https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5kmdf2wXH4&ab_channel=TheHumanistReport
Sunday, September 6, 2020
Europe's largest Solar Telescope GREGOR unveils magnetic details of the Sun
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200901112205.htm
GREGOR, the largest solar telescope in Europe, which is operated by a German consortium and located on Teide Observatory, Spain, has obtained unprecedented images of the fine-structure of the Sun. Following a major redesign of GREGOR's optics, carried out by a team of scientists and engineers from the Leibniz Institute for Solar Physics (KIS), the Sun can be observed at a higher resolution than before from Europe.
The Sun is our star and has a profound influence on our planet, life, and civilization. By studying the magnetism on the Sun, we can understand its influence on Earth and minimize damage of satellites and technological infrastructure. The GREGOR telescope allows scientists to resolve details as small as 50 km on the Sun, which is a tiny fraction of the solar diameter of 1.4 million km. This is as if one saw a needle on a soccer field perfectly sharp from a distance of one kilometer.
"This was a very exciting, but also extremely challenging project. In only one year we completely redesigned the optics, mechanics, and electronics to achieve the best possible image quality." said Dr. Lucia Kleint, who led the project and the German solar telescopes on Tenerife. A major technical breakthrough was achieved by the project team in March this year, during the lockdown, when they were stranded at the observatory and set up the optical laboratory from the ground up. Unfortunately, snow storms prevented solar observations. When Spain reopened in July, the team immediately flew back and obtained the highest resolution images of the Sun ever taken by a European telescope.
Prof. Dr. Svetlana Berdyugina, professor at the Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg and Director of the Leibniz Institute for Solar Physics (KIS), is very happy about the outstanding results: "The project was rather risky because such telescope upgrades usually take years, but the great team work and meticulous planning have led to this success. Now we have a powerful instrument to solve puzzles on the Sun." The new optics of the telescope will allow scientists to study magnetic fields, convection, turbulence, solar eruptions, and sunspots in great detail. First light images obtained in July 2020 reveal astonishing details of sunspot evolution and intricate structures in solar plasma.
Telescope optics are very complex systems of mirrors, lenses, glass cubes, filters and further optical elements. If only one element is not perfect, for example due to fabrication issues, the performance of the whole system suffers. This is similar to wearing glasses with the wrong prescription, resulting in a blurry vision. Unlike for glasses, it is however very challenging to detect which elements in a telescope may be causing issues. The GREGOR team found several of those issues and calculated optics models to solve them. For example, astigmatism is one of such optical problems, which affects 30-60% people's vision, but also complex telescopes. At GREGOR this was corrected by replacing two elements with so-called off-axis parabolic mirrors, which had to be polished to 6 nm precision, about 1/10000 of the diameter of a hair. Combined with several further enhancements the redesign led to the sharp vision of the telescope. A technical description of the redesign was recently published by the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal in a recent article led by Dr. L. Kleint.
European researchers have access to observations with the GREGOR telescope through national programs and a program funded by the European commission. New scientific observations are starting in September 2020.
Albert-Ludwig University Freiburg founded in 1457 offers undergraduate and graduate studies in all important disciplines today. The Leibniz Institute for Solar Physics (KIS) located in Freiburg is a public foundation and a member of the Leibniz Association. It carries out fundamental research on the Sun and other stars.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Freiburg. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Related Multimedia:
Images of the Sun from the GREGOR solar telescope
Journal Reference:
Lucia Kleint, Thomas Berkefeld, Miguel Esteves, Thomas Sonner, Reiner Volkmer, Karin Gerber, Felix Krämer, Olivier Grassin, Svetlana Berdyugina. GREGOR: Optics redesign and updates from 2018–2020. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2020; 641: A27 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202038208
Lunatic QAnon Congressional Candidate Threatens AOC & The Squad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyHsc9Ct3Ok
REPORT: GEORGIA WRONGFULLY PURGED 200,000 VOTERS
By Anne Branigin, The Root.
September 5, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/report-georgia-wrongfully-purged-200000-voters/
A seven-year investigation of voter suppression in Georgia has found that the state likely removed 200,000 voters from its rolls who were, in fact, eligible to vote. The voters whose registrations were removed were also overwhelmingly concentrated in the counties comprising the Atlanta Metro area, according to initial findings released on Wednesday.
Conducted by the Palast Investigative Fund, which specializes in data journalism, and released by the ACLU of Georgia, the report reviewed more than 300,000 registered voters whom the state had purged from its rolls. Their voter registrations had been canceled because officials concluded the people living at those addresses had moved and did not change the address on their voter registration.
According to the report, most of those people never actually moved from their addresses, and thus should have remained on Georgia’s voter rolls.
From CNN:
For the report, Palast hired expert firms to conduct an Advanced Address List Hygiene, a method of residential address verification, to review 313,243 names that were removed from the state’s voter rolls in late 2019. Their findings claim that 63.3% of voters had not, in fact, moved and were purged in error.
The report states that the percentage is a conservative estimate since the 63.3 percent error rate does not include “the tens of thousands of other citizens who have moved within their neighborhood, some within their buildings” and were still taken off the rolls. Those voters would have still been eligible to vote at the same polling places available to them in previous elections.
Principal investigator Greg Palast said the probe began in 2013 when his group was originally retained by a handful of news publications for a series of reports about voter purges in Georgia and other parts of the country.
“Given our findings of what appears to be large-scale disenfranchisement of legitimate voters, our foundation has chosen, in the public interest, to make our findings available to the ACLU of Georgia for review in preparation for making our findings public,” Palast wrote.
Among the report’s most concerning findings was the fact that Georgia’s records contained “extraordinary deviation” from postal records, writes Palast. According to the National Voter Registration Act, states are supposed to rely on official postal data when striking voters off their lists.
While the Georgia secretary of state’s records say more than 100,000 voters were purged because they showed up on the Postal Service’s National Change of Address (NCOA) registry, investigators who cross-referenced the data found that 75 percent of those voters were not on the official NCOA list. Georgia also appeared to strike voters off the rolls if they did not respond to a mailed confirmation postcard or if the postcard sent was sent back as “undeliverable.” But a closer look at the data found that many of those undeliverable postcards were returned because they didn’t contain an apartment number on the address.
ACLU Georgia Executive Director Andrea Young told CNN that she was “deeply saddened” by the initial report, but was “not entirely surprised.” Young noted that the methods Georgia uses to maintain its voting list are “prone to tremendous error” and do not meet industry standards for residential address verification.
“The real takeaway from this is the state of Georgia is using a methodology for maintaining its voter rolls that is both more expensive and less accurate than what industry would use to maintain a high-quality mailing list,” Young said.
CNN cited previous reporting in which Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger characterized this mass removal of voters as routine maintenance, not a purge, which is all the more cause for concern.
Palast said a final report containing detailed analysis about the demographics of the affected voters was forthcoming, but noted that the state’s methods would disproportionately cull registrations from young people, those living in urban areas, African American voters, and non-English speakers. According to the report, there was an “overwhelming concentration” of wrongfully removed registrations from voters in the Atlanta Metro area.
Georgians concerned about whether they are on the voter purge list can check the Palast Investigative Fund’s website, SaveMyVote2020.org.
https://popularresistance.org/report-georgia-wrongfully-purged-200000-voters/
A seven-year investigation of voter suppression in Georgia has found that the state likely removed 200,000 voters from its rolls who were, in fact, eligible to vote. The voters whose registrations were removed were also overwhelmingly concentrated in the counties comprising the Atlanta Metro area, according to initial findings released on Wednesday.
Conducted by the Palast Investigative Fund, which specializes in data journalism, and released by the ACLU of Georgia, the report reviewed more than 300,000 registered voters whom the state had purged from its rolls. Their voter registrations had been canceled because officials concluded the people living at those addresses had moved and did not change the address on their voter registration.
According to the report, most of those people never actually moved from their addresses, and thus should have remained on Georgia’s voter rolls.
From CNN:
For the report, Palast hired expert firms to conduct an Advanced Address List Hygiene, a method of residential address verification, to review 313,243 names that were removed from the state’s voter rolls in late 2019. Their findings claim that 63.3% of voters had not, in fact, moved and were purged in error.
The report states that the percentage is a conservative estimate since the 63.3 percent error rate does not include “the tens of thousands of other citizens who have moved within their neighborhood, some within their buildings” and were still taken off the rolls. Those voters would have still been eligible to vote at the same polling places available to them in previous elections.
Principal investigator Greg Palast said the probe began in 2013 when his group was originally retained by a handful of news publications for a series of reports about voter purges in Georgia and other parts of the country.
“Given our findings of what appears to be large-scale disenfranchisement of legitimate voters, our foundation has chosen, in the public interest, to make our findings available to the ACLU of Georgia for review in preparation for making our findings public,” Palast wrote.
Among the report’s most concerning findings was the fact that Georgia’s records contained “extraordinary deviation” from postal records, writes Palast. According to the National Voter Registration Act, states are supposed to rely on official postal data when striking voters off their lists.
While the Georgia secretary of state’s records say more than 100,000 voters were purged because they showed up on the Postal Service’s National Change of Address (NCOA) registry, investigators who cross-referenced the data found that 75 percent of those voters were not on the official NCOA list. Georgia also appeared to strike voters off the rolls if they did not respond to a mailed confirmation postcard or if the postcard sent was sent back as “undeliverable.” But a closer look at the data found that many of those undeliverable postcards were returned because they didn’t contain an apartment number on the address.
ACLU Georgia Executive Director Andrea Young told CNN that she was “deeply saddened” by the initial report, but was “not entirely surprised.” Young noted that the methods Georgia uses to maintain its voting list are “prone to tremendous error” and do not meet industry standards for residential address verification.
“The real takeaway from this is the state of Georgia is using a methodology for maintaining its voter rolls that is both more expensive and less accurate than what industry would use to maintain a high-quality mailing list,” Young said.
CNN cited previous reporting in which Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger characterized this mass removal of voters as routine maintenance, not a purge, which is all the more cause for concern.
Palast said a final report containing detailed analysis about the demographics of the affected voters was forthcoming, but noted that the state’s methods would disproportionately cull registrations from young people, those living in urban areas, African American voters, and non-English speakers. According to the report, there was an “overwhelming concentration” of wrongfully removed registrations from voters in the Atlanta Metro area.
Georgians concerned about whether they are on the voter purge list can check the Palast Investigative Fund’s website, SaveMyVote2020.org.
GROUP THAT HELPED DRAFT ANTI-BDS LAWS IN US DIDN’T DISCLOSE GRANT FROM ISRAEL
https://popularresistance.org/group-that-helped-draft-anti-bds-laws-in-us-didnt-disclose-grant-from-israel/
By Michael Arria, Mondoweiss.
September 5, 2020
| EDUCATE!
The Israel Allies Foundation.
There’s been a lot of talk about foreign governments intervening in our political process over the last few years, but some stories certainly don’t permeate mainstream discourse.
A case in point was on display this week. The Forward reported that the Israel Allies Foundation (IAF) received a grant from the Israeli government for more than $100,000 last year. The IAF is a nonprofit that was established in 2007 to foster cooperation between pro-Israel forces and governments around the world. In 2014, the group helped develop South Carolina’s anti-BDS law, which prohibits state entities from contracting with groups that boycott Israel. The IAF went onto lobby 25 additional states to adopt anti-BDS measures after South Carolina’s was approved.
The IAF didn’t disclose the grant (which is probably illegal), but it’s certainly not the only such organization to take money from Israel. The Forward reports that 11 pro-Israel groups have received $6.6 million from that government since 2018. There are rules designed to try to prevent this kind of stuff, like the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). However, Israel apparently uses shell companies to maneuver around these sticky details. DC Attorney Amos Jones, who works on FARA cases, told The Forward, “They can have all the shell companies they want or whatever you want to call it. If that is a foreign organization or group of people, then they can be a foreign principal, thereby requiring persons acting under their direction inside the United States to have to register.”
Let’s run a quick thought experiment. Envision a pro-Russia nonprofit accepts a grant from Putin’s government, aligns itself with U.S. politicians, and then helps pass a number of laws that prohibit you from, say, boycotting Russian vodka over LGBTQ rights. How would United States liberals react to such a development? How many hours of programming would Rachel Maddow devote to such a story?
This example is wildly inadequate of course. In order for it to make sense as a comparison, the U.S. would have to give $3.8 billion to Russia in military aid every year. The point has been made a million times before, but it bears repeating in the wake of stories like this: people in the United States can condemn the actions of foreign governments, but they can’t generally take any responsibility for them. We are all complicit in Israeli apartheid.
| EDUCATE!
The Israel Allies Foundation.
There’s been a lot of talk about foreign governments intervening in our political process over the last few years, but some stories certainly don’t permeate mainstream discourse.
A case in point was on display this week. The Forward reported that the Israel Allies Foundation (IAF) received a grant from the Israeli government for more than $100,000 last year. The IAF is a nonprofit that was established in 2007 to foster cooperation between pro-Israel forces and governments around the world. In 2014, the group helped develop South Carolina’s anti-BDS law, which prohibits state entities from contracting with groups that boycott Israel. The IAF went onto lobby 25 additional states to adopt anti-BDS measures after South Carolina’s was approved.
The IAF didn’t disclose the grant (which is probably illegal), but it’s certainly not the only such organization to take money from Israel. The Forward reports that 11 pro-Israel groups have received $6.6 million from that government since 2018. There are rules designed to try to prevent this kind of stuff, like the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). However, Israel apparently uses shell companies to maneuver around these sticky details. DC Attorney Amos Jones, who works on FARA cases, told The Forward, “They can have all the shell companies they want or whatever you want to call it. If that is a foreign organization or group of people, then they can be a foreign principal, thereby requiring persons acting under their direction inside the United States to have to register.”
Let’s run a quick thought experiment. Envision a pro-Russia nonprofit accepts a grant from Putin’s government, aligns itself with U.S. politicians, and then helps pass a number of laws that prohibit you from, say, boycotting Russian vodka over LGBTQ rights. How would United States liberals react to such a development? How many hours of programming would Rachel Maddow devote to such a story?
This example is wildly inadequate of course. In order for it to make sense as a comparison, the U.S. would have to give $3.8 billion to Russia in military aid every year. The point has been made a million times before, but it bears repeating in the wake of stories like this: people in the United States can condemn the actions of foreign governments, but they can’t generally take any responsibility for them. We are all complicit in Israeli apartheid.
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