Close Reading: Donald Trump on cybersecurity

Donald Trump calls Apple CEO Tim Cook to find out if his laptop has the internet.

Donald Trump asks Apple CEO Tim Cook if his laptop has the internet.

Alert reader/covert breeder John Smick sent me this passage from the transcript of a New York Times interview with Donald Trump. The story that emerged from that interview, in July, focused on his now-infamous refusal to commit to defending NATO allies. But he also had this to say about the importance of cybersecurity:

But certainly cyber has to be a, you know, certainly cyber has to be in our thought process, very strongly in our thought process. Inconceivable that, inconceivable the power of cyber. But as you say, you can take out, you can take out, you can make countries nonfunctioning with a strong use of cyber.

The management would like to remind you that this man is 70 years old. Close reading after the jump.

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The tomatoes in the word salad of Palin’s Trump endorsement speech

Sarah Palin endorses Donald Trump in Ames, Iowa.

Sarah Palin endorses Donald Trump in Ames, Iowa.

Do not read it aloud or you will summon her, but the full text of Sarah Palin’s endorsement speech for Donald Trump is here. Props to Smick for the link. Palin’s style has always worked better in speech than it does in print. More than one journalist has complained that the hardest part of transcribing her is knowing where to put the periods. She hews to a verbless, pastiche style reminiscent of Allen Ginsberg, if Ginsberg worked primarily in cliché. What is most striking about Palin’s speech from last night is the way it swings from phrase to ready phrase—in it to win it, drill baby drill, failed agenda, lead from behind, we the people and, now, make America great again—much as Tarzan swings from vine to vine. She’s just hollering in the spaces between. Still, certain themes emerge. Video after the jump.

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Ravalli judge: Casey Allen “managed to impregnate herself”

Ravalli County District Judge James Haynes will preside over Allen's endangerment trial.

Ravalli County District Judge James Haynes will preside over the trial of Casey Gloria Allen.

In August, Judge James Haynes denied a request for postponement in the trial of Casey Allen, the 21 year-old Ravalli County woman charged with felony endangerment after failing a drug test while pregnant. According to court transcripts reported by Keila Szpaller of the Missoulian, Haynes said Allen’s pregnancy was not the court’s responsibility. Quote:

I don’t know why I should have to scurry around, change my trial schedule. We have this woman who has managed to impregnate herself, plus she’s got these criminal charges. Her decision to have a child in the middle of this is her decision. It’s not society’s responsibility to take up the cause.

In keeping with his argument that Allen’s unborn child is not society’s responsibility, Haynes dismissed the child endangerment charge against her remained immune to irony. Brief discussion of where babies come from after the jump.

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Friday links! Bracing discoveries edition

You will understand soon enough.

Depending on your attitude toward philosophical idealism, pretty much everything that can be known is out there, waiting to be discovered. Like the word “discovery,” knowledge has little meaning apart from a human subjet to know it, but knowledge as object—the location of your old apartment keys, what went wrong with Amelia Earhart’s plane, the mass of an undiscovered planet—is out there, waiting to be figured. Today is Friday, and the weekend, defined by possibility and inactivity, is upon us. Who knows what the future will reveal? I’m still trying to catch up with the past. Won’t you look back forward with me?

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