Location: Electronic Resource- 

Location: Main Library- PN4835.B85

Location: Main Library- B105.B64M37 2014

Location: Main Library- DS247.K86A4924 2014

Location: Main Library- BP10.J383A452 2010

Location: Main Library- BP134.A5S55 2015

Location: Main Library- BP76.8H87 2014

Location: Law Electronic Resource- 

September's partial lunar eclipse will be the first and only time the Moon ducks into Earth's umbral shadow in 2024. The Moon also occults Saturn and hides members of the Pleiades this month.

The post Harvest Moon Takes a Quick Dip in Earth's Shadow for a Partial Lunar Eclipse appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The aurora may be visible across much of the U.S. tonight in the wake of dual solar blasts.

The post Severe Geomagnetic Storm Triggers Widespread Aurora October 10-11 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The Moon starts the week low in twilight with Venus and Spica, then steps eastward past Antares and the Sagittarius Teapot. Meanwhile, the recurrent nova in Corona Borealis is still keeping us waiting.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, September 6 – 15 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The Moon occults Saturn before dawn on Tuesday morning, then the Moon skims the edge of Earth's shadow for a partial lunar eclipse that evening. Meanwhile, Jupiter and Mars shine in fine view late at night.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, September 13 – 22 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

In this dark-of-the-Moon week, the Cygnus Milky Way crosses the zenith, and Arcturus, Capella, and Fomalhaut come to a certain balance.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, September 20 – 29 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

On these moonless evenings, Cassiopeia shows some of its inner workings. The Circlet of Pisces offers a very red star next to a little-known cross. From Vega, Lyra points away from the head of Draco.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, September 27 – October 6 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The waxing crescent Moon passes Venus, then Antares, in the western twilight. Several days later, Comet Tsuchinshan starts stealing the twilight show for everyone in the world's north temperate latitudes!

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, October 4 – 13 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS enters its week of glory for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. Don't let any clear twilight slip by!

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, October 11 – 20 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS fades and shrinks as it rises high into a darker sky. Venus passes Antares. The waning Moon passes the Pleiades, Jupiter, and Mars. Arcturus becomes the Ghost of Summer Suns.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, October 18 – 27 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Fading Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS poses high in a moonless sky for its fans with binoculars and telescopes, even as we wave farewell for at least a hundred thousand years, maybe forever. Meanwhile four brighter, more permanent members of the solar system await attention.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, October 25 – November 3 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Newfound Comet ATLAS (C/2024 S1) could dazzle – or fizzle.

The post There Won't Be a Second Bright Comet This Month (Update) appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The thin crescent Moon pairs beautifully with Venus low in Monday's twilight. And be on the lookout for any Taurid fireballs this week!

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, November 1 – 10 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Astronomers have identified a distant stellar tagalong to the binary system V404 Cygni.

The post Newfound Stellar Companion May Explain Black Hole System appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Take a flight through Grus, one of the famous “southern birds” constellations.

The post Get to Know the Southern Constellation Grus, the Crane appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The stars betray that we've tipped from the season of warm evenings to the cold (or at least crisp). And the Moon this week skims Saturn, then the Pleiades.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, November 8 – 17 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The Arecibo Observatory’s radar system may have produced currents that weakened the zinc sockets holding the cables in place, new report says.

The post Arecibo’s Powerful Radar May Have Contributed to the Telescope’s Demise appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

[Excerpt from the summary released by the Senate Armed Services Committee of the version of the NDAA for FY 2025 approved by the SASC and to be voted on by the full Senate.]

A proposal to expand registration for a possible military draft to young women as well as young men is moving forward again this year in Congress, along with a seductively simple-seeming but in practice unfeasible proposal to switch from the current system in which young men are required to register with the Selective Service System (SSS) to a system in which the SSS tries to identify and locate everyone eligible for a future draft and automatically register them based on other existing Federal databases from the Social Security Administration, IRS, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, etc.

Today both the U.S. Senate Armed Service Committee and the full U.S. House of Representatives approved different proposals to expand and/or make it harder to avoid the requirement for men ages 18-26 to register with the Selective Service System for a possible military draft.

The proposals for changes to Selective Service registration were approved during consideration of the Senate and House versions of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, a "must-pass" annual bill that typically runs to more than a thousand pages.

The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) approved a version of the NDAA that would expand Selective Service registration to include young women as well as young men. This version of the NDAA will now go to the floor as the starting point for consideration and approval by the full Senate.

Also today the full House of Representatives approved a different version of the NDAA that would make Selective Service registration automatic while keeping it for men only.

A House amendment proposed by Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), a West Point graduate and Army veteran, which would have replaced the provision to make draft registration automatic with a provision to repeal the Military Selective Service Act, was not "made in order" by the Rules Committee to be considered or voted on by the full House. There was no separate House floor vote on the proposed change to Selective Service registration, only a single vote on the entirety of the NDAA as a package.

The SASC markup was conducted in closed session, and only a summary of highlights of the version adopted by the SASC was released. It's not clear whether the SASC version also includes the provision in the House version of the NDAA to try to make Selective Service registration 'automatic' or only the provision to expand the registration requirement (with which compliance is currently low) to young women as well as young men. A spokesperson for the SASC told The Hill today that the full text of the Senate version of the NDAA won't be released until sometime in July.

Floor amendments are still possible in the Senate before it approves its version of the NDAA. But as of now, it seems likely that competing bad proposals with respect to expansion and/or attempted enforcement through automation of Selective Service -- one from the Republican-majority House to try to make it automatic, and one from the Democratic-majority Senate to expand it to women -- will be included in the House and Senate versions of the NDAA and go to the eventual House-Senate conference committee to sort out in closed-door negotiations late this year, after the elections.

It's possible that either or both of these proposals were included as "bargaining chips" intended to be withdrawn in exchange for concessions on other issues during the conference negotiations. The conference committee could include either, neither, both, or some other compromise on Selective Service in its final package of compromises, which typically are voted on and approved "en bloc" without further amendments.

Either of these misguided proposals would be the most significant change to the Military Selective Service Act since 1980. There have been no hearings, debate, or recorded vote on either of these proposals, and there appear unlikely to be any. The decision will probably be made in secret by the House-Senate conference committee for the NDAA.

"Firestorm erupts over requiring women to sign up for military draft", reads the headline on a story today on TheHill.com.

Unfortunately, that firestorm amounts mostly to an exchange of sound bites and social-media posts, not a real debate, much less a hearing with independent witnesses, in either the House or Senate. It focuses on the proposal included in the Senate version of the annual National Defense [sic] Authorization Act (NDAA) to expand registration with the Selective Service System to include young women as well as young men, rather than on what may be a more significant proposal in the House version of the same bill to try to make draft registration automatic by basing the list of potential draftees on information aggregated from other Federal records rather than provided by registrants themselves -- denying potential draftees the chance to indicate their opposition to being drafted, and to obstruct the mobilization for total war, by opting out of draft registration.

Most importantly, the current "debate" ignores both the profound and quite possibly insolvable practical problems with trying to compile a registry of potential draftees from other existing Federal databases, and the more fundamental issue with any contingency planning or preparation for a draft: the way that, even when a draft is not active, the perceived availability of a draft as a fallback emboldens warmakers to embark on wars that people wouldn't volunteer to fight.

[First published on Antiwar.com.]

[“I have an amendment at the desk.” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan introduces a proposal from the Selective Service System to automate draft registration in the House Armed Services Committee, May 22, 2024.]

Under fire for proposing an ill-considered amendment to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to “automatically” register all young men in the U.S. for a possible military draft, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) has issued a statement that casts more doubt on her understanding of the current draft law and on the wisdom of her proposed changes to Selective Service registration.

Rep. Houlahan starts by claiming that “This new legislation saves taxpayers significant money.” But there’s absolutely no evidence to support this claim.

[Originally published by Responsible Statecraft, the journal of the Quincy Institute]

Two proposals that would radically alter the current system for registering Americans for a future draft were introduced recently in Congress without any hearings or debate.

They raise practical issues about whether any draft today would even be possible.

As part of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, the House voted this month to make registration with the Selective Service System of all draft-eligible men ages 18-26 “automatic.” In addition, the version of the NDAA on its way to the Senate floor would expand draft registration to include young women now, too.

Debate about the draft has typically been framed around whether the U.S. “needs'' a draft. Debate about women and the draft has been framed around whether women “should” be required to register. But the bigger question we face is three fold: will women sign up voluntarily (if in fact registration is not “automatic”), is “automatic” registration based on other databases feasible, and can registration or a draft – for men and/or women -- even be enforced.

When I was invited to testify before the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service (NCMNPS) in 2019, I told them that “any proposal that includes a compulsory element is a naïve fantasy unless it includes a credible enforcement plan and budget.... Women will be more likely to resist being forced into the military than men have been, and more people will support them in their resistance.”

[Originally published by Responsible Statecraft, the journal of the Quincy Institute]

How did this suddenly become the summer of “the draft”?

There are a number of proposals in the annual defense policy bill (National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA) that deal with the subject. There is one to expand Selective Service registration to women. Another that would make Selective Service registration for American men "automatic."

Still another proposed amendment to the NDAA, which has also been introduced as a freestanding bill, S. 4881, would repeal the Military Selective Service Act entirely. Meanwhile, the Center for a New American Security just published an exhaustive blueprint for modernizing mobilization, including readiness to activate conscription.

All this talk has compelled “fact checkers” to insist that no, the U.S. government isn’t suddenly "laying the groundwork" for a draft.

But saying the U.S. isn’t preparing for a draft is like saying it isn’t preparing for nuclear war. Just as the Department of Defense is tasked with maintaining readiness to initiate nuclear strikes whenever the Commander-In-Chief so orders, the Selective Service System has the sole mission of maintaining readiness to hold a draft lottery within five days and start selecting draftees and sending out notices to report for induction whenever Congress and the President so order.

As such, there are currently ten thousand draft board members who have been appointed and trained to adjudicate claims for deferment or exemption. As recently as this month, states have been openly seeking volunteers to fill empty slots. And both the SSS and hawkish think-tanks have been war-gaming the government’s contingency plans to activate a draft.

[Timeline for a draft, counting from “Mobilization Day” (M=0), from SSS Agency Response Plan (ARP) Workshop (September 7, 2023)]

There’s room for argument about how likely it is that the U.S. would launch nuclear missiles or activate a draft. But there’s no question that it’s planning and preparing for both, as it has been for decades. It would seem that after years of atrophy, the government is stepping up its attention to military mobilization and readiness for a draft.

Maybe it’s time to ask whether more easy and efficient ways of tapping into human capital for war make it easier to get into one and whether it is in our best interest to do so.

[First published on Antiwar.com]

Fantasies underlying push for conscription are delusional and dangerous.

Doubling down on their recent war-game exercises and report on the (un)readiness of the U.S. to activate a military draft, Taren Sylvester and Katherine Kuzminski of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) have a new article in War on the Rocks, “Preparing for the Possibility of a Draft Without Panic,” laying out why they think the U.S. needs to prepare for a draft in order to be able to win an all-out war with China over Taiwan.

CNAS and War on the Rocks like to describe themselves as “realists”. But their arguments for stepped-up planning and preparation for a draft are strikingly unrealistic, in at least four respects:

Fewer young Americans are willing to fight the government’s wars.

[Also published on Antiwar.com. Portions of this article were first published by Responsible Statecraft and are reprinted by permission.]

Of men in the U.S. who turned 18 in 2023, fewer than 40% signed up for the draft – down from more than 60% in 2020 before the start of the war in Ukraine.

This eye-popping and previously undisclosed admission, as well as other revelations equally damning to plans to increase readiness to activate a draft, was included in documents released recently by the Selective Service System (SSS) in response to a Freedom Of Information Act request.

Generative Artifial Intelligence [sic] is one of the issues I've been working on with the National Writers Union and other allies.

Travel writers and others may be interested in the presentation I gave on Artificial Intelligence and Real Writers this issue to the Bay Area Travel Writers at our virtual meeting in September:

• Video (1 hour)
• Slides

Additional resources mentioned in my presentation:

• National Writers Union (NWU): Platform and Principles for Policy on Generative AI
• International Federation of Journalists (IFJ): Call to action on 'articifial intelligence'
• International Authors Forum (IAF): Principles for Artificial Intelligence and Authorship

Library - Art Library, Location - LIB, Call number - F2230.1.A7 K39 2016

Library - Art Library, Location - LIB, Call number - RC455 .E45 2017

Library - Art Library, Location - LIB, Call number - N332.G33 B4337 2017

Library - Art Library, Location - OSIZ, Call number - FOLIO NX456.5.N49 E54 2016

Library - Art Library, Location - OSIZ, Call number - FOLIO ND653.W43 A4 1982

Library - Art Library, Location - OSIZ, Call number - FOLIO N6537.D87 A4 2017

Library - Art Library, Location - LIB, Call number - N6888.A56 A4 2016

Library - Art Library, Location - LIB, Call number - Video record 43520 DVD

Library - Art Library, Location - OSIZ, Call number - FOLIO N5300 .G252 2017

Library - Art Library, Location - OSIZ, Call number - FOLIO N6953.C57 A4 2016

Library - Art Library, Location - OSIZ, Call number - FOLIO TR820.6 .A34 2016

Library - Art Library, Location - OSIZ, Call number - FOLIO N6973.D445 A4 2016

Library - Art Library, Location - OSIZ, Call number - FOLIO NK4210.W64 A4 2016

Library - Art Library, Location - LIB, Call number - N6512.75.W66 E97 2016

Library - Art Library, Location - OSIZ, Call number - FOLIO N6490 .P796 2016

Library - Art Library, Location - LIB, Call number - N7153.T33 A4 2016

לחברת צעירה דרוש /ה מפתח /ת FullStack web ASP.NET + Vue / React / Angular. מעל לשנה ניסיון ב- ASP.NET + MVCמעל לשנה ניסיון ב-Vue / React / Angularאפשרות למשרה מלאה / חלקית /משרת הורה.רק פניות רלוונטיות יענו.

הזדמנות להשתלבות בחברה מובילה בתחומה, עם תנאים מעולים ואווירה צעירה ודינאמית!אנו מחפשים מועמד /ת חד /ה ובעל /ת הבנה בעולם האינטרנט:  Wordpress ו- Elementor, html css, התעסקות עם דומיינים, קידום ממומן ואורגני.במסגרת התפקיד: * עבודה רחבה מול ממשקי לקוח, הקמת אתרים חדשים, תוך ליווי וטיפול בלקוח באופן מקצועי ומלא, עד המוצר המוגמר. * ניסיון קודם ב Wordpress ו- Elementor- חובה.* הכרות עם תוכנת Photoshop - יתרון.* בעל /ת ניסיון קודם בתחום - יתרון.* חריצות, יכולת קליטה מהירה ועמידה בלחץ.*