Will Trump Break the Special Forces? The title is almost enough for this to get placed in the Bogus News section. But the actual article is a good run down of a long standing problem.
Trump’s Nuclear Boast Is Obama’s Modernization Plan. This is in the bogus news section for two reasons. The first is that headline is very misleading. Nobody really knows what Trump is referring to. On the other hand, the article does correctly point out that anybody who hyperventilates about Trump wanting to “restart the arms race” without acknowledging that Obama was already planing on spending over a trillion dollars on nuclear weapons is being extremely misleading. In other words, this article is both an example of bogus news (at least in the headline department) and it highlights how others spread bogus news.
Stunned By Trump, The New York Times Finds Time For Some Soul-Searching. I am sure this ex-New York Times reporter has his own ax to grind. But there should be more news stories examining the media and how they decided what stories are worth reporting. It is extremely rare for investigative reporting to be done about the media itself.
It Happens This Fast. Cops get a lot of criticism for being too trigger happy. This may or may not be true depending on what situation we are talking about. But it is worth understanding that regardless if they are right or wrong, cops are paranoid for a reason. They all watch videos like the one in the linked post. The fact that the media hypes the questionable incidents but does not show the times when cops were not paranoid enough gives people a skewed perspective on why cops do what they do. Most people never see stuff like this and don’t understand how fast things can go south and so they judge cops on unrealistic standards.
One other thing this video should teach us is how poorly trained cops are. That is not to say that you should fault the ones in video for getting shot. Unless cops treat everybody extremely harshly regardless of probable cause, this sort of ambush is going to happen. But cops really should have better first aid skills then what was demonstrated in this instance. That is one of the thing you would think all Americans could agree on and support, but like most such things that everyone should agree on, you are never going see a push to train cops properly.
Entertainment of the Day
I am not sure this should really be call entertainment. But if you have never heard of BOPE it is a good (albeit very superficial) introduction. They are famous in certain circles.
In my opinion, Michiel de Ruyter is a better Admiral then the better known Nelson. Granted, he often had the advantage of fighting in his home waters. But Ruyter fought the comparatively competent English where as Nelson fought poorly trained and led French. Anyway, somebody decided to make a movie about Ruyter fighting the English and it looks pretty cool to a history nerd like me. If I had to guess, I would say it is centered around the 4 day battle.
A lot of things don’t look right to me. For one thing, I don’t think that the English wore uniforms at this point in their navy’s history but I am sure the movies makers did that to make it easier to tell who is who. But over all, the clips look like someone trying to do justice to sailing age warfare.
Tech Upgrades Just Aren’t That Great Anymore. Someone more technical then me can correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure the author’s problems with tech upgrades are primarily issues that Apple has created and not problems with the state of technology in general. Granted, faster processor speeds don’t do you much good anymore, but there are lots of other benefits from upgrading if you are not slavishly loyal to Apple.
In The News
Mylan launches EpiPen generic at $300 per two-pack . Only means something if you remember the fuss. But I do find it odd that a company is launching a generic version of its own brand. Why not drop the price of the original?
Shackles and Dollars. In my view, this is a debate that goes back to founding of this country. Southern leaders have always believed that slavery was crucial to the wealth of the entire country and that northern wealth was built on the backs of the south via tariffs and other political tricks. It was felt that if the south withheld cotton the entire industrial world would come to its knees and Europe would be compelled to intervene on the side of the south to bring the cotton back to market. In my opinion, history in the form of the civil war has already empirically demonstrated who was right. And it was the not the people who think that slavery was crucial to America’s wealth.
Fake news: fake boos. The blog post is not bogus, but the false story it is highlighting is. But they took it down when they got found out so I have to link to the blog post.
