Muslims vs. Muslims

This bombing in the news caught my attention this week.

Iraq: Bombing at Soccer Stadium Kills At Least 41

Of course, this bombing is being under-reported, because it belies the propaganda that Muslims are at war with Christians. If Muslims are bombing Muslims, what are the real issues?

Of course, in an ideal world, no one would throw bombs at anyone else, but failing at that, we could at least stop using God as an excuse for killing people, and stop using those who claim to kill in the name of God, as an excuse to persecute honest people from the same religion. We are not all jihadists and inquisitors.

Playing into IS's plan

L"It is never a good idea to do what the terrorists want you to do, yet so many people are doing exactly that. The goal of terrorist groups is not simply to kill people but to influence their target group."

This article by a former CIA counter terrorism agent is, in my opinion, something everyone should read. It is so easy to imagine Trump's comments, especially, being excerpted and included in terrorist recruitment videos. Frightening thought. The terrorists want to convince all Muslims that the non-Muslim world hates them. Too many people in the spotlight are making that goal easier. 

In an ideal world, we would respect the lives of others and follow the Golden Rule. This would stop both military actions and terrorism, and additionally Trump wouldn't say such awful things. 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/27/opinions/getting-terrorism-completely-wrong-opinion-hasler/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Candidates ranked after being fact checked

A couple weeks ago we talked about fact checking and this mentioned that so I thought I might as well post it and it was also just interesting to see the candidates compared this way. From what I've heard about these guys it doesn't seem like any of them are ideal but if I was able to vote I think I would go with the most honest person because even if they aren't amazing at least you can trust them...most of the time. I think the principle for this would be honesty and it's importance. Link --> http://www.startribune.com/assessing-the-candidates-overall-truthfulness/372603041/?from-mobile=true

Brooks' Place BBQ

On January 1, 2016, a law was passed in Texas, making it so that open carry of handguns is no longer prohibited. You still need a license to carry a gun, concealed or not, but now that license will allow you to carry your gun openly. Private institutions, such as businesses, can ban them on their private property if they so please. But one well-regarded business, Brooks’ Place, a small BBQ trailer in Cypress, Texas, is openly supporting gun carry.

The same day as the new law came out, Trent Brooks, the owner, made a 25% discount for all open carriers. Soon this was lowered to a 10% discount for open and concealed carry, where it remains as of today.

The responses have been mostly positive, though he did get a threat on facebook. Someone posted, "I'll shoot up the place on Saturday. Let's see how your gun toting patrons will stop me." However, Brooks didn’t close on Saturday. No attack came.

When I saw the title while looking at the news, This Texas barbecue joint will give you a discount for carrying a gun, my first reaction was, “Well, that might be a little too much.” But as I read about it, I decided that it really wasn’t, and that it’s good that he’s standing up for our right to self-defence.

Sources (and further reading):

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-texas-barbecue-guns-20160119-story.html

http://www.ammoland.com/2016/02/tx-brooks-place-bbq-offers-discount-for-open-carry/#axzz43sUmmRZy

http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/cyfair/news/article/Houston-area-BBQ-favorite-25-percent-off-for-6735344.php#photo-9186521

Stealing a donation Jar? Really?

There's been a setback for a Utah girl raising money for a humanitarian trip to Central America this summer. Her donation jar went missing, but surveillance video shows exactly how it disappeared. Here is the first link: http://www.ksl.com/?sid=39026468&nid=148

With the help of a few new tips from the public, police detectives were working Thursday to identify two women who stole a donation jar from a Tony burgers restaurant last week.

Surveillance video from the Salt Lake City restaurant, 613 E. 400 South, shows one woman distracting an employee while the other stuffs the donation jar under her coat and walks out.

"These girls had come in and asked for a Band-Aid, and when the person at the register went to go grab it, they had taken the jar," said Laura Carver, who was raising the money for a humanitarian trip to Nicaragua.

Carver estimates there was between $150 and $200 in the jar.

Click for full story: http://www.ksl.com/?sid=39038816&nid=148&title=police-following-leads-to-identify-2-women-who-stole-donation-jar

This goes with the value of Honesty. is a couple hundred dollars really worth your integrity? 

Cruel and Unusual

Trump wants to make waterboarding legal. Around the time of the attack on Brussels, Salah Abdeslam was arrested because he is suspected of planning the terrorists attacks in Paris in November. Trump states "Frankly, the waterboarding, if it was up to me, and if we changed the laws or had the laws, waterboarding would be fine. If they could expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding. You have to get the information from these people." This is not cool because it goes against the eighth amendment. "[no] cruel and unusual punishments inflicted" It is just plain wrong. It also goes against the Golden rule in the sense that you should treat people like they are human and not some sort of animal. No one should torture anyone.
The link here

More terror attacks to come

This article about the trained IS fighters is terrifying but also brings home the reality that this isn't a battle or a war we can win. Our military and Europe's militaries have violiated these countries enough, and now they have the expertise and resources to make loud and deadly protests. It's not going to get better if we continue on the same course of military occupation and action. 

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/ap-islamic-fighters-target-europe-for-maximum-carnage/article_a437e7b7-193e-5988-905e-11fe7d14df70.html

Letter from the First Presidency

My son, Alex, pointed out this letter from the First Presidency, in 1941 (Heber J. Grant was Prophet):

Returning to our your original letter and our reply thereto regarding the selling of Defense Bonds. The Church as a Church does not believe in war and yet since its organization whenever war has come we have done our part. Our members served in the war with Mexico, not such much in the Civil War because we were so far away, but our members went into the Spanish-American War and they went into the World War, and the records will show that they acquitted themselves honorably. But, nevertheless, we repeat, we are against war. We believe that international difficulties can and should be settled by peaceful means, and that America’s great mission in the world is to bring this about. We believe that our entry into this present war by sending our men abroad (and this seems now to be deliberately planned) would constitute not only a mistake but a tragedy. We believe that the present war is merely a breaking out again of the old spirit of hatred and envy that has afflicted Europe for a period of a thousand years at least. We do not believe that this war will settle anything when it is over because we believe that the peace, whoever dictates it, will be primarily the outgrowth of hate, and hate never settled anything righteously.

However, we do thoroughly believe in building up our home defenses to the maximum extent necessary, but we do not believe that aggression should be carried on in the name and under the false cloak of defense. (!) We therefore look with sorrowing eyes at the present use to which a great part of the funds being raised by taxes and by borrowing is being put. We are much impressed with the views of those military and naval men who say we are not militarily threatened(Lindberg). We believe that our real threat comes from within and not from without, and it comes from that underlying spirit common to Naziism, Fascism, and Communism, namely, the spirit which would array class against class, which would set up a socialistic state of some sort, which would rob the people of the liberties which we possess under the Constitution, and would set up such a reign of terror as exists now in many parts of Europe. We feel that our defenses should be built against this danger even more than the touted danger of foreign military invasion which many responsible military men tell us cannot come.

Can you count the principles here? 

Pacifism, civic duty, self-defence, non-aggression, peace cannot come from hate (also known as violence can only beget more violence), liberty, honesty, cleanse the inner vessel first, free market, to name a few.

Civic Duty in Brazil

There are interesting things happening in Brazil.

A scandal involving the state oil company (Petrobras) and the former President (Lula da Silva) has taken a bizarre turn when the current president (Dilma Rousseff) appointed him to her (yes, President Rousseff is a woman) cabinet, in a attempt (according to recorded phone conversations) to help him avoid prosecution, because cabinet ministers get special priviledges regarding prosecutions and have never been successfully prosecuted.

Millions of Brazilians are protesting in the streets over the corruption, and the supreme court of Brazil has declared the appointment illegal.

Brazil has been a economic success story under da Silva (who is socialist, but a fiscal conservative), but the economy is in chaos over the recent scandals. “I voted for Lula, but now I think he is a thief.”

So we have flagrant corruption in the government on one hand (violations of the Golden Rule), and on the other hand, this has incentivized the people to get involved (civic duty). But civic duty has to be a constant thing, not just a single event, because the temptation for corruption with government power is a constant thing.

Personal Responsibility & Self Reliance

I thought this article was interesting, discussing the people in America who are angry and longing for a past day of greatness and those who are optimistic about the future. As a woman, I feel like today is a much better time to be alive than any time in the past, and I know that minorities feel the same. It is easy to romanticize the past and sweep the ugly stuff under the rug, but I don't think that does any good. If we want to really make progress as a society, we need to acknowledge the ugliness in the past so we can improve on things now. 

Here's a paragraph from the article that stood out to me: 

"For every disgruntled person out there who felt undone by the system and threatened by the way the country was changing, caught in the bind of stagnant wages or longing for an America of the past, we found someone who had endured decades of discrimination and hardship and yet still felt optimistic about the future and had no desire to go back. In this season of discontent, there were still as many expressions of hope as of fear. On a larger level, there were as many communities enjoying a sense of revival as there were fighting against deterioration and despair."

http://wapo.st/1U9I302

The Golden Rule Applies to Other Creatures, Too!

This story is about a lion that got agitated and left the park where it was living and attacked a man. I can imagine that most people wouldn't like their living space invaded by selfie takers and horn honkers. People should be more considerate of the places animals call home. We can all apply the golden rule to our interactions with other living creatures, even if they aren't human. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-35840888

Golden Rule

I found a moment when Trump actually followed the Golden Rule. He went golfing a lot and would sometimes give 100 dollar bills to the groundskeepers. I think this is following the Golden Rule because he treated them like he appreciated them and I think that he probably would want to be treated that way too.

Air bag suit

Dainese motor cycle and ski jackets are a new type of jacket that can save your live.
its entire build can blow up in 10 100th of a millisecond and can protect you from getting road rash.
its computer which is housed in the back of the suit is super compact and extremely fast.
it has multiple gyroscopes that let the computer know that you are crashing. although they are awesome, for the whole suit can be over a thousand dollars. but they look awesome!

Learning AIs

AIX is a program being used to try to teach an AI how to learn from things… using minecraft. Microsoft researchers are trying to get an AI to figure out how to go up a hill, using a system of incremental rewards to let it know when it has achieved all or part of its goal (I looked all over but I couldn’t find what they use for the rewards anywhere! Probably just some sort of programming.). The AI has to learn what’s important, climbing the hill, and what’s not, such as whether it’s light or dark.

Of course, they could do this in real life, but it would require them to make an extremely costly machine, which as it tried to learn, would inevitably tumble down the hill. The AI goes into the world with no information given beforehand of what to do, how to move, anything. So it’s going to fall into lava pools or lakes and encounter many other obstacles many times as it tries to learn how to obtain its goal. With Minecraft, it’ll just respawn, whereas in real life they’d have to make an entire new, expensive machine—which is why games are such a good place to do this. Why Minecraft in specific is a good way to teach AIs to learn, is because it offers endless possibilities for things to do. You could build a grand palace with some friends, you could go fight monsters, you could even make your own games inside of it.

Trying to make an AI that learns this sort of way isn’t a completely new thing, just coming up in the last year or so. In 1997 Garry Kasparov lost a chess match to Deep Blue, a supercomputer built by IBM. But Google’s Deepmind (bought by Google for $400m in 2014), named AlphaGo, has triumphed over Lee Sedol in a game of Go (Lee Sedol is one of the best human players of that ancient and notoriously taxing board game). Even though the rules or simpler than chess, it’s much harder to program an AI to play Go than chess, just because of the sheer number of possible moves—“There are [1 * 10171] possible positions—that’s more than the number of atoms in the universe, and more than a googol times larger than chess,” said Demis Hassabis, CEO and co-founder of DeepMind.

AlphaGo learned how to play by watching other human players, and having numerous matches against itself. Finally, it played against other Go-playing AIs, winning all but one of the 500 matches it played. Then in its game against Mr. Lee, it won its first three rounds. Commentators were convinced that it had made serious mistakes, but it kept winning, and they had to admit there had been no mistakes after all— it was using valid strategies that its human masters had overlooked. On the fourth round, however, Mr. Lee changed tactics—playing around the edge while leaving AlphaGo to its own devices in the middle. He won that round. However, in the fifth and final round AlphaGo won again.

I think that it’s pretty cool that they’re trying to make AIs be able to learn from scratch and experience, much like humans do. Some people probably will think that if they manage to do this, the robots will take over the workspace—and while yes, many jobs might have many more robots in them, I think that robots could never completely fill in the creativity humans have, and they should always be other jobs as well. Besides, it would be expensive to get an entire task force of robots, and many companies (Besides the huge ones) wouldn’t be able to afford it. So I’m pretty sure that pertains to self-reliance.

However, this is a long blog post, so I’m sure you won’t blame me when I say that I’m tired and I’m done.

Sources:

AIX:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35778288

https://blogs.microsoft.com/next/2016/03/13/project-aix-using-minecraft-build-intelligent-technology/

AlphaGo:

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21694883-alphagos-masters-taught-it-game-electrifying-match-shows-what

http://siliconangle.com/blog/2016/03/09/googles-alphago-ai-has-successfully-beaten-the-go-world-champion-in-its-first-of-five-games/

http://siliconangle.com/blog/2016/01/27/googles-ai-beat-a-professional-go-player-and-its-kind-of-a-big-deal/

Mean Lean Teeny Machines....That are super strong!

 At BDML Stanford, which stands for Biomimetic Dexterous Manipulation, they evaluated how microbots could effectively pull many times their weight.

Nature’s own Hulk-like critters — ants —were the model for the tiny tech marvels, because ants can lift over 100 times their own weight. The microbots made by the Stanford team can move items over 2,000 times their own weight by using a grippy adhesive that mimics the toes of geckos!

This is So cool! its amazing how technology has come this far.

American - the modern empire?

Here's the article I quoted from during class:

"Like most Americans, for most of my life, I rarely thought about military bases. Scholar and former CIA consultant Chalmers Johnson described me well when he wrote in 2004, “As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize—or do not want to recognize—that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet.”

To the extent that Americans think about these bases at all, we generally assume they’re essential to national security and global peace. Our leaders have claimed as much since most of them were established during World War II and the early days of the Cold War. As a result, we consider the situation normal and accept that US military installations exist in staggering numbers in other countries, on other peoples’ land. On the other hand, the idea that there would be foreign bases on US soil is unthinkable.

While there are no freestanding foreign bases permanently located in the United States, there are now around 800 US bases in foreign countries. Seventy years after World War II and 62 years after the Korean War, there are still 174 US “base sites” in Germany, 113 in Japan, and 83 in South Korea, according to the Pentagon. Hundreds more dot the planet in around 80 countries, including Aruba and Australia, Bahrain and Bulgaria, Colombia, Kenya, and Qatar, among many other places. Although few Americans realize it, the United States likely has more bases in foreign lands than any other people, nation, or empire in history."

http://www.thenation.com/article/the-united-states-probably-has-more-foreign-military-bases-than-any-other-people-nation-or-empire-in-history/

Which porch lights attract the fewest bugs?

Scientists tested a variety of different types of bulbs to see which wavelengths were least attractive to bugs. 

"Overall, the white incandescent light brought in the largest number of insects, about 8.2 per hour. The white LED light bulb that emitted more strongly at the reddish end of the visible spectrum attracted the fewest insects, about 4.5 per hour. Indeed, it lured even fewer insects than the yellow bug light."

I found this study interesting because our porch lights get really buggy and gross. 

https://student.societyforscience.org/article/picking-better-porch-light

Trump and Torture

There are lots of stories and video clips of Trump talking about torture.

"I would bring back waterboarding, and I would bring back a [whole] lot worse than waterboarding."

 “… and if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway for what they do to us”

These are the words of someone who does not believe in the golden rule. Instead of doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, he wants to do unto others as they have done unto us.

The result of this is easy to understand. Instead of trying to make others better, by being better ourselves, and being a good example for them, we are going to make ourselves just as bad as they are. Everything we criticize them for doing, we are doing exactly the same things to them. And often worse things, simply because we can.

We have unmanned drones, so we can kill them whenever we want, and call our assassinations "targetting killings". They have no drones, so when they use low tech bombs to do the exact same thing, we call their assassinations "terrorism".

Cute kitten

I thought this picture of a kitten was cute and I fact checked it and it is indeed a kitten.

Ideonella sakaiensis

A group of Japanese researchers have found a new species of bacterium in Japan that they named Ideonella sakaiensis. It is able to eat polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a common type of plastic used in clothing, plastic bottles and food packaging. They speculated that it would be nice if it could be used to break down plastics in landfills, but right now that wouldn’t be feasible because it chomps very slowly. However, it’s possible that the bacterium could be modified to eat PET faster.

But even if they did manage to do this, it would still be preferable to recycle PET, which is 100% recyclable. Plastics often contain additives that can be toxic when released. Also, biodegrading materials releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which would contribute to global warming.

I think that it’s rather strange, that some bacterium could have evolved to eat plastic, but otherwise I don’t think I really care what they do with it—as long as they’re careful. After all, what if someone modified it to eat plastic faster so that it would be more useful, and then it got out in a society where plastic is used extensively?

Sources:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/03/10/469972237/this-plastic-eating-bacterium-might-help-deal-with-waste-one-day

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/10/could-a-new-plastic-eating-bacteria-help-combat-this-pollution-scourge

Fat Chicken/Fact Check-in.....

Here is my FAT CHICKEN:

Here Is My Fact Check-in:
This is from the 11th GOP debate

• Sen. Marco Rubio said businessman Donald Trump inherited $100 million from his father for his business, while Trump said he started with only $1 million. Both are stretching the facts.
• Trump claimed the government could save “hundreds of billions of dollars in waste” through negotiating prescription drug prices. But that’s well above the entire yearly spending for Medicare Part D.
• Trump grossly exaggerated the U.S. trade deficit with China, and falsely claimed that the U.S. runs a trade deficit with “every country.”
• Sen. Ted Cruz claimed that a study showed the 1994 assault weapons ban “did nothing to reduce violent crime.” Not true. The study reported “mixed” results.
• Trump repeated a bogus claim that the wife of a 9/11 terrorist left the U.S. two days prior to the 2001 attacks and that she “knew exactly what was happening.”
• Trump said he was “always against going into Iraq.” He was an early critic of the war, but there is no record of him speaking against the war before it started.
• Trump claimed that Trump University has an “A” rating from the Better Business Bureau, but the last rating we could find was a “D-.”
• Rubio and Trump disagreed on whether Trump had “expressed admiration” for Russian President Putin. Trump had said it was “a great honor” to be complimented by the “highly respected” Putin.
• Trump falsely claimed that Rubio was the first person who ever disparaged the size of Trump’s hands. Vanity Fair‘s editor did so more than 25 years ago. 

My Opinion: I think It Is amazing how much people are stretch the truth/ Lie for stuff like this. Who wants a dishonest president?

100-million-year-old lizard

Scientists descovered an almost 100-million-year-old lizard. They were looking through a bunch of fossils at the American Museum of Natural History in New York an they found the lizard to be in very good condition. The chameleon was encased in amber and was abut the size of a dime. It is probably the oldest chameleon ever found. I  thought that this was cool because the chameleon was so perfectly preserves that even the scales were still intact.  
Click here for the link. 

Cougar vs a Doberman

 here is a video of a Cougar vs a Doberman 

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=38808621&nid=1288&title=video-shows-frightening-battle-between-cougar-and-doberman

Doberman is a large dog of a German breed with powerful jaws and a smooth coat, typically black with tan markings.

Willing to Work

I saw this article and it made me think about our conversation in class today about welfare and willingness/desire to work. This homeless man was handing out resumes instead of asking for money, and it paid off. I think this man's efforts to find work are admirable, even when he was really hard up. I hope it works out for him and is the start of a better life. 

http://www.today.com/money/homeless-man-hands-out-resumes-instead-asking-money-lands-job-t77651

POSSIBLE ZIKA VACCINE

According to the man in charge of the US government research programme the Zika vaccine could be ready for human trials later this year.

Doctor Anthony Fauci hopes to begin testing a DNA vaccine by September. Scientists at the institute helped create the vaccine for Ebola and they hope to be able to do the same for Zika focusing mainly on making it work for pregnant women because of the strongly suspected link between Zika and microcephaly. Doctor Fauci says he hope they will be able to begin testing in America very soon and that the Phase 1 trial will likely start around the end of the summer or the beginning of fall. "If the outbreak starts to wane, as happened in the advanced stages of the agency's Ebola vaccine trials, it will not be possible to conduct big enough studies to confirm how effective the vaccine is in at risk populations." - BBC news 

I thought this was interesting because it is good that we are trying to fix the problem as quickly as possible. 

Missing Provo Woman's Body Found

The body of a mom of 5 who had gone missing in October of 2015 was found this week. It was fairly decomposed and there were no obvious signs of foul play. A couple found the body while they were hiking. 

I found this interesting because I, too, am a mom of 5 and I have wondered what happened to her when I heard of his disappearance months ago. I am curious to see if they release any more information. I wonder if she was just out hiking around or if something else was going on. 

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/central/provo/nicole-harris-found-dead-in-provo-after-months-missing-police/article_0ff0556c-7994-5b73-91e6-f6de22df9897.html

Google Is Building a Big, Mysterious Radio Transmitter in the Desert

Spaceport America, outside Truth or Consequences in the deserts of New Mexico, has been retooling its tenant list in recent years. The facility has one big advantage for the non-rocket crowd. It has lots and lots of fiber optic communications cables just waiting to be used. It seems Google may be making some good use of them, but exactly what they're doing is still under wraps..... this link for the rest: 
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a19750/google-is-building-a-big-mysterious-radio-transmitter-in-the-desert/

So pretty much google bought a big warehouse in the middle of nowhere.
My opinion: Who cares. Google is like a 60 billion dollar company.

3D Food Printer

The 3D food printer is a machine that will take ingredients from reusable metal cylinders, then in some way printing the ingredients into complex designs that would be impossible to make by hand. There are many different kinds of food printers being tested, but the one I saw the most about has a little dispenser, similar to a frosting tube, which it moves around, layering the food however high is needed until it’s done.

A man experimenting with the food printer printed a flower-like design on a plate. Then, not printing, he put some more ingredients at the base of the design, topping it off with some foam of carrot (whatever that is). He called his creation “Sea Coral,” and indeed, it does look much like a sea coral.

However, the implication I found on another site, which was talking about space food but said something similar could happen down here, was a bit gross. It said that some 3D prints were using alternative ingredients to make a “food-like starting material,” including algae, duckweed, beet leaves, or insects. The idea that they could put those kinds of ingredients into their food prints, without it looking any different and thus, we would probably have no idea, is not a happy one for me. Then again, it’s probably not so much worse than all the weird ingredients they put in processed food now.

I found a site with lots of pictures, and this one was my favorite:

Sources:

“Sea Coral”

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35631265

The space one

http://3dprint.com/121430/3d-printed-space-food/

Pictures

https://www.naturalmachines.com/

Happy Goggles

In Sweden, McDonalds is upgrading their happy meal toys. Inside of the happy meal box there are lenses for virtual reality. The actually box turns into the goggles, then you insert the lenses and your mom or dad's smartphone. They also made a skiing app for these virtual reality goggles which they are calling Happy Goggles. This is pretty awesome and I want it in the U.S.
The link is here
-Malena

Catastrophic Health Care

Ben Carson gave my favorite answer at the last Republican Debate, about Health Care.

Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWGEvQ3b9xY&t=3m50s

Although he calls it a "Health Empowerment Account", which is bad because it means the government may have control of your money, it is a good plan, because:

1. You are your own insurance -- no need to deal with the insurance company middle man.
2. You pay your own bills out of that account, for all regular doctor visits.
3. You buy "Catastrophic Health Care" insurance, for when something goes terribly awry.

#2 alone would completely fix our healthcare system. Currently, no one pays their own bills, so they don't care how much it costs. This allows costs to skyrocket and no one cares. In order for the free market to work, everyone much consider their own costs, pick the best value, and push back against high prices.

#3 means health insurance would be real insurance again. Your home insurance doesn't pay for light bulbs, and your car insurance doesn't pay for gas and oil changes. Why should health insurance pay for every doctor wellness checkup?

As he says, health care is not a right, it is a responsibility.