Monthly Archives: March 2017

‘Humane Libertarianism: A New American Liberalism,’ a lecture hosted by SLU slated for March 15 – North Country Now

Posted: March 12, 2017 at 7:42 pm

CANTON -- St. Lawrence University will host economist Deirdre McCloskey at 7:30 p.m. on March 15, in Hepburn Hall, room 218.

The event is part of the Department of Economics Visiting Speaker Series in Political Economy and is funded by the Charles Koch Foundation.

McCloskeys lecture, Humane Libertarianism: A New American Liberalism, is free and open to the public.

An economist, historian and rhetorician, McCloskey the author of more than 400 peer-reviewed academic articles and 17 books, including "Economical Writing: A Memoir and most recently Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World, the third volume in the trilogy The Bourgeois Era."

McCloskey earned a bachelors degree and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and taught at the University of Chicago, the University of Iowa, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, from where she retired as the distinguished professor of economics, history, English and communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

For more information, contact the Department of Economics at 315-229-5430 or visit http://www.stlawu.edu/economics.

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Follyswaddling Healthcare or How to Abandon Libertarianism in One Intemperate Moment of Political Insecurity – The Libertarian Republic

Posted: at 7:42 pm

Im going to remind libertarians of many thing they already know, but generally forget they know when it comes to the idiotic national conversation weve had about healthcare in the last decade.

First, rights are not what the government gives out to its citizens; rights are what the government in our nation, with our definition of governance is required to protect. That is the sole government responsibility regarding rights. What the government gives out to citizens are called entitlements, and the list of entitlements the US Constitution authorizes our government to dispense are as follows: 1. not a damned thing; 2. the list ended three bullet-points ago.

Second, rights are free for the taking, but they are certainly not free. They are simply what the government leaves the citizen alone to acquire for himself, to the degree the citizen wishes it, and has the capacity to acquire or make use of it. The examples to illustrate this are infinite. The First Amendment, for example, acknowledges a citizens right to property. But property does not appear out of thin air; it generally belongs to someone else first. Does a citizens right to property compel the current owner of the property to deed it over to the citizen who desires it?

Of course not; that is both stupid and confiscatory. What the right to property permits is the current owner and the potential future owner to arrive at a mutually agreeable price and other terms under which the transfer of ownership shall be made. The government isnt obliged to give anyone forty acres and a mule, nor to compel others to provide same. If a citizen wants these things, the citizen is instructed to save his money and find someone who wishes to trade for it.

Third, rights include essentially everything that isnt nailed down. Rights are, Constitutionally: 1] not limited to what Amendments 1-8 specify as rights [9thAM]; 2] include every aspect of human interaction not directly given to the federal government and not prohibited to the states to control [10thAM]; AND 3] the states are prohibited from legislatively controlling anything that was not also given to the feds [14thAM, Sec 1].

Protectable rights are, in a very real sense, any power to act that is not listed in Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution as a power for Congress to make law upon and those Congressional powers to legislate are very very few. Congress is given no authority, for example, to regulate who is allowed to use our roads, therefore driving is a right. States cannot deny that right in their own laws, though they are allowed to regulate how the roads are used speed limits, rights of way, skills tests, et cetera.

Congress is given no authority, for another example, to regulate who may marry whom, therefore marrying your homosexual lover is a right. States may not deny that right in their own laws, though they may regulate certain aspects of marriage, such as the minimum age necessary.

These are all things that libertarians comprehend about rights. Hell, these are all things that virtually all Americans, libertarian or not and adequately inculcated in American civics, understand about rights, even if they do not like the specific consequences. and Im thinking particularly of the religious right morons and gay marriage, here. Even they understand this, as it makes their skin crawl.

So how is it, then, that we conveniently throw all this comprehension of rights to the four winds when the subject becomes healthcare? Healthcare is not an issue given to the government to control; it is therefore a right. Why do we indulge the facile and insupportable, and claim a governmental role in healthcare when government involvement does not join with any other right?

We have the right to say what we wish. But if we have stage fright, does the government provide us assertiveness training? No it does not. If we are inarticulate stumble-tongues, does the government provide us speech therapy? No it does not, not even when Dubya is elected President and could have used it. Does the government provide a bullhorn? a soapbox? Does the government reserve a sidewalk on a popular street corner? compel the first four hundred random passers-by to stop and grant rapt attention? And if we are unable to think of anything to say, does the government provide a pre-written speech?

No. It does not. Our right to say what we wish begins and ends with our own willingness and ability to actually use the damned thing. If we cannot speak in public, or cannot make others listen, or cannot think of what to say that anyone would want to hear, the government has no obligation or duty to assist. The lack of government providence does not negate our freedom of speech.

We have the right to write what we wish. But if we are illiterate and cannot strings words together into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into thematic essays, does the government provide literacy training? No, it does not. Even when it tries to it doesnt. as anyone even marginally familiar with public education in the United States knows. If we have nothing to write with, does it give us a pen? If we have nothing to write on, does it give us paper? If we have a batshit manifesto burning a hole in our Kaczyniskiist hovel, does the government provide us a publisher?

No. None of these things. And yet, the absence of government assistance does not erase our freedom of the press.

We have the right to marry the person of our dreams, because the Constitution does not give the government the power to stop us. But if that person does not wish to marry us back, does the government compel the object of our affection to meet us at the altar?

Of course not. Logistically, it would be a nightmare for people like Jennifer Aniston. But this doesnt affect our right to marry whom we wish.

We have the right to employment, because the Constitution does not give the government the power to prevent it. But if a citizen wishes to be employed as the bazillionaire CEO of Microsoft, does the government oust Bill Gates and install the new hire? If a citizen wishes to be employed as the next Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise, does the government do lunch with George Lucas and make it happen? If a citizen simply wants to be hired by any old company at any old position making any old amount of money, does the government impose itself to make even that happen?

Absolutely not, and this still doesnt deny our right to a job. Something about a free market.

We have the right to buy the shirt we like, the sports car we want, the home we pine after in the neighborhood we covet; in short, to acquire property. But if we dont have the money necessary to complete the transactions, does the government give us the money? Alternately, does the government coerce the transaction without it?

Certainly not. If we need money to buy what we want, we are advised to avail ourselves of our right to a job. But the governments hands-off attitude toward our right to accumulate property does not invalidate our right to accumulate property. Our failure to accumulate the property we want only speaks to our priorities, financial abilities and other manifestations of a free market, and nothing else.

We have the right to a haircut, a pedicure, a Papa Johns pizza, and a Caribbean cruise and every other service you can name. But if we dont have the money for these because we used all our money on that fancy sports car two paragraphs ago, does the government step in with the cash? with coercion? with even so much as a coupon?

Not a chance. A commercial service being a right does not suddenly imbue the government with the authority to compel the service to be provided, nor its terms and conditions. More free marketeering.

Healthcare is a right simply because the government is given no defined authority to control it. It is a service just like the haircut we have a right to get. Our right to acquire healthcare, as with the haircut, does not grant the government any authority to compel it, nor to set the terms and conditions of its acquisition. Our ability to acquire healthcare rests entirely with us, with our priorities, and with our financial abilities. The free market, when applied to the right of healthcare, does not suddenly mean that the commodity being sought must be free of cost, or that the cost must be borne by the government.

Yet healthcare today is exclusively discussed as a government providence. This is what democrats use to base their baseless belief that it is a right, and what republicans and libertarians use to claim that it is not.

Libertarians should know better. Libertarians should be smart enough to avoid the equivocative word traps laid out by the mealy-mouthed Bernie Trotsky Sanders and other progressives. Any libertarian who does not know, and cannot recite at a moments notice, the very specific and crucial difference between a right and an entitlement has no claim to calling himself a libertarian.

This is a taxation is theft moment in a taxation is theft conversation. Rights are what the government leaves you alone to get for yourself; entitlements are what the government gives you. This is true whether it is speech, press, property, employment, pedicures or a prescription. If the government is providing healthcare, coercing it upon reluctant patients and setting the terms and conditions for its providers, then it is an entitlement and not a right. If healthcare is a right and it is then the government must stay out of the picture.

As libertarians, we know this. Lets pretend were libertarian, mkay?

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Tom Starzl: ‘super human’ transplant pioneer and ‘the good man … – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Posted: at 7:41 pm

By Sean D. Hamill / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

There are 391 people from thousands of years of human history who are honored in Heinz Chapels spectacularly colorful stained glass windows.

They include important figures from religion, philosophy, the arts, humanities, and the sciences, including William Harvey, an English physician who first mapped the human circulatory system, and Galen, the Greek physician who identified the importance of the arteries.

There is not a window honoring Thomas Starzl, the pioneering Pittsburgh transplant surgeon and researcher who died last week and was memorialized at a nearly two-hour service by more than 400 family, friends, colleagues and transplant recipients in the chapel Saturday, on what would have been his 91st birthday.

But many in attendance agreed: If the 84-year-old windows were being made today, Dr. Starzl would deserve a place in them.

Oh yeah, he deserves a window, Phil Schauer, a Cleveland Clinic surgeon who trained under Dr. Starzl, said just before the service. He deserves his own wing.

Eleven speakers during the service explained why.

Martine Rothblatt, a technologist and chairman of the United Therapeutics Corp., told the story of how she first met Dr. Starzl a decade ago at a meeting and told him her frustration that there must be a better way to create organs to alleviate the shortage that plagues the transplant world.

Ive been thinking about his issue for many years, Dr. Starzl replied, before laying out a plan to make it possible to one day have genetically modified organs from pigs that can be transplanted into humans in a nearly unlimited supply.

She said she has spent the last decade trying to follow that plan he laid out that day. She announced to the crowd that next year they project that the first human transplant from such an organ will occur all of it born from the seed of Thomas Starzl.

While all the speakers acknowledged his super human qualities, force of nature will and impact on history, they spoke, too, of the kind and generous man they knew personally, the man who made his own bed, who walked the family dogs, the man who acknowledged his faults and tried to make up for them.

Alex Dietrich, Dr. Starzls great-niece, said her grandmother used Dr. Starzl as an example for her, but not just for his success.

She held him up as an example of what it meant to be a good man, she said.

The world will miss your genius, she said, speaking to Dr. Starzls memory. We will miss Tom, the good man.

Bob Starzl, Dr. Starzls cousin, said the family understood that they share his loss with the world and another larger family.

We were lucky to have him in our family, said Bob Starzl, his cousin. But he had created a far bigger family, of medical professionals and patients and their families.

Mark Nordenberg, the University of Pittsburghs chancellor emeritus, said the first time he met Dr. Starzl in the early 1980s, Dr. Starzl explained what was happening with the transplant program at a time when anti-rejection drugs were not yet common, and the numbers he presented were not particularly encouraging.

But Mr. Nordenberg said all it took was a look in [Dr. Starzls] determined eyes, and I was convinced that this man was going to meet and defeat any challenges that came his way.

John Fung, Dr. Starzls protg and now director of the Transplantation Institute at the University of Chicago, expressed for many the anguish he felt at the passing of his friend, who seemed as bright as ever, even if his body was failing him in recent years.

His death was unimaginable. This could not happen. Not to our friend and mentor, Dr. Fung said. At first there were no words. Then there was a word: Awe.

Tim Starzl, his son, compared his father to a medieval stone mason, or architect who built a living cathedral.

You can go almost anywhere and see an edge of this cathedral, he said, noting the thousand doctors he trained, and then the thousands those doctors trained, and on and on. You will almost always see somebody who is touched by Dr. Starzl.

The architect is gone, he concluded. But the cathedral remains.

Dr. Starzls wife, Joy, who sat in the front pew during the service with their family golden retriever who famously used to go to the office with Dr. Starzl was the last speaker.

Through her tears, she told the mourners how hard it was in the early days when they arrived in 1981, but how they were still sure they made the right choice by coming to Pittsburgh.

And she concluded by telling the audience she had a request.

I know this is not traditional, but Id like you all to join me in singing Happy Birthday, she said, before the crowd rose and joined her in full voice.

Afterward, in an interview, Ms. Starzl said Saturday had been a tough day. But her spirits were lifted hearing all the memories and stories.

Some of the stories were new to her, she said,But they were all true; they were Tom.

Sean D. Hamill: shamill@post-gazette.comor 412-263-2579 or Twitter: @SeanDHamill

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The Art of Noises

Posted: at 7:40 pm

Dear Balilla Pratella, great Futurist composer,

In Rome, in the Costanzi Theatre, packed to capacity, while I was listening to the orchestral performance of your overwhelming Futurist music, with my Futurist friends, Marinetti, Boccioni, Carr, Balla, Soffici, Papini and Cavacchioli, a new art came into my mind which only you can create, the Art of Noises, the logical consequence of your marvelous innovations.

Ancient life was all silence. In the nineteenth century, with the invention of the machine, Noise was born. Today, Noise triumphs and reigns supreme over the sensibility of men. For many centuries life went by in silence, or at most in muted tones. The strongest noises which interrupted this silence were not intense or prolonged or varied. If we overlook such exceptional movements as earthquakes, hurricanes, storms, avalanches and waterfalls, nature is silent.

Amidst this dearth of noises, the first sounds that man drew from a pieced reed or streched string were regarded with amazement as new and marvelous things. Primitive races attributed sound to the gods; it was considered sacred and reserved for priests, who used it to enrich the mystery of their rites.

And so was born the concept of sound as a thing in itself, distinct and independent of life, and the result was music, a fantastic world superimposed on the real one, an inviolatable and sacred world. It is easy to understand how such a concept of music resulted inevitable in the hindering of its progress by comparison with the other arts. The Greeks themselves, with their musical theories calculated mathematically by Pythagoras and according to which only a few consonant intervals could be used, limited the field of music considerably, rendering harmony, of which they were unaware, impossible.

The Middle Ages, with the development and modification of the Greek tetrachordal system, with the Gregorian chant and popular songs, enriched the art of music, but continued to consider sound in its development in time, a restricted notion, but one which lasted many centuries, and which still can be found in the Flemish contrapuntalists most complicated polyphonies.

The chord did not exist, the development of the various parts was not subornated to the chord that these parts put together could produce; the conception of the parts was horizontal not vertical. The desire, search, and taste for a simultaneous union of different sounds, that is for the chord (complex sound), were gradually made manifest, passing from the consonant perfect chord with a few passing dissonances, to the complicated and persistent dissonances that characterize contemporary music.

At first the art of music sought purity, limpidity and sweetness of sound. Then different sounds were amalgamated, care being taken, however, to caress the ear with gentle harmonies. Today music, as it becomes continually more complicated, strives to amalgamate the most dissonant, strange and harsh sounds. In this way we come ever closer to noise-sound.

This musical evolution is paralleled by the multipication of machines, which collaborate with man on every front. Not only in the roaring atmosphere of major cities, but in the country too, which until yesterday was totally silent, the machine today has created such a variety and rivalry of noises that pure sound, in its exiguity and monotony, no longer arouses any feeling.

To excite and exalt our sensibilities, music developed towards the most complex polyphony and the maximum variety, seeking the most complicated successions of dissonant chords and vaguely preparing the creation of musical noise. This evolution towards noise sound was not possible before now. The ear of an eighteenth-century man could never have endured the discordant intensity of certain chords produced by our orchestras (whose members have trebled in number since then). To our ears, on the other hand, they sound pleasant, since our hearing has already been educated by modern life, so teeming with variegated noises. But our ears are not satisfied merely with this, and demand an abundance of acoustic emotions.

On the other hand, musical sound is too limited in its qualitative variety of tones. The most complex orchestras boil down to four or five types of instrument, varying in timber: instruments played by bow or plucking, by blowing into metal or wood, and by percussion. And so modern music goes round in this small circle, struggling in vain to create new ranges of tones.

This limited circle of pure sounds must be broken, and the infinite variety of noise-sound conquered.

Besides, everyone will acknowledge that all musical sound carries with it a development of sensations that are already familiar and exhausted, and which predispose the listener to boredom in spite of the efforts of all the innovatory musicians. We Futurists have deeply loved and enjoyed the harmonies of the great masters. For many years Beethoven and Wagner shook our nerves and hearts. Now we are satiated and we find far more enjoyment in the combination of the noises of trams, backfiring motors, carriages and bawling crowds than in rehearsing, for example, the Eroica or the Pastoral.

We cannot see that enormous apparatus of force that the modern orchestra represents without feeling the most profound and total disillusion at the paltry acoustic results. Do you know of any sight more ridiculous than that of twenty men furiously bent on the redoubling the mewing of a violin? All this will naturally make the music-lovers scream, and will perhaps enliven the sleepy atmosphere of concert halls. Let us now, as Futurists, enter one of these hospitals for anaemic sounds. There: the first bar brings the boredom of familiarity to your ear and anticipates the boredom of the bar to follow. Let us relish, from bar to bar, two or three varieties of genuine boredom, waiting all the while for the extraordinary sensation that never comes.

Meanwhile a repugnant mixture is concocted from monotonous sensations and the idiotic religious emotion of listeners buddhistically drunk with repeating for the nth time their more or less snobbish or second-hand ecstasy.

Away! Let us break out since we cannot much longer restrain our desire to create finally a new musical reality, with a generous distribution of resonant slaps in the face, discarding violins, pianos, double-basses and plainitive organs. Let us break out!

Its no good objecting that noises are exclusively loud and disagreeable to the ear.

It seems pointless to enumerate all the graceful and delicate noises that afford pleasant sensations.

To convince ourselves of the amazing variety of noises, it is enough to think of the rumble of thunder, the whistle of the wind, the roar of a waterfall, the gurgling of a brook, the rustling of leaves, the clatter of a trotting horse as it draws into the distance, the lurching jolts of a cart on pavings, and of the generous, solemn, white breathing of a nocturnal city; of all the noises made by wild and domestic animals, and of all those that can be made by the mouth of man without resorting to speaking or singing.

Let us cross a great modern capital with our ears more alert than our eyes, and we will get enjoyment from distinguishing the eddying of water, air and gas in metal pipes, the grumbling of noises that breathe and pulse with indisputable animality, the palpitation of valves, the coming and going of pistons, the howl of mechanical saws, the jolting of a tram on its rails, the cracking of whips, the flapping of curtains and flags. We enjoy creating mental orchestrations of the crashing down of metal shop blinds, slamming doors, the hubbub and shuffling of crowds, the variety of din, from stations, railways, iron foundries, spinning wheels, printing works, electric power stations and underground railways.

Nor should the newest noises of modern war be forgotten. Recently, the poet Marinetti, in a letter from the trenches of Adrianopolis, described to me with marvelous free words the orchestra of a great battle:

To attune noises does not mean to detract from all their irregular movements and vibrations in time and intensity, but rather to give gradation and tone to the most strongly predominant of these vibrations.

Noise in fact can be differentiated from sound only in so far as the vibrations which produce it are confused and irregular, both in time and intensity.

Every noise has a tone, and sometimes also a harmony that predominates over the body of its irregular vibrations.

Now, it is from this dominating characteristic tone that a practical possibility can be derived for attuning it, that is to give a certain noise not merely one tone, but a variety of tones, without losing its characteristic tone, by which I mean the one which distinguishes it. In this way any noise obtained by a rotating movement can offer an entire ascending or descending chromatic scale, if the speed of the movement is increased or decreased.

Every manifestation of our life is accompanied by noise. The noise, therefore, is familiar to our ear, and has the power to conjure up life itself. Sound, alien to our life, always musical and a thing unto itself, an occasional but unnecessary element, has become to our ears what an overfamiliar face is to our eyes. Noise, however, reaching us in a confused and irregular way from the irregular confusion of our life, never entirely reveals itself to us, and keeps innumerable surprises in reserve. We are therefore certain that by selecting, coordinating and dominating all noises we will enrich men with a new and unexpected sensual pleasure.

Although it is characteristic of noise to recall us brutally to real life, the art of noise must not limit itself to imitative reproduction. It will achieve its most emotive power in the acoustic enjoyment, in its own right, that the artists inspiration will extract from combined noises.

Here are the 6 families of noises of the Futurist orchestra which we will soon set in motion mechanically:

In this inventory we have encapsulated the most characteristic of the fundamental noises; the others are merely the associations and combinations of these. The rhythmic movements of a noise are infinite: just as with tone there is always a predominant rhythm, but around this numerous other secondary rhythms can be felt.

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The Art of Noises

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Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Are Officially Allowed on California Roads – Futurism

Posted: at 7:40 pm

California and Ubers Tricky Relationship

The well-known ride-sharing company, Uber, is making headlines again. After a struggle with the state of California, Uber notoriously packed its self-driving vehicles up and went to Phoenix, Arizona, setting up a location in addition to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the companys self-driving initiative. This time, its about the companys return to California streets with self-driving cars.

Uber finally applied and received a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles that allows the testing of two Volvo SUVs on public roads. In addition, 48 backup drivers were approved by regulators, requiring them to sit behind the wheel in the event ofa mishap with the autonomous vehicles.

The $150 permit seems to be an olive branch of sorts, resolving the issues from late 2016 when Uber introduced a pilot program of more than a dozen autonomous vehicles in San Francisco without consulting state regulators. While Uber claimed that its cars did not meet the states definition of autonomous vehicles because they need a person present to monitor the car in case an intervention is needed, legal authorities felt differently when faced with Ubers malfunctioning AI. Without the permit, the state revoked the license of the 16 autonomous cars from Ubers pilot program.

Uber is now the 26th company to hold a permit to test self-driving vehicles in the state of California. However, the company wont be offering driverless rides just yet, and its not clear when passengers will be able to hitch a ride with one of them.

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The Era of Ownership Is Ending – Futurism

Posted: at 7:40 pm

In the 20th century we got used to a certain way of thinking: if you needed something, you boughtit. Cars, houses, records, you named it. Efficient manufacturing and logistics made it possible to createan unprecedented global overflow of stuff. Ownership quickly becameabout being someone; it was a way of definingwho you are.

All ofthis is still very much the case today: buying and owning things is a huge part of our lives. Yet something is still markedly different now: most of us have stopped buying CDs and DVDs. Young people arent buying cars anymore. Books are selling fewer copies. Many things we used to buy and keep at home we no longer do.

Let us take a closer look at what is happening with music, for instance. Artists still release albums, but very few people actually buy the physical album. Instead, they might buy the songs digitally on iTunes, and a growing amount of people will listen to the track on-demand. Music is accessed, not owned. The same goes for your favourite film. Ten years ago you would have bought a DVD to watch over and over again. Now you have iton stand-byon Netflix.

And this is just the beginning.

Things get really interesting when we start talking about cars instead of music. What would it be like to access a car on-demand? You might say that we already have taxis. But a taxi isnt as convenient as Netflix is. What would it be like to actually have the convenience of your own car without owning it?

Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) is a model for traffic without ownership. You pay a monthly fee for it, like with Spotify, tell the app where you are going and get instant access to taxis, Ubers, buses, and so on. Everything is available on-demand and ownership is no longer needed.

MaaS is part of a trend called the as a service model. The frameworkbegan as a simple idea in software development, when companies started paying for access instead of buying permanent licenses for office programs. Now the same model is moving into the material world. Netflix, Spotify, AirBnb and Uber are all as a service companies.

As a service models become more and more feasible when the number of sensors that surround us increases. This development is often called the Internet of Things.But when we consider the Internet of Things from the perspective of disappearing products and the increase in newservice models, we caneffectivelyconclude that it is, in fact, the Internet of No Things.

What is so revolutionary about the as a service model then? Why is it good not to own things? There are two main reasons and these are related: First, ownership makes us lazy. Second, the planet cannot survive with us consuming somuch stuff.

When we buy things we easily get bored with them and forget they exist, or, alternatively, use them only because we own them. On-demand is about using things when we actually need them. It leads to the more effective use of resources. AirBnb gets more people to use the same apartment and Uber gets more people to use the same car.

It takes alarge amountof natural resources to manufacture a car, house, or smartphone in the first place. We are now running out of those resources. Thats why digital as a service platforms show great promise. In the future the as a service model will revolutionise some areas of our lives that are completely unsustainable right now such as housing, mobility and communications.

Can you imagine a world where you no longer have a phone in your pocket but instead pay for communication as a service? It might sound like sci-fi, but companies around the world are already offering housing and even Smart City as a Service.A world without smartphones? It may very well happen.

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China to Send People to the Moon by 2020 – Futurism

Posted: at 7:40 pm

Chinas Mission to the Moon

China is working to develop a new spaceship that can both fly in low-Earth orbit and land on the moon.

Their announcement comes shortly after the US announced plans to fly two private citizens around the Moon by late 2018, under private aerospace company SpaceX.

Chinas spacecraft will be designed to be recoverable, with better capacity than other similar spaceships, capable of shuttling multiple crew members. Spaceship engineer Zhang Bainian, who spoke to Science and Technology Daily, compared the planned spacecraft to the NASA and the European Space Agencys Oriona spacecraft equipped for a moon landing operation, which they hope will be able to bring astronauts to space by 2023.

Despite joining the space race fairly recently (their first crewed mission was in 2003), Chinas achievements have firmly established the country as a major contender in the field.

In terms of rocket launches, China has already overtaken Russia in volume and is at par with the US, reaching a total of 22. In contrast, Russia, despite having a long-established space program, fell behind with only 17 launches. According to Harvard University astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, the US could have achieved more if the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fleet had not been grounded after an explosion in September 2016.

In addition, Chinas most recent crewed mission saw two astronauts spend a month aboard the Chinese space station, with plans for a permanently crewed space station to start operations within five years.

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Eritrean refugees in Missoula fled a nation of oppression and military conscription – Helena Independent Record

Posted: March 11, 2017 at 8:44 am

MISSOULA -- The second-largest segment of recent refugees to Missoula comes from one of the worlds fastest-emptying nations.

That those attempting to flee Eritrea have to dodge troops at the border with shoot to kill orders only underlines the desperate, despotic conditions in the northeast African nation on the Red Sea.

A one-party government jealously guards the independence it gained from Ethiopia in 1991, two experts from the Horn of Africas war-torn region told a crowd of 200 Wednesday evening at the University of Montanas University Center Theater.

Eritrea has a program of national service whereby the Eritrean population less than 50 years of age are obliged to serve in the military, said Solomon Gofie, a visiting adjunct at UM from Addis Ababa University.

Though intended to last just 18 months, national service can extend for decades, at the discretion of the government.

Theres no way they get out, Gofie said. After doing the (military) services, the government orders them to construct boats, to engage in projects like mining or manufacturing. It means the chance of a young Eritrean man or woman going freely after the service is almost nil. Authorities have to decide when one has to be set free. The family and the community dont have any say on that.

Often, way into their 50s, theyre still being paid $10 a month for their service in the military, said Kimberly Maynard, a UM Mansfield Fellow in International Affairs who spent 20 years in conflict zones in northeastern Africa and works part time for the United States Agency for International Development.

Since winter arrived in November, Missoula has become home to seven Eritrean families who found refuge first in Ethiopia or the Mediterranean island of Malta after sneaking out of their home country. Theyre outnumbered only by those from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who began arriving in August.

Gofie said hopes were high for a progressive future when Eritrea, the former northern province of Ethiopia, earned its independence in 1991. Its status as a nation was officially recognized by the United Nations in 1993.

But Isaias Afwerki, the enigmatic guerrilla leader who became the nations first president, remains in power. Eritrea, a small nation with between five and six million people, has lost half a million of those people prohibited outmigration, Maynard said.

The country has never held an election nor ratified a constitution. A United Nations commission has said the system of forced labor and other alleged human rights violations may constitute crimes against humanity.

One of the challenges is the ability to get information out of Eritrea, Maynard said. There is no foreign aid organization, no humanitarian organization, and the media is very, very controlled. Its only internal media, theres no foreign media. So its hard to get numbers.

What knowledge the outside world acquires of conditions in Eritrea comes mostly from those whove fled, she said. But even that avenue is unreliable as their access to in-country information is limited. Many fear reprisals against family and friends back in Eritrea who helped fund their escape.

War with Ethiopia in 1998-2000 resulted in nearly 100,000 deaths on both sides and devastated the Eritrean economy. Although there was a peace accord at the end, that didnt solve the hostilities between the two countries, Gofie said.

Eritrean officials accuse the United States of siding with Ethiopia, and while theres a chief of mission in the U.S. embassy in the capital of Asmara, a position Natalie E. Brown assumed last fall, an ambassador is not allowed.

Just two weeks ago, and last week also, the Ethiopian government is accusing Eritrea of sending armored people across the border, Gofie said.

All this, he added, makes outmigration one of very few options for the hopeless.

Maynard traced the common routes those fleeing Eritrea take, to Ethiopia and Sudan initially, and later on to Malta, Israel, Italy and other European nations. The journey involves dangerous and costly sea travel. In October 2013, a reported 366 Eritrean migrants drowned off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa. Most who survive end up in refugee camps, often separated from family and still facing uncertain futures.

A few navigate the vetting process and gain acceptance to the United States. Those whove landed in Missoula are by and large Christian Orthodox, and they're already sharing vestiges of a rich culture developed over thousands of years, which Maynard emphasized in her talk.

Its adding diversity and interest to our community, and most are heroes for having gone through what they went through, she said. But theyre also bringing so much, and the culture itself just offers so much.

By sharing such things as traditional foods, art and music in a sort of cross-pollination, the dignity of both cultures is realized, said Maynard.

I think thats when its a full welcome and theyre really now at home and living in Missoula.

Wednesday nights program, sponsored by UMs African-American Studies Program and Political Science Department, as well as Montana Model UN, was the third presented by Soft Landing Missoula in a series intended to foster understanding of the families arriving in Missoula through the auspices of international and United States refugee resettlement programs.

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UN Has Another Opportunity to Condemn Cuba’s Oppression with Disappearances Review – Breitbart News

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In an announcement this week, the UN said that Cuba, along with Ecuador and Senegal, will have their records reviewed by theUN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED). The three nations have signed and ratified theInternational Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which requires the UN to check their records. An enforced disappearance is a government abduction of an individual in which their relatives are not provided information as to where they have been apprehended or why. Those disappeared are rarely seen again.

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Thefinal reports on all three nations will be published on March 17.

The last time the UN commission reviewed Cuba was in 2012. That report, written by a multidisciplinary working group made up of many government and/or State ministries and institutions, the National Assembly, NGOs and other relevant organizations, heaped effusive praise on the community autocracy.

The rights to life, liberty and security of person have always been mainstays of the Cuban Revolution, its authorities and society at large, even though Cuba has had to face over 50 years of aggression, terrorism and a harsh economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the Government of the United States of America, the 2012 report reads. There have been no cases of enforced disappearance in Cuba since the revolutionary triumph of 1959.

The report goes on to claim that the concept of holding a detainee or prisoner incommunicado is alien to criminal and procedural practice in Cuba.

All three assertions that Cuba respects the sanctity of life of its prisoners, that no disappearances have occurred in Cuba since 1959, and that Cuba has never held prisoners incommunicado are demonstrably false. There is little reason to believe the 2017 update to this report will contain more believable challenges to the Communist regime, though all such reviews present an opportunity to condemn the authoritarian regime for its crimes.

The case ofHamell Santiago Maz Hernndez, who died in late February, contradicts the claim that Cuba values the life of its people. Maz Hernndez diedafter spending eight months in the notorious Combinado del Este maximum security prison, used to house political dissidents. The government claims cardiac arrest as the cause of death but his dissident organization, the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), reject this assertion and have vowed an investigation.There is no evidence Maz Hernndez received medical care while in the prison. He was facing the charge of desacato, or disrespect a catch-all crime used against anti-communist protesters.

Another former inmate of Combinado del Este, Danilo Maldonado Machado, can testify to being held incommunicado. The artist, known by his pseudonym El Sexto, was transferred to Combinado del Este without his family being alerted. His fiance, he later said, only knew of his transfer because she arrived in time to see the van driving him away, and he was able to shout the name of the new facility to her. Maldonado, who was serving time without being charged following public celebrations of Fidel Castros death, later said he was beaten severely enough to trigger asthma attacks and not provided medical care.

A record also exists of forced disappearances since 1959, contra the UN report. According to Cuba Archives record of human rights crimes under the Castro brothers, at least 23 confirmed disappearances occurred between 1959 and 2014. One hundred other unconfirmed records exist. These numbers are low because, for most of its time in power, the Communist Revolution opted for openly executing its enemies via firing squad. Cuba Archive counts over three thousand firing squad executions and another 1,116 extrajudicial killings.

At the time of Fidel Castros death, the state had executed 5,775, including non-firing squad killings. Another 20,000 Cubans were believed to have died in the straits between Cuba and Florida, drowning in escape attempts from the island. Sixteen Cubans died while on hunger strike in prison; 209 died of health problems upon being denied medical care in prison.

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Letters, published on Match 10, 2017 – Daily Inter Lake

Posted: at 8:44 am

March 10, 2017 at 3:16 pm |

With the election of our new president, I hope that this country returns to some degree of normalcy. We still have freedoms worth fighting for and, if need be, dying for. I hope that Americans can realize and appreciate this fact.

I believe that one of our most important freedoms is the right to bear arms. Without this freedom, our government could do anything that it can conceive to us. There are so many countries in the world where people are under enormous oppression by their governments. We would only join their pitiful plight, were it not for our right to bear arms. The first two battles of the American Revolutionary War with the British were over gun rights. The battle of the Alamo was partly due to gun confiscation. Even Jesus, at one point, told his disciples to sell their cloak and buy a sword. I sincerely believe that in telling them this, he was trying to emphasize a point, that point being, that you have a right to protect and defend yourself.

The police can only protect the public at large and the police usually arrive after a crime has been committed. This particular freedom to bear arms is currently being attacked by the UN. I pray that Americans understand that if there is the formation of a one-world government in our future, its inception would begin primarily because we have lost our right to bear arms. We must not lose this freedom to bear arms! Sinowa Cruz, Kalispell

In a divided country, our national parks continue to serve as common ground. Unfortunately, that ground is unsteady under the impacts of a $12 billion infrastructure repair backlog. With the recent confirmation of Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, hope remains that repairing our national parks will become a national priority.

During his recent address to Congress and the American public, President Trump called on Congress to pass an infrastructure bill. There is no better place to start rebuilding our infrastructure than fixing our parks. In Secretary Zinkes confirmation hearing, he stated that addressing the National Park Service backlog was one of his three top priorities. And Sen. Steve Daines, who recently became chairman of the subcommittee on national parks, has echoed the need to address the backlog.

The infrastructure repair backlog affects nearly every national park site. In contrast to the record-setting visitation that Glacier welcomed in 2016, the park faces a repair backlog nearing $180 million. This includes over $120 million in paved road projects and $11 million in trail repair needs.

National Parks Conservation Association calls on President Trump, Interior Secretary Zinke, Sens. Daines and Tester and all of our members of Congress to put their words into action. It is time for national parks to become a national priority again. Sarah Lundstrum, Whitefish

I would like to add to Brenda Andersons letter of thanks in the March 7 edition. Ms. Anderson was thanking the person or persons involved in helping find and rescue the dogs and mini-horses from the Creston area. Thanks should also go the Kalispell Police Departments animal warden, who acted on a tip from a passer-by noticing multiple dogs in a car in Kalispell. That investigation led to a joint effort with Flathead County sheriffs animal control officers. Those officers had to wear breathing apparatuses while they removed the distressed dogs from the horrific house prior to delivering them to the Flathead County Animal Shelter.

The amazing, hard-working care staff at the shelter, along with the countys veterinarian, has been caring for these dogs since their arrival, getting the healthiest few adopted out to loving homes, supported by the fundraising efforts of Flathead Shelter Friends Inc. These heroes deserve recognition as well. But the real heroes are the supportive citizens of Flathead County (and other parts of Montana) who have generously sent donations to be used for the care and rehabilitation of those animals as they make their way back to recovery.

Sometimes we may forget that along with the beautiful scenery that we are graced with in this valley, we are also graced with some of the most beautiful people found anywhere on this planet.

Thank you to all of the area heroes who time and again come together to overcome adversity. Cliff Bennett, Lakeside

I read with great interest Dr. Jason Cohens recent letter to the editor: Discussion Points of the Future of the Affordable Care Act. One of the most damaging forces in the universe is the illusion that expensive things can be had if we just want them bad enough. People often buy college educations, automobiles, and homes that the rational person can see are outside the realm of financial possibility, but the excitement of owning the shiny new thing often short circuits the brain just long enough for a family to destroy its financial future for a generation. That is exactly what we are witnessing with the ironically named Affordable Care Act.

Like the ski boat salesman encouraging an excited family to buy with funds they dont have, Dr. Cohen is selling us a health care policy we cant afford. I concede many of the things the Affordable Care Act intended to accomplish are admirable (unlimited lifetime coverages for everyone, no exclusions for pre-existing conditions, low or no cost to the poor, increased medical coverage in sparsely populated areas, required coverage of health screenings, free birth control, substance abuse counseling); unfortunately, they are not economically possible from a centrally planned bureaucracy.

Good people like Dr. Cohen are claiming the law is a resounding success. They state that millions of people who once were denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions or expensive premiums now have access to it. What the Affordable Care Acts supporters dont admit is that millions of other Americans are rapidly finding health insurance so unaffordable they and/or their employers are dropping coverages due to its unaffordability. Because of the problem of adverse selection, insurance programs dont survive when unhealthy, expensive people sign up by the millions at the same time millions of healthy, inexpensive people stop paying their premiums.

While it is true the American health care system is in need of a complete overhaul, the Affordable Care Act is not the answer. Due to the immutable economic laws of adverse selection and supply and demand, the Affordable Care Act, is failing financially. When the program does fail, I hope we learn from our mistakes and consider using free market solutions such as those provided by health-care sharing ministries and cash-only surgical clinics that have reduced prices and increased quality and access wherever free markets have been allowed to operate. The private insurance/government partnership model is incapable of delivering on its promises, and it is now time to let the Affordable Care Act die with dignity before it financially cripples us. Joseph D. Coco Jr., Whitefish

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Letters, published on Match 10, 2017 - Daily Inter Lake

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