Right click then left click on 3rd line
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Know it is early but I want to wish all my Christian memo readers and dear friends the best Holiday Season ever, the Merriest of Christmases, Happiest of New Years and a coming year of good health
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Politically speaking next year should be more contentious than this one because Democrats want to wreck Trump, paint him in a corner, ruin his prospects for re-election. They have no other agenda.
If they over do it they could be subject to a boomerang effect. Time will tell.
Meanwhile, Trump could make some modest headway with China regarding the trade confrontation but enough to claim a victory of sorts. Meanwhile France and Britain leadership is coming under attack for policies that suggest Trump is more in step with voter mood .
The Mueller investigation should be over and no doubt he will issue a report that will be politically damning but will fall short of criminal activity though the Democrats will do whatever they can to turn it into something worse.
Meanwhile, Sen. Graham will continue his Senate hearings and investigation of Democrat alleged wrong doing and Trump may release all material and call for lifting whatever has been re-dacted and that could more than counter the Mueller revelations because it would demonstrate how one sided this entire episode has been. We know Hillary, the DNC and high officials of government intelligence agencies were engaged in violations of law and efforts to cripple Trump's campaign. I personally believe the information could ensnare Obama, because I have always believed he was aware, if not actually involved, in the skulduggery.
As for the economy, we should expect a slowing from this year's pace as the tax effect wears off and other stimuli but we still should see corporate earnings increase some 7%, inflation should remain in check, The Fed should ease their more aggressive stance regarding interest rates and the markets should calm down if trade issues get resolved.
The bone in our economic throat will be the political deadlock, the nonsense that occurs in a pre-election year and externally the unknowns caused by Putin Iran and an aggressive China.
I just finished reading "The Accidental President" and commend it to those who want to know more about the first four months of Truman's ascendancy to the Oval Office.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Are we going to drown as the seas rise? Not according to this report. (See 1 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I have been informed that intelligent right wing former military personnel are making common cause with radical leftists.
I fear the 2020 presidential election will be one of the most radicalized and dangerous this nation will have ever experienced. (See 2 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
You have repeatedly seen me refer to "Israel: Start Up Nation." Now Israel is focused on AI. (See 3 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)
‘Borderline Impossible’: Noted Scientist Tackles Sea Level Rise Alarmism
When it comes to alarming projections of global warming-induced sea level rise, veteran climate scientist Judith Curry says people need to cool it.
“Projections of extreme, alarming impacts are very weakly justified to borderline impossible,” Curry told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Curry’s latest research, put together for clients of her consulting company near the end of November, looks in detail at projections of sea level rise. Curry’s ultimate conclusion: “Some of the worst-case scenarios strain credulity.”
“With regards to 21st century climate projections, we are dealing with deep uncertainty, and we should not be basing our policies based on the assumption that the climate will actually evolve as per predicted,” Curry told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Climate variability and change is a lot more complex than ‘CO2 as control knob,’” Curry said. “No one wants to hear this, or actually spend time understanding things,” Curry said.
That’s really the opposite message of what we usually hear from prominent scientists in the media. Much of the worry over sea level rise has centered on the western Antarctic ice melt, which studies say has accelerated in recent years.
The global average sea level has risen about 7 inches since 1900. For perspective, sea level rise has averaged about the thickness of two pennies every year.
But if warmer temperatures substantially increase melt from the world’s glaciers and ice sheets, some scientists and activists say sea level rise could be devastating. Warming also increases thermal expansion of the ocean, scientists warn.
Former NASA head climate scientist James Hansen warned in 1988 that New York City’s West Side Highway would be underwater in 20 to 40 years. More recently, Hansen warned “the planet could become practically ungovernable” from sea level rise due to melting ice forcing millions of people to flee coastal cities.
Pacific islands national leaders went before the United Nations in 2015 to warn that unchecked global warming would overwhelm them, forcing thousands to emigrate to the continents—so far, there’s little evidence of island nations being engulfed by the sea.
“Now if you ask us, we have to say maybe closer to 6 to 8 feet,” Penn State University climate scientist Michael Mann warned at a debate in June. Curry also participated in the debate in Charleston, West Virginia.
Mann said that was the “best estimate” of sea level rise by the end of the century, which is considerably higher than he said it was just five years earlier.
“We’re talking about literally giving up on our coastal cities of the world and moving inland,” Mann warned in September 2017.
Curry, however, sees estimates of sea level rise above 2 feet by the end of the century as “weakly justified,” even at high levels of warming. In fact, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change puts the likely range of sea level rise at 10 to 32 inches.
Alarming sea level rise predictions are based on “a cascade of extremely unlikely-to-impossible events using overly simplistic models of poorly understood processes,” Curry wrote in her report.
Current sea level rise is well within natural variability of the past few thousand years, according to Curry. Curry said coastal communities should base their future flood plans on likely scenarios, such as 1 to 2 feet, rather than high-end scenarios.
“There is not yet any convincing evidence of a human fingerprint on global sea level rise, because of the large changes driven by natural variability,” Curry wrote. “An increase in the rate of global sea level rise since 1995 is being caused by ice loss from Greenland.”
However, the “Greenlandic ice loss was larger during the 1930s, which was also associated with the warm phase of the Atlantic Ocean circulation pattern,” Curry wrote.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2) Article In Leading Saudi Media Outlet Al-Arabiya Criticizes Palestinian-American Activist Linda Sarsour, Claiming She Has 'Roots In Muslim Brotherhood'
In a December 9, 2018 article on Al-Arabiya titled "Details of calls to attack Trump by U.S. 'Muslim Sisters' allied to [Muslim] Brotherhood," by Hudah Al-Saleh, criticized Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, "with roots in Muslim Brotherhood and a member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations known as CAIR," and reviewed her activity over the years
MEMRI has released two clips of Ms. Sarsour; in one, dated June 30, 2017, she says that ISIS is the product of a politicized foreign policy of war on our people, and in the other, dated September 8, 2018, she calls for voting against Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the upcoming midterm elections, questions the faith of Muslims who defend the police, and says she doesn't care "what [any] young black person did before he got shot."
Below is the article, in the original English. All subheadings and images were also in the original.[1]
"For the first time in U.S. political history, two Muslim women joined the ranks of the U.S. Congress, with Western and Arab media widely reporting on their win during the first midterm elections under U.S. President Donald Trump. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat, is the first Somali American to serve in Congress and Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib is a Palestinian American.
"However, the Democrats' battle against the Republican control of the U.S. Congress led to an alliance with Political Islamist movements in order to restore their control on government, pushing Muslim candidates and women activists of immigrant minorities onto the electoral scene.
"The common ground between Congresswomen Omar and Tlaib is that both are anti-Trump and his political team and options, especially his foreign policy starting from the sanctions on Iran to the isolation of the Muslim Brotherhood and all movements of political Islam. Those sponsoring and supporting the two Muslim women to reach the U.S. Congress adopted a tactic to infiltrate through their immigrant and Black minority communities in general, and women's groups in particular.
"One example of that is the Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour with roots in Muslim Brotherhood and a member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations known as CAIR.
"Who is Linda Sarsour?
"The name of the Palestinian Linda Sarsour (38) appeared in the public scene, when Barack Obama took office in 2008 as President of the United States. Since then, Sarsour became a familiar face in the White House. 'I have been invited at least to seven meetings in the White House since April 2010,' she has been quoted [as saying].
"This culminated in [her] receiving the 'Champion of Change' award from President Obama in 2012. A social media site still carries a previous U.S. Department of State promotional tweet, published in July 2014, saying: "Share with Mrs. Linda Sarsour about Islam in America."
"The paradox here is that the description of the 'Obama' award is similar to the title of 'Youth and Change,' the first book taught by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin – the spiritual leader of Hamas, the military arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine – to Muslim women, according to Rajaa Halbi, an officer in the women's movement in Hamas, and who personally learned from this book directly from Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Yassin.
"What we know about Linda Sarsour is that she was born in 1980 in Brooklyn, New York, from Palestinian parents from Al-Bireh in the West Bank in Occupied Palestine. In recent years, she took part in protests and anti-Trump demonstrations. She has been employed as the president of the Arab American Association of New York, which was created by Palestinian Ahmed Jaber, a member of the Qatar International Foundation responsible for funding the association.
"Linda Sarsour and her husband, Maher Jouda, who is also a Palestinian from Al-Bireh, were investigated and placed under observation by U.S. federal authorities in 2004 on their suspicious relations with extremist elements. Also, the New York Police Department opened an investigation into the Arab American Association of New York for its links to terrorism and extremism, especially its links with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.
"Sarsour Activities With Muslim Brotherhood
"One of the activities in which Linda Sarsour participated was an annual meeting of the International Network of Muslim Brotherhood in North America and Canada in 2016, which lasted for three days, from December 26-28, organized by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). Also participating in this conference was the Muslim Students Association (MSA), which was established in 1979 by a women's group called The Sisters of Success which is affiliated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its Palestinian Executive Director and co-founder Nihad Awad.
At that event, appearing next to Linda Sarsour was Samah Safi Bayazid, a Jordanian film director, accompanied by her brother and cameraman, Mohammad Safi Bayazid, who were responsible for filming and producing a show called "Noor" for Saudi cleric Salman Odeh, who is detained in Saudi Arabia.
"Samah posted on her Ttwitter account the picture with Linda at the event. She had also posted a photo with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and her brother, in addition to another picture of her participating in ALSHARQ FORUM managed by Palestinian Waddah Khanfar in Turkey.
"Among the speakers at the conference were: Siraj Wahhaj, who is described by his supporters as a pioneering Islamic preacher in New York and a hero of social community work; Jasser Auda, who is a founding member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, president of Maqasid Studies in London, and professor of Islamic studies at Carlton University in Canada, member in the European Council for Fatwa and Research and a former member of Qatar Foundation; and Jamal Badawi, a member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars and a founding member of CAIR.
"Wahhaj, whom Linda Sarsour has admired and who in turn influenced her, was back in the national spotlight when his son Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was arrested in Aug. 2018 and jailed on a Georgia warrant alleging child abduction. Law enforcement officers searching a rural northern New Mexico compound for a missing three-year-old boy found 11 children in filthy conditions and hardly any food, and weapons where Wahhaj was allegedly training them how to execute mass shootings in America's schools.
"As for Jasser Auda, he is a founding member of the International World Union of Muslim Scholars, sponsored and chaired by extremist cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, and author of the book 'Disrupting the Domineering Systems: Jihad and the Folly of State Sovereignty,' published in 2017, in which he called on Islamic entities to think strategically to restore the concept of true jihad and its institutions to the life of the nation and that it should not be repelled by the current political and media situation, no matter how urgent.
"His book also emphasizes that "Islamic entities, and even honest humanity in general should begin to think about the coarse means the Islamic societies and humanity itself could use to eliminate those gangs and to disintegrate the tyrannical entities.'
"Jasser Auda's book also preaches that: 'The concept of state sovereignty is one of the greatest lies and myths. It is the disaster of the idea and politics that have afflicted humankind in our time, which are being invested by tyranny and gain huge gains on the ground, especially in the eradication or distortion of jihad in Islam or damaging its image to serve their interests.'
"What About Linda Sarsour's Declaration Of Jihad?
"From all that is mentioned, we can touch the influence of Muslim Brotherhood in shaping the thoughts of American activist Linda Sarsour and consequently her declaring her 'Jihad' against U.S. President Donald Trump, in addition to her call for the application of 'Sharia,' the rule of Islam in the United States of America, during a speech at the annual meeting of the San Francisco branch of CAIR. These are terms used by Muslim Brotherhood teachings and in the views of Sayyid Qutb, a scholar and co-founder of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, as well as from Abul A'la Maududi's books Islam and Ignorance and Fundamentals of Islam. These terms are used and preached also by Al-Qaeda terrorist organization and the ISIS extremist group.
"In her speech, Linda Sarsour said: 'God is waiting for us to stand up to those who are oppressing our societies, not only in the Middle East and abroad, but also here in the United States, and this is a kind of jihad, where you have fascists, white supremacists and Islamophobes. We have to remain angry. Those who are currently sitting in the White House are not normal. Normal citizens should not be among this administration. If something terrible happens, you will be responsible for that. You have no choice but to be politicized, engage and be part of the resistance to defend our right to be Muslims in the United States. Opposition is the highest form of national expression in a country like the United States,' she said.
"Despite the claims of Islamist activist Linda Sarsour that her speech – which was about human rights – was taken out of its context, but according to some observers, that her defense is just only one of the tactics of the Muslim Brotherhood and their dodgers in the use of the terms of jihad, as they are afraid to say the word openly, as the collective memory of the West in general, is still tense toward events blamed on extremists, so the Muslim Brotherhood resorts to political terms away from its militant tones when using the Jihad word.
"What Linda Sarsour has said is not far from those of Zainab Al-Ghazali, one the most prominent women of the Muslim Brotherhood who said in her book My daughter: the love of jihad: 'The nation is subjected to many hardships, but the most difficult is to abandon the breeding of jihad and love of death for the sake of God... And my daughter's role is to awaken the spirit of jihad and love of martyrdom in your husband and your daughter and this is your role, which I ask you and the whole nation awaits.'
"Linda Sarsour made headlines once against when she called for 'Jihad' against Trump and his administration in 2017. However, Political Islamists – the masterminds behind the so-called "Arab Spring" – have said time and again that the word 'Jihad' could not be re-interpreted in any other sense except in the meaning of 'physical fighting' against the rulers through a coup or revolution against them.
"As she said in one of her conversations with the Arab Muslim community in New York via Skype: 'What happened in the Middle East revolutions inspired the Arabs in the United States,' adding: "After the Arab Spring, we worked harder than the last four decades, because in this country there are rights and freedoms which do not exist in the Arab countries. We began to exercise our rights here. The Arab Spring encouraged us to be involved in the political life – you gave us courage.'
"Muslim Sisters To Topple Trump
"Through the interaction and support of the president of the Islamic Society of North America (USA), Dr. Ingrid Mattson, who is of Canadian origin, and is designated as the mother of Muslim Sisters in the United States, whom former President Obama chose to speak at his inauguration in January 2009 – and with the campaign Women's march against Trump led by Linda Sarsour and Somali Ilhan Omar, the spiritual daughter of Obama, who said in a tweet in November 2017: "Thank you Obama for being a source of inspiration, hope and change! I have always been proud to call you my president!"
"In addition, there is Dalia Mogahed, former Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, and [who] was chosen to serve on Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in 2009. She is known as a staunch critic of Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and one of the vocal participants of the annual meeting of the International Network of Muslim Brotherhood in North America and Canada, in the presence of Turkish president's daughter Soumaya Erdogan and othe Muslim Sisters hosted by Obama at a dinner in the White House.
"It turns out that the common ground for these 'sisters,' who are supported by former U.S. President Obama, are the protest, sit-ins, and demonstrations on U.S. streets. On one hand, they are 'Mujahideen,' as Linda Sarsour describes, in the face of tyrants and opponents of Trump's foreign policies – from the siege of Iran, the fight against political Islam groups, and his choice of Saudi Arabia under the leadership of King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a strategic ally.
"Muslim Brotherhood Document To Establish A "Caliphate" In America And Canada
In this context, it should be noted that the document, which was released by the U.S. authorities in 2017, was found among 5,000 pages of the International Network of Muslim Brotherhood, in the house of Ismail al-Barassi, a member of the group (Palestinian origin and American) who was arrested in Virginia in 2004 on charges of belonging to Hamas. The document was presented as evidence during his trial in 2008.
"The document, entitled 'Explanatory Note to the Strategic Objective of Muslim Brotherhood in North America,' was presented in 1991 by Mohammed Akram, the secretary of the group's Shura Council, in what he described as an attempt to explain the long-term plan adopted by the Muslim Brotherhood's North American Shura Council in 1987, in which he notes that the Empowerment Memorandum is based on the realization of the overall strategic objective of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America, namely, the establishment of an Islamic movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood that embraces Muslim issues locally and globally and proposes Islam as an alternative to civilization.
"The second objective is to achieve naturalization and empowerment in North America and to establish a mechanism for that.
"The document referred to the International Network of Muslim Brotherhood's important plan of implementing naturalization and empowerment of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America and Canada, 'that Islam and its movement be part of the country in which he lives,' by turning to stable institutions and stabilizing these institutions within the Muslim community.
"The document names a number of Islamic organizations that are affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood, which according to Al Arabiya English, are all the organizations affiliated with CAIR – the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Islamic Information Foundation founded by Egyptian Canadian Dr. Jamal Badawi, the center run by Hamed Ghazali, and many others.
"The document explains the need to absorb Muslims and win their loyalty from all classes and colors in America and Canada, for the interest of the naturalization plan, saying: 'At that time, If we ask for money, it will be abundant. Even if we asked men to come in, they will.'
"The document considers the work of Muslim Brotherhood in North America as a kind of great jihad in the removal and destruction of Western civilization.
The document also mentions the need to establish a section for 'Muslim Sisters,' which includes central and local women's associations, training and technical vocational institutes, schools and kindergartens."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3) Startup Nation is becoming the AI Nation
by Brian Blum for Israel21c,
‘This sector’s vital signs are positive,’ reports IVC Research in its summary of Israeli artificial intelligence startups.
More than 1,200 artificial intelligence (AI) companies have been established in the country since 2010; 79 percent of them are still active and 6% have been acquired, reports IVC Research, which adds that “this sector’s vital signs are positive.”
Exits (where a company is either acquired or goes public) were higher in the first half of 2018 than for all of 2017, IVC adds.
The mix of AI companies in Israel has also changed – particularly in the last four years.
AI companies in Israel have traditionally focused on computer vision and this is where most of the development activity has been.
Jerusalem-based Mobileye, for example, builds systems that “watch” how your car is driving and sound an alert if you’re getting too close to another vehicle or veer out of your lane. Computer vision technology is now the basis behind Mobileye’s AI-centric approach to self-driving cars.
Beginning in 2014, though, there has been an increase in the share of companies implementing “data science” (a catchall name that encompasses data mining, statistical inference and prediction models) into their product lines. That’s been accompanied by a decrease in companies whose technology is more about computer vision, recommendation systems and text analysis.
IVC Research broke out the percentage of companies it tracks in each sector for the years 2010-2018.
- Recommendation systems (5%) – companies that use mathematical models to predict and recommend user preferences. Example: Outbrain, which has raised $144 million.
- Text analysis and NLP (8%) – companies which recognize and analyze the content and context of speech and text. Example: Twiggle, which has raised $35 million.
- Sound recognition and analysis (10%) – companies that analyze and process sounds for applications such as voice assistants. Example: Gong, which has raised $26 million.
- Chatbots, robotics and assistants (11%) – companies with technology that imitates a human interface. Example: Lemonade, which has raised $180 million.
- Computer vision (20%) – companies which acquire, process and analyze digital images. Example: Mobileye, which was acquired by Intel for $15.3 billion.
- Data science and analysis (43%) – companies that build statistical models for data mining and analysis. Example: Gett, which has raised $597 million.
- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment