Reading Stuff

Mr. Kaplan wants to inform the public about the dangers and extent of cyberwar between nations today. The top has certainly been in the news recently with the FBI investigating Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election. However, this book was published last year and so he doesn’t address this contentious issue. He does address the hacking of computer systems vital to the functioning of the U.S. military, finance, commerce and infrastructure. In 2014, there were 80,000 security breaches in the United States which resulted in the loss of data with hackers staying inside the network at average of 205 days before being detected. The Chinese routinely hack both government and industry files looking for information. In fact, they stole enough information from Lockheed Corporation on the F35 fighter jet that they were able to make a copy of their own.   The National Security Agency of NSA is the main organization that provides defense against these attacks in the U.S. U...

  I recently read the book “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism” by Anne Case and Angus Deaton. It’s pretty much as depressing as it sounds especially as it’s an ongoing problem that garners very little attention, especially in this time of COVID.  The authors define deaths of despair as deaths from suicide, alcohol poisoning and drug overdose. These deaths haven’t hit everyone equally. Nor does this seem to be a phenomenon happening outside the United States with the frequency it’s happening within and it’s hit one group especially hard, non-white Hispanics whose lifespan without a bachelor’s. The lifespan of every other ethnic group of that country continues to rise in.   Why, you may ask? Well, both authors are economists, one in possession of a Nobel Prize, so their approach is scientific and there’s a lot of numbers. Here’s an example. In 2017, 158,000 Americans died from deaths of despair; suicide, drug overdose, alcoholic liver disease and cirrhosis....

With most things in life, I like to dig a little deeper. It can be very annoying trait. Just ask my wife. Too many whys. For example, when members of al-Qaeda flew planes into the Trade Towers in New York, I wondered why. Same with the Trump supporters. Why? I understand how he represents the interests of the rich and superrich but how did the regular working-class guy and gal believe he could improve their lot? Why would some have felt so desperate about their lot in life to attack the Washington Capital or believe the crazy pronouncements of QAnon? Michael Lind, a professor of public affairs at the University of Texas attempts to explain the actions of this disgruntled group in his book, “The New Class War, Saving Democracy from the Managerial Class.” In it, he says that a managerial class emerged with the breakup of the Soviet Union. Without the countervailing force of a communist superpower, the left came to represent social causes such as minority rights rather than the economic i...

Palace intrigue provides a particularly compelling form of story-telling. Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, and Game of Thrones all feature family conflict and a struggle for power as central themes to their stories. Centre to the drama in "Fire and Fury" is Donald Trump as president. All other characters in our story curry favour except that he's like a "Delphic Oracle . . . throwing out prouncements that [have] to be interpreted." On one side of this battle for favour and correct interpretation stand his daughter Ivanka, her husband Jared Kushner and their cronies while Steve Bannon and his allies advance from the other. Except for a few interviews on the his Breitbart show and ten minutes of conversation, Bannon didn’t know Trump at all before the election. He may have been instrumental to Trump becoming president however to think he could win a battle against the Donald's favourite and her husband is a mystery.  It makes me laugh to thin...

Spoils by Brian van Reet - A tremendous achievement 1 2 8 ​ 9 10 11 Normal 12 0 13 14 15 16 17 false 18 false 19 false 20 21 EN-US 22 X-NONE 23 X-NONE 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Post settings Labels Brian van Reet,Iraq War, No matching suggestions Published on 01/08/2017 15:17 Permalink Location Search description Options Settings updated

I’ve found the actions of terrorists both disturbing and confusing. Disturbing for the obvious reason. Confusing in that I don’t understand their motivation. What would lead a person to drive a van down a sidewalk and then jump out and start stabbing random individuals on the street? Or wait outside a concert filled with teenage girls and their moms in anticipation of them leaving en mass and then, blowing yourself up? Or going back to the first major attack on “Western” soil, what would motivate a few young men to fly a plane full of passengers into the World Trade Centre? George W. Bush called them just plain evil and if I believed in evil, then that might be sufficient. But I don’t. So. I wonder. Reza Aslan has written a number of books on religion and the Muslim faith and hosted the show “Believer” on CNN.   Unfortunately, this was recently cancelled after Mr. Aslan described Trump as a “piece of shit” on Twitter following the president’s comments after the Manchester ...