January 9, 2017

News and Views

THIS IS ONE OF THOSE NEWS DAYS WITH LITERALLY TOO MANY IMPORTANT AND INTERESTING ARTICLES, SO I’M GOING TO SAY A LITTLE ONLY, AND PRESENT THE ARTICLES TO BE READ. I HOPE YOU WILL ENJOY THESE.


WELL, IRANIAN BOATS OPERATING IN A HOSTILE FASHION ARE IN THE NEWS AGAIN. THIS IS NOT NEW, OF COURSE, BUT IT IS DISCONCERTING. I DON’T LIKE THE REHERSAL OF WARLIKE MANEUVERS WHICH ARE CALLED “WAR GAMES,” EITHER. I WISH WE HUMANS WEREN’T SO MUCH LIKE OUR ANCESTORS OF SOME 500,000 YEARS AGO, AND WERE MUCH MORE COOPERATIVE. IT’S NOT REALLY HARD TO TEACH SHARING IF WE DO IT WITH PATIENCE AND GENTLENESS IN OUR KIDS, ON THE OTHER HAND; AND THE MOST BENIGN PHILOSOPHIES THAT WE HAVE ARE CALLED “HUMANISTIC.”

HUMANS ARE A MISHMASH OF CHARACTERISTICS, MOST OF WHICH, THANK THE HEAVENS, EVIDENCE MORE GENTLENESS THAN A LION AND MORE COOPERATIVE BEHAVIOUR THAN MANY A TWO-YEAR OLD. UNFORTUNETELY WE ARE COMPETITIVE TO THE NTH DEGREE IN TOO MANY SITUATIONS, ESPECIALLY STATUS, MONEY AND SEX. WHEN PROTECTING SOMEONE FROM A REAL VILLAIN, HOWEVER, WE DO NEED THE FIERCENESS WITH WHICH WE ARE NATURALLY EQUIPPED. THERE IS NOTHING PURE IN THE UNIVERSE, SO WE JUST HAVE TO MUDDLE THROUGH IN LIFE MANY TIMES. I NO LONGER GRIEVE THAT PEOPLE ARE SO OFTEN UNTRUSTWORTHY. ONE DAY AT A TIME IS MY MOTTO.

“THERE SHALL BE WARS AND RUMORS OF WAR.”


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-navy-destroyer-warning-shots-iran-patrol-boats-strait-of-hormuz-persian-gulf/

U.S. fires warning shots as Iranian boats speed toward warship
CBS/AP
January 9, 2017, 10:23 AM

Photograph -- In this handout released by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Mahan (DDG 72) prepares to pass under the Pell Clairborne Bridge as the ship departs Naval Station Newport August 19, 2011 in Newport, Rhode Island. GETTY/U.S. NAVY
Play VIDEO -- Litany of errors led to U.S. sailors' capture by Iran, report finds


WASHINGTON -- A U.S. Navy destroyer fired multiple warning shots at Iranian patrol boats as they sped toward the destroyer at the entrance to the Persian Gulf “with their weapons manned,” U.S. defense officials said.

The crew of the USS Mahan fired the warning shots after attempting to establish contact with the Iranians and after dropping smoke flares, the officials said. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly as so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. Navy occasionally has confrontations with Iranian naval forces in the Persian Gulf but they do not usually reach the point of prompting warning shots by the U.S.

A U.S. Navy official told CBS News the Mahan was transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday when the Iranian boats sped toward it and failed to halt despite U.S. cautionary moves.

The official said the main concern aboard the Mahan was the speed with which the Iranian boats were approaching, rather than their proximity. This official said the boats were an estimated 900 yards away when the warning shots were fired.

The Iranian boats broke away after the warning shots were fired, and then made radio contact with the Mahan by asking its course and speed.

“Disregarding the warnings, the IRGCN vessels continued to directly approach Mahan at a high rate of speed. Mahan then fired three warning shots with a crew-served 50 caliber machine gun, and the IRGCN vessels arrested their high-speed approach,” the Navy official told CBS News.

“Naval Forces Central Command assesses this interaction as unsafe and unprofessional due to the IRGCN’s vessels high speed approach on Mahan with weapons manned and disregard for repeated warnings via radio, audible siren, and ship’s whistle,” the official added.

U.S. relations with Iran are among the tougher foreign policy issues that President-elect Donald Trump will inherit next week when he succeeds President Obama.


AND BELOW IS ANOTHER WAR GAME. TRUMP REALLY SHOULDN’T BE SO CRITICAL OF THIS, HOWEVER, BECAUSE WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT, RUSSIA IS THE SECOND MOST DEADLY ENEMY WE HAVE. ISIS IS THE DEADLIEST, OF COURSE. THE RUSSIANS CAN TRULY BE DESCRIBED AS “WARLIKE,” BUT SO CAN WE. IT’S ALL VERY DEPRESSING IF I LET IT GET ME DOWN.


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-combat-brigade-donald-trump-germany-poland-europe-nato-cold-war-russia-vladimir-putin/

For 1st time since Cold War, U.S. tanks roll into Russia's backyard
CBS NEWS
January 9, 2017, 6:45 AM

Play VIDEO -- Trump says "only fools" want bad relationship with Moscow
Play VIDEO -- Obama blasts Trump's NATO comments, terrorism rhetoric


BREMERHAVEN, Germany -- Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has been drawing down its military presence in Europe. But at the main docks in Bremerhaven, in northern Germany, that’s no longer the case. In fact, CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports, quite the reverse is the order of the day.

All the massive hardware of a U.S. combat brigade arrived in Germany over the weekend, and started rolling east toward Poland, where 4,000 American soldiers will be waiting for it.

It is the first build-up of American troops and weapons in Europe in almost 30 years, and as Palmer reports, the impressive display of military might is meant, in large part, to reassure America’s nervous allies in Europe that the U.S. military will be there, standing with them, against any Russian aggression.

Aggression, and land grabs, like the 2014 invasion of Crimea, when Russian troops landed in what had been Ukraine and seized the ground for the Kremlin.

America’s response, manifested with the new deployment, has been to increase both its own force in Europe, and its support of NATO.

However, incoming U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested NATO is obsolete, and said he wants to restore good relations with Russia.

Palmer asked Major General Timothy McGuire how quickly the new president could, as a gesture of good will towards Russia, turn the whole deployment to eastern Europe around and pull them out.

“I’m not going to speculate on what the incoming president may or may not do, but I will tell you this is in the interests of the United States Army, to build readiness,” McGuire replied.

The new commander-in-chief could reverse it all, of course, but Palmer says that would take months, or even years.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has already indicated that he views the American build-up as pointless.

It’s “stupid and unrealistic,” he said, to think that Russia would attack anyone. But the American military and its NATO allies believe a little extra deterrence won’t hurt.

Once all the troops and equipment of the combat brigade reach their final destinations, at various places in eastern Europe, they will start a series of big multinational exercises with other NATO armies.

The Kremlin said Monday that discussions would begin with Mr. Trump’s administration after his inauguration to determine a time for his first meeting with Putin.

The seat of Russian power also said it was looking forward to putting the current period of tension behind it, suggesting Mr. Trump would usher in “more sober experts.”



THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME WARFARE VIA ROBOTS OR OTHER MECHANICAL “ENTITIES” HAS BEEN IN THE NEWS, AND I DO AGREE WITH PAUL SELVA BELOW. THE QUESTION IS WHETHER OR NOT IT IS BASICALLY UNETHICAL TO ALLOW A “MACHINE” TO DECIDE TO KILL A HUMAN BEING. IT’S VERY SIMILAR TO THE IDEA THAT A MACHINE WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR IDENDIFYING THAT PERSON WITHOUT HUMAN AID. WHILE SCIENTISTS ARE WORKING ON COMPUTER INTELLIGENCE, I DON’T THINK A PURELY SYNTHETIC FORM OF INTELLIGENCE WILL EVER REALLY BE AS GOOD AS THAT OF A PERSON. OUR MINDS ARE CAPABLE OF MAKING VERY NARROW DECISIONS ON COMPLEX ISSUES, AND THERE IS YET TO BE A COMPUTER THAT CAN DO ANYTHING THAT IT HASN’T BEEN PROGRAMMED TO DO BY A HUMAN. THERE IS ALSO THE INVALUABLE FACTOR OF MERCY WHICH, THOUGH NOT ALL HUMANS USE IT AS OFTEN AS THEY SHOULD, MOST OF US DO POSSESS IT. I MADE THAT STATEMENT ABOUT MECHANICAL INTELLIGENCE WITHOUT VERIFYING IT FULLY, BUT THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE ON THE SUBJECT DELVES INTO THE COMPARISONS IN A VERY INTERESTING WAY AND SEEMS TO BACK UP MY VIEW.

I AM REFERRING TO THE GORELIK ARTICLE AND I HOPE YOU WILL AT LEAST “READ AT IT.” THE FOLLOWING INTELLIGENCE RELATED ISSUES ARE COMPARED. THIS IS REALLY A LOT LIKE THE OLD – AND NOW PROGRESSIVELY MORE AND MORE OUTDATED – ARGUMENT OVER WHETHER “ANIMALS ARE INTELLIGENT.” ANYONE WHO HAS EVER WORKED CLOSELY WITH CATS, DOGS, ALL PRIMATES, HORSES, ELEPHANTS, AQUARIAN MAMMALS, ETC. KNOWS THAT THEY ARE ALL CAPABLE OF LEARNING AND EVEN MAKING DECISIONS.

MY FAVORITE INTELLIGENT ANIMAL, KOKO THE GORILLA AND AT LEAST ONE ZOO ELEPHANT WHOSE NAME IF CAN’T REMEMBER, WHEN GIVEN PAINT, A BRUSH AND A LARGE PAD OF PAPER ON AN ARTIST’S EASEL, TOOK TO THE TASK OF CREATING IMAGES, OF A SORT ANYWAY, WITH ENTHUSIASM. KOKO EVEN NAMED HERS (USING SIGN LANGUAGE, OF COURSE) AND THE ONE SHE CALLED A “BOUQUET” WAS A CRUDE BUT RECOGNIZABLE IMAGE OF FLOWERS. SHE TOOK THE TIP OF THE PAINTBRUSH, DIPPED IT IN MULTIPLE COLORS AND DABBED THEM CLOSELY TOGETHER IN A ROUNDED GROUP. SHE ALSO CALLED ANOTHER ONE BY THE NAME OF THE BORDER COLLIE WHICH LIVED WITH HER ZOOKEEPER FAMILY AND IT, TOO, WAS RECOGNIZABLE ONCE SHE TOLD WHAT IT WAS. THE LONG NOSE, WITH BLACK AND WHITE FACE AND HEAD WAS FASCINATING. NOW THAT’S ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. BOTH OF THOSE ANIMALS WERE SHOWING WHAT I THINK IS “SENSIBILITY,” NOT TO MENTION THE SEVERAL CASES OF A DOG OR CAT SAVING HIS/HER MASTER FROM A FIRE BY WAKING HIM. TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE, NO COMPUTER HAS EVER DONE ANYTHING LIKE THAT.


http://www.dennisgorelik.com/ai/ComputerIntelligenceVsHumanIntelligence.htm

Computer intelligence versus Human intelligence

Intelligent systems (both natural and artificial) have several key features. Some intelligence features are more developed in a human’s brain; other intelligence features are more developed in modern computers.

Name of intelligence feature
Who has the advantage
Comments about comparison
Experimental learning



AS FOR THE RATIONALITY OR MORALITY OF SUCH KILLING MACHINES AS THESE LLITTLE DRONES, I DON’T LIKE IT AT ALL. WE SHOULD NEVER FORGET THE FAMOUS COMPUTER NAMED “HAL.” PEOPLE, AND THERE ARE SOME, WHO HAVE SUCH A TOTAL LACK OF HUMAN EMPATHY AS A MACHINE ARE ALMOST ALWAYS PSYCHOPATHS. PURE LOGIC IS CLEARLY NOT ENOUGH. SEE THE OFFENDING ARTICLE BELOW. THESE SMALL AND RATHER CUTE PERDIX DRONES ARE NOT YET BEING EMPLOYED TO KILL, BUT RATHER TO SPY, HOWEVER I THINK IT’S JUST A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE TOTALLY MECHANICAL WARFARE WILL BE OUR POLICY IN THE US AND COMMONPLACE IN THE WORLD. AFTER ALL IT SAVES SO MUCH HUMAN LIFE – ON ONES’ OWN SIDE, THAT IS.


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-autonomous-drones-set-to-revolutionize-military-technology/

CORRESPONDENT
David Martin
Jan 08, 2017

New generation of drones set to revolutionize warfare
Autonomous drones are being called the biggest thing in military technology since the nuclear bomb. David Martin reports.

Photograph -- perdixonlaunch.jpg, A Perdix drone CBS NEWS
60 MINUTES OVERTIME -- Capturing the swarm
Photograph -- perdixswarm.jpg, A Perdix swarm captured by high-speed cameras at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California. CBS NEWS
Photograph -- swarm-main.jpg, Dr. Will Roper, left, and correspondent David Martin CBS NEWS
Photograph -- david-photos.jpg, Compiled photos of correspondent David Martin CBS NEWS


The following is a script from “The Coming Swarm,” which aired on Jan. 8, 2017. David Martin is the correspondent. Mary Walsh, producer.

One of the biggest revolutions over the past 15 years of war has been the rise of the drones -- remotely piloted vehicles that do everything from conduct air strikes to dismantle roadside bombs. Now, a new generation of drones is coming. Only this time they are autonomous -- able to operate on their own without humans controlling them from somewhere with a joy stick. Some autonomous machines are run by artificial intelligence which allows them to learn, getting better each time. It’s early in the revolution and no one knows exactly where it is headed, but the potential exists for all missions considered too dangerous or complex for humans to be turned over to autonomous machines that can make decisions faster and go in harm’s way without any fear. Think of it as the coming swarm, and if that sounds like the title of a sci-fi mini-series, well, stay tuned. As we’re about to show you, it’s already a military reality.

Capturing the swarm

This swarm over the California desert is like nothing the U.S. military has ever fielded before. Each of those tiny drones is flying itself. Humans on the ground have given them a mission to patrol a three-square mile area, but the drones are figuring out for themselves how to do it. They are operating autonomously and the Pentagon’s Dr. Will Roper says what you’re seeing is a glimpse into the future of combat.

Will Roper: It opens up a completely different level of warfare, a completely different level of maneuver.

The drone is called Perdix. An unlikely name for an unlikely engine of revolution. Roper, head of a once-secret Pentagon organization called the Strategic Capabilities Office, remembers the first time he saw Perdix, which is named after a bird found in Greek mythology.

Will Roper: I held it up in my hands, it’s about as big as my hand. And I looked at it and said, “Really? This is, this is what you want me to, to get excited about?” You know, it looks like a toy.

Perdix flies too fast and too high to follow, so 60 Minutes brought specialized high-speed cameras to the China Lake Weapons Station in California to capture it in flight.

Developed by 20 and 30-somethings from MIT’s Lincoln Labs, Perdix, is designed to operate as a team, which you can see when you follow this group of eight on a computer screen.

Will Roper: We’ve given them a mission at this point, and that mission is as a team go fly down the road and so they allocate that amongst all the individual Perdix.

David Martin: And they’re talking to each other.

Will Roper: They are.

David Martin: By what?

Will Roper: So they’ve got radios on and they’re each telling each other not just what they’re doing but where they are in space.

David Martin: How frequently are they talking back and forth to each other?

Will Roper: Many, many times a second when they’re first sorting out.

David Martin: I mean, it looks helter skelter.

Will Roper: You want them to converge to a good enough solution and go ahead and get on with it. . . It’s faster than a human would sort it out.

Cheap and expendable, Perdix tries to make a soft landing but it’s no great loss if it crashes into the ground.

Perdix can be used as decoys to confuse enemy air defenses or equipped with electronic transmitters to jam their radars.

David Martin: This one looks like it has a camera.

As a swarm of miniature spy planes fitted with cellphone cameras they could hunt down fleeing terrorists.

Will Roper: There’s several different roads they could have gone down. And you don’t know which one to search. You can tell them, “Go search all the roads,” and tell them what to search for and let them sort out the best way to do it.

The Pentagon is spending $3 billion a year on autonomous systems, many of them much more sophisticated than a swarm of Perdix.

This pair of air and ground robots runs on artificial intelligence.

Jim Pineiro: I’m going to say “start the reconnaissance.”

They are searching a mock village for a suspected terrorist, reporting back to Marine Captain Jim Pineiro and his tablet.

Jim Pineiro: The ground robot’s continuing on its mission while the air robot is searching on its own.

The robots are slow and cumbersome but they’re just test beds for cutting edge computer software which could power more agile machines -- ones that could act as advance scouts for a foot patrol.

Jim Pineiro: I would want to use a system like this to move maybe in front of me or in advance of me to give me early warning of, of enemy in the area.

David Martin (standup): This time I’m the target. The computer already knows what I look like, so now we’ll see if it can match what’s stored in its memory with the real thing as I move around this make-believe village.

The robots’ artificial intelligence had done its homework the night before, Tim Faltemier says, learning what I look like.

Tim Faltemier: We were able to get every picture of every story that you’ve ever been in.

David Martin: How many pictures of me are there out there?

Tim Faltemier: When we ran this through, we have about 50,000 different pictures of you that we were able to get. Had we had more time we probably could’ve done a better job.

David Martin: So because you’ve got 50,000 pictures of me, how certain would you be?

Tim Faltemier: Very.

David Martin: Now it’s looking at me.

Tim Faltemier: It recognized you instantly.

Tim Faltemier: So, what we reported today on our scores we’re about a one in 10,000 chance of being wrong.

While the robot was searching for me inside an auditorium at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, Lt. Cdr. Rollie Wicks was watching from a missile boat in the Potomac River.

Rollie Wicks: What I was doing was, I was turning over control of the weapon system to the autonomous systems that you’ve seen on the floor today.

pov-computer-martin.jpg
Computer’s point-of-view of target CBS NEWS
Had Wicks given permission to shoot, the missile would have struck my location using a set of coordinates given to it by the robots.

Rollie Wicks: They were controlling a remote weapons system. They were controlling where that weapons system was pointing, with me supervising.

It will be about three years before these robots will be ready for the battlefield. By then, Captain Pineiro says, they will look considerably different.

David Martin: Will those robots when they reach the battlefield will they be able to defend themselves?

Jim Pineiro: We are looking into that. We are looking into defensive capability for a robot – armed robots.

David Martin: Shoot back?

Jim Pineiro: Correct.

This Pentagon directive states “autonomous . . . Systems shall be designed to allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force.”

What that means, says General Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the military’s man in charge of autonomy, is that life or death decisions will be made only by humans -- even though machines can do it faster and, in some cases, better.

David Martin: Are machines better at facial recognition than humans?

Paul Selva: All the research I’ve seen says about five years ago machines actually got better at image recognition than humans.

David Martin: Can a disguise defeat machine recognition?

Paul Selva: If you think about the proportions of the human body there are several that are discrete and difficult to hide. The example that I will use, as I look at you, is the distance between your pupils. It is very likely unique to you and a handful of other humans. A disguise cannot move your eyes.

David Martin: So if I have a ski mask on that doesn’t help?

Paul Selva: Not if your eyes are visible. If you have to see, you can’t change that proportion.

David Martin: So, if the machine’s better, why not let it make the decision?

Paul Selva: This goes to the ethics of the question of whether or not you allow a machine to take a human life without the intervention of a human.

David Martin: Do you know where this is headed?

Paul Selva: I don’t.

Virtually any military vehicle has the potential to become autonomous. The Navy has begun testing Sea Hunter, an autonomous ship to track submarines. Program manager Scott Littlefield says that when you no longer have to make room for a crew, you can afford to buy a lot of them.

Scott Littlefield: You could buy somewhere between 50 and 100 of these for the price of one warship.

David Martin: I’ve heard somebody describe this ship as looking like an overgrown Polynesian war canoe. Why does it look like it does?

Scott Littlefield: To be able to go across the Pacific Ocean without refueling, this hull form, the, the trimaran, was, was the best thing we could come up with.

David Martin: What is its range?

Scott Littlefield: We can go about 10,000 nautical miles on, on, on a tank of gas – 14,000 gallons.

Sea hunter is at least two years away from being ready to steam across the Pacific on its own. Among other things, it has to learn how to follow the rules of the road to avoid collisions with other ships. When we went aboard it had only been operating autonomously for a few weeks and there was still a human crew – just in case.

When testing is done, this pilot house will come off and the crew will be standing on the pier waving goodbye. From then on this will be a ghost ship commanded by 36 computers running 50 million lines of software code. And, these life lines will have to come off too since there’s no need for them with no humans on board.

It has a top speed of 26 knots and a tight turning radius which should enable it to use its sonar to track diesel-powered submarines for weeks at a time.

Scott Littlefield: Many countries have diesel submarines. That’s the most common kind of submarine that’s out there.

David Martin: China?

Scott Littlefield: China has them.

David Martin: Russia?

Scott Littlefield: Russia has them.

David Martin: Iran?

Scott Littlefield: Iran has them.

David Martin: North Korea?

Scott Littlefield: Yes.

David Martin: I think I get the picture.

Scott Littlefield: Yes.

But of everything we saw, tiny Perdix is closest to being ready to go operational – if it passes its final exam. Will Roper and his team of desert rats are about to attempt to fly the largest autonomous swarm ever: 100 Perdix drones.

Will Roper: This is one of the riskiest, most exciting things that’s going on right now in the Pentagon.

Risky not only because the swarm would be more than three times larger than anything Roper’s ever done before but also because 60 Minutes is here to record the outcome for all to see.

David Martin: Why are you letting us watch?

Will Roper: Couple of reasons, David, I, I, when this first came up, I have, I have to be honest with you, my first response was, “That sound, sounds like a horrible idea.” Right? I mean, it’s just human nature. I, I don’t want this to fail on camera. But I did not like the fear of failure being my only reason for not letting you be here. And we also wanted the world to see that we’re doing some new things.

This time, the Perdix will be launched from three F-18 jet fighters, just as they would on a real battlefield.

Will Roper: There they are.

David Martin: Yup.

Will Roper: All right. A little piece, a little piece of the future.

The F-18s are traveling at almost the speed of sound, so the first test for Perdix is whether they will survive their violent ejection into the atmosphere.

[Radio: Complete…104 alive.]

Will Roper: That’s 104 in the swarm, David.

David Martin: 104 alive.

Will Roper: That’s 100 swarm. There they are. You see them?

David Martin: Yeah, yeah.

Will Roper: Look at them, Look at them.

Will Roper: They flash in the sun as the come into view.

David Martin: There’s a – oh yeah.

As the Perdix descend in front of our cameras, they organize themselves into a tighter swarm. Imagine the split-second calculations a human would have to make to keep them from crashing into each other.

Will Roper: Look at that! It’s just everywhere you look it’s coming into view. It does feel like a plague of locusts.

Will Roper: So they’re running out of battery.

There are reams of data that still have to be analyzed but roper is confident Perdix passed its final exam.

[Radio: One vehicle down.]

And could become operational as early as this year.

David Martin: I’ve heard people say that autonomy is the biggest thing in military technology since nuclear weapons. Really?

Will Roper: I think I might agree with that, David. I mean, if what we mean is biggest thing is something that’s going to change everything, I think autonomy is going to change everything.



SEE BELOW THE RECENT DISCUSSIONS ABOUT OPEN CARRY. I THINK IT IS DEADLY AND FOOLISH IN ALL CASES, BUT ESPECIALLY IN AIRPORTS WHERE SO MANY NUT JOBS GO TO PROTEST THEIR UNHAPPY LIFE IN AMERICA WITH BRUTAL VIOLENCE, AND WHERE LARGE CROWDS ARE GATHERED LIKE MECHANICAL DUCKS IN A SHOOTING GALLERY. AS RODDY MCDOWELL SANG SO MANY YEARS AGO IN THE SONG, “THE SEVEN DEADLY VIRTUES,” FROM THE GREAT MUSICAL CAMELOT, IT’S “AN INVITATION TO THE STATE OF RIGOR MORT.” OF COURSE, IT’S A DIFFERENT AND MORE PERMANENT STATE OF “RIGOR MORT” THAT I’M RERRING TO -- IT’S THE REAL KIND. BUT FIRST, TO MORDRED.


https://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/camelot/sevendeadlyvirtues.htm

Seven Deadly Virtues lyrics - Roddy McDowall

MORDRED

The seven deadly virtues, those ghastly little traps
Oh no, my liege, they were not meant for me
Those seven deadly virtues were made for other chaps
Who love a life of failure and ennui
Take courage-now there's a sport
An invitation to the state of rigor mort
And purity-a noble yen
And very restful every now and then
I find humility means to be hurt
It's not the earth the meek inherit, it's the dirt
Honesty is fatal, it should be taboo
Diligence-a fate I would hate
If charity means giving, I give it to you
And fidelity is only for your mate
You'll never find a virtue unstatusing my quo or making my Beelzebubble burst
Let others take the high road, I will take the low
I cannot wait to rush in where angels fear to go
With all those seven deadly virtues free and happy little me has not been cursed
[Thanks to LawrencRJ@JUNO.com for lyrics]



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fort-lauderdale-airport-shooting-lawmakers-question-guns-checked-luggage-bags/

Lawmakers question rules allowing guns at airports
CBS NEWS
January 9, 2017, 7:03 AM


Lawmakers are taking a new look at rules about guns on planes after Friday’s airport shooting in Fort Lauderdale. Investigators say shooting suspect Esteban Santiago traveled from Alaska to Florida with the gun he used in the deadly rampage. The firearm was in his checked baggage.

Part of the surprise of Friday’s shooting is the fact Santiago arrived on an incoming flight -- and so did his gun.

Last year the TSA reported confiscating more than 3,300 firearms from carry-on bags, but the agency allows guns in checked luggage, reports CBS News correspondent Tony Dokoupil. They have to be unloaded and locked in a hard-sided container, and owners have to declare them at the ticket counter.

“We’re going to have to take a hard look once and for all at the unsecured areas of our airports,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said.

Wasserman Schultz said she plans to review security procedures with TSA leaders.

A TSA agent died in a shooting in 2013 outside a security checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport. The rules regarding guns in airports vary by city and state.

The National Council of State Legislatures has identified six states including Florida which ban people from carrying guns in all areas of airports.

“The law is only protecting criminals. It’s not protecting law-abiding citizens who want the right and ability to defend themselves,” Republican Florida State Sen. Greg Steube said.

Steube introduced a bill to allow owners with permits to openly carry guns in areas like the place where Friday’s shooting occurred. He suggests the 45-second attack could have ended even sooner if other passengers were armed.

“That’s a ludicrous suggestion. If someone with a gun in the baggage claim area opened fire in the midst of hundreds of people, the life loss probably would have been worse,” Wasserman Schultz said.

Every year, police in New York City reportedly arrest dozens of people trying to check in for flights with guns in their bags. Many visitors don’t realize it’s illegal to possess a gun in New York City without a city permit. But gun owners in other cities routinely fly in and out without problems.



TRUMP SHAMED SHOWS NO SHAME

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-blasts-meryl-streep-after-golden-globes-speech-124418222.html?.tsrc=fauxdal&post_id=1605282889713411_1849647078610323#_=_

Trump blasts Meryl Streep after Golden Globes speech
Yahoo News Dylan Stableford
January 9, 2017


President-elect Donald Trump is firing back at Meryl Streep after the actress used her acceptance speech for the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes to scold him for mocking a disabled reporter during the presidential campaign.

“Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes,” Trump tweeted, noting that Streep had campaigned for his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

“She is a Hillary flunky who lost big,” Trump wrote.

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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn't know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a.....
6:27 AM - 9 Jan 2017
21,500 21,500 Retweets 59,154 59,154 likes

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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never "mocked" a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him.......
6:36 AM - 9 Jan 2017
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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
"groveling" when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!
6:43 AM - 9 Jan 2017
9,752 9,752 Retweets 35,756 35,756 likes

During her speech, the 67-year-old three-time Oscar winner said there were “many, many powerful performances” by actors this year, “but there was one performance this year that stunned” her.

“It sank its hooks in my heart,” she said. “Not because it was good; there was nothing good about it. But it was effective, and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back.”

During a rally in November 2015, Trump launched into an impression of Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times reporter who suffers from arthrogryposis, a congenital joint condition, after Kovaleski pushed back against Trump’s use of a 2001 article he wrote as proof of the candidate’s false assertion that “thousands and thousands of people” in Muslim neighborhoods in New Jersey were cheering in the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

“It kind of broke my heart when I saw it,” Streep continued. “And I still can’t get it out of my head, because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life. And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kinda gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”

Trump has claimed he wasn’t mocking Kovaleski’s disability, but merely his nerves. At the time, Kovaleski said he had interviewed Trump in his office and was once on a first-name basis with the real estate magnate. “Despite having one of the all-time great memories, I certainly do not remember him,” Trump said of the reporter in 2015.

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As long as I live, I will never understand how this alone wasn’t the end of it.
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“I was never mocking anyone,” Trump told the Times on Sunday night. “I was calling into question a reporter who had gotten nervous because he had changed his story.

“People keep saying I intended to mock the reporter’s disability, as if Meryl Streep and others could read my mind, and I did no such thing,” Trump continued.

On Monday, Trump again sought to clarify his impersonation of Kovaleski.

“For the 100th time, I never ‘mocked’ a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him ‘groveling’ when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Just more very dishonest media!”

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FOX & friends ✔ @foxandfriends
.@KellyannePolls: I'm concerned that somebody with a platform like Meryl Streep's is inciting people's worst instincts
7:22 AM - 9 Jan 2017
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In an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Monday morning, Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s former campaign manager and senior adviser, said Streep’s comments were concerning.

“I’m concerned that somebody with a platform like Meryl Streep’s is inciting people’s worst instincts,” Conway said.


REPUBLICANS ARE FOND OF CALLING DEMOCRATIC VIEWPOINTS AND CONCERNS CHILDISH AND SILLY. THAT’S BECAUSE THEY DON’T SEE THE IMPORTANCE OF BRINGING PEOPLE OF GOOD CHARACTER AND TRUE PATRIOTISM INTO POSITIONS OF POWER ALONG WITH THE PRESIDENT. OF COURSE, FINANCIAL MISCONDUCT IS NOT IN MY VIEW AS IMPORTANT AS THE ISSUE OF RACIST BAGGAGE, WHICH SESSIONS ESPECIALLY ALSO CARRIES WITH HIM. THE QUALIFICATIONS FOR HOLDING THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT ARE TOO FEW AND TOO UNRELATED TO DAILY LIFE. I DON’T REALLY CARE HOW OLD THE PRESIDENT IS UNLESS HE IS INCOMPETENT. IF HE’S INEXPERIENCED IN TASKS RELATED TO THE PRESIDENCY, DISHONEST, CRUDE AND BRUTAL I DO CARE.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-meets-with-mitch-mcconnell-a-day-before-confirmation-hearings-begin/

Trump to meet with Mitch McConnell a day before confirmation hearings begin
CBS/AP
January 9, 2017, 11:24 AM


Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is meeting with President-elect Donald Trump a day before the Senate begins confirmation hearings on Trump’s Cabinet picks, his transition team announced Monday morning.

On a call with his transition team, spokesman Sean Spicer said the president-elect would be in meetings Monday about inauguration and transition and he was also scheduled to meet with McConnell, and then with Dr. David Shulkin, the undersecretary for health at the Veterans Affairs Department.

Democrats have taken issue with the hearing schedule’s quick pace.

The government ethics office says it hasn’t received even draft financial disclosure reports for some of the nominees set to appear before Congress this week. Many are wealthy businessmen who have never held public office. The government ethics office sent a letter to Senate Democrats Saturday saying that the schedule of hearings had created “undue pressure” on the ethics office staff to rush through its vetting.

McConnell had demanded that Cabinet contenders complete such paperwork before their hearings back in 2009.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions will face his Senate colleagues on Tuesday morning, in the first of the confirmation hearings.

CBS News’ Nicole Sganga contributed to this story.



THIS WAS A LADY POLICE OFFICER, AND NO SHE WASN’T ABUSING ANYONE. SHE WAS MERELY COURAGEOUSLY RESPONDING TO AN EMERGENCY SITUATION WITH OTHERS. SHE WAS A 17 YEAR VETERAN AND WAS KNOWN FOR “ORGANIZING MARCHES AGAINST VIOLENCE BY HERSELF.” IT’S SAD TO SEE A WOMAN IN PARTICULAR TO DIE IN THIS KIND OF SITUATION, BUT COURAGE IS A VERY IMPORTANT THING WHICH IS ALL TOO UNCOMMON IN OUR CODDLED MIDDLE CLASS SOCIETY. I HOPE AND ASSUME SHE WILL GET A POSTHUMOUS AWARD AND OF COURSE THE FULL-SCALE POLICE FUNERAL WHICH HAS BECOME SO WELL KNOWN THROUGH NEWS VIDEOS.


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/orlando-police-officer-shot-near-walmart-no-arrests-yet/

Orlando police officer shot, killed; manhunt launched
CBS NEWS
January 9, 2017, 9:12 AM

Photograph -- Orlando Police Master Sgt. Debra Clayton ORLANDO POLICE


ORLANDO, Florida - A manhunt has been launched after a police officer was shot and killed Monday morning near an Orlando Walmart, officials said.

Orlando Master Sgt. Debra Clayton approached murder suspect Markeith Loyd at about 7 a.m., according to police, and was shot multiple times. She died soon after.

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The Orlando Police Department family is heartbroken today. One of our own was taken in the line of duty. There are no words.
10:10 AM - 9 Jan 2017
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Loyd fled the scene, hijacking a car, and firing at least two shots at a pursuing police vehicle. He then abandoned the first car he hijacked and stole another, according to police.

The department said Clayton, a 17-year veteran of the Orlando Police Department, always had a smile and a high five for every child she came across and will be “missed beyond words.”

Orlando Police Chief John Mina said during a Monday morning press conference that Clayton was well-known on the force.

“She organized several marches against violence by herself. That’s how dedicated she was,” Mina said.

CBS Orlando affiliate WKMG reports Loyd is also wanted in connection with the December slaying of his pregnant ex-girlfriend.

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Markeith Loyd is the suspect who shot OPD officer this morning. Anyone w/info please call 1-800-423-TIPS @CrimelineFL
9:36 AM - 9 Jan 2017
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Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said police had circulated Loyd’s image in the community because of the previous murder case, and officers had been on the lookout for him.

“That indicates to me he is receiving help,” Demings said.

Loyd previously spent four years in prison for battery of a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest with violence. He was sentenced to 27 months in prison in 2011 for possessing homemade weapons while in federal custody.

He was also charged in a 1995 murder case, but those charges were dropped.

As hundreds of officers from multiple departments continue the manhunt, more than a dozen local schools were placed on lockdown.

An off-duty Orange County deputy died in a motorcycle accident unrelated to the manhunt Monday, officials announced. His identity has not been released.



DO WATCH THE VIDEOS WITH THIS ARTICLE ON PLUTO. IT’S REALLY BEAUTIFUL TO SEE, AND INFORMATIONAL. I DON’T FIND THAT SCIENCE CAUSES ME TO BE OVERLY SKEPTICAL, BUT MORE OFTEN IT OFFERS ME AN EXPERIENCE WHICH IS BOTH ENLIGHTENING AND ENTHRALLING. I HAVE ALWAYS LIKED LEARNING HOW THINGS WORK.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-solar-system-mysterious-undiscovered-planet-nine/

The solar system's mysterious, undiscovered Planet Nine
BY Brit McCandless
Jan 08, 2017

Astronomers think a large planet exists far past Pluto. But with powerful telescopes like Hubble viewing distant galaxies, why have we never seen it?

60 MINUTES OVERTIME From the archives: Telescope as time machine


It’s been a decade since Pluto lost its position in the planetary order. But in the frozen region far beyond the demoted dwarf, another body may be lurking, ready to take the designation as the solar system’s ninth planet.

This week on 60 Minutes, correspondent Bill Whitaker reports on the hunt for Planet Nine. Unlike Pluto, the mysterious — and to this point, unconfirmed — Planet Nine isn’t petite. Astronomers estimate that it’s 10-20 times more massive than Earth, which means its planetary status would likely be assured.

But where is it?

“I get that question a lot,” says astronomer Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in the clip above. “Like, why can’t we see this thing?”

Sheppard first spotted the odd orbits of celestial bodies in the Kuiper belt, a vast realm of frozen debris at the edge of the solar system. The objects look as though they’re being pulled off in one direction, and astronomers have determined that a large planet must be shepherding them together.

But at an estimated distance of 50 billion miles away — 20 times further out from the sun than Neptune is — Planet Nine is difficult to spot.

“These objects are fairly cold, so the only way we can actually see them is reflected sunlight,” Sheppard says. “So the sun’s light has to go all the way from the sun out to the object, reflect off the object, and it comes all the way back to Earth.”

Conditions in space, he explains, dictate that if an object doubles its distance from the sun, it gets 16 times fainter.

“So things get faint very fast out there,” Sheppard says.

But what about the Hubble telescope? Launched in 1990, the instrument has been used to discover galaxies billions of light years away. Why, then, can’t it see an object within our own solar system?

In short, it can. It just has to know where to look.

“If we knew where it was, we can point a telescope at it and we’d see it,” Sheppard says. “The problem is we don’t know where it is.”

That’s because astronomers estimate Planet Nine has an enormous orbit – around 15,000 years to make one revolution around the sun. Extraordinarily distant galaxies, meanwhile, tend to stay put.

“In general, you kind of know where those objects are,” Sheppard says of distant quasars and galaxies. “This object, we have no idea where it is. Or we have a general idea, but it’s still a big area of sky.”

Planet Nine rendering courtesy of Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)



THIS “SOUNDBOX” LOOKS A BIT LIKE A CHEAP TRICK, A GIMICK, BUT IT IS ACTUALLY A TOTAL IMMERSION EXPERIENCE WITH MUSIC. IT’S VERY MUCH LIKE THE SITUATION OF US NON-WEALTHY YOUNG PEOPLE IN DC WHEN WE USED TO SIT ON THE LAWN FREE OF CHARGE TO HEAR THE CONCERT. IT WAS ACTUALLY A BEAUTIFUL EXPERIENCE.


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/classical-music-comeback-soundbox-san-francisco-symphony/

Orchestras experiment with innovative ways to reach audiences
CBS NEWS
January 7, 2017, 11:42 AM

Photograph -- ctm-0106-soundbox-san-francisco-symphony.jpg, SoundBox with the San Francisco Symphony CBS NEWS
Photograph -- ctm-satmo-0107-michael-tilson-thomas.jpg, San Francisco Symphony conductor Michael Tilson Thomas CBS NEWS
Photograph -- ctm-satmo-0107-pop-up-concert-columbia-university.jpg, In Miller Theatre’s Pop-Up Concerts, audiences sit on stage with the performers. CBS NEWS


The line forms at twilight outside of an empty San Francisco warehouse. Tickets are scanned as guests walk through a dimly lit passageway leading to a bar. But the 500 or so people are not waiting for a rock concert, reports CBS News’ Jamie Wax.

They’re in for a very different kind of experience: SoundBox – an annual 10-concert series that runs from December through April at the San Francisco Symphony, one of the most respected in the country. Led by world-renown conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, the orchestra started a bold experiment two years ago.

“What does it feel like for you as a lifelong conductor of classical music to turn around and see that audience in that venue?” Wax asked him.

“I guess the SoundBox audience is different in that they’re not there to respect the music,” Thomas said. “They’re there to be amazed by the music, surprised by it, discover something that they never knew inside of the music.”

The program is divided into three sections of about 25 minutes each, with two 20-minute intermissions. Each act features a piece of music spanning centuries of compositions. It’s aided by a multimedia light display and the Meyer Sound Constellation system that can replicate the acoustics of any space, from a large cathedral to a small recording room.

“Has there been any resistance from the traditionalists to what you’re doing here?” Wax asked.

“No, not really,” said Brent Assink, the symphony’s executive director. He took Wax through the barren rehearsal space that now moonlights as a vibrant concert hall.

“Is this in part to answer the challenge to reach new audiences?” Wax asked Thomas.

“SoundBox is a way of bringing people into a space that is in many ways more comfortable and more diverting for them,” Thomas said. “They can move around. They can get drinks, they can use their mobile devices. I think it’s been very surprising for us that the attention of the audience in this situation, in fact, has been more focused, more quiet, more attentive than many of the ‘regular’ subscription concerts.”

Over the past two years, interest in the classical music art form has crescendoed in pop culture with the success of Amazon’s “Mozart in the Jungle,” even as the show posed an existential question early in its first season: “Is classical music dead?”

To capitalize on the show’s buzz, Miller Theatre at Columbia University produced a spoof of a reality show competition to promote it’s Pop-Up concert series. The monthly concerts where the audience can sit on stage with the performers is free – as is the wine and beer.

“How important is venue?” Wax asked flutist Claire Chase.

“Venue is hugely important. And I think it’s long overdue that large institutions are venturing beyond their comfortable, large concert halls,” Chase said.

Fifteen years ago, Chase founded the International Contemporary Ensemble. The artist-run collective performs original compositions for free in exotic locations like Greenland, inside elementary schools and more traditional venues. This summer, Chase participated Lincoln Center’s five-week-long “Mostly Mozart Festival,” which was celebrating its 50th anniversary.

“You just have to be in the room. And getting people in the room, it’s access. Once people are in the room, I’m the eternal optimist. I think that music speaks for itself, and I think that what we’re looking for in music is an adventure. … This is why people have done music since the beginning of human history,” Chase said.

It’s not just the audience who benefits from these experiences.

“For me musically, it’s been enthralling,” said Jacob Nissly, principal percussionist at the San Francisco Symphony. “It’s putting us as the percussion section more at the forefront, and it’s in such an intimate space where we can communicate with the audience afterwards, where we can have the opportunity to really feel and thrive off the energy because it’s so close there in those quarters.”

His maestro, Thomas, has led the way to make classical music accessible for nearly 50 years. And he’s still trying to convert as many people as he can.

“As I said a while back to somebody or other, I said, ‘Well, if you had to choose between impressing the professors or the guys at the gym, who would you choose?’ I said, ‘The guys at the gym, anytime,’” Thomas said.

There is concern over alienating existing patrons or members, Thomas said.

“I have great respect for traditional listeners who say, ‘I am totally involved in hearing this music. I just want to be in a quiet place, undisturbed, and let my mind freely go where it wants to go.’ And I’m very committed to the idea that they should have that experience,” Thomas said. “I don’t want classical music 100 years from now to be a kind of light-show or petting zoo. It’s more on the scale of a national park. It’s like this vast park containing meadows and glaciers and rocky escarpments and vast plains, and all these things are there. SoundBox gives people more of a chance to quickly access that kind of experience. And maybe it’s a positive thing that they can see something, hear something that’s very vivid for about 15 or 20 minutes, and then right away they can talk to one another about it. ‘Was it good for you? It was good for me.’ That kind of thing.”

This new season of SoundBox happened to launch on the same day as the new season of “Mozart in the Jungle.” It’s probably a coincidence, or maybe the 18th-century composer Mozart is pulling strings from above.



SPEAKING OUT FOR WHITE SUPREMACY IS FREEDOM OF SPEECH, BUT SPEAKING OUT FOR EQUAL RIGHTS UNDER THE LAW IS UNPATRIOTIC. TO BE FAIR TO THEISMAN, HE DID CLARIFY THAT HE FEELS IT SHOULDN’T BE DONE “IN THE WORKPLACE,” BUT THE AWARD IS GIVEN TO THE PLAYER WHO IS CHOSEN BY HIS FELLOW PLAYERS TO RECEIVE IT. THAT MEANS THAT THEISMAN IS NOT IN THE MAJORITY.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/joe-theismann-slams-49ers-for-giving-colin-kaepernick-award/ar-BBxTqrf

Joe Theismann slams 49ers for giving Colin Kaepernick award
Associated Press
January 9, 2017

Photograph -- © Rafael Suanes-USA TODAY Sports Washington Redskins former quarterback Joe Theismann (left) signs autographs for fans.


NEW YORK (AP) Former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann isn't happy with the San Francisco 49ers' decision to give Colin Kaepernick an award for ''inspirational and courageous'' player.

Kaepernick sparked a national debate by kneeling during the national anthem before games as a way of protesting racial injustice and police brutality.

Kaepernick received the Len Eshmont Award last week. The prize is described as the team's most prestigious honor; its recipient is decided by players.

Theismann noted the team's 2-14 record during an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday and questioned what Kaepernick has inspired. He said, ''Everybody has the right to express their opinion, but not in the workplace.''

Theismann called on the NFL to adopt a policy requiring players to stand for the anthem.



ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ARGUMENT, SEE THE FOLLOWING FROM ALJAZEERA. NO, THEY ARE NOT A “RADICAL ISLAM” WEBSITE, BUT A VOICE FOR SOCIAL CONCERN IN HUMAN ISSUES.

https://www.facebook.com/AmericaTonight/?fref=nf
America Tonight
about 11 months ago

Watch these video stories, from Native American culture today to Hispanic farm workers in the us, 1930, to Somali American lives today.