Gongol.com Archives: December 2016
December 7, 2016
Chinese state media take potshots at Trump
His diplomatic naivete and his bluster are going to combine to make bad things happen. He will be played -- with ease -- by rival powers with strategic foresight and patience. It will be very bad for America.
Parent of a Sandy Hook victim gets death threats because of fake news
The proliferation of stupid, fraudulent, and utterly wrong material on the Internet has caused some non-discerning audience members to lose their minds. One might think that it's time to add "media literacy" to the school curriculum, but the fact is that there are lots and lots of adults who lack the capability to discern between true and false, and there's no hope of putting them into a classrom now. Contributing to the problem is that stripping down content to suit mobile devices takes away a lot of the cues that might tell the reader whether a site is substantive or not.
Should we have infrastructure investment programs?
Yes, if for the sake of the infrastructure itself. No, if it's a make-work ploy. So sayeth the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago -- and he's right. The former, if done right, establishes the foundation for important economic activity and growth elsewhere in the economy. The latter, especially at a time of basically full employment, only serves to inflate costs.
Google Earth now has a time-lapse view
The evolution of the Des Moines metro area over the last 30 years is evident to long-time locals. Also, for whatever amount the area has grown, "urban sprawl" here is hardly a meaningful concern.
Nude selfies as loan collateral in China
In the absence of a properly functioning market for legitimate moneylending, the crooks have moved in
