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News Burst: September 07, 2017 (Patreon)
Content
I hope you are all doing splendidly, and that tonight’s News Burst finds you well.
First and foremost, if you missed the note I shot through last night -- which was affixed to the audio version of Episode 42 here on Patreon -- I posted this week’s News Burst today (Thursday) instead of when it usually goes live (Wednesday) because I didn’t want to have any overlap with this week’s only video.
Secondly, thank you all so much for the kind feedback on the first episode of Colin’s Last Stand: Fireside Chats! It’s going to be rolling out to a wide audience tomorrow, but fear not: Episode 2 will be going live Tuesday, if all goes according to plan (and I think that it will).
Thirdly (?!)... actually, there is no thirdly. Let’s jump into the news!
5.) NFL Kickoff
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The NFL season begins today, with America’s most popular sports league set to hype everyone up and pull millions out of the doldrums of the post-Labor Day Blues. First and foremost, as I’m sure most of you know, I’m a gigantic football fan. Yes, the Jets are terrible, but they almost always are, and I haven’t missed a Jets game in many years, so I’ll be watching all 16 of them this season, per usual. But apart from that, I love what this sport represents here in the United States… or at least, what it usually represents. It’s a good reason for us to throw our politics aside, overcome all that divides us, and unite on something anyone could love. Plus, we can all talk copious amounts of shit about Roger Goodell, which is a nearly universal and beloved past time.
The reason I wanted to throw this into the top of the News Burst, however, was for a different reason, a reason that, well, goes against what I just suggested, about the NFL’s political agnosticism. For as politically neutral as the NFL is -- or at least should be -- and for as unpolitical as the game of football appears in a vacuum, the NFL has increasingly become over-politicized. Colin Kaepernick is obviously the single biggest example of that (link below), but there are other notable examples, as well. What reportedly (or apparently, really) went down with Michael Bennett in Las Vegas recently is another example of politics at play, specifically racial politics (link below).
My hope for this NFL season is tranquility, and tons of good games (did you notice how fucking atrocious nearly every single primetime game was last year?). But I have this foreboding sense that we’re going to be in for a few surprises this year. As QBs inevitably go down, Kaepernick’s name will be thrown around. The Bennett situation will continue to unfold. And other points of drama will present themselves, as well. My brief take on all of this, collectively? The NFL has lifted thousands of black people into the upper class over the last six-plus decades, and has easily been the most racially progressive pro sports league in American history. Football helped many communities bridge the racial divide. I think there’s a lot of projection going around on this issue, specifically with Kaepernick. There are 32 NFL coaches that would give their left testicle to win a Super Bowl; if Kaepernick could help, he’d be on a team. Trust me.
Related Story | Colin Kaepernick Shows the Power of NFL Players: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/09/07/colin-kaepernick-has-done-more-than-make-a-statement-he-has-shown-nfl-players-their-power/
Related Story | Las Vegas Police Vociferously Deny Michael Bennett’s Accusations: https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/vegas-pd-asks-nfl-to-investigate-michael-bennett-for-obvious-false-allegations/
4.) Equifax Breach
Good news! What could potentially turn into one of the most catastrophic data breaches in American history occurred in late July, and half of all Americans -- literally half -- are likely affected. The massive credit firm Equifax announced just today essential information involving 143 million Americans may have been lost to an unknown actor (or actors) in a data breach. Equifax referred to the breachers acquiring “certain files,” and that names, dates of birth, addresses, license numbers, and -- most horrifically, by far -- social security numbers were taken. So, that’s fantastic news for everyone who has ever used Equifax, which, again, is a majority of the adult population of the United States. (Consumers in Canada and the UK were also affected, though to what extent remains unclear.)
There’s something truly screwed about this situation, though, something that Bloomberg uncovered in the wake of this news: At least three executives at Equifax unloaded their stock in between the discovery of the breach in late July and the reveal of the breach about a week later (link below). Between the three “senior executives,” around $1.8 million of Equifax stock was sold by August 2nd. If this sounds fishy, it’s likely because it almost certainly is. These guys would almost certainly have been privy to the information that would send Equifax’s reputation (and, in turn, its stock) ever-downward. And the stock has taken a bit of a beating today -- for painfully obvious reasons -- going down nearly 15% in a day.
Whether or not the breach is as serious as it seems, and whether or not Equifax ever recovers is one thing. The more important thing here is how careless we ultimately are with our data, and out susceptible we are to companies losing that data in a breach. Losing social security numbers is horrific; losing them batched with all of the other information needed to, say, take out fraudulent credit cards is something else entirely. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, because it’s as clear to me as the day is long that no company -- not one -- is ultimately safe from this sort of thing: Just imagine what would happen if Google was hacked, or your bank, or a massive government agency like the IRS? I don’t believe for one second it’s impossible, or anywhere close to it. We all need to be more careful and more scrupulous.
Related Story | Three Equifax Executives Unload Stock After Breach: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-07/three-equifax-executives-sold-stock-before-revealing-cyber-hack
3.) The Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey
https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/tropical-storm-harvey-forecast-texas-louisiana-arkansas
Hurricane Harvey was a horrific storm that did awful damage to the eastern Gulf coast of Texas, as well as parts of other states, including Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, and elsewhere. It was, when studied in an isolated fashion, a major storm, and an historic storm, too. Could you believe that, before Harvey hit the US, there hadn’t been a Category 3+ hurricane that had made landfall since way back in 2005? And now (as you’ll see in the number one story), we’re about to get slammed with another one, one that is somehow looking to be even worse than Harvey. Harvey’s wind wasn’t the problem, though. It was the rainfall. Tons and tons of rainfall, that made it the rainiest (for lack of a better term) hurricane in American history.
As a result, nearly 20,000 people needed to be rescued at some point, in some way from the storm. Tens of thousands of people lost their homes completely, while hundreds of thousands of others had their homes somehow affected, whether by flooding, wind damage, property damage, all of the above, or other issues entirely. One of the most memorable parts of the storm for me, both as it was happening and in the aftermath, was an interview I saw with Texas Governor Greg Abbott, in which he noted that the American people need to start wrapping their heads around the fact that, all told, this storm was worse than Katrina, bigger than Katrina, displaced more people than Katrina, and killed a lot of people, too. And, as such, it’s going to cost more than Katrina cost. We’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. As the attached story notes (link below), insurance claims alone, had the storm been weaker, would have likely amounted to perhaps $25 billion, only in Texas. Obviously, claims will be higher… and then there are all of the people who didn’t have insurance. All of the people who may need to be cared for for years. And a ton of municipal damage will need to be repaired, too.
One thing I’ll say is that it seems like the government was prepared, and did what they could. But without the incredibly giving and generous nature of the American people, who donated food, water, clothing, fuel, an enormous amount of money, and even their own boats and bodies to conduct search and rescue operations, as well as myriad public and private organizations and charities, this could have been far, far worse. We learned a thing or two from Katrina, that storm’s aftermath, and the federal government’s inept response to it, and if we can find a slight silver lining to the Harvey cloud, I think that might be it. Bad news, though: FEMA spent a ton of money on Harvey, and with Irma barreling down on Florida, it’s just about out of money (link below).
Related Story | Harvey’s Total Cost: http://www.newsweek.com/how-much-will-hurricane-harvey-cost-656333
Related Story | FEMA Is Nearly Broke: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-05/fema-is-almost-out-of-money-as-hurricane-irma-threatens-florida
2.) North Korea’s Hydrogen Bomb
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/03/asia/hydrogen-bomb-north-korea-explainer/index.html
During last week’s News Burst, we discussed how North Korea was getting bolder and bolder with its missile program, shooting a test missile over Japan as it further hones its nascent ICBM program. Once North Korea has a working and functional ICBM, it’ll theoretically be able to deliver a nuclear warhead to the American mainland in under an hour, from launch to collision. Obviously, our allies far nearer to the Hermit Kingdom -- Japan and South Korea -- can be bombed without any reasonable response to be expected whatsoever. Well, now it looks like they conducted another nuclear test, but this one is no ordinary test. It’s not at all like the other bombs they’ve tested since 2009.
Since 2009, North Korea has tested six bombs. Five of them seemed to be somewhat underwhelming; we can garner their strength by the force of the underground explosions as felt by earthquake-detecting equipment in Korea, China, and the Pacific. This newest explosion, though, created a 6.3 earthquake on the Richter Scale, and appears to fall in line with a terrible development: It looks as if the North Koreans have detonated their first hydrogen bomb. The other five bombs the North Koreans detonated had relatively tiny yields, no larger than the bombs the US dropped on Japan in 1945. This new bomb yielded a reported explosion around 12 times more powerful than their fifth nuclear test in September of 2016.
This is a situation worth keeping an eye on, because it appears to be escalating rather significantly. And, as I outlined in a recent video on North Korea (link below), our hands are tied, unless we really want to pull off a major gambit with an unknown outcome. The fact is, any preemptive or retaliatory strike on North Korea, whether conventional or nuclear (the latter would obviously not happen in a preemptive strike) will likely be met with force by North Korea. We’d ultimately win, but who knows what would happen in between the initiation of hostilities and when the smoke cleared? North Korea knows this, which is why they’re acting so aggressively. My solution? A complete economic embargo. Surround North Korea with American warships, and make sure nothing gets in or out.
Related Video | North Korea’s A Problem With No Solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxBBYF7OqqA
1.) Hurricane Irma
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at1.shtml?cone
Just as we’ve caught our collective breath with Hurricane Harvey and the complete devastation it caused, we now have to deal with a storm that appears like it might even end up being worse. Hurricane Irma, an absolutely gigantic storm, has been ripping through Caribbean islands over the last 36 hours as it makes a northwesterly arc towards Florida. The first island Irma struck and devastated was Barbuda, where 185 mile per hour winds -- yes, 185 miles per hour -- apparently left nine out of 10 structures there leveled. Could you imagine that kind of force? You probably could; there are terrifying videos all over the Internet that could show you everything, and more. A lot of it isn’t easy to watch, that’s for sure. Sadly, at least 10 people have already been killed by the storm, as it leaves the likes of Anguilla and St. Martin in its wake.
Thankfully, the first American territory in Irma’s path -- Puerto Rico -- survived relatively intact, with power outages the major story there. By this weekend, though, it’ll strike Miami and other parts of south Florida. And it’s anyone’s guess what kind of damage it’ll be capable of doing once it arrives, though projections currently state that the storm will be a Category 4 hurricane when it makes landfall on the United States homeland. As always, meteorology is an inexact science; we’ll need to wait and see how this all plays out, but it’s definitely not looking good.
I think one of the big things we (at least as a community) should begin to discuss is what global warming’s effect is on these powerful storms. Listen: I know weather is cyclical, I understand that there have been worse storms, I understand that we only have a few hundreds years of any sort of records, and really only a century’s worth of fully reliable records. But something is absolutely amiss with what’s going on here. Harvey, then this, back-to-back? A storm like this, that is one of the most powerful storms in recorded history? I dunno, fam. Things are getting serious. But ultimately, that’s neither here nor there. I’m keeping everyone in the storm’s path in my thoughts.
Related Story | An Irma Breakdown: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/us/irma-florida-coverage.html
Related Story | Hurricane Jose Right Behind Irma; Katia Also Primed to do Damage: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/349726-hurricane-jose-upgraded-to-category-3-storm