Blessings, Benefits to Society, Technological Discoveries of Israel

[From article]
All countries have imperfect records, both historically and in contemporary times. All at some point have been engaged in internal and external conflict and encountered enmity and violence. The State of Israel is no different in this respect, and has been the subject of continual hostility by some countries and hostile groups that refuse to recognize its existence and legitimacy.
It is therefore all the more important, at this moment commemorating the 68th anniversary of the creation of Israel, to acknowledge the extraordinary story and achievements of the miracle in the desert. In a Middle East all too replete with failed states, dictatorships, authoritarian regimes, civil wars, terrorist groups, and intra-Muslim religious conflicts, Israel is the only democratic nation and the only economically developed and modernized one.
This often comes as a surprise since Israel is a small country, 8,500 square miles, almost the exact size of the great state of New Jersey, and in which 60 per cent of the land mass is the Negev desert. The width of the country can be crossed, if there is no traffic jam, in 90 minutes.
Equally surprising, Israel is one of the relatively small number of counties (sic) in the world with a flourishing multiparty parliamentary system expressing almost all political points of view, universal suffrage, a free press and media, an independent judiciary often critical of the government, autonomous independent great universities and research centers, and numerous human rights groups.
Israel society is vibrant, diverse and productive. First, it should be universally acknowledged that though the State of Israel is relatively new, the relationship of the Jewish people to the land goes back at least 3,000 years. King David established Jerusalem, which has been the site of two Jewish Temples, as the capital of Israel. This history belies the spin of the fallacious Palestinian Narrative of Victimhood, embraced by haters of Israel, that Jews are foreign occupiers or colonialists in the land native to their ancestors.
Indeed, the Israeli system has incorporated non-Jews. Unlike its neighboring countries, Israel has freedom of worship for all religious groups. Of the 8.4 million population, 75 per cent are Jews, 20 per cent are Arabs, mostly Sunni Muslims, and there are ten other minority religions. Christians constitute 2 per cent of the population, and are more religious that Israeli Jews.
The population is pluralistic and diverse, with variations of religious affiliations and political views, and with ethnic, cultural, color, and linguistic differences. The various aspects of diversity can be illustrated by a few examples. A Jewish Ethiopian became Miss Israel in 2013. Arabic is an official language. About half the lawyers in Israel are women.
The return of Jews to the area, whether described as the Holy Land, Palestine, or Israel, has led to transformation of barren land, planting of forests, irrigation of the soil, building of urban areas, and to economic development.
[. . .]
In spite of international pressure and the bigoted BDS campaign spearheaded by Palestinian activists, Israel has not been isolated internationally. Israel is part of the global world, economically, technologically, and militarily. For a country of its size and population Israel has the most impressive record of technological initiatives as well being on the cutting edge of research in science, medicine, and agricultural innovations. For example, India has become a major purchaser of Israel’s defense systems. China in investing in Israeli companies, especially startup companies. Israel’s credit ratings are high.
A recent example of the military integration is the decision of NATO on May 3, 2016. It upgraded relations with Israel, and invited Israel to establish a permanent mission in its headquarters at Brussels, thus joining together in the fight against terrorism, in intelligence gathering and in cyber technology development.
[. . .]
The BDS bigots, in their animosity towards Israel and possible anti-Semitism, in their determination to boycott relations with Israel research units, are ignorant of the fact that it was the Israeli employees at Motorola in Israel who developed the original cell phone technology.
The country is a treasure for cultural connoisseurs and gourmets. After Tokyo and New York City, it has the largest number of sushi restaurants in a city, that of Tel Aviv, which is now also regarded as the gay capital of the world. Interestingly, Starbucks failed in Israel that has what it regards as better local coffee. The country has pride not only in the large number of Nobel Prize winners, orchestras, museums, theaters, and dance groups, but also in its wineries, especially those in the Golan Heights.
[. . .]
It is a tragedy that the Arab countries, except Egypt and Jordan, surrounding Israel and the Palestinian neighbors have refused to recognize the benefits they would gain from cooperating with Israel, and reaching a peaceful resolution of existing differences. Instead, they have been counterproductive and reactionaries.
The Israeli Declaration of Independence states, “we extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness.” Unfortunately, this sentiment has not been reciprocated. Israel has survived the wars thrust upon it by hostile neighbors, but those wars did not lead to a Palestinian interest in peaceful negotiation of the difficult issues dividing the two sides, and need to be resolved. Many in the “international community” have focused on the Palestinian claims and proposed one sided resolutions concerning them. They fail to appreciate that at present there is no Palestinian partner with whom Israel can reach a peace agreement, a settlement that appeared possible in the Oslo accords of 1993, and the Israeli peace offers in 2000 and 2007.
Even well-meaning do-gooders have underestimated the extraordinary success of Israel and the value of Israeli contributions to the Middle East as well as to Western culture. They have often underestimated the Israeli need for secure and defensible borders to survive in a rough neighborhood is paramount. Almost 250 years ago the French writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau told the Poles who were threatened by outside powers, “You are likely to be swallowed whole, hence you must take care to ensure you are not digested.” Israel is acutely aware of the continuing threats to swallow it whole, but the international community needs to be continually reminded of it.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/mazeltov_israel.html

May 14, 2016
Mazel tov, Israel
By Michael Curtis

Technology's Unintended Consequences

[From book review]

Philosophers from the ancient Greeks onward have worried that technological innovation would suborn the pursuit of truth and wisdom through ease, superficiality, and distraction. In Plato’s Phaedrus, no less a figure than Socrates lamented the invention of writing for its deleterious effects on memory, argument, and knowledge. Socrates imagined the Thamus, king of the Egyptian gods, chastising Teuth, inventor of the alphabet: This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learner’s souls, because they will not use their memories … [Y]ou give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. Late in the 18th century, Immanuel Kant identified excessive distraction as the enemy of an Enlightened mind. 

[. . .] 

Crawford’s greatest service is to spur our thought, to enjoin his readers to pay attention to the struggle of paying attention. 

[. . .] 

Attention, this is to say, isn’t ours to direct freely. It is, in his words, erotic; it pulls us out of our heads into the world around us. Giving in to attention’s pull can be an exhilarating experience. 

[. . .]

Thinking about the cook’s feeling of success after a difficult service or the racer’s excitement at entering “the zone” during a race gives credence to Crawford’s description of attention’s erotic quality. It’s also important to remember, he urges, that this erotic quality is born out of constraint. 

[. . .] 

analyzes video gambling as sites of the thanatotic self-negation created by a world devoid of true agency. 

[. . .] 

Take, for instance, Crawford’s analysis of video slots and virtual poker. He argues that gambling’s malevolence lies not in the misplaced hope for the once-in-a-lifetime jackpot it inspires, but in the illusory sensation of skillful development each wager fosters. Playing a machine that comes closer and closer to a winning combination with each pull, the gambler feels that he’s gaining the upper hand on the one-armed bandit. But the odds are rigged in more ways than one: the exercise of the will is, at best, a “pseudo-action;” a simulation of autonomy, experience, and mastery in a carefully managed environment. Gambling alternately fosters and frustrates autonomous agency, sending the modern ego into fits of directionless anger and self-loathing that spiral into destruction. It is the antithesis of real skill and the gambler is the inverted craftsman: endlessly feeds quarter after quarter into the slot, he is searching for some dark nirvana, for the total sublimation of the active, thinking self in the emptiness of automatic routines. 

[. . .] 

When it comes to justifying its existence, Crawford rightly argues, the gambling industry has no problem turning to the very same discourse of individualism that its operations so clearly unmask as hollow. Such arguments bear some resemblance to the Western-Marxist tradition of critical theory. Theodor Adorno saw fascism reflected in slippers and capitalism embodied in automatic doors; Crawford sees liberal individualism instantiated in slot machines. Both unite cultural and philosophical critique in analyses of the strange collusion between industry and entertainment in the creation of a fragile modern subjectivity. 

[. . .]

Crawford would have done well to direct his efforts to the real confrontations that bear directly on his anthropology of attention and theory of tradition. Consider, for instance, the varied arguments for a physically embedded, socially embodied human condition put forward by, inter alia, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michael Polanyi, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Charles Taylor, and, perhaps most radically, Derek Parfit. These philosophers deserve more than the cursory treatment they receive or total neglect they suffer in The World Beyond Your Head. Crawford, it seems, subscribes to a narrowly circumscribed philosophical canon. Certainly the most striking omission from this canon is Martin Heidegger. Crawford’s belief that we encounter our world as laden with pre-given meanings and significances, his claim that we act in the world through the pragmatic use of skill in the pursuit of projects, and, above all, his argument that true individuality consists in both the rejection of the dominant opinion of an anonymous public and the authentic embrace of tradition — in short, the entire scope of the book’s argument — relies heavily on the recondite philosophical anthropology the young Heidegger developed in Being and Time. Moreover, Crawford’s dim evaluation of the dominant philosophy of the subject — as a sovereign self at once isolated from the world yet imperiously demanding authority over it —resonates deeply with the later Heidegger’s trenchant critique of Western metaphysical thought and its concomitant humanistic worldview. Modern technology, Heidegger argued, encapsulated this view of man as an all-powerful subjectum, a tyrant who orders, manipulates, and controls the things of the world. Heidegger urged a clearer thinking that would abandon this position in favor of a humble view of man — of human being — as subordinate to the larger sway of Being. 

https://lareviewofbooks.org/review/are-you-out-of-your-mind

Are You Out of Your Mind?
By Charles Clavey

October 5, 2015

Technology Can Eliminate Rape

Technology provides solution to rape crisis. AI with smart attractive robots will provide enhanced sexual experiences with no mistaken desires or advances. Designer sex partners will be available from your smart watch delivered by Uber or Amazon drones.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/3/28/university-report-social-life/

Sexual Assault Recommendations Put Social Life Under Microscope
Although the report urges wide-scale change, many of the recommendations are already in progress, and now the College has formed two working groups to review the report and recommend a College-specific plan of action.
BY JALIN P. CUNNINGHAM AND IGNACIO SABATE
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
MARCH 28, 2016

Lack Of Security For Technology Diminishes United States

One more example of national suicide.

[From article]
The application of new technology revitalized sagging military systems in the United States by acting as a force multiplier. Suddenly we could do things the enemy couldn't do. By 1982 these new capabilities and platforms will put to the test: Israel and Syria battled over the Bekaa Valley where hundreds of Israeli warplanes (F-15s, F-16s, F-4s and Kfirs) tangled with Syrian warplanes (MiG-21s, MiG-23s, MiG-25s, and Su-25s). The result was a box score that could have put the Washington Nationals into the World Series: nearly 90 to 0 -- that is, no Israeli plane was shot down in an air-to-air encounter (two were lost to ground fire) and approximately 90 Syrian planes, including the Mach 3 MiG 25, were knocked out. A number of new technologies contributed to the huge win, but most important was the “look down-shoot down” radar in American-made F-15s.
[. . .]
It would be 20 years before the Soviets caught up – and by then they weren’t Soviets.
[. . .]
Nothing could be more dramatic than the decisive defeat of an empire based on technology.
So it would seem to make sense for the United States to protect technology to its utmost, to prevent the rise of a capable competitor or adversary that would be able to undermine the newly founded Pax Americana.
Make no mistake about it: Pax Americana is, in the author's opinion, good for the world as long as America supports democratic values and champions human rights.
But any thought that the Pax Americana would persist turns out to be, at best, wishful thinking. America's century has gone in the dumpster largely because we have squandered our technology by proliferating it abroad.
Looking at a modern Russian or Chinese factory one will see the same equipment, or even better equipment, than might be found in the United States. CAD-CAM, robotics, advanced autoclaves and isostatic presses, networked systems or supercomputers -- and much more -- can be found promoting military production outside the United States.
[. . .]
We are a country that has squandered a good part of our technological leadership by putting some of our best manufacturing abroad, and some of our most sophisticated systems in China and Russia, taking a great risk and making a bad bet on the future.
[. . .]
All of this has de-Americanized our technology and added to our vulnerability as America's critical infrastructure now is exposed to exploitation and existential risk in the form of cyber spying and cyber-attacks.
But perhaps the biggest risk is the approaching neutralization of our conventional war fighting systems. America, as a democratic country, cannot fight wars where the best it can hope to achieve is a draw,
[. . .]
America has to wake up to a threat it has largely created on its own by failing to protect its technological edge. Depending on profits as we export technology and jobs will not save us.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/technology_security_the_profit_disconnect.html

February 17, 2016
Technology Security: The Profit Disconnect
By Stephen D. Bryen and Shoshana Bryen

Implant Technology Is Beginning To Be Accepted

[From article]
As amazing as body implants sound, though, how close are we normal humans to getting one of those? In other words, are contemporary science, medicine and technology advanced enough to allow us to seamlessly meld with the technology and actually improve our lives?
[. . .]
We’ll start by introducing Northstar, a subdermal LED sensor that lights up when it’s in the vicinity of a magnet. It can be used to detect the magnetic north and act as a compass.
[. . .]
an antenna implanted in the skull. In 2004, Neil Harbisson had the device implanted in his cranium in an effort to fight color blindness. A camera at the far end of the device records whatever he is seeing and converts the image color data into a series of sound waves, which he has memorized. Instead of seeing various hues, he “hears” them with the help of a camera he calls Eyeborg.
[. . .]
On both of his ears are tiny magnets that Lee uses to listen to music without earbuds (here’s how) and sense objects in his vicinity. He achieved echolocation by converting data from an ultrasonic range finder (a device used to determine how far away an object is) into audio, which he then sends wirelessly to his headphone implants.
[. . .]
If history has taught us anything, it’s that even the greatest inventions had humble beginnings. Seeing the recordings of the first planes trying to take off invokes exactly the same thoughts about the pioneers of flight. Were they brave or foolish? Were their machines laughable or simply in “early development”? If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have planes today.
Does the same apply to biohacking? Only time will tell.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/biohackers-implant-computers-earbuds-and-antennas-in-their-bodies-2016-02-10

Biohackers implant computers, earbuds and antennas in their bodies
By Jurica Dujmovic
Published: Feb 10, 2016 10:47 a.m. ET

Harvard University Berkman Center Criticizes FBI Concerns About Surveillance Capabilities

See also Marc Goodman's book, Future Crimes, in which he describes the exponential development of new technologies that are overwhelming laws, and government. Criminals adapt in ways that bureaucracies cannot. Politicians and journalists appear to be clueless about technology. Few politicians read. They remain focused on identity theft and cannot even protect citizens and corporations from that.  

[From article]
For more than two years the F.B.I. and intelligence agencies have warned that encrypted communications are creating a “going dark” crisis that will keep them from tracking terrorists and kidnappers. Now, a study in which current and former intelligence officials participated concludes that the warning is wildly overblown, and that a raft of new technologies — like television sets with microphones and web-connected cars — are creating ample opportunities for the government to track suspects, many of them worrying. “ ‘Going dark’ does not aptly describe the long-term landscape for government surveillance,” concludes the study, to be published Monday by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. The study argues that the phrase ignores the flood of new technologies “being packed with sensors and wireless connectivity” that are expected to become the subject of court orders and subpoenas, and are already the target of the National Security Agency as it places “implants” into networks around the world to monitor communications abroad. The products, ranging from “toasters to bedsheets, light bulbs, cameras, toothbrushes, door locks, cars, watches and other wearables,” will give the government increasing opportunities to track suspects and in many cases reconstruct communications and meetings. The study, titled, “Don’t Panic: Making Progress on the ‘Going Dark’ Debate,” is among the sharpest counterpoints yet to the contentions of James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, and other Justice Department officials, mostly by arguing that they have defined the issue too narrowly.

[. . .]

The Harvard study, funded by the Hewlett Foundation, was unusual because it involved technical experts, civil libertarians and officials who are, or have been, on the forefront of counterterrorism. Larry Kramer, the former dean of Stanford Law School, who heads the foundation, noted Friday that until now “the policy debate has been impeded by gaps in trust — chasms, really — between academia, civil society, the private sector and the intelligence community” that have impeded the evolution of a “safe, open and resilient Internet.” 

[. . .]

Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of law and computer science at Harvard [. . .] noted that in the current stalemate there was little discussion of the “ever-expanding ‘Internet of things,’ where telemetry from teakettles, televisions and light bulbs might prove surprisingly, and worryingly, amenable to subpoena from governments around the world.” Those technologies are already being exploited: The government frequently seeks location data from devices like cellphones and EZ Passes to track suspects. The study notes that such opportunities are expanding rapidly. A Samsung “smart” television contains a microphone [. . .] and a Hello, Barbie brought out by Mattel last year records children’s conversations with the doll, processes them over the Internet and sends back a response. The history of technology shows that what is invented for convenience can soon become a target of surveillance. “Law enforcement or intelligence agencies may start to seek orders compelling Samsung, Google, Mattel, Nest or vendors of other networked devices to push an update or flip a digital switch to intercept the ambient communications of a target,” the report said. 

[. . .]

Apple users routinely back up the contents of their phones to iCloud — a service that is not encrypted and now is almost a routine target for investigators or intelligence agencies. So are the tracking and mapping systems for cars that rely on transmitted global positioning data. “I think what this report shows is that the world today is like living in a big field that is more illuminated than ever before,” said Joseph Nye, a Harvard government professor and former head of the National Intelligence Council. “There will be dark spots — there always will be. But it’s easy to forget that there is far more data available to governments now than ever before.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/01/us/politics/new-technologies-give-government-ample-means-to-track-suspects-study-finds.html?_r=0

New Technologies Give Government Ample Means to Track Suspects, Study Finds
By DAVID E. SANGER
JAN. 31, 2016

Harvard University Alumnus, Convicted Mass Killer, Ted Kaczynski, Indicates He Maintains His Views on Technolgy

[From article]

In handwritten letters to hundreds of supporters and curiosity seekers, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski expressed shock over the 9/11 attacks and wrote that he preferred Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential race.
Kaczynski also wrote to pen pals from federal prison in Colorado asking for more information about Osama bin Laden and the origins of al Qaeda, and has relied on others to inform him about the rise of the Internet and social media.
[. . .]
In 2010, Kaczynski engaged in a long back-and-forth with students at Huntingdon College in Alabama about the power of Facebook and how public figures like WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange and the late conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart used the Internet to gain influence. But he admitted he didn’t know what YouTube was or what it meant to go “viral.”
The papers reveal that Kaczynski remains strongly opposed to technology. Yahoo News reports that he is not allowed access to the Internet, but he still solicits email addresses from letter writers to share with others as part of his efforts to create an anti-technology movement.
The letters also show he fell in love with one of his early pen pals, Joy Richards, and they suggest Kaczynski and Richards explored the idea of getting married. Richards died of cancer in late 2006, and Yahoo reports that some of the most anguished letters in the collection deal with the pain Kaczynski felt over her illness.

http://nypost.com/2016/01/25/unabombers-letters-show-he-hasnt-changed-much-behind-bars/
Unabomber’s letters show he hasn’t changed much behind bars

New York Post
By Associated Press
January 25, 2016 | 9:45am

* * *

[From article]
He said the entries are written by the alumni, and rather than making Harvard look bad, the entry makes Kaczynski look bad for writing it.
Kaczynski evaded the FBI for nearly 20 years while killing three people and injuring 23 others with bombs sent through the US mail.

http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2012/05/23/harvard-alumni-directory-contains-bizarre-entry-for-ted-kaczynski-the-unabomber/c0BFPYTlF48lDqdoU7ZnMK/story.html

Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, lists himself in Harvard 1962 alumni report; says ‘awards’ include eight life sentences
By Alli Knothe
Globe Correspondent | 05.23.12 | 3:54 PM

Immigrants Know How To Litter, and Have Smart Phones Too

Immigrants also arrive fully informed of their rights to be free from discrimination too. It seems as if there are those charming, thoughtful public spirited lawyers who travel to Guantanamo and elsewhere preparing immigrants to know their rights. But poor white Americans, persons with disabilities remain free from any exercising of their basic rights and from access to attorneys. It just makes your heart grow warm. Ahem!



[From article]
On my walk to the park this morning, I came upon a huge mess on and around two picnic tables: paper, food, cans, bottles, and (the worst) a broken whisky bottle on the concrete beneath a table. Not just a few pieces, but a million pieces. Shattered.
Something glittered amid the trash: a new Apple iPhone. I brought it home, turned it on, and waited. A few hours later, it rang. A woman said that it was her little brother's phone, and she wanted it back.
I: "Yes, I have no problem with that, but first he needs to go to the park with a dust pan and broom, sweep up the glass, and pick up all the trash."
She: "I don't know where he is. His phone is on my account, so it's my property."
[. . .]
Since the woman had an unusual name, I looked her upon Facebook. She's from Khartoum, Sudan. A refugee? Christian or Muslim? With friends named Ali, Mohamed, Hassan, and Ibrahim, I'm just guessing she's not Christian. But I could be wrong.
Curious, isn't it, how soon they learn to assert their property rights, but cleaning up a mess is someone else's problem? In Sudan, the way to dispose of trash is to pitch it out the window. If you're feeling extra energetic, you loft the bag into someone else's yard. Or am I thinking of some other country?
These are the people who come here as "an act of love" (Jeb Bush), who will revitalize the German workforce and offset Germans' low birth rate (Angela Merkel).

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/meditation_on_a_lost_iphone.html

January 17, 2016
Meditation on a lost iPhone
By Henry Percy

Israeli Job Creation and Innovation

[From article]
EU’s Horizon 2020, the world’s largest public research program with which Israel has been associated since June 2014. This has meant both Israeli cooperation with European researchers and support for individual Israeli researchers.
This relationship is a testimony to the common language of science and intellectual interchange. It is a devastating commentary on the state of universities and professional organizations today, not only in the U.S. but also elsewhere, that so many, even if a minority, of the faculties and members reject this basic academic principle of free exchange of ideas. It is shameful and disgraceful that groups, such as the American Studies Association in 2013, the American Anthropological Association in 2014, and the American Historical Association in 2016, have passed or have taken seriously resolutions calling for boycott of academic institutions in Israel or making false allegations about the Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians in the field of education.
[. . .]



amid the turmoil in the Muslim world in the Middle East, Israel’s economy, according to Bloomberg News, continues to grow and is expected to be one of the fastest growing among developed countries? Certainly the EU is aware that Israel is prominent in the high tech field with innovative companies involved in cybersecurity, medical technology, information, and defense technology.
[. . .]
Chinese businessmen are not only investing heavily in Israeli technological companies, but also every year rapidly increasing that investment. Major companies such as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing and Bosch are establishing research and development centers in Israel.
[. . .]



Scientific progress and intellectual advancement depend on truth. They are hindered by the lies and deceptions perpetrated by Palestinian organizations and supporters. The supposedly moderate Palestinian group Fatah disseminates the information that Israel steals and harvests the body parts and organs of dead Palestinian terrorists and sells them before giving the bodies to the Palestinian Authority.
The tragedy is that absurdities of this kind are not uttered by ignorant Palestinians and their friends but by officials such as Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the UN, in a letter to UN President Ben Ki-moon on November 5, 2015.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/israel_innovation_and_development.html

January 10, 2016
Israel: Innovation and Development
By Michael Curtis

Middle East Muslim Terrorists Using New Technology Creating Global Dangers

Remote controlled car bomb.

Driverless cars, robots, all available as weapons to the terrorist as well as to the wealthy elite as toys.

[link to video embedded]
[From article]
Major Chris Hunter, a former special forces bomb technician, writes that the Islamic State is moving closer to being able to attack commercial aviation and that it possesses weapons expertise that eclipses anything any terror group has ever achieved.
[. . .]
Hunter notes that the Islamic State’s possession of chemical weapons coupled with these unmanned, remote-controlled vehicles is “truly the stuff of nightmares.”
Stuart Ramsay, Sky News Chief Correspondent, expands on Hunter’s report, confirming that the Islamic State has a cadre of scientists and weapons experts at their disposal who are developing weapons and training jihadists with plans to carry out “spectacular” attacks in Europe along with attacks on passenger jets and military aircraft.
[. . .]
And it’s a bit disconcerting, to say the least, that a news outlet would possess such valuable intelligence, but Western intelligence agencies would be in the dark.
Sky News came into possession of the training videos after an Islamic State trainer who had the videos was captured in Syria (by what’s left of the Free Syrian Army) as he was traveling through Turkey en route to Europe. The FSA passed the videos on to Sky News. And Sky News passed the videos on to the authorities in the U.K. A weapons adviser to the British military described them as an intelligence “gold mine.”
[. . .]
The Foreign Office responded with a statement: “Daesh will use all measures at their disposal to cause harm, and Britain will never be cowed by such terrorists. Our values are so much stronger than theirs. It will take time but this is an organisation that is losing territory and will be defeated.”
Please tell me I didn’t just read that.
“Our values” are stronger than theirs? Well, yes they are. (Duh.) But right now, the Islamic State is waging war, and the West is indeed “cowed.” The Islamic State is waging war with increasingly sophisticated weapons, and we’re showing up with our values – values that won’t mean a damn thing if we’re all slaughtered.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/isis_reportedly_planning_spectacular_attacks_against_the_west_using_sophisticated_weapons.html

January 7, 2016
ISIS reportedly planning 'spectacular' attacks against the West using sophisticated weapons
By Carol Brown

Growing Concern About Extreme Abuses of Technology

[From article]
Astra Taylor’s iPhone has a cracked screen. She has bandaged it with clear packing tape and plans to use the phone until it disintegrates. She objects to the planned obsolescence of today’s gadgetry, and to the way the big tech companies pressure customers to upgrade.
Taylor, 36, is a documentary filmmaker, musician and political activist. She’s also an emerging star in the world of technology criticism. She’s not paranoid, but she keeps duct tape over the camera lens on her laptop computer — because, as everyone knows, these gadgets can be taken over by nefarious agents of all kinds.
[. . .]
Political progressives once embraced the utopian promise of the Internet as a democratizing force, but they’ve been dismayed by the rise of the “surveillance state,” and the near-monopolization of digital platforms by huge corporations.
[. . .]
Techno-skeptics, or whatever you want to call them — “humanists” may be the best term — sense that human needs are getting lost in the tech frenzy, that the priorities have been turned upside down. They sense that there’s too much focus on making sure that new innovations will be good for the machines.
[. . .]
Start the class with “You Are Not a Gadget” (Jaron Lanier), move on to “The Internet Is Not the Answer” (Andrew Keen), and then, to scare the students silly, “Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era” (James Barrat). Somewhere in the mix should be Astra Taylor’s “The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age,” a clear-eyed reappraisal of the Internet and new media.
[. . .]
Our thoughts, friendships and basic urges are processed by computer algorithms and sold to advertisers. The machines may soon know more about us than we know about ourselves.
That information is valuable. A frequent gibe is that on Facebook, we’re not the customers, we’re the merchandise. Or to put it another way: If the service is free, you’re the product.
[. . .]
There are grave concerns that robots are taking the jobs of humans. And the robot issue leads inevitably to the most apocalyptic fear: that machine intelligence could run away from its human inventors, leaving us enslaved — or worse — by the machines we created.
[. . .]
Our technology today is so new that we haven’t had time to understand how to use it wisely.
[. . .]
Washington’s political establishment, however, has largely deferred to Silicon Valley.
[. . .]
For example, Gary Shteyngart’s “Super Sad True Love Story” is a tale of people struggling to find love and humanity in a world of Big Brother-like surveillance, societal breakdown and increasingly coarse social norms. The novel features gadgets that allow people to rate one another numerically on their sexual attractiveness.
[. . .]
Dave Eggers’s novel “The Circle” tells of a rising star at a Google-like company. She excels by answering thousands of e-mails a day, working at a frenetic pace. She lives with a camera around her neck that streams everything she sees onto the Internet.
[. . .]
[Pope] Francis sketched the dangers, writing that technological development hasn’t been matched by development in human values and conscience.
[. . .]
The pontiff is saying, with his special authority, what many others are saying these days: Machines are not an end unto themselves. Remember the humans.
[. . .]
Jaron Lanier. He’s a musician, composer, performer and pioneer of virtual-reality headsets that allow the user to experience computer-generated 3D environments. [. . .] He believes that Silicon Valley treats humans like electrical relays in a vast machine.
[. . .]
Lanier later wrote two books lamenting the way everyone essentially works for Facebook, Google, etc., by feeding material into those central processors and turning private lives into something corporations can mon­etize. He’d like to see people compensated for their data in the form of micropayments.
[. . .]
In our society there are two paths to success: One is to be good at computers and the other is to be a sociopath.”
[. . .]
The same technologies that empower individuals and enable protesters to organize also make it possible for governments to spy on their citizens. What used to be a phone now looks to many people like a tracking device.
Then there’s the question of who’s making money. Progressives are appalled by the mind-boggling profits of the big tech companies.
[. . .]
“Where do humans fit into this new economy?” [Douglas Rushkoff, whose new book is titled “Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus,”] said. “Really not as creators of value, but as the content. We are the content. We are the data. We are the media. As you use a smartphone, your smartphone gets smarter, but you get dumber.”
[. . .]
people are participating in that system willingly — if perhaps not entirely aware of what is happening to their data.
Taylor’s smartphone with the cracked screen clearly has been in heavy use. She knows these gadgets are addictive by design — “like Las Vegas slot machines in our pockets.” But she also has trouble living without one.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/classic-apps/techno-skeptics-objection-growing-louder/2015/12/26/e83cf658-617a-11e5-8e9e-dce8a2a2a679_story.html

Techno-skeptics’ objection growing louder
By Joel Achenbach
 December 26, 2015 at 5:40 PM

High Tech California Workers Taking LSD

[From article]
It seems unlikely, but that’s apparently what some Silicon Valley professionals have been doing - and reporting great results.
According to Rolling Stone, a growing number of people are experimenting with "microdoses" of psychedelics to help them work.
A microdose of LSD is around 10-15 micrograms, approximately a tenth of a “normal” dose.
[. . .]
Psychedelics researcher Dr James Fadiman discussed microdosing withVice, saying: ‘People do it and they’re eating better, sleeping better, they’re often returning to exercise or yoga or meditation. It’s as if messages are passing through their body more easily.”
“But what many people are reporting is, at the end of the day, they say, ‘That was a really good day.’ You know, that kind of day when things kind of work.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/12019140/Silicon-Valley-professionals-are-taking-LSD-at-work-to-increase-productivity.html

Silicon Valley professionals are taking LSD at work to increase productivity
An increasing number of twenty-somethings are reportedly 'micro-dosing' on psychedelic drugs - and they say it's making them better workers
By Adam Boult
3:35PM GMT 26 Nov 2015

Washington DC Police and FBI Secret Agreement to Hide Sting-Ray Cell Phone Technology

[From article]
In August 2012, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) in Washington, DC entered into a secret agreement with the FBI.
The MPD was promising not to disclose any details about its use of a highly controversial antiterrorism surveillance technology known as a Stingray. About the size of a suitcase, the Stingray simulates a cell phone tower and intercepts mobile phone calls and text messages.
The MPD also agreed that if the department learned that any technical details about the surveillance technology was at risk of being exposed during a judicial proceeding, MPD would contact the FBI so the bureau could ask MPD to "seek dismissal of the case" in order to continue protecting the overall secrecy of the Stingray.

 

The unusual and potentially illegal arrangement between the FBI and MPD was memorialized in a six-page non-disclosure agreement (NDA) signed by MPD Assistant Chief Peter Newsham [pdf at the end of this story] after the police department requested "certain wireless collection equipment/technology" — what is commonly called the Stingray — manufactured by Harris Corporation, a Florida-based defense contractor.
[. . .]



The purpose of the surveillance technology is to combat terrorism. But according to a document turned over to VICE News last year — MPD's use of a Stingray was first revealed by VICE News in October — MPD planned to use the Stingray to increase the arrests of "fugitives, drug traffickers, and violent offenders (robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, Homicide), while reducing the time it takes to locate dangerous offenders that need to be removed from the streets of DC."
Wessler said last year that the Fourth Amendment rights of tens of thousands of DC residents are likely violated whenever DC police use Stingray, which sends out a more powerful signal than a cell tower and forces all mobile devices to report back serial numbers and locations.
[. . .]



Efforts by journalists and groups like the ACLU to find out how law enforcement has used Stingrays have largely been thwarted because the FBI has intervened in all of the FOIA cases.
Indeed, the NDA says that if MPD receives a FOIA request seeking information about the Stingray, its operating manuals, its software, "and any related documentation," the MPD "will immediately notify the FBI of any such request telephonically and in writing in order to allow sufficient time for the FBI to seek to prevent disclosure through appropriate channels."
[. . .]
"It is extraordinary in that it uses private companies to override federalism and directs local law enforcement to hide information from judges during both the warrant procedure and in subsequent proceedings," she said. "[The FBI is] telling state and local enforcement what they can and cannot do in contracting with a private company…. They're using industry to control the police, and in the process overriding the judiciary. The real shock is that they're hiding it from the judges."
[. . .]
[The bureau] is trying to say out of one side of its mouth that this is a super-secret national security tool," he said, "while on the other side of its mouth it says to every state and local law enforcement agency that comes asking, 'Oh yeah, sure, go ahead and use this — and you can use it to track down stolen cell phones, petty theft, and missing persons.' That does not describe to me a super-secret national security tool."
[. . .]
Washington, DC is unique among US cities in that the US Attorney's office prosecutes a majority of the adult felony criminal and misdemeanor cases. It would be extraordinary if the FBI and/or MPD were successful in convincing a federal prosecutor to abandon a criminal case or to strike lenient plea deals with defendants in cases where a Stingray was used.
A spokesman for the US Attorney's office in Washington, DC, did not respond to a request for comment on whether that ever happened.

https://news.vice.com/article/dc-police-the-fbi-and-their-secret-agreement-to-hide-cell-phone-spying

DC Police, the FBI, and Their Secret Agreement to Hide Cell Phone Spying
By Jason Leopold
September 30, 2015 | 2:45 pm

Swedish Company Using Implants Instead of ID Cards

Several TV shows and films show criminals cutting off limbs with the implants to thwart security. Great idea providing more reasons for killing and maiming. 

Office plants computer chips under workers’ skin instead of ID cards
A new Swedish office block is implanting the workers inside of it with computer chips under their skin, rather than issuing them with ID cards. The small radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips are pushed under the skin in the hand, and can then be used to open doors or use the photocopier.

New Device To Control Minds of Others, $299

[From article]
Thync costs $299 and has just been released to the public. It provides “calm or energy on demand”, the company says, by using “neurosignalling” to activate nerves and change people’s state of mind.
The Thync looks like a small, white plastic triangle that is placed on the forehead. Its then fed with “Vibes” — specially-formulated zaps that either wake people up or calm them down.
The whole thing is controlled by phones . The zapping lasts an hour but the effects can go on for long after that, the company claims.
[. . .]
So why pay $299 for Thync when you can turn on TV or read the news online for free, and feel whatever – anger, guilt, fear, or envy – you are told to feel?

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/06/mind_control_device_available_for_only_299.html

June 5, 2015
Mind control device available for only $299
By Newsmachete

Technology Will Enable Erasing Memories

[From article]
“Once organized crime figures out how to do this, I could see a horrific scenario wherein somebody is kidnapped and threatened that unless they pay an exorbitant sum, their lifelong memories of their wife or daughter would be erased,” warned Goodman.

http://www.infowars.com/expert-future-hackers-could-wipe-peoples-memories/

EXPERT: FUTURE HACKERS COULD WIPE PEOPLE’S MEMORIES
Neurohackers could kidnap hostages and threaten to delete their AI-enhanced brains, warns former FBI futurist
by PAUL JOSEPH WATSON

FEBRUARY 13, 2015

Interesting Discussion Of Internet Future

http://www.c-span.org/video/?325750-1/google-vice-president-vint-cerf-future-internet

MAY 4, 2015

C-Span
Future of the Internet
Vint Cerf, also known as a co-founder of the Internet, spoke on the future of the Web. He addressed the importance of adopting new technologies to ensure Internet security. Other topics included Internet policy, “net neutrality,” and encryption technology. Following his prepared remarks he answered written questions from audience members.

Electronic Waste Includes Toxic Materials, Precious Metals

Plastic pollution
The Bishnumati river running through Kathmandu in Nepal. The river is full of litter and raw sewage which is emptied into the river. The local people see the river as a rubbish collection service
Rex Features

[From article]
Gold worth more than £7bn is being thrown away amid the 42 million tons of electronic and electrical equipment discarded by consumers each year, according to United Nations experts.
A report by the United Nations University (UNU) reveals that the amount of “e-waste” generated globally is increasing by two million tons a year and will reach 50 megatons by 2018 – with Britons among the planet’s biggest generators of hi-tech junk.



The study warns that less than 16 per cent of global e-waste is being diverted from landfill into recycling and reuse – representing the loss of an “urban mine” of potentially recyclable materials worth more than £34bn.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/electronic-waste-worth-34bn-piling-up-in-toxic-mine-warns-un-report-10187364.html

Electronic waste worth £34bn piling up in 'toxic mine', warns UN report
CAHAL MILMO 
Sunday 19 April 2015

Magnetic Japanese Train Sets World Speed Record

The maglev technology could be exported to the US
[From article]
A magnetic levitation (maglev) train in Japan has broken the world speed record by hitting 366mph.
[. . .]
Another test run is scheduled for Tuesday during which the train's speed could reach 373mph.
[. . .]
The speeds are twice as fast as today's bullet trains.
By comparison, Britain's HS2 rail line will run at just 224mph.
Maglev trains use a magnetic charge to lift and move the train cars above a guideway.

http://news.sky.com/story/1466944/japans-maglev-train-breaks-world-speed-record
Japan's Maglev Train Breaks World Speed Record
Japan hopes to export the technology to the US and has offered to cover the costs of a line between New York and Washington DC.
12:15, UK,
Friday 17 April 2015

New York Civil Liberties Union Releases Sheriff's File On Cell Phone Technology Obtained From FBI

[From article]
The cell phone surveillance equipment is called the Stingray, which costs $350,000. It allows the sheriff's office to track and record the location of a person through their cell phone.
[. . .]



“These records confirm some of the very worst fears about local law enforcement’s use of this expensive and intrusive surveillance equipment,” said NYCLU Staff Attorney Mariko Hirose. “Not only did the Sheriff’s Office promise the FBI breathtaking secrecy to keep information about stingrays as hidden as possible, it implemented almost no privacy protections for the Erie County residents it is sworn to protect and serve.”

http://www.wkbw.com/news/nyclu-releases-details-of-ec-sheriffs-cell-phone-spying

NYCLU releases details of EC Sheriff's cell phone spying
12:42 PM, Apr 7, 2015