Joshua Tree Report: January 22nd, 2017

This is the Joshua Tree Report for January 22nd, 2017.

General Data

The temperature in Cody is 28° Fahrenheit and the weather is fair. The temperature in Kirkwall is 4° centigrade and the weather is cloudy. The temperature in Muscat is 30° centigrade and the weather is clear. A barrel of crude oil is selling at $53.22, and $0.80 currently exchanges for £1. This week's geospatial image is the al Sulayyil ballistic missile base in Saudi Arabia.

In the News

Here are a few of this week's top stories.

CIA releases 13 million declassified documents online (BBC)

Who’s winning the cyber war? The squirrels, of course (Ars Technica)

Erik Prince’s Mercenaries Are Bombing Libya (War is Boring)

John McCain Has a Big-League Defense Buildup, Too. New White-Paper Released. (Small Wars Journal)

‘Afghan girl’ Sharbat Gula in quest for new life (BBC)

Why thousands of Iranians are fighting in Syria (al Jazeera)

Newly discovered Mac malware found in the wild also works well on Linux (Ars Technica)

EU says Lithuania can use funds for border surveillance, not fences (AFP)

The Soviet Union and China Almost Started World War III (War is Boring)

Top Podcasts

These were my favorite podcasts from this week.

Inside Hillary Clinton's social media campaign for the White House (The Guardian)

Ron Brownstein: Clinton didn’t lose because of the white working class (The Ezra Klein Show)

Haven of Safety: U.S. Internment of German Sailors, 1914-1917 (The MacArthur Memorial)

Course Report

My courses suffered this week due to unforeseen events, but I should be back on track next week.

ENG 199: I read half a chapter from Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger.
PAC 130: An injury prevented me from undertaking this course during the week ending today.
BA 480: I did no reading in The Design and Evaluation of Physical Protection Systems by Mary Lynn Garcia.
HST 406 (O): I completed the four remaining chapters in The Life of a Regiment, Vol. IV by Cyril Falls.
REL 199: I read Zechariah 8 through 10.

Quote of the Week

"The desert had already claimed me, though I did not know it yet."
- Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands