The Spill: RNC Week

Republican National Convention Supports Trump

August 27 is the last day of the Republican National Convention. Just as the Democratic National Convention lasted for four days, the RNC will as well.

On day one of the event, state representatives from the party cast their nomination votes for a candidate to run for 2020 president of the United States. Trump was nominated unanimously, amongst cheers and praise from the party members.

Night two was a little different, highlighting women and their accomplishments. Tiffany Trump, the president’s youngest daughter, spoke on the problem of censored information. She said, “Ask yourselves, why are we prevented from seeing certain information? Why is one viewpoint promoted while others are hidden? The answer is control because division and controversy breed a profit.”

And then first lady Melania Trump spoke; her message was about her immigration to America where she had always wanted to live.

Night three focused on “heroes” such as police officers and the ongoing support Mr. Trump has for law enforcement. Today the nation is in the grips of civil unrest, so law and order is expected to be one of Trump’s main platforms leading up to the vote.

Riots Break Out in Wisconsin

Wisconsin has become the newest hotspot for riots as a result of a black man being shot by white police officers. Jacob Blake was shot several times in the back while he was trying to get inside his vehicle. Luckily, he did not die from the gunshot wounds, but he is reportedly paralyzed from the waist down. According to reports and cell phone video footage taken from the scene, Blake had repeatedly been told to stop, but police officers were unable to restrain him.

The country has been under siege with protests and riots since May. This latest shooting has added more fuel to the fire, sparking upset and unrest across Wisconsin. The national guard has been called in to help protect buildings as well as to control the mobs.

Democratic governor Tony Evers condemned the shooting and said Blake was “not the first black man or person to have been hurt or injured … [by] law enforcement in our state or country.”

However, some feel such statements from state leadership only add more negativity to the situation. Pete Deates, head of the city of Kenosha’s police union, where the shooting took place, said Evers’ statement was “wholly irresponsible” and that the governor should have waited until all the facts were known before condemning the police department or its officers.

Two people have already been killed during the rioting and looting. The area has agreed to accept federal help to control the situation.

A Nazi Enigma Machine and the Importance of Codebreaking

How would you like to find a secret coding machine? What would you pay for it? One professor was lucky enough to find an antique one used during WWII and only had to pay 100 euros (about $118) to get it. The seller had it listed only as a typewriter, but in fact it was an Enigma machine that had been used by the Germans during the war to send secret coded messages. The lucky buyer bought it at a Romanian auction and then was able to turn around and sell it for about $51,500. In June, someone else sold one of the Enigma machines for a whopping $547,500. Besides being a WWII relic, what makes this “typewriter” so special?

The Wehrmacht were branches of the German army that used the machine to send private communications with each other. Although the Allied forces retrieved many of these messages, they were frustrated when they could not crack the code. Scientists began working day and night to try and decode the important messages.

British logician Alan Turing began working on a decryption machine in 1939. He named his project Bombe, which is similar to Bomba, the name the Polish gave to their deciphering device. Eventually, Turing was successful, and then hundreds of the decoding machines were built. Now able to understand the secret messages being sent, the Allied forces gained the upper hand they needed. Some analysts suggest that the decoding devices likely cut the war short by two years.