#Presidential Instruction Manual

[deadpresidents]

the job of President was too big for Warren G. Harding and if there was an instruction manual, he couldn't find it.

I don't have anything to add to your totally unsolicited statement (everyone knows I just love being sent random, anonymous opinions) that had literally nothing to do with anything I've written recently.

BUT...believe it or not, there actually kind of IS an instruction manual for the Presidency. Jimmy Carter used to have a copy of this massive book in his office at the Carter Center titled "The Duties of the President of the United States of America".

In his wonderful 2004 book, Fraternity: A Journey in Search of Five Presidents (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO), Bob Greene writes about being shown the book by a Secret Service agent while at the Carter Center:

On a table was a huge hardbound book, and on its cover were the words: The Duties of the President of the United States. [The Secret Service agent] flipped it open. "Try learning that in two months," he said. I suppose I had never thought about it; I suppose it had never occurred to me that there was a manual. Because that is what this book was: an enormous volume filled, in minute detail, with the duties for which the President, as decreed by law, is responsible. Not the vague, all-encompassing responsibilities spoken of in civics books (or the Constitution), but the daily, department-to-department staff-office-by-staff-office tasks over which the President, at least in theory, has oversight. The book was like a combination motorcycle-repair manual/computer guide/university-doctorate-level encyclopedia; it was not bedtime reading or narrative history, it was nuts and bolts. It informed a President -- especially a newly elected President, getting ready to take office -- what was expected of him.

I'm dying to have a copy of that book. I haven't found it being sold anywhere over the years. I'm assuming that it was specifically printed and bound for the President. It looks like books that I have that were published by the Government Printing Office. They all are black hardcover books with gold print for the title, so I'm guessing that they are probably given to Presidents or important staff members in the Executive Office of the President. But I very much would like a copy. Hopefully the fine folks at the Government Printing Office or the National Archives sees this post and thinks that I deserve my own copy.

[foreverlogical]

It long had seemed that the “stall” would be the worst thing the Supreme Court could do when it came to Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution. How naive.

Delay there will be. The six justices in the Republican-appointed supermajority held, “A former president is entitled to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his ‘conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.’” They added, “There is no immunity for unofficial acts.” Rather than make clear that trying to overthrow the Constitution’s peaceful transfer of power is not an official act, the justices send the whole matter back to trial judge Tanya Chutkan. Expect more consideration, more parsing, more rulings, more appeals. It will all likely end up at the Supreme Court again in a year, if the whole prosecution isn’t shut down entirely.

But damage to our system goes well beyond delay. Trump v. U.S. astounds in its implications. It grants the president the power of a monarch. Richard Nixon defended his conduct in Watergate, telling interviewer David Frost, “When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.” Effectively, the Supreme Court’s supermajority has now enshrined that brazen claim.

To be clear, there are reasons to be nervous about prosecuting former chief executives, so some standards make sense. In this case, though, the Court has issued an instruction manual for future lawbreaking presidents: Make sure you conspire only with other government employees. You’ll never be held to account. 

What makes something an official act? “In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives,” the justices ruled. And a jury cannot learn about the other parts of a criminal conspiracy that may involve official acts.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not agree with this last critical point. She said that of course juries can consider the context of a criminal act. Neither Justice Samuel Alito (who flew insurrectionist flags outside his two homes) nor Justice Clarence Thomas (whose wife was on the Ellipse on January 6) recused themselves. They cast the deciding votes to keep from jurors the full story of the attempted overthrow of the Constitution. 

The founders said repeatedly that presidents have no special immunity, as a brief filed by the Brennan Center on behalf of top historians made plain. After all, that was one of the very things about the British monarchy that they hated and against which they rebelled.

Even more directly, this ruling undoes the restrictions on presidential abuse of power put in place by officials and jurists of both parties since the 1970s.

The imperial presidency described an age of growing executive authority and abuse of power. It came crashing to an end during Watergate and after revelations about the misuse of intelligence and law enforcement by Nixon’s predecessors.

The presidential immunity concocted today would have blessed most of Nixon’s crimes. Nixon ordered his White House counsel to pay hush money to burglars in an Oval Office meeting on March 21, 1973. Presumptively an official act? He dangled clemency before E. Howard Hunt, one of the conspirators. Use of the pardon power — entirely immune? He resigned when a tape revealed he had ordered the CIA to go to the FBI to end the investigation of the burglars sent by his campaign committee. “Play it tough,” he told his White House chief of staff. On its face, official.

What about other criminal cases involving high officials? In the Iran-Contra scandal of the late 1980s, numerous officials were charged (including the national security advisor and the defense secretary). Ronald Reagan faced no charges, but not because he was presumed immune. What if he did break the law — would he have escaped accountability? In 2001, federal prosecutors probed whether Bill Clinton sold pardons. They cleared him — but issuing a pardon is surely an official act.

In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it plainly: “Under [the majority’s] rule, any use of official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt purpose indicated by objective evidence of the most corrupt motives and intent, remains official and immune. Under the majority’s test, if it can be called a test, the category of Presidential action that can be deemed ‘unofficial’ is destined to be vanishingly small.” 

So, yes, all this will delay Trump’s trial. In that sense, he gets what he craved. But the implications are far worse for the structure of American self-government.

It is a massive failure for Chief Justice John Roberts. The other major rulings on presidential accountability for legal wrongdoing have been unanimous. U.S. v. Nixon (limiting executive privilege) was written by the Republican chief justice Nixon appointed, and it was unanimous. Clinton v. Jones (opening the president to civil suit even while in office) was unanimous. Let’s grant that Roberts is an institutionalist. He is presiding over the collapse of public trust in the very institution he purports to revere.

And Trump v. U.S. has enormous implications for the future of the presidency. Remember that utterly bonkers hypothetical from the appeals court argument — that a president could order SEAL Team Six to assassinate an opponent? Sotomayor again: “A hypothetical President who admits to having ordered the assassinations of his political rivals or critics . . . has a fair shot at getting immunity under the majority’s new Presidential accountability model.” 

We read sonorous language in the majority opinion that “the president is not above the law.” But just in time for Independence Day, the Supreme Court brings us closer to having a king again.

[cksmart-world]

SMART BOMB

The Completely Unnecessary News Analysis

By Christopher Smart

July 9, 2024

JOE WASN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO HAD A BAD NIGHT

“ I had a bad night.” Well Wilson, we've all had to admit that a time or two, although your outing with those hot tub chicks wasn't exactly a presidential debate. On the other hand, your little game of “Who's On First?” didn't leave us in a national quandary – if that's the right word. Before this Shakespearian tragedy the Dems were whistling past the graveyard (no pun intended). But after Joe Biden crashed and burned in the debate with Donald Trump the epitaphs loomed large and left us ever closer to our first felon president. Those funny bumper stickers, “Let's Put A Felon In The White House,” aren't so humorous anymore. But give it time and the MAGA machine will rewrite history. Stormy who? Speaking of bad nights – poor Stormy. No Wilson, we should not review the porn star's courtroom testimony and her positive identification of... well, you know, his thing. But we digress. As it stands, the election is between an aged statesman and a felon with an enemies payback list – not to mention a radical instruction manual, “Project 2025,” brewed up by the sinister Heritage Foundation. Despite urging from many quarters and plummeting poll numbers Old Joe says he won't go. Shakespeare is known for dramatic endings and you know what Yogi Berra said – and it doesn't rhyme with “fat lady.”

THE NEW 10 COMMANDMENTS

1 – Thou shalt have no god above Trump

2 – Thou shalt make Melania an idol

3 – Thou shalt not take The Donald's name in vain

4 – Remember Mar-A-Lago and keep it holy

5 – Honor Eric and Don Jr.

6 – Thou shalt shoot people on 5th Avenue

7 – Thou shalt commit adultery whenever you can

8 – Thou shalt rip people off – business as usual

9 – Thou shalt take whatever you want

10 – Thou shalt lie and lie and lie...

The New Ten Commandments will be posted in all Louisiana public K-12 schools and classrooms of state-funded universities.

SUPREME COURT TO THE RESCUE

Thank goodness the U.S. Supreme Court has made homelessness illegal. The high court's ruling comes just in time as the country is exploding with some 1 million people living on the streets. Now those scofflaws will have to buy houses or rent condos like everyone else. But wait, there's more. The Supremes ruled 6-3, along ideological lines, to strike down a law banning bump stocks that turn semi-automatic firearms into machine guns in order to kill more people at concerts and grocery stores. The Founders would just love it. Moving right along, the six conservative justices determined that it was OK for South Carolina to gerrymander voting districts to minimize black votes, overturning a lower court ruling. The hits just keep coming. Along idealogical lines, the court ruled that federal agencies have limited power to regulate industry impacts on environment, health care, consumer safety, government benefit programs and guns. Then there's the icing on the cake – Donald Trump is at least partly immune from prosecution for plotting Jan. the 6 insurrection and any crimes he committed from the Oval Office. And by a 6-3 vote the conservative court gave future presidents immunity from all official acts. God Bless America and Richard Nixon.

Post script – That's going to do it for another hazy, lazy summer week here at Smart Bomb where we keep track of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) so you don't have to. DEI is being rooted out of corporations, agencies and taxpayer-funded schools because it's a communist plot to make everyone equal. And we all know that some people are more equal than others. Utah lawmakers did their part by making DEI programs strictly verboten – particularly at universities where leftists push propaganda that diversity, equity and inclusion are somehow good things when they are so evil. Why should minorities, women, LGBT and other marginalized communities get stuff that white men don't get? And then there's this: Congressional Republicans blame DEI for an uptick of antisemitism at colleges and universities. “I think DEI is a fraud and what we’re seeing now on campuses is proof of that,” said Utah's Burgess Owens, chairman of the House higher education subcommittee. If it seems ironic that the GOP blames DEI for antisemitism then you've been paying too much attention. How else can we undercut affirmative action. You're right Wilson, there's always the Supreme Court and its ongoing efforts to get equal rights for white people.

Well shucks, old Joe Biden is having a time of it. His supporters were hoping for a miracle debate, but those things are in short supply these days. Yes Wilson, he does look like an all-star who stayed one season too long. Anyway, you and the guys in the band can relate, so take us out with something for Joe and folks who do not go gentle into that good night:

May God bless and keep you always May your wishes all come true May you always do for others And let others do for you May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung May you stay forever young May you grow up to be righteous May you grow up to be true May you always know the truth And see the light surrounding you May you always be courageous Stand upright and be strong May you stay forever young May your hands always be busy May your feet always be swift May you have a strong foundation When the winds of changes shift May your heart always be joyful And may your song always be sung May you stay forever young Forever young, forever young May you stay forever young.

(Forever Young – Bob Dylan)

[stephen-barry]

Trump ruling would give presidents immunity to assassinate rivals, accept bribes and order coups, say liberal Supreme Court justices...

In their dissenting opinion, they express ‘fear’ for the future of democracy, arguing that thanks to the ruling the president is now a ‘king above the law’

Bribes, assassination and pardons: Immunity ruling leaves questions on unchecked presidential power

https://www.abc4.com/news/hill-politics/bribes-assassination-and-pardons-immunity-ruling-leaves-questions-on-unchecked-presidential-power/

Historians, legal experts express dismay at Trump immunity ruling...

Supreme Court 'issued an instruction manual for lawbreaking presidents'

[mariacallous]

As the dust settles on Vladimir Putin’s post-inauguration cabinet reshuffle, the presidential administration has issued a new set of media guidelines for its propagandists. Documents obtained by Meduza show that the Putin administration has instructed Russian state-controlled and pro-Kremlin media outlets to focus their coverage on a very particular set of changes in the government. 

The guidelines make no mention of Putin’s decision to replace his longtime Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu with economist Andrey Belousov (though it’s possible that these instructions are contained in a separate document). Instead, the guidelines Meduza obtained highlight the following former regional governors who were promoted to ministerial positions:

Industry and Trade Minister Anton Alikhanov, the former governor of Kaliningrad

Minister of Sport Mikhail Degtyarev, the former Khabarovsk Krai governor

Transport Minister Roman Starovoyt, the former Kursk regional governor

Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilev, the former Kemerovo regional governor who happens to be married to Putin’s cousin’s daughter, Anna Tsivileva (née Putina).

Per the instructions, the Putin administration “recommends” underscoring that these ministers earned their promotions through “effective work.” For example, the document says that Sergey Tsivilev “proved himself” by “managing a complex region with its own specifications” — without providing further details. It makes no mention of the corruption scandals linked to the Tsivilev family or their ties to Putin. 

Likewise, the guidelines fail to mention Roman Starovoyt’s ties to billionaire brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg — two of Putin’s closest friends. Instead, the document describes Starovoyt as “battle-tested,” since the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, is “on the front line” and regularly comes under shelling. 

In the case of Mikhail Degtyarev, the document describes the former Khabarovsk Krai governor’s experience “leading a complex region” and “gaining voter support.” It provides no details on the “complexities” in question, failing to mention that Degtyarev replaced former Khabarovsk Governor Sergey Furgal, whose arrest sparked mass anti-government protests in the region in 2020–2021. 

The instructions also suggest playing up the fact that Starovoyt and Degtyarev are graduates of the “school of governors,” as the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) is colloquially known. The guidelines describe the “school of governors” as a “real pillar of support for the president,” while highlighting that the acting governors Putin appointed as replacements are all current or former RANEPA students. 

Finally, Anton Alikhanov is presented as “one of [Russia’s] youngest governors” (at 37, Alikhanov is just slightly older than Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Governor Dmitry Artyukhov, who just turned 36). The guidelines also instruct propagandists to mention that Alikhanov acts as a mentor for the Leaders of Russia competition, one of domestic policy czar Sergey Kiriyenko’s pet projects. 

Pro-Kremlin media are also supposed to emphasize the “success” of Putin’s personnel policy. “[Putin] always chooses the best,“ the document says. “His selection of candidates for leadership positions has always been unerring and thoughtful.” 

The manual neglects to mention the fact that some of Putin’s former appointees have become embroiled in corruption cases or caused conflicts within his inner circle. Or the fact that one of Putin’s close allies — the late Evgeny Prigozhin — staged an armed mutiny just last year. 

[anthonybialy]

Indicts and Wrongs

Donald Trump wishes he were still officially a Democrat.  The power-mad, entitlement-embracing ostensible Republican committed the offense of not storing filched classified documents near a Corvette.  The fascination with putting anything top secret in between flatscreen TV instruction manuals while leaving a temporary executive residence is a telling habit of those who grasp authority in order to lord over those who didn’t.  But only those affiliated with one particular party get in trouble for paperwork pilfering.

Fatigue from legal proceedings isn’t assuaged by just who has to worry about doing the time as opposed to letting the time do him.  Corrupt application of the law doesn’t become acceptable just because it’s funny picturing Trump try to take control of the prison Rorschach-style.  The former reality television host and president ladling out mashed potatoes in the mess hall would make every bit of nonsense he’s inflicted almost seem worthwhile.  You know an indictment is bad when those with vivid imaginations still can’t justify it.

There’s no thinking ahead in chess when your strategy is to throw pieces at your foe.  Democrats don’t ponder the precedent of indicting a rival candidate for the same reason they don’t consider the consequences of rampantly printing money.  Aspiring autocrats gleefully manipulated the legal system to hurt Trump’s feelings.  By doing so, inflated the chances of an ex-leader from their side facing consequences for swiping sheets that detail scenarios for nuking Quebec.  But that’s only if they ever end up on the short side of electoral votes again, and that seems impossible.

The most recent presidential loser will pretend he got exactly what he wants.    An all-time sleaze gets to play victim, which is the only business at which the erstwhile steak salesman excels.  Democrats who’ve made not thinking out things their brand think they’ve won against someone who needs to be handed victories.  Hoisting the trophy led to fumbling it.

Motivating the MAGA Cult requires convincing them that he’s once again been aggrieved by the forces of disloyal jealousy.  Loser haters are sure busy, according to their messiah’s Rashomon-style take.  Prosecutors made the fundamental mistake of giving an elderly baby a legitimate reason to bitch.

It’s not to be a conspiracist just because they keep turning out to be true.  But sending bail bondsmen after Trump motivates his fanatical bloc, which in turn harms the party he commandeered.  The best Democratic strategy involved helping the one guy who might possibly lose to Joe freaking Biden.  After all, it happened before.

Trump was already polarizing to the point where the incumbent seemed like he would have offered relative relief.  Money became worthless as the result.  The ruling gang would rather dilute the value of savings into oblivion than lose the White House.  You’d think they would be secretly cool with their alleged bête noire winning again.  His empty promises and fulfilled federal waste make it seem like a Democrat won.

Dumb justice has replaced the blind kind.  Sanctimony is surely a wise way to make life fair.  The special counsel preening about how there’s one set of laws is noble except for how they only apply to Republicans.  Well, that’s half the major parties.

Democratic criminals are less subtle than Batman villains.  The present office-filler’s best excuse for scattering inappropriate paperwork is advanced age, which doesn’t hold up considering he’s always been this dimly scuzzy.  Serial liberty abuser Barack Obama ought to be spending an unearned retirement suckering fellow inmates into letting him cut the ping pong queue, while the most fitting punishment for the Clintons would be sentencing them to be cellmates.

Moving past the document swipe wouldn’t be magnanimous.  The legal rigmarole’s most dire consequence is getting someone whose name should disappear from mind to trend.  Wanting him to go away offers common ground amongst decent people who are tired of the emblematic phony ages ago.  But both his zealots and enemies indulge him, which is why we’re discussing someone whose shtick was tiresome in the ‘80s well into 2023.

If other guests are picking teams, it’s time to raid the bar before sneaking out.  Playing when everyone loses is as fun as it sounds.  This legal bout is bound to create an even worse time than an evening that features dragging out his board game.  Make up the rules as you go along, which is the equivalent of announcing you declassified what you pinched.

Calling an event historic without pondering if it’s manufactured is a sign people in these allegedly advanced times have learned nothing.  Pretending Trump is a unique scumbag makes him more important than he ever deserved.  The outcome will be labeled political either way.  There’s not one human you’d want to spend time with who’s thrilled by the prospect of discovering whether the tacky black glass aficionado is above the law or harmed by partisan warping of it.

Democrats finally found a crime that bothers them.  Rampant shoplifting and urban streets that resemble zombie films spurred them to preen about unfortunate perpetrators.  But that doesn’t make everyone in opposition saintly.  Anyone who’s spent four minutes studying politics should be unsurprised at the lack of worthwhile sides.  You don’t have to limit hating both teams to the Super Bowl.

Simultaneously, observers can be appalled that one faction’s leader faces legal peril for an infraction that prominent members of the other boast about skirting.  I thought liberals wanted equality.  Instead, they’re hassling the last person who deserves sympathy.  They should be arrested for making me defend him.

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/feminine-manefesto/

Feminine Manefesto

Checking the headlines, my eyes fell upon an article about President Joe Biden’s delight in ghostbuster burgers. Ghostbusters are toxic towers of meat, cheese, red onion, pickles, and sauce. While some wonder if Biden is too old for a second presidential term, a better question might be, “If he were to win, would his diet kill him before he was sworn in?” Does the First Lady know what her husband packs away for lunch? The last question isn’t frivolous. Historically, women are family caregivers.  Men seem to focus on smashing things, toys, each other, atoms, or entire countries. Their knowledge of diet and health seems minimal.  Tucker Carlson, a commentator on Fox News is a prime example. The closest he comes to ruminating about food is to worry if M&M candies are part of an underground feminist political campaign.    “Régime du corps,” or “regimen of the body,” written in the 13th century is a health manual commissioned by a French Countess for her daughters to use in their households.  It contained instructions on purging bodily fluids, cupping, and bloodletting. The content also included advice about food, prayer, charms, and how to choose a wetnurse.  The book was popular well into the 15th century. More recently, women have attempted to apply their healing skills to politics. In some male-dominated societies, that effort is fraught with danger. Remember, men in Iran flogged a woman to death for wearing her hajib too loose. Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders take a hardline as well. They deny women education and make them prisoners in their homes, barring them from performing even charitable work through NGOs. At the moment, these men prefer to see people starve rather than allow them to accept a sack of flour from a woman’s hands. These men have forgotten how they came into this world—kissing a woman’s vagina as they exited the womb and dragging behind them an umbilical cord engorged with their mother’s digested food, the sustenance that sustained them for 9 months.   Recently, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Arden, surprised the world by announcing she no longer wished to continue as the country’s leader.  “I have given my absolute all to being prime minister but it has also taken a lot out of me.” The cost is understandable. Might Is Right, forms the cornerstone of masculine statesmanship, the opposite of feminine nurture. Arden’s resignation, however, poses an existential question. Does Might is Right advance the species?  The record, so far, is one of perpetual war, shattered societies, unpredictable violence, and an exhausted planet. Some scientists see the futility of of continuing these power struggles. They view our species as the walking dead, unable to accept that Nature has turned its back on us. Others cling to a small hope, though the hands of the Doomsday Clock stand at one minute to midnight.   I see no reason for irrational exuberance.  In our final minute, too many continue to struggle for pyrrhic victories, wondering, for example, if tactical nuclear weapons can deliver a strategic advantage. These people never ask how many Chernobyls the planet can tolerate. Doing so would force them to confront their insanity. Women represent half the human population. Their history is one of healing and giving life to the other half of the population. One would think they had a stake in the fate of their children and their children’s children. Yet, largely, they remain under the thumb of Might Is Right. How to free themselves from that yoke is crucial to saving an inhabitable planet. Nurture must rule.  But how are women to affect that change without invoking fear? A new paradigm must emerge, or an ancient one revived.  The species must come to see the future of war is dead. Our survival depends upon our working together just as it did at the dawn of our time.       

[lthmath]

I posted 120 times in 2021

120 posts created (100%)

0 posts reblogged (0%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 0.0 posts.

I added 96 tags in 2021

#mathematics - 26 posts

#fierce women - 11 posts

#women in science - 11 posts

#mathematician - 11 posts

#numbers - 9 posts

#algebra - 6 posts

#history - 6 posts

#mathematical beauty - 6 posts

#mathematical constructions - 5 posts

#women in mathematics - 5 posts

Longest Tag: 32 characters

#adding and subtracting fractions

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

8th post for the Women in Mathematics

Wang Zhenyi (1768–1797) was a scientist from the Qing dynasty. She breached the feudal customs of the time, which hindered women's rights, by arduously working to educate herself in subjects such as astronomy, mathematics, geography, and medicine. 

Zhenyi mastered trigonometry and knew the Pythagorean theorem. She wrote an article called "The Explanation of the Pythagorean Theorem and Trigonometry,". She admired the mathematician Mei Wending (1633–1721 A.D.). He was famous in the early Qing dynasty and wrote the book, "Principles of Calculation". Wang Zhenyi became a master of this book, even rewriting it with simpler language, and made it available to others under the title, "The Musts of Calculation". She was very dedicated in her study of mathematics and wrote a book called "The Simple Principles of Calculation" when she was twenty-four. Her studies were difficult and she once said, "There were times that I had to put down my pen and sigh. But I love the subject, I do not give up."

34 notes • Posted 2021-03-29 09:00:48 GMT

#4

#Noethember Day 3

When Emmy Noether was young, she loved dancing and “used to look forward to family parties”.

Image by Constanza Rojas-Molina (https://twitter.com/Coni777)

39 notes • Posted 2021-11-07 18:01:16 GMT

#3

10th and last post on Women in Mathematics

I kept my favorite mathematician for the last 🖤 Amalie Emmy Noether – known for her groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics.

Described by Pavel Alexandrov, Albert Einstein, Jean Dieudonné, Hermann Weyl, Norbert Wiener and others as the most important woman in the history of mathematics, she revolutionized the theories of rings, fields, and algebras.

See the full post

41 notes • Posted 2021-03-31 09:01:27 GMT

#2

2nd post on Women in Mathematics series

Marjorie Lee Browne was a noted mathematics educator. She was one of the first African-American women to receive a Ph.D in mathematics. After receiving her doctorate, Browne was unable to keep a teaching position at a research institution. As a result of this she worked with secondary school mathematics teachers, instructing them in "modern math." She focused especially on encouraging math education for minorities and women.

Browne's work on classical groups demonstrated simple proofs of important topological properties of and relations between classical groups. Her work in general focused on linear and matrix algebra.

Throughout her career, Browne worked to help gifted mathematics students, educating them and offering them financial support to pursue higher education. In 1974 she was awarded the first W. W. Rankin Memorial Award from the North Carolina Council of Teachers of Mathematics for her work with mathematics education.

57 notes • Posted 2021-03-17 10:00:46 GMT

#1

9th post on Women in Mathematics

Katherine Johnson (August 26, 1918 – February 24, 2020) was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights. During her 35-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks.

Johnson's work included calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those for astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit, and rendezvous paths for the Apollo Lunar Module and command module on flights to the Moon. 

In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2016, she was presented the Silver Snoopy Award by NASA astronaut Leland D. Melvin and a NASA Group Achievement Award. She was portrayed by Taraji P. Henson as a lead character in the 2016 film Hidden Figures. In 2019, Johnson was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

59 notes • Posted 2021-03-30 09:00:53 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

In 1985 the Washington Times sponsored a fund for the Contras who committed atrocities, and trafficked drugs to the US

▲ Two women carry the coffin of a child killed by a Contra landmine in Managua, July 4, 1986. Thirty-one unarmed civilians, including women and children, were killed when the truck they were riding in struck a Contra landmine. The truck was carrying a 50-gallon barrel of gasoline.

__________________________

Reverend Sun Myung Moon, a South Korean theocrat who fancied himself the new Messiah, had founded his newspaper, The Washington Times, in 1982 partly to protect Ronald Reagan’s political flanks and partly to ensure that he had powerful friends in high places.

In the so-called “Koreagate” scandal of the late 1970s, Moon’s religious cult had been exposed as a money-laundering front [see KCFF scam and ROFA scam] for South Korean intelligence and other corrupt right-wing political forces in Asia (including some elements of organized crime).

As a result, Moon had been convicted of tax evasion and spent time in federal prison. He was determined to prevent a recurrence of those investigations and thus began pouring what came to total several billion dollars of his mysterious money into the Washington Times, creating a propaganda bulwark for the Republican Party and guaranteeing himself a phalanx of powerful defenders.

_____________________________________

From ‘United States and state-sponsored terrorism’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state-sponsored_terrorism

In the 1980s the Sandinista government of Nicaragua did not attempt to create a communist economic system; instead, their policy advocated a social democracy and a mixed economy. The government sought the aid of Western Europe, who were opposed to the U.S. embargo against Nicaragua, to escape dependency on the Soviet Union. However, the U.S. administration viewed the leftist Sandinista government as undemocratic and totalitarian under the ties of the Soviet-Cuban model and tried to paint the Contras as freedom fighters.

The Sandinista government headed by Daniel Ortega won decisively in the 1984 Nicaraguan elections. The U.S. government explicitly planned to back the ‘Contras’ (who were a collection of various rebel groups that had been formed in opposition to the rise of the new Sandinista government) as a means to damage the Nicaraguan economy and force the Sandinista government to divert its scarce resources toward the army and away from social and economic programs.

________________________________________________

Edited from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua

When the hereditary dictatorship of the Somoza family was deposed by the Sandinistas in 1979, the Somoza family’s worth was estimated to be between $500 million and $1.5 billion – gained through massive corruption.

In 1980, the Carter administration provided $60 million in aid to Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, but the aid was suspended when the administration obtained evidence of Nicaraguan shipment of arms to El Salvadoran rebels. In response to the coming to power of the Sandinistas, the ‘contras’ formed.

[The US government viewed the leftist Sandinistas as a threat to economic interests of American corporations in Nicaragua and to national security. US President Ronald Reagan stated in 1983 that “The defense of [the USA’s] southern frontier” was at stake. “In spite of the Sandinista victory being declared fair, the United States continued to oppose the left-wing Nicaraguan government.”]

The Reagan administration authorized the CIA to help the contra rebels with funding, armaments, and training. The contras operated out of camps in the neighboring countries of Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south.

▲ Contras in Nicaragua on the southern front.

The contras engaged in a systematic campaign of terror amongst the rural Nicaraguan population to disrupt the social reform projects of the Sandinistas. Several historians have criticized the contra campaign and the Reagan administration’s support for it, citing the brutality and numerous human rights violations of the contras. LaRamee and Polakoff, for example, describe the destruction of health centers, schools, and cooperatives at the hands of the rebels, and others have contended that murder, rape, and torture occurred on a large scale in contra-dominated areas. The United States also carried out a campaign of economic sabotage, and disrupted shipping by planting underwater mines in Nicaragua’s port of Corinto, an action condemned by the International Court of Justice as illegal. The U.S. also sought to place economic pressure on the Sandinistas, and the Reagan administration imposed a full trade embargo. The Sandinistas were also accused of human rights abuses.

In the Nicaraguan general elections of 1984, which were judged to have been free and fair, the Sandinistas won the parliamentary election and their leader Daniel Ortega won the presidential election. …

▲ A demonstration against Reagan’s illegal support of the Contras.

After the U.S. Congress prohibited federal funding of the contras in 1983, the Reagan administration nonetheless illegally continued to back them by covertly selling arms to Iran and channeling the proceeds to the contras (the Iran–Contra affair), for which several members of the Reagan administration were convicted of felonies. The International Court of Justice, in regard to the case of Nicaragua v. United States in 1984, found, “the United States of America was under an obligation to make reparation to the Republic of Nicaragua for all injury caused to Nicaragua by certain breaches of obligations under customary international law and treaty-law committed by the United States of America”. During the war between the contras and the Sandinistas, 30,000 people were killed.

____________________________________

Contra atrocities

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras#Human_rights_violations

The United States began to support Contra activities against the Sandinista government by December 1981, with the CIA at the forefront of operations. The CIA supplied the funds and the equipment, coordinated training programs, and provided intelligence and target lists. While the Contras had little military successes, they did prove adept at carrying out CIA guerrilla warfare strategies from training manuals which advised them to incite mob violence, “neutralize” civilian leaders and government officials and attack “soft targets” — including schools, health clinics and cooperatives. The agency added to the Contras’ sabotage efforts by blowing up refineries and pipelines, and mining ports. Finally, according to former Contra leader Edgar Chamorro, CIA trainers also gave Contra soldiers large knives. “A commando knife [was given], and our people, everybody wanted to have a knife like that, to kill people, to cut their throats”. In 1985 Newsweek published a series of photos taken by Frank Wohl, a conservative student admirer traveling with the Contras, entitled “Execution in the Jungle”:

The victim dug his own grave, scooping the dirt out with his hands… He crossed himself. Then a contra executioner knelt and rammed a k-bar knife into his throat. A second enforcer stabbed at his jugular, then his abdomen. When the corpse was finally still, the contras threw dirt over the shallow grave — and walked away.

The CIA officer in charge of the covert war, Duane “Dewey” Clarridge, admitted to the House Intelligence Committee staff in a secret briefing in 1984 that the Contras were routinely murdering “civilians and Sandinista officials in the provinces, as well as heads of cooperatives, nurses, doctors and judges”. But he claimed that this did not violate President Reagan’s executive order prohibiting assassinations because the agency defined it as just ‘killing’. “After all, this is war—a paramilitary operation,” Clarridge said in conclusion.

▲ The CIA “assassination manual,” authorized by CIA supervisor Duane Clarridge, provided illustrated instructions in Spanish on how to make a bomb and blow up a local police station. Other pages explained how to assassinate victims with a rope, wire, belt, pistol, rifle, shotgun, machine gun, or explosives.

____________________________________

From a special report by Robert Parry  December 9, 2010

White House aide Oliver North’s chief Contra emissary, Robert Owen, made this point in a March 17, 1986, message about the Contras leadership. “Few of the so-called leaders of the movement … really care about the boys in the field,” Owen wrote. “THIS WAR HAS BECOME A BUSINESS TO MANY OF THEM.” [Emphasis in original.]

That business was cocaine trafficking to the US.

… Another break in the long-running Contra-cocaine cover-up was a report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General Michael Bromwich.

According to evidence cited by Bromwich, the Reagan administration knew almost from the outset of the Contra war that cocaine traffickers permeated the paramilitary operation. The administration also did next to nothing to expose or stop the crimes.

Bromwich’s report revealed example after example of leads not followed, corroborated witnesses disparaged, official law-enforcement investigations sabotaged, and even the CIA facilitating the work of drug traffickers.

Bromwich cited U.S. government informants who supplied detailed information about Meneses’s drug operation and his financial assistance to the Contras. For instance, Renato Pena, a money-and-drug courier for Meneses, said that in the early 1980s the CIA allowed the Contras to fly drugs into the United States, sell them, and keep the proceeds.

CIA Inspector General Hitz made clear that the Contra war took precedence over law enforcement and that the CIA withheld evidence of Contra crimes from the Justice Department, Congress, and even the CIA’s own analytical division.

According to Hitz, the CIA had “one overriding priority: to oust the Sandinista government… . [CIA officers] were determined that the various difficulties they encountered not be allowed to prevent effective implementation of the Contra program.” One CIA field officer explained, “The focus was to get the job done, get the support and win the war.”

Hitz also recounted complaints from CIA analysts that CIA operations officers handling the Contras hid evidence of Contra-drug trafficking even from the CIA’s analysts.

from Big Media’s Guilt in Gary Webb’s Death By Robert Parry (A Special Report) December 9, 2010

https://consortiumnews.com/2010/120910.html

____________________________________

Former CIA agent David MacMichael: “Once you set up a covert operation to supply arms and money, it’s very difficult to separate it from the kind of people who are involved in other forms of trade, and especially drugs. There is a limited number of planes, pilots and landing strips. By developing a system for supply of the Contras, the US built a road for drug supply into the US.”

____________________________________

The Washington Post reported on the drive to support the Contras by the Washington Times.

By Michael Isikoff     May 7, 1985

The Washington Times said yesterday that it is sponsoring a worldwide fund-raising campaign to collect $14 million for the “contra” rebels in Nicaragua and has received a $100,000 commitment for the cause from the paper’s owners, the Unification Church.

The Times campaign, coming just two weeks after the House rejected President Reagan’s request for the same amount of aid to the contras, is among the most ambitious publicly announced initiatives so far to raise private money specifically for the anti-Sandinista guerrillas.

Arnaud de Borchgrave, the Times’ editor, who has championed the contra cause on the paper’s editorial page, announced in a front-page editorial yesterday that the newspaper is setting up a non-profit, public corporation that will oversee fund raising for the contras and that will operate independently of the paper’s news operations. …

De Borchgrave said he thought up the idea for the campaign on Sunday and won quick approval from Col. Bo Hi Pak, the top deputy to Unification Church leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon and president of News World Communications Inc., the parent company of the Times.

Pak “thought it was a great idea” and immediately pledged $100,000 to the drive, he said. …

The Times initiative comes while a number of closely related conservative groups such as the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) and the United States Council for World Freedom have been conducting independent fund-raising drives to funnel military and other aid to the contras. …

But the full scale of private-sector aid to the contras has been difficult to determine, in part because many of the groups involved in raising money have described their efforts as being humanitarian aid to refugees in Honduras, where many of the families of Nicaraguan contras are living.

One such group that has acknowledged providing refugee assistance is Causa, the Unification Church’s anti-Communist political arm that is also headed by Pak.

▲ Advertisement in The New York Times, March 16, 1986, signed by over 200 religious leaders.

____________________________________

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras

In his 1997 study on U.S. low intensity warfare, Kermit D. Johnson, a former Chief of the U.S. Army Chaplains, contends that U.S. hostility toward the revolutionary government was motivated not by any concern for “national security”, but rather by what the world relief organization Oxfam termed “the threat of a good example”:

It was alarming that in just a few months after the Sandinista revolution, Nicaragua received international acclaim for its rapid progress in the fields of literacy and health. It was alarming that a socialist-mixed-economy state could do in a few short months what the Somoza dynasty, a U.S. client state, could not do in 45 years! It was truly alarming that the Sandinistas were intent on providing the very services that establish a government’s political and moral legitimacy.

The government’s program included increased wages, subsidized food prices, and expanded health, welfare, and education services. And though it nationalized Somoza’s former properties, it preserved a private sector that accounted for between 50 and 60 percent of GDP.

____________________________________

Bolivia’s government-protected cocaine shipments helped transform Colombia’s Medellín cartel from a struggling local operation into a giant corporate-style business for delivering cocaine to the U.S. market.

It fell to Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s right-wing Washington Times to begin the vendetta against those who reported on the cocaine-Contra connection.

____________________________________

In Bolivia, Moon disciple Tom Ward and the former Hitler SS Officer, Klaus Barbie were often seen together

How Sun Myung Moon’s organization helped to establish Bolivia as South America’s first narco-state.

FFWPU President of IAPP Prosecuted for Money Laundering and Drug Smuggling in US Court; may be connected to UC / FFWPU Leadership

The Unification Church and the KCIA – ‘Privatizing’ covert action: the case of the UC

CAUSA and the Catholic Church in the 1980s

CAUSA and Three South American Terror Generals

[azure-steel]

Plotted starter for @wrxckfear​

Getting into the ShinRa complex was a little too easy, easy enough for it to be a concern. Fair enough Cloud had done this before, but one could possibly figure the president would have upped the ante in regards to the security detail. Not that it really mattered, any ease of access was a bonus even if he did have to scale the buildings fire escapes and many precarious edges to get to his designated window. 

In all honesty, Cloud wasn’t a hundred percent sure exactly what he was looking for, just a room on the very top floor (The presidential suite of course, because breaking into the tower wasn’t risky all in itself...) containing precious floor plans for neighbouring reactors. With the instruction to just grab what he could and “get the hell out of there,” that is exactly what he planned to do. 

The window was easy enough to pop, leading into a bathroom shrouded in darkness, the lights didn’t flicker on until Cloud shimmied his way onto the tiles and made his way into the hall. Cautiously he scans both directions of the walkway from his position in the bathrooms threshold, so far so good. The door he needed to get to was only three rooms left of his current position, the presidents office nestled in the opposite direction. It was late, the perfect time for an infiltration mission, so in his mind Rufus Shinra might not even be on site at such an ungodly hour. Entitled pretty boys needed their beauty sleep after all, right? 

Avoiding the cameras positioned overhead was easy enough, and Cloud managed to sneak by them once he’d determined where their blind spots would be, until he reached his destination; a vaulted door labelled CLASSIFIED - AUTHORISED ACCESS ONLY. Of course the locking mechanism required either a key-card or a manually inputted access code to open, neither of which the mercenary had on his person. But what he did have was a nifty little device designed to scramble the inner workings of such mechanisms, and he wasted little time activating the thumb sized gadget and sticking it to the lock, waiting for the painstaking five seconds it took for the device to work its magic. 

It was during those moments that Cloud, once again, considers just how flawlessly this plan is unfolding. Everything was simply... too easy, and the notion in itself sets the blond on edge. Cloud knew from experience that if something is a just a little too good to be true, it usually was, it was all just a matter of time until something went sideways, and needless to say, unbeknownst to him right at this moment, it wouldn’t be long until he was proven right. 

Once inside, and faced with rows upon rows of filing cabinets, he begins his search. But not two minutes into attempting to find the information he’s been sent here to retrieve is the room suddenly bathed in a garish red light accompanied soon after by the deafening blare of a siren very close by. So loud was it that Cloud winces and is forced to cover his ears. 

“Shit... time to go.” 

He’d been discovered it seems, and with little to no time to waste until the floor was no doubt swarming with security personnel, Cloud merely opens the cabinet drawer closest to him, grabs what he can and makes his way back into the hallway, and a strange darkness... 

It was then he realises... the tower was going into lockdown, he needed to get out of here fast! 

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

The Florida U.S. Senate race is still too close to call. According to unofficial results on the Florida Department of State website at 11:45 a.m. Eastern on Friday, Nov. 9, Republican Gov. Rick Scott led Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson by 15,046 votes — or 0.18 percentage points. We’re watching that margin closely because if it stays about that small, it will trigger a recount. It’s already narrowed since election night, when Scott initially declared victory with a 56,000-vote lead.

The changing margin is due to continued vote-counting in Broward and Palm Beach counties, two of Florida’s largest and more Democratic-leaning counties. On Thursday evening, the supervisors of elections in the two counties told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that vote counting there was mostly complete. Under Florida law, counties have to report unofficial election results to the secretary of state by Saturday at noon, but Nelson’s campaign is suing to extend that deadline. Scott’s campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee are also suing both counties for not disclosing more information about the ongoing count, and Scott called on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate Broward’s handling of ballots.

Unusually, the votes tabulated in Broward County so far exhibit a high rate of something called “undervoting,” or not voting in all the races on the ballot. Countywide, 26,060 fewer votes were cast in the U.S. Senate race than in the governor race.1 Put another way, turnout in the Senate race was 3.7 percent lower than in the gubernatorial race.

Broward County’s undervote rate is way out of line with every other county in Florida, which exhibited, at most, a 0.8-percent difference. (There is one outlier — the sparsely populated Liberty County — where votes cast in the Senate race were 1 percent higher than in the governor race, but there we’re talking about a difference of 26 votes, not more than 26,000, as is the case in Broward.)

To put in perspective what an eye-popping number of undervotes that is, more Broward County residents voted for the down-ballot constitutional offices of chief financial officer and state agriculture commissioner than U.S. Senate — an extremely high-profile election in which $181 million was spent. Generally, the higher the elected office, the less likely voters are to skip it on their ballots. Something sure does seem off in Broward County; we just don’t know what yet.

One possible reason for the discrepancy is poor ballot design. Broward County ballots listed the U.S. Senate race first, right after the ballot instructions. But that pushed the U.S. Senate race to the far bottom left of the ballot, where voters may have skimmed over it, while the governor’s race appears at the top of the ballot’s center column, immediately to the right of the instructions.

Sun Sentinel reporters talked with a ballot expert, who said that some voters may not have noticed the Senate race (perhaps thinking it was just part of the ballot instructions) and started filling out their ballot with the governor race instead. That theory is supported by a data consultant who’s worked for several political campaigns in Florida, who found that the parts of Broward County that fall in the 24th Congressional District did see higher levels of undervoting than other parts of the county. That might be because the 24th District was uncontested, which according to Florida law means that the congressional race did not appear on the ballot at all. As you can see in the sample ballot above, the congressional race would also appear in the lower-left corner on many ballots, along with the Senate race. In districts where there was no congressional race on the ballot, however, that corner would have looked even emptier, perhaps making it easier for voters to inadvertently skip over the Senate race.

An alternative explanation is that an error with the vote-tabulating machines in Broward County caused them to sometimes not read people’s votes for U.S. Senate. If that’s true, we would probably only find out if there is a manual recount. According to Florida law, any election that’s within half a percentage point (as this one currently is) triggers a machine recount; then, after the machine recount, if the race is within a quarter of a percentage point, it goes to a much more complex manual recount — a.k.a. each ballot is recounted by hand. As long as the machine recount doesn’t change the Senate results too much (barring a surprise in the remaining ballots in Broward and Palm Beach), it looks like that’s where we’re headed. In addition, Republican former Rep. Ron DeSantis and Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum are separated by just 0.44 points in the governor’s race, so that could go to a machine recount, too.

But recounts rarely change the outcomes of elections. A FairVote analysis found that the average recount from 2000 to 2015 shifted the election margin by an average of just 0.02 percentage points. The largest margin swing was 1,247 votes — coincidentally also coming in Florida, in the 2000 presidential race. If Nelson is going to stage a comeback in the Sunshine State, he’ll almost certainly have to close the gap between him and Scott even more in the next couple of days.

[telepromptervideo]

Do you know about the wonderful Teleprompter?

They are everywhere but we do not see them. Even those who do not know can guess that an app is needed for those sensitive speaking, acting, and presentation situations. Teleprompter with Video Audio remains hidden from listeners and audiences but helps remind the speaker of what to say.  The text is displayed such that the speaker reads while facing the camera but the listeners do not see it.

Some things cannot be left to chance! Imagine not only the daily news broadcasters and gossip shows on TV but diplomatic occasions. Speakers have to be sure that they are saying the right things. Matter may be complex like scientific texts or involving statistics. Actors have little time to commit long dialogues to memory amidst busy schedules.  

Application Development has reached very far with digital technology. Apps serve diverse functions like selling food and designing buildings, summoning cabs and showing routes on maps. These difficult speaking situations need the Teleprompter with video that shows the text to be read very cleverly, hiding it from audiences.

The idea is not so new

Speakers and actors have existed for centuries though a Teleprompter is rather recent. Earlier, cue cards were used with bits of text written on them as reminders. Hubert Schlafly got the idea in 1948 to do away with physical cards during the live acting process. Ever since, it has been a long story of development that got a boost with the digital wonders in the 1990s and beyond.

An era of confident awareness

Aren’t we lucky to live in a world of fabulous technological development? Those who work in the media and communication industries along with professional speakers and the acting career should be grateful to the Teleprompter with Video Audio. Though it requires some practice and adjustment as everything does, the development of personality and super confidence is the result. Many are they who hesitate to articulate ideas before live audiences and even in video shooting. They now have a worthy support.

Shooting video is now easy

The recent trend is short videos for overbuys lives that dominate social media. Whether it is 15-second video or elaborate study materials, documentaries and YouTube instruction manuals, Teleprompter with video gets the task done without a fuss. Though it involves ample preparation like getting the materials and costumes ready and the script and the research, speech is awesome with the Teleprompter. Feelings and expressions are so much easier.

In search of the teleprompter app

The app reaches everywhere like in desktops, tablets and smartphones. Such an app requires a remote control which helps to control the text speed and to start and stop it. As we can imagine, many digital wonders are created every day and smart apps bring a world of facilities and meanings. Speaking assignments are getting easy under the influence of AI and bots, multimedia and recordings for diverse reasons. Academics, work, amusement and hobbies get that much-needed boost for splendid performance.

Among the three kinds of teleprompter apps, which would suit your personal needs best? Get to know them better.

●       In a camera-mounted teleprompter, you have a glass pane in front of the lens. The text bounces off the glass. Since they are available in a variety of designs, make sure that the teleprompter and the camera match.

●       Similar to the camera-mounted one, the presidential model uses a glass sheet like a mirror but it is placed on a pole.

●       The floor and stand model use a monitor instead of the glass. Floor, stand or suspended in the air, it is quite flexible.

Facilitating communication globally

Application Development and Teleprompter with Video Audio are at work with numerous sizzling models, free and paid. Teleprompter facility gets added to the equipment like the camera. The setup could be simple or complicated, according to the requirements. Live shows require more challenging management.

[milkshakedoe]

In the early 1970s the scale of Beer’s proposed network was unprecedented. One of the largest computer networks of the day was a mere fifteen machines in the US, the military progenitor to the Internet known as ARPANET. Beer was suggesting a network with hundreds or thousands of endpoints. Moreover, the computational complexity of his concept eclipsed even that of the Apollo moon missions, which were still ongoing at that time. After several hours of conversation, President Allende responded to the audacious proposition: Chile must indeed become the world’s first cybernetic government, for the good of the people. Work was to start straight away.

Stafford Beer practically ran across the street to share the news with his awaiting technical team, and much celebratory drinking occurred that evening. But the ambitious cybernetic network would never become fully operational if the CIA had anything to say about it.

The United States’ fascination with Chilean politics began when Salvador Allende Gossens became a viable candidate for the presidency in 1970. He was openly affiliated with the Cold War S-word “socialism”, which was evidently intolerable in respectable hemispheres. But the Chilean people were consistently disappointed with the prior political parties and they were considering a switch. Unwilling to risk a democratically elected socialist in their “backyard”, the Nixon administration deployed covert CIA support for Allende’s presidential opponent. But their clandestine counterparts at the KGB also fortified their preferred candidate, and mutually assured distraction was achieved.

Upon hearing that Allende had won the presidency, President Richard Nixon convened an emergency war breakfast with National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, Attorney General John Mitchell, Chilean newspaper owner Augustín Edwards, and Pepsi Cola chairman Donald Kendall. The businessmen expressed grave concerns about their enterprises in Chile, and the quintet concurred that a Socialist president could not be permitted on a neighboring continent, democracy be damned. When breakfast was adjourned, Nixon met with CIA Director Richard Helms, possibly over brunch, and instructed him to arrange for a military coup d’etat to prevent Allende from ever assuming the presidency. He allocated $10 million to the meddlesome endeavor which would come to be known as Project FUBELT.

Five weeks later, on 22 October 1970, a posse of CIA-funded right-wing extremists ambushed a government car in the Chilean capital of Santiago. Inside was General René Schneider, the commander-in-chief of the Chilean army. The CIA considered him an obstacle owing to his misgivings about military intervention in the political process. When the General drew a gun to defend himself, the proxy overthrowers revised their kidnapping plan into an improvised homicide. The consequent national outrage cemented the country’s support for their president-elect, and Allende was confirmed two days later.

When Allende learned of Stafford Beer’s cybernetic Viable System Model, he was intrigued. Cybernetics was an obscure but burgeoning area of study which sought to maximize organizational efficiency through data gathering and statistical analysis, and Beer was among its most flourishing practitioners. Mr Beer’s model suggested that large organizations are like living, thinking, feeling organisms, therefore they should mimic the successes that evolution had refined in humans. Beer felt that business departments should be seen as largely autonomous but interdependent “organs” managed by a “brain” of automated and manual systems. Allende, in spite of his Socialist leanings, was an outspoken proponent of civil liberties and industrial autonomy, and he saw that Beer’s cybernetics could foster both in Chile.

Stafford Beer was only 44 years old at the time of the fateful meeting, yet by that time he had amassed considerable wealth and prestige by applying his cybernetic principles for multinational organizations. He had also authored a menagerie of books and papers about cybernetics, one of which was The Liberty Machine, wherein he described a hypothetical utopian government that used cybernetics to supersede bureaucracy and respond to the needs of the populace. Beer saw Chile’s new Socialist government as a perfect laboratory to test cybernetic theory on a scale never before attempted.

Upon approval of the experimental project, Beer and his team began immediately. Beer labored alongside a young Chilean engineer named Fernando Flores, the general technical manager of the Corporación de Fomento de la Producción (CORFO), the organization in charge of nationalizing Chilean industries. Flores was one of Beer’s greatest admirers—in fact it was he who had initially invited the British cybernetician to proposition the President.

Beer had arrived in Chile with a well-developed plan of action. Anticipating a small budget and poor infrastructure, Beer’s idea for the hundreds of network endpoints was to employ telex (aka “teletype”) machines. These contraptions were a bit dated even at the time, but they were numerous and inexpensive. A single unit looked like the bizarre offspring of a rotary phone and an electric typewriter. When one telex unit connected to another via phone line, the clacking print heads printed output from the remote keyboard, and vice-versa, making them a paper-pounding progenitor to modern instant messaging. Telex machines could also print output as coded holes punched into a long paper strip. These could then be fed into the mainframe as old-timey data input. This collection of remote telexes all feeding data to the central mainframe would come to be known as Cybernet. In an astonishing stroke of luck, it turned out that the telephone company had about 400 spare telex machines cultivating cobwebs in a warehouse.

The software for the mainframe, codenamed Cyberstride, would be developed primarily by a British programming firm using the DYNAMO programming language. This suite of algorithms would use realtime and long-term data to detect and predict problems in the economy. Beer and his team would design the futuristic central control room where a group of Chilean policy makers could view these data in various ways and intervene in the economy when necessary. They would also have access to a sophisticated economic simulator, allowing them to test their hypotheses prior to implementation.

The sum of all of these parts would ultimately come to be known as Project Cybersyn, a portmanteau of “cybernetics” and “synergy” from before the words were corporate-speak. True to Beer’s Viable System Model, industrial and business sites were the vital organs; Cybernet was the spinal cord to facilitate communication among organs; Cyberstride was the lower brain monitoring these interactions; the control room was the midbrain linking voluntary and involuntary control; and lastly the cerebral cortex was made up of the thinking meat inside the control room.

Stafford Beer also envisioned a parallel system for measuring the happiness of the populace, a system he referred to as Project Cyberfolk. Randomly selected households would be wired with a small electronic box featuring a single volume-style pleasure knob. At any time users could turn the knob to indicate their present level of satisfaction with the government. If multiple meters in an area were set low it would equate to a signal of cybernetic “pain”, allowing government to respond appropriately.

imo this article still leans a little too heavily on the sci-fi mystique of the cybersyn program but it’s nevertheless a pretty decent intro