https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/

WOW. Some random quotes:

«U.S. officials were even more alarmed when Wagner hired a gifted electrical engineer in 1978 named Mengia Caflisch. She had spent several years in the United States working as a radio-astronomy researcher for the University of Maryland before returning to her native Switzerland and applying for a job at Crypto. Wagner jumped at the chance to hire her. But NSA officials immediately raised concerns that she was “too bright to remain unwitting.”

The warning proved prescient as Caflisch soon began probing the vulnerabilities of the company’s products.

….

To the CIA, Widman had an even more important attribute: an affinity for the United States that he had formed while spending a year in Washington state as an exchange student.»

UNICEF has a massive data set: https://globalnutritionreport.org/reports/global-nutrition-report-2018/dataset-and-metadata/

WHO has a list of other health issues associated with malnutrition: https://www.who.int/emergencies/famine/en/ (scroll down to “Diseases in famine”).

Some random guy has a pretty map: https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrition/by-country/

I’m really surprised to see the U.S.’s position in the death-due-to-malnutrition ranking on the map site. But I wonder… how good is the map’s data, and where is a map of the UNICEF data? Stupid web.

Some conservatives (sometimes me, too, in the past) state that wealth and income inequality are irrelevant because, of course, in the world’s wealthiest countries, some folks are going to be extremely wealthy but the folks at the other end of the scale are just fine, so the inequality is a false issue.

Except… it’s not.

(And I wonder what the racial makeup of the folks starving to death is. I have a feeling….)

Ok, so… I just went WAY out of my comfort zone and called a bunch of random people in New Hampshire (from North Carolina), most of whom hung up on me, some of whom were hostile and one awesome @ewarren supporter. I want my gold star. And music, but I don’t know if I want pounding industrial or lounge.

https://twitter.com/Greg_Palast/status/1226570304387870720?s=20

Seems like Dem voter education should include “how to fill out a provisional ballot”.

Greg Palast (@Greg_Palast) Tweeted:
BREAKING: In an extraordinary move, Judge Eleanor Ross has declared #BrianKemp the loser in a lawsuit brought by our team to compel the State of #Georgia to open up its complete files on the mass purge of over half a million voters from the rolls.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/7/21123518/trump-2020-election-democratic-party-james-carville

I agree. I said something about coattails earlier.

«there’s no chance in hell we’ll ever win the Senate with Sanders at the top of the party defining it for the public. Eighteen percent of the country elects more than half of our senators. That’s the deal, fair or not.

So long as [Mitch] McConnell runs the Senate, it’s game over. There’s no chance we’ll change the courts, and nothing will happen, and he’ll just be sitting up there screaming in the microphone about the revolution.»

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/us/politics/iowa-caucus-problems.html

“Real” Americans.

«Besides an untested, buggy smartphone app that was used for the first time, a backup hotline number for caucus organizers to call in results was flooded with nuisance calls after the number was disseminated on social media, party leaders said.

“All the Trump people from around the country started calling and tearing everybody a new one,” Ken Sager, the Iowa Democratic Party treasurer, told members of the party’s central committee on the 1 hour 20 minute call.

There were 85 phone lines to take calls at the party headquarters in Des Moines, said Kevin Geiken, the party’s executive director. But caucus chairs faced long wait times “because of the excessive calls we were getting” and because the legitimate calls to report results each took about five minutes, twice as long as in a dry run.»

https://twitter.com/mikefarb1/status/1224973677768384512?s=20

Somebody is really, really mad, and they have a good point:

MikeFarb (@mikefarb1) Tweeted:
Ron Wydens team was concerned enough to reach out to them 3 times to no avail! Really? Now Nevada next up to use this App has announced they will seek out another App to use. They are going to find, test, train, roll out and use this in a couple of weeks? Fantastic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/04/my-chaotic-infuriating-night-running-an-iowa-caucus/

Seriously, if Gramma can’t use the software, you really need a viable alternative.

Same for church websites, btw.

«You had to fill out a survey, which then got you a link, and then you had to download a different app, and enter in a code from your email, and then you would get the real app. This was meant to keep everything secure. But we have caucus chairs who need their grandkids to program their DVRs, and the training for the caucus chairs hadn’t included any guidance. The party didn’t really roll out the app so much as drop it on the doorstep.»

https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/upstate-gop-leaders-plotting-to-impact-sc-democratic-primary-by/article_f1e7abd2-4788-11ea-aa9f-33a1d262994c.html

CLOSE THE PRIMARIES.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/how-trolls-locked-my-twitter-account-for-10-days-and-welp

So. Now that political season is upon us full force, I have decided that I’m going to start reporting Twitter (and other?) accounts that seem to me to just be divisive trolls or bots. If your posts are all cute animal videos and you show up with a value-free tweet like “moderates can’t support Bernie” designed to elicit engagement, I’m reporting you as spam, fake account.

I guess the defense will be to try to get ME suspended or locked out or something. Or maybe Twitter will decide I’M a bot. Oh well. I’ll be over on my blog, posting away.