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Some Call Bitcoin ‘Boring’ – Here’s What They Forget – The Tokenist

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

Neither the author, Tim Fries, nor this website, The Tokenist, provide financial advice. Please consult ourwebsite policyprior to making financial decisions.

Just like with shoe and car brands, people become tribal to their investments as they integrate them into their identity. The same is happening with popular cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. In many instances however, the original vision and simplicity of Bitcoin, is largely overlooked.

After a decade of spearheading and setting up the crypto market, Bitcoins perception is shifting. This is a result of both familiarity and the formation of exciting new sub-markets in less than two years: NFTs, DeFi tokens and GameFi tokens. Moreover, generalist blockchains that rely on smart contract flexibility tend to create an impression that Bitcoin is becoming obsolete.

This argument partly follows on the back of the long-standing Proof-of-Work vs. Proof-of-Stake dichotomy. It suggests that Ethereum, along with other smart contract PoS blockchains, are more advanced due to less energy used in securing the network.

More importantly, smart contract platforms like Ethereum, Solana or Avalanche are Turing-complete. Meaning, they use a programming language that has a universal application range, making it easy to create smart contracts. To illustrate, a $5 calculator is limited compared to an advanced scientific calculator with programmable functions.

However, it is not exactly the case that Bitcoins blockchain is not Turing-complete. Rather, it removes flexibility where it is not needed to not introduce vulnerabilities. Otherwise, Bitcoin is Turing-complete. This was done with purpose in mind, to reduce complexity and potential code exploits. In other words, Bitcoin was made to persist throughout time, withstanding tampering because its foundation Proof-of-Work is based on a physical stake.

Donald McIntyre, the founder of Etherplan and blockchain researcher, emphasized that this was Bitcoins intention all along.

The brilliant invention by Satoshi Nakamoto was to anchor these subjective, thus insecure systems, to an objective physical base. Without that anchor, proof of stake distributed ledgers basically become traditional subjectively managed systems again.

Due to wider applicability, PoS blockchains have a long history of smart contract breaches and exploits. The most recent of which happened when the Polygon (MATIC) network had to commit an emergency hard fork to seal off a smart contract bug.

Now, imagine if that were to happen to Bitcoin. What would happen to its reputation and long-term prospect? That is to say, assets that are created for the long-haul must by necessity be less exciting, or in other words, boring. If not, one would soon wish they were boring.

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As reported in August, after Ethereum implemented its EIP-1559 coin-burning mechanic, Ethereum laid a course from inflationary to deflationary future. ETH price corresponded with a 45% price surge within a single month. This burn-rate removal of coins from circulation continued to the point of reaching the $5 billion milestone.

However, this doesnt mean that Ethereum has suddenly leveled up with Bitcoins deflationary nature. Rather, ETH inflation decreases depending on the networks traffic.

By the same token, Bitcoins supply has increased by 1.78% YTD, with only 10% of its supply left for mining and without having to keep installing new upgrades to mitigate enormous ETH gas fees.

Although Ethereum boasts greater usability thanks to its smart contracts, it has also become unaffordable for the common user. As a result, a number of Layer 2 solutions have emerged, in the form of Loopring or Arbitrum.

Again, by the same token, Bitcoin too can employ Layer 2 solutions to address both its fees and smart contract functionality. Lightning Network has drastically lowered transaction fees and increased speed, heading to the level of service one would expect from Visa. At the same time, following the Taproot upgrade, Bitcoins usability will increase while still retaining time-tested PoW security.

When we take all of these pros and cons into account, and consider why a system holds certain features, we see that sometimes, perceived weaknesses become strengths. More importantly, we see that weaknesses of one blockchain can be mitigated by another, and vice-versa.

While metaverse coins, NFTs and DeFi yields seem more exciting compared to Bitcoin, the latter is poised to become more mature and less volatile. For many, that is a preferable status. Not exactly as gold, but gaining the status of an asset nonetheless.

Recall the words of Satoshi Nakamoto, in Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System long before NFTs or smart contract platforms were conceived:

The network is robust in its unstructured simplicity.

Do you think crypto maximalism is inherently toxic and too lacking in critical nuance? Let us know in the comments below.

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About the author

Tim Fries is the cofounder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate on the investment team at RW Baird's US Private Equity division, and is also the co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.

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Some Call Bitcoin 'Boring' - Here's What They Forget - The Tokenist

Breaking Up Tech Is a Gift to China – The Wall Street Journal

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

Few issues unite both sides of the political divide more than anger at U.S. tech companies, whether for censorship of conservative viewpoints or for failing to counter misinformation online. In response to these concerns, legislation introduced in Congress would weaken the U.S. tech industry, ostensibly in the name of breaking up monopolies. Unfortunately, the various bills would hurt the U.S. and strengthen the hand of our greatest geopolitical rival, the Peoples Republic of China.

As of 2018, nine of the top 20 global technology firms by valuation were based in China. President Xi Jinping has stated his intention to spend $1.4 trillion by 2025 to surpass the U.S. in key technology areas, and the Chinese government aggressively subsidizes national champion firms. Beginning with the Made in China 2025 initiative, Beijing has made clear that it wont stop until it dominates technologies such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and more. Last month the National Counterintelligence and Security Center warned that these are technologies where the stakes are potentially greatest for U.S. economic and national security.

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Breaking Up Tech Is a Gift to China - The Wall Street Journal

Neural’s best quantum computing and physics stories from 2021 – The Next Web

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

2021 will be remembered for a lot of things, but when its all said and done we think itll eventually get called the year quantum computing finally came into focus.

Thats not to say useful quantum computers have actually arrived yet. Theyre still somewhere between a couple years and a couple centuries away. Sorry for being so vague, but when youre dealing with quantum physics there arent yet many guarantees.

This is because physics is an incredibly complex and challenging field of study. And the difficulty gets cranked up exponentially when you start adding theoretical and quantum to the research.

Were talking about physics at the very edge of reason. Like, for example, imagining a quantum-powered artificial intelligence capable of taking on the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.

That might sound pretty wacky, but this story explains why its not quite as out there as you might think.

But lets go even further. Lets go past the edge of reason and into the realm of the speculative science. Earlier this year we wondered what would happen if physicists could actually prove that reality as we know it isnt real.

Per that article:

Theoretically, if we could zoom in past the muons and leptons and keep going deeper and deeper, we could reach a point where all objects in the universe are indistinguishable from each other because, at the quantum level, everything that exists is just a sea of nearly-identical subparticulate entities.

This version of reality would render the concepts of space and time pointless. Time would only exist as a construct by which we give meaning to our own observations. And those observations would merely be the classical side-effects of existing in a quantum universe.

So, in the grand scheme of things, its possible that our reality is little more than a fleeting, purposeless arrangement of molecules. Everything that encompasses our entire universe may be nothing more than a brief hallucination caused by a quantum vibration.

Nothing makes you feel special like trying to conceive of yourself as a few seasoning particles in an infinite soup of gooey submolecules.

If having an existential quantum identity-crisis isnt your thing, we also covered a lot of cool stuff that doesnt require you to stop seeing yourself as an individual stack of materials.

Does anyone remember the time China said it had built a quantum computer a million times more powerful than Googles? We dont believe it. But thats the claim the researchersmade. You can read more about that here.

Oh, and that Google quantum system the Chinese researchers referenced? Yeah, it turns out it wasnt exactly the massive upgrade over classical supercomputers it was chalked up to be either.

But, of course, we forgive Google for its marketing faux pas. And thats because, hands down, the biggest story of the year for quantum computers was the time crystal breakthrough.

As we wrote at the time:

If Googles actually created time-crystals, it could accelerate the timeline for quantum computing breakthroughs from maybe never to maybe within a few decades.

At the far-fetched, super-optimistic end of things we could see the creation of a working warp drive in our lifetimes. Imagine taking a trip to Mars or the edge of our solar system, and being back home on Earth in time to catch the evening news.

And, even on the conservative end with more realistic expectations, its not hard to imagine quantum computing-based chemical and drug discovery leading to universally-effective cancer treatments.

Talk about a eureka moment!

But there were even bigger things in the world of quantum physics than just advancing computer technology.

Scientists from the University of Sussex determined that black holes emanate a specific kind of quantum pressure that could lend some credence to multiple universe theories.

Basically, we cant explain where the pressure comes from. Could this be blow back from white holes swallowing up energy and matter in a dark, doppelganger universe that exists parallel to our own? Nobody knows! You can read more here though.

Still there were even bigger philosophical questions in play over the course of 2021 when it came to interpreting physics research.

Are we incapable of finding evidence for God because were actually gods in our rights? That might sound like philosophy, but there are some pretty radical physics interpretations behind that assertion.

And, if we are gods, can we stop time? Turns out, whether were just squishy mortal meatbags or actual deities, we actually can!

Alright. If none of those stories impress you, weve saved this one for last. If being a god, inventing time crystals, or even stopping time doesnt float your boat, how about immortality? And not just regular boring immortality, butquantum immortality.

Its probably not probable, and adding the word quantum to something doesnt necessarily make it cooler, but anythings possible in an infinite universe. Plus, the underlying theories involving massive-scale entanglement are incredible read more here.

Seldom a day goes by where something incredible isnt happening in the world of physics research. But thats nothing compared to the magic weve yet to uncover out there in this fabulous universe we live in.

Luckily for you, Neural will be back in 2022 to help make sense of it all. Stick with us for the most compelling, wild, and deep reporting on the quantum world this side of the non-fiction realm.

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Neural's best quantum computing and physics stories from 2021 - The Next Web

10 technology trends that could prove to be real game-changers – Mint

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

Smarter algorithms and machine language: AI has been the driving force for most products, applications and even devices that we use today. On 22 November, Gartner predicted that the total revenue in the AI software market is expected to hit $62.5 billion in 2022, an increase of 21.3% from 2021. The AI software market is picking up speed, but its long-term trajectory will depend on enterprises advancing their AI maturity," said Alys Woodward, senior research director at Gartner.

AI deployment in 2022 will be in knowledge management, virtual assistants, autonomous vehicles, digital workplaces and crowdsourced data, Gartner said. In addition, companies like Google are developing newer language learning models like LaMDALanguage Model for Dialogue Applicationswhich, the company claims, can hold their own in natural conversations.

Faster networks with bigger bandwidth: 5G has been in the works for what seems like years now, but 2022 may finally be the year we see these next-generation networks rolling out. India has already approved trial spectrum for telcos such as Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio. The 5G spectrum auctions are expected in the first half of next year. 5G networks will start rolling out to the public next year if all goes well. In short, 5G means lower latency, which is what users perceive as speed. The new networks will allow new use cases for enterprises, enable smart city implementations and more.

Intelligent cloud and edge computing: The new use cases with 5G networks are heavily dependent on 5G. For instance, in September, Airtel tested Indias first cloud-gaming session in a 5G environment at its Manesar facility. The companys chief technology officer, Randip Sekhon, said cloud gaming would be among the biggest use cases" for 5G networks. The dependency on the cloud will only increase among enterprises.

Moreover, edge computing is finally set to flourish. It is helping enterprises bring the data and computing requirements closer to the users device. This trend will help make products like driverless or autonomous vehicles more efficient.

More interconnected devices that talk to each other: Earlier this month, Airtel, Invest India and the National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency announced a Startup Innovation Challenge. The challenge asks early-stage startups to create new use cases involving IoT. As data flows faster and computing power comes from large server farms using the cloud, more devices can start connecting and working as one. A June report by Gartner said the IoT endpoint electronics and communications market will touch $21.3 billion in 2022, increasing its forecast by 22% against the 2021 predictions. This is driven by governments using IoT for surveillance, enterprises using connected devices for everything from banking to communication, and delivering new products.

Privacy gaining ground: After about two years of deliberation, the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) on the Data Protection Bill was finally able to table its report on the bill during the ongoing winter session of Parliament. The JPC recommended that India have one bill to regulate personal and non-personal data and stop companies from profiling childrens accounts and using targeted ads for them. The bill also gives consumers rights over their data. But India isnt the only country looking into such data regulations. Indias bill borrows heavily from the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and governments worldwide are also considering such regulations. Big Tech firms are fighting lawsuits against government bodies, competition regulations and more. The outcome of all these cases will impact how our data is used in the future.

Mixing and blending realities: In 1964, an animated science-fiction franchise called Jonny Quest imagined a virtual world called QuestWorld. The protagonists would put on futuristic virtual reality (VR) headsets and fight battles in a virtual world. It was futuristic then, but VR and augmented reality (AR) headsets are all too familiar now. In fact, they have been for almost a decade now. But in 2021, Facebook launched a product called Ray-Ban Stories, partnering with eyeglass maker Ray-Ban for a pair of smart glasses that look and feel almost exactly like regular spectacles. Tech firms aim to make these devices ubiquitous and reach economies of scale that comes from selling millions of devices worldwide.

Immutable and interconnected ledgers: If AI was the key change maker over the past decade, blockchain might well enable the next step in the technology. According to many estimates, India has become one of the top players in cryptocurrency adoption worldwide, but whats seen as a trading asset today has more significant implications. Cryptocurrencies are powered by blockchain technology, and in April, the International Data Corp. said that organizations would spend as much as $6.6 billion on blockchain solutions in 2021 alonea 50% increase from 2020. The market researcher also predicted an annual average growth rate of 48% between 2020 and 2024. Indias second crypto unicorn, CoinSwitch Kuber, has said that it aims to support other blockchain firms in India. Industry stakeholders and experts understand that blockchains will power cross-border payments, banking and much more in future. Even the Reserve Bank of Indias upcoming Central Bank Digital Currency, or a digital rupee, will be powered by blockchain technologies.

The third generation of the internet: The hit HBO show Silicon Valley has imagined a new internet void of dominance by Big Tech firms, governments and more. The idea may sound utopian, but thats exactly what companies building apps for the third generation of the internet (web3) are building today. Companies like Google, Apple, Facebook and others benefit greatly from the fact that most of the worlds data flows through their servers. However, with web3, the power is handed back to the users in a way. It runs without servers, depends on a network of phones, computers and other devices, and bars any one person or entity on the network to wield control on datain a word, decentralization. For instance, Noida-based Ayush Ranjan has built the worlds first decentralized video chat app. Unlike Google Meet, Zoom, the Huddle 01 app doesnt require users to create an account, and the company doesnt have its own data centres to store your data in or record calls. Instead, it stores all the data in a decentralized manner and uses computing power from users devices to power the calls.

Rise of the metaverse: 5G, cloud computing, IoT, web3 are all tools in a larger vision that technologists and technology leaders have right now. And thats called the metaverse. Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg is so confident that the metaverse is coming that he rebranded his company, one of the most valuable in the world, to Meta as an effort to show where his focus is today. Author Neal Stephenson is often credited with coining the term in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, and it has also been explored in contemporary movies like Ready Player One. The metaverse is not a technology; it is a concept. Zuckerberg and others expect that we will do everything from conducting meetings to hosting parties in a virtual space and through very realistic looking avatars. Instead of shopping on an e-commerce store, the avatar will walk into a virtual store, try on a product and have the physical product delivered to our homes too. However, hardware veterans like Intels Raja Koduri have warned that the computing power we have today is nowhere close to being sufficient for the metaverse Zuckerberg imagines.

Quantum computing: That brings us to what could be the most transformational trend in technologyquantum computing. Any country with aspirations to be a leader in technology has its sights set on quantum computing. While web3 is a new internet, quantum computing establishes a whole new computer. Our traditional computers can take information in 0 and 1, and their computations are limited by this. Quantum computers, on the other hand, use concepts of quantum physics to enhance the amount of computing power we can use. A quantum computer is far from reality right now, and it could be the kind of computing power Koduri says we need for the metaverse. In the 2020 Budget, the government had allocated 8,000 crore over the next five years for developing quantum computing tech. It has also launched a Quantum Simulator, which allows researchers to build quantum applications without a real computer.

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10 technology trends that could prove to be real game-changers - Mint

Senator reflects on a year in service to NM – Albuquerque Journal

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

As I took my oath of office in January, I was struck by the absence of friends and family, who, if not for the pandemic, would have been at each senators side. The emptiness of the Senate Chamber brought into focus the year of challenges that lay ahead. Though I stood alone as I swore my oath, I stand with New Mexico always and am proud of what we accomplished during this difficult year.

To address the pandemics effects on our lives, my colleagues and I passed landmark legislation that addresses New Mexicos specific needs and combats the consequences of COVID, both economically and in terms of public health.

In March, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan, which put money in pockets, children back in schools and parents back to work. Following through on the work I did in the House, this law provided more than $360 billion in emergency funding for state, local and tribal governments to keep front-line workers on the job.

One of my first Senate achievements was authorizing $17 billion in the United States Innovation and Competition Act for our national laboratories. These investments will empower our Sandia and Los Alamos labs to further research and develop such critical projects as semiconductors, carbon-capture technologies and quantum computing. Once passed and signed into law, this funding will allow New Mexico to continue its innovative leadership.

To further strengthen New Mexicos economy, my colleagues and I helped send the Infrastructure and Jobs Investment Act to President Bidens desk. This bipartisan legislation included my REGROW Act, which employs skilled energy workers to clean up tens of thousands of orphaned oil and gas wells across the country, creating an estimated 13,500 good-paying jobs.

This law contains my RIDE Act, which will make our roads safer by helping to end drunken and impaired driving. Additionally, I fought to provide billions for Indian Health Service (IHS) water and wastewater infrastructure, a long overdue investment. As chair of the Subcommittee on Communications, Media and Broadband, I also advocated for expanded access to broadband, especially in rural communities, making internet access more affordable for nearly 800,000 New Mexicans with an estimated $750 million going to our state to support broadband buildout.

Throughout the year, I used my committee positions to advocate for the well-being of all New Mexicans. I introduced the bipartisan Native American Voting Rights Act to protect the sacred right to vote for tribal nations and voters living on tribal lands. In various committee hearings, I challenged the power of Big Tech by grilling CEOs on harmful algorithms that prioritize profit margins at the expense of our health and our democracy. My Committee assignments allow me to serve New Mexicos working families.

Though I enjoy policymaking in Washington, connecting with my constituents remains the highlight of my job. While COVID made it difficult to visit with constituents in person, traveling across 28 counties in the past year and hearing the needs of families firsthand makes it all the more gratifying to share how this Democratic Congress has delivered. From meeting with local officials across southern New Mexico to having meaningful dialogues with tribal and pueblo leaders to opening a new constituent services office in Las Vegas, I cherish opportunities to hear from you and underscore how I am working in Washington to lift up our states communities. As this year concludes and the pandemic rages on, I remain committed to bringing New Mexican values to the policies we craft, defending our states priorities, and ensuring economic opportunity for you and your family.

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Senator reflects on a year in service to NM - Albuquerque Journal

Drone wars? – The Week Magazine

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

The smartest insight and analysis, from all perspectives, rounded up from around the web:

New restrictions on a key dronemaker show how serious the U.S. is about cutting its reliance on Chinese technology, said Bruce Einhorn and Todd Shields in Bloomberg. China's DJI Technology is "the world's top producer of unmanned aerial vehicles" and controls "more than half of the U.S. drone market." But the Treasury Department last week added DJI and seven other Chinese tech companies to a growing "blacklist," blocking it from receiving any U.S. investments. Though DJI is a private company, it "has become the poster child for a much wider national security threat" China's "ability to obtain sensitive data on millions of Americans," as "everything from cars to yoga mats to toilets are now transmitting data." Harnessing that information is viewed as a "key to dominating technologies like artificial Intelligence" and "exploiting weaknesses in strategic foes." The move against DJI echoes how the U.S. started its campaign against Huawei, China's leading phonemaker, said Gina Chon in BreakingViews. But "it was relatively easy to make" the Chinese telecom disappear from the U.S., because it was just making its first inroads. DJI is a different story. "More than 900 U.S. public safety agencies use its products," including the New York Police Department, making a commercial ban "unrealistic." The pressure to disengage, though, comes from both countries, said the Financial Times in an editorial. China pressured Didi to delist shortly after it "launched the biggest listing of a Chinese company since Alibaba in 2014," and has allowed a "slow unraveling" of property giant Evergrande, which defaulted on debts held by foreign investors. The moves seem to be part of "a bulwark" against "mistrusted foreign forces" as Beijing constructs a new "Fortress China."

Fine let's shut our doors to China, too, said Henry Olsen in The Washington Post, even if it hurts corporate profits in the short term. U.S. companies are now "self-censoring anything that might offend the Communist Party of China." It was reported recently that Apple secretly agreed to a $275 billion deal in 2016 to buy more Chinese-made components in return for reduced Chinese regulatory pressure. That and "hundreds of other corporate decisions" have helped China design weapons systems "more sophisticated than our own." Our addiction to China's cheap goods is "endangering our national security." China is not a stable market for U.S. corporations, anyway, said Desmond Lachlan in The Hill. President Xi Jinping's recent "clampdown on the high-tech sector" in the pursuit of "common prosperity" threatens China's future growth. Meanwhile, the country's property sector is imploding. "One has to wonder whether the Chinese economy might prove to have clay feet."

The U.S. still should fear China's technological gains, said Graham Allison and Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, in The Wall Street Journal. Experts say it "could soon be the global leader" in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, 5G wireless, quantum computing, biotechnology, and green energy if it doesn't already hold the dominant position. The U.S. holds sway in aeronautics, medicine, and nanotechnology, but China has "emerged as a serious competitor" in these fields, too. Lawmakers are just "beginning to wake up to this reality."

This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.

Drone wars? - The Week Magazine

Nearly all of these Philly C-suite execs expect to hire tech talent in 2022 – Technical.ly

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

Backing up reports of wild tech jobs growth, nearly all surveyed C-suite execs in the region expect to hire more technologists next year and to be able to do so in Philadelphia.

Accenture and the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia conducted the survey to get a better idea of tech talent needs in 2022. Theyasked 200 regional executives people with titles like CEO, chief operating officer, chief financial officer, chief technology officer and chief human resources officer about their companys 2022 hiring plans. Only 7% indicated that they were maintaining the same level of tech personnel in 2022, and no one said theyd be reducing it.

And as the majority will be seeking more tech talent in 2022, nearly all 98% said they feel confident they can get that talent in the Philadelphia region.

There are a few factors making the area attractive, the survey found: Top reasons include Philadelphias diversity of people, diversity of industries and its access to public transportation. Also listed were its access to parks and recreation, educational institutions, cultural institutions and cost of living.

The most in-demand skills listed were artificial intelligence and machine learning, cloud skills, cybersecurity, blockchain and quantum computing. The top cities competing for tech talent listed were Chicago and New York City, and more than a third of the executives reported that tech talent is lost to New York, Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City.

In-demand tech skills. (Philadelphia Metro Tech Hiring Survey Results Fall 2021 report)

When it comes to the breakdown of where people are working, it looks like a mix.

Some 17% of executives reported some part of their workforce will remain fully remote, and 34% said the majority of their workforce will remain fully remote. Nearly half said they plan to have their workforce return to the office in some capacity. The executives also said that a safe and healthy workforce and availability of affordable office space were their top ways to attract tech talent.

And when it came to where they are finding talent, 61% of survey respondents indicated that theyll be doing some internal work to upskill current employees, along with 51% who said theyll be hiring new talent.

Where executives will look for talent. (Philadelphia Metro Tech Hiring Survey Results Fall 2021 report)

Many indicated theyre using personal networking and in-house recruiting as their top methods of hiring, and that they have the hardest time finding mid-career talent. Almost all of the executives said they have not worked with nonprofit coding schools or apprenticeship programs to hire, and they are not investing in apprenticeship programs as an alternative talent pipeline even as apprenticeships become more common overall in the tech industry.

For further reading on these trends, check out Technical.lys editorial series on the City of PhiladelphiasPHL: Most Diverse Tech Hub, the initiative seeking to boost tech skills for the future talent pipeline specifically Black and brown Philadelphians looking to move into technology careers.

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Nearly all of these Philly C-suite execs expect to hire tech talent in 2022 - Technical.ly

Transhumanism Humanity+

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

What is transhumanism?

(1) The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.

(2) The study of the ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies.

The Philosophy of Transhumanism

Transhumanist FAQ

Developed in the mid-1990s and published in 1998, the Transhumanist FAQ became a formal document through the inspirational work of transhumanists, including Alexander Chislenko, Max More, Anders Sandberg, Natasha Vita-More, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Arjen Kamphius, and many others. Over the years, this FAQ has been updated to provide a substantial account of transhumanism. Humanity+, also known as WTA, adopted the FAQ in 2001 and Nick Bostrom added substantial information about future scenarios. The Transhumanist FAQ 3.0, as revised by the continued efforts of many transhumanists.

The Transhumanist Manifesto

Written by Natasha Vita-More 1993 and revised in 1998 (v.2), 2008 (v.3), and 2020 (v.4), and based on the earliest manifesto Transhuman Statement, which was published in 1983.

The Transhumanist Declaration

Originally crafted in 1998 by an international group of authors: Doug Baily, Anders Sandberg, Gustavo Alves, Max More, Holger Wagner, Natasha Vita-More, Eugene Leitl, Bernie Staring, David Pearce, Bill Fantegrossi, den Otter, Ralf Fletcher, Tom Morrow, Alexander Chislenko, Lee Daniel Crocker, Darren Reynolds, Keith Elis, Thom Quinn, Mikhail Sverdlov, Arjen Kamphuis, Shane Spaulding, and Nick Bostrom. This Transhumanist Declaration has been modified over the years by several authors and organizations. It was adopted by the Humanity+ Board in March, 2009.

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Transhumanism Humanity+

Values of the U.S. Transhumanist Party U.S …

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

The U.S. Transhumanist Party is focused onpolicyrather thanpoliticsas conventionally defined. We value initiatives and reforms that will improve the human condition for as many people as possible, with as much beneficial impact as possible and without regard for scoring political points or defeating the other side. We seek to achieve the next, greatest era of our civilization, which will require constructive solutions to the problems of our current era. All of these problems can be solved if we look away from the political trench warfare of today and up toward a far brighter future.

Ideal 1.The Transhumanist Party supports significant life extension achieved through the progress of science and technology.

Ideal 2.The Transhumanist Party supports a cultural, societal, and political atmosphere informed and animated by reason, science, and secular values.

Ideal 3.The Transhumanist Party supports efforts to use science, technology, and rational discourse to reduce and eliminate various existential risks to the human species.

Find the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform as Article VI of our Constitution or in this standalone presentation. Below is just a selection of some of our key values and goals, as determined by votes of our members, but we have many other ideas as well, and we also frame the ideas below with a great deal of thought and detail.

Individual privacy and liberty over how to apply technology to ones personal life. [Article VI, Section I]

Tolerance and inclusivity of all individuals of all races, genders, classes, religions, creeds, national origins, and other characteristics.[Article VI, Section II]

Support of most technologies but opposition to certain detrimental technologies (e.g., weapons of mass destruction, privacy-infringing technologies, engineering of new pathogens).[Article VI, Section III]

Opposition to nuclear weapons, support of complete nuclear disarmament, even if unilateral.[Article VI, Section IV]

Support of research on eradicating disease.[Article VI, Section V]

Morphological freedom.[Article VI, Section VI]

Support of all values and efforts toward cultivation of science, technology, reason.[Article VI, Section VII]

Support of all emerging technologies that improve the human condition, including:

Autonomous vehicles

Electric vehicles

Economical solar power

Safe nuclear power

Hydroelectricity

Geothermal power

Applications for the sharing of durable goods

Artificial intelligence

Biotechnology

Nanotechnology

Robotics

Rapid transit

3D printing

Vertical farming

Electronic devices to detect and respond to trauma

Beneficial genetic modification of plants, animals, and human beings[Article VI, Section IX]

Ending the drug war.[Article VI, Section XIV]

Reforming the prison system to reduce the incarcerated population.[Article VI, Section XV]

Universal Basic Income (UBI) not conditional on life circumstances, occupations, other income, or wealth.[Article VI, Section XVI]

Reasonable measures to fund space travel.[Article VI, Section XVII]

Using science and technology to eliminate disabilities.[Article VI, Section XVIII]

Ending the two-party duopoly.[Article VI, Section XIX]

Life extension / anti-aging.[Article VI, Sections V, VIII, IX]

Removal of barriers to medical research and deployment of treatments.[Article VI, Sections LXXIX, LXXX, LXXXI, LXXXII]

Reducing the national debt.[Article VI, Section XXXV]

Alternative sources of energy and their technological implementations. [Article VI, Section XXXVIII]

Increasing the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).[Article VI, SectionLXXVII]

Support for political, economic, and cultural experimentation e.g., seasteads and micronations.[Article VI, SectionXXII]

Childrens rights proportional to their rational faculties. [Article VI, Sections XXIII, LXII]

Animal welfare (but not animal liberation). [Article VI, Section XXIV]

Opposition to intolerant, rights-violating, anti-technological, and compulsion-imposing doctrines, be they religious or secular.[Article VI, Sections XXV, XL, LXIII]

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Values of the U.S. Transhumanist Party U.S ...

Another Year Without A Family Christmas? – newsconcerns

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

While lockdowns were supposed to be temporary initially just a couple of weeks to flatten the curve nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, theres no end in sight. Thanksgiving was once again canceled in many parts of the U.S., and many government leaders again urged residents to cancel their Christmas celebrations too. The latest Omicron mutation has given bureaucrats additional reasons to unleash their power and raise panic.

What many still dont realize is that the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic has little to do with the spread of an actual virus, and everything to do with the planned global takeover and implementation of a technocratic agenda known as The Great Reset.

Universal mask mandates, social distancing, business shutdowns, online working and learning, and quarantining of asymptomatic individuals are all forms of soft indoctrination to get us used to an entirely new, and unfathomably inhumane, way of life devoid of our usual rights and freedoms.

Klaus Schwab is the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum. Schwab announced the World Economic Forums Great Reset Agenda in June 2020,1 which includes stripping people of their privately owned assets.

In addition to being a poster boy for technocracy, Schwab also has a strong transhumanist bend, and wrote the book on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a hallmark of which is the merger of man and machine, biology and digital technology.2

According to Winter Oak a British nonprofit social justice organization Schwab and his globalist accomplices are using the COVID-19 pandemic to bypass democratic accountability, to override opposition, to accelerate their agenda and to impose it on the rest of humankind against our will.

While the Great Reset plan is being sold as a way to make life fair and equitable for all, the required sacrifices do not apply to the technocrats running the system.

On the contrary, as noted by Patrick Wood in an interview with James Delingpole, the wealth distribution and circular economies promoted by the technocratic elite will never benefit the people, because what theyre really referring to is the redistribution of wealth from the people, to themselves.

Evidence of this can be seen in the decision to allow big box stores to remain open during the pandemic while forcing small businesses to close, no matter how small the infection risk.

Theres really no rhyme or reason for such a decision, other than to shift wealth away from small, private business owners to multinational corporations. More than half of all small business owners fear their businesses wont survive.3

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the collective wealth of 651 billionaires in the U.S. rose by more than $1 trillion (36%).4 To put their current wealth in perspective, not only did the number of billionaires in America swell to 745 during the pandemic, but their assets grew by $2.1 trillion.5

According to the online newsletter Inequality, The $5 trillion in wealth now held by 745 billionaires is two-thirds more than the $3 trillion in wealth held by the bottom 50 percent of U.S. households estimated by the Federal Reserve Board.

As noted by Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, Never before has America seen such an accumulation of wealth in so few hands.6

Thats technocratic wealth redistribution for you. Ultimately, The Great Reset will result in two tiers or people: the technocratic elite, who have all the power and rule over all assets, and the rest of humanity, who have no power, no assets and no voice.

That the COVID-19 pandemic is a form of class war is also evident in the way rules are enforced. While citizens are threatened with fines and arrest if they dont do as theyre told, those who lay down the rules repeatedly break them without repercussions.

If you need more evidence that were in the middle of a technocratic takeover, look no further than the mass vaccination agenda and the promotion of fake, lab-grown meat. Bill Gates, another frontline technocrat, has repeatedly stated that we have no choice but to vaccinate everyone against COVID-19.

Naturally, hes heavily invested in said vaccine and stands to gain handsomely from a global mass vaccination campaign. Technocrats are nothing if not self-serving, all while pretending to be do-gooders much like COVID Claus in our little video.

Eventually, your personal identification, medical records, finances and who knows what else will all be tied together and embedded somewhere on or in your body. Every possible aspect of your biology and life activities will be trackable 24/7. You will also be digitally tied into the internet of things, which eventually will include smart cities.

All the different parts of this giant population control grid fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The global vaccination agenda ties into the biometric identity agenda, which ties into the cashless society agenda, which ties into the social credit system agenda, which ties into the social engineering agenda and so on.

When you follow this experiment to its ultimate conclusion, you find all of humanity enslaved within a digitized prison with no way out. Those who rebel will simply have their digital-everything restricted or shut down.

The rise of fake, lab-grown meat is a puzzle piece of The Great Reset agenda too. According to the World Economic Forum, lab-grown, cultured meat is a more sustainable alternative to conventional livestock, and in the future, well all be eating a lot less meat. As noted on its website:7

As the world looks to reset its economy, along with food systems, in a cleaner way post-pandemic, one more sustainable solution coming to fruition is cultured meat Cultured meat takes much less time to grow, uses fewer of the planets resources, and no animals are slaughtered.

But dont think for a second that this has anything to do with environmental protection. No, its about controlling the food supply and preventing food independence.

Already, multinational corporations have taken over a majority of the global food supply with their patented genetically engineered seeds. Patented cultured meats and seafood will allow private companies to control the food supply in its entirety, and by controlling the food supply, they will control countries and entire populations.

Public health will undoubtedly suffer from this dietary switch, as canola and safflower oil8 are primary sources of fat in these fake meat concoctions. Vegetable oils are loaded with linoleic acid (LA), an omega-6 fat that, in excess, acts as a metabolic poison, causing severe mitochondrial dysfunction, insulin resistance, decreased NAD+ levels, obesity and a radical decrease in your ability to generate cellular energy.

Our LA consumption 150 years ago was between 2 and 3 grams per day. Today it is 10 to 20 times higher. If fake meat becomes a staple, the average LA intake is bound to increase even further.

The Great Reset is well underway, but its not yet too late to stop it. Enough people have to see it and understand it, though. And then they must act. If we want to prevent The Great Reset from destroying life as we know it, we must view civil disobedience as a duty. We must resist it from every angle.

We must reclaim our sovereignty, our right to live free, to open our businesses and move about freely. We must communicate with our elected leaders and demand they not infringe on our constitutional rights. We have to engage in political processes and help educate our local sheriffs of their role as defenders of the constitution. We may also need to support legal challenges.

A small step in the right direction that you can take right now would be to celebrate Christmas like you normally would this week, and not allow the Klaus Schwabs and Bill Gateses of the world rob you of valuable time with family and friends.

There are no guarantees in this life, and for many, this will be their last Christmas. So, spend it well. Cherish life by actually living it and spending it with those you love. Refusing to give up our humanity is how we resist The Great Reset.

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A Package of Populist Deregulation – Econlib

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

The best deregulation lacks popular appeal. Deregulation of immigration is unpopular. Deregulation of housing is unpopular. Deregulation of labor markets is unpopular.

But when the stars align, specific forms of deregulation becomepotentially popular. All you need is close the deal is some brash populists to enthusiastically tell the masses what theyre ready to enthusiastically hear.

Despite the rising fashion of national conservatism among the right, I suspect that the stars for American deregulation are indeed aligning as we speak. A politician today could loudly promise lots of deregulation and win. Furthermore, he could fulfill his promises and win again. Topping the list of potentially popular deregulation:

1. An immediate end to all Covid rules. No more mask mandates not in schools, not in airports, not on planes. No more distancing. No more Covid tests. No more travel restrictions onanyone. (The anyone phrasing is how you free foreigners, as well as natives, without calling attention to the fact).

2. An immediate end toall government Covid propaganda. No more looping audio warnings at airports. No more signs or stickers. Indeed, a national campaign to tear down all the propaganda thats been uglifying the country for almost two years.

3. A radical and immediate reduction in airport security theater. End the rules that require the removal of shoes, jackets, and belts. End the rules that require you to remove electronic devices from your bags for extra screening. End the rules against travelling with liquids. Switch back to old-fashioned metal detectors instead of body scanners.

4. An immediate end to all airline security theater. End federal rules for use of large electronics during takeoff and landing. End federal rules for tray tables and seat inclines. Stop turning flight attendants into sky deputies. Just say, Let the airlines decide. Competition works.

5. End all traffic cameras. All of them.

6. End all remaining laws against marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms.

7. End FDA regulation of smoking and vaping for legal adults and pass new laws banning such power grabs in the future.

8. Full school choice, nation-wide: Fund students, not systems.

9. Kill REAL ID. Forever.

10. End mandatory vehicle safety and emissions inspections: An annual pain in the neck and a complete waste of time.

11. Create an ironclad free speech limitation on discrimination law, which explicitly includes both (a) political speech, and (b) jokes. Along the lines of, Expression of political opinions or jokes by co-workers, managers, or owners are Constitutionally protected free speech and can never be treated as evidence of discrimination or a hostile workplace environment.

12. Undermine Human Resource Departments by amending existing employment law to read, Human Resource employee training or lack thereof can never be treated as evidence in employment lawsuits. This removes the incentive to constantly ratchet up employee brainwashing to show that your firm takes the law seriously.

Note: Im not saying that the public is currently clamoring for any of these forms of deregulation. My claim, rather, is that the public is now predisposed to listen favorably. If you describe existing laws as a mix of full-blown tyranny and petty tyranny, the masses wont think youre crazy. And if you combine great political poetry with great rhetorical delivery, they might even hand you the power to set them free.

Why, you may ask, does my list have so many superlatives, so many simplistic slogans? Because the heart of populism is sacrificing nuance to gain devotion. Ending all Covid rules is much more inspiring than ending most Covid rules. The superlatives also provide atypical transparency. If you promise to kill REAL ID forever, the veracity of your promise is easy to verify.

In the past, claims about libertarian moments have always struck me as naive. And the best description of American policy today is that were having a long anti-libertarian moment. At the same time, however, popular resentment of these oppressive policies is unusually high. As a result, the American right has a rare opportunity to gain power by feeding that resentment. It would be ironic indeed if it ran away from deregulation at the very time the public happens to be atypically receptive to it.

Ironic, but hardly surprising.

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A Package of Populist Deregulation - Econlib

lancasteronline.com

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

ATHENS, Greece (AP) Pope Francis warned Saturday that the easy answers of populism and authoritarianism are threatening democracy in Europe and called for fresh dedication to promoting the common good rather than narrow, nationalist interests.

Arriving in Greece, the birthplace of democracy, Francis used a speech to Greek political and cultural leaders to warn Europe at large about the threats facing the continent. He said only robust multilateralism can address the pressing issues of the day, from protecting the environment to fighting the pandemic and poverty.

Politics needs this, in order to put common needs ahead of private interests, Francis said. Yet we cannot avoid noting with concern how today, and not only in Europe, we are witnessing a retreat from democracy.

Francis, who lived through Argentinas populist Peronist era as well as its military dictatorship, has frequently warned about the threat of authoritarianism and populism and the danger it poses to the European Union and democracy itself.

He didn't name any specific countries or leaders during his speech. The EU, however, is locked in a feud with members Poland and Hungary over rule-of-law issues, with Warsaw insisting that Polish law takes precedence over EU policies and regulations.

Coincidentally, on the same day Francis warned about the populist threat to Europe, right-wing populist leaders met in Warsaw and declared they will work more closely together to defend their sovereignty at the European Parliament.

Outside the bloc, populist leaders in Brazil and the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump pressed nationalist policies on the environment that contrasted sharply with Francis call to care for our common home.

Opening the second leg of his five-day trip to Cyprus and Greece, Francis recalled that it was in Greece, according to Aristotle, that man became conscious of being a political animal" and a member of a community of fellow citizens.

Here, democracy was born, Francis told Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou. That cradle, thousands of years later, was to become a house, a great house of democratic peoples. I am speaking of the European Union and the dream of peace and fraternity that it represents for so many peoples.

That dream is at risk amid the economic upheaval and other disruptions of the pandemic that can breed nationalist sentiments and make authoritarianism seem compelling and populisms easy answers appear attractive, Francis said.

The remedy is not to be found in an obsessive quest for popularity, in a thirst for visibility, in a flurry of unrealistic promises ... but in good politics, he said.

Francis praised the necessary vaccination campaign" promoted by governments to tame the coronavirus. He referenced another Greek doctor-philosopher Hippocrates in response to vaccine skeptics and virus deniers, who count many religious conservatives among them. Francis cited the Hippocratic oath to not only do what is best for the sick, but to abstain from whatever is harmful and offensive to others," especially the elderly.

Greece's president echoed the sentiment. The virus spreads and mutates, helped by the irrational denial of reality and inequalities in our societies, Sakellaropoulou said.

Greece is grappling with its highest level of coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic, with deaths approaching record levels. A quarter of the countrys adults remain unvaccinated, and Parliament recently approved a vaccine mandate for people over age 60.

Francis' trip has been clouded by the Dec. 2 death of the Vatican's ambassador to the European Union, Archbishop Aldo Giordano, among several prelates who tested positive for COVID-19 after celebrating Francis' final Mass in Slovakia in September. The Vatican's EU embassy insisted that Giordano caught the virus days earlier during a European bishops' meeting in Hungary.

Francis visit to Cyprus and Greece also has focused on the plight of migrants as Europe hardens its border control policies. On Sunday he is returning to the Aegean Sea island of Lesbos, which he visited five years ago to meet with migrants at a detention camp.

In Athens, Francis is also met with Archbishop Ieronymos, the head of Greece's Orthodox Church.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II became the first Catholic leader to visit Greece in more than 1,200 years and he used the occasion to beg forgiveness for the sins by action or omission" of Catholics against Orthodox over the centuries. Francis' visit 20 years later sought to further mend Catholic-Orthodox ties, still wounded by the Great Schism that divided Christianity.

Ieronymos told Francis on Saturday that he shared the popes vision to forge strong ties to face global challenges like the migration crisis and climate change.

If the world community, the leaders of powerful states, and international organizations do not take bold decisions, the ever-threatening presence of vulnerable refugee women and children will continue to grow globally, Ieronymos warned.

An elderly Orthodox priest heckled Francis as he arrived at Ieronymos residence, shouting: Pope you are a heretic! before police hustled him away.

Francis has accelerated inter-faith initiatives, as the two churches attempt to shift from centuries of competition and mistrust toward collaboration. Orthodox churches are also seeking alliances amid a deepening dispute over the independence of the Ukrainian church, which was historically governed by the Russian Orthodox Church.

I think the presence of the pope in Greece and Cyprus signals a return to the normal relationship that we should have ... so that we can move toward what is most important of all: the unity of the Christian world, Ioannis Panagiotopoulos, an associate professor of divinity and church history at Athens University, told The Associated Press.

The popes visit ends Monday.

Theodora Tongas in Athens contributed. Follow Winfield at https://twitter.com/nwinfield and Gatopoulos at https://twitter.com/dgatopoulos

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ric Zemmour Is Another Right-Wing Fake Populist Created by Corporate Media – Jacobin magazine

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

Since French politics resumed after the summer break, far-right polemicist ric Zemmour has electrified the countrys presidential campaign. Waging fratricidal warfare with MarineLePen, he has managed to thrust his racist ideas into the public debate.

Now, after months of purported suspense, Zemmour has officially confirmed his candidacy for the 2022 presidential election. In a ten-minute clip livestreamed on social media on November 30, the former columnist for the right-wing daily LeFigaro and pundit for the Fox-like CNEWS said he felt compelled to do so given the tragic situation facing the country. Its no longer about reforming France but saving it. Thats why Ive decided to stand in the presidential election.

In a grotesque imitation of General Charles deGaulle in London during World War II, the far-right candidate portrayed himself as a bulwark against a tidal wave of immigration threatening to destroy the foundations of the country. We wont let ourselves be dominated, subjugated, conquered, colonized. . . . We wont let ourselves be replaced, he proclaims against a backdrop of footage of urban violence from the rolling news channels that makes France look like a hotbed of looting and bloodshed.

Since the start of autumn 2021, ricZemmour has monopolized the media space, confounding expectations that the presidential election would be a two-horse race between Marine LePen, leader of the far-right National Rally party, and the incumbent Emmanuel Macron. A tour of French cities, ostensibly to promote his latest book, LaFrance na pas dit son dernier mot (France hasnt said its last word), has seen signing sessions morph into political rallies, full of fans who almost invariably start chanting Zemmour for president in front of a sea of microphones and cameras.

Author of several bestsellers over the past decade on the decline of France a country supposedly swamped by immigration and undermined by feminism, LGBT rights, and anti-racism (his book Le Suicide franais, published in 2014, has sold nearly half a millioncopies) ric Zemmour was until recently seen as just a media pundit on the reactionary right. No one dreamt he would enter politics at the age of sixty-three.

He started appearing on mainstream TV in the mid-2000s when he was invited onto talk shows as a reactionary columnist slamming political correctness and spicing up TV and radio programs with his increasingly transgressive outbursts. Public broadcaster France2 then hired him in the wake of his 2006 anti-feminist diatribe Le Premier Sexe (The first sex), which he defined as a treaty on masculine living for the feminized younger generation and in which he asserts, among other things, that man is a sexual predator, a conqueror.

In recent years, his statements have regularly landed him in court. Appearing on a popular TV show in 2011, he had this to say about racial profiling in the French polices use of stop and frisk: Why do they get stopped seventeentimes? Because most of the traffickers are blacks and Arabs. Thats just a fact. This led to his first conviction for inciting racial discrimination, but it did nothing to halt his growing media popularity, nor the virulence of his discourse.

His identitarian obsessions center on Islam fueled particularly by the wave of attacks that France has experienced since 2015. Theres no such thing as moderate Muslims, he often remarks. According to Zemmour, a good French Muslim is one who renounces his or her faith.We have to give them the choice between Islam and France, he said on TV show Cvous in September 2016. In his oft-repeated view, Islam is incompatible with Frances republican values.

Born into a family that moved to metropolitan France from Algeria, Zemmour has become a mouthpiece for all those who nostalgically yearn for the lost grandeur of imperial France, the colonial France that still, to this day, often unconsciously permeates the imagination of many French people. This France sees the rise of the Muslim faith in France as a reverse colonization, as Zemmour explicitly describes it a notion that resonates with all those still haunted by the ghosts of the Algerian War.

A self-described history buff who loathes what he considers to be discourses of repentance, Zemmour has, in a series of books, reconstructed a dreamlike version of Frances past, from the knights of old and Joan of Arc through to Napoleon Bonaparte the emperor he reveres and with whom he likes to compare himself. In his rewriting of history, both in his books and in television studios, one of his primary aims has been to erase the infamy of Frances wartime collaboration with Nazi Germany. To this end, he has made multiple attempts to rehabilitate Vichy leader MarshalPtain, claiming, for example, that he helped to save French Jews, on the strength of revisionist theories that have been totally discredited by serious historians.

Unsurprisingly, Zemmour has also been a key figure in normalizing another discredited piece of racist propaganda: far-right essayist Renaud Camuss Great Replacement theory, according to which Europes white Christian population is being replaced by a sub-Saharan and Muslim one.

Until recent months, there was nothing to suggest that this media troublemaker would one day enter the political arena. However, the reshaping of the French political landscape following the election of Emmanuel Macron and his bulldozing of the traditional party of the Right and, more importantly, the changes undergone by Frances main far-right party have offered Zemmour a political opportunity.

Under the leadership of Marine LePen since 2011, the party formerly known as the National Front (Front national, FN) and renamed National Rally (Rassemblement national, RN) has sought to reinvent itself as a respectable political outfit. Despite a sizable electoral base, LePen knows that her party which in its early days included sympathizers of the Nazi regime remains (at least for now) unacceptable to a majority of French people.

Over the past decade, RN has systematically removed the most radical members of the party from its family photo album: identitarians, neofascists, and traditionalist Catholics are urged to keep a low profile. In her drive to detoxify the brand, Marine LePen uses polished language and litters her speeches with consensual references to the Republic and secularism all a world away from the FN founded by her father, Jean-Marie LePen. Economically, she steers a comparatively more socially minded course, advocating retirement at sixty and defending public services.

The final step in the normalization process came when LePen expelled her father from the party he founded after another antisemitic outburst in which he downplayed the significance of the Holocaust. She went on to rename the party in 2018, replacing the word front, which she deemed too belligerent, with rassemblement (literally, gathering).

In 2017, she won 33 percent of the vote in her runoff against Emmanuel Macron in the second round of the presidential election. Equivalent to almost 11million votes, this was the best-ever result for the far-right party, which appeared closer to power than ever before. Even so, her abysmal performance in the second-round debate, which highlighted her total ignorance of many issues, sowed seeds of doubt among her voters and within her own party. RN has since been embroiled in various court cases, including one linked to parliamentary assistants and another to a Russian loan, which could pose a threat to Marine LePens future. Those she sidelined for being too radical believe that LePen will never make it into power and so are already planning what happens next.

LePens niece, Marion Marchal, who represents the more identitarian and radical wing of the party and is very popular with its voters, is unwilling to stand against her aunt and is taking a longer-term view. Having removed herself from the political limelight, she has set up a political science school to wage what she calls the cultural battle. Her friends have also embarked on a media offensive, airing their views in right-wing newspapers and magazines such as Valeursactuelles and setting up their own outlets, including the magazine LIncorrect.

They are particularly keen to court the most conservative Catholics, those who protested en masse against same-sex marriage in 2013 and feel unrepresented by any of the presidential candidates. These voters feel abandoned by the right-wing parties, which they see as too liberal, including on social issues. Nor do they identify with Marine LePen, a divorced mother whose closest associates are openly gay and who, until recently, admitted that she was anything but close to the Church.

It was at a meeting organized by friends of Marion Marchal in Paris in September 2019, dubbed the Convention of the Right, that Zemmour began to assume a politicians garb. Thats where his campaign really got started, says Erik Tegnr, a co-organizer of the meeting and former RN activist who launched a YouTube channel in the spring in support of Zemmours candidacy. With him in the hall were a slew of far-right figures who had broken with Marine LePen. There were those she had systematically excluded the most radical identitarians and those who had distanced themselves from her, deeming the presidential contender too far to the left on economic issues.

Speaking to them, Zemmour gave a long, extremely virulent speech denouncing Islam and Muslims, which was broadcast live on the twenty-four-hour news channels. With Islam making a move to colonize and occupy parts of France, he said, the country would need to fight for its very survival. It was tantamount to a call for civil war.

Intoxicated by his publishing successes and encouraged by his young girlfriend, the brilliant senior civil servant Sarah Knafo, Zemmour gradually persuaded himself that he ought not keep waiting and started making plans. He realized he would have the backing of the whole swathe of the far right that felt marginalized by Marine LePen.

As a LeFigaro journalist whos been rubbing shoulders with politicians for decades and who is on first-name terms with many of them Zemmour also knows that he can count on the support of a group of bourgeois voters who have always held their noses around the LePens. Patrick Buisson, a close associate of Zemmour and former adviser to ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, has long theorized that to get into power, the nationalist right needs to unite the working-class and middle-class vote. While LePen polls very well among both blue- and white-collar workers, she struggles despite her best efforts to win over managers and professionals.

Meanwhile, Zemmour has another important ally: billionaire Vincent Bollor, who, after amassing a vast fortune in Africa through port operations and maritime freight, decided to start investing in the media with a clear political objective. Among his acquisitions was the TV channel iTl, a subsidiary of Canal+, which he renamed CNEWS with the barely concealed intention of turning it into a French version of FoxNews. Closely allied with traditionalist Catholics, this business magnate espouses staunchly right-wing views and aims to influence the upcoming presidential election.

The day after his speech at the Convention of the Right which shocked many in the political establishment Bollor decided to offer Zemmour a one-hour daily slot on a tailor-made show. Viewing figures went through the roof, with sometimes almost a million people tuning in to watch the far-right pundit, lapping up his apocalyptic analyses and unabashed racism. For two years, Zemmour was able to focus fully on his hobbyhorses and, more significantly, to set the tone for all the other twenty-four-hour news channels, which started to go all out on immigration and identity issues following the agenda set by the journalist and soon-to-be presidential contender.

Meanwhile, an organizational structure was quietly put in place to prepare Zemmours candidacy. The main driving force was Sarah Knafo, but Zemmour also had the backing of a team of young activists close to Marion Marchal, who pored over the details of Donald Trumps campaign and started waging an all-out communications offensive on social media.

Already before summer, this team created a myriad of accounts on Twitter Young People with Zemmour, Women with Zemmour, Farmers with Zemmour, and so on flooding the social network with messages in support of the man who was not yet even a candidate. One of its leading lights is Samuel Lafont. Previously in charge of digital communications for the center-right party LesRpublicains, he is familiar with all the techniques for expanding online impact, including astroturfing, in which a small number of accounts are used to create an impression of widespread grassroots support. The website of GnrationZ, the youth movement backing Zemmours candidacy, advocates the keyboard warriors model that Trump gave a nod to when elected, and advises activists to take to all platforms and forums popular with young people to defend their candidate.

Despite this high-profile launch, with the support of a clearly fascinated press, Zemmours campaign has hit some setbacks in recent weeks. The transition from media and online campaigning to campaigning on the ground has been a painful one. To help them organize rallies and put up posters, Zemmours teams have drafted some very radical activists, including former members of GnrationIdentitaire, which was disbanded for its paramilitary activity, and hardline royalists from the far-right ActionFranaise movement, fueling concerns about his candidacy.

Many mayors have refused to provide rooms for Zemmours meetings, condemning the violence of his rhetoric and the profile of his supporters. Whats more, he has so far failed to secure the backing of five hundredmayors that he needs to compete in the presidential election, and some are still wondering if he will be able to see this through.

The violence that marred his first election rally in Villepinte, in the northeastern suburbs of Paris on December 5, at which journalists and anti-racism activists were punched, shed a harsh light on the neofascist methods of his supporters. Accusations of sexual assault and inappropriate behavior made by several women will no doubt resurface during the campaign.

Whether or not he manages to make his way through the obstacle course that is the presidential election, ric Zemmour has already pulled off a major feat by thrusting his half-baked racist views into the public debate and setting the agenda for everyone else. This is a real coup for his supporters, who constantly invoke Antonio Gramsci and see the cultural battle as a precursor to future electoral triumphs.

And even if he fails in 2022, Marine LePens niece Marion Marchal knows that, next time around, shell be able to capitalize on the political and media ecosystem that he has built up already.

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ric Zemmour Is Another Right-Wing Fake Populist Created by Corporate Media - Jacobin magazine

It’s populist and unethical Oware-Aboagye slams Dampare for obeying traffic regulations – GhanaWeb

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

Dr George Akuffo Dampare, the Inspector General of Police

Akufo-Addo appoints Dampare as IGP

Dampare hailed for enhancing police visibility

Woman narrates how Dampare saved fathers life

Among the plethora of reasons, Dr George Akuffo Dampare, the Inspector General of Police is hailed by many Ghanaians is his decision to follow traffic regulations instead of blazing his siren through.

On a number of occasions, photos of Dr Dampares official car GP1 in traffic have flooded the social media space amid commendations for a show of servitude and modesty.

While the praises have been loudest, some persons have expressed concern over the issue with the argument that it is populist and also expose him to possible danger.

Over the weekend another photo of Dr Dampares official vehicle in traffic was spotted by a social media user who shared it on his platform.

Commenting on the photo, the Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Scheme, Gifty Oware-Aboagye, accused the IGP of engaging in populism.

She argued that Dampares decision to follow traffic rules is bad and that the Police Council should call him to order.

Its unethical and a breach of our security status. Where is the Police Council? They need to ask him to stop doing this. It is populist and not right, she posted.

Dampare was appointed by President Akufo-Addo as IGP in July 2021 in acting capacity. He was subsequently confirmed as substantive IGP after impressing in the role.

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It's populist and unethical Oware-Aboagye slams Dampare for obeying traffic regulations - GhanaWeb

A Philosopher in Hard Times – lareviewofbooks

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

SAMANTHA ROSE HILLs intellectual biography of Hannah Arendt is a timely look at one of the most impactful, if elusive, 20th-century political thinkers. The book makes accessible key themes in Arendts work. Looking for a philosophical focus on creative work that escapes the mystical Teutonic fog of Heidegger? See the concept of natality described in The Human Condition. Concerned about the rise of populist authoritarianism? The Origins of Totalitarianism remains a bracing read, its conceptual flaws and political agenda less important today than its description of the aspiration to tyrannical control. Want to step back from political relevance to something more primary? Arendts late reflections on thinking and judgment will be powerful. In all these cases, and many more, Hill is a thoughtful guide.

The early biography is covered quickly. Hill doesnt say much about the impact of the death of Hannahs father, only noting with awkward foreshadowing that the loss did not diminish her inherent wonder at being in the world. Be that as it may, we know from Elisabeth Young-Bruehls more detailed 1982 biography that the seven-year-old Hannah maintained an unusually sunny disposition for months after her fathers death but a year later began acting out and succumbing to various ailments; Young-Bruehl understood this as Hannahs way of grieving. The young girls family was unobservant, but she learned about her Jewish identity from the everyday antisemitism of the street. After her mother moved to East Prussia, a challenging place to be at the outbreak of World War I, Hannah took comfort in her books. Years later when asked by Gnter Gaus why she had read Kant at such a young age, she responded, I can either study philosophy or I can drown myself, so to speak.

At 18, Arendt went to the University of Marburg, where she met Martin Heidegger. He would publish his epochal Being and Time just a few years later. Heidegger was a charismatic professor twice Arendts age, and they become privileged interlocutors and then lovers. This affair might have struck their contemporaries as less disturbing than it strikes many today, except that it was hardly a secret that Heidegger didnt like Jews. He disliked them, as the old Jewish joke goes, more than was necessary. In the following decade, Heidegger would join the Nazi Party and lend a hand in the de-Jewification of the Volks universities.

According to Hill, another relationship of great importance to Arendt was that with Anne Mendelssohn Weil. I personally would have liked Hill to say more about this, and not only because I got to know Anne and her extraordinary sister Katherine late in their lives. Annes husband, Eric Weil, penned one of the most blistering accounts of Heideggers perfidy shortly after the war ironically noting that Heidegger had every reason to complain that, despite putting all his authority in support of the Third Reich, the Nazis failed to show him proper respect, preferring the crude biologism of others.

Hill does relate how Arendt left Marburg and Heidegger to study with the latters teacher, Edmund Husserl, and then with his rival, Karl Jaspers. Arendt wrote her doctoral dissertation on love and Saint Augustine. She also published a book on the life and salon of the 18th-century Jewish intellectual Rahel Varnhagen, in which she acknowledged the attractions of pariahdom. Of those, Arendt would go on to have her fill. The situation for Jews was worsening, and [t]he only way to be a conscientious person was to become an outlaw. Arendt fled to France, where she was part of Zionist groups and close friends with Walter Benjamin and other Marxist intellectuals. Ahead of the Nazi invasion of France, Arendt would be rounded up with other Jews, and she had a harrowing time making her way to Marseilles and gaining papers of transit. So many perished trying to escape, including Benjamin. What would the lucky Jewish survivors gain, she asked? The experience of sadness the faculty of adapting and not letting themselves be annihilated.

Arendt managed to get to New York with her new husband, Heinrich Blcher, and at wars end she was already working on The Origins of Totalitarianism. In 1949, she returned to Europe to find a cloud of melancholy hovering over a continent in ruins. She was there as a leader in Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, and while lecturing spent a day or two (accounts differ) with Heidegger. Quoting Arendt, Hill writes that their night and morning together were confirmation of an entire life, and goes on to talk about reconciliation making possible new beginnings. In another context, though, Arendt reminded readers that some people choose actions that make living on earth with them altogether impossible. The banality of love also comes to mind.

Origins made Arendt well known, and she began teaching at top-tier universities. By bringing together an incisive account of Nazism with a sketchier description of Stalinisms path of violence, she became very acceptable to establishment intellectuals during the Cold War. If she enjoyed her increasingly public reputation, she enjoyed putting it at risk even more, which she did in her reporting for The New Yorker on the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Her Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963) disappointed those who wanted to see the former Nazi official as an evil monster, and it enraged others because of her account of Jewish complicity in the murders of their own people. Hill quotes Arendts claim that reporting on the trial was an obligation I owe my past, but it is unclear how Hill interprets that debt and how Arendt discharged it. By the banality of evil, Arendt said she meant resistance ever to imagine what another person is experiencing, which is precisely what she was accused of in her account of those fellow Jews who didnt manage to escape.

Hills Arendt is a thinker who moves easily from poetry to philosophy, from reflections on politics to an analysis of thinking itself. Like Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Hill emphasizes her subjects efforts to maintain her love of the world an embrace of the plurality of what we can encounter, despite the dark times in which we might find ourselves. Hill writes lucidly about the key ideas and is particularly good on Arendts deep and lasting friendships. Arendt inspired love and loyalty among those close to her, and while her commitment always to stop and think led to sharp disagreements, it also resulted in meaningful, enduring relationships.

Arendt saw the political as a space in which power could be created through civic engagement, as well as violence as a tactic that ultimately denied the political. Suspicious of what we today call the politics of identity, she was eager to cultivate possibilities for living not yet imagined. Arendts work, Hill judges, is fundamentally about the discovery of human freedom, its gradual, fateful disappearance from the world, and the elusiveness of the conditions of its recovery. Arendt, in her own life, tried to maintain this freedom in the harshest of conditions and, in her work, sought to elucidate how others might contribute to this same vital endeavor.

Michael S. Roth is president of Wesleyan University. A paperback edition of his Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatists Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech and Political Correctness was published this fall.

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A Philosopher in Hard Times - lareviewofbooks

Looking back at news from a trying year – The Whittier Daily News

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

We bid the year adieu with relief. How many Americans expected the pandemic to drag into a second year, or thought a peaceful transition of presidential power is no longer a given? We recount some of 2021s biggest and most-troubling stories in the hopes that 2022 will usher in more encouraging trends.

January 6ths infuriating putsch. As insurrections go, the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Donald Trumps supporters was an exercise in clownishness. Its most memorable image, after all, is of a guy with face paint and a fuzzy horned hat. Instead of causing the GOP to snap out its flirtation with autocracy, conservatives moved from mild condemnation to historical revisionism (hey, it really was Antifa) to whining about overly zealous prosecutions of riot participants.

Vaccines become line in the sand. The average American receives 16 childhood immunizations, so we were surprised that so many people became vaccine-averse when it comes to COVID-19. We oppose government mandates, but figure that this ongoing unpleasantness will go away more quickly if more people voluntarily take basic precautions. Instead, Americans spent most of the year arguing about vaccines with some preferring unusual treatments such as horse de-wormer.

Gubernatorial recall fails spectacularly. California Republicans have struggled to stay relevant, but they thought a recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom would do the trick. Instead of focusing on bread-and-butter issues that appeal to non-Republicans ham-fisted pandemic edicts, raging wildfires, water shortages, failing public schools they ran the campaign like a primary. Newsom defeated the recall by the same tally as he won the 2018 election.

Inflation soars out of control. To much surprise, the pandemic unleashed pent-up demand for consumer products, disrupted supply chains and unleashed inflationary government spending. Home prices are up by a third since the start of the pandemic and car lots are virtually empty, with dealers commanding massive markups. Making matters worse, as many as 111 container ships have idled off the Los Angeles coast. Were not experiencing 1970s-era gas lines, but Jimmy Carter is now a popular search term on Google.

Both parties are doubling down on extremes. During times of upheaval and divisiveness, the political parties could move toward the center, but Republicans have fully embraced the populist rights culture-war agenda and Democrats have fully embraced their progressive wings push for New Deal-era spending. Moderate Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia put the kibosh on the $2 trillion Build Back Better debacle, while Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming has called out the GOP for its January 6 revisionism, but such voices are crying in the wilderness.

Crime wave plagues urban areas. Our cities are enduring unusually brazen acts of lawlessness. In San Francisco and LA, organized bands of thieves have been looting businesses in broad daylight. Murder rates are up 30%. Some California officials are in denial, while others want to throw money at the problem. Theres no simple answer, but were ending the year amid a growing climate of fear.

Dont despair, but consider the news in the spirit of Shakespeare: Things without all remedy should be without regard: whats done is done. But lets all try to do better next year.

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Looking back at news from a trying year - The Whittier Daily News

We must thank the white-coat army for saving us and the world – Al Jazeera English

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

I should be dead.

Since the start of this stubborn, life-sapping pandemic, I have, perhaps like you, taken precautions to ward off being infected and killed by an ever-mutating virus.

Given my age and medical history, I am at particular risk. Still, unlike so many others, in so many other places, I have been able to work from home and head out only when necessary.

I suppose my diligence, privileges and a large dose of luck have combined to keep COVID-19 at bay for now.

But I know that if the white-coat army of nurses, doctors, and scientists working in anonymity had not engineered and dispensed vaccines that blunt the lethal aspects of a raging, indiscriminate virus, chances are, given my seniority and pathological troubles, I would not be writing this column.

Much more urgently, my daughters would have lost their father. My wife would have lost her husband. My family would have lost a brother and an uncle.

I am sure of this.

So, at a time of year that encourages us to reflect on the near and distant past and to consider future hopes and possibilities, I am compelled to offer my sincere thanks and abiding gratitude to the white-coat army who have not only saved my life, but the lives of people in my orbit whom I admire and love.

They have saved a dear friends life. A career diplomat, father, husband and cancer survivor, my good mate is fast approaching retirement after spending more than 30 years trying to make life better for people in often poor, faraway countries using the influence and opportunity his position and diplomatic passport afforded him.

Without the vaccines, my friend his natural defences weakened by a malignancy he defeated some time ago would likely be facing a more precarious fate.

I am grateful to the white-coat army for saving his life twice.

They have saved my doctors life. A woman of singular grace and integrity, my GP has never let a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis early in her studies prevent her from achieving her calling to tend to the legion of patients who know that she is more saint than physician.

Hobbled, but not vanquished, by an incurable disease that has drained her of strength and a reassuring measure of stability, this born healer continues to heal people whose minds and bodies require healing, confident that she is protected against the vagaries of a virus that haunts the world.

They have saved my sisters life. Another cancer survivor, wife and mother of three, my older sister has devoted herself to caring for others in need young men and women whose bodies grow older, but whose intellects do not. My sister looks after her vulnerable charges with a limitless well of kindness and generosity.

Without the vaccines, my sister her natural defences also diminished by a scarring bout with an insidious tumor would not be able to do what she was always destined to do help people.

In spite of the white-coat armys herculean efforts, there are, of course, countless sad stories of children, women and men who have succumbed to a rampaging virus that does not respect ages, borders or nationalities.

We have watched humbled and amazed as the white-coat army have gone about their hard work, despite the constant danger, exhausting every tool and means available to save lives.

We have watched humbled and amazed their dedication and persistence in the face of the kind of grinding loss and grief that test in ways that only they understand.

We have watched humbled and amazed their astonishing patience with, and care for, the selfish vaccine vagrants who, today, make up most of the residents in intensive care units, riddled with an adept virus that exploits such ignorance and arrogance with devastating ferocity.

These me-first-the-rest-of-you-do-not-matter dolts reject the pleas and advice of the white-coat army until it is too late. Then, in death-bed epiphanies, they curse the slick peddlers of lies and conspiracy theories who told them to forgo masks and vaccines in favour of toxic potions and bravado.

Unlike me, the white-coat army avoid passing judgement on these callous cretins. Instead, they follow their oaths and do their duty to mend human pain and suffering whenever and wherever they can.

In return, populist charlatans, masquerading as prime ministers and premiers, acknowledge their sacrifices in sweet-sounding speeches, while skirting the very rules meant to stem the COVID-19 tides and denying the white-coat army the pay, respect and respite that they have earned many times over.

Worse, populist charlatans, masquerading as journalists in search of a burst of ephemeral attention, have not only smeared selfless scientists like Dr Anthony Fauci but encouraged their audiences to ambush the renowned immunologist and deliver the kill shot.

These fame-hungry buffoons have prompted Dr Fauci to be accompanied on his daily walks with his wife by armed bodyguards.

Through it all, Dr Fauci and accomplished company have retained their dignity and humanity, while the charlatans on and off TV have forfeited what remains of theirs.

Finally, it is not an exaggeration to say that without their indispensable, curative contributions and discoveries, an already anxious global community would, I suspect, teeter on a full-blown and destructive panic that would spread quickly and take tenacious root.

During the pandemic, we have witnessed, in disquieting spams, some of the consequences of this different type of contagion: despair and hopelessness fuel anger and resentment that inevitably turn to violence.

I am convinced that our political leaders are quietly preoccupied with the potential costs and possible expressions of this brewing, unspoken undercurrent, but only the white-coat army can truly address and forestall the looming chaos.

It is an extraordinary burden and responsibility.

You and I must thank the white-coat army of nurses, doctors and scientists for volunteering to confront this existential challenge with the poise, skill and intelligence these awful, disheartening times demand.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.

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We must thank the white-coat army for saving us and the world - Al Jazeera English

2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections: Major political parties vying to win support of women – Hindustan Times

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

A game of political one-upmanship is being witnessed among the major political parties ever since Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra promised 40% party tickets to women candidates and made some populist announcements for them ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

After making the populist announcements, the Congress has now begun a direct interaction with women, bringing womens issues into political focus. Other major political parties too are now moving forward with programmes or announcements focusing on women.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra gave a bit of political twist to the Bollywood film Deewars iconic dialogue mere paas maa hai on Wednesday to make her point that the Congress, she hoped, would get the support of the women in 2022 polls.

Mere pass behenein hain.behenein rajniti main badlav laayengi (I have sisters. Sisters will bring about a change in politics), Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said in a tweet in Hindi on Wednesday with the #Ladki_hoon_lad_sakti_hoon. (I am a girl, I can fight). Priyanka made the observation in response to a question about the Congress that was not left with any strong base in the politics of caste and community.

A video clip of her reply to newspersons quoting the mere paas maa hai dialogue has been posted along with the tweet.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had on Sunday launched a direct dialogue with women at the Womens Town Hall titled Shakti Samvad in Rae Bareli. She referred to the PMs Tuesday meeting at Prayagraj, saying, We are half of the population and the political parties are not taking the women seriously the Congresss initiative of empowering the women has awakened the political parties now. Asha bahus honorarium has been raised and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to hold an all-women meeting.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday addressed women beneficiaries of various government schemes at a programme in Prayagraj. He said the daughters of Uttar Pradesh would not let the parties that ran the previous governments come to power in the state. Adding to her Sundays observations, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in a twitter post on Tuesday said, UPs women may see. You stretched and Prime Minister @narendramodi has bowed before you. But this is only the beginning. There is going to be a storm of women power. Womens unity will lead to revolution.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), too, are not lagging behind in making claims about the work done by them to empower women. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav has referred to the work his government did for women in a post on social media on Tuesday.

The Samajwadi Party government worked for girls and women and for their empowerment in a true manner by distributing laptops, Kanya Vidya Dhan, launching 1090 women helpline and providing ambulance service for them. Problems, scarcity and their humiliation have put women against the BJP, Akhilesh Yadav said in a tweet on Tuesday.

The SP may make some announcements in its poll manifesto in the coming weeks. The SP chief, viewing the sensitivity of women issues, recently distanced himself from party MPs observations with regard to the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021 that Union minister for women and child development Smriti Irani tabled in Lok Sabha on Tuesday. The amended bill proposes to increase the minimum age of marriage of women from 18 to 21 years. The bill was later referred by the lower house to a parliamentary standing committee for further scrutiny.

The BSP has said it is following in the footsteps of Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar to empower women and has demanded reservation for them.

Half of the population is women. But they are still deprived of their rights though respected Baba Saheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar has contributed a lot to empower them by giving them legal rights. Now the BSP is following in his footsteps. The Congress and the BJP have almost the same opinion about women empowerment and they believe only in show off. The BSP government worked a lot for social, economic and educational self-reliance of women and the parties opposed to the BSP are now encashing the sameAlso, the BJP and the Congress are not serious about making women strong and self-reliant. This is evident from the issue of 33% reservation for women that is pending in the Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies for years. The BSP demands reservation for women, said BSP chief Mayawati in a series of tweets on Wednesday.

The Election Commissions statistics for the 2017 assembly elections indicates that UP had a total of 14,16,63,646 voters that year. Out of them, 77,042,607 were males, 64,613,747 females and 7292 other category voters. Out of this, 8,67,55,499 votes were polled. Those who turned up for voting included 4,55,70,067 male voters, 40906123 female voters and 277 other category voters. In all, 2,79,032 postal votes were also cast in the 2017 polls.

On the importance of women in the elections, AK Singh former director, Giri Institute of Development Studies, Lucknow, said: Women constitute 50% of the voters and they vote in large numbers. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra adopted a strategy to focus on them. The BJP appears wary because SP chief Akhilesh Yadav is getting a good response. The fight is becoming close and every vote is going to count.

Umesh Raghuvanshi is a journalist with over three decade experience. He covers politics, finance, environment and social issues. He has covered all assembly and parliament elections in Uttar Pradesh since 1984....view detail

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2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections: Major political parties vying to win support of women - Hindustan Times

Chicago astronomers excited by possibilities of James Webb Space Telescope – Chicago Sun-Times

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

After decades of development and billions of dollars of investment, the James Webb Space Telescope finally took off on its mission Saturday to see the stars and galaxies dating back to the beginning of the universe.

The gigantic telescope is the product of a joint collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency and its unprecedented new windows to the cosmos will have ramifications for Chicagoans, too, local astronomers say.

Essentially, this telescope is a time machine, said Michelle Nichols, director of public observing at the Adler Planetarium. Its going to be an amazing tool.

The Webb telescope uses infrared technology, which allows it to see objects farther away and more clearly than ever before. As the telescope observes stars and galaxies, its actually seeing them as they were billions of years ago all the way to the beginning of the universe 13.5 billion years ago.

This time-traveling is similar to how we see the sun, Nichols explained. The rays are actually eight minutes old, since thats how long it takes for them to travel to reach the earth.

John Carlstrom, a professor and chair of the University of Chicagos Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, said that astronomers so far have been studying the universe without vital information like trying to piece together your family history without any of the baby pictures.

What the James Webb Space Telescope will do is turn up the baby pictures, Carlstrom said Sunday. Well see what the universe looked like in its infancy.

Nichols said she teared up watching Saturdays launch.

When its on the ground its safe When you stick it on top of a big tube of explosives which is what a rocket is as soon as you light up that rocket, its going. There is nothing you can do at that point, she said.

Carlstrom said he also found himself surprisingly moved during the launch.

Nothing went wrong. It was perfect. It was just a beautiful gift, he said.

While the takeoff went smoothly, everything else has to go perfectly for the telescope to function properly. The equipment, mirrors and sun shields must all unfold and turn on as theyre supposed to otherwise, we dont have a telescope, Nichols said.

The next 29 days are crucial, but Nichols said she wont be able to rest easy until about six months from now, when its expected to be fully operational.

But, if youre not an astronomer or science fan, why care about the Webb?

Theres something for everyone, Nichols said.

Some might marvel at the advanced technology within the telescope technology that took nearly 30 years and thousands of people to develop, Nichols said.

Others might benefit from the technological advancements made during its development in ways they never knew. Some might be in awe of the incredible pictures it will be able to capture, while science fiction fans might be struck by the possibilities of science facts, Nichols said.

Some people just look up and wonder, Nichols said. They wonder, Are we alone? Is earth the only planet with life? What do we know about the possibilities for life elsewhere in the universe? This telescope will hopefully give us more information about that.

The telescope also represents collaboration and the power of science, Nichols said.

Science, and astronomy especially, can show that we can often put our differences aside and find common ground, Nichols said.

Chicago astronomers excited by possibilities of James Webb Space Telescope - Chicago Sun-Times

Astronomers Capture Supermassive Black Hole Eruption Near Earth Spanning 16 Times the Full Moon in the Sky – SciTechDaily

Posted on December 27, 2021 by Danzig

Centaurus A is a giant elliptical active galaxy 12 million light-years away. At its heart lies a black hole with a mass of 55 million suns. This image shows the galaxy at radio wavelengths, revealing vast lobes of plasma that reach far beyond the visible galaxy, which occupies only a small patch at the centre of the image. The dots in the background are not stars, but radio galaxies much like Centaurus A, at far greater distances. Credit: Ben McKinley, ICRAR/Curtin and Connor Matherne, Louisiana State University

Astronomers have produced the most comprehensive image of radio emission from the nearest actively feeding supermassive black hole to Earth.

The emission is powered by a central black hole in the galaxy Centaurus A, about 12 million light years away.

As the black hole feeds on in-falling gas, it ejects material at near light-speed, causing radio bubbles to grow over hundreds of millions of years.

When viewed from Earth, the eruption from Centaurus A now extends eight degrees across the skythe length of 16 full Moons laid side by side.

It was captured using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope in outback Western Australia.

Centaurus A is a giant elliptical active galaxy 12 million light-years away. At its heart lies a black hole with a mass of 55 million suns. This composite image shows the galaxy and the surrounding intergalactic space at several different wavelengths. The radio plasma is displayed in blue and appears to be interacting with hot X-ray emitting gas (orange) and cold neutral hydrogen (purple). Clouds emitting Halpha (red) are also shown above the main optical part of the galaxy which lies in between the two brightest radio blobs. The background is at optical wavelengths, showing stars in our own Milky Way that are actually in the foreground. Credit: Connor Matherne, Louisiana State University (Optical/Halpha), Kraft et al. (X-ray), Struve et al. (HI), Ben McKinley, ICRAR/Curtin. (Radio)

The research was published on December 22, 2021, in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Lead author Dr. Benjamin McKinley, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), said the image reveals spectacular new details of the radio emission from the galaxy.

These radio waves come from material being sucked into the supermassive black hole in the middle of the galaxy, he said.

It forms a disc around the black hole, and as the matter gets ripped apart going close to the black hole, powerful jets form on either side of the disc, ejecting most of the material back out into space, to distances of probably more than a million light years.

Previous radio observations could not handle the extreme brightness of the jets and details of the larger area surrounding the galaxy were distorted, but our new image overcomes these limitations.

A video showing the radio galaxy, Centaurus A, which hosts the closest actively feeding black hole to Earth. The video shows the apparent size of the galaxy at optical, X-ray, and submillimeter wavelengths from Earth when compared to the Moon. It then zooms out to show the enormous extent of the surrounding bubbles that are observed at radio wavelengths. Astronomers have produced the most comprehensive image of radio emission from the nearest actively feeding supermassive black hole to Earth.

Centaurus A is the closest radio galaxy to our own Milky Way.

We can learn a lot from Centaurus A in particular, just because it is so close and we can see it in such detail, Dr McKinley said.

Not just at radio wavelengths, but at all other wavelengths of light as well.

In this research weve been able to combine the radio observations with optical and x-ray data, to help us better understand the physics of these supermassive black holes.

Tile 107, or the Outlier as it is known, is one of 256 tiles of the MWA, located 1.5km from the core of the telescope. Lighting the tile and the ancient landscape is the Moon. Credit: Pete Wheeler, ICRAR

Astrophysicist Dr. Massimo Gaspari, from Italys National Institute for Astrophysics, said the study corroborated a novel theory known as Chaotic Cold Accretion (CCA), which is emerging in different fields.

In this model, clouds of cold gas condense in the galactic halo and rain down onto the central regions, feeding the supermassive black hole, he said.

Triggered by this rain, the black hole vigorously reacts by launching energy back via radio jets that inflate the spectacular lobes we see in the MWA image. This study is one of the first to probe in such detail the multiphase CCA weather over the full range of scales, Dr. Gaspari concluded.

Dr. McKinley said the galaxy appears brighter in the center where it is more active and there is a lot of energy.

Then its fainter as you go out because the energys been lost and things have settled down, he said.

But there are interesting features where charged particles have re-accelerated and are interacting with strong magnetic fields.

MWA director Professor Steven Tingay said the research was possible because of the telescopes extremely wide field-of-view, superb radio-quiet location, and excellent sensitivity.

The MWA is a precursor for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA)a global initiative to build the worlds largest radio telescopes in Western Australia and South Africa, he said.

The wide field of view and, as a consequence, the extraordinary amount of data we can collect, means that the discovery potential of every MWA observation is very high. This provides a fantastic step toward the even bigger SKA.

Reference: Multi-scale feedback and feeding in the closest radio galaxy Centaurus A by B. McKinley, S. J. Tingay, M. Gaspari, R. P. Kraft, C. Matherne, A. R. Offringa, M. McDonald, M. S. Calzadilla, S. Veilleux, S. S. Shabala, S. D. J. Gwyn, J. Bland-Hawthorn, D. Crnojevi, B. M. Gaensler and M. Johnston-Hollitt, 22 December 2021, Nature Astronomy.DOI: 10.1038/s41550-021-01553-3

The Murchison Widefield Array is the MWA is managed and operated by Curtin University on behalf of an international consortium, and is located on the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia. The observatory is managed by CSIRO, Australias national science agency, and was established with the support of the Australian and Western Australian Governments. We acknowledge the Wajarri Yamatji as the traditional owners of the observatory site.

The Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre in Pertha Tier 1 publicly funded national supercomputing facilityhelped store and process the MWA observations used in this research.

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Astronomers Capture Supermassive Black Hole Eruption Near Earth Spanning 16 Times the Full Moon in the Sky - SciTechDaily

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