text:
Antifascist Calling...
Exploring the shadowlands of the corporate police state
Through the Wormhole: The Secret State's Mad Scheme to Control the Internet
Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz once famously wrote that "war is the continuation of politics by other means." A century later, radical French philosopher Michel Foucault turned Clausewitz on his head and declared that "politics is the continuation of war by other means."
In our topsy-turvy world where truth and lies coexist equally and sociopathic business elites reign supreme, it would hardly be a stretch to theorize that cyber war is the continuation of parapolitical crime by other means.
In Speed and Politics, cultural theorist Paul Virilio argued that "history progresses at the speed of its weapons systems." With electronic communications now blanketing the globe, it was only a matter of time before our political masters, (temporarily) outflanked by the subversive uses to which new media lend themselves, would deploy what Virilio called the "integral accident" (9/11 being one of many examples) and gin-up entirely new categories of threats, "Cyber Pearl Harbor" comes to mind, from which of course, they would "save us."
That the revolving door connecting the military and the corporations who service war making is a highly-profitable redoubt for those involved, has been analyzed here at great length. With new moves to tighten the screws on the immediate horizon, and as "Change" reveals itself for what it always was, an Orwellian exercise in public diplomacy, hitting the "kill switch" serves as an apt descriptor for the new, repressive growth sector that links technophilic fantasies of "net-centric" warfare to the burgeoning "homeland security" market.
Back in March, Wired investigative journalist Ryan Singel wrote that the "biggest threat to the open internet" isn't "Chinese hackers" or "greedy ISPs" but corporatist warriors like former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell.
Having retreated to his old haunt as a senior vice president with the ultra-spooky firm Booz Allen Hamilton (a post he held for a decade before joining the Bush administration), McConnell stands to make millions as Booz Allen's parent company, the secretive private equity powerhouse, The Carlyle Group, plans to take the firm public and sell some $300 million worth of shares, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.
"With its deep ties to the defense establishment" the Journal notes, "Booz Allen has become embedded in a range of military operations such as planning war games and intelligence initiatives." That Carlyle Group investors have made out like proverbial bandits during the endless "War on Terror" goes without saying. With "relatively low debt levels for a leveraged buyout," the investment "has been a successful one for Carlyle, which has benefited from the U.S. government's increasing reliance on outsourcing in defense."
And with 15,000 employees in the Washington area, most with coveted top secret and above security clearances, Booz Allen's clients include a panoply of secret state agencies such as the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, NSA and the U.S. Air Force. With tentacles enlacing virtually all facets of the secretive world of outsourced intelligence, the firm has emerged as one of the major players in the cybersecurity niche market.
While McConnell and his minions may not know much about "SQL injection hacks," Singel points out that what makes this spook's spook dangerous (after all, he was NSA Director under Clinton) "is that he knows about social engineering. ... And now he says we need to re-engineer the internet."
Accordingly, Washington Technology reported in April, that under McConnell's watchful eye, the firm landed a $14.4 million contract to build a new bunker for U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM). Chump change by Pentagon standards perhaps, but the spigot is open and salad days are surely ahead.
Now that CYBERCOM has come on-line as a "subordinate unified command" of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), it's dual-hatted Director, Air Force General Keith B. Alexander confirmed by the Senate and with a fourth, gleaming star firmly affixed on his epaulettes, the real fun can begin.
A denizen of the shadows with a résumé to match, Alexander is also Director of the National Security Agency (hence the appellation "dual-hatted"), the Pentagon satrapy responsible for everything from battlefield signals- and electronic intelligence (SIGINT and ELINT), commercial and industrial espionage (ECHELON) to illegal driftnet spying programs targeting U.S. citizens.
Spooky résumé aside, what should concern us here is what Alexander will actually do at the Pentagon's new cyberwar shop.
A Fact Sheet posted by STRATCOM informs us that CYBERCOM "plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes, and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full-spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries."
As Antifascist Calling previously reported, CYBERCOM's offensive nature is underlined by the role it will play as STRATCOM's operational cyber wing. The training of thousands of qualified airmen, as The Register revealed last month, will form the nucleus of an "elite corps of cyberwarfare operatives," underscoring the command's signal importance to the secret state and the corporations they so lovingly serve.
Cybersecurity: The New Corporatist "Sweet Spot"
Fueling administration moves to "beef up," i.e. tighten state controls over the free flow of information is cash, lots of it. The Washington Post reported June 22 that "Cybersecurity, fast becoming Washington's growth industry of choice, appears to be in line for a multibillion-dollar injection of federal research dollars, according to a senior intelligence official."
"Delivering the keynote address at a recent cybersecurity summit sponsored by Defense Daily," veteran Post reporter and CIA media asset, Walter Pincus, informs us that "Dawn Meyerriecks, deputy director of national intelligence for acquisition and technology, said that along with the White House Office of Science and Technology, her office is going to sponsor major research 'where the government's about to spend multiple billions of dollars'."
According to a Defense Daily profile, before her appointment by Obama's recently fired Director of National Intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, Meyerriecks was the chief technology officer with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), described on DISA's web site as a "combat support agency" that "engineers and provides command and control capabilities and enterprise infrastructure to continuously operate and assure a global net-centric enterprise in direct support to joint warfighters, National level leaders, and other mission and coalition partners across the full spectrum of operations."
During Defense Daily's June 11 confab at the Marriott Hotel in Washington (generously sponsored by Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics and The Analysis Group), Meyerriecks emphasized although "tons of products" have been commercially developed promising enhanced security, "there's not an answer Band-Aid that is going to come with this."
All the more reason then, to shower billions of taxpayer dollars on impoverished defense and security corps, while preaching "fiscal austerity" to "greedy" workers and homeowners facing a new wave of foreclosures at the hands of cash strapped banks.
"We're starting to question whether or not the fundamental precepts are right," Meyerriecks said, "and that's really what, at least initially, this [new research] will be aimed at."
Presumably, the billions about to feed the "new security paradigm," all in the interest of "keeping us safe" of course, means "we need to be really innovative, because I think we're going to run out of runway on our current approach," she said.
Washington Technology reported Meyerriecks as saying "We don't have any fixed ideas about what the answers are." Therefore, "we're looking for traditional and nontraditional partnering in sourcing."
Amongst the "innovative research" fields which the ODNI, the Department of Homeland Security and one can assume, NSA/CYBERCOM, will soon be exploring are what Washington Technology describe as: "Multiple security levels for government and non-government organizations. Security systems that change constantly to create 'moving targets' for hackers," and more ominously for privacy rights, coercive "methods to motivate individuals to improve their cybersecurity practices."
The Secret State's Internet Control Bill
Since major policy moves by administration flacks always come in waves, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy June 18, that in order to fight "homegrown terrorism" the monitoring of internet communications "is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security," the Associated Press reported.
While the Obama regime has stepped-up attacks on policy critics who have disclosed vital information concealed from the American people, prosecuting whistleblowers such as Thomas Drake, who spilled the beans on corrupt NSA shenanigans with grifting defense and security corps, and wages a low-level war against WikiLeaks, Cryptome, Public Intelligence and other secret spilling web sites, it continues to shield those who oversaw high crimes and misdemeanors during the previous and current regimes.
In this light, Napolitano's statement that "we can significantly advance security without having a deleterious impact on individual rights in most instances," is a rank mendacity.
With enough airspace to fly a drone through, the Home Sec boss told the gathering "at the same time, there are situations where trade-offs are inevitable." What those "situations" are or what "trade-offs" were being contemplated by the administration was not specified by Napolitano; arch neocon Joe Lieberman however, graciously obliged.
As "Cyber War" joins the (failed) "War on Drugs" and the equally murderous "War on Terror" as America's latest bête noire and panic all rolled into one reeking mass of disinformation, Senators Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Tom Carper (D-DE) introduced the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 in the Senate.
The bill empowers the Director of a new National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC), to be housed in the Department of Homeland Security, to develop a "process" whereby owners and operators of "critical infrastructure" will develop "response plans" for what the legislation calls "a national cybersecurity emergency."
This particularly pernicious piece of legislative flotsam would hand the President the power to declare a "national cyber-emergency" at his discretion and would force private companies, internet service providers and search engines to "comply with the new risk-based security requirements." Accordingly, "in coordination with the private sector ... the President [can] authorize emergency measures to protect the nation's most critical infrastructure if a cyber vulnerability is being exploited or is about to be exploited."
Under terms of the bill, such "emergency measures" can force ISPs to "take action" if so directed by the President, to limit, or even to sever their connections to the internet for up to 30 days.
While the administration, so far, has not explicitly endorsed Lieberman's bill, DHS Deputy Undersecretary Philip Reitinger told reporters that he "agreed" with the thrust of the legislation and that the Executive Branch "may need to take extraordinary measures" in the event of a "crisis."
Under the 1934 Communications Act, the World Socialist Web Site points out, "the president may, under 'threat of war,' seize control of any 'facilities or stations for wire communications'."
"Though dated," socialist critic Mike Ingram avers, "that definition would clearly apply to broadband providers or Web sites. Anyone disobeying a presidential order can be imprisoned for one year. In addition to making explicit the inclusion of Internet providers, a central component of the Lieberman bill is a promise of immunity from financial claims for any private company which carries through an order from the federal government."
Under terms of the legislation, the president requires no advance notification to Congress in order to hit the internet "kill switch," and his authority to reign supreme over the free speech rights of Americans can be extended for up to six months after the "state of war" has expired.
While the bill's supporters, which include the secret state lobby shop, the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) claim the Lieberman-Collins-Carper legislation is intended to create a "shield" to defend the U.S. and its largest corporate benefactors from the "looming threat" of a "Cyber 9/11," one cannot discount the billions of dollars in plum government contracts that will fall into the laps of the largest defense and security corps, the primary beneficiaries of this legislation; thus the bill's immunity provisions.
Indeed, current INSA Chairwoman, Frances Fragos Townsend, the former Bushist Homeland Security Adviser, was appointed in 2007 as National Continuity Coordinator under the auspices of National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51) and was assigned responsibility for coordinating the development and implementation of Federal continuity of government (COG) policies. As readers of Antifascist Calling are aware, plans include contingencies for a declaration of martial law in the event of a "catastrophic emergency." Whether or not a "national cybersecurity emergency" would fall under the penumbral cone of silence envisaged by NSPD-51 to "maintain order" is anyone's guess.
However, in a June 23 letter to Lieberman-Collins-Carper, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and 23 other privacy and civil liberties groups, insisted that "changes are needed to ensure that cybersecurity measures do not unnecessarily infringe on free speech, privacy, and other civil liberties interests."
CDT states that while "the bill makes it clear that it does not authorize electronic surveillance beyond that authorized in current law, we are concerned that the emergency actions that could be compelled could include shutting down or limiting Internet communications that might be carried over covered critical infrastructure systems."
Additionally, CDT avers that the bill "requires CCI owners to share cybersecurity 'incident' information with DHS, which will share some of that information with law enforcement and intelligence personnel." While Lieberman-Collins-Carper claim that "incident reporting" doesn't authorize "any federal entity" to compel disclosure "or conduct surveillance," the bill does not indicate what might be included in an 'incident report' and we are concerned that personally-identifiable information will be included." Count on it!
In a press release, INSA's chairwoman declared that the legislation is important in "establishing a public-private partnership to promote national cyber security priorities, strengthen and clarify authorities regarding the protection of federal civilian systems, and improve national cyber security defenses."
Amongst the heavy-hitters who will profit financially from developing a "public-private partnership to promote national cyber security priorities," include INSA "Founding Members" BAE Systems, Booz Allen Hamilton, CSC, General Dynamics, HP, Lockheed Martin, ManTech International, Microsoft, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).
Talk about one hand washing the other! A casual glance at Washington Technology's 2010 list of the Top 100 Federal Government Contractors provides a telling definition of the term "stakeholder"!
Blanket Surveillance Made Easy: Einstein 3's Roll-Out
During a recent Cyberspace Symposium staged by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA), an industry lobby group chock-a-block with defense and security corps, a series of video presentations set the tone, and the agenda, for CYBERCOM and the secret state's new push for heimat cybersecurity.
During a question and answer session "with a small group of reporters" in sync with the alarmist twaddle peddled by AFCEA and STRATCOM, Defense Systems' Amber Corrin informed us that "one possibility" floated by Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynne III to "keep us safe," is the deployment of the privacy-killing Einstein 2 and Einstein 3 intrusion detection and prevention systems on civilian networks.
"To support such a move" Defense Systems reported, "a task force comprising industry and government information technology and defense interests ... has been forged to examine issues surrounding critical infrastructure network security."
As Antifascist Calling reported last July, Einstein 3 is based on technology developed by NSA under its Tutelage program, a subordinate project of NSA's larger and more pervasive privacy-killing Stellar Wind surveillance operation.
Einstein 3's deep-packet inspection technology can read the content of email messages and other private electronic communications. Those deemed "threats" to national security networks can then be forwarded to analysts and "attack signatures" (or suspect political messages) are then stored in a massive NSA-controlled database for future reference.
Federal Computer Week disclosed in March that the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) "plans to partner with a commercial Internet Service Provider and another government agency to pilot technology developed by the National Security Agency to automate the process of detecting cyber intrusions into civilian agencies' systems."
"The exercise," according to reporter Ben Bain "aims to demonstrate the ability of an ISP to select and redirect Internet traffic from a participating government agency using the new technology. The exercise would also be used demonstrate the ability for U.S. CERT to apply intrusion detection and prevention to that traffic and to generate automated alerts about selected cyber threats."
That testing is currently underway and has been undertaken under authority of National Security Presidential Directive 54, signed by President George W. Bush in 2008 in the waning days of his administration. While the vast majority of NSPD-54 is classified top secret, hints of its privacy-killing capabilities were revealed in the sanitized version of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI) released by the Obama White House in March.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has filed suit against the government in federal court after their Freedom of Information Act request to the National Security Agency was rejected by securocrats. The agency refused to release NSPD-54, since incorporated into Obama's CNCI, stating that they "have been withheld in their entirety" because they are "exempt from release" on grounds of "national security."
In a follow-up piece earlier this month, Federal Computer Week disclosed that the exercise "will also allow the Homeland Security Department, which runs the Einstein program, to share monitored information with the National Security Agency, though that data is not supposed to include message content."
"The recent combination of those three elements--reading e-mail messages, asking companies to participate in the monitoring program, and getting the NSA in the loop--has set off alarm bells about future uses of Einstein 3," FCW's John Zyskowski disclosed.
Those bells have been ringing for decades, tolling the death of our democratic republic. As military-style command and control systems proliferate, supporting everything from "zero-tolerance" policing and urban surveillance, the deployment of packet-sniffing technologies will soon join CCTV cameras, license plate readers and "watchlists," thus setting the stage for the next phase of the secret state's securitization of daily life.
Posted by Antifascist at 10:03 AM No comments:
New "Homeland Security" Toys Lower Boom on Privacy, Grease Usual Palms
As "gee-whiz" high-tech wonders seamlessly morph into "your papers, please!," more often than not in "new normal" America science and technological innovation are little more than deranged handmaids serving corporate crime and political power.
In the interest of "keeping us safe," the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unveiled a spiffy new surveillance cam "that puts others to shame," CNET breezily reported last week.
The Imaging System for Immersive Surveillance (ISIS) is a hemispherical group of cameras roughly the size of a basketball that, if one believes giddy accolades by enthusiasts touting the system, will lovingly wrap us in a "high-res video quilt," a DHS press release gushes.
The ultra-wide camera undergoing field-tests since December at Boston's Logan International Airport, streams distortion free, real-time stitched video and has a resolution capacity of approximately 100 megapixels which our guardians say is "as detailed as 50 full-HDTV movies playing at once, with optical detail to spare. You can zoom in close...and closer...without losing clarity."
But with an abundance of acronyms, and a decided lack of imagination from a gaggle of secret state agencies, one shouldn't confuse Homeland Security's ISIS with one incubating beneath the dark wings of the Pentagon's "blue sky" office, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
That program, Integrated Sensor Is Structure, also known as ISIS, is being shepherded along by Lockheed Martin, America's No. 1 defense corp. DARPA's ISIS promises to build an autonomous airship powered by solar fuel cells for American warfighters, one capable of staying aloft for a decade above 70,000 feet, well out of the way of an adversary's surface to air missiles.
According to the description on the Strategic Technology Office's web site, their ISIS "will develop the technologies that enable extremely large lightweight phased-array radar antennas to be integrated into an airship platform." This would enable ground commanders "to track the most advanced cruise missiles at 600 km and dismounted enemy combatants at 300 km."
Pentagon gurus and the corporations they so lovingly serve, recently awarded Lockheed Martin and subcontracting Raytheon Corporation, a $400 million dollar contract for Phase III work on the radar system, Defense Systems reported in April. DARPAcrats claim the high-flying airship will provide "theatre-wide, persistent area surveillance and tracking capabilities" to America's Borg Army of resource grabbers.
And with The New York Times reporting June 14 that the "United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself," it doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that sometime soon the corrupt Karzai regime, the Taliban, their ISI paymasters and their American overlords will cozy up and play "let's make a deal"!
Nor should either project be confused with the failed "secure border" scheme known as the Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System or ISIS (there it is again!) or its successor, America's Shield Initiative. No, that corporatist boondoggle which cost taxpayers some $439 million between 1997 and 2006, eventually morphed into the equally useless Secure Border Initiative or SBInet.
Fully in keeping with the tenor of the times, to wit, that government should get "out of the way" and let business work its magic, DHS's own Inspector General described the troubled history of the project in critical testimony to Congress. The IG criticized lax practices that led the Department to allow the contractors, led by Boeing Corporation, decide what the system would look like and what technology would be used to build it.
Needless to say, that didn't work out well! Just this week Washington Technology reported that Boeing "could see its lucrative, but troubled Secure Border Initiative contract scaled back as Homeland Security Department officials consider stopping future construction of the 'virtual-fence' security systems along the U.S.-Mexico border."
Like predecessor ISIS, the $800 million program has suffered from delays, technical glitches and "changes" in direction. In March, Home Sec Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the program was "being re-evaluated as part of an ongoing reassessment." No matter, with cash in hand Boeing, and a string of disappointed subcontractors, can afford to "move on."
But I digress...
No dear readers, the Heimat Security project I'm describing is close to earth, perhaps only a few feet above the congested street where you trod, oblivious to the legion of minders busily stripping you of your rights; above all, the right to be left alone. Ah, but there's the rub. Why should any of Oceania's proud citizens have anything to fear? After all, only evil-doers have something to hide, don't they? Why wouldn't you leap with joy at the prospect of being enwrapped in a vid-quilt cocoon lovingly designed by America's finest minds?
"Traditional surveillance cameras can be of great assistance to law enforcement officers for a range of scenarios," DHS flacks croon. "Canvassing a crowd for criminal activity during a Fourth of July celebration, searching for who left a suitcase bomb beneath a bench, or trying to pick out a terrorist who has fled the scene and blended into a teeming throng in the subway."
Who'd oppose that?
But why stop there? Surely there are other applications for the privacy-killing gizmo. Where did that political malcontent go after handing out "subversive" leaflets at the mall? And that flash mob of miscreants protesting an oil firm's board meeting or, heavens forbid!, bum-rushing grifting merchants of death at an industry trade show; where'd they scram to? Multitasking is the name of the game and DHS has got it covered!
A joint project of the Science and Technology Directorate's Infrastructure and Geophysical Division, MIT's Lincoln Laboratory and the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, ISIS was built with off-the-shelf cameras, image processors and readily-available commercial software. No need to reinvent the wheel here in these tough economic times!
The innocent-looking array points in all directions and captured images are "stitched" together, creating a creepy "god's eye" view that allow CCTV operators to easily track people back and forth through the HD "quilt" files without losing a single suspect, I mean American, as they pass from one field to the next.
"Other neat tricks" enthusiasts effervesce, "will be provided by a suite of software applications called video analytics. One app can define a sacrosanct 'exclusion zone,' for which ISIS provides an alert the moment it's breached. Another lets the operator pick a target--a person, a package, or a pickup truck--and the detailed viewing window will tag it and follow it, automatically panning and tilting as needed." (emphasis in original)
We're told that "video analytics at high resolution across a 360-degree field of view, coupled with the ability to follow objects against a cluttered background, will provide"--wait!--"enhanced situational awareness as an incident unfolds."
"We've seen that terrorists are determined to do us harm," Dr. John Fortune, the I&G's head honcho told contractors lining up to get a slice of the vid-quilt pie. "ISIS is a great example of one way we can improve our security by leveraging our strengths."
And should things, pardon the pun, pan out, "ISIS creators already have their eyes on a new and improved second generation model, complete with custom sensors and video boards, longer range cameras, higher resolution, a more efficient video format."
"Eventually," we're told, "the Department plans to develop a version of ISIS that will use infrared cameras to detect events that occur at night."
South of the Border ... Bring On the Drones!
Meanwhile, as Homeland Security unveiled their chic new spy-cam and exiled SBINet to the Isle of Lost Corporatist Dreams, The Hill reported that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began flying "Predator B aerial drones, which have proved successful fighting insurgents in Afghanistan, were deployed this week along the border between Texas and Mexico."
CBP, a DHS satrapy plagued by endemic corruption engendered by deep state management of the multibillion dollar drug trade, was accused last week of murdering an unarmed 15-year-old who had the temerity to throw rocks at border agents from the Mexican side of the border.
Democracy Now! disclosed June 10, that U.S. authorities said that "Sergio Adrian Hernandez Güereca was part of a group of boys throwing rocks at Border Patrol agents who were trying to detain two people at the border crossing."
While intrepid agents claimed they feared for their lives, "a cell-phone video obtained by the Spanish language network Univision shows otherwise," Amy Goodman reports. "The grainy footage shows the Border Patrol agent detaining one man at gunpoint. While he has the man on the ground, he points his gun toward a second person on the Mexican side of the border. The video shows that person running away as the agent fires several shots. The video then shows a body next to a column under the bridge."
In other words, there's nothing to see here, move along!
This latest border killing follows closely on the heels of "change" President Obama's pledge to station 1,200 National Guard troops along the border to stem the flow of economic migrants hammered by continued depredations resulting from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the highly-lucrative drugs trade.
According to Narco News, "a special operations task force under the command of the Pentagon is currently in place south of the border providing advice and training to the Mexican Army in gathering intelligence, infiltrating and, as needed, taking direct action against narco-trafficking organizations," investigative journalist Bill Conroy reported June 12.
The deployment of deep cover Special Forces assets are part of the Obama regime's Mérida Initiative, a "security arrangement" between the U.S. secret state and their Mexican and Central American counterparts.
The alleged aim of the initiative is to stamp out national security threats posed by drug traffickers, transnational criminal syndicates and money laundering by "dirty" banks. To aid the venture, Congress generously allocated some $1.6 billion for training, equipment and intelligence to regional security forces. Undoubtedly, such operations would be greatly enhanced by flying unmanned drones over suspected drug smuggling routes as an assist to our allies.
Last Saturday however, the National Post reported that "an investigation conducted by The Montreal Gazette, CBC Radio and the U.S.'s National Public Radio (NPR) has found powerful elements within the Mexican government and army have no intention of ending the narcotics trade."
But wait, hasn't a Special Forces contingent dubbed Task Force 7 by Conroy's source, been providing expertise for more than a year to the Mexican Army to root out corruption and slay evil-doers, the same Army that has "no intention" of ending the grisly trade responsible for deaths of thousands?
The National Post disclosed that "senior government and military officials are helping the Sinaloa cartel and its leader become the dominant drug-trafficking organization in Mexico. This means the cartel will likely become the most powerful organized crime group on the continent."
True enough as far as it goes, but I'd offer one slight edit: the Sinaloa cartel would perhaps "become the most powerful organized crime group on the continent," only were we to ignore the key role played by North American, specifically U.S. banks, in laundering billions of dollars in blood money, a minor, though pertinent detail, omitted by the National Post, the Gazette, NPR and the CBC.
After all as Antonio Maria Costa, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime told The Observer in December, "the proceeds of organised crime were 'the only liquid investment capital' available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year." Indeed, Costa claimed that "drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the [2008] global crisis."
All the more reason then, to bring on the drones!
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX), a close political ally of former President George W. Bush (no slouch when it came to protecting Afghan drug rackets), praised Obama's move to fly Predators along the border. The good Senator told The Hill, "the beginning of UAV flights over the west-Texas portion of our border with Mexico marks an important advancement for border security in our state."
The Bushist crony continued: "We are working hard to make round-the-clock aerial surveillance the standard for all 2,000 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, and I hope this development is the first of many steps to bring our border detection and security efforts into the 21st century."
Not to be outdone by a political "rival" across the aisle, Rep. Henry Cuellar, a south Texas Democrat, praised CBP's drone deployment and said, "By putting eyes in the sky along the Rio Grande, we will gather real-time intelligence on the ground to augment the good work of federal, state and local law enforcement on the border."
Or provide those shipping multi-ton loads of cocaine and other illicit drugs northward adequate warning! Indeed, Narco News disclosed in May that "a law enforcement task force in New Mexico that is supposed to target drug-trafficking criminals is instead awash in charges that it is using its nearly $600,000 taxpayer-subsidized budget to fund its own corrupt practices."
Although an investigation by an internal affairs unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) revealed "a disturbing trail of bookkeeping irregularities and multiple mysterious bank accounts," the indefatigable Bill Conroy revealed that "nothing of consequence happened to the task force or its operations, and it continues to operate under the same leadership to this day."
A minor detail perhaps, but then who cares! Certainly not our intrepid "watchdog" Washington press corps led by CNN's White House correspondent Ed Henry, The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder and others, who recently cavorted with the Vice President at a "beach party" at Joe Biden's mansion, Salon's Glenn Greenwald disclosed!
For the "people who matter" however, unleashing a drone fleet along the border will be music to the ears of General Atomics, the manufacturer of the Predator B. What, with saturation coverage of the Iraq and "Afpak" theatres by the CIA and Pentagon's armada of killer robots, the $10-12 million dollar price tag per drone is a surefire win-win all around.
Is this a great country or what!
Posted by Antifascist at 6:25 PM 3 comments:
New Director of National Intelligence: Overseeing Aggression Abroad, Repression at Home
Yesterday, President Barack Obama selected retired Air Force Lt. General James R. Clapper Jr. as his nominee as the secret state's new Director of National Intelligence (DNI).
Obama heaped copious praise on the general in a Rose Garden appearance Saturday. "Jim is one of our nation's most experienced and most respected intelligence professionals," Obama said. "He possesses a quality that I value in all my advisers: a willingness to tell leaders what we need to know even if it's not what we want to hear," according to a White House transcript of the president's remarks.
Clapper, who faces a tough confirmation fight in the Senate, would direct the 16-agency U.S. "Intelligence Community." From his perch in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Clapper would coordinate America's formidable spy apparatus as it wages a global shadow war to control other people's resources and secure geostrategic advantage over their imperialist rivals.
The position of DNI was created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but the Director has neither operational control nor budgetary authority over any of the agencies he oversees as the nation's top spymaster. Bureaucratic in-fighting and turf battles within the security apparat, particularly with the CIA under Leon Panetta, but also with insiders such as White House counterterrorism adviser, the former CIA torture-enabler, John Brennan, have fueled internecine feuds amongst the various players.
If confirmed by the Senate, Clapper would replace retired Admiral Dennis C. Blair, who was pressured to resign by the Obama regime May 28, over so-called "intelligence failures," resulting from the aborted Christmas Day attempted bombing aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit and the failed May 1 Times Square car bombing.
As Antifascist Calling revealed in a series of articles earlier this year, far from being a failure to "connect the dots," as with the 9/11 provocation itself, the American secret state possessed sufficient information that should have prevented alleged bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, from boarding that plane and placing the lives of nearly 300 air passengers at risk.
The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), an ODNI fiefdom, was cited for "lapses" and faulted for its failure to collate information in their possession. But as I reported, during January 20 testimony to the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, NCTC head honcho Michael E. Leiter told the panel: "I will tell you, that when people come to the country and they are on the watch list, it is because we have generally made the choice that we want them here in the country for some reason or another."
Under Secretary of State for Management, Patrick F. Kennedy, testified before the House Homeland Security Committee January 27, that the State Department did not revoke the would-be bomber's passport at the specific request of U.S. intelligence agencies.
Kennedy claimed that "revocation action would've disclosed what they were doing." The Undersecretary said that allowing the alleged terrorist to keep his visa would have "helped" federal investigators take down the entire network "rather than simply knocking out one solider in that effort."
While the would-be suicide fanbois kept his passport, one "reform" that the "change" administration implemented was a directive by President Obama authorizing the assassination of American citizens accused of terrorism. Death sentences would be carried out without any legal recourse whatsoever, simply on the basis of unsubstantiated Executive Branch allegations.
Clapper, 69, is a close ally of current Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, a former CIA Director under Poppy Bush and an architect of the Iran-Contra coverup. Currently the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Clapper replaced Stephen A. Cambone in 2007, a crony of former Secretary of Defense, the unindicted war criminal Donald Rumsfeld.
Like many retired military officials who leverage national "service" as entrée to the lucrative world of outsourced corporate spying, Clapper was the Chief Operating Officer for Detica DFI, a British intelligence and security firm that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the scandal-tainted BAE Systems.
According to a blurb on the firm's web site, "Detica specialises in collecting, managing and exploiting information to reveal actionable intelligence." Doubtless, Clapper found himself right at home.
Last October, the British high-tech news magazine The Register, revealed that Detica and Lockheed Martin had secured a multi-billion pound contract with the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the U.K.'s National Security Agency for work on a domestic snooping project called "Mastering the Internet." That top secret program is currently developing systems and methods for extracting intelligence from huge volumes of surveillance data generated by online services.
Similar programs are currently underway here in the heimat, many of which are linked to the secretive Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI). Last month's stand-up of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) found top Pentagon officials and the defense contractors whom they so loyally serve, floating the idea "that the Defense Department might start a protective program for civilian networks, based on a deeply controversial effort to keep hackers out of the government's pipes," Wired reported.
"A 356-page classified plan" journalist Noah Shachtman disclosed, "outlining CYBERCOM's rise is being put into action." According to Wired, "procedures are now being worked out for CYBERCOM to help the Department of Homeland Security defend government and civilian networks."
Wired reported last week that "Joe Lieberman wants to give the federal government the power to take over civilian networks' security, if there's an 'imminent cyber threat.' It's part of a draft bill, co-sponsored by Senators Lieberman and Susan Collins, that provides the Department of Homeland Security broad authority to ensure that 'critical infrastructure' stays up and running in the face of a looming hack attack."
Two of the agencies that would fall under Clapper's brief are DHS and NSA, both of which are charged with "protecting" critical network infrastructure in the unlikely event of a massive cyber attack.
Prior to his current position as Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, between 2001-2006 Clapper was the Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), a DOD combat support agency charged with developing "imagery and map-based intelligence solutions for U.S. national defense, homeland security and safety of navigation."
Accordingly, NGA "provides timely, relevant and accurate geospatial intelligence in support of national security objectives" gathered by America's super-secret fleet of spy satellites flown by its "sister" organization, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) as well as imagery and geospatial information derived from drones or other air based U.S. assets.
One can be fairly certain that NGA's "map-based intelligence solutions" for homeland security have been deployed for domestic repression. As Antifascist Calling reported in 2008, according to a planning document released by the whistleblowing web site Wikileaks, in the run-up to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, NGA was in the thick of things as a gaggle of federal and state law enforcement agencies targeted activists and journalists for preemptive arrest.
Before leading NGA, Clapper was Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the principal producer and manager of military intelligence for the Pentagon. Investigative journalist Tim Shorrock revealed in his essential book, Spies For Hire, that with an annual estimated budget of $1 billion, DIA employs some 11,000 military and civilian personnel, "35 percent of whom are contractors."
According to Shorrock's analysis for CorpWatch, principal security corps doing yeoman's work for DIA include BAE Systems, Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC, Inc. CACI International, Inc. and L-3 Communications Inc.
In reporting Clapper's selection as DNI, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have emphasized the general's "decades of experience" in getting America's sprawling secret state under Executive Branch control.
According to the Times, Clapper's announcement amounts "to pushing the reset button for the president," as Obama tries to "recalibrate" an intelligence and security apparatus that has "undergone continued revamping since the debacle leading up to the Iraq war," one that "still lacks the cohesion necessary in an evolving war with terrorists."
The Journal, on the other hand, has stressed that despite "resistance" by Democratic and Republican party grifters on Capitol Hill, Clapper "has significant backing among intelligence professionals, who also note that he is the most experienced individual willing to take the job."
The Journal reports that one of Clapper's "earliest moves was to shut a Pentagon database, called TALON, that was supposed to track terrorist threats to military bases but was found to also contain information on antiwar protesters."
TALON (Threat and Local Observation Notice) was a spying database that was under the operational control of the U.S. Air Force. It was authorized by neocon warmonger and serial intelligence fabricator, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz in 2002. By 2004 however, TALON became the "property" of the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), a secretive and heavily-outsourced Pentagon satrapy run by Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen A. Cambone.
Following media revelations of the program, in 2007 The National Security Archive published a series of documents outlining CIFA's illegal domestic operations; surveillance that continues today under new Pentagon programs authorized by Obama's discredited "change" regime, as revealed last summer by Democracy Now!.
While the Journal is technically correct that the TALON database was removed from CIFA's control by Clapper, the TALON system itself was offloaded, as I previously reported back in 2008, to the FBI and now reside in a Bureau database known as Guardian and e-Guardian.
Even though CIFA has since been supplanted by the DIA's Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center (DCHC), SourceWatch revealed that "in accordance with intelligence oversight requirements," DOD "will maintain a record copy of the collected data," including data illegally collected on antiwar activists, continues to exist somewhere deep in the bowels of the Pentagon for future reference.
Whether or not Clapper is confirmed by the Senate, illegal wars of aggression will continue; drones will still rain death and destruction upon unarmed civilians; America's pit bull in the Middle East, Israel, will carry out international acts of piracy and murder on the high seas with impunity as Gaza starves; and the Executive Branch will complete the destruction of the Constitution and the rule of law at home to "keep us safe."
Posted by Antifascist at 11:14 AM 2 comments:
Antifascist
A researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly, Love & Rage and Antifa Forum, I am the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press.
3arabawy
AK Press
Alternative Information Center
Antifa Network
Atlantic Free Press
Axis of Logic
Before It's News
Black Op Radio
Bradley Manning Support Network
Campaign Against Sanctions/Military Intervention in Iran
Center for Research on Globalization
Classified Woman
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
Cyrano's Journal Today
Dahr Jamail's Mideast Dispatches
Dave Emory Archives
Expert Witness Radio Show
Films for Action
Foreign Policy in Focus
Free Barrett Brown
Free Gaza Movement
Free the San Francisco 8!
FreeDetainees.org
Freedom Archives
German Foreign Policy
Global BDS Movement
History Commons
Info-Turk
Investigating New Imperialism
Iraq Freedom Congress
Kersplebedeb
MR Zine
MadCowMorningNews
Narco News Bulletin
Notes from the Borderland
Orcinus
Pacific Free Press
Pakistan Body Count
Peter Dale Scott
Revolution Online
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
Rigorous Intuition
Sibel Edmonds' Boiling Frogs Post
Slight Paranoia
Spartacus Educational
Stop Imperialism
Stop NATO
The Most Revolutionary Act
The Tant Mieux Project
Third World Traveler
Venezuela Analysis
War Is Business
WikiLeaks Cablegate
WikiLeaks Spy Files
WikiSpooks
World War 4 Report
Through the Wormhole: The Secret State's Mad Schem...
New "Homeland Security" Toys Lower Boom on Privacy...
New Director of National Intelligence: Overseeing ...


text:
Posted by Craig Borlase on 1 January 2014
Racism, betrayal and misunderstanding: William Seymour saw it all. He was one of the most inspiring black American religious leaders of the last century, even though his name is virtually unknown.
Seymour's influence can still be felt today, as over 500 million Pentecostals and Charismatics can trace their spiritual roots back to his tireless work.
Born in Louisiana in 1870, his parents were former slaves. At 25 he contracted smallpox and went blind in his left eye, but he was passionately inspired by the prospect of seeing people baptised in the Holy Spirit.
He travelled to Texas where he was invited to attend the classes of preacher Charles Parham. Texas law prevented blacks from sitting in classrooms with whites, so Seymour listened in from the hall outside.
Seymour was asked to help run a church in Los Angeles. The only trouble was, that his co-leaders got a little freaked out by his message of revival. They padlocked the church and refused him entry.
Seymour stayed with friends, prayed and fasted for a month, and eventually people gathered outside the house to hear him preach – so many of them, in fact, that the porch collapsed.
Moving into an old building on Azusa Street, people sat on makeshift benches and were soon crammed in from the outside to catch what was going on. With scenes that the LA Times described as a 'state of mad excitement', as many as 600 people would meet into the night, hungry for a taste of what was going on.
For three years the Azusa Street revival kicked off. Blacks hands were laid on white heads, and 50,000 people worldwide read his teaching in The Apostolic Faith magazine. Sadly, Parham visited and was unhappy about what he saw. Then two white female co-leaders left, taking with them the magazine mailing list, cutting Seymour off as leader of the movement.
William Seymour spent his final 13 years pastoring the church. He believed in the power of God and his humility and quiet determination serve as a lesson to us all. What would you stand up for?
When Funny Doesn't Equal Happy and Public Doesn't Equal Private
Yesterday's news of the passing of Robin Williams - like so much of death - is too much for many of us to fully comprehend. It leaves us asking questions, knowing that any answers we piece together will be too...
the Friday Pickle - does it matter if the mainstream knows our songs?
A leaked trailer for a forthcoming Hollywood movie of a classic based on the life of Noah features a song we sing in church. Big deal?
What's Our Potential? (Part 3)
What matters more to God than sung worship? What grieves him more than poverty? Perhaps we're not supposed to try and devise a ranking system for all this, but we do know that scripture speaks clearly about God's passions. Take a look...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Asthma is often caused by hypersensitivity of the immune system and/or respiratory system. which both depend on normal communication between the brain and spinal chord.
With this information, it becomes apparent that if thence is misaligned it could be causing an imbalance in the function of the nervous system. Misalignment could occur through various traumas such as falls, head injuries, or auto accidents. This misalignment can exaggerate the symptoms of asthma. Chiropractors can perform an upper cervical examination on asthma patients to determine whether or not they can help reduce asthmatic symptoms and reactions.


All those blinking modem and router lights may seem confusing,.
Solved: Arris Touchstone Modem Problems. 1 and telephone 2 lights start blinking,. have to reset the modem 2-4 times for it to work.
To get the full Spectrum experience, use a different browser.There is no standards to define how the LEDs should behave on the RJ45 ethernet port connector.
Date: 19.06.2012 author: tacomsra touchstone telephony light is blinking Translate this page Touchstone telephony modem ds and us light blinking Treating testosterone. The status is indicated on these modems by the DS and US lights flashing in unison,.
Cisco EPC3925 Technicolor TC7230 Arris TG2492s Cisco EPC3925 POWER.
How to reset your Bresnan or Comcast Arries cable modem talkingdigitaltv. ARRIS POTD Password of the.What do I do to get my internet - Arris Touchstone 450a (CM450) Modem question.
Blinking indicates data is being transferred between PC and modem.
How to Know if Modem is on Standby Mode. Arris. Only the Arris.
Ds- Full Green Light. When the green lights on the Modem Ethernet and router internet are blinking that means the two.
Depending on your device, the light may emit a steady or flashing light when working properly.
D-link blinking orange light and cannot access router IP. A blinking amber light indicates the device is booting up. light on modem flashing orange.
Photo 7 of 12 comcast wifi light blinking business modem lights flashing cisco you cable modem lights 02 jpg.Time: 24.01.2012 nick: cacarre modem us ds flashing lights Cable Modem Troubleshooting Tips: LEDs us ds lights flashing on arris modem What does it mean if the DS.
Something wrong with my Rogers home phone service modem?
View and Download Arris Touchstone TM402 user manual. data is being sent from the Telephony Modem G DS:. no effect while the Power light is blinking.
I originally purchased the ARRIS SURFboard SB6121 Cable Modem a few. the DS light is solid.A TW tech installed an Arris dg860 modem for me today and everything was working great until I unpl. What does ds light blinking green mean on modem UPC. When the DS light flashes on an Arris Touchstone Telephony modem, it means that there is no Internet connection. Understanding Your Modem Lights. BLINKING indicates that data is being transferred over the.
ARRIS Cable Modems comply with the applicable requirements for performance, construction, labeling,.


Once upon a time, in the far away land of Mountain View County sat a pretty little town called Sundre where there were some people who were wondering if it was possible to save some money. If you know anyone like that I'd love to help them find ways to do that and that is what Sundre Savvy Shoppers is all about!!
Although I have always tried to save money through the more common routes of shopping sales, attending auctions, wheeling & dealing on second hand items, etc., I never took the time to truly understand just how much money I could save by using coupons to reduce my grocery bill.
Of course if I was picking up jam and I noticed there was a coupon tear pad on the shelf I would grab one and that was that.
I will own up to catching a few partial episodes of 'Extreme Couponing' on TV which must have made some impression on my self-conscious as I began to educate myself on the 'Art of Couponing' as I have come to affectionately think of my passion, habit, hobby, necessity - however one cares to define the act of using Canadian Coupons to save money.
That was a little over a year ago. I have since saved hundreds of dollars off my groceries and just about everything else I've needed to buy.
As I began learning the ins and outs of couponing, I quickly became aware of the many money saving opportunities available to Canadian Consumers which I never knew anything about. All of which provide a tangible and rewarding means for families and individuals to save on just about anything.
Receiving an education in anything has it's challenges and frustrations. Learning how to be a $avvy $hopper or how to live a more frugal lifestyle is no different, however applying these lessons learned in Sundre and Olds proved to challenge the challenges, not to mention frustrating the frustrations.
I'll be sharing some of these experiences through this site as not only would I like to help others in the area avoid the same or similar experiences, having run into these issues is what spawned the idea and provided much of the motivation and desire to start this site.
The reality of living where we do is that our overall living expenses is for the most part fairly expensive in relation to many other communities of similar size.
In order to reduce these every day expenses to meet or many instances beat at least some of the unique challenges we face as here as consumers, one needs to take as much control over their money as they can.
Couponing is definitely the single largest determining solution factor and I'd like to help you help yourself and your family to realize the positive potential it can, and will, have on your finances!
As I started out saying..'Now-a-days'.....my house is a disaster, my coupon binder is not in too bad of shape, my computer is over-worked - no comment on the brain drain - however I believe in what I'm doing and that it is a worthwhile venture and I hope you do too!
After approaching everyone I know in the area - which isn't many I grant you - trying to locate someone capable of designing a website and other multi-media programs - here I sit!!
I imagine some of you might appreciate the challenge of this undertaking when the word 'techy' is NOT even in my vocabulary!! Well it wasn't but I would never advertise myself as an I.T. expert!
I would like to answer this question and many more for anyone in the Sundre area who would like to keep more of their hard earned dollars to spend on whatever they wish. Couponing provides an opportunity to have a choice where your money goes when it's not all going on necessities!
I have learned since moving here that Sundre remains very much a word-of-mouth community and I'm counting on that to a certain degree.
If you or anyone you know is interested in ways to save money every month, please join in and pass the news along. Even if your anyone isn't interested, they will know someone who is.
I look forward to communicating with many of you and together we CAN make a positive impact and help a lot of people!


text:
Read Next:	Mario Lopez Joins 'Access Hollywood,' Sets Development Deal With Universal TV
Starz Plans Emmy FYC Activation in June at Westfield Century City Mall (EXCLUSIVE)
By Michael Schneider
Variety Editor at Large @https://twitter.com/franklinavenue	FOLLOW
Michael's Most Recent Stories
Emmys Trivia: 20 Surprising Facts From 2019's Nominations
Emmys 2019 Nominations: HBO Back at the Top, as 'Game of Thrones' Makes History
Listen: Hugh Grant on Why He Would Kill Social Media if He Could
CREDIT: Starz
Starz is shaking up its Emmy campaign plans, partnering with the Westfield Century City mall to create a pop-up "For Your Consideration" activation next month.
The event, dubbed "Starz FYC: Creativity, Culture, Conversations," will include an immersive installation showcasing some of the behind-the-scenes crafts on series such as "Power," "American Gods," "Vida" and "Outlander," as well as a day of panel discussions with casts and producers.
On Saturday, June 1, the exhibit will be open to the public to explore costumes, sets, music, VFX displays and more. The next day, on June 2, only Television Academy members will be invited back to not only check out the installations, but also see a day of panels that will also include "Now Apocalypse," "The Spanish Princess" and "America to Me."
"For us it was trying to create a moment, to focus on our programming," said Starz executive vice president of communications Lauren Townsend.
Here's Why Your Favorite TV Shows Weren't Nominated for Emmys
Experiential Emmy installations have become more popular during the initial campaign season. Netflix and Amazon have month-long spaces where they throw various events and panels while inviting attendees to roam through Instagram-friendly exhibits based on their shows. Others are planning one- or two-day events like Starz: Nat Geo will throw its all-day "Contenders Showcase" on June 2 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, Starz is also holding free screenings of its series at the AMC Century City and AMC Burbank theaters. Here's the schedule:
AMC Century City
8:00 PM – "Vida"
8:30 PM – "Now Apocalypse"
9:00 PM – "American Gods"
8:00 PM – "America To Me"
9:00 PM – "Power"
8:00 PM – "The Spanish Princess"
9:00 PM – "Outlander"
AMC Burbank
[Pictured: Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson and Omari Hardwick, "Power"]
FYC


Thank you for this refreshing look at the spine and pelvis relationship. In some of the provided photos, the depth of the twist appears to be greater when the pelvis is allowed to rotate with the spine. How do you approach/instruct exploring new depths to these poses?
Thank you Jason. After years of practice I feel that twisting with the pelvis 'fixed' has been straining my SI joint and causing lower back instability. I'd love to hear your thoughts on updog to downdog. This transition of backbend to forward bend also seems a lot for the lumber/SI joint.
I'm glad this article is helpful for you, Rachel. Thanks for reading.
Great to hear from you, Anne. It's tough to look backward on a practice and decide what would have made a difference if only you had done it. But, yeah, moving the pelvis and spine together in all postures is definitely a key step in keeping the region happy.
Your article is a breath of fresh air for me. I am not a flexible person, so when I twist I need to twist my pelvis also a little bit and it makes me feel comfortable (I often do Phase 2 of the pose pictures posted above). However, my teacher totally disapproves and always tells me to always let my pelvis stay and it makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable. I will share this article on my facebook. Thanks for your point of view. Yoga should be enjoyed and make us feel comfortable.
Glad this helps you, Lauwardy!
Commenting on Rachel's comment on transition from updog to dd being tough transition for lumbar/si joint…what has worked for me is to neutralize my spine before going straight to dd by coming up or pushing up on a plank with top of my toes still firmly planted on the mat from updog, thereby neturalizing my spine before going to dd.
I LOVE when a teacher revisits their cues and is not afraid to say they found a better way. This teaches our students we are human and we are seekers, hopefully allowing them the power to change their minds too.
Thank you for sharing such great tips on this site!
Wondering about the knees in phase 2 of parivrtta utkatasana? My knees give me pain in uttanasana or utkatasana when my knees edge too far forward; it's much better for me to keep slightly more weight in the heels and keep knees in line with the toes. Would extending the knee outside this alignment cause instability here?
Fabulous article, much appreciated insight!
You're 100% correct. For some students, flexing the knee more deeply in this pose can be problematic for the knee. If this motion is creates discomfort in your knees, you should avoid it. Feel free to keep your weight a little further back and maintain a more vertical alignment of your shins!
look at the photos, the pelvis (the illium, ischium, pubis and sacrum) moves as 1 unit. in the images shown with a "stable pelvis" the woman pictured is shown keeping her pelvis stable in relation to her legs (legs stay in 1 spot, hips stay in 1 spot, spine twists alone)… in the images where the pelvis is "rotating with the spine" the pelvis is moving on the femurs (you can see this in the parivrtta prasarita padottanasana pose, the left side of the pelvis has moved anteriorly, inferiorly and rotated inwardly on the left femur while the right side of the pelvis moves superiorly, posteriorly and has rotated externally on the femur…. something simillar is also happening in revolved triangle and marichyasana, except in marichyasana the left femur has just abducted more while the right had adducted more) as the spine is twisting…. and/ or the joints of the lower legs have just moved more in one leg than the other (you can see this in the utkatasana example, the left knee is just flexing more than right, and the left ankle is dorsiflexing more than the right)….
I think this is a place a lot of yoga teachers get confused, thinking they are seeing movement at one joint (like maybe the SI Joint) when they are really seeing movement at another (the hip joint).
2. what is the real difference in the shear forces present at the SI Joint in one version vs another?
It requires really good core stabilization to do so.
I am currently a firm believer in NOT using anything but core strength to enter a twist. A lot of times in yoga I remember being encouraged to use the strength of my arms to drag my spine into a deeper rotation. I do not think this is a good idea (particularly because intense rotational forces can be damaging to the intervertebral disks).
Here is how I teach twists now – When the legs are fixed and the spine is twisting (which is the case in all the poses Jason has pictured above), hold the legs/hips in a symmetrical shape and, WITHOUT USING YOUR ARMS, twist. then set your hands down wherever they have landed. You will end up in a shallower twist (safer and more functional) and you will have used a ton of core strength to get there (good!).
When the spine is fixed and the legs are moving (for example in supine twists like windshield wiper ) all of the forces involved are less so I think the stakes are lower and the "how to" of the poses matters quite a bit less … as long as (again) your aren't using gravity plus your own strength to wrench yourself deeper into a spinal rotation.
Those are my thoughts! Although would not teach the twisting method Jason is suggesting here, I LOVE the ongoing conversation about "alignment" and biomechanics and modern postural yoga, and I think we all benefit from questioning what we have been taught. So, thanks for that Jason!
Thanks for reading the article and sharing your expertise. I really appreciate it. And, honestly, I wish we were in the same room, talking, and looking at people in twists. But, alas.. this will have to do. I have some follow-up thoughts regarding your intelligent comments.
1) Yes, the pelvis works as one unit. Agreed. Except, of course, for the small–but problematic–flares and tilts that can occur in the ilium.
The Coxal joint rotates. As you wrote–and I described–the pelvis moves on the femurs. I'm calling the movement of the pelvis in which you turn the pelvis in the direction that the spine is moving "rotation." The pelvis rotates in the transverse plane. It can move clockwise and counterclockwise. In fact, when describing the movement of the pelvis in your note–which you took even further than I did and included an expert description of femoral motion–you described the pelvis as rotated. So, I'm genuinely not sure why you wrote that the "Pelvis doesn't rotate." It's possible that you meant the Sacrum doesn't rotate. But, this article doesn't contend that the sacrum rotates. It only expresses the concern that turning the spine without turning the pelvis (even a little) may disrupt and destabilize the connective tissues of the region, promote greater laxity in the region, and produce less congruity between the sacrum and the spine.
3) Here here. I agree with your concern about asymmetrical postures with regards to SIJ issues. I'll take this further and say that it's not just asymmetrical postures, it's the transitions in and out of asymmetrical poses that can be problematic for a lot of students.
But, being concerned about asymmetrical postures and twists as they relate to SIJ issues aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, I'm including a link from an article by Judith Laster, whose a Dr. of Physical Therapy and Yoga Teacher with are than 30 years experience in the field, that takes the same perspective as I do regarding the pelvis and spine in twists. http://www.yogajournal.com/article/yoga-101/anatomy-101-understanding-sacroiliac-joint/. In the article, she makes the exact same argument about initiating pelvic rotation prior to spinal rotation in twists. In fact, she made the argument LONG before I stated the case in this blog piece. And, in her experience, she believes that "twists are a top culprit behind SI joint injuries." She too believes that allowing the pelvis and the spine minimizes SI risk.
I'm never going to disagree with someone saying that they believe in less torque and more moderate movements in yoga. I'm 1,000 percent in agreement that a more "shallow" degree of rotation–and focusing on core stabilization–is a good idea. Yes, absolutely.
4) I agree. In my experience, core stabilization and pelvic rotation aren't mutually exclusive. I think students can be taught to do both.
5) Again, this is totally reasonable. And, it's largely what I advocate for in the first phase of twisting. Once the core is integrated, my preference, though, is to free up the motion of the pelvis and spine a little bit more than you prefer. I don't crank away, but I do like a little more motion. Facilitating strength and stability is super important. Facilitating integrated mobility is also super important.
Thanks again for your time, honesty, and well-reasoned thoughts. Your students are in good hands.
1. NOW I get what you mean when you say the "pelvis rotates", you mean the pelvis rotates on the femurs, I was thinking you were referring to rotation at the SIJ (I have read things from other yoga teachers who think there is a lot more movement at the SIJ than there is – lots of researchers contend that there is none, those who think there is some agree that it is small enough to be unmeasurable by any tool currently available to us). Sorry, my misinterpretation of your words there!
3. I would be curious what the evidence is that twists are a "top culprit behind SIJ injuries", is this just Judith's anecdotal experience, she sees that people get a lot of pain in that region in twists? I don't see any references listed with her article. I know there is great evidence to show that rotational movement in the spine is a top culprit in disc degeneration and wear and tear on the spinal ligaments, but I have never heard this put forth as a mechanism of injury or degeneration at the SIJ. There is moderately good evidence to suggest that asymmetrical movement is a culprit, and I agree with you that this definitely includes transitions in and out of asymmetrical poses (by evidence I mean randomized controlled trials or that explore joint movement and joint stress).
4. When I say "core" I am referring to the muscles of the gluteal region as well all of those of the abdominal region and the lumbar region (all of the muscles that control femoral rotation as well as a number of trunk rotators) …. I know the word "core" is not very well defined but that is what I meant by it.
I actually think in a lot of ways you and Judith and I are on the same page here (we all want to find a way for students to rotate less in their spines), I'm just saying; why solve the problem by kicking the rotational stress down the kinematic chain? Why not just quit hooking our arms around the back of our thighs all the darn time? Why find ways to shimmy ourselves into shapes that encourage dysfunctionally excessive movement? What's the point? Unless someone wants to win at a yoga competition, or be a contortionist, or impress their friends I don't see that there is one.
Thank you for engaging in this conversation!
Thanks again for your follow-up, Margaret. I'm going to keep this one brief and move all the way down to your last 3 paragraphs. And, we both agree that we're largely on the same page.
With regards to "core" I have a fairly extensive guide to yoga and the core on my site. I'm certain that we think about the core in very similar ways.
With regards to spinal stabilization and pelvic rotation over the femurs, again, I don't think these are mutually exclusive. I agree that students don't have difficulty rotating the pelvis over the femurs, but the problem–as I see it–is that this normal, natural, functional rotation is coached out of students. When we tell our students NOT to rotate the pelvis over the femurs, I think we're asking them to do something that is less natural and less functional. My preference, then, is to encourage the natural movement AND encourage core stabilization with twists. Again, I don't see these as mutually exclusive.
With regard to arm-positioning and postural intensifications, again, my preference is to facilitate stability and mobility. I'll never discourage someone from producing less motion and more stabilization in a posture. And, I totally respect that you and other teachers prefer a lower-range of motion with decreased application of leverage from the upper-extremities. That's a sound preference. But, to be frank, I also like some assisted motion and the whole-body proprioceptive experience of connecting my arm to my leg in twists.
Thanks again for all your thoughts and your contribution to this practice!
Great article, Jason, and great talking points, Margaret. I enjoyed the whole conversation here, and found the information refreshing and illuminating.
Nice to hear from you. And, thanks for your feedback. I'm happy it inspired you to create such a good video!
I learned this concepts years ago from Judith Hanson Lasater and have been suggesting to students for years to explore the option of the lower spine region (Sacral area) to rotate with the spine..
I'd really like help on how to make my body more open so I can go deeper in the actual hip postures e.g. to get my bent front leg straigther in pigeon,or when it's split dog to get that bent leg further over.
Work on your hip-openers, Neil. I have a post on this site with my favorite 15 hip-opening postures. Dig in and keep digging in.
I'm wondering if you could offer your thoughts on how teachers can offer adjustments better to students in seated twists when allowing some rotation of the pelvis. Do you feel it's sometimes (or always?) injurious to help a student ground through the sitting bones in a twist because that prevents the pelvis from moving in the way you are suggesting? How do you adjust seated twists these days?
Regarding the content: most interesting to note, I think, also the *qualitative* difference between pelvis-stay-there and pelvis-come-on-along. And then, in theory, how that qualitative difference could be just as present and vital in a pelvis-stay-there twist.
In the second twist, aside from the mechanical change of pelvis rotating along, it seems to me and has been my direct experience, that there's also much more likely to be present the vibe in the practitioner's body of an integrated pelvis and spine, and the rest of the body for the matter, moving as one functional, coherent unit.
This as opposed to pelvis neutral by a kind of locking down, and potentially lots of that good spinal twisting energy getting blown-fused by the "circuit breakers" of the lumbosacral neighborhood in general, and the SI joints in particular.
So, perhaps, this "mechanical" change is equally as useful as a kind of "myofascial attitude" lesson. And then, again, perhaps that feeling of integration could rejoin at smaller and smaller increments of pelvic twist until we end up where we started, but with much more coherence, and mechanically much less lumbo-sacral shearing.
Hey Liam. This is remarkably thoughtful. So thoughtful, in fact, my only thought to add is, "yes," this all sounds reasonable to me. Thanks for practicing and adding your thoughts to the conversation.
I recently did a workshop with you in Chicago and really appreciate this kind of continued exploration. I believe it encourages dialogue and teaching from our own experiences while discouraging dogmatic thinking of the "right way" and how things "should" be, especially since our bodies and practice change daily. I'll definitely be sharing this post in our TT facebook groups. Thanks for your humble approach.
Thank You – I sm also a teacher and know it is important yo question what has been done in the past and be open to change.
I should have edited! Please delete previous comment and put in this one. Thank you.
I'm a Feldenkrais teacher, and regularly encounter students who fix their pelvis while turning their spine. We've been discussing the integrated twist vs. the torquing twist. Not having a yoga background, I googled that and came upon your site. Haven't read the entirety yet, but am so pleased to find this lively discussion. And I,too, have recently had the experience of learning that something that I believed true for many years was simply not accurate – and then taking that to my students as well. I guess that is what lifelong learning is about. Thank you again.
Thanks for your thoughts, Linda.


text:
William Roberts (29 September 1900 – 30 April 2006), often known as Bill Roberts, was one of the final surviving British veterans of the First World War.

As a fourteen-year-old boy Roberts was present in Hartlepool during the Imperial German Navy's bombardment.

After Roberts' father was killed in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, he joined the RFC. William, who worked as an aircraft fitter, claimed to have flown with T. E. Lawrence.

After the war he became a local authority transport manager.

Roberts lived in Jacksdale, Nottinghamshire, until his death in April 2006 at the age of 105.

External links
His obituary in The Times
The Telegraph – Obituary – Leading Aircraftman William Roberts
An interview with him, from 2005

1900 births
2006 deaths
British Army personnel of World War I
Royal Air Force personnel of World War I
English centenarians
Men centenarians
Recipients of the Legion of Honour
Royal Air Force airmen
Royal Flying Corps soldiers
People from Jacksdale
British Army soldiers

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
© University of Göttingen, Max Planck Institute for biophysical chemistry, DESY | Polaron solar cell in laboratory tests: Black is the manganate absorber film with hot polaron excitations.
Basis for new type of solar cell
International team of scientists develops new effective mechanism for photovoltaics
An interdisciplinary team of researchers has laid the foundations for an entirely new type of photovoltaic cell. In this new method, infrared radiation is converted into electrical energy using a different mechanism from that found in conventional solar cells. The mechanism behind the new solid-state solar cell made of the mineral perovskite relies on so-called polaron excitations, which combine the excitation of electrons and vibrations of the crystal lattice. The scientists from the University of Göttingen, the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, the Technical University of Clausthal and the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg present their work in the journal Advanced Energy Materials.
"In conventional solar cells, the interaction between the electrons and the lattice vibrations can lead to unwanted losses, causing substantial problems, whereas the polaron excitations in the perovskite solar cell can be created with a fractal structure at certain operating temperatures and last long enough for a pronounced photovoltaic effect to occur," explains the main author of the paper, Dr. Dirk Raiser, from the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen and DESY. "This requires the charges to be in an ordered ground state, however, corresponding to a sort of crystallisation of the charges, which therefore allows strong cooperative interactions to occur between the polarons."
The perovskite solar cells studied by the team had to be cooled in the laboratory to around minus 35 degrees Celsius, in order for the effect to take place. If this effect is to be used in practical applications, it will be necessary to produce ordered polaron states at higher temperatures. "The measurements so far were made in a carefully characterised reference material, in order to demonstrate the principle of the effect. For this purpose, the low transition temperature was accepted," explains co-author Professor Simone Techert.
Material physicists in Göttingen are trying to modify and optimise the material in order to achieve a higher operating temperature. "Also, we might be able to achieve the cooperative state temporarily through the cunning use of additional light to produce the excitation," says Professor Techert. If one of these strategies proves successful, future solar cells or photochemical energy sources could be made using perovskite oxide compounds, of which an abundant supply exists.
"Developing high efficiency and simply constructed solid-state solar cells is still a scientific challenge which many teams around the world are working on, in order to ensure the future of our energy supply," emphasises research director Christian Jooss. "In addition to optimising the material and the design of existing solar cells, this also involves exploring new, fundamental mechanisms of light-induced charge transport and conversion into electrical energy. This should allow us to develop solar cells based on new operating principles."
This is precisely what the interdisciplinary team of material physicists, theoretical physicists, chemical physicists and X-ray physicists has now achieved within the collaborative research centre SFB 1073 "Atomic-Scale Control of Energy Conversion" in Göttingen. A key factor in studying the new principle of solar cell operation was the ultra-fast methods of optical and structural analysis that were used in the current as well as in earlier work on this topic.
Research in Göttingen focuses on the development of materials whose stimuli can be controlled by strong interactions. The material development is intensively supported within SFB 1073 by the theoretical work of Prof. Dr. Peter Blöchl from the Technical University of Clausthal. His work enables to develop a fundamental understanding of the new mechanisms and thus to carry out the design of new materials in a targeted manner.
Original publication: Dirk Raiser et al. Evolution of hot polaron states with a nanosecond lifetime in manganite. Advanced Energy Materials. DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201602174
University of Göttingen, Max Planck Institute for biophysical chemistry 2017
Energy crisis: MEPs back plans to boost the deployment of renewables
Building Acceptance for Energy Transitions in Germany and Australia
European Solar Photovoltaic Industry Alliance
Paris Agreement: Unilateral Withdrawal by the U.S. and China Can Do the Most Damage
COP27 Needs to Get the 1.5 Degrees Celsius Target Off Life Support
Brussels wants new European alliance of the photovoltaic industry
As many rooftops as possible: Recommendations for an ambitious EU-wide solar mandate
2022 Right Livelihood Laureates lead the way on changing broken systems


Call her coolest mom of the year.
Beyonce stunned parents from her daughter Blue Ivy's elementary school by throwing a surprise concert on Saturday.
The show was for a fundraiser benefitting the Center for Early Education in Los Angeles.
This is obviously no ordinary school fundraiser. It was also hosted by Will Ferrell and Billy Crystal and held at The Shrine Auditorium.


text:
TimMaurer.com
Personal finance is more personal than it is finance.
SIMPLE MONEY
⬅ Back to School — Back to Financial...
Lessons In 'The Happiness Of... ➡
Boomer Esiason's Advice For Millennials: Plan For Tomorrow, Live For Today
Share | Tweet | Share | +1 | Buffer | print | email
Boomer Esiason is busy—I mean, really busy. "Starting next Tuesday, all the way until after the Super Bowl in 2015, I think I've got about four days off," he told me.
Why, then, was he anxious to talk about financial planning and life insurance?
It's because he has a message for today's youth: "Protect your future and make sure that whenever adversity strikes, you are prepared for it." Prepared, among other things, with the appropriate level of life insurance.
But how did one of the National Football League's great quarterbacks and commentators become an advocate for life insurance and the spokesperson for Life Happens, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing awareness of the importance of planning with life insurance?
Last year, Esiason told me a story involving his parents. His mom died when he was only seven, putting a financial strain on his father just when he was already facing the daunting task of leading a devastated family. But this year, Boomer wanted to talk specifically to his own children's generation, the oft-maligned Millennials.
Make no mistake, Boomer and his wife, Cheryl, have gone to great lengths to ensure the "entitled" tag so frequently associated with Millennials never rests on their children, Gunnar and Sydney, two standout scholar athletes. "There was no entitlement, there was no, 'When I graduate high school I'm going to get myself a new Ferrari,' or any of that crap," he said.
The Esiasons made their expectations very clear: Gunnar and Sydney were "…to be good citizens, go to school, get good grades and [go to] college. There was no option other than college. There was no 'I'm not going to college. College is not for me.'"
But it was also made clear that college was more of an investment than a gift. "We discussed the cost of college with them, taught them what 529 plans were, why we were investing in them, how much we invested in them to give them a head start, and how fortunate they should feel that financially we were able to do that for them," Esiason said.
The report card? "I'm here to say, as both kids graduated from Boston College, that not only have they done what we've asked, they've exceeded our expectations with their goals, and now they're starting their lives themselves."
That might be an understatement, especially in Gunnar's case. The 23-year-old has already surpassed the life expectancy—19—handed down when he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at the age of 2. But thanks in part to Gunnar's willingness to share his story and assume a leadership role at the Boomer Esiason Foundation, the organization, now in its 19th year, has raised more than $100 million for the fight against cystic fibrosis.
Gunnar's condition was another big reason that Boomer has long been a proponent of life insurance. "I use my life insurance," he said, "to make sure that his life is always going to be free of debt, and free of concern for money." After all, the cost of pursuing treatment, and a cure, to the "orphan illness" is mind boggling.
It's a lesson that Esiason now passes down to all Millennials, for whom he seems to feel compassion more than the trendy and popular disdain. He sees their addiction to non-stop digital stimulation and propensity to jump from job to job, but he also sees their struggle. "I see the frustration because sometimes I think this generation feels like, given the state of the economy over the last eight or nine years, that there's no place for them to go to [pursue] the American dream they see their dad and mom living."
Boomer Esiason is not short on opinions, or the ability to articulate them, which is a handy skillset in his second career. But his advice to young people isn't detached or patronizing. He understands, because of what he's experienced in his own life, that no one is going to hand you anything. "You guys are going to work hard and become something of success by yourself," he said.
He also understands, because of what he's observed in his children's lives, that tomorrow isn't promised for anyone.
Reflectively, he told me, "I would probably live my life exactly how Gun lives it. He's a very practical realist, but he lives day-to-day, moment-to-moment, and he gets the most out of every single day."
That's good advice, at any age.
I'm a speaker, author and director of personal finance for the BAM Alliance. If you enjoyed this post, let me know on Twitter or Google+, and click here to receive my weekly post via email.
Join my weekly email community.
I'm a speaker, author, wealth advisor and Director of Advisor Development for Buckingham and the BAM Alliance. Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.
Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription and get your download.
No spam. Ever. Your info is safe. Always. Powered by ConvertKit
Categories: Career, Forbes, Insurance, Life Planning, PROTECTION
Simplify Money & Life
Download the "Simple Money Portfolio" eBook. Free.
(Your information will never be shared with anyone. Ever.)
Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription and download your book.
Why Simple Money?
I'm an advisor, speaker and author helping clients, audiences and readers understand that personal finance is more personal than it is finance.
A Wealth Advisor and Director of Personal Finance for Buckingham and the BAM ALLIANCE, I'm also a regular contributor to CNBC, Forbes and TIME/Money, and my most recent book is Simple Money: A No-Nonsense Guide to Personal Finance.
Add me on Google+
Speaking at Your Event
How Much Impact Does The President Have On The Market?
How To Survive The Election
Financial Advisors: How To Talk To Clients About Politics
The Non-Conformist's 4-Step Education Savings Plan
Helpful Perspective From A Rockstar Non-Profit And A Tailwind
How should retirees deal with crazy markets when they don't have time to "stay the course"?
Be More Purposeful In 2020 With This Calendar Hack
Find Your Topic!
Find Your Topic! Select Category Career CNBC DEBT Financial Planners Financial Planning Forbes Giving Insurance Investing Life Planning Living Money Money and Life Music Other Stuff PBS Personal Finance Productivity PROTECTION Retirement SAVING Simple Money SPENDING Taxes The Financial Crossroads Ultimate Financial Plan Uncategorized Winner's Wisdom You Need To Know
Blog Archive Select Month November 2020 October 2020 May 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 October 2019 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 October 2017 September 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010
©2021 TimMaurer.com.


Schematic phase diagram of a quantum critical point (QCP) with the occurrence of novel phases near the QCP from an antiferromagnetically (AF)/ ferromagnetically (FM) ordered ground state to a disordered paramagnetic (PM) ground state at zero temperature.
Magnetic quantum critical points (QCPs), i.e. continuous phase transitions at absolute zero temperature separating a magnetically ordered from a disordered ground state, display itself in unusual low-temperature properties (e.g. non-Fermi-liquid behavior) and are quite often the result of competing interactions. These competing interactions can also give rise to novel ordering phenomena in the vicinity to the QCP. The (quantum-) critical spin fluctuations are at the origin of the peculiar behavior seen in the physical properties. Strongly correlated electron compounds are good model systems since their ground state can often be easily tuned by an external control parameter, such as compositional variation, pressure or magnetic field.
We employ neutron scattering to study those critical spin dynamics and the magnetic ordering phenomena close to QCPs to shed light on to the nature of the quantum criticality and the (novel) phases involved. In particular, e.g. we look at spin textures close to ferromagnetic QCPs, investigate the spin fluctuations near antiferromagnetic quantum criticality, but also study the spin dynamics in systems exhibiting e.g. unconventional superconductivity in the vicinity of QCPs.


Pebble Hill House for sale: Deerfield 4 bedroom 2,427 sq.ft.
LOCATION, LOCATION! - rarely available 4 bedroom (3 bedroom and games room) sprawling 2400+ square foot rancher situated on a 11,797 square foot corner lot in the prestigious Deerfield neighbourhood. Beautifully updated, landscaped and lovingly maintained. Features include: remodelled kitchen and bathrooms with Silestone (quartz) counters, newer carpets, updated mechanical and electrical systems throughout, new hidden gutters and exterior repainted, radiant heat and in-ground sprinkler system plus much more. Huge detached insulated double garage, separated living room with fireplace and adjoining dining room. Open kitchen to family room with access to private sundrenched backyard oasis with in-ground refurbished pool with thermal cover and hot tub. Great street appeal - a special property. By appointment only. A pleasure to show!
Deerfield 4 bedroom 2,427 sq.ft.


text:
Q: How does this proof, that the halting problem is undecidable, work? I'm going over the proof for The Halting Problem in Intro to the Theory of Computation by Sipser and my main concern is about the proof below:
If TM M doesn't know when it's looping (it can't accept or reject which is why a TM is Turing Recognizable for all strings), then how would could the decider H decide if M could possibly be in a loop? The same problem will carry through when TM D does its processing.

A: After reading this and trying to visualize the proof I came up with this code which is a simplified version of the code in this answer to a related question:
function halts(func) {
  // Insert code here that returns "true" if "func" halts and "false" otherwise.
}

function deceiver() {
  if(halts(deceiver))
    while(true) { }
}

If halts(deceiver) returns true, deceiver will run forever, and if it returns false, deceiver will halt, which contradicts the definition of halts. Hence, the function halts is impossible.

A: This is a "proof by contradiction", a reductio ad absurdum. (Latin phrases are always good in theory classes... as long as they make sense, of course.)
This program H is just a program with two inputs: a string representing a program for some machine, and an input.  For purposes of the proof, you simply assume the program H is correct: it simply will halt and accept if M accepts with w.  You don't need to think about how it would do that; in fact, we're about to prove it can't, that no such program H can exist, ...
BECAUSE
if such a program existed, we could immediately construct another program H' that H couldn't decide.  But, by the assumption, there is no such program: H can decide everything.  So, we're forced to conclude that no program defined as we defined H is possible.
By the way, the reductio method of  proof is more controversial than you might expect, considering how often its used, especially in Computer Science.  You shouldn't be embarrassed to find it a little odd.  The magic term is "non-constructive" and if you feel really ambitious, ask one of your professors about Errett Bishop's critique of non-constructive mathematics.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
NÚMENOR unveil upcoming album details
Epic symphonic dark metallers Númenor from Serbia have revealed the first details of their upcoming second full-length album, entitled "Sword and Sorcery". It was recorded and produced in Studio Paradox and it will be released in September 2015 via Stormspell Records. Some songs are written in the way of their debut album, but there are also new ideas, so that their music becomes even more bombastic and epic, truly representing dark fantasy metal. Lyrics are based mostly on Michael Moorcock and J.R.R. Tolkien tales. Númenor have already unveiled the marvelous cover by Slobicus Doomicus, as well as the album tracklist.
1. Interlude
2. Dragonheart
3. The Arcanist
4. Prelude
5. The Prince in the Scarlet Robe
6. The Oath of Feanor
7. Dragon of Erebor
9. Bane of Durin
10. Sleeping Sorceress
Númenor official page
Númenor @ Facebook
MIASTHENIA – Legados do Inframundo
SAXORIOR reveal upcoming album details