Empowerment Theory – Springer

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Empowerment Theory - Springer

Top 100 Womens Empowerment Blogs | Psychology of Eating

Here are our picks forTop 100 Womens Empowerment Blogs.Please enjoy! Here atThe Institute for the Psychology of Eating,were on a mission to forever change the way the world understands food, body and health.

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1. The Wild Sisterhood Jen Saunders is a writer, painter, and empowerment artist who is passionate about inspiring women to love themselves, follow their hearts and change the world. Her writing has been featured on popular websites such as Tiny Buddha, Kind Over Matter, Roots Of She, and many more. Her first guest contribution to Tiny Buddha was so popular, her story was also featured in the bestselling Tiny Buddha book.

2. Eves Health and Fitness Blog Eves Health & Fitness blog gives valuable fitness tips and background information on food. Her blog is a nice addition to the network of all the health and fitness information out there.

3. Healthy Woman The doctors at Healthy Woman are dedicated to the emotional, physical, and psychological needs of women. Their blog offers health advice ranging from nutritional tips to common birth control concerns and valuable cancer information.

4. Hardy Girls Healthy WomenHardy Girls Healthy Women is a research-based non-profit that whole-heartedly works to empower girls and women. This is a great resource for parents and activists alike. Its also simply a good read if youre interested in womens empowerment.

5. MizFit Online Carla Birnberg founded MizFitOnline to share her health and fitness knowledge from years of working as a health writer, community builder, personal trainer and bodybuilding competitor. She helps women feel strong and powerful in their bodies.

6. Speaking of Womens Health Speaking of Womens Health is dedicated to: Educating women to make informed decisions about health, well-being and personal safety for themselves and their families. The site is run by the Cleveland Clinic Center for Specialized Womens Health.

7. StrongHealthyWoman.com Laura Miranda is a Physical Therapist, Personal Trainer and local fitness & nutrition expert. She created her blog for busy women hungry for cutting edge fitness and nutrition advice.

8. The Great Fitness Experiment Charlotte decided that she was tired of reading studies in magazines and wondering, well that works well on mice, but what about on people? So now she reads all the health and fitness research she can track down and she tries it herself. Then she writes it all down in her blog for you!

9. The Healthy Apron Erin takes the mystery out of fitness science. Whether you are struggling with food, weight or simply searching for a healthier lifestyle, you can learn great things from The Healthy Apron.

10. Workout Mommy Lisa is the Work Out Mommy, and her blog aims to help you find that time and keep you motivated and on task! If youre a mom, check out the empowering tips and advice this blog has to offer.

11. Fit Bottomed Girls Erin, Jen, Kristen and Trish together make up the Fit Bottomed Girls. Their goal is to motivate you to get healthy through a balance of good food and healthy activity. They have a great sense of humor and take the punishment idea out of working out.

12. FYI Behealthy.comFYI Be Healthy is dedicated to health and nutrition. Its authors take scientific studies from all areas relating to health and transform the information into very well-written and accessible articles for you.

13. Happy Mothering Before Chrystal had children, she was a marketing communications manager at a Fortune 20 healthcare company. Now she finds the empowerment to be both a mom and a working woman. Her blog helps mothers find their own empowerment.

14. Healthy Women. Informed. Empowered. HealthyWomen has been working for more than 20 years to, educate, inform and empower women to make smart health choices for themselves and their families.

15. Imperfect Women Imperfect Women is written and edited by about a dozen women (ages spanning four decades!). The goal of the editors and writers is to reach out to women of all walks of life. They believe that, each womans choices about her life and family should be respected. We share one common trait: we are all works in progress.

16. The Vegan Woman The Vegan Woman is written by 13 women and one man. They create a positive, safe space to talk about the vegan lifestyle and share information and advice. Whether your new to the lifestyle, a life-longer, or interested in being vegan, check out this empowering site full of knowledge.

17. Women Health and Family Tips Women Health and Family Tips combines nutrition, exercise and personal inner search for a healthier you. Theres a lot of great personal advice here that we can all benefit from!

18. Women SpeakDr. Nancy is a motivational speaker who draws on her life experience as a clinical psychologist, crisis responder and director of an employee assistance program to bring empowerment to other women.

19. Stirrup QueensMelissa provides information relating to adoption and infertility. As the mother of two twins conceived through fertility treatments she shares wisdom with other mothers and soon-to-be-mothers to help make their journey smoother.

20. Any BodyMultiple individuals contribute to this site. All of them have the same mission of giving women a voice to challenge the limited physical representation of females in contemporary society.

21.EverydayFeminine MagicBlog written by Indigo Bacal, the founder of Wilde (Women of Inspired Leadership Devoted to Evolution) Tribe. Indigo promotes feminine magic and finding your true voice.

22. Purpose to Prosperity Blog written by Sage Lavine, a business coach promoting women empowerment through financial freedom. She also promotes the idea that business development can be our spiritual teacher.

23. Voices at W4 VOICES is a forum for raising awareness and sharing insights about the living conditions and prospects of girls and women today. Through interviews, articles, commentaries and testimonies, VOICES highlights initiatives that are helping to improve the lives of girls and women around the world. Everyone concerned about girls and womens empowerment is invited to read and/or share his/her perspective on VOICES.

24. NicoleDaedone.com Nicole Daedone is a sought-after speaker, teacher, and author who has spent her groundbreaking career redefining orgasm from a womans point of view. Seeing a womans sex as her power, she treats sexuality with unparalleled humor, intelligence, and insight. Nicole is the author ofSlow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasmand is the founder of OneTaste, a company that offers training in orgasm, communication, and man-woman relationships.

25. KellyNotaras.com Kellya sex and relationship consultantwho provides consulting services to women and men to become fully expressed, sexually empowered individuals. Having trained with Nicole Daedone, Kellys work is authentic and powerful and her writing is honest and down to earth. She brings a refreshing and compassionate approach to sexuality and relationship.

26. LeonieDawsom.comLeonie is a blogger, author, and visual artist who helps women build businesses based on their creative gifts. She also organizes an online womens circle made up of over 2,000 women from around the world.

27. She Takes on the WorldShe Takes on the World is written by Natalie MacNeil. Natalie is a woman business owner and globetrotter who decided to start blogging in 2007. She Takes on the World is one of the top blogs in the world for career-minded women and women entrepreneurs.

28. Jessica Valenti One of the Top 100 Inspiring Women in the world by The Guardian Jessica is the author of four books on feminism, politics and culture. Her third book, The Purity Myth: How Americas Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women, won the 2010 Independent Publisher Book Award and was made into a documentary by the Media Education Foundation.

29. Soul and Art StudioCreator of Soul Art Studio, is a business that promotes connecting people with their spirit and creating a life and business that expresses it.

30. DanielleLaPorte.comDanielle LaPorte writes about authenticity, creativity and meaningful work. She loves sharing her insights at conferences, on stage, always in high heels.

31. Truth + Heart + HussleDanielle Dowling is part relationship expert, part womens life coach and part spiritual ass-kicker. She helps women dream big and get it.

32. Marie Forleo Marie Forleos goal is to add more value to your world than you ever dreamed possible by giving you tools that you can immediately use to improve your business and life. Shes the founder of a 100% virtual, woman-owned and run, socially-conscious company who envisions a world where every human being has the financial and emotional freedom to live life to the fullest.

33. The Boss of YouThe Boss of You provides business coaching for women. The authors are Lauren Bacon and Emira Mears who started the site as a living guide to business, their way. You can find their thoughts & ruminations on business, profiles of women-run businesses, resources for women entrepreneurs and more!

34. Gypsy GalsGypsyGals is a website written by Prime and Nina Sarmiento. They provide supportive advice for solo female travelers, as well as detailed, photo-rich city guides to the best cities for women.

35. A Feminine FeastSabrina Chaw is a coach and lecturer who works to support women to embody the truth and power of their Feminine core. She also organizes women circles and workshops just for women.

36. TheEntrepreneurialGuru for WomenAli provides business coaching and mentoring for women entrepreneurs. She started her first business from scratch 11 years ago in her NYC apartment and has since grown her enterprise into the millions.

37. Financial Freedom Coach for WomenKarie is a financial freedom coach for women. Her blog covers a wide range of financial topics as well as the occasional promotion for other women entrepreneurs.

38. Owning PinkLissa Rankin, an OB-GYN physician, author and artist, blogs on owningpink.com. The blog entries cover all things woman from relationships, to feminism, to sexual and reproductive health.

39. Wise LivingTara is a writer, public speaker, and developer of the Playing Big program, which supports women as they find and use their gifts. Her blog contains inspirational words, as well as useful tools for living an authentic life.

40. Truth + Transformation for Women SolopreneursJac works with women solopreneurs to grow and develop their businesses. She believes that developing your own business is an amazing platform for self-actualization.

41. Crazy Sexy Life Kris Carr covers topics such as happiness, health, and spiritual wealth. There is also a community built around the blog that encourages women to become CEOs of their health.

42. RebeccaDettman.comRebecca Dettman is a spiritual expert that started the blog Psyched in Stilettos, which covers the latest spiritual trends and cosmic news. Rebecca also started the Aurora Circle, an online group for likeminded spiritual women.

43. Nourishing Our RadianceSeveral writers contribute to this blog, which focuses on inspiring women to transform their relationship to nourishment through compassionate mind body awareness.

44. A Life of Perfect DaysConnie is a transformational life coach and passionate writer. Shes addicted to green juice and yoga, while her site is a place of inspiration and insight. She wants to help women follow their own bliss & listen to their heart.

45. Shastas Friendship BlogShasta writes a blog for women about developing and maintaining friendships with other women. The blog is attached to girlfriendcircles.com, which matches women with other women for offline friendships.

46. Tending Your Inner GardenTending Your Inner Garden is a website for women who want to grow. It encourages women to discover their deeper self and their relationship to all things sacred. They use the seasons as a model for change and help women become in tune with their own inner guidance.

47. Get Vitalized NaturallyWritten by a physician who focuses on womens health and issues that affect women. Postings often include information about physical wellbeing, but also touch on sexual and mental health.

48. Mama Genas School of Womanly ArtsRegena writes about women using their power of pleasure to have their way with the world. She runs the Womanly Arts Mastery Program, which is a 6 month course that helps women discover their pleasure and achieve their dreams.

49. The Psychologist, The Mom, & Me The Psychologist, The Mom, & Me covers a ride range of topics related to personal growth for women, as well as parenting. Dr. Hibbert is an expert on Parenting, Womens Emotions, Pregnancy & Postpartum, and Grief & Loss.

50. Money Wise Women Several writers contribute to this blog about financial health for women. While the appearance of the blog is drab, it does contain regularly updated content.

51. 27 Months Without Peanut-Butter Documents the personal encounters and experiences of Maggie Close, a peace corps volunteer who has been working with teenage girls in Jordan since 2011. Its a very simple blog, but the stories of these young women are not only awe-inspiring but also provides a healthy dose of perspective and gratitude.

52. Coaching Women to SucceedAnn is a coach that works with women making career changes. She helps women reclaim their confidence and power.

53. Center of the Psychology of WomenThe CPoW blog contains cultural commentary, interviews, essays and advice all while bringing chic to the feminine mystique. Much of the information on the site is geared towards readers in L.A.

54. Womens Success Coaching Live Your PotentialWomen Success Coaching has been recognized for many years in a row by Forbes magazine as one of the top sites for women. Topics covered in the blog often relate to career and business development.

56. Sylvia Browders Blog for WomenEntrepreneurs Sylvia Browder is geared towards women entrepreneurs. Several writers contribute to articles covering topics such as financial wellbeing, spirituality, health and wellness, and business development.

57. Awakening WomenAwakening Women is written for a global audience of women. It aims to bring the fiercely compassionate wisdom of the feminine back into our lives, thus restoring balance.

58. Harness Your Hormones. Unleash Your Power.Jessica is a health, hormone, and nutrition educator for women. Her blog covers these topics, as well as occasionally touching on business topics. Her wants to empower women to reach their highest, brightest and most exquisite potential.

59.Vanessa Carnevale Vanessa is a life coach, small business mentor, and a keynote speaker and writer. She loves to help people achieve rich and purposeful lives. Vanessa delivers business tips and life inspiration tomotivate you to live your dream.

60. WellnessWarriorJessica Ainscough is a writer and holistic coach who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 22. The blog covers a variety of wellness topics from yoga to mental wellbeing to nutrition to inspirational quotes.

61. KarenFagan.comKaren Fagan is an empowerment coach for women, motivational speaker, and writer. Karens blog is written for women who want to live a brilliant life.

62. The Path to WellnessMelissa is a certified holistic health and life coach who helps women end their negative relationship with their bodies and fall back in love with themselves and their life.

63. Feministing The editors of Feministing.com established the site as a community for feminists all over to help give them the tools, connections and empowerment to effect positive change in their communities.

64. In Other WordsIn Other Words is a feminist bookstore in Portland, Oregon, and their blog provides a safe space for political and social discussions from a feminist perspective.

65. Wholistic Women RetreatsThe Wholistic Coaching Coalition is an amazing group of certified coaches trained in personal and professional development. They teach women the skills to find greater fulfillment in their lives.

66. Life Your WayTia uses her life experiences, business knowledge and life coaching skills to help readers dream bigger, demand better and make braver choices.

67. TinaRead.comDr. Trinas mission is to show couples how to have fun and meaningful sex at all stages of life. Check out her blog to answers to those questions you never really want to ask out loud.

68. Date Like a GrownupBobbi Palmer helps smart, accomplished grownup women Find Hope and then Find Him. You can start to get to know Bobbi through her well-written blog.

69. Live Bold and BloomBarrie Davenport wants to inspire her readers to do exactly what her blog is titled: Live Bold and Bloom! For inspiration, check out her blog.

70. Biz Chick Blog Biz Chick Blogs is an online magazine for working women. Its a place for women to share ideas and discuss topics relevant to everyday working life.

71. Flourish Over 50Susan founded Flourish Over 50 to provide an online community for women over 50. As she puts it, Your life after 50 is a time of rediscovery, a time to reinvent yourself to live life to the fullest. Share your stories with others here!

72. Aging AbundantlyFor women nearing middle age, Aging Abundantly provides support and advice for women entering a new chapter in their lives.

73. Becoming a Woman of PurposeDiscover how to ignite your inner peace through the tools and tips Carolyn offers in Becoming a Woman of Purpose!

74. Oops 50!If your a woman over 50, head to Oops 50! to share your experiences, your life and your knowledge and learn from others.

75. Third Age WomenThe Third Age Women blog is all about finding fulfillment and self-sufficiency in all areas of life. For advice on everything from budgeting to adult education, check this out.

76. Women on the FenceErica Diamond created her blog for all women who have ever been on the fence about anything life, business, love

77. The Jenny Pincher The Jenny Pincher is for single women. It offers advice on how to get out of debt and build wealth.

78. Single Minded WomenThe Single Minded Women blog is for single women. It provides entertaining, informative and vital information that every single woman can use to enhance her lifestyle.

79. Dating and Relating CompanyElizabeth is an online dating and relationship consultant. She promotes quality sites and people who she believes in. Check out Dating and Relating Company for real advice!

80. Love in 90 DaysDr. Diana is a love expert, media psychologist and bestselling author. She has helped thousands of women find their dreams.

81. Love and Relationship AdviceSusie & Otto write about ways they have learned to create more understanding and equal relationships. For great, clear advice that both you and your partner can benefit from, check out their blog.

82. Former Fat ChickShareen is a health coach that focuses on inspiring & motivating others who want to improve their health by losing weight. Shes a self-proclaimed Former Fat Chick who lives in Niles, CA.

83. BlogHer BlogHer is the largest community of women bloggers out there! For the best women-lead conversations on the Internet, head to this blog.

84. LipSticking Lip-sticking is a society and interactive website for women, by women and about women. Lead by Yvonne DiVita, their blog is written about issues in business and life.

85. The Soul Sisters Blog The Soul Sisters Blog is written by three sisters on a mission to empower and inspire women everywhere to pursue their passions and achieve their dreams. If you desire to get more out of life, check out their empowering blog.

86. The Maternal Health Task Force The Maternal Health Task Force empowers women through efforts to improve maternal health worldwide. This is a major contribution to womens empowerment, and their writing keeps readers up to date on all of their work and new developments in the maternal health field.

87. Wealthy Bag Lady -With more than 20 years of experience, Linda Hollander is the industry leader in teaching women entrepreneurs about small business success and attracting corporate sponsors. If youre a business owner, check out her blog to see what she can teach you.

88. Womens Life Empowerment Robin writes about how to take control and keep control in the workplace and in your life. For some great empowering advice, check out her blog.

89. What About Our Daughters A truly inspirational blog written for black women and girls. The blog encourages women to use their economic power to effect change in our society. Learn how you can make a difference through their inspirational articles.

90. On Writing, Teaching and Feminism Marina DelVecchio is a College Instructor who blogs about the importance of literacy and the necessary empowerment in young girls and women. She does a great job of including our daughters in the conversation of womens empowerment.

91. The FBomb The F in FBomb stands for feminist. And rightly named, this blog is for teenage girls who care about their rights as women and want to be heard.

92. Geek Feminism The Geek Feminism blog supports feminists in all geek communities. This including science and technology, gaming, SF fandom, and really anyone who identifies herself as a geek. So, if youre a geek and a feminists, heres the conversation for you.

93. PenelopeTrunk.comA women entrepreneur who writes career advice. Penelope blogs about career, romance and parenting.

94. 8 Women Dream 8 Women Dream is about eight empowered women who tell the world about how they are accomplishing their dreams. It will leave you nothing short of inspired to go out and chase your own dreams.

95. Kale & Chocolate Elise Museles is an Eating Psychology & Nutrition Expert based in Washington, DC. A self-proclaimed recovering perfectionist, Elise shows women how to loosen the reins, bend the rules, and experience true satisfaction. (Not to mention: hot bodies, full lives & happy hearts.) Meet Elise & discover a new kind of perfect.

96. Spiritual Sweat Amanda Christian helps women set themselves free, blaze their own trails, and step into their power. She writes that we should Expect Miracles and shes not afraid to debunk the myths of being spiritual or how to be a good dancer. She is often seen with a copy of A Course in Miracles nearby. Whatever shes doing seems to be working: this lady won a professional tree climbing championship in 2012.

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Top 100 Womens Empowerment Blogs | Psychology of Eating

Empowerment and Strengths-Based Perspective: Social Work

Empowerment and a strengths perspective which support the development of innate abilities and recognize differences in a positive manner are also helping social workers increase the individual clients capacity to learn to use his or her own systems constructively

More than a simple linguistic nuance, the notion that social workers do not empower others, but instead, help people empower themselves is an ontological distinction that frames the reality experienced by both social workers and clients (Simon, 1990, p. 32, quoted in Saleeby, 2006, p. 98)

Introduction: This paper firstly looks at empowerment, what it is, and how it can assist social workers in enhancing their clients competence through development of self-efficacy, mastery, and their ability to use their own resources (both inner and outer) in a productive and beneficial manner. The paper then looks at the Strengths Perspective and how social workers can use this lens to assist clients in re-framing their sense of self, and therefore enhance their clients capacity for self-determination. The paper then looks at empowerment and the Strengths Perspective in action, through the utilization of Solution Focused theory.

In this paper it is argued that the action of empowerment is fundamental to the application of a strengths perspective. It is also argued that a positive recognition of difference, such as for those experiencing mental health issues, or who may be gay or lesbian for example, can assist clients in normalizing their lived experience.

Empowerment: Empowerment is both a theory and a practice. It is also a process as well as an outcome (Zimmerman, 1995; Gutierrez, DeLois and GlenMaye, 1995; Carr, E.S., 2003).

The practice of empowerment grew out of the womens and black rights movements of the United States in the late 60s/70s where it was recognised that these two powerless/oppressed groups did not have equal access to human services. This had a negative effect both at the level of the individual and at the level of the institution of the family, which meant that the impaired systems [were] unable to shield individuals from the negative effects of the oppressive institutions (Gutierrez et al, 1995, p. 534), thereby self-perpetuating the oppressed state of those, and other subjegated, groups.

The goal of empowerment is to increase personal, interpersonal or political power, so that individuals, families or communities can take action to improve their situation (Gutierrez et al, 1995, p. 535) Australian examples of empowered communities would include the Womens Electoral Lobby and the Tent Embassy, also developing in the 1970s for example This goal means an increase in the actual power of the client or community [as opposed to their coping with, or adaptation to, the dominant paradigm] so that action can be taken [by them] to prevent or change the problems they are facing (Gutierrez et al, 1995, p. 535). A crucial aim of empowerment is therefore enhancing the possibilities for people to control their own lives (Rappapport, 1981, p. 15) and augmenting their sense of self-determination.

The process of empowerment, involves the development of consciousness consciousness raising/conscientization, and psychological empowerment (Carr, 2003, p. 15; Zimmerman 1995) facilitating a reduction in self-blame, an assumption of personal responsibility for change, and enhancement of self-efficacy (Gutierrez et al, 1995, p. 535). Empowerment also involves the understanding by oppressed people that the nature of their oppression is structural and systemic and is not self-inflicted (Cowger, Anderson & Snively, 2006). Further, empowerment involves a commitment to challenging and combating injustice (Pease, 2002, p. 136, quoting Ward and Mullender).

Consciousness raising, practiced by many a feminist in the 1970s for example, is learning about, and increasing ones self awareness of, their individual social fit within...

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Empowerment and Strengths-Based Perspective: Social Work

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Hedonism II Resort Negril, Jamaica

US tanks roll into Germany to bolster NATO deterrent

The Associated Press U.S. Tanks were unloaded in Bremerhaven, northern Germany, Friday Jan. 6, 2017. Ships loaded with U.S. tanks, self-propelled howitzers and hundreds of other fighting vehicles have arrived in the northern German port en route to Eastern Europe to bolster NATOs deterrence to possible Russian aggression. (Ingo Wagner/dpa via AP)

BERLIN Ships began unloading U.S. tanks, self-propelled howitzers and hundreds of other fighting vehicles Friday in the northern German port of Bremerhaven, to be moved into Eastern Europe to bolster NATO's deterrence against possible Russian aggression.

Some 3,500 troops from the 4th Infantry Division in Fort Carson, Colorado, will join up with the equipment, which includes 87 tanks and 144 Bradley fighting vehicles, over the next two weeks.

The deployment marks the start of a new phase of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which foresees the continuous presence of an American armored brigade combat team in Europe on a nine-month rotational basis. The mission is meant to help allay concerns from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and other NATO allies over an increasingly unpredictable and bellicose Russia.

The new forces will gather first in Poland, then fan out across seven countries from Estonia to Bulgaria. A headquarters unit will be stationed in Germany.

When he announced the move last year, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the forces would take part in regular military exercises across the region with NATO allies. At that time, U.S. Army Europe Commander Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges called the deployment the "embodiment of the United States' commitment to deterring aggression and defending our European Allies and partners."

The U.S. also plans to move in a combat aviation brigade with about 10 Chinook and 50 Black Hawk helicopters and 1,800 personnel from Fort Drum, New York, and a battalion with 24 Apache attack helicopters and 400 personnel from Fort Bliss, Texas. They'll be headquartered in Germany with some aircraft positioned in Latvia, Romania and Poland.

Other NATO members are also increasing their presence, with Britain sending fighter jets to the Black Sea area, while a battalion of troops, tanks and light armor will deploy in Estonia in the spring, backed by French and Danish troops. Germany also plans to send troops and tanks to Lithuania.

Albania, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovenia are also playing roles in what NATO has dubbed its Enhanced Forward Presence. The U.S. plans to relocate a Stryker unit from Germany to Poland as part of that group.

NATO has already started positioning equipment and ammunition in Eastern Europe to reduce the time it would take additional units to deploy if needed.

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US tanks roll into Germany to bolster NATO deterrent

First Amendment Foundation – – Protecting Your Right to …

The First Amendment Foundation is a highly visible and accessible source of authoritative information, expertise and assistance to the public and news media.Founded as a non-profit organization in 1984 by The Florida Press Association, the Florida Society of Newspapers Editors and the Florida Association of Broadcasters to ensure that public commitment and progress in the areas of free speech, free press, and open government do not become checked and diluted during Floridas changing times.

Floridas Sunshine Laws guarantee our right to open government, but government officials can get downright creative to keep their decision-making in the dark. Like the state agency that demanded $3,200 to copy a single page of a public record, or the city commissioner who accidentally dropped her government phone in the toilet after a reporter asked her to see her text messages. And of course, you, the taxpayer footed the $1.3 million legal tab to keep our Governor and his cabinet out of court over secret emails. Fortunately, we have the Florida First Amendment Foundation fighting on our side. I urge you to support the First Amendment Foundation and keep Florida government by the people, for the people and in the Sunshine.

Carl Hiaasen, Miami Herald columnist and author ofSkin Tight,Strip Tease, Skinny Dip, Nature Girl, Star Island,Bad Monkey, Razor Girl and many more.

Thepurpose of the First Amendment Foundation is to protect and advance the publics constitutional right to open government by providing education and training, legal aid and information services. Funding is based on voluntary contributions from various organizations and concerned individuals.

You know, the critical research of my book would not have been possible without access granted by law via Floridas longstanding Open Government laws. Without Sunshine, stories like the injustice I uncovered in Central Florida could not have come forward. The Florida First Amendment Foundation has been protecting your citizen right to know for the past 31 years. Support the First Amendment Foundation. Support Open Government. It pays dividends.

Gilbert King, February 2016. Pulitzer Prize winning author of Devil in the Grove Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America

Our actions get results. In the past year, we led a broad coalition of open government advocates anddefeated a billthat would have made it harder to hold agencies accountable for public records violations. In dozens of courthouses and government offices around the country, citizens with FAFs help won access to the recordsand meetings.

Still,our job has never been more challenging and,with your help, we will continue to fight efforts to erode Floridas long-standing tradition of open government.

Find out more about the First Amendment Foundation.

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First Amendment Foundation - - Protecting Your Right to ...

Space research – Wikipedia

Space research is scientific studies carried out using scientific equipment in outer space. It includes the use of space technology for a broad spectrum of research disciplines, including Earth science, materials science, biology, medicine, and physics. The term includes scientific payloads everywhere from deep space to low Earth orbit, and is frequently defined to include research in the upper atmosphere using sounding rockets and high-altitude balloons. Space science and space exploration involve the study of outer space itself, which is only part of the broader field of space research. Major Space Research Agencies in the World.

For centuries, the Chinese had been using rockets for ceremonial and military purposes. But it wasnt until the latter-half of the 20th Century where rockets were developed to overcome Earths gravity. Such advances were made simultaneously in three countries by three scientists. In Russia, Konstantin Tsiolkovski, in the United States was Robert Goddard, and in Germany was Hermann Oberth.

After the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union created their own missile programs and space research emerged as a field of scientific investigation based on the advancing rocket technology. In 1948-1949 detectors on V-2 rocket flights detected x-rays from the Sun.[1]Sounding rockets proved useful for studies of the structure of the upper atmosphere. As higher altitudes were reached, the field of space physics emerged with studies of aurorae, the ionosphere and the magnetosphere. Notable as the start of satellite-based space research is the detection of the Van Allen radiation belt by Explorer 1 in 1958, four months after the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957. In the following year space planetology emerged with a series of lunar probes, e.g. the first photographs of the far side of the Moon by Luna 3 in 1959.

The early space researchers obtained an important international forum with the establishment of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) in 1958, which achieved an exchange of scientific information between east and west during the cold war, despite the military origin of the rocket technology underlying the research field.[2]

On April 12, 1961, Russian Lieutenant Yuri Gagarin was the first human to orbit Earth in Vostok 1. In 1961, US astronaut Alan Shepard was the first American in space. And on July 20, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first human on the Moon. On April 19, 1971, the Soviet Union launched the Salyut 1, which was the first space station of any kind. On May 14, 1973, Skylab, the first American space station was launched using a modified Saturn V rocket.[3]

Space research includes the following fields of science:[4][5]

The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite was a NASA-led mission launched on September 12, 1991. The 5,900lb. satellite was deployed from the Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-48 mission on 15 September 1991. It was the first multi-instrumented satellite to study various aspects of the Earths atmosphere and have a better understanding of photochemistry. After 14 years of service, the UARS finished its scientific career in 2005.[6]

The INTEGRAL is an operational space satellite launched by the European Space Agency in 2002. INTEGRAL provides insight into the most energetic forms of in space, such as black holes, neutron stars, and supernovas.[7] INTEGRAL also plays an important role in researching one of the most exotic and energetic phenomena that occurs in space, gamma-rays.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990 and it sped humanity to one of its greatest advances to understand the universe. The discoveries made by the HTS have changed the way scientists look at the universe. It winded the amount of space theories as it sparked new ones. Among its many discoveries, the HTS played a key role in conjunction with other space agencies in the discovery of dark energy, a mysterious force that causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate. More than 10,000 articles have been published by Hubble data, and it has surpassed its expected lifetime.

The launch of the NASA-led GEMS mission is scheduled for November 2014.[8] The spacecraft will use an X-Ray telescope to measure the polarization of x-rays coming from black holes and neutron stars. It will also conduct research on remnants of supernovae stars that have exploded. Few experiments have been conducted in X-Ray polarization since the 1970s, and scientists expect GEMS will break new ground. Through GEMS, scientists will be able to improve their knowledge in black holes, in particular whether matter around a black hole is confined to a flat-disk, a puffed disk, or a squirting jet.

Salyut 1 was the first space station ever built. It was launched in April 19, 1971 by the Soviet Union. The first crew failed entry into the space station. The second crew was able to spend twenty-three days in the space station, but this achievement was quickly overshadowed since the crew died on reentry to Earth. Salyut 1 was intentionally deorbited six months into orbit since it prematurely ran out of fuel.[9]

Skylab was the first American space station. It was launched in May 19, 1973. It rotated through three crews of three during its operational time. Skylabs experiments confirmed coronal holes and were able to photograph eight solar flares.[10]

From 1986 to 2001, Russian space station Mir served as a permanent microgravity research laboratory in which crews conducted experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology and spacecraft systems with a goal of developing technologies required for permanent occupation of outer space.

The International Space Station has played a key role in advances in space research. Since the arrival of Expedition 1 in November 2000, the station has been continuously occupied for 700851071040000000016years and 67days, having exceeded the previous record of almost ten years set by the Russian station Mir.[11] The ISS serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct tests in biology, physics, astronomy and many other fields.

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Space research - Wikipedia

Health Insurance Marketplace for Individuals | HealthCare.gov

Join the millions who have already enrolled in Marketplace coverage. We can help you get ready. Dont miss important Open Enrollment reminders and be the first to know when plans and prices for 2015 become available.

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Now that you've signed up for updates from the Health Insurance Marketplace, youre one step closer to getting the health coverage you need. Well send you consumer tips and reminders before important dates to help you get covered.

Before you apply for coverage, learn what you need to know about the Marketplace and find out if your income may qualify you to save money on coverage Remember, Open Enrollment for 2015 coverage runs from November 15, 2014 to February 15, 2015.

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Trusted Online Gambling Sites Since 1996 – Online.Gambling.org

Real Money Online Gambling

When seeking outa real money online casino to open an account with, it is important to do your due diligence. This should always begin by first verifying where the casino is licensed and regulated andwhat software platform is being used to power the games.Holding a license through a reputable gaming jurisdiction ensures the software has been audited for fairness and that the operator is in good standing, which from a players perspective, means you are getting a fair hand andbeing paid on time.

The first place to look when verifying this information is on the website of the casino itself. Generally,this will be a link or logo at the footer of the website. An Random Number Generator (RNG) Certificate should also be posted (again, often found at the footer of the website or on a standalone accreditation page). If this information is not readily available, i.e. the casino is lacking in transparency, it is advised to stay clear from opening a real money online gambling account.

After verifying that your prospective real money gambling site of choice is, in fact, licensed and regulated by a reputable gaming commission, your next step in the vetting process should revolve around the bells and whistles, i.e. the selection of games and promotions being offered. If you already know your favorite games or those games that you might be interested in playing, you will obviously want to ensure those games are being offered. The good news is that the vast majority of online casinos provide everything you will find in the best of Vegas casinos, including a vast selection of slot machine and video poker titles.

Online Gambling is legal in manycountries, with a growing numberof states in the US now offering residents and in-state visitors the opportunity to gamble online with real money. But for US players as whole, options are limited, and quite frankly, many of these includeonline gambling sites in the business of swindling players. Thisis why the Online.Gambling.org player community exists - to help one another discover the best online gambling destinationsto wager real money at. For a comprehensivelist of safe internet gambling sites, see our online casino reviews page.

At Online.Gambling.org, we provide community-curated, playerreviews of USA and Internationalonline gambling sites, along with information on casino game rules and the latest news on the internet gambling industry at large. Not only do we outline which websites have proven track records so you can avoid the casinos online that operate illegitimately, we keep you informed of the latest promotions, events and betting news.

One last word of advice: Remember to have fun and set yourself loss limits! Real money online gamblingshould be primarily aboutentertainment purposes, and responsible gaming is a must-follow principle at all times. Online casino gambling can be fun and exciting when playing responsibly at reputable online casinos. Read more about our top casino picks here.

Last updated January 6, 2016.

SBCNews.co.uk - Unibet Tops Gambling Operators for TV Advert Spend in Sweden 1/6/2017

Lexology.com - Skin Betting From a Czech Gambling Law Perspective 1/5/2017

HIBusiness.ca - Former Amaya CEO David Baazov folds on $4.1-billion Buyout Offer 1/3/2017

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Technology and Electronics Reviews – USATODAY.com

4 tips for getting onto Shark Tank

Hands-on with Samsung's radical new laundry pair

The future of intimacy is remote-controlled orgasms

Facebook taps Campbell Brown as liaison to news media

Giant iceberg set to break off of Antarctica

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TVs will never have another 'a-ha' moment, and that's OK

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Yahoo Finance tweets out the worst typo

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Technology and Electronics Reviews - USATODAY.com

Information technology – Wikipedia

Information technology (IT) is the application of computers to store, study, retrieve, transmit, and manipulate data,[1] or information, often in the context of a business or other enterprise.[2] IT is considered a subset of information and communications technology (ICT). In 2012, Zuppo proposed an ICT hierarchy where each hierarchy level "contain some degree of commonality in that they are related to technologies that facilitate the transfer of information and various types of electronically mediated communications."[3]

The term is commonly used as a synonym for computers and computer networks, but it also encompasses other information distribution technologies such as television and telephones. Several industries are associated with information technology, including computer hardware, software, electronics, semiconductors, internet, telecom equipment, and e-commerce.[4][a]

Humans have been storing, retrieving, manipulating, and communicating information since the Sumerians in Mesopotamia developed writing in about 3000BC,[6] but the term information technology in its modern sense first appeared in a 1958 article published in the Harvard Business Review; authors Harold J. Leavitt and Thomas L. Whisler commented that "the new technology does not yet have a single established name. We shall call it information technology (IT)." Their definition consists of three categories: techniques for processing, the application of statistical and mathematical methods to decision-making, and the simulation of higher-order thinking through computer programs.[7]

Based on the storage and processing technologies employed, it is possible to distinguish four distinct phases of IT development: pre-mechanical (3000BC 1450AD), mechanical (14501840), electromechanical (18401940), electronic (1940present),[6] and moreover, IT as a service. This article focuses on the most recent period (electronic), which began in about 1940.

Devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years, probably initially in the form of a tally stick.[8] The Antikythera mechanism, dating from about the beginning of the first century BC, is generally considered to be the earliest known mechanical analog computer, and the earliest known geared mechanism. Comparable geared devices did not emerge in Europe until the 16th century, and it was not until 1645 that the first mechanical calculator capable of performing the four basic arithmetical operations was developed.

Electronic computers, using either relays or valves, began to appear in the early 1940s. The electromechanical Zuse Z3, completed in 1941, was the world's first programmable computer, and by modern standards one of the first machines that could be considered a complete computing machine. Colossus, developed during the Second World War to decrypt German messages was the first electronic digital computer. Although it was programmable, it was not general-purpose, being designed to perform only a single task. It also lacked the ability to store its program in memory; programming was carried out using plugs and switches to alter the internal wiring. The first recognisably modern electronic digital stored-program computer was the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), which ran its first program on 21 June 1948.[13]

The development of transistors in the late 1940s at Bell Laboratories allowed a new generation of computers to be designed with greatly reduced power consumption. The first commercially available stored-program computer, the Ferranti Mark I, contained 4050 valves and had a power consumption of 25 kilowatts. By comparison the first transistorised computer, developed at the University of Manchester and operational by November 1953, consumed only 150 watts in its final version.[14]

Early electronic computers such as Colossus made use of punched tape, a long strip of paper on which data was represented by a series of holes, a technology now obsolete. Electronic data storage, which is used in modern computers, dates from World War II, when a form of delay line memory was developed to remove the clutter from radar signals, the first practical application of which was the mercury delay line. The first random-access digital storage device was the Williams tube, based on a standard cathode ray tube,[17] but the information stored in it and delay line memory was volatile in that it had to be continuously refreshed, and thus was lost once power was removed. The earliest form of non-volatile computer storage was the magnetic drum, invented in 1932[18] and used in the Ferranti Mark 1, the world's first commercially available general-purpose electronic computer.[19]

IBM introduced the first hard disk drive in 1956, as a component of their 305 RAMAC computer system. Most digital data today is still stored magnetically on hard disks, or optically on media such as CD-ROMs. Until 2002 most information was stored on analog devices, but that year digital storage capacity exceeded analog for the first time. As of 2007 almost 94% of the data stored worldwide was held digitally:[22] 52% on hard disks, 28% on optical devices and 11% on digital magnetic tape. It has been estimated that the worldwide capacity to store information on electronic devices grew from less than 3 exabytes in 1986 to 295 exabytes in 2007,[23] doubling roughly every 3 years.[24]

Database management systems emerged in the 1960s to address the problem of storing and retrieving large amounts of data accurately and quickly. One of the earliest such systems was IBM's Information Management System (IMS), which is still widely deployed more than 40 years later.[26] IMS stores data hierarchically, but in the 1970s Ted Codd proposed an alternative relational storage model based on set theory and predicate logic and the familiar concepts of tables, rows and columns. The first commercially available relational database management system (RDBMS) was available from Oracle in 1980.

All database management systems consist of a number of components that together allow the data they store to be accessed simultaneously by many users while maintaining its integrity. A characteristic of all databases is that the structure of the data they contain is defined and stored separately from the data itself, in a database schema.

The extensible markup language (XML) has become a popular format for data representation in recent years. Although XML data can be stored in normal file systems, it is commonly held in relational databases to take advantage of their "robust implementation verified by years of both theoretical and practical effort". As an evolution of the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), XML's text-based structure offers the advantage of being both machine and human-readable.

The relational database model introduced a programming-language independent Structured Query Language (SQL), based on relational algebra.

The terms "data" and "information" are not synonymous. Anything stored is data, but it only becomes information when it is organized and presented meaningfully. Most of the world's digital data is unstructured, and stored in a variety of different physical formats[b] even within a single organization. Data warehouses began to be developed in the 1980s to integrate these disparate stores. They typically contain data extracted from various sources, including external sources such as the Internet, organized in such a way as to facilitate decision support systems (DSS).

Data transmission has three aspects: transmission, propagation, and reception. It can be broadly categorized as broadcasting, in which information is transmitted unidirectionally downstream, or telecommunications, with bidirectional upstream and downstream channels.[23]

XML has been increasingly employed as a means of data interchange since the early 2000s, particularly for machine-oriented interactions such as those involved in web-oriented protocols such as SOAP, describing "data-in-transit rather than... data-at-rest". One of the challenges of such usage is converting data from relational databases into XML Document Object Model (DOM) structures.

Hilbert and Lopez identify the exponential pace of technological change (a kind of Moore's law): machines' application-specific capacity to compute information per capita roughly doubled every 14 months between 1986 and 2007; the per capita capacity of the world's general-purpose computers doubled every 18 months during the same two decades; the global telecommunication capacity per capita doubled every 34 months; the world's storage capacity per capita required roughly 40 months to double (every 3 years); and per capita broadcast information has doubled every 12.3 years.[23]

Massive amounts of data are stored worldwide every day, but unless it can be analysed and presented effectively it essentially resides in what have been called data tombs: "data archives that are seldom visited". To address that issue, the field of data mining "the process of discovering interesting patterns and knowledge from large amounts of data" emerged in the late 1980s.

In an academic context, the Association for Computing Machinery defines IT as "undergraduate degree programs that prepare students to meet the computer technology needs of business, government, healthcare, schools, and other kinds of organizations.... IT specialists assume responsibility for selecting hardware and software products appropriate for an organization, integrating those products with organizational needs and infrastructure, and installing, customizing, and maintaining those applications for the organizations computer users."[39]

In a business context, the Information Technology Association of America has defined information technology as "the study, design, development, application, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems". The responsibilities of those working in the field include network administration, software development and installation, and the planning and management of an organization's technology life cycle, by which hardware and software are maintained, upgraded and replaced.

The business value of information technology lies in the automation of business processes, provision of information for decision making, connecting businesses with their customers, and the provision of productivity tools to increase efficiency.

Employment distribution of computer systems design and related services, 2011[42]

Employment in the computer systems and design related services industry, in thousands, 1990-2011[42]

Occupational growth and wages in computer systems design and related services, 2010-2020[42]

Projected percent change in employment in selected occupations in computer systems design and related services, 2010-2020[42]

Projected average annual percent change in output and employment in selected industries, 2010-2020[42]

The field of information ethics was established by mathematician Norbert Wiener in the 1940s. Some of the ethical issues associated with the use of information technology include:

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Information technology - Wikipedia

Technology Synonyms, Technology Antonyms | Thesaurus.com

Try to tell this to the champions of technology who predicted the paperless office and who now predict the networked world.

Technology at this level uncouples the past from the present.

Understanding the degree of necessity of the technology in the first place is where the focus should be.

The Ministry of Science and Technology had sent up a lengthy one.

He couldn't duplicate the weaponthe technology required lies so far beyond this age.

Music is acquiring a technology as confusing and as extensive as bacteriology.

Patents may be consulted evenings and Sundays by arrangement with the technology librarian, Room 115.

From this time the success of schools of technology was assured.

Technology is no cure for this paranoia; in fact, it may enhance the paranoia: it turns us into prisoners of our own device.

Down the stretch Allan gained on a Technology runner, but failed to pass him.

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Singularitarianism | Prometheism.net

Ray Kurzweil is a genius. One of the greatest hucksters of the age. Thats the only way I can explain how his nonsense gets so much press and has such a following. Now he has the cover of Time magazine, and an article called 2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal. It certainly couldnt be taken seriously anywhere else; once again, Kurzweil wiggles his fingers and mumbles a few catchphrases and upchucks a remarkable prediction, that in 35 years (a number dredged out of his compendium of biased estimates), Man (one, a few, many? How? He doesnt know) will finally achieve immortality (seems to me youd need to wait a few years beyond that goal to know if it was true). Now weve even got a name for the Kurzweil delusion: Singularitarianism.

Theres room inside Singularitarianism for considerable diversity of opinion about what the Singularity means and when and how it will or wont happen. But Singularitarians share a worldview. They think in terms of deep time, they believe in the power of technology to shape history, they have little interest in the conventional wisdom about anything, and they cannot believe youre walking around living your life and watching TV as if the artificial-intelligence revolution were not about to erupt and change absolutely everything. They have no fear of sounding ridiculous; your ordinary citizens distaste for apparently absurd ideas is just an example of irrational bias, and Singularitarians have no truck with irrationality. When you enter their mind-space you pass through an extreme gradient in worldview, a hard ontological shear that separates Singularitarians from the common run of humanity. Expect turbulence.

Wow. Sounds just like the Raelians, or Hercolubians, or Scientologists, or any of the modern New Age pseudosciences that appropriate a bit of jargon and blow it up into a huge mythology. Nice hyperbole there, though. Too bad the whole movement is empty of evidence.

One of the things I do really despise about the Kurzweil approach is their dishonest management of critics, and Kurzweil is the master. He loves to tell everyone whats wrong with his critics, but he doesnt actually address the criticisms.

Take the question of whether computers can replicate the biochemical complexity of an organic brain. Kurzweil yields no ground there whatsoever. He does not see any fundamental difference between flesh and silicon that would prevent the latter from thinking. He defies biologists to come up with a neurological mechanism that could not be modeled or at least matched in power and flexibility by software running on a computer. He refuses to fall on his knees before the mystery of the human brain. Generally speaking, he says, the core of a disagreement Ill have with a critic is, theyll say, Oh, Kurzweil is underestimating the complexity of reverse-engineering of the human brain or the complexity of biology. But I dont believe Im underestimating the challenge. I think theyre underestimating the power of exponential growth.

This is wrong. For instance, I think reverse-engineering the general principles of a human brain might well be doable in a few or several decades, and I do suspect that well be able to do things in ten years, 20 years, a century that I cant even imagine. I dont find Kurzweil silly because Im blind to the power of exponential growth, but because:

Kurzweil hasnt demonstrated that there is exponential growth at play here. Ive read his absurd book, and his data is phony and fudged to fit his conclusion. He cheerfully makes stuff up or drops data that goes against his desires to invent these ridiculous charts.

Im not claiming he underestimates the complexity of the brain, Im saying he doesnt understand biology, period. Handwaving is not enough if hes going to make fairly specific claims of immortality in 35 years, there had better be some understanding of the path that will be taken.

There is a vast difference between grasping a principle and implementing the specifics. If we understand how the brain works, if we can create a computer simulation that replicates and improves upon the function of our brain, that does not in any way imply that my identity and experiences can be translated into the digital realm. Again, Kurzweil doesnt have even a hint of a path that can be taken to do that, so he has no basis for making the prediction.

Smooth curves that climb upward into infinity can exist in mathematics (although Kurzweils predictions dont live in state of rigor that would justify calling them mathematical), but they dont work in the real world. There are limits. Weve been building better and more powerful power plants for aircraft for a century, but they havent gotten to a size and efficiency to allow me to fly off with a personal jetpack. I have no reason to expect that they will, either.

While I dont doubt that science will advance rapidly, I also expect that the directions it takes will be unpredictable. Kurzweil confuses engineering, where you build something to fit a predetermined set of specifications, with science, in which you follow the evidence wherever it leads. Look at the so-called war on cancer: it isnt won, no one expects that it will be, but what it has accomplished is to provide limited success in improving health and quality of life, extending survival times, and developing new tools for earlier diagnosis thats reality, and understanding reality is achieved incrementally, not by sudden surges in technology independent of human effort. It also generates unexpected spinoffs in deeper knowledge about cell cycles, signaling, gene regulation, etc. The problems get more interesting and diverse, and its awfully silly of one non-biologist in 2011 to try to predict what surprises will pop out.

Kurzweil is a typical technocrat with limited breadth of knowledge. Imagine what happens IF we actually converge on some kind of immortality. Who gets it? If its restricted, what makes Kurzweil think he, and not Senator Dumbbum who controls federal spending on health, or Tycoon Greedo the trillionaire, gets it? How would the world react if such a capability were available, and they (or their dying mother, or their sick child) dont have access? What if its cheap and easy, and everyone gets it? Kurzweil is talking about a technology that would almost certainly destroy every human society on the planet, and he treats it as blithely as the prospect of getting new options for his cell phone. In case he hadnt noticed, human sociology and politics shows no sign of being on an exponential trend towards greater wisdom. Yeah, expect turbulence.

Hes guilty of a very weird form of reductionism that considers a human life can be reduced to patterns in a computer. I have no stock in spiritualism or dualism, but we are very much a product of our crude and messy biology we percieve the world through imprecise chemical reactions, our brains send signals by shuffling ions in salt water, our attitudes and reactions are shaped by chemicals secreted by glands in our guts. Replicating the lightning while ignoring the clouds and rain and pressure changes will not give you a copy of the storm. It will give you something different, which would be interesting still, but its not the same.

Kurzweil shows other signs of kookery. Two hundred pills a day? Weekly intravenous transfusions? Drinking alkalized water because hes afraid of acidosis? The man is an intelligent engineer, but hes also an obsessive crackpot.

Oh, well. Ill make my own predictions. Magazines will continue to praise Kurzweils techno-religion in sporadic bursts, and followers will continue to gullibly accept what he says because it is what they wish would happen. Kurzweil will die while brain-uploading and immortality are still vague dreams; he will be frozen in liquid nitrogen, which will so thoroughly disrupt his cells that even if we discover how to cure whatever kills him, there will be no hope of recovering the mind and personality of Kurzweil from the scrambled chaos of his dead brain. 2045 will come, and those of us who are alive to see it, will look back and realize it is very, very different from what life was like in 2011, and also very different from what we expected life to be like. At some point, I expect artificial intelligences to be part of our culture, if we persist; theyll work in radically different ways than human brains, and they will revolutionize society, but I have no way of guessing how. Ray Kurzweil will be forgotten, mostly, but records of the existence of a strange shaman of the circuitry from the late 20th and early 21st century will be tucked away in whatever the future databases are like, and people and machines will sometimes stumble across them and laugh or zotigrate and say, How quaint and amusing!, or whatever the equivalent in the frangitwidian language of the trans-entity circumsolar ansible network might be.

And thatll be kinda cool. I wish I could live to see it.

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Singularitarianism? Pharyngula

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Second Amendment and Gun Control Supreme Court Cases

In a racist ruling that primarily functioned as a way to disarm black residents while protecting white Southern paramilitary groups, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment applied only to the federal government. Chief Justice Morrison Waite wrote for the majority:

The most frequently-cited Second Amendment ruling in U.S. history has been United States v. Miller, a serious but challenging attempt to define the Second Amendment's right to bear arms on the basis of how well it serves the Second Amendment's well-regulated-militia rationale. As Justice James Clark McReynolds wrote for the majority:

In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court decidedfor the first time in U.S. historyto strike down a law on Second Amendment grounds. Justice Scalia wrote for the narrow majority:

The first salient feature of the operative clause is that it codifies a 'right of the people.' The unamended Constitution and the Bill of Rights use the phrase 'right of the people' two other times, in the First Amendments Assembly-and-Petition Clause and in the Fourth Amendments Search-and-Seizure Clause. The Ninth Amendment uses very similar terminology ('The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people'). All three of these instances unambiguously refer to individual rights, not 'collective' rights, or rights that may be exercised only through participation in some corporate body ...

We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.

The opinion the Court announces today fails to identify any new evidence supporting the view that the Amendment was intended to limit the power of Congress to regulate civilian uses of weapons. Unable to point to any such evidence, the Court stakes its holding on a strained and unpersuasive reading of the Amendments text; significantly different provisions in the 1689 English Bill of Rights, and in various 19th-century State Constitutions; postenactment commentary that was available to the Court when it decided Miller; and, ultimately, a feeble attempt to distinguish Miller that places more emphasis on the Courts decisional process than on the reasoning in the opinion itself ...

Until today, it has been understood that legislatures may regulate the civilian use and misuse of firearms so long as they do not interfere with the preservation of a well-regulated militia. The Courts announcement of a new constitutional right to own and use firearms for private purposes upsets that settled understanding, but leaves for future cases the formidable task of defining the scope of permissible regulations ...

The Court properly disclaims any interest in evaluating the wisdom of the specific policy choice challenged in this case, but it fails to pay heed to a far more important policy choicethe choice made by the Framers themselves. The Court would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons, and to authorize this Court to use the common-law process of case-by-case judicial lawmaking to define the contours of acceptable gun control policy. Absent compelling evidence that is nowhere to be found in the Courts opinion, I could not possibly conclude that the Framers made such a choice.

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Second Amendment and Gun Control Supreme Court Cases

Oort cloud – Wikipedia

This article is about the outer Oort cloud. For the inner Oort cloud, see Hills cloud. This graphic shows the distance from the Oort cloud to the rest of the Solar System and two of the nearest stars measured in astronomical units. The scale is logarithmic, with each specified distance ten times further out than the previous one.

The Oort cloud ( or ,[1] named after the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort), sometimes called the pikOort cloud,[2] is a theoretical cloud of predominantly icy planetesimals believed to surround the Sun to as far as somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000AU (0.8 and 3.2ly).[note 1][3] It is divided into two regions: a disc-shaped inner Oort cloud (or Hills cloud) and a spherical outer Oort cloud. Both regions lie beyond the heliosphere and in interstellar space.[3][4] The Kuiper belt and the scattered disc, the other two reservoirs of trans-Neptunian objects, are less than one thousandth as far from the Sun as the Oort cloud.

The outer limit of the Oort cloud defines the cosmographical boundary of the Solar System and the extent of the Sun's Hill sphere.[5] The outer Oort cloud is only loosely bound to the Solar System, and thus is easily affected by the gravitational pull both of passing stars and of the Milky Way itself. These forces occasionally dislodge comets from their orbits within the cloud and send them toward the inner Solar System.[3] Based on their orbits, most of the short-period comets may come from the scattered disc, but some may still have originated from the Oort cloud.[3][6]

Astronomers conjecture that the matter composing the Oort cloud formed closer to the Sun and was scattered far into space by the gravitational effects of the giant planets early in the Solar System's evolution.[3] Although no confirmed direct observations of the Oort cloud have been made, it may be the source of all long-period and Halley-type comets entering the inner Solar System, and many of the centaurs and Jupiter-family comets as well.[6]

In 1932, the Estonian astronomer Ernst pik postulated that long-period comets originated in an orbiting cloud at the outermost edge of the Solar System.[7] The idea was independently revived by Dutch astronomer Jan Oort as a means to resolve a paradox.[8] Over the course of the Solar System's existence the orbits of comets are unstable and eventually dynamics dictate that a comet must either collide with the Sun or a planet or else be ejected from the Solar System by planetary perturbations. Moreover, their volatile composition means that as they repeatedly approach the Sun, radiation gradually boils the volatiles off until the comet splits or develops an insulating crust that prevents further outgassing. Thus, Oort reasoned, a comet could not have formed while in its current orbit and must have been held in an outer reservoir for almost all of its existence.[8][9][10]

There are two main classes of comet, short-period comets (also called ecliptic comets) and long-period comets (also called nearly isotropic comets). Ecliptic comets have relatively small orbits, below 10AU, and follow the ecliptic plane, the same plane in which the planets lie. All long-period comets have very large orbits, on the order of thousands of AU, and appear from every direction in the sky.[10] Oort noted that there was a peak in numbers of long-period comets with aphelia (their farthest distance from the Sun) of roughly 20,000AU, which suggested a reservoir at that distance with a spherical, isotropic distribution.[10] Those relatively rare comets with orbits of about 10,000AU have probably gone through one or more orbits through the Solar System and have had their orbits drawn inward by the gravity of the planets.[10]

The Oort cloud is thought to occupy a vast space from somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000AU (0.03 and 0.08ly)[10] to as far as 50,000AU (0.79ly)[3] from the Sun. Some estimates place the outer edge at between 100,000 and 200,000AU (1.58 and 3.16ly).[10] The region can be subdivided into a spherical outer Oort cloud of 20,00050,000AU (0.320.79ly), and a torus-shaped inner Oort cloud of 2,00020,000AU (0.00.3ly). The outer cloud is only weakly bound to the Sun and supplies the long-period (and possibly Halley-type) comets to inside the orbit of Neptune.[3] The inner Oort cloud is also known as the Hills cloud, named after Jack G. Hills, who proposed its existence in 1981.[11] Models predict that the inner cloud should have tens or hundreds of times as many cometary nuclei as the outer halo;[11][12][13] it is seen as a possible source of new comets to resupply the tenuous outer cloud as the latter's numbers are gradually depleted. The Hills cloud explains the continued existence of the Oort cloud after billions of years.[14]

The outer Oort cloud may have trillions of objects larger than 1km (0.62mi),[3] and billions with absolute magnitudes[15] brighter than 11 (corresponding to approximately 20-kilometre (12mi) diameter), with neighboring objects tens of millions of kilometres apart.[6][16] Its total mass is not known, but, assuming that Halley's Comet is a suitable prototype for comets within the outer Oort cloud, roughly the combined mass is 31025 kilograms (6.61025lb), or five times that of Earth.[3][17] Earlier it was thought to be more massive (up to 380 Earth masses),[18] but improved knowledge of the size distribution of long-period comets led to lower estimates. The mass of the inner Oort cloud has not been characterized.

If analyses of comets are representative of the whole, the vast majority of Oort-cloud objects consist of ices such as water, methane, ethane, carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide.[19] However, the discovery of the object 1996 PW, an object whose appearance was consistent with a D-type asteroid[20][21] in an orbit typical of a long-period comet, prompted theoretical research that suggests that the Oort cloud population consists of roughly one to two percent asteroids.[22] Analysis of the carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios in both the long-period and Jupiter-family comets shows little difference between the two, despite their presumably vastly separate regions of origin. This suggests that both originated from the original protosolar cloud,[23] a conclusion also supported by studies of granular size in Oort-cloud comets[24] and by the recent impact study of Jupiter-family comet Tempel 1.[25]

The Oort cloud is thought to be a remnant of the original protoplanetary disc that formed around the Sun approximately 4.6billion years ago.[3] The most widely accepted hypothesis is that the Oort cloud's objects initially coalesced much closer to the Sun as part of the same process that formed the planets and minor planets, but that gravitational interaction with young gas giants such as Jupiter ejected the objects into extremely long elliptic or parabolic orbits.[3][26] Recent research has been cited by NASA hypothesizing that a large number of Oort cloud objects are the product of an exchange of materials between the Sun and its sibling stars as they formed and drifted apart, and it is suggested that manypossibly the majority ofOort cloud objects did not form in close proximity to the Sun.[27] Simulations of the evolution of the Oort cloud from the beginnings of the Solar System to the present suggest that the cloud's mass peaked around 800million years after formation, as the pace of accretion and collision slowed and depletion began to overtake supply.[3]

Models by Julio ngel Fernndez suggest that the scattered disc, which is the main source for periodic comets in the Solar System, might also be the primary source for Oort cloud objects. According to the models, about half of the objects scattered travel outward toward the Oort cloud, whereas a quarter are shifted inward to Jupiter's orbit, and a quarter are ejected on hyperbolic orbits. The scattered disc might still be supplying the Oort cloud with material.[28] A third of the scattered disc's population is likely to end up in the Oort cloud after 2.5billion years.[29]

Computer models suggest that collisions of cometary debris during the formation period play a far greater role than was previously thought. According to these models, the number of collisions early in the Solar System's history was so great that most comets were destroyed before they reached the Oort cloud. Therefore, the current cumulative mass of the Oort cloud is far less than was once suspected.[30] The estimated mass of the cloud is only a small part of the 50100 Earth masses of ejected material.[3]

Gravitational interaction with nearby stars and galactic tides modified cometary orbits to make them more circular. This explains the nearly spherical shape of the outer Oort cloud.[3] On the other hand, the Hills cloud, which is bound more strongly to the Sun, has not acquired a spherical shape. Recent studies have shown that the formation of the Oort cloud is broadly compatible with the hypothesis that the Solar System formed as part of an embedded cluster of 200400 stars. These early stars likely played a role in the cloud's formation, since the number of close stellar passages within the cluster was much higher than today, leading to far more frequent perturbations.[31]

In June 2010 Harold F. Levison and others suggested on the basis of enhanced computer simulations that the Sun "captured comets from other stars while it was in its birth cluster". Their results imply that "a substantial fraction of the Oort cloud comets, perhaps exceeding 90%, are from the protoplanetary discs of other stars".[32][33]

Comets are thought to have two separate points of origin in the Solar System. Short-period comets (those with orbits of up to 200years) are generally accepted to have emerged from either the Kuiper belt or the scattered disc, which are two linked flat discs of icy debris beyond Neptune's orbit at 30AU and jointly extending out beyond 100AU from the Sun. Long-period comets, such as comet HaleBopp, whose orbits last for thousands of years, are thought to originate in the Oort cloud. The orbits within the Kuiper belt are relatively stable, and so very few comets are thought to originate there. The scattered disc, however, is dynamically active, and is far more likely to be the place of origin for comets.[10] Comets pass from the scattered disc into the realm of the outer planets, becoming what are known as centaurs.[34] These centaurs are then sent farther inward to become the short-period comets.[35]

There are two main varieties of short-period comet: Jupiter-family comets (those with semi-major axes of less than 5AU) and Halley-family comets. Halley-family comets, named for their prototype, Halley's Comet, are unusual in that although they are short-period comets, it is hypothesized that their ultimate origin lies in the Oort cloud, not in the scattered disc. Based on their orbits, it is suggested they were long-period comets that were captured by the gravity of the giant planets and sent into the inner Solar System.[9] This process may have also created the present orbits of a significant fraction of the Jupiter-family comets, although the majority of such comets are thought to have originated in the scattered disc.[6]

Oort noted that the number of returning comets was far less than his model predicted, and this issue, known as "cometary fading", has yet to be resolved. No known dynamical process can explain this undercount of observed comets. Hypotheses for this discrepancy include the destruction of comets due to tidal stresses, impact or heating; the loss of all volatiles, rendering some comets invisible, or the formation of a non-volatile crust on the surface.[36] Dynamical studies of Oort cloud comets have shown that their occurrence in the outer-planet region is several times higher than in the inner-planet region. This discrepancy may be due to the gravitational attraction of Jupiter, which acts as a kind of barrier, trapping incoming comets and causing them to collide with it, just as it did with Comet ShoemakerLevy 9 in 1994.[37]

Most of the comets seen close to the Sun seem to have reached their current positions through gravitational perturbation of the Oort cloud by the tidal force exerted by the Milky Way. Just as the Moon's tidal force deforms Earth's oceans, causing the tides to rise and fall, the galactic tide also distorts the orbits of bodies in the outer Solar System. In the charted regions of the Solar System, these effects are negligible compared to the gravity of the Sun, but in the outer reaches of the system, the Sun's gravity is weaker and the gradient of the Milky Way's gravitational field has substantial effects. Galactic tidal forces stretch the cloud along an axis directed toward the galactic centre and compress it along the other two axes; these small perturbations can shift orbits in the Oort cloud to bring objects close to the Sun.[38] The point at which the Sun's gravity concedes its influence to the galactic tide is called the tidal truncation radius. It lies at a radius of 100,000 to 200,000 AU, and marks the outer boundary of the Oort cloud.[10]

Some scholars theorise that the galactic tide may have contributed to the formation of the Oort cloud by increasing the perihelia (smallest distances to the Sun) of planetesimals with large aphelia (largest distances to the Sun).[39] The effects of the galactic tide are quite complex, and depend heavily on the behaviour of individual objects within a planetary system. Cumulatively, however, the effect can be quite significant: up to 90% of all comets originating from the Oort cloud may be the result of the galactic tide.[40] Statistical models of the observed orbits of long-period comets argue that the galactic tide is the principal means by which their orbits are perturbed toward the inner Solar System.[41]

Besides the galactic tide, the main trigger for sending comets into the inner Solar System is thought to be interaction between the Sun's Oort cloud and the gravitational fields of nearby stars[3] or giant molecular clouds.[37] The orbit of the Sun through the plane of the Milky Way sometimes brings it in relatively close proximity to other stellar systems. For example, 70thousand years ago, Scholz's star passed through the outer Oort cloud (although its low mass and high relative velocity limited its effect).[42] During the next 10million years the known star with the greatest possibility of perturbing the Oort cloud is Gliese 710.[43] This process also scatters Oort cloud objects out of the ecliptic plane, potentially also explaining its spherical distribution.[43][44]

In 1984, Physicist Richard A. Muller postulated that the Sun has a heretofore undetected companion, either a brown dwarf or a red dwarf, in an elliptical orbit within the Oort cloud. This object, known as Nemesis, was hypothesized to pass through a portion of the Oort cloud approximately every 26million years, bombarding the inner Solar System with comets. However, to date no evidence of Nemesis has been found, and many lines of evidence (such as crater counts), have thrown its existence into doubt.[45][46] Recent scientific analysis no longer supports the idea that extinctions on Earth happen at regular, repeating intervals.[47] Thus, the Nemesis hypothesis is no longer needed.[47]

A somewhat similar hypothesis was advanced by astronomer John J. Matese of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2002. He contends that more comets are arriving in the inner Solar System from a particular region of the Oort cloud than can be explained by the galactic tide or stellar perturbations alone, and that the most likely cause is a Jupiter-mass object in a distant orbit.[48] This hypothetical gas giant was nicknamed Tyche. The WISE mission, an all-sky survey using parallax measurements in order to clarify local star distances, was capable of proving or disproving the Tyche hypothesis.[47] In 2014, NASA announced that the WISE survey had ruled out any object as they had defined it.[49]

Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND)[50][51] suggests that at their distances from the Sun, the objects composing the Oort cloud should experience accelerations of the order of 1010m/s2, and thus should be within the realms at which deviations from Newtonian predictions come into effect. According to this hypothesis, which was proposed to account for the discrepancies in the galaxy rotation curve, which are more commonly attributed to dark matter, acceleration ceases to be linearly proportional to force at very low accelerations.[50] If correct, this would have significant implications regarding the formation and structure of the Oort cloud. However, the majority of cosmologists do not consider MOND a valid hypothesis because it is unable to explain the movement of galactic clusters or account accurately for the cosmic microwave background.[52]

Space probes have yet to reach the area of the Oort cloud. Voyager 1, the fastest[53] and farthest[54][55] of the interplanetary space probes currently leaving the Solar System, will reach the Oort cloud in about 300 years[4][56] and would take about 30,000 years to pass through it.[57][58] However, around 2025, the radioisotope thermoelectric generators on Voyager 1 will no longer supply enough power to operate any of its scientific instruments, preventing any exploration by Voyager 1. The other four probes currently escaping the Solar System either are already or are predicted to be non-functional when they reach the Oort cloud; however, it may be possible to find an object from the cloud that has been knocked into the inner Solar System.

In the 1980s there was a concept for a probe to reach 1,000 AU in 50 years called TAU; among its missions would be to look for the Oort cloud.[59]

In the 2014 Announcement of Opportunity for the Discovery program, an observatory to detect the objects in the Oort cloud (and Kuiper belt) called the "Whipple Mission" was proposed.[60] It would monitor distant stars with a photometer, looking for transits up to 10 thousand AU away.[60] The observatory was proposed for halo orbiting around L2 with a suggested 5-year mission.[60] It has been suggested that the Kepler observatory may also be able to detect objects in the Oort cloud.[61]

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Oort cloud - Wikipedia

Astronomy | Whitman College

It is an exciting time to be studying astronomy. The astronomy news regularly reports on the existence and characteristics of exoplanets, the search for water on Mars, gravitational lensing of distant young galaxies, wildly energetic explosions of dying stars, attempts to detect particles of dark matter, space missions to asteroids or Pluto or the edge of the solar system, and on and on and on, from the tiniest particles and earliest moments of time to the large-scale structure of the universe as a whole.

Whitman has an Astronomy major and standard combined majors in Physics-Astronomy and Astronomy-Geology. There is also an Astronomy Minor. Students interested in graduate work in astronomy are encouraged to major in Physics-Astronomy or in Physics with an Astronomy minor, since most graduate schools look for some equivalent of an undergraduate degree in physics. Some students have also designed individually planned majors such as Astronomy-Mathematicsor Astro(geo)biology. Astronomy graduates in recent years have gone on to graduate study at places such as New Mexico State University, the University of Wyoming, Colorado State, Dartmouth, and the University of Wisconsin - Madison. For more details about major and minor requirements, look at thecollege catalog.

Students can choose between two types of introductory courses, depending on their level of comfort with math and physical sciences. All of the introductory courses have a lab component; on clear nights, lab work includes using the department's 8- and 10-inch telescopes on the roof of the science building. Those students who have taken the more mathematically rigorous introductory courses may then take upper-division courses inStellar Astrophysics, Galactic Astronomy, Cosmology,andObservational Astronomy,all of which are offered regularly in alternate years; Planetary Astrophysics or special topics (e.g., on globular clusters) areoffered somewhat less often. Students with an interest in history and philosophy may be interested in taking Finding Our Place in the Universe, a course in the history of cosmology. Several students each year also conduct research projects with faculty or undertake directed readings on topics of personal interest. The "Links and resources" tab to the left includes links to information about off-campus summer research opportunities and graduate study; for more information about department equipment, check the "Facilities" tab.

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Astronomy | Whitman College

About Atlas Shrugged – cliffsnotes.com

Introduction

Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand's masterpiece and the culmination of her career as a novelist. With its publication in 1957, the author accomplished everything she wanted to in the realm of fiction; the rest of her career as a writer was devoted to nonfiction. Rand was already a famous, best-selling author by the time she published Atlas Shrugged. With the success of The Fountainhead a decade earlier and its subsequent production as a Hollywood film starring Gary Cooper in 1949, her stature as an author was established. Publishers knew that her fiction would sell, and consequently they bid for the right to publish her next book.

Atlas Shrugged, although enormously controversial, had no difficulty finding a publisher. On the contrary, Rand conducted an intellectual auction among competing publishers, finally deciding on Random House because its editorial staff had the best understanding of the book. Bennett Cerf was a famous editor there. When Rand explained that, at one level, Atlas Shrugged was to provide a moral defense of capitalism, the editorial staff responded, "But that would mean challenging 3,000 years of Judeo-Christian tradition." Their depth of philosophical insight impressed Ayn Rand, and she decided that Random House was the company to publish her book.

Atlas Shrugged furthers the theme of individualism that Ayn Rand developed in The Fountainhead. In The Fountainhead, she shows by means of its hero, the innovative architect Howard Roark, that the independent mind is responsible for all human progress and prosperity. In Atlas Shrugged, she shows that without the independent mind, our society would collapse into primitive savagery. Atlas Shrugged is an impassioned defense of the freedom of man's mind. But to understand the author's sense of urgency, we must have an idea of the context in which the book was written. This includes both the post-World War II Cold War and the broader trends of modern intellectual culture.

The Cold War and Collectivism

Twentieth-century culture spawned the most oppressive dictatorships in human history. The Fascists in Italy, the National Socialists (Nazis) in Germany, and the Communists first in Russia and later in China and elsewhere seriously threatened individual freedom throughout the world. Ayn Rand lived through the heart of this terrifying historical period. In fact, when she started writing Atlas Shrugged in 1946, the West had just achieved victory over the Nazis. For years, the specter of national socialism had haunted the world, exterminating millions of innocent people, enslaving millions more, and threatening the freedom of the entire globe. The triumph of the free countries of the West over Naziism was achieved at an enormous cost in human life. However, it left the threat of communism unabated.

Ayn Rand was born in Russia in 1905 and witnessed firsthand the Bolshevik Revolution, the Communist conquest of Russia, and the political oppression that followed. Even after her escape from the Soviet Union and her safe arrival in the United States, she kept in close touch with family members who remained there. But when the murderous policies of Joseph Stalin swallowed the Soviet Union, she lost track of her family. From her own life experiences, Ayn Rand knew the brutal oppression of Communist tyranny.

During the last days of World War II and in the years immediately following, communism conquered large portions of the world. Soviet armies first rolled through the countries of Eastern Europe, setting up Russian "satellite" nations in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and elsewhere. Communists then came to power in China and North Korea and launched an invasion of South Korea. Shortly thereafter, communism was also dominant in Cuba, on America's doorstep. In the 1940s and 1950s, communism was an expanding military power, threatening to engulf the free world.

This time period was the height of the Cold War the ideological battle between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union ruled its empire in Eastern Europe by means of terror, brutally suppressing an uprising by Hungarian freedom fighters in 1956. The Russians developed the atomic bomb and amassed huge armies in Eastern Europe, threatening the free nations of the West. Speaking at the United Nations, Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev vowed that communism would "bury" the West. Like the Nazis in the 1930s, communists stood for a collectivist political system: one in which an individual is morally obliged to sacrifice himself for the state. Intellectual freedom and individual rights, cherished in the United States and other Western countries, were in grave danger.

Foreign military power was not the only way in which communism threatened U.S. freedom. Collectivism was an increasingly popular political philosophy among American intellectuals and politicians. In the 1930s, both national socialism and communism had supporters among American thinkers, businessmen, politicians, and labor leaders. The full horror of Naziism was revealed during World War II, and support for national socialism dwindled in the United States as a result. But communism, in the form of Marxist political ideology, survived World War II in the United States. Many American professors, writers, journalists, and politicians continued to advocate Marxist principles. When Ayn Rand was writing Atlas Shrugged, many Americans strongly believed that the government should have the power to coercively redistribute income and to regulate private industry. The capitalist system of political and economic freedom was consistently attacked by socialists and welfare statists. The belief that an individual has a right to live his own life was replaced, to a significant extent, by the collectivist idea that individuals must work and live in service to other people. Individual rights and political freedom were threatened in American politics, education, and culture.

An Appeal for Freedom

Rand argues in Atlas Shrugged that the freedom of American society is responsible for its greatest achievements. For example, in the nineteenth century, inventors and entrepreneurs created an outpouring of innovations that raised the standard of living to unprecedented heights and changed forever the way people live. Rand, who thoroughly researched the history of capitalism, was well aware of the progress made during this period of economic freedom. Samuel Morse invented the telegraph a device later improved by Thomas Edison, who went on to invent the phonograph, the electric light, and the motion picture projector. John Roebling perfected the suspension bridge and, just before his death, designed his masterpiece, the Brooklyn Bridge. Henry Ford revolutionized the transportation industry by mass-producing automobiles, a revolution that the Wright Brothers carried to the next level with their invention of the airplane. Railroad builders like Cornelius Vanderbilt and James J. Hill established inexpensive modes of transportation and opened up the Pacific Northwest to economic development.

Likewise, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone during this era, Cyrus McCormick the reaper, and Elias Howe the sewing machine. Charles Goodyear discovered the vulcanization process that made rubber useful, and George Eastman revolutionized photography with the invention of a new type of camera the Kodak. George Washington Carver, among myriad agricultural accomplishments, developed peanuts and sweet potatoes into leading crops. Architects like Louis Sullivan and William LeBaron Jenney created the skyscraper, and George Westinghouse, the inventor of train airbrakes, developed a power system able to transmit electricity over great distances. The penniless Scottish immigrant Andrew Carnegie built a vast company manufacturing steel, and John D. Rockefeller did the same in the oil industry.

These are a few examples from an exhaustive list of advances in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ayn Rand argues that economic freedom liberated these great creative thinkers, permitting them to put into practice new ideas and methods. But what would happen if economic freedom were lost?

Atlas Shrugged provides Ayn Rand's answer to this question. In the story, she projects the culmination of America's twentieth-century socialist trend. The U.S. government portrayed in the story has significant control over the domestic economy. The rest of the world has been swallowed up by communist "Peoples' States" and subsists in abject poverty. A limited degree of economic freedom still exists in America, but it is steadily declining, as is American prosperity. The successful are heavily taxed to support the poor, and the American poor are similarly levied to finance the even poorer people in foreign Peoples' States. The government subsidizes inefficient businesses at the expense of the more efficient. With the state controlling large portions of the economy, the result is the rise of corrupt businessmen who seek profit by manipulating crooked politicians rather than by doing productive work. The government forces inventors to give up their patents so that all manufacturers may benefit equally from new products. Similarly, the government breaks up productive companies, compelling them to share the market with weaker (less efficient) competitors. In short, the fictionalized universe of Atlas Shrugged presents a future in which the U.S. trend toward socialism has been accelerated. Twentieth-century realities such as heavy taxation, massive social welfare programs, tight governmental regulation of industry, and antitrust action against successful companies are heightened in the universe of this story. The government annuls the rights of American citizens, and freedom is steadily eroded. The United States of the novel the last bastion of liberty on earth rapidly becomes a fascist/communist dictatorship.

The result, in Rand's fictional universe, is a collapse of American prosperity. Great minds are shackled by government policies, and their innovations are either rejected or expropriated by the state. Thinkers lack the freedom necessary to create new products, to start their own companies, to compete openly, and to earn wealth. Under the increasing yoke of tyranny, the most independent minds in American society choose to defend their liberty in the most effective manner possible: They withdraw from society.

The Mind on Strike

Atlas Shrugged is a novel about a strike. Ayn Rand sets out to show the fate that befalls the world when the thinkers and creators go on strike. The author raises an intriguing question: What would happen if the scientists, medical researchers, inventors, industrialists, writers, artists, and so on withheld their minds and their achievements from the world?

In this novel, Rand argues that all human progress and prosperity depend on rational thinking. For example, human beings have cured such diseases as malaria, polio, dysentery, cholera, diphtheria, and tuberculosis. Man has learned to fly, erect cities and skyscrapers, grow an abundant food supply, and create computers. Humans have been to the moon and back and have invented the telephone, radio, television, and a thousand other life-promoting technologies. All of these achievements result from the human application of a rational mind to practical questions of survival. If the intellectuals responsible for such advances abandon the world, regression to the primitive conditions of the Dark Ages would result. But what would motivate intellectuals to such an extreme act as going on strike? We are used to hearing about strikes that protest conditions considered oppressive or intolerable by workers. The thinkers go on strike in Atlas Shrugged to protest the oppression of their intellect and creativity.

The thinkers in Atlas Shrugged strike on behalf of individual rights and political freedom. They strike against an enforced moral code of self-sacrifice the creed that human life must be devoted to serving the needs of others. Above all, the thinkers strike to prove that reason is the only means by which man can understand reality and make proper decisions; emotions should not guide human behavior. In short, the creative minds are on strike in support of a person's right to think and live independently.

In the novel, the withdrawal of the great thinkers causes the collapse of the American economy and the end of dictatorship. The strike proves the role that the rational mind plays in the attainment of progress and prosperity. The emphasis on reason is the hallmark of Ayn Rand's fiction. All of her novels, in one form or another, glorify the life-giving power of the human mind.

For example, in The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand emphasizes the independent nature of the mind's functioning that rational individuals neither conform to society nor obey authority, but trust their own judgment. In her early novelette Anthem, Ayn Rand shows that under a collectivist dictatorship, the mind is stifled and society regresses to a condition of primitive ignorance. Anthem focuses on the mind's need for political freedom. The focus of Atlas Shrugged is the role that the human mind plays in human existence. Atlas Shrugged shows that rational thinking is mankind's survival instrument, just as the ability to fly is the survival tool for birds. In all of her major novels, Ayn Rand presents heroes and heroines who are brilliant thinkers opposed to either society's pressure to conform or a dictatorial government's commands to obey. The common denominator in all of her books is the life-and-death importance, for both the individual and society, of remaining true to the mind.

Objectivism in Action

In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand presents, for the first time and in a dramatized form, her original philosophy of Objectivism. She exemplifies this philosophy in the lives of the heroes and in the action of the story. Objectivism holds that reason not faith or emotionalism is man's sole means of gaining knowledge. Her theory states that an individual has a right to his or her own life and to the pursuit of his or her own happiness, which is counter to the view that man should sacrifice himself to God or society. Objectivism is individualistic, holding that the purpose of government is to protect the sovereign rights of an individual. This philosophy opposes the collectivist notion that society as a whole is superior to the individual, who must subordinate himself to its requirements. In the political/economic realm, Objectivism upholds full laissez-faire capitalism a system of free markets that legally prevent the government from restricting man's productive activities as the only philosophical system that protects the freedom of man's mind, the rights of the individual, and the prosperity of man's life on earth.

Because of Ayn Rand's uncompromising defense of the mind, of the individual, and of capitalism, Atlas Shrugged created great controversy on its publication in 1957. Denounced by critics and intellectuals, the book nevertheless reached a wide audience. The book has sold millions of copies and influenced the lives of countless readers. Since 1957, Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism has gradually taken hold in American society. Today, her books and ideas are becoming widely taught in high schools and universities.

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About Atlas Shrugged - cliffsnotes.com

The reverse Atlas Shrugged scenario – The Washington Post

By Daniel W. Drezner January 5 at 9:39 AM Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a regular contributor to PostEverything.

Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged is a very bad movie very long novel that is beloved by many 18- to 24-year-olds and a fewelected officials. It does not contain the most believable dialogue in the world (I actually laughed out loud when I first read the morning-after conversation between Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden).But the book remainsextremely popular, and it is worth remembering why. As I wrote this past June:

Railing against the establishment will always work for the same reason that Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged will always resonate with a fraction of the population. Rand has one and only one gift as a writer. She is able to divide the world into two categories of human beings: creators and moochers. And no one in history reads Rand and thinks, I want to be a moocher! It is easy for even government officials to self-identify as creators of pyramids of greatness rather than as looters of the system.

The premise of Atlas Shrugged is that a slow accretion of government rules, regulations and corrupt bargains forces the countrys true entrepreneurs into internal exile somewhere in Colorado. There they thrive in a blissful, gold-standard-based utopia while the rest of the country suffers under the weight ofgovernment and the rent-seeking looters and moochers who need the stateto make any money.

As a slow-motion depiction of what it is like for a country to fall apartwhen corruption pervades every facet of life and societal norms disintegrate, Atlas Shrugged is pretty gripping. So heres my question: What would happen to the United States if the reverse Atlas Shrugged scenario occurred?

After all, if you believe Donald Trumpand his boosters, his Cabinet of billionaires represents the finest that the free enterprise system has to offer. What if the people who self-identify as the makers take over the state and all the bureaucrats disappear into the ether?

I bring this up because the incoming administration appears to be doing its damnedest to trigger this scenario. Firstthere was the transition teams inquiry into which Department of Energy staffers were responsible for the Obama administrations climate change plans (though it later disavowed that attempt). Then there was a similar request for State Department officials involved in gender rights-related issues

And now we get to the president-elects ongoing feud with U.S. intelligence agencies:

Trump claims that hes not impugning the intelligence community with these tweets, butas Politicos Nahal Toosi writes:

Regardless of his intentions, Trumps tweets left the impression that he was once again mocking U.S. intelligence officials. And while its not unprecedented, or even wrong, for a U.S. leader to view intelligence assessments with a skeptical eye, whats shocked many observers is how public Trump has been about his disregard for a group of people who often risk their lives for the country.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journals Damian Paletta and Julian Barnes report that Trump and his key officials really do harbor a deep suspicion of the intelligence community:

The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world has become completely politicized, said the individual, who is close to the Trump transition. They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring the agencies and how they interact..

Gen. Flynn and Mr. Pompeo share Mr. Trumps view that the intelligence communitys position that Russia tried to help his campaign is an attempt to undermine his victory or say he didnt win, the official close to the transition said.

Current and former intelligence and law enforcement officials have reacted with a mix of bafflement and outrage to Mr. Trumps continuing series of jabs at U.S. spies.

It is likely that most U.S. civil service, foreign service and intelligence employees will simply hunker down and try to ride out the Trump years. ButI have heard stories, as well, about bureaucrats in some policy arenas think anyone involved in financial regulation who are planning to decamp to the private sector. Why not make some money if these folks will not be doing what they originally signed up to do?

So what will happen to the country if the reverse Atlas Shrugged scenario transpires? One effect is that both the media and state governments in some locales might benefit. The media is about to experience a windfall of whistleblowers who know exactly where all the bodies are buried. The press will play an outsized role. And for bureaucrats who have domestic policy experience, its possible that there will be some effort to migrate to states that value, um, the state.

In the end, however, I suppose this depends on whatyou think of the federal government. If you believe that the state simply exists to reward the looters and moochers of the world, this will be like celebrating every night like its New Years Eve. If you believe that civil service employees are mostly decent, competent people trying to do a difficult job, then this will be like celebrating every night like its New Years Eve, but for introverts.

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The reverse Atlas Shrugged scenario - The Washington Post

READ MORE : Liberal groups want delay of Sessions’ hearing

Sessions, like other nominees of President-elect Donald Trump, is on course for a committee vote before Trump is inaugurated on January 20.

But three liberal groups -- the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, People For the American Way and Alliance for Justice -- say his January 10 confirmation hearing should be delayed.

The groups say Sessions failed to provide media interviews, speeches, op-eds and more from his time as US attorney in Alabama, the state's attorney general and from his first term as senator, from 1997 through 2002.

They said Sessions listed just 20 media interviews, 16 speeches outside the Senate, two op-eds, an academic article and a training manual, as well as just 11 clips of interviews with print publications -- including none prior to 2003.

"Sen. Sessions claims that records do not exist for the vast majority of press interviews he has given over the years. However, many are easily located online," the groups said, calling the omission "inexplicable."

Aides helping with Sessions' confirmation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But the office of Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Grassley said Trump's choice for the post has been forthcoming with information.

"The notion that Senator Sessions -- somebody who committee members have known and served beside for 20 years -- hasn't made a good faith effort to supply the committee with responsive material is preposterous," said a spokeswoman for Grassley, an Iowa Republican. "It's been clear from the day Senator Sessions' nomination was announced that the left-wing advocacy groups aren't interested in a fair process and just want a fight. We trust the minority committee members will have the courage to give Senator Sessions the fair and respectful process he deserves."

Democrats have hoped to delay the confirmations of Trump nominees they see as most objectionable.

"Despite being voluminous, Sen. Sessions' production appears to have been put together in haste and is, on its face, incomplete," Feinstein said in a mid-December letter to Grassley.

CNN's Laura Jarrett contributed to this report.

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READ MORE : Liberal groups want delay of Sessions' hearing