Professor Fired for Protesting Anti-LGBT Polices Ignored by SCOTUS

Professor Fired for Protesting Anti-LGBT Polices Ignored by SCOTUS

Parker Davis March 2, 2022

Justices eye expansion of religious exemption to anti-bias law

From www.reuters.com
2022-02-28 18:04:00

Excerpt:

(Reuters) – Members of the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative wing on Monday signaled an interest in expanding an exemption for religious employers from anti-discrimination laws, but turned away a case raising the issue involving a social work professor at a Christian college in Massachusetts.

The court declined to review a decision from Massachusetts’s state supreme court that said the professor, Margaret DeWeese-Boyd, could sue Gordon College for allegedly denying her a promotion because she criticized the school’s anti-LGBT policies.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found that DeWeese-Boyd did not teach religion, lead students in prayer or deliver sermons, distinguishing her from other workers who courts have found to qualify for the so-called “ministerial exception” from anti-discrimination laws.

Read Full Article

Can Whites Now Adopt Native Americans? SCOTUS to Decide

Ivo Fysic March 2, 2022

SCOTUS Will Take Up Case Over Native American Adoption Law

From lawandcrime.com
2022-02-28 18:34:00

Excerpt:

US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland speaks during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 23, 2021. (Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in four cases challenging the constitutionality of a decades-old federal law aimed at protecting Native American children.

The Court granted certiorari Monday in Brackeen v. Haaland, consolidating it with three other cases: Haaland v. Brackeen, Cherokee Nation v. Brackeen, and Texas v. Haaland.

“The petitions for writs of certiorari are granted,” the Court said in its order Monday, adding that the cases will be consolidated going forward. The Court limited oral argument to a total of one hour and set a briefing schedule for the parties.

All four cases stem from efforts by Chad Brackeen and Jennifer Brackeen, a Texas couple, to adopt a Navajo child. The Brackeens, who are white evangelical Christians and not Native…

Read Full Article

US District Judge Cancels Kansas Mailed Ballot Law

Freedomist Curator March 2, 2022

Judge blocks Kansas law on mailed ballot applications

From www.ksn.com
2022-02-28 20:52:53

Excerpt:

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP/KSNW) — A federal judge has permanently blocked a Kansas law prohibiting out-of-state groups from mailing advance ballot applications to voters who request them.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Vratil declared those provisions in the law violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and permanently enjoined the state from enforcing them.

The court ordered the state to pay the attorney fees of two national nonprofit groups who say it disenfranchises voters.

The state has agreed not to appeal the order.

It partially resolves the lawsuit brought by VoteAmerica and the Voter Participation Center. In January, Vratil granted a preliminary injunction against the new law before it took effect.

The Voter Participation Center (VPC) is a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization. Tom Lopach, the VPC president and CEO, said the judge’s decision will allow…

Read Full Article

Myanmar Junta Questions Whether China Might Ukraine Them

Mark Clouse March 2, 2022

Russia-Ukraine Crisis Prompts Myanmar Junta Emergency Meeting

From www.irrawaddy.com
2022-03-01 09:20:48

Excerpt:

Myanmar’s military regime held an emergency meeting on the Russia-Ukraine crisis in the capital Naypyitaw on February 26, to discuss how the conflict in Eastern Europe might affect Myanmar, sources told The Irrawaddy.

At the meeting, the regime assumed that Myanmar faces the risk of invasion by its neighbor China, just as Ukraine has been invaded by its neighbor Russia.

While the junta is convinced that Beijing would not invade Myanmar in normal times, it is concerned that the superpower would take matters into its own hand if and…

Read Full Article

India’s Russian Tanks Mean Ukraine is Tough Topic

Mark Clouse March 2, 2022

Once, India depended on force power toys from the United States and her western allies. Now, India relies more on Russian arms than American arms, even as India continues to slowly develop its own internal defense technology. For now, India faces real military threats from China and Pakistan, and her reliance on Russia for arms is causing her to take a two-step when it comes to how to address the Ukraine War.

So far, India has not strongly supported or condemned anyone, but some India YouTube news channels that regularly walk lock step with the current government have been decidedly pro Russian, and that might be explained by their dependence on Russia for military power.

Explained: How dependent is India on Russia’s weapons?

From indianexpress.com
2022-03-02 03:49:50

Excerpt:

India was reliant, almost solely on the British, and other Western nations for its arms imports immediately after Independence. But this dependence weaned, and by the 1970s India was importing several weapons systems from the USSR, making it country’s largest defence importer for decades when it came to both basic and sophisticated weapons systems. In fact, it has provided some of the most sensitive and important weapons platforms that India has required from time to time including nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, tanks, guns, fighter jets, and missiles.

According to several people, the defence trade, which remains significant, is one of the important causes why India has not taken a critical stand openly against Russia. However, India-Russian ties cannot be viewed only from that perspective.

The legacy of buying weapons from Russia has made India somewhat dependent on it, and even though India has tried to expand the base of countries from which it buys new military systems, Russian-origin weapons still have the lion’s share. According to one estimate, the share of Russian-origin weapons and platforms across Indian armed forces is as…

Read Full Article

Navy Looks to Go Unmanned in a Big Way

Mark Clouse March 2, 2022

The United States Navy is well in the process of developing new platforms that are unmanned, autonomous. Now, the Navy has announced plans to develop an autonomous code standard that will enable more rapid development of autonomous platforms, but also help retrofit legacy platforms with autonomous features.

The code is to be called Unmanned Maritime Autonomous Architecture, UMAA. It is being developed by the Navy’s Rapid Autonomy Integration Lab.

Navy Setting Stage for Influx Of Autonomous Systems

From www.nationaldefensemagazine.org
2022-03-02 00:53:35

Excerpt:

The Navy — which is pursuing an ambitious unmanned systems plan through a mixture of air, surface and underwater platforms — is working to test and mature those autonomy systems through multiple programs.

These include efforts such as new autonomy standards as well as the standing up of its Rapid Autonomy Integration Lab, said Capt. Pete Small, program manager for unmanned maritime systems at Naval Sea Systems Command.

Updating legacy platforms with new autonomy software codes can be an arduous process, he said during a briefing at the Surface Navy Association’s annual conference. To combat that, the Navy is developing an autonomy standard for code development called the unmanned maritime autonomy architecture, or UMAA.

Read Full Article

China Threatens US Over Taiwan Delegation

Freedomist Curator March 2, 2022

China has warned the United States of America that the recent delegation sent to Taiwan is a futile effort, that America’s efforts to support Taiwan are doomed to fail because “the Chinese people defend their sovereignty,” meaning Taiwan.

The shout came from a press conference held by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin. The shout was met with sarcastic clapping and condescending gestures.

‘The Chinese people defend their sovereignty,’ Beijing slams US for sending delegation to Taiwan – South China Morning Post

From www.scmp.com
2022-03-02 02:01:50

Excerpt:

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin has urged the United States to stop all forms of official exchanges with Taiwan. Speaking at a press conference on March 1, 2022, Wang said any attempts of the US side to show support to Taiwan are doomed to fail. His remarks followed the arrival of a group of former top American military and security officials who flew to Taiwan on a US government plane earlier the same day. The US group is expected to meet the self-ruled island’s President Tsai Ing-wen, Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng and other senior officials to exchange views on cross-strait, military and security issues. Beijing views Taiwan as a renegade province that must ultimately be brought under its own control, by force if necessary.

Read Full Article

Israel Achieves Zero Emission Green Ammonia Production

Mark Clouse March 2, 2022

The Israeli company named GenCell recently released findings that show the company was able to produce green ammonia from water using a process that requires significantly lower temperatures and pressures than current methods. This method also produces no carbon emissions, making it a zero emission process.

Green Ammonia is used primarily for agriculture, but is also being developed a viable option to fossil fuel. It is also storable, and could then be converted as needed for fertilizer or power. The breakthrough is not ready for commercial production. If the methodology proves to be cost efficient, as early results suggest it would be, then green ammonia could become far more than fertilizer in the years to come.

Israeli GenCell scientific breakthrough zero emission green ammonia – The Jerusalem Post

From www.jpost.com
2022-03-01 18:51:00

Excerpt:

Israeli company GenCell Energy has announced they’ve achieved a major scientific breakthrough that enables the production of green ammonia directly from water at a very low temperature and pressure in comparison to the traditional ammonia production processes typically carried out around the world today.

Following their evaluation of GenCell’s scientific breakthrough, Japanese technology provider TDK Corporation announced they plan to continue investing in and developing GenCell’s innovative zero-emission green ammonia synthesis project towards its next milestone.

GenCell, based in Petah Tikva, is the leading provider of hydrogen and ammonia to power solutions.

Read Full Article

Spinning Electrons Could Power Your Future Computer

Parker Davis March 2, 2022

Researchers at Goethe University Frankfurt have made a breakthrough discovery identifying a rare earth material that could be an ideal candidate to become a spinning electron information processing center. The processor of the future could be powered by a rare earth material whose spinning electrons would process data at exponentially faster times than conventional CPU’s can accomplish.

The technology is relatively new in development, still mostly in the theory rather than application stage of development, but these latest results break down some key barriers, making this technology much more potentially applicable within a few years.

Innovative crystals for future computer electronics — ScienceDaily

From www.sciencedaily.com
2022-02-28 18:12:06

Excerpt:

While modern computers are already very fast, they also consume vast amounts of electricity. For some years now a new technology has been much talked about, which although it is still in its infancy could one day revolutionise computer technology — spintronics. The word is a portmanteau meaning “spin” and “electronics,” because with these components electrons no longer flow through computer chips, but the spin of the electrons serves as the information carrier. A team of researchers with staff from Goethe University Frankfurt has now identified materials that have surprisingly fast properties for spintronics. The results have been published in the specialist magazine “Nature Materials.”

….The problem in the development of spintronic materials is that perfectly designed crystals are required for such components as the smallest discrepancies immediately have a negative impact on the overall magnetic order in the material. This is where the expertise in Frankfurt came into play. “The rare earths melt at about 1000 degrees Celsius, but the rhodium that is also needed for the crystal does not melt until about 2000 degrees Celsius,” says Krellner. “This is why customary crystallisation methods do not function here.”

Instead the scientists used hot indium as a solvent. The rare earths, as well as the rhodium and silicon that are required, dissolve in this at about 1500 degrees Celsius. The graphite crucible was kept at this temperature for about a week and then gently cooled. As a result the desired crystals grew in the form of thin disks with an edge length of two to three millimetres. These were then studied by the team with the aid of X-rays produced on the Berlin synchrotron BESSY II and on the Swiss Light Source of the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland.

“The most important finding is that in the crystals which we have grown the rare-earth atoms react magnetically with one another very quickly and that the strength of these reactions can be specifically adjusted through the choice of atoms,” says Krellner. This opens up the path for further optimisation — ultimately spintronics is still purely fundamental research and years away from the production of commercial components.

Read Full Article

Silicon War Powers?

Parker Davis March 2, 2022

With Silicon Valley and other big tech companies seeming to mostly be choosing Ukraine over Russia in their recently-started war, nation-states of the world are learning lessons that might not be the kind Silicon Valley would like them to learn.

Tech is making it known that neutrality in war is not something nation states can count on tech for sustaining. In the Ukraine War, Silicon Valley is finding itself choosing to block this agent but not that agent, is choosing to take this government on as a client but not this government.

All of the nation-states of the world are paying close attention to what tech can do, in general, to affect the outcome of war, but also, they are paying close attention to the type of power tech can have in impeding your nation-states war efforts should you find yourself outside the club.

These actions by tech, or Silicon Valley in large part, but hardly exclusively, are sending signals to nation states that will continue to accelerate the process of the nationalization of social media and the internet in general. The cost for relying on obs (one big system) solutions is a potential loss of sovereignty as a nation-state altogether should the enemy that is invading you is in with the Silicon Valley crowd.

Tech Companies Help Defend Ukraine Against Cyberattacks

From www.nytimes.com
2022-03-01 00:50:58

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON — Last Wednesday, a few hours before Russian tanks began rolling into Ukraine, alarms went off inside Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center, warning of a never-before-seen piece of “wiper” malware that appeared aimed at the country’s government ministries and financial institutions.

Within three hours, Microsoft threw itself into the middle of a ground war in Europe — from 5,500 miles away. The threat center, north of Seattle, had been on high alert, and it quickly picked apart the malware, named it “FoxBlade” and notified Ukraine’s top cyberdefense authority. Within three hours, Microsoft’s virus detection systems had been updated to block the code, which erases — “wipes” — data on computers in a network.

Then Tom Burt, the senior Microsoft executive who oversees the company’s effort to counter major cyberattacks, contacted Anne Neuberger, the White House’s deputy national security adviser for cyber- and emerging technologies. Ms….

Read Full Article