Thursday, March 7, 2019

Quantum Monism Could Save the Soul of Physics

“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible, ”Albert Einstein famously once said. These days, however, it is far from being a matter of consensus that the universe is comprehensible, or even that it is unique. Fundamental physics is facing a crisis, related to two popular concepts that are frequently invoked, summarized tellingly by the buzzwords “multiverse” and “uglyverse.”
Multiverse proponents advocate the idea that there may exist innumerable other universes, some of them with totally different physics and numbers of spatial dimensions; and that you, I and everything else may exist in countless copies. “The multiverse may be the most dangerous idea in physics” argues the South African cosmologist George Ellis.
Ever since the early days of science, finding an unlikely coincidence prompted an urge to explain, a motivation to search for the hidden reason behind it. One modern example: the laws of physics appear to be finely tuned to permit the existence of intelligent beings who can discover those laws—a coincidence that demands explanation.
With the advent of the multiverse, this has changed: As unlikely as a coincidence may appear, in the zillions of universes that compose the multiverse, it will exist somewhere. And if the coincidence seems to favor the emergence of complex structures, life or consciousness, we shouldn’t even be surprised to find ourselves in a universe that allows us to exist in the first place. But this “anthropic reasoning” in turn implies that we can't predict anything anymore. There is no obvious guiding principle for the CERN physicists searching for new particles. And there is no fundamental law to be discovered behind the accidental properties of the universe.
Quite different but not less dangerous is the other challenge—the “uglyverse”: According to theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, modern physics has been led astray by its bias for “beauty,” giving rise to mathematically elegant, speculative fantasies without any contact to experiment. Physics has been “lost in math,” she argues. But then, what physicists call “beauty” are structures and symmetries. If we can’t rely on such concepts anymore, the difference between comprehension and a mere fit to experimental data will be blurred. 
Both challenges have some justification. “Why should the laws of nature care what I find beautiful?” Hossenfelder righteously asks, and the answer is: They shouldn’t. Of course, nature could be complicated, messy and incomprehensible—if it were classical. But nature isn’t. Nature is quantum mechanical. And while classical physics is the science of our daily life where objects are separable, individual things, quantum mechanics is different. The condition of your car for example is not related to the color of your wife’s dress. In quantum mechanics though, things that were in causal contact once remain correlated, described by Einstein as “spooky action at a distance.” Such correlations constitute structure, and structure is beauty. 

'Democrats cave to Omar’s strategy of anti-Semitism'

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/260031

Pro-Israel American Jewish group The National Conference of Jewish Affairs (NCJA) released a statement condemning "the unwillingness of Democratic leadership to immediately denounce" anti-Semitism, as a Democratic resolution triggered by comments made by Rep. Ilhan Omar appeared to have been obstructed.
"Rep. Omar, and Rep. Tlaib, are employing the time-tested drip-by-drip method used successfully by Islamists in Europe against Jews and Israel. Week after week, poisonous remarks against Israel or Jews are made by Islamists with the goal being a continuous seepage of anti-Jewish caricatures into the political discourse and into the minds of a country's population. The apologies are insincere, an expedient; a breather until the next time. It's death by a thousand cuts to Israel and her supporters," said Rabbi Aryeh Spero, spokesman for the group.
“The unwillingness by the Democrat leadership to immediately denounce, specifically, the perpetrators and to stop this anti-Jewishness dead-in-its tracks is a worrisome sign that, as with their Labor Party counterpart in England, Corbyn-ism is far heavier in the Democrat Party than we thought. The Democrat leadership seems to be making a choice, preferring the inter-sectionality voting blocks in whom it envisions its future.
NCJA was also critical of Jewish organizations supportive of the Democratic party for failing to pressure Democratic leadership.
“The Jewish organizational community, almost entirely liberal and Democrat, has not pressured the Democrat leadership in anyway near the degree they would have if the victim of hate were black, Muslim, Latino, or LGBTQ. Furthermore, there has been no unified call by the 36 Jewish Democrat members of Congress against Omar. Most liberal Jews seem unconcerned when anti-Semitism comes from the political Left, their home base.

How a public feud over anti-Semitism dealt House Democrats their first real setback

cnn



Democrats have had the majority in the House of Representatives for just two months, but they've already been sidetracked by an ugly divide over anti-Semitism and other bigotry.

For weeks, tensions on Capitol Hill have been rising over remarks from freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota questioning the allegiance of Israel supporters in Congress. Her comments drew condemnation from many of her fellow Democrats and prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California to push for a vote on a resolution condemning anti-Semitism. Rather than putting the issue behind them, however, the move has prolonged the controversy and put a spotlight on divisions inside the party around a highly sensitive issue.
The resolution came after Omar criticized politicians by using anti-Semitic tropes, prompting condemnation from several Jewish Democratic lawmakers and an apology from Omar last month. But Omar later dug in when she suggested pro-Israel interests pushed members of Congress to pledge allegiance to a "foreign country," drawing further outrage from her colleagues.
Pelosi had a choice: She could issue piecemeal condemnations and hope the issue disappeared, or nip it in the bud with a strong resolution staking out the House's stance on anti-Semitism. She chose the latter but didn't count on the resistance from allies of Omar. After an ugly scrum broke out on Wednesday behind closed doors, the vote was tabled. Leadership is now rewriting the resolution to condemn all hate, not just anti-Semitism.
Anger from the left
Members from both the Congressional Black Caucus and the younger, far-left wing of the party were furious about the leadership's gambit. They questioned singling out Omar for condemnation. What about bigotry from Republicans, including President Donald Trump? And why were Democrats so focused on a woman of color, one of just two Muslims in Congress? Could the added scrutiny even put Omar in danger?
"Like some of my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus, I am concerned that the spotlight being put on Congresswoman Omar may put her at risk," California Sen. Kamala Harris told reporters Wednesday. Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts -- who like Harris are running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination -- also voiced their support for Omar.
Others on the left asked why Democrats were condemning only bigotry against Jews. "We think that hate and racism in our country is growing. American Jewish, LGBTQ, Latino, immigrant, Muslim -- it is something that needs to be looked at as a whole instead of just trying to come up with a hierarchy of hurt and pain," Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, another freshman Democrat and the other Muslim in Congress, told CNN on Wednesday.
Frustrated moderates
On the other side of the debate, moderate Democrats were frustrated that Omar's comments have derailed the agenda in the House and exposed divisions in an otherwise unified caucus. There are also concerns that a watered-down statement might end up looking like tolerance of anti-Semitic views within the caucus.
"One would think it would be a lot simpler than it appears to be to pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitism," Mark Mellman, a veteran Democratic pollster and founder of the Democratic Majority for Israel, told CNN. Mellman founded his group in January to shore up support in the party for the US-Israel relationship and to counterbalance what he sees as a rise in anti-Israel views among some Democrats.
The dispute is a leadership test for Pelosi and her ability to manage a majority built both from energized young progressives from the heart of the anti-Trump resistance and moderates elected on pocketbook issues in Trump country. But this isn't a debate about policy; it's about bigotry and whether the caucus will tolerate it or not. That's not a conversation the Democrats wanted to be having in public as they ramp up investigations into Trump and push forward their policy agenda.
"This is not a productive use of our time," a senior aide to a moderate House Democrat told CNN. "We need to change the subject and get back to the things we promised to do, which is infrastructure, health care, jobs."
The issue is the first real setback for a Democratic caucus that has largely remained a united front against Trump. From holding the line on the government shutdown to voting to rescind Trump's national emergency declaration, House Democrats have so far hung together. "Those were enormous wins, and now this makes it look like we are in disarray," said the senior aide.
That's even given Trump, who himself said there were "fine people" among the marchers in the 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, an opening to criticize Democrats. "It is shameful that House Democrats won't take a stronger stand against Anti-Semitism in their conference," he tweeted Wednesday. "Anti-Semitism has fueled atrocities throughout history and it's inconceivable they will not act to condemn it!"
The longer Democrats fight over the party's stance on anti-Semitism, the greater the potential damage to the caucus. There's a cautionary tale unfolding across the pond, where Britain's Labour Party is being pulled apart by its own anti-Semitism issues. Several disaffected Jewish members of Parliament have left the party over Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's perceived embrace of and tolerance for anti-Jewish sentiment.
"We can't be silent as Omar continues to say these things, because if we are silent, we're complicit in what is completely unacceptable," says Josh Block, a former Clinton administration official and head of the Israel Project, a nonpartisan pro-Israel group. "And the leadership needs to act before the virus of Corbynism infects the party."
A new paradigm
This isn't the first time House Democrats have grappled with internal divisions. For 40 years, the party held control of the House with a coalition of Southern segregationists, urban blacks and the white working class. During that time, it dealt with substantive issues including civil rights, the Cold War and tax revisions, to name a few.
What seems to be different this time is the way the party handles differences among its factions. In a way, that's a function of the rise of social media as a political tool, where communicating publicly to an online audience outweighs speaking privately to members of your coalition. It's worth noting that Omar set off this firestorm about Israel with a pair of tweets taking on members of her party for accepting money from Jewish-backed lobbying groups.
That disconnect between the new class and the old way of doing things was captured in the comments of 65-year-old Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell. "What we need to do is not be out there Twittering," Dingell told reporters Wednesday. "We need to talk to each other."

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

The Trump Temple coins that changed the world – now in silve

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/259984


An Historic Declaration.

A little more than a year ago, President Donald Trump made an historic declaration that Jerusalem is the “One and Only Capital of the Jewish State of Israel.”

Soon after, Trump proved to the world that he not only makes declarations, but also acts upon his beliefs: He transferred the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And following this historic event, the TRUMP TEMPLE COINS were minted.

The concept was conceived by Professor Hillel Weiss and the coins were produced by the Mikdash Educational Center in Jerusalem. In the past year, these unique coins have found their way to thousands of people worldwide- from North and South America, China, to Australia, all around Europe and even to Iran - all who support Israel, the Holy Temple, and Trump’s declaration. Now they can be obtained in solid silver too!!

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The Themes Displayed on the Coins.

The Trump Temple Coins are not just medallions or souvenirs. They are precious coins that have an entire story to tell. The main idea conveyed by these coins is that President Trump is initiating a prophetic process that will eventually facilitate, when the time comes, the rebuilding of the Third Temple. His actions mirror those of King Cyrus who declared to the Jewish people, in exile for 70 years, that "Hashem, The Lord of the World, charged me to build Him a house in Jerusalem."

On Monday, March 5, 2018, in Washington D.C., shortly after the Temple Coins were produced, Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed President Trump and also compared the President to King Cyrus.

"I want to tell you that the Jewish people have a long memory; so we remember the proclamation of the great king, Cyrus the Great, the Persian king, 2,500 years ago. He proclaimed that the Jewish exiles in Babylon could come back and rebuild our Temple in Jerusalem. We remember a hundred years ago, Lord Balfour, who issued the Balfour Proclamation that recognized the rights of the Jewish people in our ancestral homeland. We remember that seventy years ago, President Harry S. Truman was the first leader to recognize the Jewish state. And we remember how a few weeks ago, President Donald J. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Mr. President, this will be remembered by our people through the ages"

The message on the coin is addressed to all the “Seventy Nations”: They are called upon to accompany the Jewish People on their journey to establish the Holy Temple as a place of peace.

The Menorah on the Coin. The Menorah was always the symbol of the Jewish Nation. It represents the light of the Temple spreading out to the world, as stated in Isaiah 60:3, "Nations shall walk at Your light, and kings at the brightness of Your rising".

Women in the IDF



Chris Wallace on Conway's 'non-denial denial' on clearances

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backlash begins

cnn

Two years ago at this time, she was bartending and waitressing in New York. Now the New York congresswoman is the face of the liberal left in the Democratic Party nationally.
When a politician -- or, really, anyone -- becomes a star overnight, there's an inevitable backlash that grows Washington (CNN)There's no politician -- not one -- who has risen further faster than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Two years ago at this time, she was bartending and waitressing in New York. Now the New York congresswoman is the face of the liberal left in the Democratic Party nationally.
When a politician -- or, really, anyone -- becomes a star overnight, there's an inevitable backlash that grows in opposition to the rise.opposition to the rise. And less than three months into her first term in Congress, the AOC backlash has begun in earnest.
The spark came last week when, in a closed-door meeting of House Democrats, Ocasio-Cortez warned colleagues that if they continued to vote with Republicans on procedural motions in the chamber they could wind up "on a list" of incumbents ripe for a liberal primary challenge. (Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has found herself on the other side of AOC a few times during the early months of this Congress, was making the same case to members.)

DEMOCRATS ARE INVESTIGATING DONALD TRUMP TO DISTRACT FROM BABY-KILLING AGENDA, SARAH SANDERS SAYS

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders claimed that the ongoing Democratic investigation of President Donald Trump was merely a way to distract the American people from the Democrat’s “radical agenda.”
On Monday, Sanders called the new House investigations into the Trump campaign, administration, the president’s inner circle and his private business dealings—announced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold  Nadler—as “disgraceful and abusive” and based on “tired, false allegations,” the BBC reported.
“Chairman Nadler and his fellow Democrats have embarked on this fishing expedition because they are terrified that their two-year false narrative of ‘Russia collusion’ is crumbling,” the press secretary added.
Sanders then suggested the Democrats were simply trying to “distract from their radical agenda,” which she claimed included “making America a socialist country, killing babies after they’re born, and pushing a ‘green new deal’ that would destroy jobs and bankrupt America.”
The press secretary did not offer any evidence that the agenda exists in the way she described it. The infanticide allegation in particular appeared to be building on Trump’s misunderstanding, or misrepresentation, of  “late-term abortion,” which he claimed involved “executing” a baby after birth.

Israeli spacecraft snaps stunning selfie on its way to the Moon

House Dems will take floor action to confront Omar’s latest Israel comments


Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats will take floor action Wednesday in response to controversial remarks by Rep. Ilhan Omar about Israel, the second such rebuke of the freshman Democrat from party leaders in recent weeks.

Pelosi and other senior Democrats have drafted a resolution to address the controversy, which ballooned over the weekend following a public clash between Omar and senior Jewish lawmakers.

The resolution, which began circulating to members Monday night, comes after a backlash from top Democrats who accused Omar of anti-Semitism for referring to pro-Israel advocates’ “allegiance to a foreign country.”

The draft measure is four pages that largely details the history and recent rise of anti-Semitism in the U.S. but does not specifically name Omar, which had been an internal dispute among Democrats.

Monday, March 4, 2019

Trump's speech at CPAC

OF COURSE JARED KUSHNER GOT HIS TOP-SECRET SECURITY CLEARANCE THROUGH NEPOTISM

vanityfair


Earlier this week, Ivanka Trump explained that a federal jobs guarantee was a terrible idea that no one should support because “Americans, in their heart, [don’t] want to be given something. . . . People want to work for what they get.” This struck many as something of a curious philosophy, given the circumstances under which both the First Daughter and her husband earned their jobs in the White House (having them handed to them, despite their egregious lack of qualifications), in addition to everything else in their lives. And on Thursday, a new report suggested that Ivanka and Jared may not subscribe to the “no handouts” policy, for themselves, at all!
The New York Times reports that the only reason Jared Kushner was granted the highest level of security clearance last May was because his father-in-law, Donald Trump, demanded it—over the objections of intelligence officials, the White House’s top lawyer, and the chief of staff at the time. Prior to May, Kushner had been assigned clearance on an “interim top-secret” basis, which was downgraded to “secret” in February 2018, and which limited his access to classified information. And for good reason!
Unsurprisingly, the holdup did not sit well with either Kushner or Ivanka (who had also been operating on a temporary clearance), creating a situation that the couple presumably dealt with in a professional and reasonable fashion, i.e., by stomping their feet and yelling, “DADDY, WE WANT OUR TOP-SECRET SECURITY CLEARANCE, AND WE WANT IT NOW!”
To be clear, the normal process for granting someone a security clearance involves the White House’s personnel security office making a determination after an F.B.I. background check. If there is a dispute about how to move forward—something that rarely happens—the White House counsel makes the call, which, in this case, was overruled by the president, another highly unusual occurrence. Also highly unusual? For the president, his daughter, and his son-in-law’s lawyer to insist everything was done by the book when that clearly wasn’t the case:
(Ivanka’s exact words: “There were anonymous leaks about there being issues. But the president had no involvement pertaining to my clearance or my husband’s clearance, zero.”)
In a statement on Thursday, White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “We don’t comment on security clearances.” Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Kushner’s lawyer, offered the bizarre explanation that new revelations don’t change the original statements, even if said revelations suggest the original statements were lies. (“In 2018, White House and security-clearance officials affirmed that Mr. Kushner’s security clearance was handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone,” Mirijanian said. “That was conveyed to the media at the time, and new stories, if accurate, do not change what was affirmed at the time.”)


CNN Cuomo Prime Time [Replay Full Show 3/1/19] | Trump Breaking News Today March 3, 2019

Sunday, March 3, 2019

House Democrat blasts Ilhan Omar for ‘vile anti-Semitic slur’

Rep. Eliot Engel, the Jewish chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called on fellow Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar to apologize for her “vile anti-Semitic slur.”
Engel’s statement released on Friday evening came more than a day after Omar, of Minnesota, accused pro-Israel activists and lawmakers of “allegiance to a foreign country.” Dual loyalties is a common anti-Semitic trope.
“I welcome debate in Congress based on the merits of policy, but it’s unacceptable and deeply offensive to call into question the loyalty of fellow American citizens because of their political views, including support for the U.S.-Israel relationship. We all take the same oath. Worse, Representative Omar’s comments leveled that charge by invoking a vile anti-Semitic slur,” Engel said in a statement released by his office.
Omar said Wednesday during a town hall in Washington that “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”
Engel called her comments “especially disappointing” because they follow on the heels of another incident in which she evoked another anti-Semitic stereotype, that Jews pay lawmakers to support Israel.
Engel continued that her comments “were outrageous and deeply hurtful, and I ask that she retract them, apologize, and commit to making her case on policy issues without resorting to attacks that have no place in the Foreign Affairs Committee or the House of Representatives.”