Thursday Miscellany!

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a "basic law" --- basically a constitutional amendment --- to define Israel as a "Jewish State". This move is highly controversial in Israel, as it represents an affront to Israel's Arab population (which makes up 20% of the total population), and a betrayal of the last sixty-six years of representing themselves as a secular, democratic state, to its neighbors. Unfortunately, in Washington DC, the importance of this change is lost, thanks in no small part to the Likud Party's shills. (I'm looking at you, George Will.)


• Ukraine's military admits that they're helpless against pro-Russian demonstrators in the East. The clock is ticking.


• As Cold War II accelerates, our access to Russia's space infrastructure is likely to disappear, as Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin suggests we launch our astronauts by trampoline. The practical effect is that SpaceX and Orbital Sciences are likely to see a huge influx of cash soon, in order to speed up development of their own technologies. SpaceX in particular is likely to get a boost after a judge ordered the government to reopen bidding for classified payloads.


• The mailing lists for Kali Linux --- an "offensive security"-minded Linux distribution --- were hacked by a team exploiting the Heartbleed bug. The damage is trivial, as the mailing list saw almost no traffic, but this is still embarrassing.


• Excellent advice for anyone pursuing a PhD --- or anyone taking on a lot of work and feeling a lot of stress --- here.

U3 Unemployment Drops to 6.3%

This morning the BLS released their latest unemployment figures. The US economy added 280,000 jobs in April. The U3 unemployment rate --- the one usually cited by the media --- dropped to 6.3%.

Thus my 7th prediction for 2014 has come to pass.

Edit Bonddad throws some lukewarm water on these numbers here.