We bring you the latest TBB Best of Web links: Warn you about the cyberwars happening which will intensify, get you to think about the world according to these amazing population maps, warn you about the Medicare time bomb, how Puerto Rico became a tax haven, and an alarming manifesto about the democracy crisis happening around the world.
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Every Sunday I pick the best reads that blew my mind in the previous week. It can be…anything! I like to be eclectic and despise salesy/clickbait/sameold content you read…everywhere else!
As always, click on the headline to be taken to the original source. Sometimes I insert my incendiary comments on article excerpts between [brackets].
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In Cyberwar, There are No Rules
What is your most persistent nightmare? Mine is, I wake up one day and I can not get into any of my financial accounts online. And/or, when I do access them, I see that all the money is gone! I think the biggest challenge we have is a major disruption in cyberspace. I am telling my young techie son that focusing on cybersecurity would likely be a very nice expertise to develop with excellent compensation and job security!
Increased fear, uncertainty, and doubt surrounding cybersecurity have led to a world where we cannot tell what has and hasn’t happened. The nature of cyberwarfare is that it is asymmetric. Single combatants can find and exploit small holes in the massive defenses of countries and country-sized companies. It won’t be cutting-edge cyberattacks that cause the much-feared cyber-Pearl Harbor in the United States or elsewhere. Instead, it will likely be mundane strikes against industrial control systems, transportation networks, and health care providers—because their infrastructure is out of date, poorly maintained, ill-understood, and often unpatchable. Worse will be the invisible manipulation of public opinion and election outcomes using digital tools such as targeted advertising and deep fakes—recordings and videos that can realistically be made via artificial intelligence to sound like any world leader.
Lets get to more specifics and lets talk about aviation…
Once a week, a European aircraft manufacturer cleans all plane cockpits of Android malware. Pilots can pass malware to the plane from their smartphones when they plug them in, which the plane (while theoretically unaffected by phone-only malware) then passes it on to the next pilot with a smartphone. Planes are already covered in viruses, both virtual and microbial. In such a vulnerable environment, even an unsophisticated hack could wreak havoc. A text message sent to the phone of every in-air pilot giving them a national security warning or rerouting their planes could lead to emergency landings and widespread confusion, with more sophisticated attacks potentially leading to far more serious consequences. [Android malware…in the cockpit…passed from smartphones…WTF!!!]
And of course…
Yet the White House, under President Donald Trump, has failed to fill or has outright eliminated almost every major cybersecurity position. There are a few brilliant holdouts bravely providing solid advice on information security and best practices. (The government agency 18F and the United States Digital Service are both doing valuable work but receive far smaller budgets than they deserve.) But cybertalent is draining faster than it is being replaced at the highest levels.
I think what the author is asking for is needed. And yet, I have no illusion that it will happen anytime soon…as long as Russia is ruled by Putin anyway…Be careful out there!
The map we need if we want to think about how global living conditions are changing
I LOVE this because it will SHOCK you! Ok, just messing around. But I must admit I really enjoyed this. What is it? It is a…
population cartogram, a geographical presentation of the world where the size of the countries are not drawn according to the distribution of land, but according to the distribution of people.
The perspectives you get are AMAZING! Here are some selected ones for you, there are more!
The area of Russia takes up 11% of the world’s land and the gigantic country borders both Norway and North Korea. But Russia is home to only less than 2% of the world population and is therefore shrunken in this cartogram to the size of Bangladesh, a country that is smaller than Florida
China and India are by far the most populous countries in the world. If you want to follow what is happening to the world you have to keep track of these two countries:
- More than a third of the world population – 36.2% – live in India and China.
- 60% of all Asians live in China or India.4
- Today, both India and China have a larger population than the entire world population in 1850 (when the world population was around 1.26 billion people).
At the end, check out the population density map too!
Medicare’s time bomb, in 7 charts
Let me just say that I have always been a proponent of doing something about this! Then again, when rich taxpayers get tax cuts they did not ask for and certainly did not need, while it appears that the next area to fix is this one with so many really needing these benefits, well…
We are living longer and so there will be a lot more seniors. No surprise there. Something to add here. The Greek Finance Minister recently gave a speech in London and he said “Look, we have no fiscal holes in our pension system. Because all the seniors will eventually die”. Yikes! Yes, he said that, smh.
We’ll see what happens…
How Puerto Rico Became the Newest Tax Haven for the Super Rich
This article made me vomit. I hope the authorities go after some of these people portrayed here!
I did not know Puerto Rico had become such a tax haven by the way…
More than 1,500 mainlanders have established residency here since 2012, when the island rebranded itself as a tax haven…
In 2012, Puerto Rico had passed two laws intended to make the island a “global investment destination.” Act 20 allows corporations that export services from the island to pay only 4 percent tax. Act 22 goes much further: It makes Puerto Rico the only place on U.S. soil where personal income from capital gains, interest, and dividends are untaxed…In order to qualify for Act 22, individuals must prove to the IRS that they have become bona fide residents of Puerto Rico, without “close contacts” on the mainland. (Most native Puerto Ricans are not eligible for the exemption.)
Of course you will find that moron Harry Dent who wrote a book about the internet stocks before he hanged so many idiots who believed him only to write another book about the apocalypse coming right after it happened and caused so many not to be in the stock market after it bottomed out in early 2009. Yeah, THAT guy!
There are more…I think some of these people will regret talking to the journalist. I hope so anyway.
American Democracy Is in Crisis
Perhaps read this without considering the author. Who is a failed politician and will go down as the loser who managed to lose to Donald Trump, WTF! Or maybe you are a conservative who is trying learn how these weird liberals think.
I have been a little concerned, you may say, about why all the crazies are winning elections everywhere lately. Because it is a giant phenomenon with severe consequences ahead. We are all witnesses to it, sad!
Just a few things…And I hope she does not run again lol.
Trump may be uniquely hostile to the rule of law, ethics in public service, and a free press. But the assault on our democracy didn’t start with his election. He is as much a symptom as a cause of what ails us. Think of our body politic like a human body, with our constitutional checks and balances, democratic norms and institutions, and well-informed citizenry all acting as an immune system protecting us from the disease of authoritarianism. Over many years, our defenses were worn down by a small group of right-wing billionaires—people like the Mercer family and Charles and David Koch—who spent a lot of time and money building an alternative reality where science is denied, lies masquerade as truth, and paranoia flourishes. By undermining the common factual framework that allows a free people to deliberate together and make the important decisions of self-governance, they opened the way for the infection of Russian propaganda and Trumpian lies to take hold. They’ve used their money and influence to capture our political system, impose a right-wing agenda, and disenfranchise millions of Americans.
Meanwhile, hyperpolarization now extends beyond politics into nearly every part of our culture. One recent study found that in 1960, just 5 percent of Republicans and 4 percent of Democrats said they’d be displeased if their son or daughter married a member of the other political party. In 2010, 49 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of Democrats said they’d be upset by that. The strength of partisan identity—and animosity—helps explain why so many Republicans continue to back a president so manifestly unfit for office and antithetical to many of the values and policies they once held dear. When you start seeing politics as a zero-sum game and view members of the other party as traitors, criminals, or otherwise illegitimate, then the normal give-and-take of politics turns into a blood sport.
I am going to stop here. On Sundays, anything goes. You do not have to read my blog, it is a free country. For a little longer anyway lol. You can get your own blog to push your agenda, lets see how long you last woohoo!
Galaxies: Voyage to the Core
You.Will.Be.Blown.Away.Wow!
GALAXIES VOL. III : Voyage to the core – 4K from Adrien Mauduit Films on Vimeo.
And I leave you with this…LOL
TBB
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First!
Good morning! Much food for thought.
Thank you.
SHE lost to HIM, FFS. Last person on the planet I want to be lecturing me.
Almost 40% of Americans couldn’t be bothered with voting in 2016.
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.
(the above has muddled sources but seems pretty accurate historically)
Happy Sunday
/soapbox
Well said, Gringo.
And while I know you wrote this about Titan bloggers, I think there’s an analogy with society in general too.
What do y’all think?
“rich taxpayers get tax cuts they did not ask for ”, really? Lots of money has been flowing to Republicans from the top 1%. They didn’t want anything in return?
As Hans Rosling used to stay, the average citizens knowledge about the world doesn’t change much after high school/college. Nigeria’s population has more than doubled in the last 30 years. Egypt’s almost doubled in the same time period.
I hope I’m above average on that “knowledge about the world” statistic, but I was really surprised by the size of the populations of Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Hello everyone:
Just heads up, the TBB post tomorrow is going to be great. Some REAL gems that could have been “Best of Web” material, you are going to really like it. We had some action on the $ clicks last week and that sure motivates instead of deflates!
To the reader who keeps ordering those expensive things, you know who you are, let me know if we meet sometime, dinner/beers on me!
Pushed myself again to run a little more and keep working on that strained calf that has not bothered me for a while now. 10 miles in a PR time! Beat previous PR time by 3.11 mins. I ran mile #10 at a blistering (for me) pace of 7.59 minutes. I felt very strong. Even after eating a little too much after we hosted a great party with a bunch of Malaysians at our home (from wife’s side).
@InigoMontoya: Lol, good one!
@ DML: Thanks for the support always.
@ GringoLoco: Yes, she lost to him. But I found it was a really comprehensive account of how the liberals think and I especially enjoyed the devastating beating of the orange one. Of course, I would have enjoyed the beating of him in the ballot box but…it did not happen. Hope they learn from it. The key is to get the 40% who do not vote DOWN! Just a 10% turnaround there and we are back to more “normal” times. Whatever that means…
Thanks for the history lesson. Everything evolves. Even my blog 🙂
Actually, current times are not too bad actually if you look at it from a bigger picture…
@ Sam: The Titans are under bondage from the banks, no doubt!
@ ABC: Good point if you put it that way. I did not ask for the tax cut and I think the long term effects will be negative. But for now it is party time. Enjoy it while it lasts 🙂
@ flyernick: And Sam…yeah, some of the country populations were indeed pretty shocking as you noted. On tomorrow’s map, check out Maldives. Why are they building so many resorts there based on that SHOCKING number? No more hints…