wikipedia | The causes of the Casimir effect are described by quantum field theory, which states that all of the various fundamental fields, such as the electromagnetic field,
must be quantized at each and every point in space. In a simplified
view, a "field" in physics may be envisioned as if space were filled
with interconnected vibrating balls and springs, and the strength of the
field can be visualized as the displacement of a ball from its rest
position. Vibrations in this field propagate and are governed by the
appropriate wave equation
for the particular field in question. The second quantization of
quantum field theory requires that each such ball-spring combination be
quantized, that is, that the strength of the field be quantized at each
point in space. At the most basic level, the field at each point in
space is a simple harmonic oscillator, and its quantization places a quantum harmonic oscillator at each point. Excitations of the field correspond to the elementary particles of particle physics.
However, even the vacuum has a vastly complex structure, so all
calculations of quantum field theory must be made in relation to this
model of the vacuum.
The vacuum has, implicitly, all of the properties that a particle may have: spin,[18] or polarization in the case of light, energy,
and so on. On average, most of these properties cancel out: the vacuum
is, after all, "empty" in this sense. One important exception is the vacuum energy or the vacuum expectation value
of the energy. The quantization of a simple harmonic oscillator states
that the lowest possible energy or zero-point energy that such an
oscillator may have is
Summing over all possible oscillators at all points in space gives an infinite quantity. Since only differences in energy are physically measurable (with the notable exception of gravitation, which remains beyond the scope of quantum field theory),
this infinity may be considered a feature of the mathematics rather
than of the physics. This argument is the underpinning of the theory of renormalization. Dealing with infinite quantities in this way was a cause of widespread unease among quantum field theorists before the development in the 1970s of the renormalization group, a mathematical formalism for scale transformations that provides a natural basis for the process.
When the scope of the physics is widened to include gravity, the
interpretation of this formally infinite quantity remains problematic.
There is currently no compelling explanation as to why it should not result in a cosmological constant that is many orders of magnitude larger than observed.[19] However, since we do not yet have any fully coherent quantum theory of gravity,
there is likewise no compelling reason as to why it should instead
actually result in the value of the cosmological constant that we
observe.[20]
Alternatively, a 2005 paper by Robert Jaffe
of MIT states that "Casimir effects can be formulated and Casimir
forces can be computed without reference to zero-point energies. They
are relativistic, quantum forces between charges and currents. The
Casimir force (per unit area) between parallel plates vanishes as alpha,
the fine structure constant, goes to zero, and the standard result,
which appears to be independent of alpha, corresponds to the alpha
approaching infinity limit", and that "The Casimir force is simply the
(relativistic, retarded) van der Waals force between the metal plates."[16]
Casimir and Polder's original paper used this method to derive the
Casimir–Polder force. In 1978, Schwinger, DeRadd, and Milton published a
similar derivation for the Casimir effect between two parallel plates.[21] More recently, Nikolic proved from first principles of quantum electrodynamics that Casimir force does not originate from vacuum energy of electromagnetic field,[22] and explained in simple terms why the fundamental microscopic origin of Casimir force lies in van der Waals forces.[23]
Following the United States' involvement in the 1982 Lebanon War, a vengeful al-Assad made an alliance with Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran. They planned to force the US out of the Middle East by encouraging civilians to carry out suicide bombings on American targets in the region, thereby avoiding reprisals. In February 1984, the US withdrew all its troops from Lebanon because, in the words of then-US Secretary of State George P. Shultz, "we became paralysed by the complexity that we faced".
Altered States
By the mid-1980s, banks and corporations were connecting through computer networks to create a hidden system of power, and technological utopians whose roots lay in the counterculture of the 1960s also saw the internet as an opportunity to make an alternative world that was free of political and legal restraints.
Acid Flashback
John Perry Barlow's vision of cyberspace as the 1990s equivalent of the Acid Tests. Barlow had been part of the LSD (also known as "acid") counterculture in the 1960s and founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He wrote a manifesto called A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.
Addressed to politicians, it declared "the global social space we are
building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose
upon us". Two computer hackers—Phiber Optik and Acid Phreak—knew
that in reality corporations were using the internet to exert more
control over the lives of people than governments had done in the past,
and they demonstrated that hierarchies did exist online by obtaining
Barlow's credit record from TRW Inc. and posting it on the internet.
The Colonel
This chapter describes the Reagan administration using Muammar Gaddafi as a pawn in their public relations (PR) strategy of creating a simplified, morally unambiguous foreign policy by blaming him for the 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks and the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing
that killed US soldiers, both of which European security services
attributed to Syrian intelligence agencies. Gaddafi is described as
playing along for the sake of increasing his profile in the Arab world as a revolutionary. The 1986 United States bombing of Libya,
10 days after the disco bombing, is described as an operation carried
out mainly for PR reasons, because attacking Syria would have been too
risky.
This chapter begins with a montage of unidentified flying object
(UFO) sightings recorded by members of the public in the United States.
It argues that the phenomenon surrounding UFOs in the 1990s was born
out of a counter-intelligence
operation designed to make the public believe that secret airborne
high-technology weapons systems tested by the US military during and
after the Cold War were alien visitations. Top secret memos forged by the United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations were allegedly leaked to ufologists who spread the manufactured conspiracy theory of a government cover-up to the wider public. The method, called perception management,
aimed to distract people from the complexities of the real world.
American politics are described as having become increasingly detached
from reality. Curtis uses the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s as an example of an event that took the West by surprise because reality had become less and less important. A Jane Fondaworkout video is shown to illustrate that socialists
had given up trying to change the real world and were instead focusing
on the self and encouraging others to do the same. The video is intercut
with footage of Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena, being executed by firing squad and buried following the Romanian Revolution in 1989.
Managed Outcomes
Ulrich Beck
is identified as a left-wing German political theorist. After the
collapse of the Soviet Union, he saw the world as too complex to change,
and Beck asserted that politicians should merely keep the West stable
by predicting and avoiding risks. Curtis looks at Aladdin,
a computer that manages about 7% of the world's financial assets,
analysing the past to anticipate what may happen in the future; and how anti-depressant drugs and social media both stabilise the emotions of individuals.
A Cautionary Tale
The
start of this chapter is about the flaws of trying to predict the
future by using data from the past. Curtis tells the story of how a card counter was recruited by Donald Trump to analyse the gambling habits of Akio Kashiwagi at his casino, the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City,
after Trump had lost millions of dollars to Kashiwagi. In an effort to
avert the impending bankruptcy of the casino, a model was devised that
predicted a way of recouping the money from Kashiwagi, who lost
US$10 million. However, before he could pay, he was killed by yakuza gangsters and the casino went bankrupt, with Trump having to sell many of his assets to the banks.
Attention turns back to the Middle East and the Lockerbie Bombing
in 1988. Curtis says that immediately after the bombing, journalists
and investigators blamed Syria for carrying out the attack on behalf of
Iran in revenge for the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the United States Navy.[a]
It was generally accepted as true until US security agencies announced
that Libya was behind the attack. Some journalists and politicians
believed that the West had made the volte-face to appease Syria's leader, who the US and the United Kingdom required as an ally in the coming Gulf War.
He focuses on the spread of suicide bombing tactics from Shia to Sunni Islam and the targeting of civilians in Israel by Hamas during the 1990s. The resulting political paralysis led to a stalling of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. It is described as an unintended consequence of Israel's response to the 1992 killing of an Israeli border guard.
A montage is shown of clips from pre-9/11 disaster films in which New York City landmarks are variously destroyed by alien invaders, meteorites, and a tsunami.
Curtis argues that such films were characteristic of a mood of
uncertainty that pervaded the United States at the end of the
20th century.
Curtis shows how Muammar Gaddafi was turned into the West's "new best friend."
A World Without Power
The effect of the Iraq war wreaks havoc on the American psyche and people retreat into cyberspace. Judea Pearl creates Bayesian networks that mimic human behaviour. Judea's son, Daniel Pearl is the first American to be beheaded on a video uploaded to YouTube.
Meanwhile, social media algorithms show information that is
pleasing to their users and hence does nothing to challenge their
beliefs. Despite this, Occupy Wall Street
emerges in an attempt to disrupt the system by imitating the leaderless
system that the internet was once imagined to become. Using a similar
method, the Egyptian revolution of 2011 commenced.
Britain, France and the US turn their backs on Muammar Gaddafi
once Libyans rise up against him. The US drops bombs using drones, and
then footage is shown of Gaddafi being captured by rebels.
Neither Occupy Wall Street nor the Arab Spring turn out very well for the revolutionaries.
In Russia, Vladimir Putin and his cabinet of political technologists create mass confusion. Vladislav Surkov
uses ideas from art to turn Russian politics into a bewildering piece
of theatre. Donald Trump used the same techniques in his presidential
campaign by using language from Occupy Wall Street. Curtis asserts that
Trump "defeated journalism" by rendering its fact-checking abilities
irrelevant.
The American Left's attempt to resist Trump on the internet had
no effect. In fact, they were just feeding the social media corporations
who valued their many additional clicks.
Syria's revolution becomes more vicious and violent. The technique of suicide bombing that Curtis argues Hafez al-Assad
introduced in order to unite the Middle East has instead torn it apart.
Russia uses Surkov's concept of "non-linear warfare" to fight against
the Syrian rebels. Russia claims to leave Syria, but doesn't.
Abu Musab al-Suri in Syria suggests that terrorists should not carry out large-scale attacks such as Osama Bin Laden's,
but instead carry out "random" small-scale attacks throughout the West
to create fear and chaos, against which it would be more difficult to
retaliate.
Destabilisation of the West's psyche leads to the vote for Brexit and the popularity of Donald Trump.
Heaviside's vector calculus, also known as vector analysis, was developed in the late 19th century as a way to simplify and unify the mathematical treatment of physical phenomena involving vectors, such as those described by James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism. At the time, Maxwell's equations were typically expressed using quaternions, which are a type of mathematical notation that involves four complex numbers. The quaternion algebra, developed by James Clerk Maxwell and William Rowan Hamilton, was a more complex mathematical system that had been used to describe physical phenomena, but it was eventually replaced by vector calculus due to its relative simplicity and ease of use.
Quaternions involved complex numbers and required the use of four dimensions, which made them more difficult to work with and interpret. In contrast, vector calculus used a more familiar three-dimensional coordinate system and involved only familiar algebraic operations. Quaternions were found to be somewhat difficult to work with and interpret, especially for those who were not familiar with the notation.
In contrast, vector calculus provided a more intuitive and familiar way to represent and manipulate vectors, using familiar concepts such as magnitude and direction. As a result, vector calculus quickly gained widespread adoption and eventually replaced quaternions as the preferred method for expressing and solving problems involving vectors in physics and engineering. Heaviside's vector notation, which uses arrow notation to represent vectors and dot notation to represent scalars, is much easier to use and understand than quaternions, which are a type of mathematical notation that uses four-dimensional complex numbers.
While quaternions were primarily used in the study of electromagnetism, vector calculus could be used to represent any type of vector quantity, including displacement, velocity, acceleration, and force. This made it a more widely applicable tool for solving problems in many different fields of science and engineering.
In this video, we're looking at how there are two sides to every Maxwell, equation, and therefore there are two ways of understanding each of Maxwell's equations.
Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism fall under the umbrella of classical physics, [NO THEY DO NOT!!!!] and describe how electric and magnetic fields are allowed to behave within our universe (assuming the equations are correct of course). Electric and magnetic fields show how electrically charged, and magnetic objects respectively, exert forces on each other.
Each of Maxwell's equations is a differential equation that can be written in one of two forms - the differential form, and the integral form. In this video, we look at two of these equations, and how each of them has two variations. We begin by studying the first Maxwell equation, which says (in the differential form) that the divergence of any magnetic field is always equal to zero.
The physical interpretation of the above statement is that if we consider any closed volume of space, the net magnetic field passing either in or out of the region must always be zero. We can never have a scenario where more magnetic field enters or leaves any closed region of space. The divergence of the magnetic field simply measures how much field is entering or leaving the volume overall. And this must be equal to zero.
Conversely, this same equation can be written in integral from (i.e. from a slightly different perspective). The integral equation says that the integral of B.dS is equal to zero. B is once again the magnetic field, and dS is a small element of the surface surrounding the volume discussed above. This method breaks up the outer surface covering the volume into very small pieces, counts the amount of magnetic field passing the surface element, and then adds up the contributions from all the elements making up the surface. This addition of contributions is given by the surface integral over the closed surface. In other words, the integral form of this Maxwell equation states the same thing as the differential form but looks at it from a slightly different perspective. Note: the integral must be a closed integral i.e. there should be no holes or breaks in the surface.
We also see a similar sort of thing with the second Maxwell equation, which looks at the behavior of electric fields. The differential form states that the divergence of the electric field is equal to a charge density divided by epsilon nought, the permittivity of free space. This therefore says that for any closed volume, the net amount of field entering or leaving the volume is directly related to the density of charge enclosed within the volume. Therefore if the net charge in the volume is zero, then the net field entering or leaving it is also zero. If the net charge is positive, the divergence is greater than zero, and if the net charge is negative, the divergence is less than zero.
The integral equation states that the sum of the electric field contributions to each of the small elements making up the area surrounding the volume is equal to the total charge enclosed within the surface, divided by epsilon nought. So once again this is looking at the same scenario from a slightly different perspective.
Each Maxwell equation has these two ways of writing it, and one can easily convert from the differential form to the integral form if one knows differential calculus. It is generally simple to move between these forms, and we can use whichever one is mathematically most convenient to us at any given time.
Maxwell's equations describe the behavior of electromagnetic fields and the way in which they interact with matter. These equations do not directly specify the types of electromagnetic waves that can be propagated, but they do provide the underlying principles that govern the behavior of electromagnetic waves.
According to Maxwell's equations, electromagnetic waves can propagate through a medium or through free space. In both cases, the waves can be transverse, meaning that the electric and magnetic field components are perpendicular to the direction of propagation. Transverse electromagnetic waves are often referred to as "TEM waves."
However, it is also possible for electromagnetic waves to propagate in a longitudinal direction, meaning that the electric and magnetic field components are parallel to the direction of propagation. Longitudinal electromagnetic waves are often referred to as "LEM waves."
In general, LEM waves are not as common as TEM waves, and they tend to be less well understood. However, they can still be generated and studied in certain circumstances, such as when an intense electromagnetic field is applied to a plasma or when charged particles are accelerated in a beam.
So, to answer your question, yes, Maxwell's equations do allow for the propagation of longitudinal electromagnetic waves, although they are not as common or well understood as transverse electromagnetic waves.
Maxwell's equations describe the behavior of electromagnetic fields and the way they propagate through space. These equations can be used to predict the behavior of both transverse electromagnetic (TEM) waves, which have electric and magnetic fields that are perpendicular to the direction of propagation, and longitudinal electromagnetic (LEM) waves, which have electric and magnetic fields that are parallel to the direction of propagation.
In general, Maxwell's equations are valid for any type of electromagnetic wave, including LEM waves. However, LEM waves are not commonly observed in nature and are not typically discussed in the context of Maxwell's equations. This is because LEM waves are generally not stable and tend to rapidly dissipate or transform into TEM waves.
There are some specialized situations in which LEM waves may be observed, such as in plasma physics or in certain types of metamaterials. In these cases, Maxwell's equations can be used to understand the behavior of LEM waves and to predict their properties.
wikipedia |Oliver HeavisideFRS[1] (/ˈhɛvisaɪd/; 18 May 1850 – 3 February 1925) was an English self-taughtmathematician and physicist who invented a new technique for solving differential equations (equivalent to the Laplace transform), independently developed vector calculus, and rewrote Maxwell's equations
in the form commonly used today. He significantly shaped the way
Maxwell's equations are understood and applied in the decades following
Maxwell's death. His formulation of the telegrapher's equations
became commercially important during his own lifetime, after their
significance went unremarked for a long while, as few others were versed
at the time in his novel methodology.[2]
Although at odds with the scientific establishment for most of his
life, Heaviside changed the face of telecommunications, mathematics, and
science.[2]
Heaviside's uncle by marriage was Sir Charles Wheatstone
(1802–1875), an internationally celebrated expert in telegraphy and
electromagnetism, and the original co-inventor of the first commercially
successful telegraph in the mid-1830s. Wheatstone took a strong
interest in his nephew's education[5]
and in 1867 sent him north to work with his older brother Arthur
Wheatstone, who was managing one of Charles' telegraph companies in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.[4]: 53
Two years later he took a job as a telegraph operator with the Danish Great Northern Telegraph Company laying a cable from Newcastle to Denmark
using British contractors. He soon became an electrician. Heaviside
continued to study while working, and by the age of 22 he published an
article in the prestigious Philosophical Magazine on 'The Best Arrangement of Wheatstone's Bridge for measuring a Given Resistance with a Given Galvanometer and Battery'[6] which received positive comments from physicists who had unsuccessfully tried to solve this algebraic problem, including Sir William Thomson, to whom he gave a copy of the paper, and James Clerk Maxwell. When he published an article on the duplex method of using a telegraph cable,[7] he poked fun at R. S. Culley, the engineer in chief of the Post Office telegraph system, who had been dismissing duplex as impractical. Later in 1873 his application to join the Society of Telegraph Engineers
was turned down with the comment that "they didn't want telegraph
clerks". This riled Heaviside, who asked Thomson to sponsor him, and
along with support of the society's president he was admitted "despite
the P.O. snobs".[4]: 60
In 1873 Heaviside had encountered Maxwell's newly published, and later famous, two-volume Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. In his old age Heaviside recalled:
I remember my first look at the great treatise of Maxwell's when I
was a young man... I saw that it was great, greater and greatest, with
prodigious possibilities in its power... I was determined to master the
book and set to work. I was very ignorant. I had no knowledge of
mathematical analysis (having learned only school algebra and
trigonometry which I had largely forgotten) and thus my work was laid
out for me. It took me several years before I could understand as much
as I possibly could. Then I set Maxwell aside and followed my own
course. And I progressed much more quickly... It will be understood that
I preach the gospel according to my interpretation of Maxwell.[8]
Undertaking research from home, he helped develop transmission line theory (also known as the "telegrapher's equations"). Heaviside showed mathematically that uniformly distributed inductance in a telegraph line would diminish both attenuation and distortion, and that, if the inductance were great enough and the insulationresistance not too high, the circuit would be distortionless in that currents of all frequencies would have equal speeds of propagation.[9] Heaviside's equations helped further the implementation of the telegraph.
James Clerk Maxwell's original 20 equations are a set of equations that describe the behavior of electric and magnetic fields, and how they interact with matter. These equations are considered to be some of the most important and fundamental equations in physics, and they form the foundation of classical electromagnetism. Original Maxwell equations were written using quaternions and potentials. Quaternions combine vector and scalar part. Electric and magnetic fields were defined as difference in potential. There were two kinds of potentials - electric and magnetic. Today's "Maxwell's" equations are actually Heaviside equations, which are limited edition of the original electromagnetic theory.
The 20 equations are:
Gauss's Law for Electric Fields Gauss's Law for Magnetic Fields Faraday's Law of Electromagnetic Induction Ampere's Law The Biot-Savart Law The Lorentz Force Law The Electric Field Intensity Equation The Magnetic Field Intensity Equation The Electric Flux Density Equation The Magnetic Flux Density Equation The Electric Displacement Field Equation The Magnetic Vector Potential Equation The Electric Scalar Potential Equation The Magnetic Scalar Potential Equation The Electric Charge Density Equation The Electric Current Density Equation The Continuity Equation for Electric Charge The Continuity Equation for Electric Current The Lorentz Transformations The Wave Equation for Electromagnetic Waves
These equations describe a wide range of phenomena, including the behavior of electric and magnetic fields, the forces acting on charged particles in those fields, the generation and transmission of electromagnetic waves, and the relationship between electric and magnetic fields and the charges and currents that produce them. They are used in many areas of physics, including electromagnetism, electrical engineering, and particle physics, and have had a wide-ranging impact on our understanding of the physical world.
antiwar | More than half of House Republicans didn’t attend Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Wednesday night address to Congress, The Hill reported on Thursday.
How many Members of Congress refused to attend tonight's speech because they do not support Zelenskyy's Ukraine? Important to know this and why.
According to The Hill, 86 out of 213 House Republicans were
at the Capitol for Zelensky’s speech. While some of the absences could
be explained by lawmakers getting an early start on Christmas travel, as
about a third of House members had active letters to vote by proxy on
Wednesday, there is growing opposition to the policy of arming Ukraine
among Republicans.
Ahead of Zelensky’s address, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) wrote on
Twitter that he would not be attending the speech of a “Ukrainian
lobbyist.” Some Republicans that attended the address were spotted
sitting during moments when the rest of Congress was giving Zelensky a
standing ovation, including Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Lauren Boebert
(R-CO).
For any Members of Congress who refused to clap for Zelenskyy, we need to know from them exactly why.
After the speech, Boebert said in a video posted on Twitter
that she wouldn’t support “sending additional money to this war” until
“Congress receives a full audit of where our money has already gone.”
Gaetz released a statement
that said Zelensky “should be commended for putting his country first,
but American politicians who indulge his requests are unwilling to do
the same for ours.” Gaetz said the speech did not change his stance on
“suspending” aid to Ukraine.
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), who attended the address, said the
speech sent the wrong message. “We should be focused on trying to
contain the war, not expand the war. And this kind of sends the message
we’re kind of OK with expanding the war. And I think we should be
sending a different message,” he said.
Massie, Boebert, Gaetz, Davidson, and 53 other House Republicans all voted against
the $40 billion Ukraine aid bill that was passed back in May. Since
then, new aid for Ukraine has been rolled into other massive spending
bills, including the new $45 billion that was packed into the $1.7
trillion omnibus bill the Senate passed on Thursday.
While there is some dissent among Republicans, the majority of GOP
members in Congress still support arming Ukraine, and Republican
leadership is extremely hawkish on the issue. Rep. Michael McCaul, who
is expected to lead the House Foreign Affairs Committee next year, has
criticized President Biden for not sending Ukraine more advanced and longer-range weapons.
dailycaller | The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a new statement Wednesday following the latest “Twitter Files” dump.
The FBI accused the “Twitter Files” release as an attempt “to discredit” the agency by disclosing information
on the FBI’s correspondence with Twitter in October 2020. Journalist
Matt Taibbi revealed that the agency warned the previous executives at
Twitter of a “hack-and-leak” by “state actors” surrounding the story of
Hunter Biden’s laptop to influence the 2020 presidential election.
“The
correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than
examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government
and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over
multiple sectors and industries. As evidenced in the correspondence, the
FBI provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to
allow them to protect themselves and their customers. The men and women
of the FBI work every day to protect the American public,” the
statement began.
“It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding
the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting
to discredit the agency,” the agency concluded.
The
“Twitter Files” revealed that the FBI and Twitter worked closely in the
lead up to the 2020 presidential election. Internal documents published
Monday found that the FBI paid Twitter nearly $3.5 million between
October 2019 and February 2021 for managing its financial burdens caused
while complying with the agency’s requests. (RELATED: Twitter Gave ‘Special Protection’ To Pentagon Propaganda Accounts, Docs Show)
Taibbi
reported he found no evidence that the FBI had involvement in Twitter’s
suppression of the New York Post’s report on Hunter Biden’s laptop,
though new reports released by author Michael Shellenberger indicated
they may have, in fact, been involved.
Former FBI Deputy General
Counsel James Baker argued Twitter’s then-head of trust and safety Yoel
Roth’s claim that the Post’s report did not violate the social media
site’s policies on October 14, according
to Shellenberger. The agency had already been in possession of Biden’s
laptop since December 2019, indicating that the agency knew the Post
reported the story accurately.
Musk announced Dec. 6 that he fired Baker for allegedly withholding the release of documents related to the suppression of Biden’s laptop.
The agency also flagged
certain tweets for Twitter to remove from the platform, the files
found. Some agents were even employed at the social media company.
Republican Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the incoming House Oversight Chair, said Tuesday that Congress should block funding of the FBI until it disclosed the alleged involvement in Big Tech censorship.
“In
the beginning, I thought that there were probably two or three rogue
employees who were orchestrating this cover up of the Hunter Biden
laptop story, but now we know the FBI had a division of at least 80
agents,” Comer said. “We also know that the FBI paid Twitter over $3
million for their time, all the time they took over the past couple of
years in telling them who to suppress, who to ban. You know, it’s just
things that the government has no role in.”
“The FBI was never
granted the authority to create any type of disinformation task force
that policed the social media sites. Now this we know with Twitter,” he
continued. “We’ve heard similar stories from Zuckerberg. Who knows what
went on at YouTube and Google. This is an agency that’s out of control.”
Slate | Musk is the richest man in the world and yet comports himself online
like a pustulous incel on a Mountain Dew bender. Though Taibbi and Weiss
were each once ensconced at the absolute top of the American mainstream
media—Weiss at the opinion section of the New York Times, Taibbi as a
star writer for Rolling Stone—both have since migrated to Substack,
where they each run popular and lucrative newsletters that exist to bite
the hands that once fed them
Their
shared thesis, to oversimplify, is that the mainstream media, Big Tech,
and other important cultural institutions now follow a shared set of
ultra-liberal speech codes that have been imposed from within by woke
young employees. Cowed by their strident staffers, executives at these
institutions have allegedly abdicated their leadership responsibilities
and have, so to speak, allowed the inmates to run the asylum. Dare to
express opinions that transgress these implicit speech codes—dare to say
anything that might offend even a single “social justice
warrior” within these spheres—and you’ll quickly find yourself
excommunicated. The broader implications of this alleged ideological
uniformity, Taibbi and Weiss argue, are devastating for speech and
democracy.
And
actually, fair enough. There is ample historical precedent for leftist
political movements using speech codes as tools to empower repressive
regimes, just as there are countless moments in history when right-wing
dipshits have stoked moral panics rooted in cultural revanchism and
risible claims of conspiracy in order to consolidate power and influence
for their own curdled ends. The challenge and obligation of citizenship
in a democracy involves, in part, remaining alert to the various
strains of demagoguery that are circulating at any given period of time,
accurately assessing the relative threats that they pose to democratic
principles, and taking notice when prominent voices seem intent on
deflecting your attention from mountains while warning endlessly about
molehills.
American
democracy has indeed taken a bit of a beating over the past few years,
but the most violent blows have been landed by the Trumpist right and
its opportunistic enablers. While neither Taibbi nor Weiss is blind to
the threats that Trumpism has posed to democracy, their recent output
sure does make it seem as if the predominant crisis facing America today
is one of creeping illiberalism and ideological uniformity in tech,
media, and the Democratic Party. Though Taibbi and Weiss do not
self-classify as conservatives, the drum that they’ve been banging for a
few years now is functionally indistinguishable from the one that the
American right wing has been banging for as long as I’ve been alive—a
concordance that matters intensely when attempting to parse the import
of the Twitter Files.
WSJ | So compromised are the national reporting staffs of the Washington Post, the New York Times and other outlets that they can’t be trusted on the biggest story of the day. A Jeff Bezos, say, would have to take a page from the CIA’s own
history and recruit a “Team B” off-site from his Washington Post to
investigate the laptop ruse, then require his newspaper to report the
truth however discomfiting to its newsroom and leadership.
The laptop ruse also ought to have you rethinking the FBI’s and Robert Mueller’s dragging out of the collusion inquiry to damage a president they distrusted. It ought to have you rethinking James Comey’s
convenient resolution of the Hillary Clinton email matter based on
secret “Russian intelligence” that he made sure would remain hidden from
you even today.
Our
press would bring these stories to light if it could refute them, but
it can’t so it ignores them. And no, Twitter and Substack aren’t a
substitute for institutions that can deploy teams of reporters and
substantial resources to investigations.
The
point has long since stopped being whose ox is gored, Mr. Trump’s or
Mr. Biden’s. American voters whatever their sympathies don’t want their
government and media lying to them to shape their political choices.
(Put aside lying in a way that falsely incriminates a nuclear-armed
hostile power as trying to fix a U.S. election on behalf of one of the
candidates—an element of this episode that none want to confront.)
The election is over; the truth is kept from you now to protect the
guilty, not to save the country from the supposed menace of Trumpism. In
a different universe far, far away—that is, America pre-Donald Trump—a
conscientious press would be reporting the hell out of all this.
Now
House Republicans will have to do the job instead, implicitly holding
the press to account in the process. Whether Joe Biden actively promoted
his son’s ventures is a secondary question but will yield to further
investigation. Whether active-duty officials joined in lying to news
outlets about the laptop origins will become clear as the Twitter
revelations are followed up. One question I think we can say is already
resolved conclusively: The 51 former officials lied to the public with
deliberation and premeditation to influence a presidential election, and
the national press abetted them.
systemupdate | Remember that shooting spree that killed five people in a gay bar in
Colorado Springs just a little over three weeks ago? You'll be forgiven
if you don't remember. That's because, after days of intense media
scrutiny, that shooting spree has all but disappeared from our
discourse. The reason? It appears, sadly, that this horrific episode
cannot be blamed on the corporate media's political enemies.
The
reason we heard so much at first about these Colorado Springs murders,
as opposed to the countless other mass murder sprees happening in the
U.S. every week that are apolitical in nature is that the media were
sure they instantly knew the motive of the killer. He was, of course, a
gay-hating, right-wing, Fox News-watching fanatic motivated by a deep
contempt for LGBTs to the point that he wanted to murder them. Almost
nothing was known about the killer. Even less was known about his
motive.
But that made no difference. We were instantly subjected
to a gleeful orgy from left-liberal political and media precincts,
insisting that the real killers, the ones who had blood on their hands,
were not so much the killer himself, but conservatives who express
criticism of the LGBT dogma -- usually the T part of that equation.
Tucker Carlson; Chris Rufo; The Libs of TikTok Twitter accounts, various
from Republican politicians: the usual list of enemies of the media.
These
people, the media's ideological enemies, were blamed for this shooting
in Colorado Springs, even though the media had no idea whether the
killer had any opinion about those people they had blamed or whether he
had even heard of all of them or any of them. They just asserted, with
absolutely no evidence, that the killer was motivated by anti-LGBT
antipathy, that he was taught by Fox News and whatever other individual
politicians or activists most hated by whichever media figure was
assigning the blame.
Less than 24 hours after those murders, Pete
Buttigieg who was apparently still the secretary of transportation,
even though he seemed to talk about everything except transportation,
wasted no time in penning the blame on his ideological enemies. Quote:
“If you're a politician or media figure who sets up the LGBT community
to be hated and feared -- not because any of us ever harmed you, but
because you find it useful -- then don't you dare act surprised when
this kind of violence follows. Don't you dare act surprised”
Bernie
Sanders did not even wait until the next day. On the very day of the
shooting, he apparently knew everything about the motive of the killer
and who was to blame. Quote: "Let's be clear, the terrible shooting in
Colorado Springs this weekend is a direct result of the hateful and
violent rhetoric that has been allowed to grow in this country. We must
stand united with the LGBTQ+ community and speak out against bigotry
everywhere we find it”.
That social conservatives, especially
those who descend from some planks of this very new gender ideology
dogma, were the real killers, was instantly consecrated as truth, even
though it never had and still does not have a shred of evidence. In
fact, lawyers for the suspect, Anderson Lee Aldridge, said in the very
first court filings that Aldridge identifies as non-binary and uses
they/them pronouns.
News reports then discovered that Aldridge
had sought a name change at the age of 15 and then suffered online
bullying, centered on mocking him as a homosexual. From the start, the
police have said and continue to say they do not know his motive. And
while some online extremism experts began doubting the authenticity of
Aldridge's self-identification as non-binary, suggesting that perhaps
he's just trolling -- who knew that such doubts were allowed now over
someone's expressed sexual orientation? Perhaps that's only confined to
these “online extremism experts” -- the picture that began emerging was
very unclear at best and bereft of evidence to support the preferred
narrative.
That's why this media spree completely disappeared
from sight. Without the ability to blame it on one's political
adversaries, all the fun is gone. It has no utility and thus is of no
interest in the media any longer. Nobody ever cared about those victims.
The victims are only of interest if they can be exploited for political
gain. All of this reflects one of the most demented and soulless new
political tactics to eagerly blame every mass shooting attack on one's
political enemies, regardless of whether there is evidence to support
that accusation.
Now, just imagine. Seriously, just imagine how
so sociopathic you have to be to hear about a mass shooting spree with
multiple innocent victims and eagerly wait for the green light to blame
your political opponents for the dead people. And if that doesn't come
about because the motive isn't what you hoped for or you can't determine
it, you just lose interest in the entire crime, or you just fall back
onto the standard tactic of blaming your enemies anyway, because they're
the reasons that guns were available in the first place.
All of
this, in turn, is based on an even more insidious premise that words do
not merely express ideas but are themselves violence. This is the rotted
premise, the principle one that is causing more and more people to
embrace the virtues of censorship. The idea that having centralized
state and corporate authorities ban certain ideas is necessary to keep
us safe because those ideas themselves are violent. For people who think
this way, there is no difference between expressing an idea and pulling
the trigger of a gun because in their worldview, as they themselves
say, words are literal violence. Literal violence.
kunstler | In effect, the people running things went
from a war against a particular person to a war against reality and its
twin sister, truth. Now they are deeply invested in unreality and
untruth to the point where they have forgotten how this whole fiasco
started and all they can do is desperately patch the dike they had to
construct against the informational deluge of truth and reality coming
at them like a tsunami rolling across the sea. The harder they work at
this futile task of defense, the more absurd they make themselves,
leading to ridicule, humiliation, and finally condemnation in whatever
remains of the legal arena, where their deeds will finally be judged.
The first stage of that outcome for them is to pretend that none of it is happening. That’s why The New York Times and Washington Post
ignore the news that the gallant knights of the FBI and several other
tentacles of the Intel octopus mounted a ferocious, long-running psy-op
through the new phenomenon of social media — which happened to rise in
importance through this whole period of national discord. In effect, the
intel agencies seized the transmitters (as Fidel Castro might put it) and used them very effectively to control their hallowed narratives.
The second stage is deploying a ruse
to distract the public’s attention: That’s why CNN allowed Rep. Adam
Schiff (D-CA), the most accomplished liar in all of American politics,
to set the stage on Sunday for this week’s criminal referrals against
Mr. Trump to be issued out of the House Special J-6 Committee he sits
on. That will give America something else to talk about than how they’ve
been gaslit and deceived for years. If The Party of Chaos can only
bring The Insurrection back into the spotlight, they will feel safe
for a little while during the Christmas holiday — because shortly after
the new year, there will be a different crew running the J-6 committee
and, for the first time in a couple of years, they will be looking into
neglected and tacitly suppressed matters such as the FBI’s actual role
in that event, and Nancy Pelosi’s failure to honor the then-president’s
request for national guard troops to protect the Capitol building.
Between then and now, we must expect
to see the release of Elon Musk’s Twitter files regarding the
interactions between federal public health officials and the social
network during the years of Covid-19. You understand that these
officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, CDC chief Dr. Rochelle Walensky,
US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and many others, lied about absolutely
everything concerning the pandemic and continue lying to this moment
about the putative remedy for it: mRNA vaccines, which happen to be
killing a lot of people these days. These disclosures will be very
serious business. Soon will come congressional inquiries, subpoenas,
compelled testimony, and perhaps even criminal referrals.
Of course, the professional and
managerial class also happens to be the most stalwart group of vaccine
champions in the land and thus the most psychologically invested in
thinking they did the right thing taking all those shots — while forcing
as many others to submit, whether they consented or not. The psychology of previous investment
is a prime generator of self-delusion. It looks like that class of
people will be proven incorrect the hard way. It turns out, after all,
that the mRNA “vaccines” were very effective — but only at being deadly.
The excess mortality has already kicked in. It’s 18 percent above
normal, for instance, in Australia right now, because they’re keeping
track. Our officials don’t want to keep track. They don’t want to know,
and they certainly don’t want you to know. This is what you get when you make war against truth and reality.
On Friday, Twitter released additional information showing that the
FBI and CIA actively pushed for censorship, supplying lists of accounts
to be suspended or banned.
Journalist Matt Taibbi described Twitter as acting as a “subsidiary” of the FBI and wrote that “between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.”
The evidence continues to establish a system of censorship by surrogate or proxy.
While the First Amendment applies to the government and not private
corporations generally, it does apply to agents or surrogates of the
government. Twitter now admits that such a relationship existed between
its former officials and the government.
As (outgoing) Chair of House Intelligence, did you approve hidden state censorship in direct violation of the Constitution of the United States @RepAdamSchiff?
Once again, however, the major networks and newspapers have largely ignored the story. There has been a full mobilization of media, political, and business interests
against Elon Musk and Twitter to oppose the restoration of free speech
protections at the company. The media is heavily invested in suppressing
this story after years of denials of any problems of censorship.
Previously, they denied censorship was occurring. When such censorship
became obvious, they denied that there was any involvement of the FBI
and the government. Now that such involvement is confirmed, they are
simply not covering the story.
Instead, the media is “all-in” on the doxxing suspensions (which Musk has now lifted). I have been critical
of Musk’s response to the doxxing controversy. In part this is due to
the scope of the suspensions and the fact that they occurred only 24
hours after the new policy was implemented. I would have preferred
warnings and further clarity on the issue, particularly in what
constituted doxxing in some of these tweets from journalists.
Despite the overwhelming coverage, there is little explanation of the media’s approach to the underlying doxxing question. Some have said that this is a “grey area” or may be below the threshold.
For years, the media has supported suspensions due to doxxing. In
this case, the location of Musk’s plane may have been used by an
individual to threaten his family. Most reports omit any discussion of
whether the sending of such live locations information is doxxing. If it
is, it has long been banned by most sites and journalists are not
exempt.
Previously, figures connected with mainstream media from CNN to the Washington Post
have been accused of doxxing. Liberal groups were accused of doxxing
conservative justices and others, including dangerously posting
information on the children of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. It does not seem to matter when the targets are conservative, Republican, or libertarian.
democraticunderground | This is the tweet from Taibbi that started it, a continuation of the transparency in the Twitter Files Musk hired him to post on Twitter.
Instead of chasing child sex predators or terrorists, the FBI has agents — lots of them — analyzing and mass-flagging social media posts. Not as part of any criminal investigation, but as a permanent, end-in-itself surveillance operation. People should not be okay with this.
Lieu's response:
Dear @mtaibbi: I’m on the House Judiciary Committee that has oversight over the
@FBI and you are lying. The FBI has lots of agents chasing child sex predators and terrorists. Please stop undermining and lying about federal law enforcement.
Taibbi replied, and then Musk jumped in with a reply addressing Lieu, though his reply went only to Taibbi and the RW media outlet RSBN:
Taibbi to Lieu:
Being on that committee you should know:
- How much has been spent, and how many DHS/DOJ employees have been assigned, to monitoring and flagging social media?
- Why is the FBI asking for "location information" about ordinary Americans and media outlets like
@RSBNetwork?
Musk to Lieu:
Replying to @mtaibbi and @RSBNetwork
Congressman Lieu, were you aware of this program and did you approve it? Simple questions require simple answers.
While this is just on Twitter now, and probably the RW media outlets cheering Musk on, this will be affecting what the GOP majority does in the House, starting next month
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