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03 Feb 08:14

20-point guide to defending democracy under a Trump presidency

by Mark Frauenfelder

Timothy Snyder is the Housum Professor of History at Yale University and author of Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning. He wrote a 20-point guide to defending democracy under a Trump presidency.

5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.
When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don’t fall for it.

5. Establish a private life.
Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.

17. Watch out for the paramilitaries.
When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.

By Unknown - Item from Record Group 208: Records of the Office of War Information, 1926 - 1951This media is available in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration, cataloged under the ARC Identifier (National Archives Identifier) 535790.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information.English | Español | Français | Italiano | Македонски | മലയാളം | Nederlands | Polski | Português | Русский | Slovenščina | Türkçe | Українська | Tiếng Việt | 中文(简体) | 中文(繁體) | +/−, Public Domain, Link

01 Feb 21:02

How to cover news in a media-hostile environment

by Tim Carmody

Reuters editor-in-chief Steve Adler wrote a message to staff called “Covering Trump the Reuters Way.” After noting that “Reuters is a global news organization that reports independently and fairly in more than 100 countries, including many in which the media is unwelcome and frequently under attack,” he lays down some do’s and do-not-do’s1:

Do’s:

—Cover what matters in people’s lives and provide them the facts they need to make better decisions.

—Become ever-more resourceful: If one door to information closes, open another one.

—Give up on hand-outs and worry less about official access. They were never all that valuable anyway. Our coverage of Iran has been outstanding, and we have virtually no official access. What we have are sources.

—Get out into the country and learn more about how people live, what they think, what helps and hurts them, and how the government and its actions appear to them, not to us.

—Keep the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles close at hand, remembering that “the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved.”

Don’ts:

—Never be intimidated, but:

—Don’t pick unnecessary fights or make the story about us. We may care about the inside baseball but the public generally doesn’t and might not be on our side even if it did.

—Don’t vent publicly about what might be understandable day-to-day frustration. In countless other countries, we keep our own counsel so we can do our reporting without being suspected of personal animus. We need to do that in the U.S., too.

—Don’t take too dark a view of the reporting environment: It’s an opportunity for us to practice the skills we’ve learned in much tougher places around the world and to lead by example - and therefore to provide the freshest, most useful, and most illuminating information and insight of any news organization anywhere.

These are good rules. (That one about giving up on access and hand-outs is downright fire.) They’re particularly good rules for a place like Reuters, that has a specific style, tradition, and role in the news ecosystem.

But they’re not necessarily good rules for everybody. Different news organizations are going to need to fill different roles in the ecosystem, different spaces on the multiple axes of personal, political, intellectual, and business commitments. If Gawker were still here in its full glory, Nick Denton could write up “Covering Trump the Gawker Way” and it would probably be a totally different but equally valuable list of guidelines.

The other thing news organizations (and other companies too) will need to figure out in L’Age D’Trump are their commitments to their staff. Reporters and media organizations need legal protections so they can’t be prosecuted as criminals or sued by proxy billionaires for doing their job; but they also need to be able to talk freely about how to do their job and balance all of those commitments for themselves without being shown the door.

The pressure is going to be coming from a lot of directions, not always the obvious ones. When the stakes are this high, and the conditions this uncertain, it helps to allay as many uncertainties as possible. When the shit goes down, you need to know who’s going to have your back.

  1. Cf. “Marge Gets A Job

Tags: ethics   journalism   media
01 Feb 21:01

EU Announces Deal To End All Wireless Roaming Charges

by msmash
The European Union took a big step toward creating a Digital Single Market today with the announcement of a deal that would end roaming charges for mobile consumers across the continent. From a report on VentureBeat: The plan had originally been announced two years ago when the European Commission unveiled an ambitious plan to create a DSM that would unify the continent's fractured rules around digital content, ecommerce, and mobile communications. However, the plan to end roaming charges across boarders ran into stiff opposition from telecom carriers worried about profits and consumers who were concerned about limits it imposed on data usage. As a result, the proposal appeared dead at one point last year. But negotiators said today they had reached an agreement on technical issues like sharing carrier costs across networks and a gradual phase-out of caps on data usage.

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01 Feb 21:01

Soda Sugar Comparisons

The key is portion control, which is why I've switched to eating smaller cans of frosting instead of full bottles.
01 Feb 16:53

Japan Has Magikarp You Can Eat

by Brian Ashcraft
[Image: chico_4ever]

Magikarp might be a useless Pokémon, but it certainly makes for a tasty snack!

In Japan, “taiyaki” is a fish-shaped cake stuffed with red bean paste or custard. Taiyaki speciality shop Kurikoan has launched totally official Magikarp taiyaki—rather, “Koiking-yaki.” (In Japanese, Magikarp is called “Koiking.”)

Priced at 106 yen (US$1.81), the treat comes in little bags sporting the lyrics to the character’s official theme song

This isn’t the first time Magikarp has been turned into taiyaki. Previously, a kit to make Magikarp taiyaki at home was released a while back. 


Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

01 Feb 16:52

Basketball backboard makes excellent magnifying glass

by Andrea James

"Check out what the backboard did to the shingles right behind it. Crazy, right?" Here's the uncropped picture:

(via The Home Inspector blog)

01 Feb 08:13

I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

by Jeff Atwood

There is much I take for granted in my life, and the normal functioning of American government is one of those things. In my 46 years, I've lived under nine different presidents. The first I remember is Carter. I've voted in every presidential election since 1992, but I do not consider myself a Democrat, or a Republican. I vote based on leadership – above all, leadership – and issues.

In my 14 years of blogging, I've never written a political blog post. I haven't needed to.

Until now.

It is quite clear something has become deeply unglued in the state of American politics.

As of 2017, the United States, through a sequence of highly improbable events, managed to elect an extremely controversial president.

A president with historically low approval ratings, elected on a platform many considered too extreme to even be taken literally:

Asked about Trump’s statements proposing the construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border and a ban on all Muslims entering the country, Thiel suggested that Trump supporters do not actually endorse those policies.

“I don’t support a religious test. I certainly don’t support the specific language that Trump has used in every instance,” he said. “But I think one thing that should be distinguished here is that the media is always taking Trump literally. It never takes him seriously, but it always takes him literally.”

The billionaire went on to define how he believes the average Trump supporter interprets the candidate’s statements. “I think a lot of voters who vote for Trump take Trump seriously but not literally, so when they hear things like the Muslim comment or the wall comment their question is not, ‘Are you going to build a wall like the Great Wall of China?’ or, you know, ‘How exactly are you going to enforce these tests?’ What they hear is we’re going to have a saner, more sensible immigration policy.”

A little over a week into the new presidency, it is obvious that Trump meant every word of what he said. He will build a US-Mexico wall. And he signed an executive order that literally, not figuratively, banned Muslims from entering the US — even if they held valid green cards.

As I said, I vote on policies, and as an American, I reject these two policies. Our Mexican neighbors are not an evil to be kept out with a wall, but an ally to be cherished. One of my favorite people is a Mexican immigrant. Mexican culture is ingrained deeply into America and we are all better for it. The history of America is the history of immigrants seeking religious freedom from persecution, finding a new life in the land of opportunity. Imagine the bravery it takes to leave everything behind, your relatives, your home, your whole life as you know it, to take your entire family on a five thousand mile journey to another country on nothing more than the promise of a dream. I've never done that, though my great-great grandparents did. Muslim immigrants are more American than I will ever be, and I am incredibly proud to have them here, as fellow Americans.

Help Keep Your School All American!

Trump is the first president in 40 years to refuse to release his tax returns in office. He has also refused to divest himself from his dizzying array of businesses across the globe, which present financial conflicts of interest. All of this, plus the hasty way he is ramrodding his campaign plans through on executive orders, with little or no forethought to how it would work – or if it would work at all – speaks to how negligent and dangerous Trump is as the leader of the free world. I want to reiterate that I don't care about party; I'd be absolutely over the moon with President Romney or President McCain, or any other rational form of leadership at this point.

It is unclear to me how we got where we are today. But echoes of this appeal to nationalism in Poland, and in Venezula, offer clues. We brought fact checkers to a culture war … and we lost. During the election campaign, I was strongly reminded of Frank Miller's 1986 Nuke story arc, which I read in Daredevil as a teenager — the seductive appeal of unbridled nationalism bleeding across the page in stark primary colors.

Daredevil issue 233, page excerpt

Nuke is a self-destructive form of America First nationalism that, for whatever reasons, won the presidency through dark subvocalized whispers, and is now playing out in horrifying policy form. But we are not now a different country; we remain the very same country that elected Reagan and Obama. We lead the free world. And we do it by taking the higher moral ground, choosing to do what is right before doing what is expedient.

I exercised my rights as a American citizen and I voted, yes. But I mostly ignored government beyond voting. I assumed that the wheels of American government would turn, and reasonable decisions would be made by reasonable people. Some I would agree with, others I would not agree with, but I could generally trust that the arc of American history inexorably bends toward justice, towards freedom, toward equality. Towards the things that make up the underlying American dream that this country is based on.

This is no longer the case.

I truly believe we are at an unprecedented time in American history, in uncharted territory. I have benefited from democracy passively, without trying at all, for 46 years. I now understand that the next four years is perhaps the most important time to be an activist in the United States since the civil rights movement. I am ready to do the work.

  • I have never once in my life called my representatives in congress. That will change. I will be calling and writing my representatives regularly, using tools like 5 Calls to do so.

  • I will strongly support, advocate for, and advertise any technical tools on web or smartphone that help Americans have their voices heard by their representatives, even if it takes faxing to do so. Build these tools. Make them amazing.

  • I am subscribing to support essential investigative journalism such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post.

  • I have set up large monthly donations to the ACLU which is doing critical work in fighting governmental abuse under the current regime.

  • I have set up monthly donations to independent journalism such as ProPublica and NPR.

  • I have set up monthly donations to agencies that fight for vulnerable groups, such as Planned Parenthood, Center for Reproductive Rights, Refugee Rights, NAACP, MALDEF, the Trevor Project, and so on.

  • I wish to see the formation of a third political party in the United States, led by those who are willing to speak truth to power like Evan McMullin. It is shameful how many elected representatives will not speak out. Those who do: trust me, we're watching and taking notes. And we will be bringing all our friends and audiences to bear to help you win.

  • I will be watching closely to see which representatives rubber-stamp harmful policies and appointees, and I will vote against them across the ticket, on every single ticket I can vote on.

  • I will actively support all efforts to make the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact happen, to reform the electoral college.

  • To the extent that my schedule allows, I will participate in protests to combat policies that I believe are harmful to Americans.

  • I am not quite at a place in my life where I'd consider running for office, but I will be, eventually. To the extent that any Stack Overflow user can be elected a moderator, I could be elected into office, locally, in the house, even the senate. Has anyone asked Joel Spolsky if he'd be willing to run for office? Because I'd be hard pressed to come up with someone I trust more than my old business partner Joel to do the right thing. I would vote for him so hard I'd break the damn voting machine.

I want to pay back this great country for everything it has done for me in my life, and carry the dream forward, not just selfishly for myself and my children, but for everyone's children, and our children's children. I do not mean the hollow promises of American nationalism

We would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism—that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder—one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking—cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on— have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

… but the enduring values of freedom, justice, and equality that this nation was founded on. I pledge my allegiance to the American dream, and the American people – not to the nation, never to the nation.

Daredevil issue 233, page excerpt

I apologize that it's taken me 46 years to wake up and realize that some things, like the American dream, aren't guaranteed. There will come a time where you have to stand up and fight for them, for democracy to work. I will.

Will you?

[advertisement] At Stack Overflow, we help developers learn, share, and grow. Whether you’re looking for your next dream job or looking to build out your team, we've got your back.
01 Feb 04:40

LACMA Acquires Blockbuster 'Rain Room' Installation For Permanent Collection

by Julia Wick
LACMA Acquires Blockbuster 'Rain Room' Installation For Permanent Collection Selfies 4 ever. [ more › ]
01 Feb 04:40

Late to the Game, Football Stadiums Aim for Better Food

by KIM SEVERSON
More teams are following baseball’s lead by trying to upgrade the fare and hold down the prices at concessions.
01 Feb 04:35

Republicans’ Paths to Unraveling the Dodd-Frank Act

by BEN PROTESS
President Trump cannot unravel the law with a stroke of a pen, but congressional Republicans have multiple options for dismantling it.
31 Jan 21:50

Kayashima: The Japanese Train Station Built Around a 700-Year-Old Tree

by Johnny Strategy

Photo by Kosaku Mimura/Nikkei

In the Northeast suburbs of central Osaka stands a curious train station unlike any other. Kayashima Station features a rectangular hole cut into the roof of the elevated platform and, from inside, a giant tree pokes its head out like a stalk of broccoli. It’s almost like a railway version of Laputa.

The large camphor tree is older than most records but officials believe it to be around 700 years old. The story of how this tree and station became, quite literally, intertwined, varies depending on who you ask. It certainly has to do with a great reverence for nature, but also a fair amount of superstition.

Kayashima Station first opened in 1910 and, at the time, the camphor tree stood right next to the station. For the next 60 years the station remained largely unchanged. But an increase in population and overcrowding began to put pressure on the station and plans for an expansion where approved in 1972, which called for the tree to be cut down.

But the camphor tree had long been associated with a local shrine and deity. And when locals found out that station officials planned to remove the tree there was a large uproar. Tales began to emerge about the tree being angry, and unfortunate events befalling anyone who attempted to cut it down. Someone who cut a branch off later in the day developed a high fever. A white snake was spotted, wrapped around the tree. Some even saw smoke arise from the tree (it was probably just a swarm of bugs).

And so, the station officials eventually agreed to keep the tree and incorporate it into the new elevated platform’s design. In 1973 construction began and the new station was completed in 1980. The station even surrounded the base of the tree with a small shrine. To this day, the tree still stands thanks to a strong, local community and a little bit of superstition. (syndicated from Spoon & Tamago)

Photo by Studio Ohana.

Photo by Studio Ohana.

31 Jan 21:49

The LG 5K monitor Apple sells doesn't work near WiFi routers

by Nathan Ingraham
Rather than replace its aging Thunderbolt display, Apple showed off LG's new 27-inch Ultrafine 5K monitor as the perfect mate for the new MacBook Pro when they were introduced last fall. Unfortunately, it sounds like this new display comes with a pre...
31 Jan 21:34

So, Budweiser’s Super Bowl Ad Is All About Immigration

by Chris Crowley

This year’s big Budwesier Super Bowl ad will forgo Clydesdales and lost dogs in favor of an American tale that tells the (truncated) story of two immigrants named Eberhard Anheuser and Adolphus Busch who went on to make the beer that everyone drinks when there isn’t anything better available. It’s...More »

31 Jan 21:25

New York State Will Join Federal Lawsuit Against Trump's Immigration Ban

by Rebecca Fishbein
New York State Will Join Federal Lawsuit Against Trump's Immigration Ban Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced today that New York State will join a federal lawsuit spearheaded by the ACLU and other groups that intends to challenge President Trump's executive order banning immigrants from majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States. [ more › ]
31 Jan 20:22

Future iOS update will shut the door on apps from the dawn of the smartphone

by Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge / iOS 10.3 betas generate warning messages when you run 32-bit apps. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Beta builds of iOS 10.3, the first of which was issued last week, generate warning messages when you try to run older 32-bit apps. The message, originally discovered by PSPDFKit CEO and app developer Peter Steinberger, warns that the apps "will not work with future versions of iOS" and that the app must be updated by its developer in order to continue running. The apps still run in iOS 10.3, but it seems likely that iOS 11 will drop support for them entirely.

Though the error message doesn't explicitly mention the app's 32-bit or 64-bit support, it's definitely only older 32-bit apps that trigger the warning. Similar messages that did explicitly mention 64-bit support were present in the betas of iOS 10.0, but they were removed in the final release of the software. Apple has required 64-bit support for all new app submissions since February of 2015 and all app update submissions since June 2015, so any apps that are still throwing this error haven't been touched by their developer in at least a year and a half (developers could add 64-bit support as early as 2013, but most of them opted not to until it became a requirement).

In part because of Apple's total control of its hardware, operating system, and app distribution platform, iOS' transition from 32-bit software to 64-bit software has been uncommonly smooth and quick. The first 64-bit edition of Windows was released in 2005, and though 64-bit Windows has usually been the default since the Windows 7 era, there's still a 32-bit version of Windows 10, and it still ships on some low-end hardware. Mac OS X (now macOS) began to build 64-bit support into the OS starting in 2003, a process that wasn't completed until 2012; current versions of the OS can still run 32-bit apps that aren't otherwise incompatible. Android's 64-bit transition is complete if you have a newer phone, but some new phones still ship with 32-bit Android, and older phones (even those that actually get software updates and have 64-bit hardware support) will continue to use 32-bit Android.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

31 Jan 19:41

After record-breaking donations and members, ACLU signs up for the Y Combinator startup accelerator

by Cory Doctorow

The ACLU raised $24M over the weekend of the #muslimban, six times its usual annual average, and now it is joining the Winter 2017 class at Y Combinator, a startup accelerator that has emerged a mixed bag of great and terrible companies, which has had to contend with controversy over its ties to Peter Thiel.

It's a strange move, and possibly a great one (if nothing else, it will expose the rest of the Accelerator class to the ACLU, which can only be a force for good once they're in business and designing products).

It's also true that any successful action by ACLU in the next four years will have intensely technological components.

The ACLU will have full access to the Y Combinator network and community, and they will present at Demo Day in March.

We are hopeful that the YC community will join us in supporting this important work. In particular, if you’re an engineer and want to spend some time helping them out, let us know. We’ll keep you updated on opportunities.

Welcome, ACLU [Y Combinator/Medium]

ACLU joins Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator [Natt Garun/The Verge]

31 Jan 16:12

Trump’s Talk About Muslims Led Acting Attorney General to Defy Ban

by MATT APUZZO
The firing of Sally Q. Yates capped three days of internal deliberations, in which she argued that the Justice Department had to consider the ban’s intent.
31 Jan 15:30

FBI: U.S. law enforcement infiltrated by white supremacists

by Rob Beschizza

It won't surprise you to learn American policing has a racism problem. It may surprise you to know that the FBI has been quietly, systematically investigating the white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement.

Alice Speri writes that there's just not much anyone in politics is willing to do about it—and an inevitable conservative-led backlash when they try—but the FBI is starting to treat local cops the way it treated hippies: as a problem worth getting its hands dirty over.

“For some reason, we have stepped away from the threat of domestic terrorism and right-wing extremism,” Jones continued. “The only way we can reconcile this kind of behavior is if we accept the possibility that the ideology that permeates white nationalists and white supremacists is something that many in our federal and law enforcement communities understand and may be in sympathy with.”

Investigation is difficult:

Although officers have been fired for expressing hateful views — sometimes to be re-hired by other departments, as happens regularly with officers accused of misconduct — some officers have also challenged those dismissals in court. Robert Henderson, an 18-year veteran of the Nebraska State Patrol, was fired when his membership in the Klan was discovered. He sued on First Amendment grounds and appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear his case. Last year, 14 officers in the San Francisco Police Department were caught exchanging racist and homophobic texts that included several references to “white power” and messages such as “all niggers must fucking hang.” Most of those officers remain on the force after an attempt to fire several of them was blocked by a judge, who said the statute of limitation had expired.

No centralized recruitment process or set of national standards exists for the 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States, many of which have deep historical connections to racist ideologies. As a result, state and local police as well as sheriff’s departments present ample opportunities for white supremacists and other right-wing extremists looking to expand their power base.

Part of the problem: when the Department of Homeland Security released a study on extremism, Republicans railed against the unforgivable insult it represented against patriotic officers and veterans. This hindered further action against white supremacists throughout the Obama administration.

“I believe that because that report was so denounced by conservatives, it sort of closed the door on whatever the FBI may have been considering doing with respect to combating infiltration of law enforcement by white supremacists,” said Samuel Jones, a professor of law at the John Marshall School of Law in Chicago who has written about white power ideology in law enforcement. “Because after the 2006 FBI report, we simply cannot find anything by local law enforcement or the federal government that addresses this issue.”

Pete Simi, a sociologist who spent decades studying the proliferation of white supremacists in the U.S. military, agreed. “The report underscores the problem of even discussing this issue. It underscores how difficult this issue is to get any traction on, because a lot of people don’t want to discuss this, let alone actually do something about it.”

The FBI has quietly investigated white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement [The Intercept]

31 Jan 02:05

MacBook Pro Touch Bar banned from multiple state bar exams

by Andrew Dalton
Here's an unexpected drawback of Apple's latest flagship laptops: law students in several states are being asked to disable the Touch Bar on their new MacBook Pros, or leave them at home entirely, if they plan to use the machines when they take the b...
31 Jan 01:21

Senator Franken urges new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to maintain net neutrality

by Devin Coldewey
franken-AP Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) has written to newly appointed FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai in defense of net neutrality, vowing to “fight to protect it every step of the way.” Read More
31 Jan 00:10

Trump’s Immigration Order Could Affect Thousands Of College Students

by Anna Maria Barry-Jester

When President Trump signed an executive order Friday temporarily preventing citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S., a group of nonimmigrants was swept up in the ensuing chaos over who the ban would apply to: college students. Two undergraduates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where spring semester classes don’t begin until next week, are among those who have been prevented from entering the U.S, according to the university. Although a federal court order from Massachusetts appears to allow the students temporary entry to the U.S., at the time of publication, MIT said it was still working to bring the two students back.

There were 47 students enrolled at MIT in the fall term from the seven countries called out by the order, according to the university’s registrar, but it’s far from the only university affected. Thousands of students from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen are currently studying or working on visas in the United States. The executive order banned citizens of the seven countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days and stopped all refugees from entering the country for 120 days.

COUNTRY STUDENTS
Iran 12,269
Iraq 1,901
Libya 1,514
Syria 783
Yemen 599
Sudan 253
Somalia 35
Students in the U.S. from the seven countries in Trump’s executive order, 2015-16

Source: Institute of International Education

Of the seven countries, Iran sends the largest number of students to the U.S., 12,269 last academic year, and the 11th-most of any country in the world, according to the Institute of International Education, a nonprofit group that does an annual survey of foreign students in the U.S. That’s the largest number of Iranian students in the U.S. in 29 years, according to the institute, although there were more than 50,000 during the peak year of 1979-80, when Iran was the largest sender of international students to the United States.

Restricting students from these countries could have a negative impact on the U.S. economy, said Neil Ruiz, who studies the economic impact of migration and is the executive director of the George Washington University Center for Law, Economics and Finance. Using 2008-12 data, he found that two-thirds of foreign students study science and technology, often referred to as STEM, or business and marketing, with many staying on to work in the United States. This is important because there are not enough U.S.-born graduates prepared to work in STEM fields, a sector considered vital to the nation’s economic growth. Because the U.S. doesn’t track how many international students who study in the U.S. stay to work after graduation, Ruiz looked at graduates who received work authorization for a limited time post-graduation and found that more than 5,000 visas were granted from 2012 to 2015 to people from countries affected by the ban. Seventy-five percent were STEM majors, a group that, because of the workforce shortages, has historically been given priority for visa extensions.

These U.S.-trained graduates affect innovation and economic growth, Ruiz said. “We are the global hub for higher education in the world,” he said. “If we want to continue to be a great country, we have to continue to make sure that our higher-education system gets the best and brightest in the world, and Iran does provide some of our best and brightest.” He said he’s worried that Trump’s executive order will deter students from not only the seven countries, but others as well. “They will wonder, ‘Will we be on the list next?’” Ruiz said.

And there’s evidence that universities could be directly affected in other ways. Tuition from foreign students probably helped offset the effects of constricting state budgets that led to cuts to public university funding from 1996 to 2012, according to a recent study by a group of economists. State universities probably would have had to make larger increases to tuition of in-state students had it not been for an influx of international students, the authors concluded.

Concerns on college campuses go beyond the short-term impacts on travel, said Varun Soni, dean of religious life at the University of Southern California. USC has more than 11,000 international students, Soni said — more than any post-secondary institution in the U.S. except for New York University, including at least several dozen from the seven countries targeted by the executive order. “There’s a lot of anxiety about the uncertainty,” Soni said. “What does this mean for extending student visas? For the viability of completing degrees? For families attending graduation ceremonies?” Soni also said that a lack of freedom of movement affects the university’s ability to do research.

In a letter to the MIT community, President L. Rafael Reif praised the diversity of the university and expressed his concern over the order, writing: “Faculty, students, post-docs and staff from 134 other nations join us here because they love our mission, our values and our community. And — as I have — a great many stay in this country for life, repaying the American promise of freedom with their energy and their ideas.” Many other universities have spoken out, including by advising students and employees from the seven countries against international travel.

Universities may be right to focus on their entire international community. There is reason to believe the ban could grow. The executive order says that in the future, “the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Homeland Security may submit to the President the names of any additional countries recommended for similar treatment.”

30 Jan 07:02

Christian Leaders Denounce Trump’s Plan to Favor Christian Immigrants

by LAURIE GOODSTEIN
By giving preference to Christians over Muslims, religious leaders have said President Trump’s executive order pits one faith against another.
30 Jan 07:00

Trump Administration Defends Bannon’s Role on Security Council

by DAVID E. SANGER
The president’s chief strategist was made a full member; the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were downgraded.
30 Jan 02:50

Valve Cracking Down On Team Fortress 2 Gambling

by Luke Plunkett
Image: PantsOfAwesome

Last year, Valve started dropping a hammer on gambling sites selling Counter-Strike items. This week, the same process has begun for Team Fortress 2.

In a short statement released online, Valve say that following the ban on CS stuff in 2016, “some gambling web sites [have] started leveraging TF2 items. Today we began the process of blocking TF2 gambling accounts as well. We recommend you don’t trade with these sites.”

Those sites, like the CS ones, are shady af. It’s a solid recommendation.

29 Jan 00:33

In Private, Republican Lawmakers Agonize Over Health Law Repeal

by ROBERT PEAR and THOMAS KAPLAN
An audio recording of a closed-door meeting reveals concerns that contrast with the confidence party leaders and President Trump express in public.
29 Jan 00:31

The Doomsday Clock is the closest to midnight since 1953

by Steve Dent
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists just pushed the Doomsday Clock to two and half minutes to midnight, marking the closest point humanity has been to extinction since the first hydrogen bomb test in 1953. Given this latest warning, it's a good tim...
29 Jan 00:31

California gets ready to punch back

by Jason Weisberger

Threats from the Trump administration to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities have caused California to start looking for methods to not pay taxes to the Federal government.

California's long-time status as a "donor state," one that pays more tax than it receives in federal funding, has been a contentious issue. Teapublicans have also long claimed the government has no right to tax people, anyways, and it'd be super fun to see what they have to say about liberals using their rhetoric against them.

Regardless, it should scare the ill-fitting pants off our illegitimately elected President that the most populous state, contributing the most money to his coffers, has state officials looking for ways to not pay taxes, and a public movement to secede. He may be in a place to push his bigoted and hateful policies forward, but California doesn't want to pay for them.

CBS Local:

Officials are looking for money that flows through Sacramento to the federal government that could be used to offset the potential loss of billions of dollars’ worth of federal funds if President Trump makes good on his threat to punish cities and states that don’t cooperate with federal agents’ requests to turn over undocumented immigrants, a senior government source in Sacramento said.

The federal funds pay for a variety of state and local programs from law enforcement to homeless shelters.

“California could very well become an organized non-payer,” said Willie Brown, Jr, a former speaker of the state Assembly in an interview recorded Friday for KPIX 5’s Sunday morning news. “They could recommend non-compliance with the federal tax code.”

California is among a handful of so-called “donor states,” which pay more in taxes to the federal Treasury than they receive in government funding.

29 Jan 00:30

Peter Thiel Is a Fucking Fool

by John Gruber

Peter Thiel, back in October, asked if he supported Trump’s proposal to build a wall on the U.S./Mexican border and ban Muslims from immigrating to the U.S.:

I don’t support a religious test. I certainly don’t support the specific language Trump has used in every instance. But I think one thing that should be distinguished here is that the media is always is taking Trump literally. It never takes him seriously but it always takes him literally. I think a lot of the voters who vote for Trump take Trump seriously but not literally. So when they hear things like the Muslim comment or the wall comment, or things like that, the question is not are you going to build a wall like the Great Wall of China, or how exactly are you going to enforce these tests. What they hear is we’re going to have a saner, more sensible immigration policy. We’re going to try to figure out how do we strike the right balance between cost and benefits.

Wrong. Trump meant every fucking word of it. He literally wants to build a wall. He literally thinks he can stick Mexico with the bill for it. He literally just banned people from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the U.S., with a religious exception for Christians.

I heard this over and over during the election. Trump doesn’t really mean what he says. He meant every word of it, and everyone who thought we shouldn’t take him literally (and seriously) is a goddamn fool.

29 Jan 00:29

Tim Cook on Immigration Executive Order: ‘It Is Not a Policy We Support’

by John Gruber

Tim Cook, in a company-wide email:

I’ve heard from many of you who are deeply concerned about the executive order issued yesterday restricting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. I share your concerns. It is not a policy we support.

There are employees at Apple who are directly affected by yesterday’s immigration order. Our HR, Legal and Security teams are in contact with them, and Apple will do everything we can to support them. We’re providing resources on AppleWeb for anyone with questions or concerns about immigration policies. And we have reached out to the White House to explain the negative effect on our coworkers and our company.

Good for him for stating his opposition, but it could have been stronger, and should have mentioned Trump by name. This ban hits particularly close to Apple’s heart: Steve Jobs was the biological son of a Syrian immigrant. Tim Cook should call that out, repeatedly.

29 Jan 00:28

'Shimmers' are the newest tool for stealing credit card info