The Daily Parker

Today might be the last hot day of the year in Chicago. (I hope so, anyway.) While watching the cold front come through out my office window, with the much-needed rain ahead of it, I have lined up some news stories to read later today:

• My alderman got attacked on Saturday a couple blocks from my house by a well-known local vagrant.
• Josh Marshall believes US Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) has no plans to run for re-election.
• In related news, CNN explains what happens to all the rats when a hurricane squishes through New York.
• Once again, Netflix and the other streaming services won most of last night's Emmys.

And finally, Metallica has an unexpected show tonight at Metro Chicago, about two kilometers from my house. Tickets are $20. I hope people show up for my board meeting tonight.

Stories from the usual suspects:

• Sweden's Prime Minister abruptly resigned Sunday, saying it's for the benefit of his center-left party.
• Following Andrew Cuomo's resignation, Kathy Hochul became the first female governor of New York State this morning just after midnight.
• The Capitol Police have cleared the unnamed officer who shot domestic terrorist Ashli Babbit as she tried to force her way into the Speaker's Lobby on January 6th, adding that the shooting likely saved many other lives.
• Economist Paul Krugman credits the pandemic for showing low-wage workers, particularly in the leisure and hospitality industry, they're worth more than they were paid in the past. (In other words, we should call the "labor shortage" by the more correct term "market forces" instead.)
• Josh Marshall once again points out that the evacuation from Kabul, while appearing chaotic, has actually been very successful.
• Jordan Michael Smith asks, "Twenty years after 9/11, are we any smarter?"
• Sarah Zhang frets about the new school year and hopes it won't go as badly as last year.

Finally, Whisky Advocate calls out a few lesser-known distilleries in Scotland worth visiting—or at least sampling.

Eric Schnurer outlines the alarming similarities between our present and Rome's past; specifically, the end of the Republic in 54 BCE:

History isn’t destiny, of course; the demise of the Roman Republic is a point of comparison—not prediction. But the accelerating comparisons nonetheless beg the question: If one were to make a prediction, what comes next? What might signal the end of democracy as we know it?  There is, it turns out, an easy answer at hand.

While there is no precise end date to the Republic, there was a bright-line occurrence generally recognized as the irreversible beginning of the end for participatory government. In fact, it is such a bright line that the event itself has become universally synonymous with “point-of-no-return”: Julius Caesar’s crossing of the river Rubicon.

And there is indeed an event looming—probably before the end of this year— that poses almost precisely the same situation as what provoked Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon: the possible indictment of former president Donald J. Trump.

When Trump’s supporters urge him to cross the Rubicon and cast the die—events that become highly likely if he, like Caesar, faces indictment—that is what they contemplate.

Well, at least the fall of the Republic will probably work out OK for urban areas...maybe...

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his resignation this morning:

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said Tuesday he would resign from office, succumbing to a ballooning sexual harassment scandal that fueled an astonishing reversal of fortune for one of the nation’s best-known leaders.

Mr. Cuomo said his resignation would take effect in 14 days. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, will be sworn in to replace him.

“Given the circumstances, the best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to governing,” Mr. Cuomo said from his office in Manhattan. “And therefore that’s what I’ll do.”

The resignation of Mr. Cuomo, a three-term Democrat, came a week after a report from the New York State attorney general concluded that the governor sexually harassed nearly a dozen women, including current and former government workers, by engaging in unwanted touching and making inappropriate comments. The 165-page report also found that Mr. Cuomo and his aides unlawfully retaliated against at least one of the women for making her complaints public and fostered a toxic work environment.

Good. He needs to go. And yes, I am happy that my party threw the book at one of our own. We hold ourselves accountable, unlike the other guys.

But that's not all the Democratic Party did today. We also passed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill in the Senate with the support of nine Republicans:

The 69-to-30 vote follows weeks of turbulent private talks and fierce public debates that sometimes teetered on collapse, as the White House labored alongside Democrats and Republicans to achieve the sort of deal that had eluded them for years. Even though the proposal must still clear the House, where some Democrats recently have raised concerns the measure falls short of what they seek, the Senate outcome moves the bill one step closer to delivering President Biden his first major bipartisan win.

The bill proposes more than $110 billion to replace and repair roads, bridges and highways, and $66 billion to boost passenger and freight rail. That transit investment marks the most significant infusion of cash in the country’s railways since the creation of Amtrak about half a century ago, the White House said.

The infrastructure plan includes an additional $55 billion to address lingering issues in the U.S. water supply, such as an effort to replace every lead pipe in the nation. It allocates $65 billion to modernize the country’s power grid. And it devotes billions in additional sums to rehabilitating waterways, improving airports and expanding broadband Internet service, particularly after a pandemic that forced Americans to conduct much of their lives online.

If this bill becomes law, it's possible that within my lifetime the United States could have the same quality of roads, bridges, and trains that Western Europe has today. (NB: I expect to live at least another 50 years.)

Meanwhile, as if to underscore this week's IPCC report, the dewpoint outside my window right now has almost reached 26°C, giving us a delightful heat index of 38.7°C. Even Cassie didn't want to be outside for her lunchtime walk.

Update: the 2pm readings at O'Hare show even lovelier weather: temperature 33°, dewpoint 25°C, heat index 40.4°C. Bleah.

Yesterday, Boston University clinical journalism instructor and WGBH-Boston reporter Jenifer McKim presented a story on NPR's Morning Edition about Grindr, the gay dating app. NPR's Steve Inskeep introduced the story by saying "the dating app Grindr is a popular site for men seeking other men. It's also used by underage boys, which can put them at risk of sexual exploitation and trafficking."

Between that introduction and the body of the story, I got pretty steamed. This morning I sent the following comment to NPR:

I have serious problems with the way Jenifer McKim presented this story. Principally, despite the quote from Jack Turban that "gay people aren't more likely to be sexual predators than straight people," the story heavily implies the opposite. McKim's bookending the story with quotes from assault victim German Chavez sets it up as a story about abused children, strongly implying that gay dating app Grindr is to blame (and also implying that gay men are to blame). Yet Chavez admitted that he lied about his age to circumvent Grindr's age policy, and Kathryn Macpagal even says "there aren't a lot of spaces for LGBT teens online to make friends." It seems that the problem is a lack of safe spaces for gay teens, not an app explicitly marketed to adults with strictly enforced age policies.

Further, in the graf immediately following that quote from Macpagal, McKim blows all the homophobic dog whistles, saying "over 100 men...includ[ing] police officers, priests and teachers" have "faced charges...related to sexually assaulting or attempting to meet minors for sex on Grindr." This is exactly the language that conservative groups use to vilify gays and dating apps in general.

Of course I am not downplaying the harms of sexual assault and predation on minors. But I think McKim had an obligation to put the incidence of those harms in proper context. Start with the proportion of one hundred men out of millions of Grindr users. Of the 100, how many were "police officers, priests and teachers?" How many were journalists or BU professors? How many were convicted? In how many cases was it determined that the minors in question lied about their ages? Did Grindr cooperate with the investigations? What proportion of the cases were assaults, and what proportion were "attempt[s] to meet minors?" And what proportion of Tinder users, or OKCupid users, or FarmersD users for that matter, were police, priests, or teachers (assuming McKim meant "or" and meant to include the Oxford comma) accused of crimes against children directly related to their use of the app?

I applaud McKim's ongoing efforts to protect children. But the structure, presentation, and tone of her story yesterday did not live up to the standards for accuracy and against sensationalism that I expect from NPR or WGBH-Boston.

I'll post any reply from NPR, WGBH, or McKim that I receive.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James released a report yesterday that alleges New York Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed at least 11 women, including a New York State Police trooper assigned to his protective detail:

The report, released by the attorney general, Letitia James, and the announcement from the Albany County prosecutor, Kevin Soares, endangered Mr. Cuomo’s political future while also placing him in legal jeopardy.

“Governor Cuomo sexually harassed current and former state employees in violation of both federal and state laws,” Ms. James said, adding that the governor’s administration had “fostered a toxic workplace” in which staffers suppressed complaints because of a “climate of fear.”

Shortly after the report was released, Mr. Soares issued a statement saying that his office was conducting an investigation into Mr. Cuomo’s behavior and that it would be requesting investigative materials that the attorney general’s office had obtained. Mr. Soares encouraged other victims to come forward to aid in the inquiry.

President Biden has called on Cuomo to resign, as has US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). The State Assembly Speaker has opened an impeachment inquiry. I don't expect Cuomo to remain in office past the end of this month, but like other malignant narcissists I could mention, he may not understand that he's done.

Note that all the people I mentioned in this post are Democrats, from the President on down. I'm glad that my party finally wants to get rid of this asshole, and frustrated it took so long. But at least we ultimately do the right thing.

Via Bruce Schneier, Motherboard got ahold of a pair of Anom phones, which the FBI and Australian Federal Police used to take down a bunch of criminal networks earlier this year:

Motherboard has obtained and analyzed an Anom phone from a source who unknowingly bought one on a classified ads site. On that site, the phone was advertised as just a cheap Android device. But when the person received it, they realized it wasn't an ordinary phone, and after being contacted by Motherboard, found that it contained the secret Anom app.

After the FBI announced the Anom operation, some Anom users have scrambled to get rid of their device, including selling it to unsuspecting people online. The person Motherboard obtained the phone from was in Australia, where authorities initially spread the Anom devices as a pilot before expanding into other countries. They said they contacted the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in case the phone or the person who sold it was of interest to them; when the AFP didn't follow up, the person agreed to sell the phone to Motherboard for the same price they paid. They said they originally bought it from a site similar to Craigslist.

Anom started when an FBI confidential human source (CHS), who had previously sold devices from Phantom Secure and another firm called Sky Global, was developing their own product. The CHS then "offered this next generation device, named 'Anom,' to the FBI to use in ongoing and new investigations," court documents read.

In June the FBI and its law enforcement partners in Australia and Europe announced over 800 arrests after they had surreptitiously been listening in on Anom users' messages for years. In all, authorities obtained over 27 million messages from over 11,800 devices running the Anom software in more than 100 countries by silently adding an extra encryption key which allowed agencies to read a copy of the messages. People allegedly smuggling cocaine hidden inside cans of tuna, hollowed out pineapples, and even diplomatic pouches all used Anom to coordinate their large-scale trafficking operations, according to court documents.

That's some cool and scary shit. I'm glad they got all those criminals, but what happens when the people targeted are political dissidents? As Schneier has discussed at length, there is no such thing as a zero-trust environment.

After Fox network blowhard Tucker Carlson whined that the National Security Agency, the US intelligence service tasked with spying on communications outside the US, had tapped his phones, the agency clapped back on Twitter:

TPM's Cristina Cabrera reports, "Carlson doubled down on his accusation shortly afterward on his program, saying the NSA’s statement 'an entire paragraph of lies written purely for the benefit of the intel community’s lackeys at CNN and MSNBC.'"

The NSA is just having a bit of sport with Carlson, but one can't know for sure. First, the NSA would never admit to spying on anyone. But second, even if the NSA were spying on him, wouldn't Carlson want to know which overseas friend of his would have attracted the agency's attention, and why?

In related news, the Manhattan District Attorney appears ready to charge the Trump Organization and its CFO with tax crimes tomorrow morning. Stay tuned!

Oh, to be a dog. Cassie is sleeping comfortably on her bed in my office after having over an hour of walks (including 20 minutes at the dog park) so far today. Meanwhile, at work we resumed using a bit of code that we put on ice for a while, and I promptly discovered four bugs. I've spent the afternoon listening to Cassie snore and swatting the first one.

Meanwhile, in the outside world, life continues:

• Ukrainian police arrested members of the Cl0p ransomware gang, seizing money and cars along with the cybercriminals.
• Amtrak, the US passenger rail network, plans to expand its service over the next few years, for example by going to places that people want to go. (Sure, Las Cruces, N.M., might be a wonderful tourist destination, but why doesn't the train go to Las Vegas too?)
• Astronomer Seth Shostak, who works on SETI, expects any aliens who visit us to have non-biological forms, while physicist Mark Buchanan tells SETI to stop trying to contact them in the first place because they'll kill us all.
• Scientists have found that a Korean War-era technique of reading weather data could reduce contrails by 50% or more.
• On this day in 1858, Abraham Lincoln addressed the Illinois Republican Convention, saying "a house divided against itself cannot stand."
• Whiskey Advocate explains how to "build your best Old Fashioned."

And right by my house, TimeLine Theater plans to renovate a dilapidated warehouse to create a new theater space and cultural center, while a 98-year-old hardware store by Wrigley Field will soon become apartments.

I spent the morning unsuccessfully trying to get a .NET 5 Blazor WebAssembly app to behave with an Azure App Registration, and part of the afternoon doing a friend's taxes. Yes, I preferred doing the taxes, because I got my friend a pile of good news without having to read sixty contradictory pages of documentation.

I also became aware of the following:

• The FBI and Australian police completely pwned hundreds of criminals through a black-market "encrypted" cell phone app that they wrote and monitored, in one of the biggest sting operations in world history.
• Sue Halpern raises the alarm about Texas' and Arizona's unprecedented legislative attacks on election systems.
• El Salvador now accepts Bitcoin as legal tender, taking the question "what could possibly go wrong?" into new and frightening territory.
• "Ask the Pilot" Patrick Smith cannot figure out how United Airlines will make money with the Boom SSTs it just announced.
• As part of its $2.7 billion Red Line improvement project, the Chicago Transit Authority has agreed not to demolish a 127-year-old apartment building in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood, and instead will move it about 10 meters to the southwest to make room for track improvements.
• Illinois has created a high-speed rail commission to study, among other things, a $20-billion, 350 km/h high speed line between Chicago and St Louis.
• As it legally must, the Treasury Dept. will investigate how ProPublica got its hands on the private tax information it reported on last week.

Tomorrow morning, I promise to make my WebAssembly app talk to our Azure Active Directory. Right now, I think someone needs a walk.