July 31, 2019

Pentagon issues forceful rebuke of Oracle as debate over a massive federal contract turns caustic

The Pentagon has issued an unusually strong rebuke of Oracle, accusing the company of employing “poorly-informed and often manipulative speculation” in its efforts to undermine the military’s process of awarding a massive 10-year contract for cloud computing technology.

The remarks were the latest flash point in the long-running dispute over the bidding process for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI), a $10 billion contract that would be one of the federal government’s most expensive information technology procurements.

Oracle alleged in a lawsuit that the Defense Department’s bidding process has been plagued with conflicts of interest and rigged in favor of Amazon’s cloud computing business. Oracle’s attempt to block the award was rejected this month, with the judge in charge of the case explaining his reasoning in a lengthy document unsealed Friday. But in his decision, the judge posed new questions about the Pentagon’s legal argument for awarding one big contract.

Defense Department spokeswoman Elissa Smith noted in a statement that the judge also affirmed the Pentagon was “reasonably justified” to award a single contract. Despite the “tension” in the judge’s ruling, the department has said it plans to award the contract in August, nearly a year and a half after it was announced.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/30/pentagon-issues-forceful-rebuke-oracle-debate-over-massive-federal-contract-turns-caustic/

July 30, 2019

Trump Wants New DNI To 'Rein' In Intel Agencies That Have 'Run Amok'

President Trump didn’t hide his intentions for hiring a Republican lawmaker to replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence while speaking to the press on Tuesday.

He said he nominated Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) — who, among other things, thinks special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is linked to the Clinton Foundation — to “rein” in an intelligence community that he claims has “run amok” under Coats, an official who’s vociferously warned of Russia’s meddling efforts.

“I think that John Ratcliffe is going to do an incredible job if he gets approved, he’s gotta get approved, but I think he’ll do a great job, I hope he gets approved,” he told reporters Tuesday. “I think we need somebody like that, we need somebody strong that can really rein it in because, as I think you’ve all learned ,the intelligence agencies have run amok. They’ve run amok.”

Trump tends to undermine his own intelligence community when it comes to findings that Russia meddled in the 2016 election — and has even publicly accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denials of interference — because he feels it delegitimizes his win.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-dni-intel-agencies-amok-rein-in

July 30, 2019

Chuck Grassley Accidentally Lies In State For Few Hours After Drifting Off In Capitol Rotunda

WASHINGTON—Surrounded by onlookers, former colleagues, and Supreme Court Justices paying respect to the slumbering U.S. Senator, Chuck Grassley (R-IA) accidentally lay in state for a few hours Monday after drifting off in the Capitol rotunda.

“Today, we honor a giant of the United States Senate, a devoted father, and a dear personal friend for his great service to this country,” said a tearful Majority Whip John Cornyn in a stirring retrospective about the sleeping Iowa Republican, whose quietly dozing body had been mistakenly draped in a U.S. flag for public viewing just hours after the exhausted 85-year-old senator reportedly yawned and stretched out on the floor for a catnap beneath a frieze of George Washington.

“We may salute him today with a procession. We may lower the flags as he lies in repose. But we will never forget what he has sacrificed for our nation. Rest in peace, my friend.”

Several hours after the ceremony ended, a dazed Grassley snapped awake in the darkened chamber, pulled several pieces of regalia off himself, and stumbled away in confusion while a member of the Capitol police wasn’t looking.

https://politics.theonion.com/chuck-grassley-accidentally-lies-in-state-for-few-hours-1836789977

July 29, 2019

US teenager wins $3m playing computer game Fortnite

Source: BBC

A US teenager has won a record-breaking $3m (£2.4m) to become world champion of the computer game Fortnite.

It is the largest prize pool in the history of e-sports, with $30m shared amongst the winners.

Kyle Giersdorf, 16, won the solo event of the competition in the Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York, which hosts the US Open tennis tournament.

British teenager Jaden Ashman won almost £1m for coming second in the duos event.

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49146644

---

Damn. $3M for playing a computer game.

July 28, 2019

Insurance firms' blunders on long-term care insurance create disaster for millions

Jeffrey Gerber has had a front-row seat for the unfolding disaster in the long-term care insurance business.

The Century City insurance broker not only sold the policies to numerous clients but became a customer himself. Now, a decade or more after the policies — which provide daily payouts to cover expenses for assisted living or nursing care — were first written, he and some 26 clients have been hit with increases in their monthly premiums of as much as 80%. That’s forcing the policyholders to make a harsh choice. “You’re forced into accepting the increase in premium or a reduction in benefits, which amounts to the same thing,” Gerber told me.

Gerber and his wife, Gayle, were each entitled to about $200 a day in benefits from Genworth Life Insurance Co. once they needed assistance. But they will have to give up an automatic inflation-related increase in their potential daily benefit if they want to keep their combined monthly premiums at the current $345, instead of swallowing an increase to $621.

As Gerber told an official of the California Department of Insurance in April, Genworth executives had assured him repeatedly “not only was Genworth safe, but that their reserves were such that all claims could be paid easily. This was a lie.”

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-07-24/long-term-care-insurance-disaster

July 27, 2019

Desperate for workers, aging Japan turns to robots for healthcare

In America and other aging societies around the world, it has become common for the elderly to be cared for by their graying children or older workers. That’s largely because the younger labor force is shrinking, and few want to do such low-paying, back-aching work.

Japan sees an answer in robots.

At Minami Tsukuba nursing home near Tokyo, caregiver Asami Konishi wears a robotic device on her hips that cuts the stress on her back when she bends and lifts someone.

“It really helps when I have to pick up a heavier male patient,” said the 34-year-old.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-07-25/desperate-for-workers-aging-japan-turns-to-robots-for-healthcare

July 25, 2019

California college student discovers 65-million-year-old Triceratops skull

A 23-year-old UC Merced student made the find of a lifetime when he helped uncover a 65-million-year-old dinosaur fossil.

Harrison Duran was working on a dig site last month in the Badlands of North Dakota when he and Michael Kjelland, an excavator and professor at Mayville State University, spotted what at first glance seemed like a piece of petrified wood.

But a closer inspection prompted the pair to dig deeper and ultimately led to the discovery of the partial skull of a Triceratops.

The Badlands are a paleontologist’s paradise, where many dinosaur and plant fossils have been discovered. Kjelland found another skull last year in the Hell Creek Formation, where this year’s dig was organized, and knew the area was likely to provide more fossils, perhaps from the Cretaceous Period.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/california/story/2019-07-25/california-college-student-discovers-65-million-year-old-triceratops-skull

July 25, 2019

Pelosi Concerned Outspoken Progressive Flank Of Party Could Harm Democrats' Reputation As Cowards

WASHINGTON—Admitting she had worries about the rise of left-leaning activist groups within her party, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed concerns Thursday that outspoken progressives could do permanent damage to Democrats’ reputation as ineffectual cowards.

“They mean well, but if they continue to aggressively push their agenda like this, they run the risk of fundamentally altering the public’s perception of Democrats as bumbling, feckless chumps,” said Pelosi, adding that this brash brand of politics could be easily manipulated by Republicans to paint the party as something other than a bunch of sniveling wimps who are too weak-willed and complacent to stand up for anything with even remote political risk.

“I understand where these groups are coming from, but while it might feel good to vent their frustrations about the state of the country, they could undermine what I believe should be our core 2020 argument: We are dithering, incompetent doormats who are infinitesimally less objectionable than our opposition.”

Pelosi also noted that her concerns shouldn’t be overstated, as she knew it would take more than a few activists for voters to associate the Democratic party with the vaguest inkling of courage.

https://politics.theonion.com/pelosi-concerned-outspoken-progressive-flank-of-party-c-1836707083

July 25, 2019

Republicans Defend Trump's Decision to Give Putin Office Space at White House

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a sign that Donald J. Trump’s control over the Republican Party is now complete, congressional Republicans on Thursday defended his decision to give the Russian President Vladimir Putin office space at the White House.

A newly emboldened Trump told reporters that he had furnished Putin with a corner-office suite and secretarial staff to use whenever the Russian President is in town. “He says he plans to be here more and more,” Trump said.

Putin, who moved file boxes into his new office on Thursday afternoon, said he looks forward to many productive hours at the White House with few, if any, interruptions. “At the Kremlin, people are always sticking their heads in my office, asking me questions,” he said. “President Trump just spends all day watching TV.”

At the U.S. Senate, a visibly angry Senator Lindsey Graham called allegations that there was anything improper about Trump giving office space to Putin “totally unfair, disgusting, and vile.” “Vladimir Putin has worked harder to run the U.S. government than all of the Democrats in Congress put together,” Graham said.

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/republicans-defend-trumps-decision-to-give-putin-office-space-at-white-house

July 23, 2019

The largest bird in North America was nearly wiped out. Here's how it fought its way back.

There aren’t many happy conservation stories these days.

The plot and players are familiar by now: a species on the verge of extinction and a swelling human population seemingly intent on pushing it over the edge, plus the ever-looming climate catastrophe that ratchets up the stakes in all wildlife protection narratives.

But in the case of the California condor — North America’s largest flying bird — those elements add up to something very different: good news.

In 1982, when just 22 California condors were left in the world and the species’ obituary was being written in advance, scientists captured the remaining population to breed the scavenger birds in captivity. Nearly four decades later, a consortium of government agencies and nonprofit groups announced a miraculous milestone: 1,000 California condor chicks hatched since the official rescue program began.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/07/23/california-condor-hatchlings-hit-conservation-milestone/