Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Information (and who wields it) has become a hot topic: news mid July 2014

Last Thursday, a Malaysian commercial passenger jet #MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine. The powers there engaged in a sort of civil war have blamed each other, while the international community including the US, have demanded a complete investigation. In addition to the awful loss of life in such a terrible way, in a warzone where the very region itself is contested, the cleanup efforts afterward have drawn international criticism. Working on the assumption that those Russian-backed seperatist forces in the area (which were newly trained on anti-aircraft missiles), had made a mistake, Europe is trying to determine collectively how to respond. It was a flight from Amsterdam to Malaysia, carrying many Dutch and other Europeans. The initial news and subsequent stories have dominated the international and national news circles. 14 min audio via msnbc's All In w/ Chris Hayes.

Meanwhile, the fifth day of a ground assault into Gaza comes to a close after two weeks of shelling have killed over 500, with as many as 27 Israeli's possibly dead. The day that started there coincided international protests in many major cities on every continent.


The time for the US Federal Reserve Bank to close the window, and "taper", and then end the qualitative easing policy of the last sevral years is running out, say some.


One of the proponents of the theory that inflation is a big looming problem, was exposed on national television for constantly being wrong. About six years too late, but still welcome to see.
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Another story is the crisis in Central America causing a wave of some 60,000 refugees, mostly children, to come to the southern US border. Since immigration has become such a loud issue in the last five years, all the politicians want to talk about it. But little is done to ease the suffering of the kids,  and little news is available from the source of the problem - they kill journalists there. So without either I can expect this catastrophe to only get worse. Reuters reported that President Obama will visit with leaders of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala on July 25.
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The DC Circuit court has upheld a lower court ruling, exempting state from subsidies to implement the ACA exchanges. A summary is here. A longer version of the story is here.  But the fourth circuit court in Virginia ruled the other way. These rulings, some say, will probably be overruled later by a majority of that Circuit court's judges, sometime this fall.
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NPR interviewed Walter Binney and aired the story today. He and Thomas Drake applaud Edward Snowden for avoiding capture by telling their story of what happened when they went through 'proper channels'. 8 min audio
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Amazing history on discovery of the disease Typhus, its carriers and vaccine, thru WWII. 35 min audio on Fresh Air.
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Forty-five years ago this week, Apollo 11 went to the moon.

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