A Hacker Nearly Poisons a Florida City's Water, MSNBC Calls for Droning Americans, This Could Fix Twitter?!, Tom Brady vs. 1887 Athlete

Hey,

Busy day for me, so let’s get into the news!

[one]

MSNBC casually called to drone American citizens, see the clip here for full context, but this is the meat of it:

There is a persistent threat of domestic terrorism carried out around the belief that the election is fraudulent, that the COVID restrictions are unnecessary…We had a policy of attacking terrorism at it’s root. Of going after and killing with a drone strike for inciting violence, inciting terrorism. We had a policy, and it was very controversial, of attacking terrorism at it’s root. Of going after and killing Americans for inciting terrorism.

First of all, you can’t kill criminals without a trial, and you can’t kill 99.99% of criminals even with a criminal conviction.

I said a decade ago that Obama calling a drone strike on Anwar al-Awaki, a New Mexico born Imam allegedly involved in terrorism, was dangerous precedent. An American President should not play the role of hitman…which was never a question that had to be dealt with until war drones were invented.

al-Awaki shouldn’t have been killed, per Obama’s own policies. The administration promised to never drone an American citizen again after an 8 year old girl died in Yemen from a drone strike a year before Anwar was whacked from the sky.

And then there was the 16 year old kid we blew up in Yemen in 2013 for the crime of…eating at a restaraunt with his friends, who were also torn to bits by a drone missile.

The boy’s grandfather wrote about that one for the New York Times in 2013.

 I LEARNED that my 16-year-old grandson, Abdulrahman — a United States citizen — had been killed by an American drone strike from news reports the morning after he died.

The missile killed him, his teenage cousin and at least five other civilians on Oct. 14, 2011, while the boys were eating dinner at an open-air restaurant in southern Yemen.

I visited the site later, once I was able to bear the pain of seeing where he sat in his final moments. Local residents told me his body was blown to pieces. They showed me the grave where they buried his remains. I stood over it, asking why my grandchild was dead.

Nearly two years later, I still have no answers. The United States government has refused to explain why Abdulrahman was killed. It was not until May of this year that the Obama administration, in a supposed effort to be more transparent, publicly acknowledged what the world already knew — that it was responsible for his death.

[two]

Most of the stuff in the news doesn’t matter (the Gorilla Glue hair lady, for example). Meanwhile, attacks on our infrastructure go largely un-reported by the mainstream media.

This one is terrifying. STL Today reports:

A hacker gained entry to the system controlling the water treatment plant of a Florida city of 15,000 and tried to taint the water supply with a caustic chemical, exposing a danger cybersecurity experts say has grown as systems become both more computerized and accessible via the internet.

The hacker who breached the system at the city of Oldsmar's water treatment plant on Friday using a remote access program shared by plant workers briefly increased the amount of sodium hydroxide by a factor of one hundred (from 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts per million), Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during a news conference Monday.

Sodium hydroxide, also called lye, is used to treat water acidity but the compound is also found in cleaning supplies such as soaps and drain cleaners. It can cause irritation, burns and other complications in larger quantities.

Fortunately, a supervisor saw the chemical being tampered with — as a mouse controlled by the intruder moved across the screen changing settings — and was able to intervene and immediately reverse it, Gualtieri said. Oldsmar is about 15 miles (25 kilometers) northwest of Tampa.

In 2019, hackers (most likely Russian) hacked the power grid in the Western United States. The hackers weren’t able to shut off power to any homes or businesses, but it happened.

You know what’s a heck of a lot scarier than your credit card getting stolen? Your city’s power getting shut off and your water poisoned.

Just because you’re not heading into the back country for an elk hunt doesn’t mean you don’t need water purification on hand in a pinch.

Today would be a good day to pick up a few filter straws, which will allow you to safely drink from the world’s dirtiest river. For $30 for a 4 pack (on sale on Amazon) I’d reccomend having a couple at home/in your vehicle. [Note: NOT an affiliate link…I only feature product I believe in/use].

[three]

This is an excellent take from Scott Galloway on how to save the dumpster fire that is Twitter:

A subscription model would also orient Twitter around its users (rather than its advertisers) and incentivize the company to improve its product. For example, it could provide creators with tools to capitalize on their influence, something an annual development budget of roughly 800 million has thus far failed to accomplish. As a result, other platforms have moved in, such as Substack and Clubhouse.

A payment system is another obvious innovation for Twitter. Recently, Clubhouse announced it would be adding payment processing, and TikTok said it had formed a partnership with Shopify that will eventually allow merchants to sell products directly through the app. Why hasn’t Twitter done this? For one thing, its CEO also happens to be the CEO of a payments company, Square, where roughly 90 percent of Jack Dorsey's wealth resides. This fact highlights not only a distraction, but also a conflict of interest. 

As it builds a business around its users, Twitter should acquire or create its own content. Both Spotify and Netflix’s stocks accelerated once they began investing in their own programming. Twitter is already a destination for news and entertainment content, and if it added its own vertical — high-quality political journalism, for example — it could establish itself as the first truly hybrid social platform, blending user-generated and exclusive material. The company has dipped its toe into these waters before: It aired NFL games in 2016 and pursued a broader array of partnerships with Disney in a 2018 deal. Unfortunately, as investors have come to expect from Twitter, these forays have gone nowhere.

Twitter is using losers pretty quickly now that Trump isn’t around to create topics for debate. I’ve met some of the best people (and clients) on Twitter.

[four]

A 116 year old nun in France, who’s lived through both World Wars, has officially beaten COVID.

USA Today Reports:

French media report that Sister André tested positive for the virus in mid-January in the southern French city of Toulon. But just three weeks later, the nun is considered recovered. 

"I didn't even realize I had it," she told French newspaper Var-Matin. 

Sister André, who is blind and uses a wheelchair, did not even worry when she received her diagnosis. 

"She didn't ask me about her health, but about her habits," David Tavella, the communications manager for the care home where the nun, told the newspaper. "For example, she wanted to know if meal or bedtime schedules would change. She showed no fear of the disease. On the other hand, she was very concerned about the other residents."

Not all of the home's residents shared Sister André's luck. In January, 81 of the 88 residents tested positive for the virus, and about 10 of them died, according to Var-Matin. 

Once doctors declared the nun no longer infected, she was allowed to attend Mass.

[five]

Tom Brady’s 10th trip to the Super Bowl (and seventh win) in 21 years, was a feat to behold. Brady is the greatest modern football player, but as a pure athlete even he can’t stack up to the (largely forgotten) Jim Thorpe who was born in 1887 in Oklahoma Indian Territory (or around there, he has no birth certificate). z

Thorpe made a tear through athletics in the early 1900’s that included:

--An Olympic Gold Medalist.

--Pro baseball player

--Pro football player

--record setting high jumper

--lacrosse champion

--ballroom dancing champion (not even kidding)

Oh, and the 1912 Olympic Games where he brought home the gold in Decathalon?

He also competed in baseball. An Olympian in two completely different sports.

It was nearly three, as Thorpe came in 2nd in the American trials for the javelin throw. He stood still and threw, because no one told him he could have a running start.

Sorry Jordan, Brady, Tiger, etc.

There’s only one GOAT (greatest of all time).

He was just born too early to get the proper credit.

Until the next one,

-sth