Joshua Tree Report: May 14th, 2017

This is the Joshua Tree Report for May 14th, 2017.

General Data

The temperature in Cody is 56° Fahrenheit and the weather is fair. The temperature in Kirkwall is 7° centigrade and the weather is clear. The temperature in Muscat is 38° centigrade and the weather is sunny. A barrel of crude oil is selling at $47.84, and $1.28 currently exchanges for £1. This week's geospatial image is the Principality of Hutt River in Western Australia.

In the News

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

Qatar FM: No substitute for Bashar al-Assad's departure (al Jazeera)

Trump to send arms to Kurdish YPG in Syria (al Jazeera)

Tunisia orders army to protect oil and gas fields (al Jazeera)

Libya foreign minister names Khalifa Haftar army chief (al Jazeera)

'Jihad pills' found by Dutch and Italian police (BBC News)

Palestinian hunger strike leader Barghouti 'filmed eating' (BBC News)

Pizza Hut Barghouti ad prompts boycott call (BBC News)

SOF's Evolving Role: Warfare 'By, With, and Through' Local Forces (RAND Corporation)

Estonia faces cross-border beaver problem (BBC News)

Only One Country Has Ever Voluntarily Given Up Its Nukes (Jalopnik)

The Bipartisan Case against James Comey (National Review)

Comey’s Overdue Departure (National Review)

Why was James Comey so controversial? (al Jazeera)

Obama’s Conflict Tanked the Clinton E-mail Investigation — As Predicted (National Review)

How to Blow an Election — in Five Easy Steps (National Review)

AHCA & Pre-Existing Conditions -- The Big Lie Democrats Are Telling (National Review)

Microsoft CEO: tech sector needs to prevent '1984' future (AFP)

Microsoft Is Right: We Need a Digital Geneva Convention (Wired)

Hacked Macron Emails Leak Online Ahead of French Presidential Runoff Election (Wired)

The NSA Confirms It: Russia Hacked French Election 'Infrastructure' (Wired)

Evidence suggests Russia behind hack of French president-elect (Ars Technica)

Don't Pin the Macron Email Hack on Russia Just Yet (Wired)

Macron campaign team used honeypot accounts to fake out Fancy Bear (Ars Technica)

Cisco kills leaked CIA 0-day that let attackers commandeer 318 switch models (Ars Technica)

Microsoft's recent success in blocking in-the-wild attacks is eerily good (Ars Technica)

HP laptops covertly log user keystrokes, researchers warn (Ars Technica)

More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads (Ars Technica)

Website Flaw Let True Health Diagnostics Users View All Medical Record (Krebs on Security)

Ransomware infections reported worldwide (BBC News)

There's a Massive Ransomware Attack Spreading Globally Right Now [Updated] (Gizmodo)

Massive ransomware attack hits UK hospitals, Spanish banks (Ars Technica)

U.K. Hospitals Hit in Widespread Ransomware Attack (Krebs on Security)

A Massive Ransomware 'Explosion' Is Hitting Targets All Over the World (Vice Motherboard)

Comey: 15 Percent of Terror Cases Came as Refugees (National Review)

Suspect in California drink-drive crash 'deported 15 times' (BBC News)

Rescued Orkney diver 'could have been found sooner' (BBC News)

Aberdeen's Gordon Highlanders Museum 'could face closure' (BBC News)

Rare flowers destroyed in Australia after paperwork error (BBC News)

Scottish fishermen given Brexit assurance (BBC News)

The Falklands penguins that would not explode (BBC News)

A Love Affair With Dates, The Fruit At The Cultural Heart Of Oman (NPR)

Top Podcasts

These were my favorite podcasts from the last week.

Deep Undercover: An Interview with Former KGB Illegal Jack Barsky (SpyCast)

A Keynote Conversation with General (Ret.) David Petraeus [2016 Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference] (National Council for U.S.-Arab Relations)

Franklin expedition: myths, archeology & Canadian identity (King's College London War Studies Podcast)

Security Studies Podcast Episode 12 - David Fahrenkrug on Cyber Warfare (Georgetown University)

Risky Business #453 -- The Intel bugs: How freaked out should you be? (Risky Business)

Inquiry: Why Is No-one Trying to Stop the War in Yemen? (BBC World Service)

DocArchive: Subversion, Russia and the West (BBC World Service)

Episode 194 - Evaluating Security Product Vendors (The Southern Fried Security Podcast)

Security Management Highlights May 2017 (ASIS)

The myth of the ‘lone wolf’ terrorist – podcast (The Guardian)

The quest to crack and preserve vintage Apple II software – tech podcast (The Guardian)

D1E5 - Security & Risk Management (CyberSecStudy)

D1E4 - Security & Risk Management (CyberSecStudy)

D1E6 - Security & Risk Management (CyberSecStudy)

D2E1 - Asset Security (CyberSecStudy)

D2E2 - Asset Security (CyberSecStudy)

The National Archives: Sailors, storms and science: how Royal Navy logbooks help us understand climate change (The National Archives)

Sources for First World War army ancestry (The National Archives)

From the Somme to Arras (The National Archives)

Shell-Shocked Britain: Understanding the lasting trauma of the First World War (The National Archives)

The Origins of Naval Station Norfolk (The MacArthur Memorial)

Course Report

ENG 199: Suspended for this week!
PAC 130: Suspended! Who has the time!?
BA 480/CS 406: I listened to, and took notes from, eight CyberSecStudy podcasts.
PI5502: Suspended for this week!
HST 406 (OGHAP): I listened to a few podcasts and re-read chapter six of The Gordon Highlanders: A Concise History by Trevor Royle.

Quote of the Week

"At the outbreak of war Field Marshal Lord Kitchener was appointed Secretary for War and at his first Cabinet meeting he astonished his colleagues by claiming that the war would last for a minimum of three years and would require over one million men to win it."
- Trevor Royle, The Gordon Highlanders: A Concise History