Factual Dispatch

This dispatch assumes you're vaguely aware of the news, so it will endeavor to provide perspectives, visualizations, analysis, and odds & ends you won't find anywhere else.

Last year, the world's shipping industry was shocked to discover that Russia might be testing a new form of information warfare technology in the Black Sea, which allowed them to spoof GPS and direct ships off course without firing a shot. Spoofing GPS (as our Pokemon Go fans may know) is different from jamming GPS, in that most shipboard nav computers will document (loudly, using alarms) a drop off or loss in GPS signal, while spoofing doesn't cause interruptions in service or alerts. This might seem like an attack on "the" system, until you realize that both Russia & China have competing satellite systems to GPS, named GLONASS & BeiDou. Right now, non-US/Russia/China countries have to figure out which GPS-style system they plan to use. So, as described by Foreign Policy, the GPS wars are here!  Countries in intermediary regions have the choice between systems, so the stakes are high. And yes, Russia has been undermining GPS in favor of GLONASS for months, in those regions. Not just in the theater of battle, but visibly deployed defensively and along critical shipping lanes, much to the ire of NATO & the US Navy. While the US military is looking into ways to defend against spoofy shenanigans, this will continue. 

In case you've been paralyzed with the news domestically, France is in its 2nd month of handling the Yellow Vests, or Mouvement des gilets jaunes. Since Nov. 17th, 5 rounds of protests have occurred, uniting left, right & apathetic around fuel prices, austerity, minimum wage laws, environmental protections and various other anti-establishment demands. In recent weeks, the protests have spread far & wide, with the threat of mass casualty events growing. The origins of the movement involve a change.org petition published in May, and a few local FB groups pushing local protest events that earned supercharged visibility thanks to Facebook's local group algo update (more on FB & local groups here and here). Even the police have started threatening to join the protesters. 

The protests might not have gotten off the ground without the hypercharged growth & visibility that an update to the local group Facebook algorithm update provided, but even viewing it through the FAMGA lens we've used before still misses quite a bit of the puzzle. The protest demands from some fringe groups include closing borders fully and other "France First" style policy initiatives. And throughout all of this, nestled deeply within the protest are the niche masses that make up the New French Right, a political cabal that has not yet fully ascended, but may become a serious force for change along the lines we've come to expect from Steve Bannon & Marine Le Pen. Marion-Marechal-Le Pen (Marine's niece) and others in the New Right in France have had years to revise and iterate on their message, and it just might be starting to work.

The biggest problem with grappling meaningfully with the spread of these protests is understanding which of the demonstrations stem from true ideological disagreement and which stem from people having the vests in the boot of their cars and wanting to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Both the left and the right have used yellow jacket protests to push their own ideals in various countries. With agitators using the vests in direct actions, eviction strikes, marches and other civic protests in Belgium, Italy, Bulgaria, Serbia, Germany, the Netherlands (Quote of the Month: In the Dutch city of Rotterdam, a few hundred protesters in the high-visibility vests walked peacefully across the Erasmus Bridge singing and handing flowers to passers-by.), Poland, Tunisia, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt (who restricted sales of the vests, because LOL), and even Canada (where both sides of the protest wore the vests), this is going to get bigger and more violent before it is all over.Eye-watering Data Visualization of the Week: No, you weren't wrong about the feeling you've had that we don't have press briefings in the White House as often as you remember when you were younger.

Vaguely Dystopian News of the Week: A parrot in Beckshire, UK has taken to ordering stuff off Amazon through its owner's Echo device, after watching their humans interact with Alexa. Also, a delivery robot was the latest part of California to catch fire. Also also, FaceID can be hacked if you just 3D print someone's head.Annoying-but-Correct Take of the Week: Cavorting with the very billionaires who are responsible for wrecking large swaths of the world economy is a bad look. Centrists, moderates, and liberals need to stop pretending they're not influenced by those friendships. Also, Putin is just not that good of a strategist, for all of his tactical victories over the last few years."Huh, Interesting" Read of the Week: Who knew that the growth rate of cities, the metabolic rate of mammals and the power rule were intertwined?Dunk of the Week:

And so this is Christmas, and what have you done?Tarik