Is life on earth unique?

do astronauts think there's life on other planets?

It's complicated.

The reason alien life seems likely is the same reason it's so hard to find. The universe is big. So freaking big. 

"We've basically proven that every star has planets," said Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who has spent 4,000 hours in space. "Then you start doing the math."

The math isn't easy. How many stars are in the universe? Well, that depends on the size of the universe. We're able to observe the cosmic microwave background (CMB), radiation formed around 400,000 years after the Big Bang. It tells us the observable universe goes back around 14 billion years. But there could be something beyond the CMB, or even other universes contained in a massive "multiverse."

Within the constraints of the observable universe, there could be 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (or septillion) stars, according to astronomer David Kornreich. (He conceded to Space.com that the number could be a gross underestimate.)

If every one of those stars has at least one planet, then, well, it seems inconceivable that life wouldn't exist elsewhere. 

Still, no evidence yet. The theme is clear: Life on Earth is miraculous. Out of a nearly infinite combination of possibilities, the conditions were right for single-celled organisms to rise from inorganic material, which evolved sheltered by Earth's magnetic field and ozone, with a bounty of oxygen and water to support them.

Chris Hadfield, astronaut and David Bowie fan.

IMAGE: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC/NUTOPIA

"You look at all these systems … and it’s amazing all the things that have to come together to make this grand reality happen," Aronofsky said.

https://mashable.com/2018/03/24/one-strange-rock-astronauts-aliens/?utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed#UI4TBzFEYZqn

Dates to know over 4000 years

1440 BCE Moses

995 David Jerusalem

937 Solomon dies. Nation splits

722 Assyrians destroy 10 tribes Israel

586 Babylonia destroys Temple, takes Jews to Babylonia Nevuchadnazer

538 Persia conquers. King Cyrus Lets Jews go back and rebuild Temple.

460 Persia/Purim Achashverosh.

444 Unified, canonized Torah was available to Ezra for the public reading which took place in approximately

Prophets were canonized late in the Persian period, probably by the start of the fourth century

333 Greeks take over. Alexander dies 323. Empire splits.

318 the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which accepted Christianity: 10 years later, it had become the official religion of the Roman Empire.

Collection of Ketuvim/Writings existed as early as the second century B.C.E. but was not regarded as formally closed. There is no scholarly consensus as to when the Hebrew Bible canon was fixed

165 Chanukah. Maccabees defeat Syrian Greeks Antiochus

63 BCE Pompey Rome takes over 63 BCE

70 CE Jews rebel. Temple destroyed.  Tens thousands killed. 100,000 Jewish slaves, Masada

90 First seder

132 Bar Kochba revolt. 1000 Jewish villages destroyed.

220 Mishnah written

500 Babylonian Talmud finished

1000 Jews invited by Polish kings into Eastern Europe /Rashi era

1099 Crusades

1135 Rambam Maimonides

1492 Expulsion Spain

1789 France equality. Jews get it 1791.

Pogroms 1820-1910/Russian revolution 1917. 2.2 million E. European Jews come to USA between 1880 and 1920

1897 First Zionist Congress Herzl

1945 Holocaust ends

1947 UN votes to admit Israel /Israel established 1948. Truman agrees and calls self “King Cyrus”

1967 Jerusalem reunited

2016 Obama’s UN abstention branding much of Jerusalem “illegally occupied territory” declared most anti-Semitic Act in the world  by Wiesenthal institute for Nazi Hunting.

2018 Trump declares Jerusalem capital of Israel in eyes of USA for first time

Why Trump is right on Chinese Trade

Trade war with China? We’re already in one Posted: 23 Mar 2018 08:58 AM PDT (Paul Mirengoff) Yesterday, there were two developments on the trade front. First, the Trump administration said it will impose tariffs on $60 billion in Chinese goods and limit China’s ability to invest in the U.S. technology sector. Second, the administration issued a reprieve on steel and aluminum tariffs for some of our closest trading partners. As a supporter of free trade, I welcome the second development. But I also welcome the first. Why? Because it is an appropriate and much needed response to Chinese anti-competitive practices. China is waging war against our technology industry. It violates the intellectual property rights of our firms by imposing restrictive licensing arrangements in China and by outright cyber-theft. (John provides a list of specific Chinese improper practices in the post immediately below this one). Through these methods, says one tech executive who deals with China, they intend to “eliminate our companies in the Chinese market and then take them on globally.” The past administrations rejected a retaliatory response. They preferred to jawbone. Predictably, they failed to move China. The Clinton administration fought back against Chinese intellectual property abuses in 1995. China backed down. The Washington Post points out that China’s economy is now in a much better position to withstand blows we inflict through trade restrictions. However, the regime still has strong incentives to avoid an all-out trade war. A dictatorship sitting on a tinderbox of discontent over lack of freedom is well-advised to keep delivering strong economic performances. The Chinese are known for playing the long game. Right now, the long game move is to resolve this dispute with Trump and then revive its war when the Trump tempest has blown over. Thus, there’s a good chance this dispute will be resolved largely in America’s favor without a sustained trade war. In any event, I don’t think the national interest would be served by continuing to ignore China’s war on our tech sector. You cannot keep turning the other cheek to a belligerent adversary. If we’re headed for a trade war with China, we’ll want to be on the best possible terms with our friendly trading partners. Yesterday’s second development — the reprieve from tariffs on steel and aluminum on our friends — is welcome for that reason, as well as its economic merit.

Trade War? Not So Fast! Posted: 23 Mar 2018 08:23 AM PDT (John Hinderaker) Steve has published a post on President Trump’s order on trade with China, and Paul is working on one. I will add my thoughts briefly. Trump’s order, which expresses the intent to place tariffs on certain Chinese products in retaliation against China’s unfair trade practices, prompted a wave of hysteria yesterday, including a selloff in the stock markets. This assessment in the Minneapolis Star Tribune is typical: President Donald Trump on Thursday announced that he will place punitive tariffs on Chinese products sold to U.S. companies to make up for what the White House says is $50 billion worth of unfair trade practices. The administration will also restrict Chinese investments in U.S. companies. The U.S. trade representative will propose a specific list of products to be taxed. Senior White House officials said the list of targets was “long” but weighted toward high-tech products that the U.S. says were “acquired in an unfair way.” The moves against the Chinese brought a quick threat of retaliation, with Beijing announcing that it could raise tariffs on U.S.-produced pork, aluminum and other goods. U.S. financial markets sold off sharply in reaction to the prospect of a trade war, with the Dow Jones losing more than 700 points. With the exchange of tariff actions, the relationship between the world’s top-ranked economy, the United States, and the world’s second-ranked economy, China, formally moves from cooperative to adversarial. You can read the fact sheet underlying President Trump’s order here: * In August, President Trump’s Administration launched an investigation into Chinese acts, policies, and practices related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation. * The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) led the investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which gives the USTR broad authority subject to Presidential direction to eliminate unfair trade practices or policies that burden U.S. commerce. * This was the first Section 301 investigation since 2013. USTR led an extensive investigation based on a thorough analysis of evidence and comments received from academics, think tanks, law firms, trade associations, and American companies and workers. * The investigation concluded that China uses foreign ownership restrictions, such as joint venture requirements and administrative review and licensing processes to force or pressure U.S. companies to transfer technology to Chinese entities. * China requires foreign companies that access their New Energy Vehicles market to transfer core technologies to a joint venture and disclose development and manufacturing technology for the entire vehicle. * The investigation concluded that China forces U.S. companies seeking to license technologies to Chinese entities to do so on non-market based terms. * China imposes contractual restrictions on the licensing of intellectual property and foreign technology into their country, but does not put the same restrictions on contracts between two Chinese enterprises. * The investigation concluded that China directs and unfairly facilitates investments and acquisitions to generate large-scale technology transfer from U.S. companies to Chinese entities. * A Chinese government-backed fund helped Apex Technology Co., a Chinese investment consortium, acquire a U.S. computer-printer maker which had previously sued Apex over patent infringement. * The investigation concluded that China conducts and supports cyber intrusions into U.S. companies to access their sensitive commercial information, such as trade secrets. * In 2014, the U.S. charged five Chinese military hackers for cyber espionage committed against U.S. corporations and a labor organization for commercial advantage. * An interagency analysis estimates that China’s unfair acts, policies, and practices cause tens of billions in damages to the United States each year. So what is going on is essentially what I predicted here. I doubt that we will see anything like a trade war, but what will happen–what is happening–is that President Trump is taking long-overdue steps to redress unfair trade practices on the part of other countries, especially China. The Obama administration was, as I wrote in the linked post, “shamefully supine” when it came to protecting America’s economic interests. In my view, this is one of a number of policy areas–North Korea, Iran and Syria are others that come immediately to mind–where President Trump has inherited a mess that was kicked down the road by at least one prior administration. To his credit, he is taking action to protect American interests rather than, like Barack Obama, following the path of least resistance. How all of this eventually will play out remains to be seen, but my guess is that if we forgo politically-motivated hysteria and ultimately look at the results of Trump’s calling out objectionable Chinese practices, America will come out ahead.

Dream team if you care about Israel's security and know the iran deal is a genocidal idiocy.

Dream team if you care about Israel's security and know the iran deal is a genocidal idiocy.

1. Bolton National Security Advisor
http://www.worldjewishdaily.com/bolton-trump.php

Trump Security Pick John Bolton Welcomed By Israelis, Reviled By Palestinians https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-security-pick-john-bolton-171412094.html

2. The secretary of state’s would-be replacement, Mike Pompeo, is an ardent hawk who says the agreement is ‘disastrous.’
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/13/tillersons-ouster-could-kill-the-iran-nuclear-deal-217359
3. Nicky Haley at UN https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/08/politics/un-security-council-meeting-jerusalem/index.html
4. David Friedman US Ambassador to Israel
5. VP Pence  https://www.timesofisrael.com/pence-at-aipac-vows-iran-nuke-deal-to-end-immediately-if-not-fixed/   https://www.timesofisrael.com/pence-has-long-pushed-for-trump-policies-on-israel/

Scientific American (!) urges chilling out over global warming

Apocalyptic scenarios attributed to global warming are simply false and the human race will be able to accommodate whatever “climate change” throws at us, claims a remarkably sober new essay in Scientific American.

The essay, penned by John Horgan, the director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, analyzes two recent reports by “ecomodernists” who reject climate panic and frame the question of climate change and humanity’s ability to cope with it in radically new terms.

One of the reports, a work called “Enlightened Environmentalism” by Harvard iconoclast Steven Pinker, urges people to regain some much-needed perspective on climate, especially in the context of the overwhelming material benefits of industrialization.

Pooh-poohing “the mainstream environmental movement, and the radicalism and fatalism it encourages,” Pinker argues that humanity can solve problems related to climate change the same way it has solved myriad other problems, by harnessing “the benevolent forces of modernity.”

Separating himself from environmentalists who seem to detest modernity, Pinker asserts that industrialization “has been good for humanity.”

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“It has fed billions, doubled lifespans, slashed extreme poverty, and, by replacing muscle with machinery, made it easier to end slavery, emancipate women, and educate children. It has allowed people to read at night, live where they want, stay warm in winter, see the world, and multiply human contact. Any costs in pollution and habitat loss have to be weighed against these gifts,” he says.

And just as human ingenuity has allowed us to overcome countless obstacles in the past, he notes, it is more than reasonable to suppose it will do so in the future as well.

The second report put forward by Horgan is a recent article by Will Boisvert titled “The Conquest of Climate,” which contends that the “consequences for human well-being will be small” even if human greenhouse emissions significantly warm the planet.

Boisvert, who has been described as a “left-wing environmental expert, is no “climate denier,” yet he calls for climate alarmists to take a deep breath and step back from doomsday forecasts that likely have little to do with what will actually take place in the future.

As an example, the author pokes fun at a 2016 Newsweek article announcing that “Climate change could cause half a million deaths in 2050 due to reduced food availability.”

The story, based on a Lancet study, made dire forecasts regarding the effects of climate change on agriculture, while failing to note that the study actually predicts much more abundant food availability in 2050 thanks to advances in agricultural productivity. These advances will “dwarf the effects of climate change,” he contends, and the “poorest countries will benefit most.”

Like Pinkers, Boisvert tries to factor in what climate alarmists ignore: the capability of human beings to react to changing scenarios in remarkably ingenious ways.

“Throughout history humans not only weathered climate crises but deliberately flung ourselves into them as we migrated away from our African homeland into deserts, mountains, floodplains and taiga,” he writes, before embarking on an excursus into the striking cleverness of the Inuit in adapting to a hostile environmen

Robert Mueller Has Been Botching Investigations Since The Anthrax Attacks

Robert Mueller Has Been Botching Investigations Since The Anthrax Attacks

Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the anthrax attacks following 9/11 -- one of the most important of his career -- did not go well, to say the least.

By Daniel Ashman

FEBRUARY 8, 2018

Mystery surrounds Robert Mueller and his investigation into Russia and President Trump. Some think he is the ultimate professional, others that he is a Democrat lackey, still others maintain he is working on Trump’s side.

We can see how he works if we look at how Mueller ran his second-most important investigation as FBI Director. In September of 2001, an entity began mailing anthrax through the US Postal system, hitting such prominent targets as NBC and Senator Daschle’s office. The terrorist attacks killed five and left others hospitalized. The world panicked.

Under Mueller’s management, the FBI launched an investigation lasting ten years. They now brag about spending “hundreds of thousands of investigator hours on this case.” Let’s take a closer look at Mueller’s response to understand the context of the investigation — who his people investigated, targeted, and found guilty.

The anthrax letters began just a week after the 9/11 attack. While planning the airplane hijackings, Al-Qaeda had been weaponizing anthrax, setting up a lab in Afghanistan manned by Yazid Sufaat, the same man who housed two of the 9/11 hijackers. Two hijackers later sought medical help due to conditions consistent with infection via anthrax: Al Haznawi went to the emergency room for a skin lesion which he claimed was from “bumping into a suitcase,” and ringleader Mohamed Atta needed medicine for “skin irritation.” A team of bioterrorism experts from Johns Hopkins confirmed that anthrax was the most likely cause of the lesion. Meanwhile, the 9/11 hijackers were also trying to obtain crop-dusting airplanes.

So how did Mueller’s investigative team handle the case?

Mueller issued a statement in October of 2001, while anthrax victims were still dying: the FBI had found “no direct link to organized terrorism.” The Johns Hopkins team of experts was mistaken, the FBI continued, Al Haznawi never had an anthrax infection. The crop-dusting airplanes they needed was possibly for a separate and unrelated anthrax attack.

A few weeks later, the FBI released a remarkable profile of the attacker. FBI experts eschewed analysis of the content of the letters, where it was written in bold block letters, “Death to America, Death to Israel, Allah is Great.” Instead, they focused on a “linguistic analysis,” stating that the letter’s writer was atypical in many respects and not “comfortable or practiced in writing in lower case lettering.” The FBI therefore concluded that it was likely a disgruntled American with bad personal skills.

The investigators hypothesized that the attacker was a lonely American who had wanted to kill people with anthrax for some undefined time period, but then became “mission oriented” following 9/11 and immediately prepared and mailed the deadly spores while pretending to be a Muslim.

Mueller’s FBI honed in on Steven Hatfill as the culprit — a “flag-waving” American, who had served in the Army, then dedicated himself to protecting America from bioterrorist threats by working in the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

There was no direct link from Hatfill to the attacks, by the FBI’s own admission, and the bureau never charged Hatfill. The FBI did however spy on, follow, and harass him non-stop for years. The Department of Justice also publicly outed Hatfill as the possible terrorist.

While Hatfill’s dignity and life was being trampled on by America’s secret police, Mueller took a stand. But on a different topic.  He made front page news for threatening President Bush he would resign over NSA policy. All while his own team was trampling on the rights of an American in the FBI’s largest-ever investigation.

Hatfill successfully sued the government for its unlawful actions. He won almost $6 million dollars.

After the Hatfill investigation blew up in the FBI’s face, they moved on to Bruce Ivins, another Army researcher who had actually volunteered to help the FBI investigate this case, and had been doing so for years. It wasn’t until five years after the attack that Mueller’s men decided Ivins was a target.

The FBI case against Ivins, once again, was based on circumstantial evidence.

The prosecution stated Ivins purposefully gave a misleading sample of anthrax spore, but Frontline documented this was not true. Ivins was “familiar” with the area from which the anthrax letters were mailed, the FBI said, but Pulitzer Prize winning ProPublica lays out the accepted facts of the case showing it was impossible for Ivins to make the trip to mail the letters.

The spores used in the attacks were a similar type to the laboratory spores where Ivins worked, but that ignored the fact that the anthrax letters had a unique additive — so sophisticated and dangerous a scientist commented, “This is not your mother’s anthrax” — that was likely produced by a nation state or Al-Qaeda.

Ivins was never indicted, just given the Hatfill treatment. His house was raided, and he was threatened with a death sentence, or as his lawyer put it, put under “relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo.” He committed suicide.

One week later, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor stated Ivins was guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and they were “confident that Dr. Ivins was the only person responsible for these attacks.”

Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, one of the intended victims of the anthrax terror attacks, did not believe that Ivins was the sole actor. Mueller ordered an independent audit of the FBI’s case by the National Academy of Sciences, then formally closed the case in 2010, sticking with the conclusion that Ivins, and Ivins alone, committed the terror attack. One year later the NAS released their results and confirmed what many scientists had been repeating for years: the FBI’s science and conclusions were not solid.

A former FBI official involved in the investigation sued the FBI, alleging the FBI concealed evidence exculpatory to Ivins.

Mueller made his position known, saying, “I do not apologize for any aspect of this investigation,” and stated that the FBI had made no mistakes.

The investigation was an unmitigated disaster for America. Mueller didn’t go after al-Qaida for the anthrax letters because he couldn’t find a direct link. But then he targeted American citizens without showing a direct link. For his deeds, he had the second longest tenure as FBI Director ever, and was roundly applauded by nearly everyone (except Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert).

Now he’s running the Trump-Russia investigation.

Daniel Ashman is the author of two books, "Dominate No-Limit Hold'em" and "Secrets of Short-Handed No Limit Hold'em," that have been published worldwide and translated into four languages. Follow him at @dashman76.

Facebook helped Obama, not Trump

Ex-Obama Campaign Director Drops Bombshell Claim on Facebook: 'They Were on Our Side'

A former Obama campaign official is claiming that Facebook knowingly allowed them to mine massive amounts of Facebook data — more than they would’ve allowed someone else to do — because they were supportive of the campaign.

In a Sunday tweet thread, Carol Davidsen, former director of integration and media analytics for Obama for America, said the 2012 campaign led Facebook to “suck out the whole social graph” and target potential voters. They would then use that data to do things like append their email lists.

https://ijr.com/2018/03/1077083-ex-obama-campaign-director-fb/

18 Mar

Carol Davidsen