CIA Democrat Mikie Sherrill Out'Chere Tryna Cancel Republican Insurrectionists

ABC |  Congressional Democrats have demanded an investigation into what they call "suspicious behavior and access" for some visitors the day before the Capitol assault, alleging that unnamed lawmakers led "an extremely high number of outside groups" through the building on what they say could have been "reconnaissance" tours.

During a Facebook Live on Tuesday, New Jersey Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill claimed that she witnessed unnamed members of Congress lead groups of people through the Capitol on a "reconnaissance" tour on Jan. 5, though it is common for lawmakers to guide constituents through the building.

Sherrill also alleged that Republicans "abetted" President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the election, promising that she would "see they are held accountable, and if necessary, ensure that they don't serve in Congress."

The New Jersey Democrat, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot and former federal prosecutor, joined more than 30 lawmakers signing a letter Wednesday to request an investigation from the acting House sergeant-at-arms, the acting Senate sergeant-at-arms, and the United States Capitol Police.

At A Deeper Political Level Gebru's Paper Said Google Machine Learning Creates More Harm Than Good

Gebru Called Into Question Google's Reputation  Based on the leaked email, Gebru's research says that machine learning at Google (the core of Google's products) creates more harm than good. Somebody finally figured out there that if she is effective in her role, she would be calling into question the ethical standing of Google's core products. If a corporation does ethics research but is unwilling to publicize anything that could be considered critical, then it's not ethics research, it's just peer-reviewed public relations. 

Google miscalculated with Gebru. They thought her comfy paycheck would buy her reputational complicity. Like a typical diversity hire at Corporation X, Gebru was supposed to function as a token figleaf and glad hander among snowflakes who might otherwise ask hard questions. Now Google couldn't just tell her that she was hired to be the good AI house negroe, could they?

Google wants the good narrative of "internal ethics research being done" They want to shape that narrative and message about all of "the improvements we can make" whatever it takes so that questions about their products don't effect their bottom line.  With internal ethics research you have access to exponentially more data  (directly and indirectly, the latter because you know who to talk to and can do so) than any poor academic researcher. 

The field has AI Ethics research teams working on important problems (to the community as a whole). These teams are well funded, sometimes with huge resources.  Now to get the best out of this system, the researchers just need to avoid conflicts with the company core business.  In the case of Gebru's paper,  it could have been reframed in a way that would please Google, without sacrificing its scientific merit. Shaping the narrative is extremely important in politics, business, and ethics.

 And Openly Flouted Managerial Authoriteh  Some are critical if machine learning SVP Jeff Dean for rejecting her submission because of bad "literature review", saying that internal review is supposed to check for "disclosure of sensitive material" only. 

Not only are they wrong about the ultimate purpose of internal review processes, they also missed the point of the rejection. It was never about "literature review", but instead about Google's reputation. Take another look at Dean's response email. 

It ignored too much relevant research — for example, it talked about the environmental impact of large models, but disregarded subsequent research showing much greater efficiencies. Similarly, it raised concerns about bias in language models, but didn’t take into account recent research to mitigate these issues. Google is the inventor of the current market dominating language models. Who does more neural network training using larger data sets than Google? 

This is how and why Gebru's paper argues that Google creates more harm than good. Would you approve such a paper, as is? This is being kept to the paper and the email to the internal snowflake list - we don't need to examine her intention to sue Google last year, or calling on colleagues to enlist third-party organizations to put more pressure on Google.

Put yourself in Google's cloven-hooved shoes. 

Gebru: Here's my paper in which I call out the environmental impact of large models and raise concerns about bias in the language data sets. Tomorrow is the deadline, please review and approve it. 

Google: Hold on, this makes us look very bad! You have to revise the paper. We know that large models are not good for the environment, but we have also been doing research to achieve much greater efficiencies. We are also aware of bias in the language models that we are using in production, but we are also proposing solutions to that. You should include those works as well.

Gebru: Give me the names of every single person who reviewed my paper otherwise I'll resign. Throw on top of this the fact that she told hundreds of people in the org to cease important work because she had some disagreements with leadership. 

Google: You're Fired!!! Get Out - We'll Pack Your Shit And Mail It To You!!!!

Left-Wing, Non-Violent Protesters: Why Is No One Ready....?

AG Bill Barr Don't Remember Voting For No Bill Gates

dailywire |  LAURA: Bill Gates, the Gates Foundation are in favor of developing digital certificates that would certify that individuals, American citizens, have an immunity to this virus and potentially other viruses going forward to then facilitate travel and work and so forth. What are your thoughts from a civil libertarian point of view about these types of – what some would say tracking mechanisms that would be adopted going forward to reopen our broader economy?

BARR: Yeah, I’m very concerned about the slippery slope in terms of continuing encroachments on personal liberty. I do think during the emergency, appropriate, reasonable steps are fine.

LAURA: But a digital certificate to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has – of people who’ve received it. That’s his answer in a Reddit ask me anything. They had a little forum.

BARR: Yeah, I’d be a little concerned about that, the tracking of people and so forth, generally, especially going forward over a long period of time.

LAURA: Are you surprised at how wildly partisan a response to this pandemic has become in the United States? I know everything’s political, but this is about saving lives and saving the broader life of America, and yet from a drug like hydroxychloroquine that’s been around for 65 years, 70 years, to other measures the president’s taken, working with Democrat governors quite well, looks like, it never seems to be good enough.

BARR: No, I have been surprised at it. In fact, it was very disappointing because I think the president went out at the beginning of this thing and really was statesman like, trying to bring people together, working with all the governors, keeping his patience as he got these snarky, gotcha questions from the White House media pool. And it – the stridency of the partisan attacks on him has gotten higher and higher, and it’s really disappointing to see. And the politicization of decisions like hydroxychloroquine has been amazing to me. Before the president said anything about it, there was fair and balanced coverage of this very promising drug, and the fact that it had such a long track record, that the risks were pretty well known, and as soon as he said something positive about it, the media’s been on a jahad to discredit the drug, it’s quite strange.

LAURA: There’s a lot of concern now, given the — again, the length of this time, the concern when you hear Dr. Fauci say, well we probably can’t go back to normal life until a vaccine, would be like 12 months, 18 months, that if things don’t open up pretty soon, over some gradual reopening with new protocols and all that, there’s a concern about social unrest. You’re seeing a lot of stores boarded up in San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, and you’re seeing more of that, small businesses affected, especially by theft and — and other criminal activity. How concerned are you about the social unrest and criminal activity in an ongoing shutdown?

BARR: I mean, I think if we extend a full shutdown, that’s a real — that’s a real threat in some of our communities. But, I don’t think it’s limited to that. I think the president’s absolutely right, we cannot keep, for a long period of time, our economy shut down. Just on the public health thing, you know, it means less cancer — cancer researchers are at home. A lot of the disease researchers, who will save lives in the future, that’s being held in abeyance. The money that goes into these institutions, whether philanthropic sources or government sources, is going to be reduced. We will have a weaker healthcare system if we go into a deep depression. So, just measured in lives, the cure cannot be worse than the disease. But when you think of everything else, generations of families who have built up businesses, for generations in this country — and recent immigrants who have — who have built businesses, snuffed out. Small business that may not be able to come back if this goes on too long. So, we have to find, after the 30 day period, we have to find a way of allowing businesses to adapt to this situation and figure out how they can best get started. That’s not necessarily instantaneously going back to the way life was —

LAURA: Well, people are going to be afraid to go out for a long period of time.

BARR: A period of time.

LAURA: And they’re going to be afraid to restaurants, not — maybe won’t go to the re-up at their health club —

BARR: Right. Right.

LAURA: — but people have to have confidence that it’s decently safe out there to move around.

BARR: Right. And that’s why they have to be given accurate information. But also we have to make PPE more broadly available. Restaurants have to change their protocols, perhaps, or other businesses —

LAURA: A lot of them can’t stay in business if they can’t pack it in. You know D.C., and they’ve got to pack — that’s the only way they make money paying these jacked up rents.

BARR: That’s — right, that’s a danger. That’s a danger. So, I think we have to allow people to figure out ways of getting back to work and keep their workers and customers safe. I’m not suggesting we stop social distancing overnight. There may come a time where we have to worry less about that. So, you know, I don’t know when that will be.

LAURA: One question I didn’t ask before — federalism, states rights, the president has been very clear on that during this health crisis. Are you surprised that certain states, New Jersey, in particular, had come in to say that gun stores are nonessential, gun shops are nonessential, but abortion facilities are essential, given — given what we’re facing?

BARR: Well, I’m not surprised. I mean, that’s where our politics are these days. But, obviously, the federal government agreed that gun stores are essential.

LAURA: And abortion facilities in Texas deemed nonessential by the governor, lieutenant governor very strong on that, that saw a lot of legal challenges. Do you foresee —

BARR: I think it was just upheld.

N-1 Controlavirus Eschatology -THAT'S Entertainment!!!

TruNews |  Today on TruNews we detail the coronavirus solution being put forward by billionaire eugenist Bill Gates, to fund the deployment of implanted microchips and vaccines with digital capsules inside every American to track the tested and infected. We also address the threat of blood tests and transfusions, as the Red Cross admits donors are not being tested. Lastly, we react to the shocking announcement by President Trump that up to 1 million reservists are being called up to active military duty for up to 2 years. Rick Wiles, Edward Szall, Doc Burkhart. Airdate: 03/27/20.

Poor During A Pandemic: Harvard FGLI's A Microcosm

thecrimson |  Most days, Jordan H. Barton ’23 wakes up in his Canaday dorm to a 9:30 a.m. alarm.

On Tuesday, though, he woke up earlier. His phone was ringing as he began receiving a flood of texts informing him Harvard College would require undergraduates to vacate campus by Sunday to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“To wake up in the morning and receive what can only be called an eviction notice is something that only invalidates what the school’s mission has stated since they’ve been inducted,” Barton said.

Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana wrote to Barton and more than 6,000 other undergraduates on Tuesday morning that campus would not reopen after spring break, which stretches from March 14 to 22.

Within hours, the email sent students scrambling to pack up all their belongings and make plans to vacate. But Barton and others say it hit one group of undergraduates particularly hard: first-generation and low-income students, many of whom depend upon Harvard for food, housing, and stability.

“They've been evicted from their stability, they've been evicted from their homes, they’ve been evicted from their ability to live comfortably and safely,” Barton, who is an FGLI student, said. 

“There's already enough concern, and now they're concerned about being able to get home and have stable housing and food.”

Some students must ship or store their on-campus belongings without financial support from Harvard. Others who planned to stay on campus must now book unexpected flights home and accrue additional costs. And those who rely on term-time employment must confront additional financial concerns as they lose their primary sources of income.

Nicholas T. “Nick” Wyville ’20 called the College’s announcement “outrageous,” adding that he believes it will weigh most heavily on him and his fellow FGLI students.

“Harvard prides itself on having a massive student body that is a large percentage on financial aid,” Wyville said. “I think that they forget that those are the same students who often come from home situations that are uncomfortable.”

DAYYUM!!! Not Even Worth "Two Piece and a Biscuit" No Mo....,

libertyblitzkreig |  “Happy 18th Birthday! Meet your new Daddy,” read one website advertisement. “Do you have strong oral skills? We’ve got a job for you!” cooed another.

A message on another billboard directed at the “daddies” was more blunt: “The alternative to escorts. Desperate women will do anything”…

SeekingArrangement was founded by Las Vegas tech tycoon Brandon Wade. Wade is apparently worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 million. His motto is, “Love is a concept invented by poor people”…

SA also markets itself as an antidote to student debt. In the U.S. and elsewhere, college students are enduring financial instability and hardship. Because of rising college fees and rent, and the lack of time available for work during studies, many women are extremely vulnerable to exploitation. “SeekingArrangement.com has helped facilitate hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of arrangements that have helped students graduate debt-free,” Wade boasts on the website. Promotional videos show young, beautiful women enrolled in “Sugar Baby University” — in classrooms, holding wads of cash, driving luxury cars, and discussing the pleasure and ease of being a sugar baby.

When signing up for an account, potential sugar babies are told, “Tip: Using a .edu email address earns you a free upgrade!”

– TruthDig: Sugar-Coated Pimping

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

– Frédéric Bastiat

Citizen My Ass - You are an Indebted Tenant of the Sovereign

theamericanconservative |  The REAL ID Act has been intensely controversial since its 2005 enactment in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and fiercely opposed by both conservatives and liberals. Twenty-five  states passed resolutions objecting to the law or signaling that they would not comply. The Electronic Frontier Foundation declared in 2007,  “A federal law that aims to conscript the states into creating a national ID system… is precisely the kind of scheme that the framers expected that federalism would guard against.” 

But the Department of Homeland Security has compelled submission by announcing that the Transportation Security Agency will prohibit Americans from flying unless they have either a REAL ID Act-approved driver’s license or a passport.  The Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that the “‘constitutional right to travel from one State to another’ is firmly embedded in our jurisprudence.” But REAL ID Act policies have routinely scorned both the Bill of Rights and Supreme Court rulings. 

Most Americans do not possess passports, so federally-approved state driver’s licenses are becoming de facto internal passports. Almost a hundred million Americans do not have REAL ID-compliant identification, according to the U.S. Travel Association. In Minnesota, 11 percent of drivers still have licenses that will be rejected at TSA checkpoints starting on October 1. States and individuals are chaotically scrambling to meet the law’s shifting demands. Twitter is echoing with howls of people who spend hours at motor vehicle administration offices only to have their paperwork rejected because of picayune quibbles. 

But the REAL ID law poses perils far beyond the airport entrance. Maryland began issuing REAL ID driver’s licenses in 2009. In 2017, the Department of Homeland Security notified the state that its REAL ID licenses were invalid unless Maryland snared more documents for each driver. More than half a million drivers remain at risk for losing their licenses.  

TheWashington Post reported in August that 8,000 Maryland licenses have been suspended. Three months earlier, MVA announced that 66,300 people were at risk of having their driver’s license or identification cards revoked for failure to comply with MVA demands.  As Maryland ramps up enforcement, the number of suspended licenses is probably far higher now but MVA spokespersons failed to respond to repeated press inquiries seeking the latest number. Maryland police are seizing the license of any driver who they stop whose only offense was failure to hustle to show Maryland bureaucrats their birth certificate, passport, utility bills, Social Security card, or other proof of their identity. 

Since the 2005 enactment of the REAL ID Act, the federal government has helped bankroll the license plate scanner networks  that permit tracking any driver on the roads in many parts of the nation. If Maryland decides to target people who received cancellation notices, there are almost 500 license plate scanners deployed in police cars and elsewhere in the state that compile almost half a billion scans of driver’s per year. If the order is given to use the scanners, a thousand people a day could be stripped of their licenses and potentially arrested. MVA spokespersons failed to respond to inquiries about whether license plate scanners may be used for enforcing REAL ID compliance demands.

Deep State Only Wants Trump to Live According to His Station and His Duties

extranewsfeed |  As the feudal power-structures of Europe broke down beneath a wave of revolutions in the 18th century, governments took a more active role in law enforcement and the first centralized policing organization was created in France by King Louis XIV. The duties of the new police were bluntly described as a mechanism of class-control over workers and peasants:

“ensuring the peace and quiet of the public and of private individuals, purging the city of what may cause disturbances, procuring abundance, and having each and everyone live according to their station and their duties”

While France’s Gendarmes were seen as a symbol of oppression in other parts of Europe, the French policing model spread during the early 1800s as Napoleon Bonaparte conquered much of the continent. By the mid-1800s, modern policing institutions — publicly-funded, centralized police organized in a military hierarchy and under the control of the state — had been transplanted everywhere from Tsarist Russia to England and the United States.

Policing became the exclusive right of governments as other law enforcement groups were absorbed into new and “official” institutions. The new police were not just tasked with serving the public, however — they also protected the political power of their new employers. It was a revolutionary era and the new police were shaped by rulers facing a particularly mutinous population. The use of police as the vanguard of state-power was a major development and it was adapted to repress popular movements all over the world. Early police organizations in the US, for example, pretty much handed blue uniforms to former slave-patrols and anti-union mercenaries who had historically protected the interests of plantation-bosses in the South and industrial capitalists in the North.

( For more on the historical links between slavery, anti-union security, and law enforcement, read “Private Property Is the Police-State” )

Pennywise the Political Assassin Missing Trump, Hitting Africom, Disserving Black Americans?

Politico |  Wilson, calling Trump a “jerk” and a “liar,” said in an interview in Miami Thursday that she believed the ambush that led to four deaths two weeks ago resembled the 2012 attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that also left four dead, including a U.S. ambassador. The attack led to criticism of former President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by conservatives who said the facility was unprepared for such an incident and also took issue with their handling of the aftermath.

“The circumstances are similar,” Wilson said. She said in Niger, the four soldiers providing counterterrorism training “didn’t have appropriate weapons where they were. They were told by intelligence there was no threat. They had trucks that were not armored trucks. They were particularly not protected. Just like in Benghazi, they were given the impression that everything was fine.”

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, disputed the comparison. 

“In Benghazi, you had U.S. fighter jets sitting in Crete that could have been there very quickly. Here, we did not have U.S. capabilities that we were freezing in place,” Gaetz said. “It is not like that in Central Africa.” 

In Niger, Gaetz said, U.S. special forces were trying to keep a light footprint so as not to draw attention as they equipped and trained local forces to combat terrorists chased out of North Africa. As a result, he said, the soldiers were exposed because of the dangerous nature of the mission.

“When you’ve got Americans in a zone where there’s really little command and control, it’s a highly volatile environment,” Gaetz said. “It is not atypical to begin these types of operations by having our high-intensity special operators — the Green Berets, the Navy Seals, the air commandos — and then over time increase our capabilities. In Central Africa, it is important that we maintain low visibility in some cases. And having a massive extraction force in the region doesn’t always facilitate low visibility.”

Counterpunch |  The ball is in the Trump court. What were those four men doing in Niger? Is our military presence making things better or worse there? Did US leadership make a bad decision that had unforeseen consequences? Are they relying on secrecy to cover up an embarrassment? And the big question: Is the United States mobilizing its military in Africa? Are we embarking on a huge new foreign adventure? On a large, historic canvas, one can look at the Vietnam and Iraq Wars in this light, as the growth of imperial militarism with expanding commitments of young men and women in uniform. Which brings us back to General Kelly’s schizophrenic press conference: On one hand, there’s his moving call for recognizing the sacrifice of our soldiers and their families. Then, there’s his shameful political attack on a congresswoman who he did not realize had real skin in the game — skin that happened to be darker than his white, privileged Boston skin. The general wonders why the honor and glue of America isn’t what it used to be in the glory days of World War Two, which was a defensive war. Those “values” no longer prevail; something else is going on. General Kelly needs to realize, when he becomes an attack dog for someone like Donald Trump, he’s not on a foreign battlefield — he’s in the trenches of Washington DC, which a recent article in the conservative National Review compared to the climate in the HBO hit Game of Thrones.

Washington politics is uglier than it has been in a long time. Secrecy, dishonesty and corruption are epidemic. As long as our military is rooted in such amoral soil, the respect and sacredness for our  soldiers that General Kelly seeks will remain far out of reach.

Culture of Compliance: Every Single One of These Peasants Deserves to be a Slave...,

Counterpunch |  For instance, 20 years ago, I took up a sexual harassment lawsuit on behalf of a young woman—a state employee—who claimed that her boss, a politically powerful man, had arranged for her to meet him in a hotel room, where he then allegedly dropped his pants, propositioned her and invited her to perform oral sex on him.

Despite the fact that this man had a well-known reputation for womanizing and this woman was merely one in a long line of women who had accused the man of groping, propositioning, and pressuring them for sexual favors in the workplace, she was denounced as white trash and subjected to a massive smear campaign by the man’s wife, friends and colleagues (including the leading women’s rights organizations of the day), while he was given lucrative book deals and paid lavish sums for speaking engagements.

William Jefferson Clinton eventually agreed to settle the case and pay Paula Jones $850,000.

Here we are 20 years later and not much has changed.

 

Suffice it to say that it’s the same old story all over again: man rises to power, man abuses power abominably, man intimidates and threatens anyone who challenges him with retaliation or worse, and man gets away with it because of a culture of compliance in which no one speaks up because they don’t want to lose their job or their money or their place among the elite.

From what I’ve read, this was Hollywood’s worst-kept secret.

In other words, everyone who was anyone knew about it. They were either complicit in allowing the abuses to take place, turning a blind eye to them, or helping to cover them up.

It’s not just happening in Hollywood, however.

Experience Keeps a Dear School: Puerto Rico - Aprende de Cuba...,

strategic-culture |  Most Puerto Ricans are unaware that their neo-colonialist “commonwealth” status as a US territory was cooked up by the Central Intelligence Agency to ensure that Puerto Rico remained a US military base for Cold War operations directed against Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, British Guiana/Guyana, Venezuela, Panama, Guatemala, and other countries in the Western Hemisphere.

For Washington, Puerto Rico has never been taken seriously. Its days as a major US military and intelligence “aircraft carrier” in the Caribbean are long over. Washington, via a long line of pathetic “quislings” who have served as governors of the territory, would rather Puerto Rico be seen and not heard, especially when it comes to treating the islanders as full and equal US citizens. The recent hurricanes that have hit the Caribbean have taught all the colonial vestiges in the region that they would be better off as independent states responsible for their own well-being and recovery than be treated as insignificant colonial pawns.

Too Much Democracy - PEASANTS!!!

rollingstone |  One of the underpublicized revelations of the financial crisis, for instance, was that millions of Americans found themselves unable to get answers to a simple questions like, "Who holds the note to my house?"

People want more power over their own lives. They want to feel some connection to society. Most particularly, they don't want to be dictated to by distant bureaucrats who don't seem to care what they're going through, and think they know what's best for everyone.

These are legitimate concerns. Unfortunately, they came out in this past year in the campaign of Donald Trump, who'd exposed a tiny flaw in the system.

People are still free to vote, and some peculiarities in the structure of the commercial media, combined with mountains of public anger, conspired to put one of the two parties in the hands of a coverage-devouring billionaire running on a "Purge the Scum" platform.

But choosing a dangerous race-baiting lunatic as the vehicle for the first successful revolt in ages against one of the two major parties will have many profound negative consequences for voters. The most serious will surely be this burgeoning movement to describe voting and democracy as inherently dangerous.

Donald Trump is dangerous because as president, he'd likely have little respect for law. But a gang of people whose metaphor for society is "We are the white cells, voters are the disease" is comparably scary in its own banal, less click-generating way.

These self-congratulating cognoscenti could have looked at the events of the last year and wondered why people were so angry with them, and what they could do to make government work better for the population.

Instead, their first instinct is to dismiss voter concerns as baseless, neurotic bigotry and to assume that the solution is to give Washington bureaucrats even more leeway to blow off the public. In the absurdist comedy that is American political life, this is the ultimate anti-solution to the unrest of the last year, the mathematically perfect wrong ending.

Trump is going to lose this election, then live on as the reason for an emboldened, even less-responsive oligarchy. And you thought this election season couldn't get any worse.

stir this pot and you'll wind up licking the spoon...,

ynet |  It is time that we came to the realization: we are in the midst of World War III. A war that will differ from the others but will take place all over the globe, on land, air and sea. This is a war between jihadist Islam and Western civilization; a war between radical Islam and all those who refuse to surrender to its values and political demands.

This war will, of course, have to be fought on the ground – with American, British and French divisions and tanks that will fight in Syria and Iraq, but also with security measures taken at border crossings and by special forces and intelligence agencies in Belgium, France and Germany as well as in the Philippines, China and Russia. This war will be conducted on the Mediterranean Sea as well as in the air with combat aircraft bombarding concentrations of ISIS and al-Qaeda fighters across Asia and Africa and security measures taken at airports and passenger aircraft worldwide. This is what the third world war will look like, which Israel has been a part of for a while now.

Indications from the Paris attack immediately pointed to Islamic State, and after they took responsibility for it – it is possible to discern the strategy set forth by the organization: Painful blows of terror at targets easy for them to operate in and which allow them to claim a mental victory with minimal effort and risk.

One can identify the beginning of the current offensive with the Russian plane explosion over Sinai three weeks ago. The Paris attack was directed according to the same strategy. It is likely that the attack had been planned over many months, but the background is the same as that of the plane attack: ISIS is now taking heavy blows in Syria and Iraq and is losing several of its important outposts in the heart of the Islamic caliphate it wants to establish.

Therefore ISIS is attacking its enemies’ rear and Europe, as usual, is the first to get hit. ISIS and al-Qaeda prefer striking in Europe because it is considered the cradle of Christianity and Islamic fundamentalist organizations still see it as the homeland of the Crusaders, who just as in the past, are at present waging a religious and cultural war on Islam. France and Paris were chosen as a target as France stood at the forefront of the cultural and religious struggle against radical Islam. It is also the easiest target to attack.

Why France?

France was the target of a combined assault of radical Islam not just because it has a tradition of human rights and freedom of movement, but because France and French culture symbolize everything that radical Islam is afraid of and is in an all-out war against. France enacted a ban on women to wear the hijab in public places, the Supreme Court allowed the magazine Charlie Hebdo to publish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and President Francois Hollande recently refused Iranian President Rouhani’s request to not have alcohol served at a dinner in his honor. All these are challenges to the jihadists that no one else in the West have yet dared emulate. So that is the primary reason that France mourns the murder of at least 129 people.

The second reason is that France has the biggest and most established Muslim population in Europe that lives in large urban concentrations, mostly poor neighborhoods. These are ideal soil for the preaching of radical Islam in neighborhood mosques. The terrorists yesterday spoke French fluently and one can assume that at least some were French citizens of North African descent and other Muslim countries in Africa and Asia. They could thus assimilate into the population to choose destinations, collect information about them and flee from them after their attack.

It was not clear if all the terrorists were suicide bombers or whether some of them escaped. That is why the French government imposed a partial curfew and ordered troops into the streets in many cities, the same measures taken by Israel when the current wave of terrorism began. The aim is that the very presence of many security personnel can deter copycat attacks or the continuation of ongoing attacks.

The third reason is the fact that France is in the heart of Western Europe and it is surrounded by states with large Muslim immigrant communities. The freedom of movement between European countries as per the Schengen Agreement allows the jihadists to utilize these communities to both find terrorist fighters who have been through the baptism of fire in the Middle East and to smuggle weapons required to perform attacks.

necropolitics: racial neuroses can make you forget your place in the objective scheme of things...,

theatlantic |  Why doesn’t Netanyahu understand that alienating Democrats is not in the best interest of his country? From what I can tell, he doubts that Democrats are—or will be shortly—a natural constituency for Israel, and he clearly believes that Obama is a genuine adversary. As I reported last year, in an article that got more attention for a poultry-related epithet an administration official directed at Netanyahu than anything else, Netanyahu has told people he has “written off” Obama.

I should have, at the time, explored the slightly unreal notion that an Israeli prime minister would even contemplate “writing off” an American president (though I did predict that Netanyahu would take his case directly to Congress). I still don’t understand Netanyahu’s thinking. It is immaterial whether an Israeli prime minister finds an American president agreeable or not. A sitting president cannot be written off by a small, dependent ally, without terrible consequences.

As Ron Dermer's predecessor in Washington, Michael Oren, said in reaction to this latest Netanyahu blow-up: "It's advisable to cancel the speech to Congress so as not to cause a rift with the American government. Much responsibility and reasoned political behavior are needed to guard interests in the White House."

Oren, though appointed ambassador by Netanyahu, is now running for Knesset on another party's line. When he was in Washington, he worried more about the state of Israel's bipartisan support than almost any other issue. He recently criticized Netanyahu, albeit indirectly, for risking Israel's relations with the U.S.: "Today, more than ever, it is clear that Israel-U.S. relations are the foundation of any economic, security, and diplomatic approach. It is our responsibility to strengthen those ties immediately."

There is hypocrisy in the discussion of the Netanyahu-Boehner end-run. It is not unprecedented for foreign leaders to lobby Congress directly; the Arab states opposed to Iran do it all the time, and the British prime minister, David Cameron, lobbied Congress earlier this month on behalf of Obama’s Iran policy, and against the arguments of the Republicans.

But the manner and execution and overall tone-deafness of Netanyahu’s recent ploy suggest that he—and his current ambassador—don’t understand how to manage Israel’s relationships in Washington. Netanyahu wants a role in shaping the Iranian nuclear agreement, should one materialize. His recent actions suggest that he doesn't quite know what he's doing.

five reasons scientists should stay out of debates with creationists

thescientist | Among the most probable outcomes of this event is widespread renewed interest in debating evolution. Scientists may increasingly find themselves challenged to debate creationist evangelists, and perhaps threatened to be added to a “debate dodger” list should they hesitate. Worse yet, either because they admired Nye’s performance and wish to emulate it, or because they fault his performance and wish to surpass it, scientists may be tempted to challenge creationists to debate.

Scientists should decline such challenges and resist this temptation. Why? Decades of experience suggest that formal oral debates between scientists and creationists are by and large counterproductive—at least if the goal is to improve the public’s understanding of evolution and the nature of science, and to increase the level of support for the teaching of evolution uncompromised by religious dogma.

1. Such debates confer unearned legitimacy on the creationist position. When a scientist debates a creationist about evolution, he or she is conveying the message that the creationist has a scientific case to make, even though creationists explicitly or implicitly prioritize scripture over science. Revealingly, creationists do not argue—nor even attempt to argue—for their views how scientists argue for their scientific positions.
    
2. Such debates tend to mislead the audience about the nature of scientific practice. Scientists argue with each other, sometimes fiercely, but they do not argue in the service of a religious ideology. Rather, they argue in the service of a common goal: ascertaining how the natural world works. And they do so in venues that reward the objective assessment of evidence rather than oratorical prowess, such as research publications and professional conferences.
    
3. Most debate formats allow the creationist participant to engage in the Gish gallop, so named for the late stalwart creationist debater Duane T. Gish, who was notorious for his breakneck recital of half-truths, out-of-context quotations, and quibbles, presented in such swift succession that the opposing scientist was oftens unable to track, let alone refute, every point. As a result, the audience is left with the misapprehension that the points left unrefuted by the scientific debater are valid.
    
4. Such debates are often presented, explicitly or implicitly, as debates over religion, with the creationist happily assuming the role of defender of faith, God, and the Bible, and the scientist cast, willingly or unwillingly, in the opposite role. Because evolution is accepted on the basis of the overwhelming evidence by scientists of all faiths and of none, it is inaccurate and unhelpful for it to be presented as distinctively and inextricably connected with any position on religion.
    
5. Such debates help to stimulate the base and swell the coffers of their creationist sponsors. What’s worse, they fuel local enthusiasm for creationism, contributing to pressure on local teachers to teach creationism or downplay evolution. A survey conducted in 2007 revealed the dismal fact that one in eight public high-school biology teachers in the United States already present creationism as scientifically credible, and that six in 10 already downplay evolution.

everything else is merely conversation...,

The fourth dimension is unknowable. If it exists and if at the same time we cannot know it, it evidently means that something is lacking in our psychic apparatus, in our faculties of perception; in other words, phenomena of the region of the fourth dimension are not reflected in our organs of sense. We must examine why this should be so, what are our defects on which this non-receptivity depends, and must find the conditions (even if only theoretically) which would make the fourth dimension comprehensible and accessible to us. These are all questions relating to psychology or, possibly, to the theory of knowledge.

Further, we know that the region of the fourth dimension (again, if it exists) is not only unknowable for our psychic apparatus, but is inaccessible in a purely physical sense. This must depend not on our defects, but on the particular properties and conditions of the region of the fourth dimension itself. It is necessary to examine what these conditions are, which make the region of the fourth dimension inaccessible to us, and to find the relation between the physical conditions of the region of the fourth dimension and the physical condition of our world. And having established this, it is necessary to see whether in the world surrounding us there is anything similar to these conditions, that is, whether there are any relations analogous to relations between the region of three dimensions and that of four dimensions.