Tag Archives: Washington

RICO EXPERT COMMENTS ON TRUMP’S RECUSAL BID

September 13, 2023 The Silo Leave a comment

Los Angeles, CA … Lawyers for Donald Trump on Monday asked the federal judge presiding over his election subversion case in Washington to recuse herself, saying her past public statements about the former president and his connection to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol call into question whether she can be fair.

“Regardless of anyone’s personal opinion on the matter, Donald Trump’s motion for recusal has merit under the express provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 455, which requires a judge to recuse himself or herself in any proceeding in which [her] impartiality might reasonably be questioned. It is irrelevant whether the judge is actually biased. The U.S. Supreme Court squarely addressed this issue in Liljeberg v. Health Services Acquisition Corp., 486 U.S. 847, 860, which held that recusal is required even when a judge lacks actual knowledge of the facts indicating his interest or bias.

Judge Chutkan

Here, Judge Tanya Chutkan has made previous comments such as ‘Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not a President’ and, in a December 2021 sentencing hearing, she stated, ‘the issue of who has or has not been charged is not before me. I don’t have any influence on that. I have my opinions, but they are not relevant.’ She has therefore publicly acknowledged her bias, which, at the very least, creates an appearance of partiality. This is nevertheless an uphill battle, as the motion has been submitted to Judge Chutkan, who will rule on this motion.

Having litigated this issue extensively in Angelica Limcaco v. Steve Wynn, Case No. 19-15949 (9^th Cir. 2020), Donald Trump has to navigate a difficult path because the optics are problematic for him. The Justice Department will likely argue that Judge Chutkan has no financial interest, or something to that effect. Of course, if the motion is denied, the decision could result in an interlocutory appeal that may delay the case,” explained Jordan Matthews, a litigation partner at Weinberg Gonser LLP.

Sci-Tech

Seriously, What The F**k Do We Know About Reality?

March 11, 2023 The Silo Leave a comment

Nearly two decades ago in a small theater in Yelm, Washington a little film called What The Bleep Do We Know?!? screened to its first audiences and the term “I Create My Reality” was thrust into the collective consciousness.

Since then countless films and books have extolled the wonders of quantum physics and how understanding the nature of reality could change your life, often in just 3 easy steps. I too thought it was easy, heck I made a movie about it! And for a while it was easy, until I realized that I had only scratched the surface of what “it” all means.

For sure, at a party I could rattle off the wonders of quantum this and quantum that, I could throw around words like entanglement and heady concepts like The Copenhagen Theory, I could wow you with the double slit like nobody’s business. But the truth was, it was really all just smoke and mirrors.

What did understanding quantum physics have to do with my happiness?

What did understanding the workings of the brain mean to my life, in reality, at least this reality, the one where I have kids and bills to pay? I mean it’s fun to dream about other dimensions and my life as electron popping in and out, but in the end I felt as though it was becoming mental masturbation an easy way to escape from the fact that even though I knew I wasn’t really touching that chair, that it is possible I wasn’t even real.

Betsy was one of the three filmmakers (along with Willliam Arntz and Mark Vicente) involved in What the Bleep Do We Know !?

What I was truly seeking was not the facts about how that chair manifested itself into my reality, but how I could be happy whether I had that chair or not.

Happiness has nothing to do with quarks and the discovery of the Higgs Boson was not going to bring me ever-lasting peace and joy. That I was going to have to find all on my own.

I began to explore the sacred cows, not only in my life, my beliefs about who I was and what I wanted, but also the sacred cows of spirituality, new thought and yes, quantum physics and how I could take all this knowledge and use it to create the happiness I sought, because after all, that is what we are all after. It is why we ask “why?”. It is why we explore the deepest depths of the quantum foam and so far quantum physics hasn’t found the happiness particle, because it doesn’t exist within the particles out there, it exists within the immeasurable particles within me.

For the Silo, Betsy Chasse.

image courtesy of: science.howstuffworks.com — Image courtesy of: science.howstuffworks.com

Culture

Toronto Drops To Sixth As Washington DC Enters World Safety City Index

August 30, 2019 The Silo Leave a comment

Tokyo edges Singapore (2nd) and Osaka (3rd) again to take the top spot globally in 2019.Two North American cities make up the top ten, including Toronto (6th) and Washington, DC, (7th).The remaining top ten cities are: Amsterdam (4th), Sydney (5th), Copenhagen and Seoul (tied 8th) and Melbourne (10th).The 2019 edition of the index includes ten new indicators, of which eight are related to environmental resilience.

The Economist Intelligence Unit today releases the third edition of the Safe Cities Index (SCI) at the Safe Cities Summit in Singapore. The index, which is the centre piece of a research project sponsored by NEC Corporation, ranks 60 cities worldwide across five continents. It measures the multifaceted nature of urban safety, with indicators organised across four pillars: digital, infrastructure, health and personal security.

Cities in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region make up six of the top ten safest cities, with Tokyo taking the top spot for the third time in a row. Along with Tokyo, other APAC cities, as in the past, dominate the SCI2019. Singapore and Osaka come second and third, while Sydney and Melbourne also make the top ten.

Toronto and Washington, DC, are the highest ranked North American cities in the SCI2019, with Washington, DC, entering the top ten for the first time. Overall, North American cities perform well in digital security, accounting for seven of the top ten cities in this category. These cities include Chicago, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, New York and Toronto.

Vaibhav Sahgal, consultant at The Economist Intelligence Unit, says: “US cities continue to perform well in digital security as the government strengthens its cyber-security regulations, while Canadian cities tend to fare better than their US counterparts in personal security. None of the cities in the US make it into the top 20 in the personal security category—Washington, DC, only ranks 23rd, together with Shanghai.”

The SCI2019 benefits from a major revision designed to better capture “urban resilience”—the ability of cities to absorb and bounce back from shocks—a concept that has had an increasing influence on thinking in urban safety over the last decade, especially as policymakers worry about the implications of climate change. The 2019 edition is the third, following the 2015 and 2017 iterations.The SCI2019 scores are not evenly spread, with a large number of cities clustered at the top, and the rest showing wider variation in scores. Just ten points separate the overall scores of the top 24 cities, while the following 36 are 40 points apart. The research shows that levels of transparency in cities correlate as closely as income with index scores.

Research shows that the performance of different safety pillars correlates very closely with each other, signifying that different kinds of safety are thoroughly intertwined. The top performers in each pillar are as follows: Digital security: Tokyo (1), Singapore (2), Chicago (3), Washington, DC, (4), Los Angeles/San Francisco (5)Health security: Osaka (1), Tokyo (2), Seoul (3), Amsterdam (4), Stockholm (5)Infrastructure security: Singapore (1), Osaka (2), Barcelona (3), Tokyo (4), Madrid (5)Personal security: Singapore (1), Copenhagen (2), Hong Kong (3), Tokyo (4), Wellington (5)
The leading cities got the basics right, including easy access to high-quality healthcare, dedicated cyber-security teams, community-based police patrolling and/or disaster continuity planning. The accompanying SCI2019 report explores the index results, incorporating 14 in-depth interviews with industry experts around urban safety.

Naka Kondo, senior editor at The Economist Intelligence Unit, and editor of the SCI2019 report says: “Overall, while wealth is among the most important determinants of safety, the levels of transparency—and governance—correlate as closely as income with index scores. Our research shows the many ways that transparency and accountability are essential in every pillar of urban security, from building safer bridges to developing the trust needed for relevant stakeholders to share information on cyber-attacks. The research also highlights how different types of safety are thoroughly intertwined—that it is rare to find a city with very good results in one safety pillar and lagging in others. Policies, service planning and provision should also take this into account—and this year, we have decided to convene stakeholders from around the world in a Safe Cities Summit to discuss such matters around urban safety.”

Culture

America Meditating Radio Show Launches “Meditate The Vote – Real Conversation”

April 27, 2016 The Silo Leave a comment

Building a better and more cohesive environment through collaboration

Washington, D.C. – “Meditate the Vote – the Real Conversation” is the brainchild of the globally broadcast America Meditating Radio Show. In the midst of the election fever and the buzz that follows it, it is even more important that the citizenry is brought together to converse on mutual issues to create a better and more cohesive understanding of ways of moving the country forward and making the world a better place. Can getting into our Zen zone help Americans to decide who they vote for or what they do regardless of who enters office?

The #MeditatetheVote grassroots campaign to bring respect, compassion and a peaceful dialog to our election process, intends to create an avenue where people from diverse backgrounds can express their views via various means of social media including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube and gatherings in homes and other venues. This campaign, supported by an alliance of friends, thought leaders and organizations from around the country, will be launched on the 1st of May, coinciding with the start of National Meditation Month and will continue leading up to Election Day on the 8th of November, 2016.

Our goal is simple. Meditate the Vote simply asks folks to amplify the quality of conversation using the Meditate the Vote questions to stimulate more inclusivity and partnership in the country as we lead up to Election Day on November 8th. Meditate the Vote does not endorse any candidate or political party. It is a movement to socially engage all folks into a higher and more cohesive way of working together as a people and a country.

The internet and social media platforms will be used in spreading the word with participants making videos saying “I, Meditate the Vote” and why, as well as sharing feedback from their conversations using Meditate the Vote questions.

There is also the Pause for Peace App available for users of Android and iOS devices to allow for constant communication, meditations and videos, and for listening to the America Meditating Radio Show featuring various prominent thought leaders sharing methods for personal development. For the Silo, Antonia Silvera.

About America Meditating

America Meditating was launched in June 2012, as a nationwide initiative to promote unity and peace as everyone is encouraged to pause for moments throughout the day to reflect within and create an environment where love, respect, and trust reign.

It subsequently resulted in the birth of the popular America Meditating Radio Show hosted by teacher and motivational speaker, Sister Jenna. The program is available across the globe on numerous platforms including Blog Talk Radio, iTunes, Stitcher, Aha Radio, Speaker, the Pause for Peace App, and the Player.FM App.

Supplemental: The David Lynch Foundation was established to ensure that any child in America who wants to learn and practice the Transcendental Meditation program can do so.

What did understanding quantum physics have to do with my happiness?

What I was truly seeking was not the facts about how that chair manifested itself into my reality, but how I could be happy whether I had that chair or not.

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