Saturday, February 24, 2018
Former CIA Director Admits to US Foreign Meddling, Laughs About It
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjr3Jb8N1HM
MSNBC Hosts are Now Suggesting Bernie Sanders is a Russian Stooge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JUfdJqn_8g
What Netanyahu's Growing Corruption Scandal Means for the Region
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDG7KNGTYzc
1 Thing Stopping New Candidates From Crushing Corporate Dems
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxKPaAQWW3c
Help Robb Ryerse get on the ballot in Arkansas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz54qO0sgPE&feature=em-subs_digest
Next on NPR: Some Think You Should Put Out Fire With Gasoline
FEBRUARY 21, 2018
JIM NAURECKAS
If a measles epidemic were
sweeping the nation, with a mounting death toll of children, it’s unlikely
that NPR News would respond by bringing on Jenny McCarthy to explain why
vaccination wouldn’t save lives. And if they did feature her or other
anti-vaccination voices, you can be fairly sure that NPR would follow up
with experts expressing the scientific consensus that vaccines do in fact limit
the spread of infectious diseases.
But when it came to reporting
on the epidemic of mass shootings, All Things Considered (2/19/18)
gave a platform to the gun debate’s equivalents of anti-vaxxers, in a segment
that gave no scrutiny to their claim that more guns are the solution to gun
violence.
NPR quoted Rush Limbaugh on Fox
News Sunday (2/18/18):
“The solution, to me and I know this is going to cause all kinds of angst, the
solution is we need concealed carry in these schools.” And Fox‘s Tucker
Carlson (2/15/18):
“Tragedies like this happen for a reason, and it probably doesn’t have a lot to
do with guns.”
Regular people, too, gave
their opinions on what causes shooting massacres: “We took prayer out of the
school system,” says one Manuel Garcia of North Carolina. “And this is why all
this is happening.” If we can’t put God back, at least we could put guns in: “I
feel like they should put guns in the classrooms now with the teachers,” NPR quotes
Fort Lauderdale “stay-at-home mom” Sabrina Belony. “I feel like teachers should
be trained to be armed for something because teachers lost their lives trying
to protect his class.”
The only response to this in
the All Things Considered segment is a paraphrase of the perspective
of students who survived the Parkland massacre: “They say the real problem is
that weak gun laws allowed one deeply troubled teen to buy a semi-automatic
rifle legally.”
This is what passes for objectivity in
establishment media: a willful denial that there is any way to answer questions
that people feel strongly about. In fact, the question of whether more guns
result in less violence is one researchers have studied—not as much as they
could have, granted, given the NRA-imposed
limits on gun research—and other media outlets have reported the answers
they’ve found.
In a piece headlined “Guns Do
Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows,” Scientific American (10/1/17)
quoted physician and gun researcher Garen Wintemute’s summary of the state of
the evidence: “There are a few studies that suggest that liberalizing access to
concealed firearms has, on balance, beneficial effects. There are a far larger
number of studies that suggest that it has, on balance, detrimental effects.”
In “No, More Guns Won’t Prevent Mass Shootings,” NBC (11/6/17)
cited Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and
Research:
The more guns are readily
available, the more shootings occur. That’s what the latest research shows.
When states make it more easy for people to carry guns, the number of incidents
of aggravated assault grows.
After the Newtown
massacre, Salon‘s “The Answer Is Not More Guns” (12/17/12)
quoted University of Washington epidemiologist Fred Rivara: “There is no data
supporting [the] argument that the further arming of citizens will lessen the
death toll in massacres like the one this week in Connecticut.” Mother
Jones (12/15/12)
pointed out, based on its database of mass shootings, that despite a 50 percent
increase in the number of private guns since 1995 and numerous laws making it
easier to carry a concealed weapon, there are virtually no cases of an armed
civilian stopping a shooting spree.
NPR didn’t cite any
evidence, or ask any experts to weigh in on conservatives’ claim that more guns
are the solution to gun violence. It’s a strikingly irresponsible approach to
covering a deadly epidemic.
You can contact NPR ombud
Elizabeth Jensen via NPR’s contact form or via Twitter: @EJensenNYC. Please remember that
respectful communication is the most effective.
'Corruption, Plain and Simple': Public Comments Show Outrage at CFPB's Corporate Turn Under Mulvaney
"Mick Mulvaney is putting
the interests of predatory lending companies and fraudulent banks ahead of the
interests of consumers."
After weeks of working
tirelessly to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau's (CFPB) ability to defend consumers and roll
back its power to punish criminal banks, White House budget chief Mick
Mulvaney put out a request for
public comment on the bureau's direction under his leadership.
If the overwhelming
majority of responses submitted thus far are any evidence, Americans are
not at all pleased with the CFPB's sharp corporate turn.
"I would request that the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, you know, actually protect consumers
instead of kowtowing to banks and other large financial institutions,"
wrote Michael Novak, expressing a sentiment that was common among the dozens of
comments that have been submitted since Mulvaney asked for feedback earlier
this month.
"Clearly, he is a stooge
in the pocket of predatory and negligent companies...and is looking forward to
lining his own pockets with donations and favors from these companies," added another
commenter, referring to Mulvaney. "Banana Republic-style corruption at the
highest level."
As Common Dreams has reported,
Mulvaney's actions since President
Donald Trump controversially placed him in charge of the CFPB clearly
indicate that "consumer protection" is not high on his list of
priorities. Indeed, the bureau's new primary objective is no longer protecting
consumers—it's ensuring
that consumers "have access to markets for consumer financial
products and services."
Meanwhile, Mulvaney has
reportedly dropped probes into Equifax and Golden
Valley Lending, a financial institution that has been accused of charging
950 percent interest rates.
Now Americans are getting a
chance to voice their opposition to these changes to a bureau that, under its
previous leadership, was broadly
popular. The comment period ends April 13. Click here to
tell Mulvaney what you think about the CFPB under his leadership.
What follows is just a small
sample of the more than 70 comments that have been submitted, some of which
were compiled by Splinter's Libby Watson, who observed that
"the public comments so far have been almost exclusively in favor of the
CFPB continuing to levy fines against banks."
This agency started doing
great works on behalf of Main street originally. Then under the present
administration with Mulvaney at the helm, all of the agency is protecting the
banks and Wall street, exactly what it was set up to not do. Just disgusting.
We are paying attention and
want the agency to do its job. Equifax was criminally negligent and careless.
This affects real people and their abilities to move forward with their life.
Do your job. Investigate, hold them to account, and protect the public, who are
at the mercy of the credit score companies.
The CFPB should aggressively
pursue predatory pay-day lenders, big banks abusing their customers, obscene
credit card practices, and more. The fines you have enforced so far don't go
far enough to punish the amoral vampires feeding on the American consumer. But
now that you're being led by one of those vampires I guess that's all going to
change. I'm beyond disappointed in my government and especially Mick Mulvaney.
Mick Mulvaney is putting the
interests of predatory lending companies and fraudulent banks ahead of the
interests of consumers. He's violating the very mission of the bureau he's been
appointed to lead. It's corruption, plain and simple.
I am very much against the
weakening/watering down of the bureau's mission since Mick Mulvaney became
acting head. The fact that a person who declared the CFPB a "sick, sad
joke" has been named acting head of the bureau is a clear-cut example of
regulatory capture. In essence, a fox has been chosen to guard the henhouse.
A Proposal Designed to Confuse Public and Prevent 'Medicare for All'
FEB 23, 2018
Margaret Flowers
The Center for American Progress (CAP), a Washington-based
Democratic Party think tank funded by Wall
Street, including private health insurers and their lobbying group,
unveiled a
new healthcare proposal designed to confuse supporters of “Medicare
for All” and protect private health insurance profits. It is receiving
widespread coverage in ‘progressive’ media outlets. We must be aware of what is
happening so that we are not fooled into another ‘public option’ dead end.*
The fact that CAP is using Medicare for All language is
both a blessing and a curse. It means Medicare for All is so popular that they
feel a need to co-opt it, and it means that they are trying to co-opt it, which
will give Democrats an opportunity to use it to confuse people.
This effort could be preparation for the possibility that
Democrats win a majority in Congress in 2018 or 2020. It is normal for the
pendulum to swing to the party opposite the President’s party during the first
term in office. If Democrats win a majority, they will be expected to deliver
on health care, but they face a dilemma of having to please their campaign
donors, which includes the health insurance industry, or pleasing their voters,
where 75%
support single payer health care.
The public is aware that the Affordable Care Act (ACA)
protects the profits of the medical-industrial complex (private health
insurers, Big Pharma and for-profit providers) and not the healthcare needs of
the public. “Fixing the ACA” is not popular. Last year during repeal attempts,
people made it clear at town halls and rallies that they want a single payer
healthcare system such as National Improved Medicare for All (NIMA). By
offering a solution that sounds good to the uninformed, “Medicare Extra for
All,” but continues to benefit their Wall Street donors, Democrats hope to fool
people or buy enough support to undermine efforts for NIMA.
This is an expected development. If we look at the phases of stage
six of successful social movements by Bill Moyers (see slide 8), we
see that as a movement nears victory, the power holders appear to get in line
with the public’s solution while actually attacking it. If the movement
recognizes what is happening, that this is a false solution and not what the
movement is demanding, then we have a chance to win NIMA. If the movement falls
for the false solution, it loses.
Our tasks at this moment are to understand what the power
holders are offering, recognize why it is a false solution and reject it.
“Medicare Extra for All” versus National Improved Medicare
for All
The basic outline for the new
proposal is that people would be able to buy a Medicare plan, a form
of ‘public option,’ including the Medicare Advantage plans offered by private
health insurers. People who choose to buy a Medicare plan would pay premiums
and co-pays, as they do now for private health insurance. The new Medicare system
would replace Medicaid for people with low incomes.
Private health insurance would still exist for employers,
who currently cover the largest number of people, federal employees and the
military. While workers would have the option to buy a Medicare plan, it is
unclear how many would do so given that most employers who provide health
insurance have their own plans and that private health insurers are experts at
marketing their plans to the public.
NIMA, as embodied in HR 676: “The Expanded and Improved
Medicare for All Act,” would create a single national healthcare system, paid
for up front through taxes, that covers every person from birth to death and
covers all medically-necessary care. NIMA relegates private insurance to the
sidelines where it could potentially provide supplemental coverage for those
who want extras, but it would no longer serve as a barrier for people who need
care.
Here are the flaws in the CAP proposal:
CAP’s plan will continue to leave people without health
insurance.Instead of being a universal system of national coverage like NIMA,
coverage under the CAP plan relies on people’s ability to afford health
insurance. Only people with low incomes would not pay, as they do now under
Medicaid. Just as it is today, those who do not qualify as low income, but
still can’t afford health insurance premiums, would be left out. Almost 30
million are without coverage today. There is no guarantee that health insurance
premiums will be affordable.
CAPS’s plan will continue to leave people with inadequate
coverage. Under NIMA, all people have the same comprehensive coverage
without financial barriers to care. The CAP plan allows private health insurers
to do what they do best – restrict where people can seek health care, shift the
cost of care onto patients and deny payment for care. This is the business
model of private health insurers because they are financial instruments
designed to make profits for their investors. People with health insurance will
face the same bureaucratic nightmare of our current system and out-of-pocket
costs that force them to delay or avoid health care or risk bankruptcy when
they have high health care needs.
CAP’s plan will continue the high costs of health care. NIMA
has been proven over and over to have the best cost efficiency because it is
one plan with one set of rules. It is estimated that NIMA will save $500
billion each year on administrative costs and over $100 billion each year on
reduced prices for pharmaceuticals. As a single purchaser of care, NIMA has
powerful leverage to lower the costs of goods and services. The CAP plan
maintains the complicated multi-payer system that we have today. At best, it
will only achieve 16% of the administrative savings of a single payer system
and it will have less power to reign in the high costs of care.
CAP’s plan will allow private health insurers to continue
to rip off the government. NIMA is a publicly-financed program without the
requirement of creating profits for investors. With a low overhead, most of the
dollars are used to pay for health care. The CAP plan maintains the same
problems that exist with Medicare today. Private Medicare providers cherry pick
the healthiest patients and those who have or develop healthcare needs wind up
in the public Medicare plan. This places a financial burden on the public
Medicare plan, which has to pay for the most care, while private health
insurers rake in huge profits from covering the healthy with a guaranteed
payor, the government.
CAP’s plan will continue to perpetuate health disparities. NIMA
provides a single standard of care to all people. Because all people, rich and
poor (and lawmakers), are in the same system, there are strong incentives to
make it a high quality program. CAP’s plan maintains the current tiered system
in which some people have private health insurance, those with the greatest
needs have public health insurance, some people will have inadequate coverage
and others will have no coverage at all.
CAP’s plan will continue to restrict patients’ choices.
NIMA creates a nationwide network of coverage and consistent coverage from
year-to-year so that patients choose where they seek care and have the freedom
to stay with a health professional or leave if they are dissatisfied. CAP’s
plan continues private health insurers and their restricted networks that
dictate where patients can seek care. Private plans change from year-to-year
and employers change the plans they offer, so patients will still face the risk
of losing access to a health professional due to changes in their plan.
CAP’s plan does not guarantee portability. NIMA creates a
health system that covers everyone no matter where they are in the United
States and its territories. CAP’s plan maintains the link between employment
and health coverage. When people who have private health insurance lose their
job or move, they risk losing their health insurance.
CAP’s plan will perpetuate physician burn-out. NIMA creates
a healthcare system that is simple for both patients and health professionals
to use. Under the current system, which the CAP plan will perpetuate, health
professionals spend more time on paperwork than they do with patients and
physician offices spend hours fighting with health insurers for authorization
for care and for payment for their services. This is driving high rates of
physician burnout. Suicides among physicians and physicians-in-training are
higher than the general population.
The new proposal is a ‘public option’ wrapped in a
“Medicare for All” cloak. It is a far cry from National Improved Medicare for
All. And, contrary to what CAP and its allies will tell you, the CAP plan will
delay and prevent the achievement of NIMA.
Co-founders of Physicians for a National Health Program**,
Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein, explained
why the public option would not work in the last health reform effort:
“The ‘public plan option’ won’t work to fix the health care
system for two reasons.
“1. It forgoes at least 84 percent of the administrative
savings available through single payer. The public plan option would do nothing
to streamline the administrative tasks (and costs) of hospitals, physicians
offices, and nursing homes, which would still contend with multiple payers, and
hence still need the complex cost tracking and billing apparatus that drives
administrative costs. These unnecessary provider administrative costs account
for the vast majority of bureaucratic waste. Hence, even if 95 percent of Americans
who are currently privately insured were to join the public plan (and it had
overhead costs at current Medicare levels), the savings on insurance overhead
would amount to only 16 percent of the roughly $400 billion annually achievable
through single payer — not enough to make reform affordable.
“2. A quarter century of experience with public/private
competition in the Medicare program demonstrates that the private plans will
not allow a level playing field. Despite strict regulation, private insurers have
successfully cherry picked healthier seniors, and have exploited regional
health spending differences to their advantage. They have progressively
undermined the public plan — which started as the single payer for seniors and
has now become a funding mechanism for HMOs — and a place to dump the
unprofitably ill. A public plan option does not lead toward single payer, but
toward the segregation of patients, with profitable ones in private plans and
unprofitable ones in the public plan.”
What we must do
The movement for National Improved Medicare for All
experienced tremendous growth in the past few years. All of the flaws of the
Affordable Care Act are becoming reality as people are forced to pay high
health insurance premiums, face high out-of-pocket costs before they can
receive care and have their access to health professionals or services denied.
There is a strong demand for NIMA that has resulted in more than half of the
Democrats in the House of Representatives signing on to HR 676 and a third of
the Democratic Senators endorsing the Senate Medicare for All bill. Medicare
for All is becoming a litmus test for the 2018 elections and 2020 Democratic
presidential nomination.
Power holders are feeling threatened by support for NIMA.
They are looking for ways to throw the movement off track and allow lawmakers
who don’t support NIMA to support something that sounds like NIMA. This is why
they invented “Medicare Extra for All.” It is common for the opposition to
adopt our language when we have strong support.
This is the time when the movement for NIMA needs to remain
focused on our goal of NIMA, resist compromising and escalate our pressure for
NIMA. We are closer to winning, it’s time to increase our efforts to pass the
finish line.
Here are our tasks:
We need to expose the reasons for CAP’s proposal. It is
designed to protect health insurance industry profits.
We need to educate ourselves and others about the reasons
why CAP’s proposal is flawed and deficient.
We need to educate and challenge lawmakers and candidates
who speak in favor of CAP’s proposal and push them to support NIMA.
We need to be loud and vocal in our demand for nothing less
than NIMA, as described in HR 676.
We need to make support for HR 676 a litmus test in the
upcoming elections.
We need to practice “ICU” – being independent of
political party on this issue by not tying our agenda to the corporate agenda
of major political parties, being clear about what will and what will
not solve our healthcare crisis, and being uncompromising in our
demand for National Improve Medicare for All.
With a concentrated effort for NIMA, we can overcome this
distraction*** and win National Improved Medicare for All. This is the time for
all supporters of single payer health care to focus on federal lawmakers from
both parties. Movements never realize how close they are to winning and victory
often feels far away when it is actually close at hand.
The fact that the Democrats are proposing something that
sounds like NIMA means we are gaining power. Let’s use it to finally solve the
healthcare crisis in the United States and join many other countries in
providing health care for everyone. NIMA is the smallest step we can take to
head down the path of saving lives and improving health in our country.
*The ‘public option’ dead end occurred during the health
reform process of 2009-10. Faced with widespread public support for National
Improved Medicare for All, and 80% support by Democratic Party voters, the
power holders had to find a way to suppress that support. They created the idea
of a ‘public option,’ a public health insurance for part of the population, and
convinced progressives that this was more politically-feasible and a back door
to a single payer healthcare system. Tens of millions of dollars were donated
to create a new coalition, Health Care for America Now (similar in name to
Healthcare-Now, a national single payer organization – this was intentional),
that organized progressives to fight for this public option and suppress single
payer supporters (they were openly hostile when we raised single payer). Many
single payer supporters fell for it, and the movement was successfully divided
and weakened. Kevin Zeese and I wrote about this in more detail in “Obamacare:
The Biggest Health Insurance Scam in History.”
** Read
more about this from Dr. Don McCanne of Physicians for a National
Health Program in his Quote-of-the-Day.
*** Read more about intentional distractions through
incremental approaches to prevent National Improved Medicare for All in this presentation.
Mind-reading algorithm uses EEG data to reconstruct images based on what we perceive
February 22, 2018
University of Toronto
A new technique developed by
neuroscientists can reconstruct images of what people perceive based on their
brain activity gathered by EEG.
A new technique developed by
neuroscientists at the University of Toronto Scarborough can, for the first
time, reconstruct images of what people perceive based on their brain activity
gathered by EEG.
The technique developed by Dan
Nemrodov, a postdoctoral fellow in Assistant Professor Adrian Nestor's lab at U
of T Scarborough, is able to digitally reconstruct images seen by test subjects
based on electroencephalography (EEG) data.
"When we see something,
our brain creates a mental percept, which is essentially a mental impression of
that thing. We were able to capture this percept using EEG to get a direct
illustration of what's happening in the brain during this process," says
Nemrodov.
For the study, test subjects
hooked up to EEG equipment were shown images of faces. Their brain activity was
recorded and then used to digitally recreate the image in the subject's mind
using a technique based on machine learning algorithms.
It's not the first time researchers
have been able to reconstruct images based on visual stimuli using neuroimaging
techniques. The current method was pioneered by Nestor who successfully
reconstructed facial images from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
data in the past, but this is the first time EEG has been used.
And while techniques like fMRI
-- which measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow -- can grab
finer details of what's going on in specific areas of the brain, EEG has
greater practical potential given that it's more common, portable, and
inexpensive by comparison. EEG also has greater temporal resolution, meaning it
can measure with detail how a percept develops in time right down to
milliseconds, explains Nemrodov.
"fMRI captures activity
at the time scale of seconds, but EEG captures activity at the millisecond
scale. So we can see with very fine detail how the percept of a face develops
in our brain using EEG," he says. In fact, the researchers were able to
estimate that it takes our brain about 170 milliseconds (0.17 seconds) to form
a good representation of a face we see.
This study provides validation
that EEG has potential for this type of image reconstruction notes Nemrodov,
something many researchers doubted was possible given its apparent limitations.
Using EEG data for image reconstruction has great theoretical and practical
potential from a neurotechnological standpoint, especially since it's
relatively inexpensive and portable.
In terms of next steps, work
is currently underway in Nestor's lab to test how image reconstruction based on
EEG data could be done using memory and applied to a wider range of objects
beyond faces. But it could eventually have wide-ranging clinical applications
as well.
"It could provide a means
of communication for people who are unable to verbally communicate. Not only
could it produce a neural-based reconstruction of what a person is perceiving,
but also of what they remember and imagine, of what they want to express,"
says Nestor.
"It could also have
forensic uses for law enforcement in gathering eyewitness information on
potential suspects rather than relying on verbal descriptions provided to a
sketch artist."
The research, which will be
published in the journal eNeuro, was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and by a Connaught New Researcher Award.
"What's really exciting
is that we're not reconstructing squares and triangles but actual images of a
person's face, and that involves a lot of fine-grained visual detail,"
adds Nestor.
"The fact we can
reconstruct what someone experiences visually based on their brain activity
opens up a lot of possibilities. It unveils the subjective content of our mind
and it provides a way to access, explore and share the content of our
perception, memory and imagination."
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Toronto. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
Dan Nemrodov, Matthias
Niemeier, Ashutosh Patel, Adrian Nestor. The Neural Dynamics of Facial
Identity Processing: insights from EEG-Based Pattern Analysis and Image
Reconstruction. eneuro, 2018; ENEURO.0358-17.2018 DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0358-17.2018
Improved Hubble Yardstick Gives Fresh Evidence for New Physics in the Universe
Feb. 22, 2018
Donna Weaver / Ray Villard
Astronomers have used NASA's
Hubble Space Telescope to make the most precise measurements of the expansion
rate of the universe since it was first calculated nearly a century ago.
Intriguingly, the results are forcing astronomers to consider that they may be
seeing evidence of something unexpected at work in the universe.
That's because the latest
Hubble finding confirms a nagging discrepancy showing the universe to be
expanding faster now than was expected from its trajectory seen shortly after
the big bang. Researchers suggest that there may be new physics to explain the
inconsistency.
"The community is really
grappling with understanding the meaning of this discrepancy," said lead
researcher and Nobel Laureate Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute
(STScI) and Johns Hopkins University, both in Baltimore, Maryland.
Riess's team, which includes
Stefano Casertano, also of STScI and Johns Hopkins, has been using Hubble over
the past six years to refine the measurements of the distances to galaxies,
using their stars as milepost markers. Those measurements are used to calculate
how fast the universe expands with time, a value known as the Hubble constant.
The team’s new study extends the number of stars analyzed to distances up to 10
times farther into space than previous Hubble results.
But Riess's value reinforces
the disparity with the expected value derived from observations of the early
universe's expansion, 378,000 years after the big bang — the violent event that
created the universe roughly 13.8 billion years ago. Those measurements were
made by the European Space Agency's Planck satellite, which maps the cosmic
microwave background, a relic of the big bang. The difference between the two
values is about 9 percent. The new Hubble measurements help reduce the chance
that the discrepancy in the values is a coincidence to 1 in 5,000.
Planck's result predicted that
the Hubble constant value should now be 67 kilometers per second per megaparsec
(3.3 million light-years), and could be no higher than 69 kilometers per second
per megaparsec. This means that for every 3.3 million light-years farther away
a galaxy is from us, it is moving 67 kilometers per second faster. But Riess's
team measured a value of 73 kilometers per second per megaparsec, indicating
galaxies are moving at a faster rate than implied by observations of the early
universe.
The Hubble data are so precise
that astronomers cannot dismiss the gap between the two results as errors in
any single measurement or method. "Both results have been tested multiple
ways, so barring a series of unrelated mistakes," Riess explained,
"it is increasingly likely that this is not a bug but a feature of the
universe."
Explaining a Vexing
Discrepancy
Riess outlined a few possible
explanations for the mismatch, all related to the 95 percent of the universe
that is shrouded in darkness. One possibility is that dark energy, already
known to be accelerating the cosmos, may be shoving galaxies away from each
other with even greater — or growing — strength. This means that the
acceleration itself might not have a constant value in the universe but changes
over time in the universe. Riess shared a Nobel Prize for the 1998 discovery of
the accelerating universe.
Another idea is that the
universe contains a new subatomic particle that travels close to the speed of
light. Such speedy particles are collectively called "dark radiation"
and include previously-known particles like neutrinos, which are created in
nuclear reactions and radioactive decays. Unlike a normal neutrino, which
interacts by a subatomic force, this new particle would be affected only by
gravity and is dubbed a "sterile neutrino."
Yet another attractive
possibility is that dark matter (an invisible form of matter not made up of
protons, neutrons, and electrons) interacts more strongly with normal matter or
radiation than previously assumed.
Any of these scenarios would
change the contents of the early universe, leading to inconsistencies in
theoretical models. These inconsistencies would result in an incorrect value
for the Hubble constant, inferred from observations of the young cosmos. This
value would then be at odds with the number derived from the Hubble
observations.
Riess and his colleagues don't
have any answers yet to this vexing problem, but his team will continue to work
on fine-tuning the universe's expansion rate. So far, Riess's team, called the
Supernova H0 for the Equation of State (SH0ES), has decreased the uncertainty
to 2.3 percent. Before Hubble was launched in 1990, estimates of the Hubble
constant varied by a factor of two. One of Hubble's key goals was to help
astronomers reduce the value of this uncertainty to within an error of only 10
percent. Since 2005, the group has been on a quest to refine the accuracy of
the Hubble constant to a precision that allows for a better understanding of
the universe's behavior.
Building a Strong Distance
Ladder
The team has been successful
in refining the Hubble constant value by streamlining and strengthening the
construction of the cosmic distance ladder, which the astronomers use to
measure accurate distances to galaxies near to and far from Earth. The
researchers have compared those distances with the expansion of space as
measured by the stretching of light from receding galaxies. They then have used
the apparent outward velocity of galaxies at each distance to calculate the
Hubble constant.
But the Hubble constant's
value is only as precise as the accuracy of the measurements. Astronomers cannot
use a tape measure to gauge the distances between galaxies. Instead, they have
selected special classes of stars and supernovae as cosmic yardsticks or
milepost markers to precisely measure galactic distances.
Among the most reliable for
shorter distances are Cepheid variables, pulsating stars that brighten and dim
at rates that correspond to their intrinsic brightness. Their distances,
therefore, can be inferred by comparing their intrinsic brightness with their
apparent brightness as seen from Earth.
Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt
was the first to recognize the utility of Cepheid variables to gauge distances
in 1913. But the first step is to measure the distances to Cepheids independent
of their brightness, using a basic tool of geometry called parallax. Parallax
is the apparent shift of an object's position due to a change in an observer's
point of view. This technique was invented by the ancient Greeks who used it to
measure the distance from Earth to the Moon.
The latest Hubble result is
based on measurements of the parallax of eight newly analyzed Cepheids in our
Milky Way galaxy. These stars are about 10 times farther away than any studied
previously, residing between 6,000 light-years and 12,000 light-years from
Earth, making them more challenging to measure. They pulsate at longer
intervals, just like the Cepheids observed by Hubble in distant galaxies
containing another reliable yardstick, exploding stars called Type Ia
supernovae. This type of supernova flares with uniform brightness and is brilliant
enough to be seen from relatively farther away. Previous Hubble observations
studied 10 faster-blinking Cepheids located 300 light-years to 1,600
light-years from Earth.
Scanning the Stars
To measure parallax with
Hubble, the team had to gauge the apparent tiny wobble of the Cepheids due to
Earth's motion around the Sun. These wobbles are the size of just 1/100 of a
single pixel on the telescope's camera, which is roughly the apparent size of a
grain of sand seen 100 miles away.
Therefore, to ensure the
accuracy of the measurements, the astronomers developed a clever method that
was not envisioned when Hubble was launched. The researchers invented a
scanning technique in which the telescope measured a star's position a thousand
times a minute every six months for four years.
The team calibrated the true
brightness of the eight slowly pulsating stars and cross-correlated them with
their more distant blinking cousins to tighten the inaccuracies in their
distance ladder. The researchers then compared the brightness of the Cepheids
and supernovae in those galaxies with better confidence, so they could more
accurately measure the stars' true brightness, and therefore calculate
distances to hundreds of supernovae in far-flung galaxies with more precision.
Another advantage to this
study is that the team used the same instrument, Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3,
to calibrate the luminosities of both the nearby Cepheids and those in other
galaxies, eliminating the systematic errors that are almost unavoidably
introduced by comparing those measurements from different telescopes.
"Ordinarily, if every six
months you try to measure the change in position of one star relative to
another at these distances, you are limited by your ability to figure out
exactly where the star is," Casertano explained. Using the new technique,
Hubble slowly slews across a stellar target, and captures the image as a streak
of light. "This method allows for repeated opportunities to measure the
extremely tiny displacements due to parallax," Riess added. "You're
measuring the separation between two stars, not just in one place on the
camera, but over and over thousands of times, reducing the errors in
measurement."
The team's goal is to further
reduce the uncertainty by using data from Hubble and the European Space
Agency's Gaia space observatory, which will measure the positions and distances
of stars with unprecedented precision. "This precision is what it will
take to diagnose the cause of this discrepancy," Casertano said.
The team's results have been
accepted for publication by The Astrophysical Journal.
The Hubble Space Telescope is
a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency).
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the
telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts
Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of
Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C.
For more about Hubble,
visit: www.nasa.gov/hubble
For additional imagery to this
story, visit: https://media.stsci.edu/news_release/news/2018-12
Donna Weaver / Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland
410-338-4493 / 410-338-4514
dweaver@stsci.edu / villard@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland
410-338-4493 / 410-338-4514
dweaver@stsci.edu / villard@stsci.edu
Last Updated: Feb. 22,
2018
Editor: Karl Hille
THE DRONE PAPERS
October 15 2015, 6:57 a.m.
From his first days as commander in chief, the drone has been President Barack Obama’s weapon of choice, used by the military and the CIA to hunt down and kill the people his administration has deemed — through secretive processes, without indictment or trial — worthy of execution. There has been intense focus on the technology of remote killing, but that often serves as a surrogate for what should be a broader examination of the state’s power over life and death.
DRONES ARE A TOOL, not a
policy. The policy is assassination. While every president since Gerald Ford
has upheld an executive order banning assassinations by U.S. personnel,
Congress has avoided legislating the issue or even defining the word
“assassination.” This has allowed proponents of the drone wars to rebrand
assassinations with more palatable characterizations, such as the term du jour,
“targeted killings.”
When the Obama administration
has discussed drone strikes publicly, it has offered assurances that such
operations are a more precise alternative to boots on the ground and are
authorized only when an “imminent” threat is present and there is “near
certainty” that the intended target will be eliminated. Those terms, however,
appear to have been bluntly redefined to
bear almost no resemblance to their commonly understood meanings.
The first drone strike outside
of a declared war zone was conducted more than 12 years ago, yet it was not
until May 2013 that the White House released a set
of standards and procedures for conducting such strikes. Those
guidelines offered little specificity, asserting that the U.S. would only
conduct a lethal strike outside of an “area of active hostilities” if a target
represents a “continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons,” without providing
any sense of the internal
process used to determine whether a suspect should be killed without
being indicted or tried. The implicit message on drone strikes from the Obama
administration has been one of trust, but don’t verify.
SMALL FOOTPRINT OPERATIONS 2/13
SMALL FOOTPRINT OPERATIONS 5/13
OPERATION HAYMAKER
GEOLOCATION-WATCHLIST
The Intercept has
obtained a cache of secret slides that provides a window into the inner
workings of the U.S. military’s kill/capture operations at a key time in the
evolution of the drone wars — between 2011 and 2013. The documents, which also
outline the internal views of special operations forces on the shortcomings and
flaws of the drone program, were provided by a source within the intelligence
community who worked on the types of operations and programs described in the
slides. The Intercept granted the source’s request for anonymity
because the materials are classified and because the U.S. government has
engaged in aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers. The stories in this series
will refer to the source as “the source.”
The source said he decided to
provide these documents to The Intercept because he believes the public
has a right to understand the process by which people are placed on kill lists
and ultimately assassinated on orders from the highest echelons of the U.S.
government. “This outrageous explosion of watchlisting — of monitoring people
and racking and stacking them on lists, assigning them numbers, assigning them
‘baseball cards,’ assigning them death sentences without notice, on a worldwide
battlefield — it was, from the very first instance, wrong,” the source said.
The Pentagon, White House, and
Special Operations Command all declined to comment. A Defense Department
spokesperson said, “We don’t comment on the details of classified reports.”
The CIA and the U.S.
military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) operate parallel drone-based
assassination programs, and the secret documents should be viewed in the
context of an intense internal turf war
over which entity should have supremacy in those operations. Two sets of slides
focus on the military’s high-value targeting campaign in Somalia and Yemen as
it existed between 2011 and 2013, specifically the operations of a secretive
unit, Task Force 48-4.
Additional
documents on high-value kill/capture operations in Afghanistan
buttress previous
accounts of how the Obama administration masks the true number of
civilians killed in drone strikes by categorizing unidentified people killed in
a strike as enemies, even if they were not the intended targets. The slides
also paint
a picture of a campaign in Afghanistan aimed not only at eliminating
al Qaeda and Taliban operatives, but also at taking out members of other local
armed groups.
One top-secret document shows
how the terror “watchlist” appears in the terminals of personnel conducting
drone operations, linking unique codes associated with cellphone SIM cards and
handsets to specific individuals in order to geolocate them.
[…]
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