Tuesday: Trauma

A little neo soul this morning, something to ease the day. If you like this bit by 20-year-old Doja Cat, check out more of her work at her YouTube channel.

FOUR DAYS
That’s all that’s left of in-session days in U.S. House this month, and nothing done yesterday to help Flint. Yet another report on Flint water crisis, this one featuring VA-Tech’s Dr. Marc Edwards on the lack of trust in water quality, governance and water science since the city’s transition back to Detroit’s water supply. But the necessity of filters means tap water is suspect; Flint residents never needed filters before the switch to Flint river water, and now much regularly take additional steps to check their filters and water quality. Just replace the damned lead pipes so they can take the filters off and they’ll trust the water system. They need assistance with speeding up pipe replacement, stat.

Oh, and deal with the collapse of property values in Flint. Who wants to buy a house there, let alone offer financing as long as the water system remains under suspicion?

Oh no, Pokémon GO
My kid has been playing this augmented reality game with his friends, driving around after dark to different ‘gyms’. We’ve had a few discussions about the application’s privacy problems as well as the game’s requirements for collecting points. This is NOT a game for kids to play by themselves without parent or guardian engagement if they aren’t old enough to drive. My son told me about running into creepy guys parked for hours late into the evening at key locations where Pokémon are found. Recipe for trouble, that.

• Check privacy settings (and read the fine print in the privacy policy) if you’re playing Pokemon (BuzzFeed) — Pretty sure everybody’s heard about the app’s overbroad setting request. While you’re at it, you should check the privacy settings on all your apps as well as your mobile device’s operating system. Suggestion: Don’t use your main Gmail account to log into Pokemon GO — use a secondary account.
• @arirubinstein of Slack’s product security notes a problem with tokens (GitHub) — Looks like developers at Niantic have been notified and will fix this shortly. I’d still use with care.
• Goofy Pokemon stories abound already (Thrillist) — A dead body and a delivery room. What’s next?

Brexit means broken

• PM David Cameron led his last cabinet meeting today (ITV) — You can actually get a ringtone for your phone based on the ditty Cameron was humming yesterday after he announced the new PM would take office on Wednesday. Must be happy with Theresa May taking over the dirty work.
• Cameron made a final plug for the Trident missile site (Guardian-UK) — May’s got her work cut out selling this to the Scots if she shares Cameron’s position. The Scots may agree to keeping Trident only if the UK’s Parliament votes against proceeding with Brexit or if a second referendum is held.
• Letter from 1000 lawyers said referendum vote was only advisory (The Independent) — But their legal analysis is hardly an assessment of political viability. Interesting to note the lawyers insist primary legislation must be enacted first before Article 50 can be filed with the EU.
• House of Commons to debate second Brexit referendum (Evening Standard) — The House took up the matter after a petition asking for a second vote was signed by four million voters following June 23 referendum. Buyer’s remorse, that.
• Meanwhile, UK researchers cut from EU projects due to uncertainty of funding (Guardian-UK) — Can’t blame the EU for this since continuity and consistency are critical in research, but holy crap, what this will do to UK’s population of researchers. Massive brain drain must be under way.
• UK pressure influenced US on enforcement against HSBC (Sky News) — Interesting how this story looks from the other side of the pond. Wonder if the lead-up to Brexit also assured this outcome?

TL;BRTLA (too long, but read this later anyhow)
Especially today — now that Bernie Sanders has endorsed Hillary Clinton — read how women were included in the Civil Rights Act as a joke. Hah. Funny. But very sad that 51% of the population is still not accorded their creator-endowed equal rights in spite of shrewd, dogged work by Michigan’s Rep. Martha Griffiths, and folks like Ida Phillips and attorney Reese Marshall.

Didn’t have enough time to cover China. Guess you now what I’ll tackle tomorrow, see you then.