*Demography is Destiny | Smartphones are the New Sugar | Trump’s Biggest Enemy

We hope you all had a great weekend. Here are answers from last Friday’s Daily Pnut Week in Review.

“The greatest wealth is health” – Virgil

“They are able who think they are able.” – Ibid.

Trump’s Biggest Enemy: President Trump made statements during his current trip to London and Helsinki that arguably advance the political goals of Russia, and harm America’s traditional alliances. Just as the president’s plane touched down in London Thursday, July 12, his interview with the country’s most widely-read tabloid, Rupert Murdoch-owned “The Sun,” appeared. In it Trump bashed Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit strategies and trade policies and said one of her rivals, Boris Johnson, would make a very good PM. Trump later stood at a joint press conference with May and unabashedly denied saying what he said. Asked if he intended to talk to President Putin about Russia’s election meddling at the upcoming Helsinki summit, Trump said: “I will absolutely bring that up. I don’t think you’ll have any, ‘Gee, I did it. I did it. You got me.’ There won’t be a Perry Mason here, I don’t think, but you never know what happens, right?”

Friday May was interviewed on BBC television and revealed the advice Trump had given her in a private conversation about how to deal with Brexit. She said: “He told me I should sue the EU.” May repeated: “Sue the EU, not go into negotiations with them, sue them.” Back in the US, special counsel Robert Mueller filed a 29-page indictment against 12 named Russian intelligence officers. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said Friday that days earlier he had briefed the president on this latest indictment, the most detailed accusation by the American government to date of the Russian government’s interference in the 2016 election. Despite having been briefed on the indictment contents, Trump again called the investigation a “rigged witch-hunt”.

After leaving London the president arrived in Scotland, where he was interviewed by Jeff Glor of CBS News at his Turnberry golf resort. Glor asked Trump to name his “biggest foe globally right now”. Trump said it was the European Union. Apparently taken aback by the answer Glor said: “A lot of people might be surprised to hear you list the EU as a foe before China and Russia.” Asked if he might insist that Putin extradite the 12 Russians named in Mueller’s indictment, Trump said he “hadn’t thought” about it.

Trump departed Scotland for Helsinki. As media scrutiny intensified over the indictment and his summit with Putin, Trump unleashed a bizarre volley of tweets from aboard Air Force One. He blamed President Obama for the response to the Russian meddling, criticized Democrats for allowing themselves to be hacked, and called the news media “the enemy of the people”. A senior fellow at the Center for American Progress said “the Washington foreign policy community (is) utterly terrified (over what Trump might agree to with Putin) … Trump has been sowing discord in Europe and undermining the traditional alliances: these are all objectives that Russia has had since they were the Soviet Union.”

– Authorities in India have arrested twenty-five people following the latest WhatsApp fueled lynching. The Facebook-owned social media and messaging platform has been under fire in India due to the spread of fake news and misinformation. (Guardian)

– Civilian deaths in Afghanistan have risen to a record high during the first half of 2018. Despite the ceasefire announced in June, the number of suicide attacks claimed by the Islamic State has surged. The UN has reported that civilian deaths are up by roughly 1,692 deaths. (Guardian)

– It sounds like a made-up disaster movie, but it’s actually happening. The 169 residents of the tiny village of Innaarsuit, Greenland are being threatened by a monumental 11-million-ton iceberg that’s grounded just outside the village. Should a strong enough wind start blowing at just the right time the iceberg could be dislodged and float harmlessly into Baffin Bay. But if it starts raining, the relatively warm precipitation could further destabilize the iceberg, which might then break apart, sending a big chunk of it into the ocean. And that would create a tsunami that could wash away part of the town. (WaPo)

The Silent Surrender in Syria: President Trump’s purpose for meeting with President Putin right now appeared as unclear as the administration’s strategy in the Middle East. But what to do about Syria does seem to be at the top of any possible agenda. Regional government officials worry, as do some US officials, that Trump will agree to a partial or complete withdrawal of the 2,200 US troops from Syria, or even recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea and drop US sanctions. Both Syria and Russia have demanded US troop withdrawal, but even though Trump signed Wednesday’s NATO communique declaring that it would never accept Russia’s “illegal and illegitimate” takeover of Crimea, he could still change his mind and turn his back on the alliance. According to Middle Eastern officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and others agree that such a step would not only be disastrous but would eliminate whatever leverage the US still has to push for an acceptable outcome in Syria.

Trump has said his primary goal in Syria is Iran’s complete withdrawal. But US military officials are seeing what they believe is Syria’s new reality, one where President Bashar al-Assad remains in power, backed by Russia and Iran, and the US-backed opposition is decimated. US allies in the region have been turning to Moscow to secure their own interests. A senior international diplomat closely involved in the conflict said: “It’s very clear that Russia and Israel are cooperating on Syria. The Saudis and Russia are cooperating.” And “The Americans”, he said, now consider “Syria . . . a Russian thing.”

Is America a Democracy?: Here’s some disturbing demographic predictions. The American Enterprise Institute’s Norman Ornstein tweeted out some stunning data in response to Post opinion writer Paul Waldman’s essay about the current power of the minority in American politics. Ornstein says: ” I want to repeat a statistic I use in every talk: by 2040 or so, 70 percent of Americans will live in 15 states. Meaning 30 percent will choose 70 senators. And the 30% will be older, whiter, more rural, more male than the 70 percent. Unsettling to say the least.” Waldman tweeted about the makeup of the US Supreme Court: “In the age of minority rule, a Supreme Court justice appointed by a president who got fewer votes is confirmed by a party in the Senate that got fewer votes, to validate policies opposed by most Americans.” (WaPo)

Are Any of These Democrats Destiny’s Child for 2020?: Meanwhile, some well-known Democrats are touring the country, hoping to cajole voters into staving off a continuation of the “current power of the minority in American politics” and rule out another Donald Trump term in the White House. Senator Elizabeth Warren hasn’t announced she is running for president. But her rousing speeches delivered at both private and public events contain clear messages. She urges Democrats to turn out in force for the midterm elections to build momentum for the next presidential race in 2020. Democrats must do more than “drive Donald Trump and his enablers out of power,” she says. “I want a party strong enough to take on the hard job of cleaning up the mess they’ll leave behind once they are gone.” Others dipping their toes in the political waters are former vice president Joe Biden and senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California. Even Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont could be considering another run. All of them are hoping voters will “say their name” as 2020 approaches. (NYT)

– Phones are an essential part of any toiletry kit in this day and age. You can’t use the loo without having a handy-dandy source of news and internet in the palm of your hands, but did you know that Microsoft had once tried to release a portable toilet with a built-in computer? As far-fetched as it may sound, the abandoned project may have been a mainstay in all homes, but for now, we’ll have to settle for small cellular devices to do the entertaining. (Tedium)

– Fortnite is eating the world right now and might become the biggest and most important game in history. Though nothing groundbreaking in terms of graphics, gameplay, or even storyline, the game has reached over a hundred and twenty-five million players, including famous rappers and athletes, and has an avid fanbase which may be raking in over three hundred million dollars in revenue each month. (NY Mag)

– It’s not uncommon to see the masses of restaurant goers snapping pics of their meals and chatting away on social media. However, some restaurants have tired of the new-age trends and decided to ban or incentivize human interaction over the screens. We are addicted to our phones: “Few guests make it through their meal without checking their phone, Mr. Canora said. If a diner’s companion leaves to go to the restroom, the phone comes out immediately. “It has really reinforced our belief that it is a true addiction,” Mr. Canora said. ‘You see people succumb to their addiction all night long.”’ (NYT)

– It’s been a decade since the App store launched. In celebration, it’s time to delete those unused apps and perhaps addictive games like Fortnite. Free up storage and maybe even get back your privacy by deleting those apps you downloaded and forgot. (Popular Science)

– It might not be enough to delete those unused apps or apps that spy on you. Maybe one needs to physically separate oneself from their phones. New research on a landmark US government study has shown that there is clear evidence of cellular devices emitting radiation which causes cancer. The peer review study found that not only did rats develop a heart tissue cancer, but tech companies may have been hiding this information or downplaying the reality of the situation for the past quarter of a century. Smartphones are the new sugar. (Guardian)

– “Ditch the headphones. Skip the smartwatch. It’s time to meditate on the move.”Mindful running is a new technique which researchers have been studying. Rather than jamming out to some tunes or checking emails on the go, it seems that focus on the road and synchronizing thoughts to the body’s motions allows runners to exert more physical force for a longer period of time. (GQ)

LAST MORSELS

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” – Seneca

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