World View: Series of Giant Hornet Attacks in China Kill 41, Injure Thousands

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Series of giant hornet attacks in China kill 41, injure thousands
• Libyans attack Russian embassy to avenge attack by Russian woman
• President Obama ‘jawbones’ the stock market down
• Obamacare web sites keep crashing because they’re too popular?

Series of giant hornet attacks in China kill 41, injure thousands

The Asian giant hornet or Vespa mandarinia

A series of freak hornet attacks that began in July in northwestChina’s Shaanxi Province have injured 1,640 people, 42 of themfatally. The cause for the attacks is not known, but one expertattributed the trend to local vegetation growth, which has increasedthe area populated by hornets, and two months of continuous hotweather, which has made the insects more active. Xinhua and National Post

Libyans attack Russian embassy to avenge attack by Russian woman

Russia has evacuated its diplomats from Libya on Thursday, sendingthem next door to Tunisia, after a group of about 60 people onWednesday tried to force their way into the compound of Russia’sembassy in Tripoli. The perpetrators are believed to be relatives andfriends of a Libyan officer who was murdered by a Russian woman a daybefore the attack, according to Russia’s Foreign Ministry. NoRussians were injured, and two attackers were killed. Moscow Times and Tripoli Post

President Obama ‘jawbones’ the stock market down

Presidents always like to “jawbone” the stock market up, such as whenPresident Herbert Hoover said, in the middle of the 1930s financialcrisis, “Prosperity is just around the corner” and “Now is thetime to buy.” But President Barack Obama is trying theopposite strategy in the current financial crisis. An interviewwith CNBC went like this:

JOHN HARWOOD: You mentioned calm. Wall Street’s beenpretty calm about this [the shutdown]. The reaction I would say,generally speaking, has been, “Washington fighting, Washingtonposturing, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah.” Is that the right way forthem to look at it?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: No, I think this time’s different. I thinkthey should be concerned.

President Obama went on to explain that if he negotiated with theRepublicans now, then he’d be setting a precedent, and he’d have tonegotiate with the Republicans in the future — “[W]e’d have to gothrough it again six months from now and six months after that.”Real Clear Politics

Obamacare web sites keep crashing because they’re too popular?

There have been numerous stories of Obamacare insurance exchange websites repeatedly crashing, ever since they opened on Tuesday.Obamacare officials are saying that they’re crashing because they’retoo popular. For example, California officials claimed that thestate’s web site got 5 million hits on Tuesday, causing it to crash.

As someone who’s been a software engineer for several decades, I cantell you that story is fishy. There are lots of web sites, likeAmazon.com for example, that handle many hits gracefully. And thesepeople have had three years to implement the Obamacare web sites.

What I believe happened, since I’ve seen it several times in my ownexperience, is that some college graduates who implemented web sitesas homework assignments in computer programming courses, were put incharge of implementing the Obamacare web sites. I can assure you,Dear Reader, that that’s a recipe for disaster.

And now it turns out that California’s web site didn’t get 5 millionhits on Tuesday after all. The corrected total: 645,000 hits.LA Times

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