goes out on a Friday night, he no longer heads to the local singles bar. Instead, he goes to the grocery store.

“I once dated a woman from the potato section at Mariano’s,” says Mr. Schneider, a 67-year-old semiretired, twice-divorced lobbyist in Oak Brook, Ill. “The next thing you know we’re at the wine bar and then we’re dating.”

Supermarkets—those havens of the not-so-scintillating chore of scouring numbered aisles, pushing carts and perusing produce—are finding a new identity as a social hub in communities. Parents now bring their children here to play, retirees gather for Bingo, and singles find romance.

Grocery stores are fulfilling the new role as traditional gathering spots, from shopping malls to social clubs like Lions Clubs and Rotary International, continue to shrink from decades-earlier peaks. Malls, in particular, are in danger of extinction. Credit Suisse has projected that up to 25% of malls will close over the next five years, as the internet continues to reshape the way Americans shop.

As more shoppers consider alternatives including online shopping apps and meal kits, grocers are finding ways to avoid a similar fate. Many are reinventing themselves as destination spots.

“Getting people into the store is the number one objective,” says Laurie Rains, Nielsen’s group vice president of retail strategy. Retailers are also drawn to the higher margins that in-house prepared foods, coffee and cocktails can offer.

By offering space for people to hang out and play, grocery stores are making a calculation that customers will stay, shop longer and come back more often.

It’s grocery stores’ version of the comfy-chair revolution, though that didn’t save Borders.

21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: Stealth startup launches four unauthorized rogue satellites into orbit.

THAT’S NOT VERY COMFORTING: Facebook Really Is Spying on You, Just Not Through Your Phone’s Mic.

“Facebook does not use your phone’s microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed,” says Facebook.

Yeah, sure, and the government swears it isn’t keeping any pet aliens at Area 51. So I contacted former Facebook employees and various advertising technology experts, who all cited technical and legal reasons audio snooping isn’t possible.

Uploading and scanning that much audio data “would strain even the resources of the NSA,” says former Facebook ad-targeting product manager Antonio Garcia Martinez. “They would need to understand the context of what you are saying—not just listen for words,” says Sandy Parakilas, a former Facebook operations manager.

I believe them, but for another reason: Facebook is now so good at watching what we do online—and even offline, wandering around the physical world—it doesn’t need to hear us. After digging into the various bits of info Facebook and its advertisers collect and the bits I’ve actually handed over myself, I can now explain why I got each of those eerily relevant ads. (Facebook ads themselves offer limited explanations when you click “Why am I seeing this?”)

Advertising is an important staple of the free internet, but the companies buying and selling ads are turning into stalkers. We need to understand what they’re doing, and what we can—or can’t—do to limit them.

If you must use Facebook — I’ve found it can be a real boon for promoting BillWhittle.com video segments — try deleting the app from your phone and/or tablet. Because that’s where much of the “spying” takes place.

Instead, limit your use to a desktop or laptop, and install what I call “a Facebook browser.” Whatever browser you regularly use, install Firefox or Edge or some other browser, and use that one exclusively for Facebook.

No, I don’t actually think they’re out to get me. But being followed around, even virtually, is inherently creepy.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Students don’t know what they’re getting when they pick a college — data can fix that.

Most students don’t know how much they’ll pay prior to enrollment, let alone where their predecessors landed jobs after graduation. Were they able to pay off their debt? How meaningful did they find the work they were doing after they had graduated?

Besides slick brochures, television advertisements, and highway billboards, little exists beyond U.S. News and World Report’s often criticized rankings to help students and families make sense of what is often one of the largest investments of their lives.

Hidden for most is the fact that while 88 percent of freshman now say that “getting a good job” is their primary motivation for going to college, only 27 percent of alumni report having a good job upon graduation

Although three-quarters of college presidents believe their institutions should publish data to help “consumers” understand critical outcomes like debt load of graduates or job placement rates, few, if any U.S. institutions willingly offer up such information.

It should, therefore, be no surprise that there is a growing sense of buyer’s remorse among consumers of higher education.

Yeah, but the check has already cleared.

RUMOR: NY Governor “Melting Down” Over Challenge From Sex And The City Star.

Enter Cynthia Nixon. You may remember her as the skinny, red-headed friend from the Sex and the City series some years ago. (Or, you know… so I am assured people who watched it… *cough*) A quick search shows that she has been politically active in recent years, and in 2016 characterized herself as “definitely a Hillary Clinton supporter.” (Not sure how well that will play this year, but so be it. ) She keeps dropping hints that she may be challenging Cuomo from the left and the buzz has grown to the point where the local media is asking Cuomo about it. He didn’t handle the question well.

Cuomo is doing his best to make jokes about this, but it certainly sounds like the idea of Nixon challenging him has gotten well and truly under his skin. Check out this short video from Spectrum News in New York where analysts play the audio of Cuomo commenting on her. His attempt at a joke winds up cracking him up to the point where he can barely speak, but it doesn’t sound as if he actually thinks it was funny. Frankly, he sounds deranged.

That was awkward.

WHAT IS IT WITH HILLARY AND STAIRS? Clinton slips twice leaving Indian palace — five months after she broke her toe in London hotel fall.

CONGRATULATIONS TO JOSH BLACKMAN: 2018 Joseph Story Award winner.

TYLER O’NEIL: 5 Things to Know About President Trump’s Gun Reform Package for Schools, Mental Health, and the FBI.

JEFFREY SINGER: The War on Opioids Has Become a War on Patients.

CONGRATS TO MY COLLEAGUES LUCY JEWEL AND WADE DAVIES, who spent the semester training them in the Appellate Litigation Clinic: UT Law Students argue case before federal appeals court.

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Clothing, Shoes, and Jewelry. For men and women.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Police: More potential victims in Vernon Hills High School sex assault case. “Police say they are following up with four more potential victims of a part-time assistant soccer coach at Vernon Hills High School who faces felony charges for engaging in sexual activity with three male students. A bond review hearing for Cori Beard, 28, of Vernon Hills is scheduled for Tuesday. Police announced Saturday she had been charged with 12 counts of criminal sexual assault in connection with unlawful acts that occurred between December 2016 and February 2018. Her bond was set at $1 million. . . . Beard was employed by Libertyville-Vernon Hills High School District 128 for three years. She was a part-time assistant soccer coach for both the boys and girls soccer teams at Vernon Hills High, according to police.”

ACTUALLY, I THINK IT’S GOING TO LAND JUST A LITTLE SOUTH OF MOLINE: Wayward Chinese Space Station Could Crash Into Michigan.

CANCUN has a murder problem. “We’ve been told that local politicians here have put the press under pressure not to report violence in this area, because if the tourists are scared away from here, it will be an economic disaster not only for Cancun, but for Mexico.”

HERE’S TONIGHT’S OPEN THREAD. ENJOY!

PUSHING BACK AGAINST THE AGE AS HARD AS IT PUSHES AGAINST YOU: The Vital Greatness of The New Criterion.

(Classical reference in headline.)

I GUESS IT’S OKAY, SINCE THE PIECE PORTRAYS MEN AS INFERIOR, BUT THIS IS STILL A PROBLEMATIC STATEMENT IN 2018: “Biologically, there are differences between men and women.”

DUE PROCESS: Juror in Saifullah Khan Yale Rape Case Says Acquittal Was Justified: ‘I Think He’s Innocent’; “I think he doesn’t deserve this, and I think it’s sad.”