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The Digital Age
We can finally say good-bye to the threat of the Y2K bug. Twenty years after preparations began the federal government is ending requirements to track the so-called Y2K bug.
In 1997, actions were begun to avert what some thought was a coming catastrophe. Many electronic systems formatted a year’s date using only the final two digits. Such as 97, 98, and 99. It was thought that systems would mistake the year 2000 as the 1900 creating unimaginable havoc.
Government at the federal, state and local levels prepared for the worst. So did business.
Some predicted a disaster of epic proportions. In the end, the year 2000 came and went. With a whimper. Read more ..
America on Edge
| Stephen Collinson | July 20th 2017 |
CNN
"Ted and I shared the sentiment that a fight not joined was a fight not enjoyed," McCain said, recalling roiling arguments with his fellow Senate lion, but also times when they had buried their differences to forge progress for the nation.
Read more ..
The Edge of Medicine
| Paul Pringle, Harriet Ryan, Adam Elmahrek, Matt Hamilton | July 18th 2017 |
LA Times
In USC’s lecture halls, labs and executive offices, Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito was a towering figure. The dean of the Keck School of Medicine was a renowned eye surgeon whose skill in the operating room was matched by a gift for attracting money and talent to the university.
There was another side to the Harvard-educated physician.
During his tenure as dean, Puliafito kept company with a circle of criminals and drug users who said he used methamphetamine and other drugs with them, a Los Angeles Times investigation found.
Puliafito, 66, and these much younger acquaintances captured their exploits in photos and videos. The Times reviewed dozens of the images.
Shot in 2015 and 2016, they show Puliafito and the others partying in hotel rooms, cars, apartments and the dean’s office at USC.
In one video, a tuxedo-clad Puliafito displays an orange pill on his tongue and says into the camera, “Thought I’d take an ecstasy before the ball.” Then he swallows the pill. Read more ..
Broken Borders
| Martin Barillas | July 15th 2017 |
Spero
While the limit on the number of refugees entering the United State has been reached, if the United Nations has its way, more can be expected. While the Trump administration set a limit of 50,000 refugees entering the U.S., the number of refugees worldwide recently hit a historical high of 65.5 million, according to the UN. Because the United States is a member of the UN, it is continuously under pressure to accept more.
The refugee cap set by the current administration was reached on July 12, but because of a Supreme Court ruling last month, more refugees can still enter if they can prove close familial ties to persons already living in the country. As a result of the high court’s ruling on Trump's travel ban executive order, according to the State Department, as of July 13, persons who have a “credible claim to a bona fide relationship” to a person or an entity in the country will be eligible for admission. Read more ..
The Edge of Terrorism
| Edwin Black | July 14th 2017 |
HuffPo
The issue of government subsidies for Palestinian terrorist salaries is again in the international spotlight. What began in November 2013, as a barely believable revelation — that taxpayers in Great Britain, the US, and other Western nations were bankrolling terrorist salaries — has now become a universally-acknowledged, impossible-to-deny, and impossible-to-defend embarrassment for governments.
For years, officials dissembled and dodged when the question came up. After a period of silent disbelief, the mainstream media now openly confirms the salaries and routinely refers to the program with ipso factuality. Political challengers on both sides of the Atlantic stridently demand that incumbents terminate foreign aid that amounts to taxpayer-incentivized terrorism. A recent in-depth study in Israel calculates that all terror incentives and rewards paid by the Palestinian Authority over the past four years total a mind-numbing one billion dollars. Read more ..
Trump vs the Media
Lifezette
CNN found itself ensnared in yet another ethical quagmire on Wednesday after a young reporter apparently tracked down the creator of a mock video tweeted by President Donald Trump and extracted an apology from him.
The Reddit user created the controversial animated GIF that showed Trump body-slamming a man at a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) match. The man in the original video was Vince McMahon, the former president of WWE and a personal friend to Trump. In the mock video, the CNN logo was in place of McMahon’s head.
Trump tweeted the video on Sunday, and CNN reacted with outrage. CNN and other journalists claimed the tweet from Trump was not mockery but rather that Trump was encouraging violence against reporters. Read more ..
North Korea's Nukes
| Euan McKirdy | July 4th 2017 |
CNN
How true is claim?
Euan Graham, director of the International Security Program at Sydney's Lowy Institute, said that one apparently successful test doesn't necessarily mean that North Korea has the global capability it claimed.
"If the North Koreans are claiming they can launch an ICBM (to) anywhere in the world, that needs to be looked at through a technical lens," he said, using the acronym for intercontinental ballistic missile. Read more ..
Iran's Nuke's
Tablet
In 2005, Jack Abramoff’s corruption and lobbying scandal became public. One of Abramoff’s main accomplices was Bob Ney, a former congressman from Ohio who was sentenced to 30 months in prison. Part of the corruption charges against Ney, exposed in DOJ documents, were related to the bribes that he had received from two businessmen in London who tried to buy an airplane for the leadership of the Iranian regime—an export prohibited by sanctions. Ney had been hired to resolve the legal issues prohibiting the export of the plane.
Ney’s foreign-policy adviser during the time Ney was advocating the removal of sanctions against Iran was a young Iranian-Swedish student named Trita Parsi (according to Parsi’s resumes), now better known as the founder and president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a Washington-based, pro-Tehran advocacy and lobbying organization founded in 2002. Back then, it was hard to explain why a Congressman with no official role in US foreign policy had a foreign policy adviser on Iran. Parsi began his pro-Tehran activities in 1997 in Sweden as he founded a small lobby organization called “Iranians for International Cooperation” (IIC) that used its few Washington members to send petitions and letters to Congress members. Read more ..
The Edge of Cyberwarfare
| Rachel Ehrenfeld | June 29th 2017 |
ACD
The latest and most damaging attacks, which have supposedly originated in Ukraine, are said to be using a variant of the code "Eternal Blue," which reportedly was stolen from the National Security Agency (NSA). This malware was allegedly designed to take control over or destroy computers running an older Microsoft Windows program without leaving any known detectable trace. Demand for a ransom of $300 in Bitcoins appears on the screen, but paying the ransom, as done with last month's WannaCry attack does not guarantee the computer hard-drive was not corrupted. The special features of this cyber-weapon allow it to access all your information, including whatever has been stored on a cloud.
The ongoing attack, dubbed Petya or GoldenEye (apparently named after Ian Fleming's inspired 1995 James Bond film of the same name), has shut down the computers of large domestic and international corporations around the world, including the second largest pharma company in the U.S., Merck, Russia's largest oil company, Rosneft, Ukraine's State power distribution company, airports, transportation companies, banks and hospitals. Read more ..
Media on Edge
| Project Veritas | June 27th 2017 |
Drudge
See the video
CNN "ratings are incredible right now," President Trump "good for business" John Bonifield, CNN Producer Says Russia Narrative "Mostly bullshit right now" "Get back to Russia," Says CEO Jeff Zucker President Trump is Right About Witch Hunt, "No real proof" Comes in Wake of CNN's Russia-Gate Retraction & New Rules on Russia Coverage
(NEW YORK) -- Project Veritas has released a video of CNN Producer John Bonifield who was caught on hidden-camera admitting that there is no proof to CNN's Russia narrative. "I mean, it's mostly bullshit right now," Bonifield says. "Like, we don't have any giant proof." Read more ..
The Battle for Syria
| Clinton Gillespie | June 27th 2017 |
Spero
In a late-night statement, the White House said the United States discovered "potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack" by the Syrian government.
The statement said the activites are similar to prepartion the "regime made before its April 4, 2017, chemical weapons attack." The US responded to that attack that killed 100 people, including 25 children, by firing 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield that was believed to have carried out the strike on a rebel-held area.
In the statement, the US warned Syria would "pay a heave price" if it proceeds with the attack
"As we have previously stated, the United States is in Syria to eliminate the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria," the White House warned Syria. "If, however, Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price."
Shortly after the release of the statement, Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, sent a warning to Iran and Russia that the US would also blame them if Syria proceeds with another chemical attack. Read more ..
The Trump Era
| Martin Barillas | June 20th 2017 |
Spero
The National Security Council (NSC) notified Judiciary Watch -- a Washington-based watchdog group -- that materials concerning the unmasking allegedly ordered by Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor Susan Rice of “the identities of any U.S. citizens associated with the Trump presidential campaign or transition team” were removed from federal government files. They are now in the possession of the Obama Library.
In April, Judicial Watch sent a request to the NSC for records relating to people “who were identified pursuant to intelligence collection activities.” The unmasking relates to the identification of persons in the United States whose conversations were picked up by covert surveillance of communications. Whether some of those persons identified were part of Donald Trump’s political team has been a subject of debate and speculation. Read more ..
The Ancient Edge
Scientific American
The year was 1961. A barite mining operation at the Jebel Irhoud massif in Morocco, some 100 kilometers west of Marrakech, turned up a fossil human skull. Subsequent excavation uncovered more bones from other individuals, along with animal remains and stone tools. Scientists’ best guess was that the remains were about 40,000 years old and represented African versions of Neandertals. In the decades that followed, researchers shifted their stance on the identity of the remains, coming to see them as members of our own species, Homo sapiens—and they redated the site to roughly 160,000 years ago. Still, the Jebel Irhoud fossils remained something of a mystery, because in some respects they looked more primitive than older H. sapiens fossils. Read more ..
The Farhud
Jewish News
Ever heard of Salim Fattal? Most Jews, especially those in the English-speaking world, will not recognise the name. But among the Jews of Iraq, Salim Fattal is a giant of a man. First and foremost, he will be remembered as the custodian of the memory of the Farhud, the 1941 pogrom which sounded the beginning of the end for the Jewish community of Iraq.
Salim Fattal died on May 31, in Israel at the age of 87. A writer, film director and pioneer of Arabic broadcasting in Israel, his passing occurred 76 years to the day since the outbreak of the Farhud, an event he did so much to document. In 2012, he came to London to show to members of my organisation Harif the first episode of the TV series he made in the 1960s, recording eye-witness testimonies. Salim Fattal broke down while recalling the murder of his uncle in the Farhud. Read more ..
The Battle for Syria
| Jonathan Spyer | May 27th 2017 |
Foreign Policy
On my last night in Damascus, some younger members of the Ministry of Information-sponsored delegation in which I was taking part decided to have a drink. It was late April, and the bars and restaurants were doing good business in the cool and breezy evenings. An inebriated Russian journalist, accompanied by a uniformed Russian soldier entered the bar opposite our hotel in the Old City where my colleagues were sitting. Words were exchanged. An altercation began.
At a certain point, the Russian journalist produced a pistol and aimed it at the forehead of one of the delegation's participants. He then entered our hotel, and threatened one of the employees there, all with his uniformed colleague silently accompanying him. Read more ..
The Trump Era
| A.J. Caschetta | May 22nd 2017 |
The Gatestone Institute
In Saudi Arabia on Sunday, President Trump declared unswerving American commitment to help Riyadh in "confronting the crisis of Islamic extremism and the Islamist and Islamic terror of all kinds." A new coalition of American lawmakers believes he should make an equally important commitment to Israel when he lands there today.
Official U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute has long been centered on a "grievance-based approach" to conflict resolution and counterterrorism. Addressing the stated grievances of Palestinian extremists, the reasoning goes, reduces their motivations for fighting and enables their leaders and those of Arab states to make peace. Thus the perennial goal of American diplomacy has been to pressure or coax the democratic State of Israel into making concessions to the authoritarian PLO-turned-Palestinian Authority (PA) in hopes that they will placate the Palestinian masses (most of whom, including 1.6 million in Hamas-ruled Gaza, do not live in disputed territory). Read more ..
Hillary After the Vote
| Richard Pollock | May 5th 2017 |
Daily Caller
Hillary Clinton’s Department of State aides allegedly threatened a South Asian prime minister’s son with an IRS audit in an attempt to stop a Bangladesh government investigation of a close friend and donor of Clinton’s, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group learned.
A Bangladesh government commission was investigating multiple charges of financial mismanagement at Grameen Bank, beginning in May 2012. Muhammad Yunus, a major Clinton Foundation donor, served as managing director of the bank.
Sajeeb Wazed Joy, son of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and permanent U.S. resident, recalled the account of the threatened IRS audit to TheDCNF. The allegations mark the first known instance in the U.S. that Clinton’s Department of State used IRS power to intimidate a close relative of a friendly nation’s head of state on behalf of a Clinton Foundation donor.
Wazed told TheDCNF it was “astounding and mind boggling” that senior State Department officials between 2010 and 2012 repeatedly pressured him to influence his mother to drop the commission investigation. The commission report was released in early 2013.
“They threatened me with the possibility of an audit by the Internal Revenue Service,” he said. “I have been here legally for 17 years and never had a problem. But they said, ‘well, you know, you might get audited.'” Read more ..
Autism on Edge
| Lauren Gravitz | May 4th 2017 |
Spectrum
Connor was diagnosed with autism early — when he was just 18 months old. His condition was already obvious by then. “He was lining things up, switching lights on and off, on and off,” says his mother, Melissa. He was bright, but he didn’t speak much until age 3, and he was easily frustrated. Once he started school, he couldn’t sit still in class, called out answers without raising his hand and got visibly upset when he couldn’t master a math concept or a handwriting task quickly enough. “One time, he rolled himself up into the carpet like a burrito and wouldn’t come out until I got there,” Melissa recalls. (All families in this story are identified by first name only, to protect their privacy.)
Connor was prescribed his first psychiatric drug, methylphenidate (Ritalin), at age 6. That didn’t last long, but when he was 7, his parents tried again. A psychiatrist suggested a low dose of amphetamine and dextroamphetamine (Adderall), a stimulant commonly used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The drug seemed to improve his time at school: He was able to sit still for longer periods of time and focus on what his teachers were saying. His chicken-scratch handwriting became legible. Then, it became neat. Then perfect. And then it became something Connor began to obsess over. Read more ..
The Digital Edge
EE Times
Big data, industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT). Terms most of us associate with professional services companies, not with farming and agricultural businesses.
However, automation technologies form a critical part of modern livestock and farm management systems. Many farmers though, especially those operating small and medium sized farms, might be overlooking a critical aspect of power quality in their automated livestock farming systems.
The smart agriculture market is currently growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.8 per cent and is expected to be worth $18.45 Billion by 2022, according to research firm MarketsandMarkets. The main factors driving growth include an increased adoption of technology in agriculture generally, a higher demand for food globally and assistance in monitoring livestock performance and health. Read more ..
The EU and Israel
| Adam Abrams | April 30th 2017 |
JNS
A diplomatic spat between Israel and Germany has provided a prominent platform for research that documents the European Union’s funding of the BDS movement and terrorism.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a meeting with German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel in Jerusalem April 25, due to the latter’s insistence on meeting with nonprofit organizations that campaign against the IDF and alleged Israeli human rights violations.
Netanyahu’s move came after he issued Gabriel an ultimatum to terminate his scheduled meetings with representatives from B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence.
“My policy is clear: not to meet with diplomats who visit Israel and engage with organizations that slander Israeli soldiers and seek to have them put on trial as war criminals,” Netanyahu said. Read more ..
Financing the Flames
| Yossi Kuperwasser | April 28th 2017 |
JCPA
The Palestinian Authority’s legislation and allocations of monthly salaries and benefits rewarding imprisoned and released terrorists, and the families of “Martyrs,” amount to $300 million annually. This financial reward clearly demonstrates the PA’s institutional commitment to sponsoring terror against Israel.
Foreword
by Sander Gerber
The PA maintains longstanding legislation and payments to subsidize terrorists and their families. This amounts to an officially sanctioned PA government incentive system to kill Israelis. When I learned of this in November 2015, I was quite shocked. I proceeded to raise the issue with organized American Jewish community leaders and Israeli policymakers, and was told “everybody knows.” Disconcerted by my own lack of knowledge, I canvassed numerous American political leaders who, without exception, were unaware of the PA legislation/budget. The few leaders who were aware that the PA directly pays terrorists thought that the funding was only $5-6 million; they were shocked to learn that according to the official PA budget online, it was $300 million for 2016. Read more ..
Ending the Caliphate
| Katrin Kuntz | April 27th 2017 |
Der Spiegel
On a morning in late March, 20 children are standing between bombed houses and burned-out cars in front of an elementary school on a street in eastern Mosul. When you ask them what they learned inside, they talk about killing. Their teacher was Islamic State (IS), which had a stronghold here. "Daesh, Daesh," the children shout, using the Arabic pejorative for IS, with strong, excited voices, as if the sound concealed an unbelievable secret.
The children are between the ages of 6 and 13. Their backpacks are too large for their bodies, they wear sandals and their T-shirts have holes. Some ate eggs that morning, others didn't. As the children wait for the gate to open, they call out and laugh. Their happiness is real, but if you look through it, you can see the war in their small, hardened faces.
IS conquered Mosul in June 2014. When it tried to create a state, it didn't stop at acquiring land, people, a doctrine and a flag. It also pushed into every crevice of social life -- it controlled the economy, administered justice and created lesson plans that fit its views. The goal of IS was to create a worldview, which also led it to take over Mosul's schools. Read more ..
The Trump Era
| Reva Goujon | April 26th 2017 |
Stratfor
As U.S. President Donald Trump approaches his 100-day benchmark on Saturday, a media deluge has already begun bemoaning the demise of the liberal order, celebrating waves of deregulation or simply blaming the president's rocky start on the "disaster" he inherited on taking office. Rather than wade into that predictable morass, we prefer to focus instead on what the next 100 days hold in store.
As U.S. President Donald Trump approaches his 100-day benchmark on Saturday, a media deluge has already begun bemoaning the demise of the liberal order, celebrating waves of deregulation or simply blaming the president's rocky start on the "disaster" he inherited on taking office. Rather than wade into that predictable morass, we prefer to focus instead on what the next 100 days hold in store. Read more ..
The Battle Against the Caliphate
| Shannon Collins | April 15th 2017 |
CB
The “Mother of All Bombs,” the GBU-43/B Massive Air Blast, is the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in America’s arsenal, and it was used for the first time in combat on April 13 in Afghanistan against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
If you’ve never heard of this bomb, you’re likely not alone. To help you get educated about it, here are some facts to know:
According to globalsecurity.org, it’s the largest-ever satellite-guided, air-delivered weapon in history, made to replace the unguided 15,000-pound BLU-82 Daisy Cutter that was used in Vietnam and early on in Afghanistan.
The MOAB was developed in only nine weeks in 2003 to be available for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it was created to put pressure on Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to stop fighting against the coalition. The smart bomb was never used during that war.
The MOAB was loaded into a C-130 Hercules, where it sat in a cradle on an airdrop platform until the whole platform was pulled off the plane at a high altitude by a drogue parachute, which is used to slow it down. Once in the air, the weapon was quickly released from the platform to keep up its forward momentum. The grid fins then opened to stabilize it and guide it to its target.
According to globalsecurity.org, on Sept. 11, 2007, the Russian military announced it had tested the “Father of all Bombs,” the world’s most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered munition. Read more ..
The Battle For Syria
Mideast Eye and agencies
The United States intercepted communications between Syrian military and chemical weapons experts discussing plans for a poison gas attack in Idlib province, CNN reported, citing an unidentified senior intelligence official. The White House said in a declassified intelligence assessment that it "is confident that the Syrian regime conducted a chemical weapons attack, using the nerve agent sarin".
The US report alleges that the chemical agent was delivered by a Syrian Su-22 fixed-wing aircraft that flew over the village of Khan Sheikhun at the time of the attack, which killed at least 87 civilians, including 31 children, on 4 April.
"Additionally, our information indicates personnel historically associated with Syria's chemical weapons programme were at Shayrat airfield in late March making preparations for an upcoming attack in northern Syria, and they were present at the airfield on the day of the attack," the US government report reads. Read more ..
Israel on Edge
| Edwin Black | April 10th 2017 |
Huffington Post
pproximately two million Children of Israel are now encamped in the Sinai following their extraordinary exodus from Egypt yesterday. Just days ago, they were slaves to Pharaoh. Today, they are free men and women, destined for self-determination in a land of their own. Only now are the details of their fantastic experience coming to light.
The dramatic sequence of events began some weeks ago with the unexpected return of exiled prince Moses, who previously fled Pharaoh’s wrath after slaying a taskmaster. In his daring appearance at the Palace, the inarticulate Moses, speaking through his brother Aaron, declared himself to be the personal emissary of a powerful new “God,” previously unknown to the Royal Court. Moreover, Moses asserted that his God was the protector of the Children of Israel, who have been in bondage for more than four centuries in Egypt.
The entire Royal Court was aghast as Moses demanded that the Children of Israel be permitted to travel three days into the desert for an unprecedented “feast and sacrifice” to their God. Making clear that he was not asking a Court indulgence, Moses looked straight at Pharaoh, stamped his roughhewn staff and issued the ultimatum that would be his rallying call during the coming days: “Let my people go.”
Laughter echoed throughout the hall as Pharaoh sneered, “Who is your ‘God?’ I know him not. Nor will I let Israel go!” Read more ..
The Trump Era
| Courtney Kube, Alex Johnson, Hallie Jackson | April 7th 2017 |
NBC
The United States fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syria overnight in response to what it believes was a chemical weapons attack that killed more than 100 people. At least six people were killed, Syria claimed, but the Pentagon said civilians were not targeted and the strike was aimed at a military airfield in the western province of Homs. The action completed a policy reversal for President Donald Trump — who once warned America to stay out of the conflict — and drew anger from Damascus and its main ally, Russia.
The missiles were launched from the USS Ross and the USS Porter in the Mediterranean Sea toward Shayrat Airfield. American officials believe it was used by the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad to carry out a strike on Tuesday involving chemical weapons that resulted in the deaths of more than 100 people. Read more ..
Media on Edge
| Mark Hemingway | April 6th 2017 |
Daily Standard
Bloomberg's Eli Lake dropped a bombshell on Monday: Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice was responsible for "unmasking" the identities of Trump officials in intelligence intercepts, and spreading this information around the government.
Now House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has emphasized that the fact identities were unmasked does not validate President Trump's claim Obama surveilled him and his campaign. Further, there is no evidence that Rice did anything illegal and, given the ongoing Trump-Russia investigation, reasons may yet emerge to justify the unmasking. Read more ..
UK on Edge
| George Friedman | April 5th 2017 |
Stratfor
Splitting from the European Union will inevitably strain the United Kingdom's territorial integrity. Those pushing for Scotland and Northern Ireland to secede from the United Kingdom are using Brexit to justify their agendas. Brexit will also open a debate between the central government in London and the country's devolved governments about who will control the powers that will be repatriated from Brussels. With authority over policy areas such as agriculture, fisheries, industry and the environment returning to the United Kingdom after Brexit, the administrations of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will push London to transfer many of those attributions to them.
The United Kingdom has a devolution system, according to which different policy powers from the United Kingdom's Parliament have been transferred to assemblies in Cardiff and Belfast, and to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. Read more ..
Leakgate
CoP
On Monday, the alternative news media went viral over reports that Susan “Benghazi” Rice, who had served as President Obama’s national security adviser, was the so-called anonymous “senior official” mentioned in previous reports of the unmasked names of the Trump transition team.
According to a growing number of sources, the woman who went on television news shows and openly lied repeatedly about the Battle of Benghazi in 2012, the had the identities of the GOP presidential candidate and his staff leaked to the news media, always on board with Democrats bashing President Trump.
Veteran Bloomberg News reporter Eli Lake, who is celebrated as a reliable and honest newsman, reported that it was Obama’s dishonestly partisan National Security Adviser Susan Rice who was the person who ordered the “un-masking” of the U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports. Lake also reported that she directed intelligence officials to unmask — identify — members of the Trump transition team. Read more ..
Defeating the Caliphate
| Michael R. Gordon | March 31st 2017 |
NYT
A United States military spokesman said Thursday that Islamic State fighters had been herding local Iraqi residents into buildings in western Mosul, calculating that rising civilian casualties would restrain the United States from using airstrikes to help retake that half of the city.
“What you see now is not the use of civilians as human shields,” said Col. Joseph E. Scrocca, a spokesman for the American-led task force that is battling the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. “ISIS is smuggling civilians into buildings so we won’t see them and trying to bait the coalition to attack.” Read more ..
Turkey on Edge
| Burak Bekdil | March 30th 2017 |
The Gatestone Institute
In 2005, the Turkish prime minister at the time, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, along with his Spanish counterpart, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, became the co-chairs of a United Nations-sponsored global effort that went by the fancy name "Alliance of Civilizations." Twelve years later, Zapatero is a retired politician, the Western world faces different flavors of Islamist-to-jihadist threats and Erdogan is at war with Western civilization.
Erdogan, who was labelled as the most virulent anti-Israeli leader in the world, once likened Israel's operations in Gaza to Hitler's: ("Those who condemn Hitler day and night have surpassed Hitler in barbarism.") Recently, Erdogan said that today's German practices -- presumably Germany's blocking Turkish politicians speaking at German rallies to support Erdogan's upcoming referendum in Turkey -- are "not different from the Nazi practices of the past." Read more ..
The Trump Era
| Martin Barillas | March 25th 2017 |
Spero
A federal judge in Virginia ruled Friday against blocking President Trump’s executive order that called for temporarily stopping the entry of immigrants from six majority-Muslim nations and refugee admittance overall.
Judge Anthony Trenga of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found on Friday that President Trump indeed has the authority to impose a travel ban on certain Muslim-majority countries, while he also agreed that the president’s executive order does not discriminate against Muslims. Linda Sarsour -- a Muslim activist who was an organizer of the January 21 Women’s March on Washington -- had initiated an injunction against the executive order with legal counsel from an attorney of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Read more ..
The Trump Era
| Peter Hoekstra | March 24th 2017 |
WSJ
I couldn’t have seen those transcripts when I led the House intel committee.
It was remarkable when Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, revealed Wednesday that Trump campaign officials were caught up in the inadvertent collection of intelligence. Read between the lines with a clear understanding of the intelligence community, and it’s positively astonishing.
Starting with the premise of Mr. Nunes’s announcement, there’s evidence to show that communications involving people connected with the Trump transition were collected by America’s intelligence apparatus. We don’t know the particulars, but it could include conversations between Trump transition staff and foreign officials whose conversations were subject to intelligence monitoring. Read more ..
The Economy on Edge
| George Friedman | March 20th 2017 |
Stratfor
It has been a busy couple of days for the world's central banks. Since the U.S. Federal Reserve made its decision to hike interest rates, rate announcements have followed from the People's Bank of China, the Bank of Japan, the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of England. This confluence of activity from most of the key guardians of the global economy provides a good opportunity to take stock of where things stand.
The Federal Reserve had telegraphed its intent to raise its benchmark rate well before Wednesday's announcement, so it came as no surprise. In the past few weeks, various Fed governors had conducted a coordinated speaking campaign to prepare the markets, and Friday's report showing strong U.S. jobs numbers removed its last impediment to action. With recent U.S. economic data generally robust, the Fed wants to give itself room to boost rates two or possibly even three more times during the year. Read more ..
Jewry on Edge
| Asaf Romirowsky | March 15th 2017 |
SPME
Unwittingly, Friends' Central School in Wynnewood, PA, a well-regarded Quaker establishment, has once again come under fire for its ties to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement supported by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).
The school operates in accordance with the Quaker philosophy of "simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality and stewardship. Underlying all facets of School life is the belief that 'there is that of God in everyone.' Meeting for Worship is central, providing time for connections among members of the community and between individuals and their spiritual sources. Peaceful resolution of conflicts, seeking truth and collaboration are key aspects of a Friends' Central education."
The Quakers have cultivated their image as peaceful and supremely benign. Few suspect, much less know, that one of their central missions is promoting the BDS movement that opposes Israel's existence. Read more ..
The Edge of Physics
| Elizabeth Gibney | March 14th 2017 |
Nature
Christopher Monroe spends his life poking at atoms with light. He arranges them into rings and chains and then massages them with lasers to explore their properties and make basic quantum computers. Last year, he decided to try something seemingly impossible: to create a time crystal.
The name sounds like a prop from Doctor Who, but it has roots in actual physics. Time crystals are hypothetical structures that pulse without requiring any energy—like a ticking clock that never needs winding. The pattern repeats in time in much the same way that the atoms of a crystal repeat in space. The idea was so challenging that when Nobel prizewinning physicist Frank Wilczek proposed the provocative concept in 2012, other researchers quickly proved there was no way to create time crystals.
But there was a loophole—and researchers in a separate branch of physics found a way to exploit the gap. Monroe, a physicist at the University of Maryland in College Park, and his team used chains of atoms they had constructed for other purposes to make a version of a time crystal. “I would say it sort of fell in our laps,” says Monroe. Read more ..
Iran's Nukes
| Yochanan Visser | March 9th 2017 |
Western Journalism
Iran is using its strategic relationship with North Korea to advance its nuclear weapon program, two Israeli experts of the Begin Sadat Center revealed in a study published Tuesday. Lt. Col. (ret.) Dr. Refael Ofek and Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Dany Shoham say that Iran is circumventing the restrictions on its nuclear program under the nuclear agreement with the P5+1 countries by collaborating with North Korea on missile development and modifying missiles for nuclear weapons. They also work together on programs meant to upgrade gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment, the Israeli experts claim.
“This kind of strategic, military-technological collaboration is more than merely plausible. It is entirely possible, indeed likely, that such a collaboration is already underway,” the two Israeli experts wrote. The pair also noted the two countries have developed almost identical ballistic missiles which can carry nuclear warheads. Read more ..
The Edge of Film
| Penelope Poulou | February 10th 2017 |
VOA
 | | Meryl Streep |
The 89th Academy Awards are upon us, and critics and Hollywood insiders are placing bets on which nominees will go home with the coveted statuette. The idea of the Academy is to judge films on their artistic merit, but as always, political considerations and even current events can have an impact on who wins an Oscar.
Damien Chazelle’s nostalgic musical La La Land may be the big winner this year. The film offers a tribute to Hollywood musicals, has great cinematography, good music and a tear-jerking story; but, some critics question if the film really deserves all of its 14 nominations. That number has been equaled by only two other movies throughout Hollywood history: the 1950s drama All About Eve starring Bette Davis, and James Cameron’s 1997 Titanic.
Ads, money influence Oscars
Giovanna Chesler, director of the Film and Video Studies program at George Mason University in Virginia, says that as in any other campaign, robust advertising and a large amount of money can have as much influence as artistic merit in securing a film’s road to the Oscars.
She says that in some categories, such as the Documentary category, filmmakers have to submit a $50,000 fee just to be considered for a nomination. She says such fees guarantee screenings of the prospective nominees’ films in core markets during the Oscar season.
A filmmaker herself, Chesler says she has renewed faith in the Oscars because, as she puts it, “in this year’s nominees you see more talent reflected, not just the marketing ability of the industry.”
Oscars less white
There are more nominations for minority films and actors. She points to art films like Moonlight, a coming-of-age drama about an African-American boy growing up in a drug-infested community, and Denzel Washington’s movie adaptation of the play Fences, about a struggling husband and father who, despite his personal flaws, is working hard to make his mark in the world. Read more ..
The Trump Era
| Karin Laub and Mohammed Daraghmeh, | February 9th 2017 |
AP
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who spent hundreds of hours on the phone and in meetings with U.S. presidents and secretaries of state in the past 12 years, has tried unsuccessfully to reach out to President Donald Trump. Abbas and his aides are alarmed by the possibility of being sidelined at a time when the administration is embracing Israel's prime minister who heads to the White House next week. Here's a look at what's at stake for Abbas and Palestinian hopes for statehood.
ARE THE PALESTINIANS REALLY BEING IGNORED?
In December, the Trump transition team refused to meet with Palestinian officials visiting Washington, putting them off until after the Jan. 20 inauguration, according to senior Abbas aide Saeb Erekat, the main point man for official contacts with the United States. Other advisers say Abbas tried to arrange a phone call with Trump after the November election and again after the inauguration, but received no response to his requests. The White House did not respond to a January letter in which Abbas expressed concerns about possibly moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to contested Jerusalem. Read more ..
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