Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington:

This report and short video, released in partnership with Brave New Foundation, reveal the extent of the Pentagon’s revolving door phenomenon, in which retired high-ranking generals and admirals cash in on their years of military experience by taking lucrative jobs with the defense industry.
 CREW found 70 percent of the 108 three-and-four star generals and admirals who retired between 2009 and 2011 took jobs with defense contractors or consultants. In at least a few cases, these retirees have continued to advise the Department of Defense — all while on the payroll of the defense industry.

Wikipedia on Molokai.

When the Last Patient Dies by Alia Wong

Not so long ago, people in Hawaii who were diagnosed with leprosy were exiled to an isolated peninsula attached to one of the tiniest and least-populated islands. Details on the history of the colony—known as Kalaupapa—for leprosy patients are murky: Fewer than 1,000 of the tombstones that span across the village’s various cemeteries are marked, many of them having succumbed to weather damage or invasive vegetation. A few have been nearly devoured by trees. But records suggest that at least 8,000 individuals were forcibly removed from their families and relocated to Kalaupapa over a century starting in the 1860s. Almost all of them were Native Hawaiian.

Sixteen of those patients, ages 73 to 92, are still alive. They include six who remain in Kalaupapa voluntarily as full-time residents, even though the quarantine was lifted in 1969—a decade after Hawaii became a state and more than two decades after drugs were developed to treat leprosy, today known as Hansen’s disease. The experience of being exiled was traumatic, as was the heartbreak of abandonment, for both the patients themselves and their family members. Kalaupapa is secluded by towering, treacherous sea cliffs from the rest of Molokai—an island with zero traffic lights that takes pride in its rural seclusion—and accessing it to this day remains difficult. Tourists typically arrive via mule. So why didn’t every remaining patient embrace the new freedom? Why didn’t everyone reconnect with loved ones and revel in the conveniences of civilization? Many of Kalaupapa’s patients forged paradoxical bonds with their isolated world. Many couldn’t bear to leave it. It was “the counterintuitive twinning of loneliness and community,” wrote The New York Times in 2008. “All that dying and all of that living.”

Soccer fans from Dortmund and Wolfsburg were in abundance at the impressive Wintergarten.

kadewe.de.

lebuffet.de.

Notes and links.

Latitude: 20°40’44.16″
Longitude: -156°3’22.37″

Surely old fashioned, yet biweekly, I check the tire pressure on our cars. This being winter, the tires in question are blizzaks.

My club – those who check their tires – is not large [1]. Yet, it is the interloper that is most satisfying.

Recently, it was a fuel truck driver, shivering while disgorging petrol into the nearby underground tanks. He inquired after the reliability and utility of our late model Subaru. I shared positive words, but for the two recalls and a recent hood latch annoyance.

Diving further into autodom, we agreed on the pleasures of German cars as he described two: a VW and BMW. News of his Munich V-8 maintenance costs “we were driving into Chicago….”, included a rather lengthy sigh.

Today’s encounter was deeper and unusually spiritual. Glancing skyward from my pressure gauge, a jet black Ford Mustang gleamed in the afternoon sun. Its owner vigorously wiping fresh soap residue away.

There was more. Fonts and text. Words on the trunk and bumper. A vanity license plate. A sticker facing followers.

I inquired about the car and verses. Why a Mustang?

“It represents Revelation’s black horse, spiritual famine”.

Fascinating.

The two verses featured on her black Mustang are:

Revelation 19:13 [New International King James Martin Luther Commentary]

2 Corinthians 6:17 [New International King James Martin Luther Commentary]

Vanity Plate: Revelation 6:5 [New International King James]

Those interested in a daily verse (5 languages and notifications) might try the new My Verse app.

[1] Tire Pressure Special Study.

[2] 2015 Ford Mustang CAR Magazine and duck duck go

Erika Hall:

Surveys are the most dangerous research tool?—?misunderstood and misused. They frequently straddle the qualitative and quantitative, and at their worst represent the worst of both.
 
 In tort law the attractive nuisance doctrine refers to a hazardous object likely to attract those who are unable to appreciate the risk posed by the object. In the world of design research, surveys can be just such a nuisance.
 
 Easy Feels True
 It is too easy to run a survey. That is why surveys are so dangerous. They are so easy to create and so easy to distribute, and the results are so easy to tally. And our poor human brains are such that information that is easier for us to process and comprehend feels more true. This is our cognitive bias. This ease makes survey results feel true and valid, no matter how false and misleading. And that ease is hard to argue with.

Thorsten Wetzling in Madison [mp3]:

“After two years of “Überwachungsdebatte” (surveillance debate) in Germany and halfway through the NSA-inquiry committee within the German Bundestag, the German government has now begun to discuss ideas on how to reform the current intelligence laws and oversight regime. This discussion sets the scene for understanding post-Snowden, post-Paris intelligence politics in Germany. Next, it introduces the main findings of a recent study on the oversight regime for German SIGINT activities, including its main policy recommendations. Finally, the discussion assesses the future of U.S.-German security cooperation against the backdrop of the Safe Harbor decision of the European Court of Justice.”

I’m glad Wetzling’s schedule included a Madison stop. His talk was an interesting reflection of the post Snowden fallout – from Berlin.

I apologize for the not so great recording quality. The result – from my iPhone – was better than expected.

80MB mp3.

Links:

Thorsten Wetzling.

@twetzling

Finally, thanks to Elizabeth Covington for organizing these events.

Jeffrey Graham, Fidji Simo:

Seventy-three percent of people in the U.S. say their phone is always with them. And nearly half say that they check their phone more than 30 times a day, with that percentage increasing to 62% for millennials, according to research conducted by Facebook.
 
 But people don’t just consume a lot of content on mobile devices throughout the day — they also process it faster. Twitter eye-tracking research has found that across all demographics, people consume content faster on mobile devices than on desktop computers. Facebook testing confirmed this finding: On average, people consume mobile content on Facebook faster than on a desktop (1.7 seconds vs. 2.5 seconds).
 
 Instagram, Twitter and Facebook all also found that scrolling speed varies by age, with younger people moving more quickly through their feeds.
 
 Lightning-fast retention
 Content viewed quickly can still break through and be memorable. Twitter, Instagram and Facebook found that the recall of messages can occur in very short amounts of time — even in the first second.