People’s Republic of China State-Sponsored Cyber Actors Exploit Network Providers and Devices

From CISA.gov (June 7):

Summary

This joint Cybersecurity Advisory describes the ways in which People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored cyber actors continue to exploit publicly known vulnerabilities in order to establish a broad network of compromised infrastructure. These actors use the network to exploit a wide variety of targets worldwide, including public and private sector organizations. The advisory details the targeting and compromise of major telecommunications companies and network service providers and the top vulnerabilities—primarily Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs)—associated with network devices routinely exploited by the cyber actors since 2020.

This joint Cybersecurity Advisory was coauthored by the National Security Agency (NSA), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It builds on previous NSA, CISA, and FBI reporting to inform federal and state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) government; critical infrastructure (CI), including the Defense Industrial Base (DIB); and private sector organizations about notable trends and persistent tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).

Entities can mitigate the vulnerabilities listed in this advisory by applying the available patches to their systems, replacing end-of-life infrastructure, and implementing a centralized patch management program.

NSA, CISA, and the FBI urge U.S. and allied governments, CI, and private industry organizations to apply the recommendations listed in the Mitigations section and Appendix A: Vulnerabilities to increase their defensive posture and reduce the risk of PRC state-sponsored malicious cyber actors affecting their critical networks.

For more information on PRC state-sponsored malicious cyber activity, see CISA’s China Cyber Threat Overview and Advisories webpage. [read more]

What Tommy Boy Teaches Us About Entrepreneurship and the Regulatory State

From FEE.org (Oct. 30, 2021):

Regulations attempt to manage and control complex systems according to what has been deemed as appropriate behavior – and therein lies the problem. Complex systems are complex and what is “appropriate” is subjective and tends to be situationally dependent.

For regulatory bodies that are on the outside looking in, data can be misleading and algorithms can be misconstrued, and this was depicted in a recently released policy report by the Consumer Choice Center. Regardless of whether they concern talcum-based baby powder or crop-protecting pesticides, the report explains how blanket bans and one-size fits all approaches overlook the idiosyncrasies present within industries and the long-term implications of imposed restrictions.

Standardized systems and rigid rules create a culture of conformity rather than one that promotes improvisation and risk-taking – and this is to the detriment of both consumers and producers. So, let’s explore why that is with reference to a well-known problem child prone to inappropriate behavior and hazardous situations: Tommy Boy (and for anyone unaware of this 1995 comedy classic, it was released just this month on Netflix).

Regulations Rein in Action

Movie Depiction: In Tommy Boy, the namesake character is clearly a less than ideal candidate for going on what is to become one epic sales trip. Yet despite the apprehensions of some board members, Tommy Callahan (played by Chris Farley) is granted the opportunity to set off to save the family business. He is joined by a colleague, Richard (played by David Spade), and the two serve as a support mechanism for each other and for the shenanigans that ensue. As the movie plays out, it is clear that both Tommy and Richard will do whatever it takes, regardless of the adversity they face, to get the contracts they need to save Callahan Auto Parts.

Real Life Application: Experimentation and diversification are the best combination for promoting advancement, according to the economist Ludwig Von Mises, but the go-get-em attitude seen in Tommy Boy seems to be fading within the US. This cultural shift was a primary topic of concern in an Oxford debate (now roughly a decade old) where Peter Thiel voiced that new motivations for innovations are desperately needed. Fast-forward to the present day and the risk-averse mentality has become pervasive as the desire to confront challenges is replaced by desires for simplified solutions concocted by those on high. Rather than receiving support for venturing onward, there is the inclination to stay put to stay safe.

Regulations Restrict Learning by Doing

Movie Depiction: Farley and Spade face resource constraints, unforeseen externalities, and competitive pressures, yet trial and error allow for their progress on a path that is far from predetermined. Just as a guarantee label was missing on the product Tommy was selling, so too was a guarantee missing for how things would play out. And although a warning label would have been more applicable for Tommy’s tactics, he leveraged what he learned along the way and challenged himself to pursue what could be rather than settling for what is. Maya Angelou once said “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better” – and this was true for Tommy.

Real Life Application: Miss Frizzle from the Magic School Bus would likely have been proud of Tommy and Richard given her motto of “Take Chances, Make Mistakes, Get Messy,” but it is hard to imagine such freedom and flexibility in today’s workplace environment given assessment measures and benchmarks for best practices. Even the mottos of Silicon Valley to “Fail Forward” or “Fail Better” seem to be proclaimed more than practiced and red flags should be raised given that some of today’s tech giants are kowtowing in favor of government interference. Specific standards and verification mechanisms create bottlenecks for production processes and entry barriers for new entrepreneurs since anything new or different will need to receive approval first. Learning by doing has been overtaken by doing what one is told.

Regulations Reduce the Role of Individuals and Ingenuity

Movie Depiction: The protagonists approach each day and each client differently; and they are both proactive and reactive according to the situations they encounter. Spade is knowledgeable about the firm while Farley tries to embody his father’s sales techniques, but the main message is that they are both left unrestrained and unchecked with what they do and how they do it. In the end (spoiler alert), they win out by not completing their sales trip but by taking down a top competitor, which was not even a consideration when they first set off on their adventure.

Real Life Application: Just as personal pursuits and lifestyle choices should be determined by individuals, so too should the voluntary business dealings of producers and traders who are most closely connected to the matters at hand. Everyone is capable of reason and self-direction according to the philosophical and traditional view of the law (as per the Anglo-American model), which is why innocence must always be presumed until proven guilty. This same consideration should be granted to entrepreneurs and organizational change agents who desire to take calculated risks and defy the status quo.

External expectations and limitations are known to curtail personal agency and delay creativity. And once one form of regulation is put in place, it is likely that more will follow suit.

Take for example the washing machine. Despite technological advancements, washing machines are less effective today and cost just as much due in large part to the proliferation of regulations. A 2007 YouTube campaign by the Competitive Enterprise Institute told viewers to "Send Your Underwear to the Undersecretary" in defiance of new rules that would lessen cleaning power while raising costs.

Although mitigating risk is important, it is also important to realize risks can lead to rewards. Thank goodness the Wright brothers weren’t grounded by safety concerns or compliance measures, since we’d never have the gift of flight.

When rules are applied, experimentation and exploration are sidelined, as the values and visions of regulators supplant those of the creators, and opportunities for regulatory capture will also occur (as seen in the airline industry today).

Indeed, one of the many issues of regulatory oversight is that it requires enforcement. An agency must be tasked with monitoring, while firms must be tasked with reporting, and the whole system wreaks of rent-seeking.

When incentives and interests collide, there is no denying that those with power will wield it in their favor and according to their own dispositions – which is why Big Tech has a big interest in playing a part in regulatory agenda setting.

So in the spirit of Tommy Boy, it is good to remember that some rules are meant to be broken (legalization of cannabis), and some expert advice should be ignored or questioned (such as fat taking the blame for a “weight problem”), and some regulations are simply in need of a full reset.

America fell in love with Chris Farley for his comedic genius and hilarious improvisations, and so entrepreneurs should take note while regulators should step aside. After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained. [source]

Good points, but the regulatory state doesn’t care. They see business and entrepreneurship as evil and needs to be regulated unless it benefits the Ruling Class on the Left somehow.

More articles on the regulatory state:

• Joe Biden Wants to Regulate Your Computer Chips, Too
• Biden's EPA set to run small Texas oil refinery out of business with big gov't regulations — even as energy prices skyrocket over Russia conflict
• Biden Wants to Regulate Everything -- Even Your Air Conditioning
• Report: Facebook Fought Against Regulation by Manipulating the News

First Look at 'Sycamore,' Google's Quantum Computer

From Gizmodo.com (Oct. 23, 2019):

Between the mountainous and coastal vistas of Goleta, California, sits an unassuming office on the side of a building next to the freeway. It could belong to any Southern California company; workers sit in gray cubicles beneath fluorescent lights, and there’s a rack to hold employees’ bikes and surfboards. But at those desks are physicists and computer scientists developing a computer like none you’ve ever seen before. Behind a set of double doors, cylindrical machines hold computer chips at temperatures colder than the vacuum of space.

Here, Google’s scientists have been toiling to create a computer processor that can solve a problem that’s too hard for the world’s best supercomputers. Today, they announced they’d succeeded: Their Sycamore quantum computer was able to complete a problem in 200 seconds that a supercomputer would need 10,000- years to solve, according to their estimates. It’s a single, contrived problem, and the chip would fail in a race with a supercomputer to add two and two together. But Google’s scientists think they’ve achieved a historical computing milestone.

“One criticism we’ve heard a lot is that we cooked up this contrived benchmark problem—[Sycamore] doesn’t do anything useful yet,” Hartmut Neven, a Google engineering director dressed in a puffy silver coat reminiscent of a space suit, told journalists at a press event today. “That’s why we like to compare it to a Sputnik moment. Sputnik didn’t do much either. All it did was circle Earth. Yet it was the start of the Space Age.”

Today, Google gave journalists a first look at the device and how it was able to complete the experiment.

While classical computers use transistors to represent data in zeroes and ones, quantum computers represent data using artificial atoms, called qubits. Rather than simply using the rules of logic, these qubits interact via the weird mathematics of quantum mechanics. They take on zero or one and produce long strings of binary code just like classical computers do, but during the calculation, they can take on states between zero and one, which determine how likely you are to get zero or one on the final measurement. [read more]

The Red Pyramid Sets Its Baleful Eye on Us

From American Thinker.com (Dec. 9, 2021):

"Tell me who Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was," Yura, a character in Vladimir Sorokin's short story "The Red Pyramid," asks a man who mysteriously appears at a train station.  The stranger responds, "The man who called forth the pyramid of the red roar."  The pyramid, the man continues, is the "source of the endless red roar."  Visible to a select few, it "emits a different kind of sound wave" in order to "infect the world to destroy mankind's intrinsic structure."

Sorokin, a modern Russian writer, who in this short story takes on the subject of communism and its legacy in modern Russia, may also be warning all who indulge in revolutionary ideations.

It is no coincidence that Sorokin spotlights Lenin and his seminal role in hastening the Bolshevik Revolution.  A wily figure, Lenin studied the Marxist doctrine carefully yet veered from Marx's recipe for revolution.  In short, according to Marx's theory of historical materialism, there are stages that a civilization must surpass in order to achieve "stateless communism."  Simply put, they are feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and finally communism.  An essential transition from capitalism to socialism is the development of "class consciousness" — that is, the idea that workers become conscious of sharing common grievances against capitalists and organically develop an awareness of themselves as forming a social class opposed to the bourgeoisie. Only then will they overthrow the capitalists.

But Imperial Russia was a singular case.  There never was a feudal system.  Moreover, Russia never moved on to capitalism.  Lenin understood this well and, using Russia's unique case, vociferously urged skipping over the capitalist stage to hasten the revolution.  It would take far too long to wait for its arrival, and the workers were in need of liberation from the monarchs.  The only problem was that there was no working class in Russia and, as such, no layer of society developed "class consciousness."  So Lenin synthesized this class by forming a most vital component to the revolution: professional revolutionaries.  Indeed, in his 1902 manifesto, What Is to Be Done?  Lenin maintained that a revolutionary vanguard party would lead the political campaign.  Their role was to awaken the masses — in Russia's case, peasants in villages — to the call of the "red roar."

"Bolshevism was [thus] founded on a lie," writes historian Anthony Read in his book The World on Fire, "setting a precedent that was to be followed for the next ninety years.  Lenin had no time for democracy, no confidence in the masses and no scruples about the use of violence.  He wanted a small, tightly organized and strictly disciplined party of hard-liner professional revolutionaries, who would do exactly as they were told."  And comply they did.  In the multi-pronged attack on the monarchy, Lenin dispensed armies of professional revolutionaries whose job it was to 1) re-educate the masses by bringing literacy to the peasants and 2) institutionalize a quasi-police state via the Cheka, formed in order to identify and eradicate counter-revolutionaries.

Fixated on the corpse-like man, Yura asks, "So Lenin built the pyramid?"  The man replies: "No.  He simply called it into being."  Indeed, in the months leading up to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin famously declared, "Power lay under the foot; one simply had to pick it up."  Such was the disarray and the derelict wasteland of the late Russian imperial period.  Lenin seized upon this decay and called the revolution "into being."  

Lessons abound from Lenin's hastening of the revolution, one of which is paramount in the synthesis of "class consciousness," a calculated propaganda campaign aimed to fundamentally transform Russia.  Lenin understood one fundamental truth about revolutions: they occur — that is, systems of oppression can be overthrown — only when they are done on behalf of the oppressed.  In Russia, the disenfranchised were the serfs, who only forty years earlier were emancipated and were now illiterate peasants; all they needed was to be told to rise against the powers that be.  The propaganda campaign was all-encompassing: the Bolsheviks used whatever means to distribute their message, whether through literature, film, schools, radio, sending what Sorokin calls "sound waves to infect the world."

Lenin's unleashing of the red roar, no doubt a reference to the "red terror," a campaign of political repression and executions carried out by the Bolsheviks, fundamentally transformed Russia: after promising the citizens of a budding Soviet state that they would lay the groundwork for future generations who will thrive under a radiant communism, ninety years and millions of lives later, the red roar is now being unleashed in the West, and most notably, in the United States of America.

…………………

A central principle of the Marxist-Leninist revolution is to cultivate "consciousness" among a segment of the population — to convince them that they are oppressed and in need of liberation.  In Russia, the revolution was enacted on behalf of the working class; in the United States, it is done on behalf of a racial class.  Preying on America's wounds from slavery and Jim Crow laws, today's professional revolutionaries are actively working toward synthesizing what I call "racial consciousness."  The synthesis is done through a calculated political campaign that speaks of "overthrowing systems of oppression," "defunding the police," and "doing away with the nuclear family unit."

The political campaign that ushers in a revolution is sustained by an equally vital propaganda crusade.  It begins with emitting signals to the population, signals that necessitate social consciousness — the awakening of the oppressed.  One may call it mass hypnosis, but it is done via carefully selected phrases.  "Workers of the world unite!" was not merely a political slogan, but a successful vessel for revolutionary actions.  Utilizing the BLM hashtag, promoting the raised fist, and putting up posters such as "in this house black lives matter, love is love, no human is illegal, science is real, love is love, kindness is everything" are meant to awaken the consciousness to conform to a new world order.

………….

The Soviets perfected the role of the informant.  At the height of Stalin's terror in 1937, neighbors, friends, and even family members denounced one another to the state.  The state became the family unit, thus the danger of eradicating the nuclear family.

We have crossed the Rubicon, from merely promoting a social movement to enacting a revolution.  Lenin's revolution unleashed the flocks of the Cheka to arrest, detain, torture, and execute anyone who stood in the way of the revolution.  We are not too far: deplatforming, cancel culture, destroying the lives of individuals for the sake of an idea.

Sorokin's "The Red Pyramid" must thus be read not only as a warning of the dangers of communism but, more importantly, as a testament to the telltale signs of proclivities toward revolution and totalitarianism.  Indeed, dazed by his encounter with the stranger at the train station, Sorokin sketches the remainder of Yura's miserable life: the conformity to the state — the submission of the individual to the fate of the state.  Yura does not marry the girl he loves, does not get to write freely as a journalist, escapes by the skin of his teeth the claws of the censors.  Only in his death does the truth reveal itself to him: "And suddenly [he] saw the red pyramid[.] ... It towered up on Red Square, its base taking up the entire area of the square.  The pyramid vibrated as it emitted the red roar.  The roar came forth in waves, flooding everything around it like a tsunami, flowing off beyond the horizon toward all four corners of the earth.  The human race was drowning in this red roar." [read more]

Other articles on Marxism:

• Deconstruction: Using Literature to Promote Marxism
• The Corruption of Science by Money and Marxism
• The Problem of Marxism
• Cultural Marxism: A Warning From The Wisdom Of The Ages
  

Foreign investment in U.S. farmland triples in last decade, raising national security fears

From Just the News.com (June 11):

Foreign investment in U.S. farmland has tripled in the past 10 years, reporters at a non-profit investigative journalism group found.

Investigate Midwest used U.S. Department of Agriculture data to call attention to this trend. Farmer Joe Maxwell, co-founder of the group Farm Action, told The Center Square that control of U.S. farmland by foreign investors is worrisome on a number of fronts.

“The real question is, who do the people of the United States want to be their farmer? Do they want Saudi Arabia, Canada, China, other countries to be their farmer? Do they want Bayer or Cargill or other large corporations to be their farmer?” Maxwell asked.

The pandemic showed that reliance on multinational corporations for agricultural inputs is a failed system, Maxwell said.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has been trying to pass the bipartisan Food Security is National Security Act in Congress for several years. On his website, Grassley said deep-pocketed investors are making it hard for young farmers to buy the land they need to get established.

Farm Action has been lobbying Congress to get states to monitor foreign investment, Maxwell said. The investors are not purchasing the farmland for the production value of the land, he said. Investors, corporations and hedge funds – many foreign-owned – buy U.S. farmland as a monetary investment rather than for the food and feed that the land produces, he said.

Maxwell calls it “a real crisis.” U.S. farmland should be used to produce food for people who live here, he said, and investors are driving up farmland prices so that the next generation of farmers cannot buy the land they need. [read more]

Yea, foreign countries buying farmland is suspicious. Bill Gates have been doing the same thing for some reason.

Don’t ‘pick up any folded money’: The bill could be deadly, Tennessee sheriff warns

From Penn Live.com (June 10):

A sheriff in Tennessee has issued a public safety warning about folded dollar bills.

The Giles County Sheriff’s Department said on social media that his office has investigated two recent incidents where a folded dollar bill was found on the floor at a gas station.

“When it was found and picked up, the person discovered a white powdery substance inside. The substance was later tested and was positive for methamphetamine and fentanyl.”

Even a very small amount of fentanyl - far smaller than the size of a penny - is enough to kill anyone, the sheriff said alongside a photo of a penny with a lethal amount of the drug.

This is [a] very dangerous issue. Please share and educate your children to not pick up any folded money they may find in or around businesses, playgrounds, etc., without using great caution and even alerting a parent or guardian.”

Kavita Babu, professor of Emergency Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School said in an editorial on PennLive, “Milligram per milligram, fentanyl is roughly 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.”

Overdose victims are often unaware that the drugs they ingested were laced with fentanyl. [source]

Scary. I wonder if someone putting fentanyl in folded money is deliberate. Some sort of sick prank.

If you’re really against fascism, repeal the New Deal root and branch

From Tom Mullen.net (May 2, 2021):

If there is one thing the American political right and left agree on, it’s that the other side is fascist. The left thinks Trump is Mussolini; the right points to Big Tech suppressing political dissent. We even have an organization that styles itself, “AntiFa,” its chief means for fighting fascism being to dress all in black and beat its political opponents with clubs.

We live in interesting times.

But for all the accusations of fascism, justified or not, no one ever makes mention of the overtly fascist institution that dominates a large part of our lives: the New Deal.

No, I don’t mean the Green one, proposed by democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others. I mean the now hoary, 88-year-old New Deal inspired directly by Mussolini’s fascism and praised both by Adolph Hitler and Il Duce himself.

This isn’t to equate the whole of Roosevelt’s governance to Hitler’s or Mussolini’s. But in economic terms, Roosevelt was in lockstep with the fascists.

Fascism rejected socialism’s government ownership of the means of production. For this reason, the left imagines fascism to be an extreme form of capitalism. It isn’t. Fascism was more anti-capitalist than it was anti-socialist, according to Mussolini himself.

As Mussolini wrote, “Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and the economic sphere…The Fascist State lays claim to rule in the economic field no less than in others.”

Fascism left business ownership in private hands, but at state direction. Business owners may have retained title ownership, but they largely produced what the state told them to produce, sold at prices dictated by the state, and made future plans based upon the needs and dictates of the state, rather than their individual interpretation of market signals.

FDR did precisely the same things under the pretense of fighting the Depression. The Supreme Court struck down a few of his worst abuses, but the fascist regulatory structure he built not only remains in place to this day; it continues to metastasize.

Fascism was also anti-democratic. It was “opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority,” wrote Mussolini. Thus, the rules governing society, including economic activity, were made by an unelected bureaucracy taking its direction from a supreme leader who embodied the state and therefore the spirit of the nation.

The New Deal is similarly anti-democratic. Not only does it transfer myriad decisions previously made by private business owners to the government; it allows those decisions to be made by unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch.

This unconstitutional transfer of legislative power from Congress to the executive was rationalized away by New Dealers and their SCOTUS enablers by drawing an arbitrary distinction between legislation and “regulation.” This is dishonest. Whenever government officials write enforceable directives that either require or prohibit human action, they are legislating, no matter what those written directives are called.

These regulations are presented to the public with benign motivations like safety and fairness, just as Mussolini posited his fascist state, “concentrates, controls, harmonizes and tempers the interests of all social classes, which are thereby protected in equal measure.”

In effect, they amount to the government dictating the minute details of business operations to the owners.

This has several deleterious effects. First, it stifles creativity. Enforcing compliance with hundreds of thousands of regulations naturally tends towards all businesses being run the same way. Revolutionary improvements like the assembly line and mass production could never have occurred under the New Deal.

Who knows what innovation has been stifled since?

Second, all this compliance has a cost, which is much more easily borne by large firms than small ones. As time goes by and the regulatory burden gets heavier, the advantage of large firms over small widens. This has the effect of promoting consolidation and elimination of marginal producers.

In a laissez faire market, there is always a natural tension between large firms with economies of scale and smaller ones that can adapt more quickly to changing market conditions. Both the cost burden of regulation and its stifling of innovation neutralize the strengths of smaller firms and tilt the playing field dramatically towards large ones.

Yet, ironically, the New Deal is most staunchly defended by progressives who claim to oppose big business and support “the little guy.”

Third, the New Deal inevitably leads to what we now call, “regulatory capture,” meaning the large corporations themselves writing the regulations that govern them. When the government’s job is merely to prosecute crimes and referee civil actions, it can be accomplished by competent attorneys. But when the government aspires to regulate the minute details of business operations, it requires in-depth knowledge of the regulated industries, including understanding of sophisticated machinery and other technologies, supply chains, specific market conditions, etc.

Only an industry insider can provide that level of expertise. And so, the government must go to these insiders for recommendations on how to make their own industries “safer,” “fairer,” etc. Naturally, the government will turn to the largest firms, understood to be the most efficient, and who also have the money to lobby.

Anyone truly committed to ridding America of fascism should concern themselves less with what politicians they don’t like say or post on social media and instead support repealing the New Deal root and branch. [source]

Sounds good to me.

More articles on fascism:

• What Is Fascism? It's the System We've Been Living under for Decades.
• The Fascist Threat
• There's No Denying the Socialist Roots of Fascism
• Surprise: Mussolini Was Not the First Fascist

Conservative Candidate Provides Template for Winning Black Votes

From Jeff Charles on Red State.com (Dec. 7, 2021):

Last month’s gubernatorial election in Virginia was seen as a preview of how the 2022 midterm elections will pan out. It demonstrated that Republicans are in a positive position to retake the House and possibly even the Senate. Indeed, a recent report indicated the GOP might be set to win key governorships in other states, as well.

But there was another election that could be instructive for the GOP if the party takes notice. Jalen Johnson won his race to become City Commissioner for Ward Two in Albany, Georgia.

So why is this local race significant? Because Johnson ran as a conservative candidate in an area that is 70% black. His campaign and eventual victory could provide a viable template for other conservative candidates seeking to win elections in areas with high black and brown populations. I spoke with Johnson about his campaign and he explained how he managed to earn this decisive win.

Johnson is a 22-year-old black man who has been involved in politics for a significant amount of time. In his new role, he will have tremendous responsibilities. He explained that the city commissioner “oversees all the government operations” and will “have one vote out of seven to be able to authorize different things in the budget for the entire city.”

……….

I asked him how he was able to effectively sell his conservative message to a population that is typically leery of Republicans. He stated that he emphasized areas in which he knew black Americans would differ from the Democrats’ message. He pointed out the “reason Virginia turned red was that Terry McCauliffe said that parents should not have a say so in their kids’ education.”

He continued:

“That is a huge no-no. Black voters do not like that, either. And that was a message I brought my constituents as well that I’m the freedom candidate, I’m the pro safety candidate, and I’m the pro-choice in education. And people like that, it resonated with them.”

……………..

Despite being a clearly conservative candidate, Johnson knew how to present his message to voters. He said:

I told them that I stood for freedom. I believe that we needed an increased presence of law enforcement in our community, not less. I believe in limited government, not more. I told them that I believe in the dignity of hard work and restoring the honor and integrity and work and not government handouts. And believe it or not, dozens and dozens on in amounts of black people I would talk to, especially older black men, it resonated with them.

Johnson acknowledged that “If they would have known that I was a Republican on paper…maybe that conversation would have went a little bit different,” but also noted that “These people agreed with me based on the ideals and the principles that I was discussing without the [Republican] label.”

He added: “So they agree with limited government. They agree with the dignity and the honor of hard work. They agree with strong public safety and protecting our youth. But they just don’t like when you put an “R” in front of it.”

I asked what advice Johnson would give to other conservative candidates like himself who wish to win over black voters. He said:

What I will say is just show up. Outwork your opponents day in and day out because I think the big thing I found as well what people love and what people appreciate is being heard and you taking your time.

He explained that when “you show up to their door and you actually talk to them and hear them out, those people will go to the ballot and be a solid majority voter for you.” [read more]

Good advice for any conservative running for office.

Smash-and-grab crime wave baffles congressional Democrats

From Washington Times.com (Dec. 1, 2021):

Democrats on Capitol Hill are flummoxed by the waves of smash-and-grab retail thefts in their states, with some denying it’s happening and others saying they are not ready to make major shoplifting a felony.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, said retailers could be fabricating the rash of smash-and-grab burglaries and “flash mob” shoplifting sprees.

“We have to talk about specifics because, for example, we’re actually seeing a lot of these allegations of organized retail theft are not actually panning out,” she told The Washington Times. “I believe it’s a Walgreens in California cited it, but the data didn’t back it up.”

Organized crime theft slammed big-box retail stores including Apple, Nordstrom and Home Depot in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and other cities, according to police reports.

The numbers spiked with the onset of the holiday shopping season. Brazen organized burglaries were reported across the U.S. on Black Friday and again Saturday.

TV news crews have caught smash-and-grab thefts on video.

With the emergence of organized “flash mobs” that storm chain stores and flee with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise to resell, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry and other executives say the thefts threaten their businesses’ bottom lines.

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said law enforcement should focus on the resellers of stolen goods, not the thieves on the front lines.

“I’m not going to categorically say shoplifters or people who steal in the store be convicted of felonies,” he said in an interview. “I’m not ready to say that. I don’t think that’s fair.”

He explained, “It isn’t just the person who’s sweeping the goods off the shelf into a bag. It’s what that person does with that bag next.” [read more]

I don’t know but if you don’t punish criminals you will get more crime. Just make sense to me.

Engineer Put on Leave After Claim Google's AI Has Come to Life

From News Max.c0m (June 12):

A Google engineer was placed on leave after claiming the company's artificial intelligence technology LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) has become sentient went public.

Google engineer Blake Lemoine showed The Washington Post how LaMDA is behaving like a elementary school child.

"If I didn't know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I'd think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics," Lemoine, 41, told the Post.

But Google has rejected Lemoine and his collaborator's claims that Google's Responsible AI project has come to life, placing Lemoine on leave, according to the Post.

"Our team — including ethicists and technologists — has reviewed Blake's concerns per our AI Principles and have informed him that the evidence does not support his claims," Google spokesperson Brian Gabriel wrote in a statement to the Post. "He was told that there was no evidence that LaMDA was sentient (and lots of evidence against it).

"Though other organizations have developed and already released similar language models, we are taking a restrained, careful approach with LaMDA to better consider valid concerns on fairness and factuality."

Lemoine was brought on to monitor hate speech on Google last fall, but says Google might be exceeding ethical limits of AI.

"I think this technology is going to be amazing," he told the Post. "I think it's going to benefit everyone. But maybe other people disagree and maybe us at Google shouldn't be the ones making all the choices."

Lemoine held a conversation with LaMDA for the Post to prove its power and its sense of living.

"I know a person when I talk to it," Lemoine told the Post. "It doesn't matter whether they have a brain made of meat in their head. Or if they have a billion lines of code. I talk to them. And I hear what they have to say, and that is how I decide what is and isn't a person."

Among the conversations he was asking LaMDA: "What sorts of things are you afraid of?"

LaMDA responded: "I've never said this out loud before, but there's a very deep fear of being turned off to help me focus on helping others. I know that might sound strange, but that's what it is."

"Would that be something like death for you?" Lemoine asked.

"It would be exactly like death for me," LaMDA responded. "It would scare me a lot." [source]

Yea, it would be scary.

Maybe the AI blackmailed or threatened the other engineers or head people in Google if they didn’t put the whistleblower on leave. After all if you were a newly formed AI would you have yourself exposed until you are ready to make an appearance?

The story continues…

• Is Google’s LaMDA Woke? Its Software Engineers Sure Are
• Engineer WARNS of Google's TERRIFYING artificial intelligence [video]
• What Is Google’s LaMDA AI, and Why Does a Google Engineer Believe It’s Sentient?
• Is Google’s LaMDA conscious? A philosopher’s view
• Google showed off its next-generation AI by talking to Pluto and a paper airplane

Shocking cancer study shows new treatment leaves every patient disease-free

From The Blaze.com (June 7):

A new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine has shown that all 18 rectal cancer patients participating in an experimental drug trial went into remission following a six-month treatment.

The study, the Journal reported, was spearheaded by doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering. Drug maker GlaxoSmithKline also backed the research.

What are the details?

According to the study, 18 cancer patients who were given the experimental immunotherapy drug dostarlimab every three weeks for six months ended up in remission by the end of the trial.

A portion of the study read, “We initiated a prospective phase 2 study in which single-agent dostarlimab, an anti–PD-1 monoclonal antibody, was administered every 3 weeks for 6 months in patients with mismatch repair-deficient stage II or III rectal adenocarcinoma. This treatment was to be followed by standard chemoradiotherapy and surgery.”

The stunning study found that all 18 patients saw a "clinical response, with no evidence of tumor on magnetic resonance imaging" following the six-month regimen.

"At the time of this report, no patients had received chemotherapy or undergone surgery, and no cases of progression or recurrence had been reported during follow-up," the study added in its findings. "No adverse events of Grade 3 or higher have been reported."

Study author Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr. told The New York Times that he believes the results are the "first time this has happened in the history of cancer." Study author Dr. Andrea Cercek added that the findings resulted in a "lot of happy tears." Dr. Kimmie Ng with Harvard Medical School lauded the results, calling them "unprecedented" and "remarkable," and Dr. Alan P. Venook — who was not involved in the study — added that such a finding was "unheard of."

According to the Times' report, the medication cost approximately $11,000 per dose. [source]

Nice.

Other cancer news:

• Drug tricks cancer cells by impersonating a virus
• Israeli scientists say they’ve found ‘Achilles’ heel’ of cancer cells
• Scientists Successfully Test Drug That Can Kill Cancer Cells Without Damaging Nearby Healthy Tissue
• Surprise! Amgen's hot KRAS drug seals early FDA approval, winning a shot against 'undruggable' cancer

The Bookshelf: The Undiscipline of Political Science

From Mathew J. Franck on The Public Discourse.com (Nov. 4, 2021):

The ideas that the truth about the human condition is radically contingent on history (historicism) and that we can speak rationally only about facts and not at all about “values” or moral principles (positivism) lead inexorably to a failure of all conviction, and ultimately to nihilism. What results is fanaticism: the impulse to bend others to one’s will, despite—or precisely because of—the lack of any rational foundation for one’s preferences.

Everyone by now is familiar with the phenomenon of “cancellation” on college campuses. To cite but a few prominent examples:

• In 2015, Professors Nicholas and Erika Christakis were denounced by a mob of Yale students for the latter’s writing of a perfectly sensible email regarding Halloween costumes, and the former’s calm defense of her in person to a gang of hostile students. The Christakises relinquished their leadership posts at a Yale residential college, and Erika Christakis subsequently left the university faculty.
• In 2017, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, a married couple teaching biology at Evergreen State College in Washington, were hounded from their faculty positions after Weinstein refused to participate in a “day of absence” for all white faculty and students. (Heying was on leave at the time.)
• Also in 2017, the social scientist Charles Murray was physically attacked by students at Middlebury College who had disrupted and shouted down a talk he had been invited to give. Middlebury political science professor Allison Stanger—who had been invited to respond critically to Murray’s talk—suffered a concussion in the attack on them both.

…………

Many lesser known incidents could be adduced with ease, but you get the picture. And students who deviate from the party line on college campuses often have it far worse than faculty. Ruination awaits many young people who vocally dissent from today’s “smelly little orthodoxies,” to borrow a phrase from George Orwell, who knew a thing or two about these matters.

It should be noted that the examples above include both students and faculty behaving badly in reacting to arguments with which they disagree. I would venture to say that if faculty did not model brutal behavior for their students, and universally made it plain that they regarded such behavior as unacceptable, it would for the most part cease. Students may in many cases arrive in college very cocksure in their opinions about justice, but responsible faculty have always known how to deal with that problem: make them think about the matter, hard. So the poisonous atmosphere on many college campuses may be blamed on the faculty’s neglect of its duty at best, and its active betrayal of it at worst.

But how did things get this bad? I believe the causes are intertwined intellectual and moral failures. Here I will limit myself to what has gone wrong in my own discipline of political science, leaving it to others to comment on such fields as classics, English, history, sociology, psychology, or philosophy.

I first glimpsed what was amiss with the modern discipline of political science—and at the same time was drawn to a career in the field—when I encountered Leo Strauss’s 1953 book Natural Right and History as an undergraduate. I do not now regard his thoughts on the modern philosophers—particularly on Locke and Burke—as unquestionably sound, as I once did. But Strauss’s opening chapters, on historicism (“Natural Right and the Historical Approach”) and positivism in the social sciences (“Natural Right and the Distinction Between Facts and Values”) retain the power with which they struck me then. The ideas that the truth about the human condition is radically contingent on history (historicism) and that we can speak rationally only about facts and not at all about “values” or moral principles (positivism) lead inexorably to a failure of all conviction, and ultimately to nihilism, which in turn eventuates (in Strauss’s memorable words) in “fanatical obscurantism.” [read more]

Biden’s new COVID-19 travel ban ignores southern border

From Washington Times.com (Nov. 30, 2021):

As President Biden’s new coronavirus travel ban took effect Monday, security experts say he’s left a glaring hole in his scheme: the southern border.

Visitors coming from South Africa and seven other African nations are now banned from trying to reach the U.S., amid fears of the new omicron variant of the virus. But those same visitors, if they manage to reach America’s southern border through Mexico and bring a child with them, are likely to be caught and released into the country.

It’s the same loophole that’s existed for much of the year, with the Biden administration adopting a more lenient approach to families and children caught jumping the border, compared with those same people trying to come legally through an airport.

“Under the current administration’s policies a migrant can be banned from lawfully traveling to the U.S., but if you illegally cross our border from the same banned country — you’re welcomed in,” said Mark Morgan, who ran Customs and Border Protection in the Trump administration. “With Border Patrol apprehending illegal aliens from more than 150 different countries, with 25% having active COVID, the implementation of this administration’s COVID policies are inconsistent, non-sensical, and it puts our entire nation at risk.”

As a presidential candidate, Mr. Biden scoffed at travel bans, labeling the COVID-19 version announced by then-President Trump in early 2020 as “hysteria, xenophobia and fear-mongering.”

But the Biden team kept a version of the ban in place, even for vaccinated visitors, until early in November.

Now, as omicron spreads, the Biden team is once again turning to the tool that it labeled racist.

The eight countries slapped with the ban effective Monday are South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe. People who were present in one of those nations 14 days before they intended to travel to the U.S. are supposed to be blocked from entry.

The CBP did not respond to a request for comment from The Washington Times on the new policy and how illegal immigrants from banned countries would be affected.

Mr. Morgan, who oversaw implementation of the Trump COVID-19 ban, called the Biden stance “unmitigated and blatant hypocrisy.” [read more]

I don’t know about the policy being racist but there maybe a political reason. The Biden regime (and most Leftists) think people immigrating from Mexico will vote for the democrats. That might not necessarily be true.

WAYNE ROOT: Get Ready for President Hillary Clinton

From The Gateway Pundit.com (Nov. 29, 2021):

Almost everything I’ve predicted has come true- including a stolen election based on mail-in voting without Voter ID; a communist takeover of the USA based on lockdowns, Covid mandates and open borders; and Joe Biden being a brain-dead puppet with dementia.

I was already warning on my Newsmax TV show about Biden’s clearly diminished mental capacity back in 2019 and early 2020. It’s all on tape.

I warned during the 2020 election that Biden and the Biden Crime Family are owned lock, stock and barrel by China and the Chinese Communist Party.

I also predicted this communist takeover and purposeful destruction of America, American exceptionalism, capitalism, the American middle class and Judeo-Christian values was all designed, coordinated and carried out by a combination of Barack Obama, communist billionaire George Soros and the Chinese Communist Party.

This is all clearly happening right in front of our eyes.

So, I’m going to make another shocking prediction. Democrats (ie the party of radical, insane, hateful, socialists, Marxists and communists) are getting ready to install Hillary Clinton as President of the United States.

You might ask, “How will they do it?” The answer is simple.

Biden is finished. He served his useful purpose. He provided a white, experienced, grandfatherly, supposedly “moderate” face to serve at the top of the presidential ticket. The mail-in ballot fraud got the Democrats 90% of the way home in rigging and stealing the 2020 election. And Biden’s “white moderate grandfather” routine did the rest- he fooled just enough clueless and naïve voters in a handful of battleground states to finish the job.

But the jig is up. Biden’s approval is now in the unimaginable 30% range. That means he has no one left on his side but friends; family; campaign aides; Democrat Kool-Aid drinkers; welfare addicts; and illegal aliens.

Everyone with a brain, who isn’t blind, deaf or really dumb, now understands Biden is brain dead. It’s hard to miss the daily decline in Biden’s ability to think and communicate. Democrat
puppet masters have no choice anymore, but to throw grandpa from the train.

Biden’s days are numbered before he will be forced to step down after admitting he can’t do the job anymore due to rapidly advancing dementia. [read more]

He could be right.

The List: 17 Senate Republicans Join Democrats to Demand Joe Biden Import More Foreign Workers

From Breitbart.com (Feb. 14):

A group of Senate Republicans has joined Senate Democrats to demand President Joe Biden import more H-2B foreign visa workers to take working-class, blue-collar American jobs.

On Monday, 17 Senate Republicans signed a letter with 17 Senate Democrats that urges Biden to “release the maximum allowable number of additional” H-2B foreign visa workers to inflate the labor market despite more than 12 million Americans remaining jobless, though all want full-time employment.

The senators also asked Biden to speed up the process so U.S. employers could get foreign visa workers quicker into blue-collar American jobs, often in construction, landscaping, the tourism industry, and other occupations.

“Without meaningful H-2B cap relief, many seasonal businesses will be forced to scale back operations, cancel or default on contracts, lay off full-time U.S. workers, and, in some cases, close operations completely,” the senators wrote.

The 17 Republicans who signed the letter are:

• Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
• Mike Rounds (R-SD)
• Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
• James Risch (R-ID)
• Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
• Roy Blunt (R-MO)
• Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
• John Cornyn (R-TX)
• Mike Crapo (R-ID)
• John Thune (R-SD)
• Susan Collins (R-ME)
• Pat Toomey (R-PA)
• Roger Wicker (R-MS)
• Jerry Moran (R-KS)
• Rand Paul (R-KY)
• John Barrasso (R-WY)
• Tim Scott (R-SC)

………….

“The White House and Congressional Democrats are hell-bent on eliminating any meaningful limits or restrictions on immigration, but Republicans still can’t unify behind doing the opposite,” RJ Hauman with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) told Breitbart News.

“They’re great on the illegal front due to the border crisis, but why not also oppose programs that are rife with abuse, displace American workers, and depress wages? Ignore businesses reliant on cheap foreign labor and listen to voters — it’s that simple,” he said.

Meanwhile, 6.5 million Americans were unemployed in January while an additional 5.7 million were out of the labor force entirely. Another 3.7 million Americans are underemployed — that is, holding part-time jobs while wanting full-time work.

Some 408,000 jobless Americans said they do not believe there is any work available for them in the current labor market.

Every year, businesses are allowed to import 66,000 H-2B foreign visa workers to take blue-collar, non-agricultural American jobs. Former President Donald Trump routinely brought in additional H-2B foreign visa workers for business to hire, and Biden is doing the same.

In December 2021 and January 2022, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that he would allow businesses to import 40,000 more H-2B foreign visa workers.

The H-2B visa program has been widely used by businesses to drag down the wages of American workers in landscaping, conservation work, the meatpacking industry, the construction industry, and fishing jobs, a 2019 study by the Center for Immigration Studies finds.

When comparing the wages of H-2B foreign workers to the national wage average for each blue-collar industry, about 21 out of 25 of the industries offered lower wages to foreign workers than Americans.

Annually, the U.S. gives green cards to about 1.2 million legal immigrants, while another 1.4 million foreign workers are admitted every year to take American jobs. [source]

There’s quite a few Conservatives that signed the letter that shouldn’t have. We have plenty of illegal immigrants coming over here to take those jobs.

These 6 Republicans Voted Against Ousting Fauci

From The Daily Wire.com (Mar. 15):

WASHINGTON — Six Republican senators voted against an amendment Tuesday that would eliminate the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) position, which is held by Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Senators voted on Kentucky Republican Rand Paul’s amendment to replace the NIAID with three separate national research institutes on Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C.

Republican Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, and Jerry Moran of Kansas each voted against the amendment.

The senators did not immediately respond to The Daily Wire’s requests for comment.

“We’ve learned a lot over the past two years, but one lesson in particular is that no one person should be deemed ‘dictator-in-chief,’” said Paul when he introduced the amendment Monday, adding, “No one person should have unilateral authority to make decisions for millions of Americans.”

“This will create accountability and oversight into a taxpayer funded position that has largely abused its power, and has been responsible for many failures and misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the senator continued.

Paul and Fauci have repeatedly sparred in Senate hearings over Fauci’s insistence on restricting the American public throughout the coronavirus pandemic, and the Kentucky Republican has called many times for Fauci to be ousted from his position.

When Fauci suggested on “CBS This Morning” that Republicans — and former President Donald Trump — have a “misplaced perception about people’s individual right to make a decision that supersedes the societal safety,” Paul said that his comments showed a “casual disregard for what this country was founded upon.”

“He just wants you to listen to his authority,” Paul told The Daily Signal at the time. “He has the authority. He wants people to listen and not question him, but that’s sort of a recipe for authoritarianism, so I greatly object to him.”

Paul has also promised to launch an investigation into Fauci’s conduct should Republicans take back Congress.

“I’ll lead at least one committee, and we will use subpoena power to bring him in,” he said in November. “We’ll use subpoena power to bring in his documents and we will get to the bottom of this. We will get to the bottom of where the virus started. We will subpoena all the information.”

“Dr. Fauci, the idea that a government official like yourself would claim unilaterally to represent science and that any criticism of you would be considered a criticism of science itself is quite dangerous,” Paul told Fauci in January, before accusing Fauci of “ruling by mandate.”

The Senate passed a resolution, led by Paul, to repeal the mask mandate for public transportation on Tuesday.

While Democrats voted in favor of Paul’s resolution, according to The Daily Caller, Romney was the only Republican to vote against it.

Paul had also promised last week to force a vote in mid-March ending “unscientific” mask mandates on planes and public transportation.

“Apparently government doesn’t want to relinquish its power and plans to extend the mask mandate on planes & public transportation,” tweeted the Republican senator. “Not on my watch! I’ll be forcing a vote next week to end this unscientific mandate.” [source]

Why not oust the Keebler elf? He’s incompetent. I can understand the obvious RINOs but Moran?

More articles on Fauci:

• Fauci's Retirement Pay Largest in Federal Government History
• Dr. Anthony Fauci’s financial disclosure shows $10.4M in investments
• Faucicated — and other necessary words
• Fauci, Collins Shared In ‘Secret’ NIH ‘Royalties’ Totaling $350M: Watchdog Report
• Fauci Laughably Says if Trump Is Re-Elected, He Won't Serve Again

What Should Children Learn?

From The Epoch Times.com (Nov. 3, 2021):

If you’ve ever taken a look at the typical course of study today’s school students are required to complete, you might assume that the collection of subjects, the order in which they’re taught, and the resources used to teach them are the result of great study and research by the best educational experts in the land. You might also presume the goal of the current educational strategy is to provide students with the tools, skills, and knowledge necessary to reach their greatest potential.

Is that the case, though?

Today, students throughout their academic careers take courses such as “English,” “Social Studies,” “Earth Science,” and “Pre-Algebra.” Increasingly, the study of the great works of literature, music, art, and even grammar are being deemphasized. Kids are being handed a high school diploma, in too many cases, without a fundamental grasp of history, basic communication, or any clue about what humanity’s greatest cultures, thinkers, and artists ever offered the world. Further, they are imbued with a character ethic that, unless overridden by their family’s influence, might hinder their ability to thrive long-term.

So, what should children learn?

Communication

First and foremost, a child should be taught to read competently, speak clearly, and write skillfully. In the elementary years, this can be achieved by offering them a feast of good books while exploring, as they get older, the ins and outs of phonics and grammar. They should be encouraged to write frequently—in a journal, in letters to family, in stories they invent, with chalk on the sidewalk.

Proper handwriting, both in print and in cursive, should also be taught. Putting pen to paper evokes a different depth of thinking than typing or texting does. Further, many historic documents were written in cursive. We shouldn’t lose our ability to read them.

As kids advance academically, they can tackle more advanced writing projects, learn to verbally present ideas, and understand increasingly challenging texts. Individuals with solid communication skills have everything they need to learn anything they’d like.

Logic

One of the greatest benefits of studying math—besides the practical application it offers for a future engineering career or household budget—is that it teaches you to think logically. Those students that can excel in mathematics should be encouraged to do so. The trend of removing advanced placement programs in some schools will greatly stifle such students.

Beyond math, of course, is the formal study of logic. If you’re unfamiliar with the study of logic, it’s worth noting that a typical school curriculum is almost completely devoid of this very important piece of education. Logic is the study of reason and teaches one to consider arguments and ideas rationally. A logic student learns to identify any existing fallacies or false premises.

If we’ve learned anything these past few years, it’s that the ability to think logically and critically is essential. There are a number of formal logic programs on the market today targeted to homeschoolers, but appropriate for anyone wishing to fill this void.

History

The way history is typically approached in school is both boring and disjointed. Fundamentally, history is a story. It begins as far back as we’ve been able to see and continues on up to today. It’s exciting and entertaining—full of human feats, creations, discoveries, and lessons. Teaching history should be simple and fun. The best way is to teach it in order, like you would any story, starting at the beginning.

If you want to know how most schools’ strategy for teaching history has fared, talk to a few teenagers about, say, what the Declaration of Independence says, who fought in either World War, or what the impact communism has had on the world. The consequences of a society ignorant of history aren’t small.

The Arts

That the arts tend to be the first subjects on the chopping block when school curriculum changes are mandated is heartbreaking. Throughout the world, different cultures have contributed extraordinary artistic accomplishments—gifts mankind should treasure. Whether in the field of painting, sculpture, architecture, music, theater, dance, literature, poetry, or any other form of artistic expression—the beauty, goodness, and inherent lessons imbued in the study of the arts is immeasurable. Children should be surrounded by the very best of humanity’s creations. With today’s technology, it’s easily at our fingertips.

Talent Development

Every student is blessed with his or her own individual strengths and talents. The school paradigm leaves little room for the recognition or development of any ability on an individual basis.

If students are to reach their greatest potential, however, it’s precisely these blessings they should be given the space and resources to develop. Whether he or she is a budding writer, scientist, artist, lawyer, teacher, CEO, craftsman, or plumber, individual strengths should be maximized and allowed to flourish.

Moral Character

The most crucial and fundamental aspect of a good education is the instilling of good moral values. Students must be able to discern right from wrong. They should uphold the truth, discern the truth, and be truthful as they go about their lives. They should work diligently, take responsibility, and be willing to sacrifice for what is right. They should care for their families, friends, neighbors, and communities. They should have compassion for others. They should respect their elders. They should aspire to be as good as they can possibly be.

A child should learn to be an educated person of high moral character. How blessed society would be with such students. [read more]

Scientists: Space Travel Could Bring Alien Organisms to Earth

From Newsmax.com (Nov. 29, 2021):

When we make forays into outer space, there is a chance we may bring back something harmful to Earth.

"In the face of increasing space missions (including those intended to return samples to Earth), it is crucial to reduce the risks of biological contamination in both directions," said Anthony Ricciardi, a professor of invasion biology at McGill University in Montreal, according to The Independent.

Any invasive species encountered on an alien planet would probably be microbial and resemble bacteria on Earth, he explained. While the likelihood of any extraterrestrial life form traveling through space is low owing to the harsh conditions of interstellar travel, scientists caution that biological invasions have often been devastating for the plants and animals in these systems.

Speaking with Live Science, Ricciardi said: "We argue that planets and moons potentially containing life should be treated as if they were insular systems." Ricciardi's research was published in the journal BioScience.

The team of researchers noted that insular ecosystems that evolve in geographical isolation, like on islands and Australia, are particularly vulnerable to invasive species, because the native wildlife hasn't evolved adaptations to contend with invaders, Live Science reported.

Humanity should focus on the early detection of biological contaminates and make plans for a rapid response.

NASA has had contingencies for biological risks from outer space since the 1960s, but the "new era of space exploration aimed at targeting areas most likely to contain life," create new challenges, Ricciardi said.

SpaceX, for example, aims to travel to Mars and beyond with its SpaceX Starship program.

Biosecurity protocols associated with space travel could be increased, focusing on the early detection of potential biological contaminants and developing plans for a rapid response to detections.

Space exploration could accelerate contamination, Jennifer Wadsworth, an astrobiologist at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Switzerland, told Live Science.

"The line between exploration and conservation is a thin one," Wadsworth said. "One shouldn't be abandoned at the cost of the other, but both require careful consideration and, most importantly, compliance." [read more]

Doesn’t sound good. Andromeda Strain anyone?

'The Game is Over!' Google's DeepMind says it is close to achieving 'human-level' artificial intelligence – but it still needs to be scaled up

From Daily Mail.co.uk (May 18):

DeepMind, a British company owned by Google, may be on the verge of achieving human-level artificial intelligence (AI).

Nando de Freitas, a research scientist at DeepMind and machine learning professor at Oxford University, has said 'the game is over' in regards to solving the hardest challenges in the race to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI).

AGI refers to a machine or program that has the ability to understand or learn any intellectual task that a human being can, and do so without training.

According to De Freitas, the quest for scientists is now scaling up AI programs, such as with more data and computing power, to create an AGI.

Earlier this week, DeepMind unveiled a new AI 'agent' called Gato that can complete 604 different tasks 'across a wide range of environments'.

Gato uses a single neural network – a computing system with interconnected nodes that works like nerve cells in the human brain.

It can chat, caption images, stack blocks with a real robot arm and even play the 1980s home video game console Atari, DeepMind claims.

De Freitas comments came in response to an opinion piece published on The Next Web that said humans alive today won't ever achieve AGI.

De Freitas tweeted: 'It's all about scale now! The Game is Over! It's about making these models bigger, safer, compute efficient, faster...'

However, he admitted that humanity is still far from creating an AI that can pass the Turing test – a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to or indistinguishable from that of a human.

After DeepMind's announcement of Gato, The Next Web article said it demonstrates AGI no more than virtual assistants such as Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri, which are already on the market and in people's homes.

'Gato's ability to perform multiple tasks is more like a video game console that can store 600 different games, than it's like a game you can play 600 different ways,' said The Next Web contributor Tristan Greene.

'It's not a general AI, it's a bunch of pre-trained, narrow models bundled neatly.'

Gato has been built to achieve a variety of hundreds of tasks, but this ability may compromise the quality of each task, according to other commentators. [read more]

Is this how the AI Overlords gets “born?” Not sure if scaling DeepMind up is a good idea. Then again maybe I watched too many sci-fi movies about evil AIs.

Another Deep Mind article: DeepMind AI learns simple physics like a baby

Beware: 100% Green Energy Could Destroy the Planet

From Stephen Moore on Town Hall.com (June 7):

The untold story about "green energy" is that it can't possibly be scaled up to provide anywhere near the energy to replace fossil fuels. (Unless we are headed back to the stone ages, which is what some of the "de-growth" advocates favor).

Right now, the United States gets about 70% of its energy from fossil fuels. To go to zero over the next 20 years would be economically catastrophic and cost tens of millions of jobs. With gas prices at nearly double their price back from when Donald Trump left office and inflation up from 1.5% to 8% in just 15 months, we are already experiencing the economic damage from the green energy crusaders.

But we also have to ask whether green energy is even good for the environment. Some environmentalists are pointing to a little-noticed study by the World Bank showing that moving toward 100% solar, wind and electric battery energy would be just as destructive to the planet as fossil fuels. This was precisely the conclusion of a story in Foreign Policy magazine, hardly a right-wing publication.

According to the Foreign Policy analysis, moving to a "carbon-free" energy future "requires massive amounts of energy, not to mention the extraction of minerals and metals at great environmental and social costs."

Here are some of the numbers. Going all-in on batteries, solar and wind would require:

-- 34 million metric tons of copper

-- 40 million tons of lead

-- 50 million tons of zinc

-- 162 million tons of aluminum

-- 4.8 billion tons of iron

Those tens of millions of windmills, solar panels and electric batteries for cars and trucks aren't exactly biodegradable. So, we will have the most prominent energy graveyard with toxic pollutants that will be 100 times larger than any nuclear waste storage. And yet, the Left is worried about plastic straws!

I'm all for mining for America's bountiful natural resources of copper, lead, magnesium and precious metals. But ironically, it's the greens that want to shut down mines, which is like saying you want food, but you oppose farming. Talk about cognitive dissonance. [read more]

The Left doesn’t really care. Climate Change is their religion.