In this weeks podcast, Enrique Blair on quantum computing, Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks talks with fellow computer engineer Enrique Blair about why Quantum mechanics pioneer Niels Bohr said, If quantum mechanics hasnt profoundly shocked you, you havent understood it yet. Lets look at some of the reasons he said that:

The Show Notes and transcript follow.

Enrique Blair: Its really quite different from our daily experience. Quantum mechanics really is a description of the world at the microscopic scale. And its really weird, because there are things that initially we thought maybe were particles but then we learned that they have wave-like behaviors. And there are other things that we thought were waves and then we discovered they have particle-like behaviors.

But thats hardly the strangest part. The strangest part is that a quantum particle does not actually have a position until we measure it, according to the generally accepted Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Robert J. Marks: Whats the Copenhagen interpretation?

Enrique Blair (pictured): Its that the quantum mechanical wave function describes measurement outcomes in probabilities. You cant predict with certainty the outcome of a measurement. Which is really shocking, because in the classical world, if you have a particle and you know its position and its velocity, you can predict where its going to be in the next second or minute or hour. Now in quantum mechanics, the really weird thing is, we say that a particle doesnt even have a position until you measure its position.

Robert J. Marks: It doesnt exist?

Enrique Blair: Not that it doesnt exist, but its position is not defined.

Dr. Marks compared quantum mechanics (QM) to one of the characters in a 1999 film, Mystery Men, featuring inept amateur superheroes, including one who says, Im invisible as long as nobodys looking at me. With QM, thats not a joke. The quantum particle doesnt have a position until we measure it. But how did we discover this? The story goes back to the early 1800s when British physicist Thomas Young (17731829) did a famous experiment with a card held up to a small window

Enrique Blair: Youngs double-slit experiment goes all the way back to 1801, where Young shot light at a couple of slits and then the light passing through the slits would show up on a screen behind them.

So light behaves like a wave, with interference patterns. But what happens when we try doing the same thing with a single particle of lighta photon? Thats something we can do nowadays.

Enrique Blair: We can reduce a beam of light so that its single photon. One photon is emitted at a time, and were shooting it at our double slit again.

What happens when each particle of light goes through these slits? Well, each particle splats up against this screen, and so you can know where the photon hits. But if you do this over a long period of time, the interference pattern shows up again. You have particles hitting the screen, so we see the particle behavior. But we also see the interference pattern which suggests that okay, weve got some wave interference going on here.

So the only way to explain both of these at the same time is that each photon, which is an indivisible packet of light, has to go through both slits at the same time and interfere with itself, and then the buildup of many, many photons gives you that interference pattern.

Robert J. Marks: A particle was hypothesized to go through both slits?

Enrique Blair: Yes, and thats the mind-blowing ramification of this thing.

Robert J. Marks: How do we decide which slit the particles go through? Suppose we went down and we tried to measure? We put out one photon and we put it through the double slit. Weve tried to measure which slit it went through. If its a particle, it can only go through one, right?

Enrique Blair: Right. That introduces this concept of measurement. Like you said, which slit does it go through? Now the interesting thing is, if we know which slit it goes through maybe we set up a detector and we say, Hey, did it go through Slit One or Slit Two? we detect that, we measure it and the interference pattern goes away because now its gone through one slit only, not both.

Robert J. Marks: Just by the act of observation, we are restricting that photon to go through one slit or the other. Observation really kind of screws things up.

Enrique Blair: Thats right. This is one of the things that is hard to understand about quantum mechanics. In the classical world that we deal with every day, we can just observe something and we dont have to interact with it. So we can measure somethings position or its velocity without altering it. But in quantum mechanics, observation or measurement inherently includes interacting with that thing, that particle.

Again, youve got this photon that goes through both slits, but then you measure it and it actually ends up going through oneonce you measure it.

Robert J. Marks: This reminds me again of Invisible Boy in Mystery Men. The photon goes through one of the two slits while youre looking at it. Unless you look away. Then it goes through both slits.

Enrique Blair: Right. Very tricky, those photons.

Next: How scientists have learned to work with the quantum world

Note: The illustration of the double-slit experiment in physics is courtesy NekoJaNekoJa and Johannes Kalliauer (CC BY-SA 4.0).

You may also enjoy: A materialist gives up on determinism. Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne undercuts his own argument against free will by admitting that quantum phenomena are real (Michael Egnor)

Quantum randomness gives nature free will. Whether or not quantum randomness explains how our brains work, it may help us create unbreakable encryption codes (Robert J. Marks)

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Here's Why the Quantum World Is Just So Strange - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

In a new realm of materials, PhD student Thanh Nguyen uses neutrons to hunt for exotic properties that could power real-world applications.

Thanh Nguyen is in the habit of breaking down barriers. Take languages, for instance: Nguyen, a third-year doctoral candidate in nuclear science and engineering (NSE), wanted to connect with other people and cultures for his work and social life, he says, so he learned Vietnamese, French, German, and Russian, and is now taking an MIT course in Mandarin. But this drive to push past obstacles really comes to the fore in his research, where Nguyen is trying to crack the secrets of a new and burgeoning branch of physics.

My dissertation focuses on neutron scattering on topological semimetals, which were only experimentally discovered in 2015, he says. They have very special properties, but because they are so novel, theres a lot thats unknown, and neutrons offer a unique perspective to probe their properties at a new level of clarity.

Topological materials dont fit neatly into conventional categories of substances found in everyday life. They were first materialized in the 1980s, but only became practical in the mid-2000s with deepened understanding of topology, which concerns itself with geometric objects whose properties remain the same even when the objects undergo extreme deformation. Researchers experimentally discovered topological materials even more recently, using the tools of quantum physics.

Within this domain, topological semimetals, which share qualities of both metals and semiconductors, are of special interest to Nguyen.They offer high levels of thermal and electric conductivity, and inherent robustness, which makes them very promising for applications in microelectronics, energy conversions, and quantum computing, he says.

Intrigued by the possibilities that might emerge from such unconventional physics, Nguyen is pursuing two related but distinct areas of research: On the one hand, Im trying to identify and then synthesize new, robust topological semimetals, and on the other, I want to detect fundamental new physics with neutrons and further design new devices.

My goal is to create programmable artificial structured topological materials, which can directly be applied as a quantum computer, says Thanh Nguyen. Credit: Gretchen Ertl

Reaching these goals over the next few years might seem a tall order. But at MIT, Nguyen has seized every opportunity to master the specialized techniques required for conducting large-scale experiments with topological materials, and getting results. Guided by his advisor,Mingda Li, the Norman C Rasmussen Assistant Professor and director of theQuantum Matter Groupwithin NSE, Nguyen was able to dive into significant research even before he set foot on campus.

The summer, before I joined the group, Mingda sent me on a trip to Argonne National Laboratory for a very fun experiment that used synchrotron X-ray scattering to characterize topological materials, recalls Nguyen. Learning the techniques got me fascinated in the field, and I started to see my future.

During his first two years of graduate school, he participated in four studies, serving as a lead author in three journal papers. In one notable project,described earlier this yearinPhysical Review Letters, Nguyen and fellow Quantum Matter Group researchers demonstrated, through experiments conducted at three national laboratories, unexpected phenomena involving the way electrons move through a topological semimetal, tantalum phosphide (TaP).

These materials inherently withstand perturbations such as heat and disorders, and can conduct electricity with a level of robustness, says Nguyen. With robust properties like this, certain materials can conductivity electricity better than best metals, and in some circumstances superconductors which is an improvement over current generation materials.

This discovery opens the door to topological quantum computing. Current quantum computing systems, where the elemental units of calculation are qubits that perform superfast calculations, require superconducting materials that only function in extremely cold conditions. Fluctuations in heat can throw one of these systems out of whack.

The properties inherent to materials such as TaP could form the basis of future qubits, says Nguyen. He envisions synthesizing TaP and other topological semimetals a process involving the delicate cultivation of these crystalline structures and then characterizing their structural and excitational properties with the help of neutron and X-ray beam technology, which probe these materials at the atomic level. This would enable him to identify and deploy the right materials for specific applications.

My goal is to create programmable artificial structured topological materials, which can directly be applied as a quantum computer, says Nguyen. With infinitely better heat management, these quantum computing systems and devices could prove to be incredibly energy efficient.

Energy efficiency and its benefits have long concerned Nguyen. A native of Montreal, Quebec, with an aptitude for math and physics and a concern for climate change, he devoted his final year of high school to environmental studies. I worked on a Montreal initiative to reduce heat islands in the city by creating more urban parks, he says. Climate change mattered to me, and I wanted to make an impact.

At McGill University, he majored in physics. I became fascinated by problems in the field, but I also felt I could eventually apply what I learned to fulfill my goals of protecting the environment, he says.

In both classes and research, Nguyen immersed himself in different domains of physics. He worked for two years in a high-energy physics lab making detectors for neutrinos, part of a much larger collaboration seeking to verify the Standard Model. In the fall of his senior year at McGill, Nguyens interest gravitated toward condensed matter studies. I really enjoyed the interplay between physics and chemistry in this area, and especially liked exploring questions in superconductivity, which seemed to have many important applications, he says. That spring, seeking to add useful skills to his research repertoire, he worked at Ontarios Chalk River Laboratories, where he learned to characterize materials using neutron spectroscopes and other tools.

These academic and practical experiences served to propel Nguyen toward his current course of graduate study. Mingda Li proposed an interesting research plan, and although I didnt know much about topological materials, I knew they had recently been discovered, and I was excited to enter the field, he says.

Nguyen has mapped out the remaining years of his doctoral program, and they will prove demanding. Topological semimetals are difficult to work with, he says. We dont yet know the optimal conditions for synthesizing them, and we need to make these crystals, which are micrometers in scale, in quantities large enough to permit testing.

With the right materials in hand, he hopes to develop a qubit structure that isnt so vulnerable to perturbations, quickly advancing the field of quantum computing so that calculations that now take years might require just minutes or seconds, he says. Vastly higher computational speeds could have enormous impacts on problems like climate, or health, or finance that have important ramifications for society. If his research on topological materials benefits the planet or improves how people live, says Nguyen, I would be totally happy.

See more here:

Cracking the Secrets of an Emerging Branch of Physics: Exotic Properties to Power Real-World Applications - SciTechDaily

In the fall of 2009, I finally gave in and signed my life over to Facebook. I figured it would be a great way to reconnect with friends and family.

Over time, I began to enjoy sharing my thoughts on theology, politics and sports. I was a conservative evangelical, Calvinist Republican in those days. And so were most of my friends. It was fun to share pithy, humorous statuses about how totally depraved everyone is, but how God chose to save a few of us, mostly Republicans, for his glory while burning the rest forever for his glory.

As I sharedin my recent articleabout my introduction toward healing through self-awareness that led me out of that world, I had a lot of suppressed trauma that was fueling my theology and consequently my use of social media that I was totally unaware of. But as my doubts and questions began to pile up, there came a point where I wanted to share some of them.

When I shared that article on Facebook, my entire experience of social media changed.

In 2018, I wrote arelatively tame blog articlewhere I wondered why I had listened to about 10,000 sermons in my life from mostly white, conservative, fundamentalist, Reformed, evangelical men, while never being given the opportunity to listen to women share much of anything. And when I shared that article on Facebook, my entire experience of social media changed.

Suddenly, I went from being the hilarious, theologically deep, politically informed friend to being on the witness stand having to defend myself, amidst hundreds of comments, against the charges of denying inerrancy, ignoring the clear teaching of the Bible and falling down a slippery slope. Then once I started questioning young earth creationism and the global flood, I was branded on my own Facebook wall as a false teacher and a wolf.

As weve spent most of 2020 dealing with COVID-19, socially distancing from one another, and experiencing a presidential election featuring Donald Trump, our stress on social media has intensified to unprecedented levels.Conservatives are threateningto leave Facebook for Parler due to Facebooks flagging of their conspiracy theories. And as we approach the upcoming holidays after spending this year arguing with family on social media about these conspiracy theories, were facing even more strife over whether or not to get together.

In her bookAlone Together, psychologist Sheri Turkle argues that computer technology has invaded our relationships, rewired our understanding of friendship and authenticity, and left us feeling alone. In a 2012 article forThe Atlantic,Stephen Marche saysthat the loneliness and depression that Facebook fuels has revealed that a connection is not the same thing as a bond, and that instant and total connection is no salvation, no ticket to a happier, better world or a more liberated version of humanity.

We need to look at the timeline of our story to grow in our awareness of who we are as relational beings.

While I agree with much of their observations, I believe social media has a power worth saving toward a more liberated version of humanity. But to discover the social crossroads we find ourselves at, we need to look at the timeline of our story to grow in our awareness of who we are as relational beings.

Our story began around 13.8 billion years ago when the universe was condensed into the wholeness of a dimensionless point of energy called the singularity. After the Big Bang, particles began to draw toward one another in a circular dance and bond together. As they bonded, their convergence transcended to create atoms. Then as atoms began to draw together in their circle dance, they bonded and transcended to create molecules.

From the formation of quantum physics to the unimaginably vast worlds of galaxies, stars, solar systems and planets, our story is an unfolding of wholeness transcending toward more complex wholeness. When we look inside our bodies, we can quite literally see this 13.8 billion-year-old story of coming together to transcend as one toward greater wholeness. The universe and our bodies are essentially a wholeness of energy in relationship.

As our story began to be written on earth, we evolved from reptiles to mammals and intoHomo sapiens, transcending toward greater complexity while bearing the marks and behaviors of our past. Our minds reveal this complexity through our anxiety-fueled reptilian brain that keeps us alive by sensing threats, our hunger-fueled mammal brain that drives desire and pleasure, and our primate brain that builds our social, cognitive, linguistic and creative connections.

Every individual contains within the mind and body a complex network of relationships. When individuals come together as families, co-workers, churches or social groups, these complex networks of relationships interact with one another to create even more complex relationships. As a result, new consciousness emerges.

As humans began to emerge, we initially developed a consciousness that was mythic, tribal and ritualistic. Our fascination with the fertility cycles of nature created a mythic vision of reality as sacred. Yet our experience of community was generally limited to our tribes. In order to restore any disorder in nature, we developed rituals and sacrifices that were meant to bring reconciliation and healing. Within this consciousness, the seeds of religion and politics began to grow.

As our tribes began to interact, we gradually became aware of the ideas of neighboring tribes. This interaction led individuals to question their own tribes ideas, which led to a consciousness that was more individualistic and rational. These individualistic, rational theologies and politics set within the hierarchical structures of power were the world that the church and eventually the American culture grew up in.

The more Christianity became separated from our growing awareness of universal wholeness, the more it shifted its theology of salvation to focus on the next world rather than this one. The 20th century devolved into the most violent, deadly century in world history. So culturally, the desires for salvation and immortality began to shift away from religion to technology.

Every time I log onto Facebook, Im faced with the question in the Create Post box, Whats on your mind, Rick? Most of us will click on the box and start typing away whatever were thinking about at the moment. Yet we have no idea how infinitely complex the subconscious web of relationships is in our minds and bodies that has been unfolding toward that Create Post moment for 13.8 billion years.

In his bookThe Future of Man, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, Just as Earth once covered itself with a film of interdependent living organisms so humankinds combined achievements are forming a global network of networked mind, a new intersubjectivity.

While social media has been revealing a splintering apart of American society along the lines of religion and politics, it also has been evolving a more global consciousness by connecting individuals across the religious and political divides unlike ever before in history.

What we are really seeking is a bond that leads to salvation as a more liberated version of humanity.

In her bookRe-Enchanting the Earth, Ilia Delio explores how social media has led the individual to transcend into a networked consciousness that is fundamentally reshaping human relationships. Whether we are aware of it or not, the individual is transcending to become more tribal, while the religious and political tribes of the earth are becoming more global. Technology such as social media, Delio says, arose as natures cry for connectedness and wholeness, an effort to transcend our crippled individualism. As Stephen Marche said inThe Atlantic, what we are really seeking is a bond that leads to salvation as a more liberated version of humanity.

In their bookHow to Think Theologically, Howard Stone and James Duke discuss how Christians have anembedded theologythat is handed to us from within our communities. It is the unquestioned, natural theology that we simply assume is reality. They then discussdeliberative theologyas the process of becoming aware of, reflecting on and reconsidering our constructs of reality that we had long taken for granted.

This journey of self-awareness is the beginning of a more liberated version of humanity. We must do the difficult work of facing our wounds, of naming and grieving them so deeply until we are moved with compassionate love for ourselves.

Delio says we need to reimagine Christianity in light of the cosmos to discover both the depths and complexities of who we are within and the opportunities for convergence and transcendence that lay before us to expand without.

Over the past few years in particular, there has been a growing fear amongst conservative evangelical white men about what they perceive to be the dangers of liberation theologies. Twitter is full of these men attacking even other conservative Black men for bringing this supposedly dangerous theology into the church.

InLift Every Voice, liberation theologians Susan Thistlethwaite and Mary Engel frame liberation theologies within the eschatological cosmic story of God bringing the cosmos together into greater wholeness through restorative justice and love. Liberation theologies begin from the perspective of oppressed communities and address the systemic structures that are causing their suffering. According to C.S. Song, liberation theologies see that reality is a world of multiplicities stamped with the One, and that we are in nature and nature is in us, and together we and nature are in God.

The reason conservative evangelical white men are against liberation theologies is that they have promoted a gospel that is fundamentally against the reality of universal, unfolding wholeness. They promote a gospel that says we are fundamentally separate individuals, separate from God, making separate decisions, with separate eternal destinies. They embrace a theology that uses the individualistic, rational interpretation of mythic, ritualistic tribalism within an ancient hierarchical power structure of the cosmos. And they are its power brokers on the earth.

So when I post a status about liberating communities they have oppressed, they deny the existence of systemic evil, label me as dangerous, and threaten everyone with the judgment of separation from neighbor and God.

Part of my growing self-awareness has led me to realize I also have been oppressed by these men. I bear the wounds of their words in my bones. But I also bear the unfolding story of the cosmos as transcending wholeness in my bones.

To post a Facebook status or share a tweet is ultimately a cry toward wholeness.

To post a Facebook status or share a tweet is ultimately a cry toward wholeness. To have those who have benefited from systemic power tell you that you are wrong and a threat is trauma.

We have only begun to explore through astrophysics, quantum physics and neuroscience the depths of our story, the complexities of our minds and bodies, and the opportunity for liberation or separation that social media gives us. As Delio says, Technology is extending the outreach of the human person into global domains.

Perhaps by discovering our story of unfolding wholeness by exploring the cosmos within ourselves, well be able to use social media to name and bring justice to the traumas of separation as we transcend toward the bond of a more liberated version of humanity.

Rick Pidcockis a stay-at-home father of five kids. He and his wife, Ruth Ellen, have started Provoke Wonder, a collaboration of artists that exists to foster child-like worship through story and song. Provoke Wonders first album,Consider the Stars, was released in March 2020. Their first childrens book,What If, will be released in 2020. Rick is pursuing a master of arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary.

This article was made possible by gifts to the Mark Wingfield Fund for Interpretive Journalism.

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What the Big Bang and wholeness have taught me about Facebook - Baptist News Global

Louis Ren Beres, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Purdue, recounts the grave mistakes made by Donald Trump during his tenure, and analyses how they can be resolved going forward in order to reinstate American self-respect...

ANTIFA SCUM ran for the hills today when they tried attacking the people at the Trump Rally, because those people aggressively fought back..DC Police, get going do your job and dont hold back!!! US President Donald Trump, November 14, 2020

Whoever can dominate the street will one day conquer the state, for every form of power politics and any dictatorship run state has its roots in the street. Joseph Goebbels, Third Reich Minister of Propaganda, Party Rally at Nuremberg, 1934

I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump. I have the tough people, but they dont play it tough until they go to a certain point and then it would be very bad, very very bad. Donald Trump, March 15, 2019

In the fashion of his de facto mentor in 1930s Germany, Donald J. Trump remains gleefully a man of the street. This fearful resemblance is many-sided, and exists at different intersecting levels. Like Hitler, Goebbels and Goering, American President Trump thrives amid chaos, violence and general lawlessness. As an evident corollary, he remains stubbornly crude and disingenuous in his every gesture.

Some of this Presidents derelictions are more egregious than others. The worst, by far, is his orchestrated disinformation campaign against accepted medical science. Also unsettling and injurious is his steadfast insistence upon a rigged election. Though not supported by a scintilla of tangible evidence, Donald J. Trumps incessant claims of voter fraud simultaneously undermine US dignity and national security.

Plausibly, after Trump, we are even more apt to concur with Irish poet W.B. Yeats, There is no longer a virtuous nation, and the best of us live by candle light.

When Donald Trump is finally compelled to leave office on January 20, 2021 and no doubt, shrieking with indignation about unfairness the United States will have reached a nadir of epic proportion. This once-unimaginable low point will reveal not only greatly expanded American weakness on all legal fronts, but also a pandemic-created body count exceeding earlier compilations of national war dead. In specifically jurisprudential or legal terms, it would not be unreasonable to call these American Covid-19 fatalities the victims of a de facto genocide.

Donald J. Trump made all the wrong calls on controlling this disease, many of them based on deliberate and conscious manipulations of truth and law. These catastrophically wrong calls cannot be ascribed to predictive error.

Its finally time for candor. The only tangible difference between the Trump-assisted mass dying and a true genocide lies in the presumed absence of criminal intent or mens rea. From the flesh-and-blood standpoint of the dead Americans and their surviving families, of course, this law-based absence is simply immaterial.

Expecting this defiling Presidents behavior to change on its own has always been a core mistake in the United States. Merely hoping against hope that such persistently barbarous behavior can change was always about as credible an expectation as awaiting a sudden change in the earths gravitational tides. Today, on account of our refractory unwillingness to call things by their correct name, Americans are living (and dying) in a self-created desert of pervasive despair.

This demeaning creation will have ubiquitous long-term consequences. After all, as we may learn from 20th century European thinker E.M. Cioran, a cry of despair is more revealing than the most subtle thought; and tears always have deeper roots than smiles.

What do we do now, when even the normal prospect of a peaceful transfer of US presidential power can no longer be assured? To begin with, it is essential that we consciously reject the atavistic insights of mass man, and begin, with apt seriousness, to embrace Reason. Going forward, American national policies ought no longer be based upon unchallenged and boorish gibberish.

After Trump, it will be high time for competently gathered facts and a closely corresponding corpus of science-based theory.

And for jurisprudence, it will be very high time.

Something else will also be necessary. To wit, certain acts that were once merely wrong or harmful have recently become murderous or prospectively murderous. In large measure, this is because the Covid-19 pandemic mandates more substantially far-reaching patterns of serious cooperation, domestically and internationally. These patterns concern densely intersecting elements of world order.

Quo Vadis? Where should we go from here? To start the list, the conspicuously shallow and degrading Trump vision of America First ought never be allowed to outlast his corrupted presidency. Such a retrograde allowance would only lead the United States toward endlessly Darwinian global struggles and to an even larger worldwide chaos. Here, amid fiercely escalating competitions between nation-states, we could then expect more and more refractory global conflicts.

There is more. The failed standard of everyone for himself can produce only more and more intense levels of human suffering. Ipso facto, such bitter results would reflect discernibly wide deviations from Americas assorted legal obligations. Most notable, in this regard, would be certain statutory and customary obligations of both national and international law.

We are all obliged to inquire: Where should we be headed from such an inauspicious decisional precipice? In our war and disease-ravaged world, a synergy-exacerbated planet now teetering at the most vertiginous heights of despair, only a law-based expansion of human empathy could possibly save us. This suggests, among other things, that any such expansion by the United States would represent not just some generous or one-sided act of charity that is, a mistakenly altruistic species of traditional American benevolence.

Instead, we are speaking here of a determinedly positive and self-serving expression of rational US policy.

The reasons are easily identifiable and abundantly clear. In brief summation: US national interests can no longer be served at the calculably deliberate and zero-sum expense of other states and nations. As we ought already to have learned from the grievously debilitating Trump years, America First really means America Last.

It has been a lethal oxymoron.

There is more. At every crucial level of evaluation military, economic, biological and legal American security is integrally linked with a wider human soul. For the United States, any further misplaced confidence in embarrassingly vacant presidential witticisms or allegations could fatally undermine this unhappy countrys overall security. Although, until now, any open reference to US national morbidity would have seemed a hyperbole, or a gross exaggeration; but this is no longer the case.

Prima facie, we Americans are in grievously mortal danger, individually and collectively.

What we have been witnessing during the dissembling Trump Era, hour by hour, minute by minute, is the incremental dismantling of a once decent and law-respecting nation. Now, an immutable element of transience has become tragically self-evident. Its not that such transience or impermanence can ever be fixed, but rather that still-aspiring great nations ought not to take witting steps to hasten their collective disappearance.

Trump did not make America great again.

In continuous candor, during its Trump-based and pandemic-hastened decline, the American mass could not possibly cling convincingly to this Presidents contrived promises of greatness. At best, the childishly-inscribed red hats and related paraphernalia expressed a dangerously thin parody of high thinking. They were a demonstrably hideous caricature of legitimate thought. For the foreseeable future, lest we should forget the immutable lessons of change and transformation in world affairs, America will need to settle not for greatness, but only for elementary physical survival.

All this is hardly reassuring or comforting. Nonetheless, truth is necessary, and exculpatory, not just in law, but in national life generally. Trumpian false reassurance is not something we should ever seek or accept. Already, this deception has cost tens or hundreds of thousands of American lives, fellow citizens who foolishly believed in an elected leader who said treacherously, again and again, We have everything under control and We are rounding the corner on this virus.

Always, truth excuses candor. This particular truth about Americas mortal vulnerabilities is not subject to any captivating metaphors or credible contradictions. US President Donald J. Trump is personally responsible for uncountable American disease fatalities. Even if he meant well (a problematic assumption in its own right), his decision to distribute pertinent health supplies on the basis of presumed political loyalty was morally and legally inexcusable.

There is still more. For the United States, todays national and geopolitical truth is expectedly grim and undeniably sobering. Even worse, there are no discoverable correctives visible anywhere on this bewildered administrations determinable policy horizons. On the contrary, the medicine offered by a still-lingering (and still-limping) Trump administration is just more and more of the same.

This medicine remains toxic.

From the White House, nothing seriously remediating has been offered, whether on matters concerning war, genocide, terrorism or planet-wide pandemic. Of course, if we can somehow manage to hold out until January 20, 2021 and if the increasingly violent street fighters backing Donald Trump can be prevented from obstructing a peaceful transfer of presidential authority the incoming Biden administration ought to quickly supply some authentic and law-supporting solace.

The finding of regularities constitutes the beginning of any scientific inquiry. Apropos of this core understanding, there is a common problem here. Most fundamentally injurious and ominous about Donald Trumps studied indifference to human interconnections and properly codified legal rights has been his willful destruction of empathy. For still-thinking Americans, the palpably dreadful consequences of such destruction ought to have already become obvious.

The unmistakably monstrous global consequences of Germany First a readily recognizable antecedent of Trumps America First should have immediately exhibited certain stinging historical resonances.

For any necessary expansions of empathy to become sufficiently practical would first require a president and a citizenry at least minimally versed in history and law. At this moment, there is precious little evidence of any such learning. Even worse, we have been witnessing an American political process wherein learning and intellect are ridiculed and count only as liabilities.

Donald J. Trump did not create this countrys stultifying disinterest in history, law and learning. There are other much deeper roots to the correlative American deficiencies of empathy and cooperation. Divided into thousands of hostile tribes, almost two hundred of which are called nation-states, too many human beings still find it easy or even pleasing to slay others. As for any remediating considerations of compassion, that indispensable sort of sentiment is typically reserved only for those who live well within ones own previously-delineated tribe.

Looking ahead, any needed expansion of empathy to include outsiders remains a basic condition of law-based peace and more viable global cooperation. Without such a needed expansion, our entire species will remain inconveniently dedicated to its own protracted debasement and, by extrapolation, its own incremental disappearance. Hopefully, with the advent of a new President on January 20, 2021, Joe Biden will take useful note of this urgent human obligation.

Ironically, however, the essential expansion of empathy for many could become dreadful, improving human community, but only at the prohibitive costs of private sanity. This potentially insufferable consequence is rooted deeply in the way we humans were originally designed, that is, as more-or-less hard-wired beings, as individuals with distinctly recognizable and largely impermeable boundaries of personal feeling. Were it otherwise, an extended range of compassion toward too many others would inevitably bring about our own emotional collapse.

As an easy to understand example, we may consider how difficult it would be if all of us were suddenly to feel the same compelling pangs of sympathy and compassion for certain others outside our primary spheres of attachment that we customarily maintain only for family and friends inside these spheres.

This daunting challenge presents a challenging paradox. It has already been examined in the ancient Jewish legend of the Lamed-Vov; this is a Talmudic tradition that scholars generally trace back to Isaiah. Here, the whole world is said to rest upon thirty-six Just Men, the Lamed-Vov. Along normal criteria of differentiation, these figures are otherwise indistinguishable from ordinary mortals. Still, instructs the legend, if just one of their number were absent, the resultant sufferings of humankind would become staggering, poisoning even the purest souls of the newly-born.

This Talmud-explained paradox has some useful contemporary legal meaning for the United States. The modernized signification reveals that a widening circle of human compassion is indispensable to civilizational survival and yet, represents a source of private anguish. According to the Jewish legend, such overwhelming anguish would be unimaginable.

Still more questions must be raised. How shall President Trump or President Joe Biden begin to deal capably with a requirement for global civilization that is both essential and unbearable? Newly informed that empathy for many is a precondition for any decent and functioning world legal order, what could create such care without producing intolerable emotional pain? Recalling Ralph Waldo Emerson and the American Transcendentalists, remaining high-thinkers in the United States now ought to duly inquire: How can we be immediately released from the misconceived ideology of America First, a deranging posture that has been increasing the prospects not only of aggression, terrorism and genocide, but also of our now-uncontrolled disease pandemic?

There is more. The whole world, the world in toto, is a system. The existence of system in the world is at once obvious to every observer of nature, says the Jesuit philosopher, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, no matter whom.Each element of the Cosmos is positively woven from all the others. Above all, this dissembling Presidents soon-to-be-installed successor should fully and finally understand that the legal state of Americas national union can never be any better than the state of the world as a whole. This key truth now obtains not only in traditional reference to the enduring issues of war, peace and human rights, but also to patently critical matters of epidemic disease management.

Always, for the imperiled United States, the overarching presidential objective must be to protect the sacred dignity, safety and law-based rights of each and every individual human being. It is exactly this high-minded and ancient goal that should now give preeminent policy direction to a bewildered and bewildering President Trump and incoming American President Joe Biden. Such indisputably good counsel could represent a law-based corrective to Trumps consistently misleading endorsements of America First.

Naturally, it will be easy for many to dismiss any such seemingly lofty recommendations for human dignity and legal obligation as silly, ethereal or academic. But, in reality, there could never be any greater American presidential naivet than to insistently champion the patently false extremities of everyone for himself.

Among Trumps other egregious misunderstandings and falsifications, America First represented a sorely blemished presidential mantra. Devoid of empathy, intellect, and absolutely all principal obligations of human legal cooperation, it could only have led toward distressingly new heights of strife, disharmony and collective despair. Left intact and unrevised, America First would have pointed us all toward a potentially irreversible vita minima; that is, to badly corrupted personal lives emptied of themselves meaningless, shattered, rancorous, unfeeling and radically unstable.

Here, located among so many other melodramas and misfortunes, we would find it impossible to battle not just the usual adversaries involving violence, but also our increasingly fearful biological/pathogen-centered enemies.

There is more. Without a suitable expansion of empathy, we Americans will remain at the mercy not just of other predatory human beings, but also of certain exceedingly virulent pathogens. Progressively, the harmful synergies created by such dangerous combinations would sometime likely become too much to bear. And we could not count upon the Lamed-Vov to rescue us.

For all who would still value clear thinking, the cumulative legal lesson should be unassailable. We are all part of the same planetary whole. Only by placing Humanity First can an American president make America First. The latter placement, which must now include the capacity to combat disease pandemic as well as war, terrorism and genocide, is not possible without the former. Today, as America hopes to survive the closing days of Donald J. Trumps unraveling presidency, the driving reason behind this conclusion remains cosmopolitan and essentially unchanged.

Is it an end that draws near, asks postwar German philosopher Karl Jaspers in Man in the Modern Age (1951) or a beginning? To reply usefully, our national and international preparations must lie not in the warring streets of Donald J. Trump and Joseph Goebbels, but in the verifiable intellectual truths of history, science and jurisprudence. These basic truths are unhidden and ascertainable.

Americans now ought to embrace them together with other still-promising elements of the incoming Biden presidency. Inevitably, American security, global security and world law will remain intertwined. In the end, they must all become one.

Louis Ren Beres (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Law at Purdue. He is the author of twelve major books and several hundred journal articles in the field. Professor Beres writings appear in many leading newspapers and magazines, including The Atlantic, The Hill, U.S. News & World Report, The National Interest, The Jerusalem Post, The New York Times and Oxford University Press. In Israel, where his latest writings were published by the BESA Center for Strategic Studies, the Institute for Policy and Strategy and the Institute for National Security Studies, he was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon, 2003). Dr. Beres strategy-centered publications have been published in such places as The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; JURIST; Special Warfare (Pentagon); Infinity Journal (Israel); The Strategy Bridge; The War Room (USA War College); Modern War Institute (West Point); The Harvard National Security Journal (Harvard Law School); Modern Diplomacy; Yale Global Online; The International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Parameters: Journal of the U.S. Army War College, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Israel Defense (Tel Aviv); World Politics (Princeton); International Security (Harvard) and the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs. Professor Louis Ren Beres was born in Zrich, Switzerland, at the end of World War II.

Suggested citation: Louis Ren Beres, Dominating the Street: President Trump Recycles Lawlessness from the Gutter, JURIST Academic Commentary, November 25, 2020, https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2020/11/louis-rene-beres-trump-dominating-the-street/.

This article was prepared for publication by Akshita Tiwary, JURISTs Staff Editor. Please direct any questions or comments to her at commentary@jurist.org

Opinions expressed in JURIST Commentary are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JURIST's editors, staff, donors or the University of Pittsburgh.

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Dominating the Street: President Trump Recycles Lawlessness from the Gutter - JURIST

Photo: Anastasiia Krivenok | Getty Images

How Podcasting Can Help You Grow Your Online Course Business And Sell More Digital Products

Podcasts are one of the most powerful ways to build rapport with your audience and one of the best ways to build a brand and market and sell digital products, especially online courses.

Once you have figured out how to create an online course that sells and you are ready to set it on autopilot, you need to make a decision on how to drive consistent traffic to your core piece of content.Podcasting is a great way to do that.

Podcasts are a place where youll find people with long attention spans, who interested in your niche and are craving more information. Why would they be subscribed if they werent? Podcasting is the ultimate place to sell digital products, because theres an engaged audience and you get to network with other awesome people in your space.

Related:3 Effective Marketing Strategies For Selling Digital Products Online

Your listeners spend some of their most intimate time with you while they are either driving their car, going for a walk, getting ready for work, working out at the gym or before they head to bed. This builds what Joel Brown, the founder of the Addicted2Success podcast calls "the best friend effect."Most course creators are fighting to be seen and heard on social media, and this can be an expensive and exhausting game to play. In an email interview, Brown wrote that All you need is to record an ad for your course, which will be placed at the start of each episode. As each listener gets to know you and becomes familiar with your voice, they will remember you next time they are looking for a course to join. Not to mention if they are listening to a lot of episodes back-to-back they will hear your ad multiple times, which in turn makes it more likely they will eventually purchase your course if they believe you have a solution for them."

You become a well-versed speaker when you commit to a high volume of episode creation. If you are a coach,a podcast is a powerful value exchange you get to offer other coaches, speakers and authors, which will allow you to build a network of friends in your industry.

Related: The 3 Most Common Mistakes Online Course Creators Make

Podcasts are a place where you can establish yourself as an expert through the power of hijacking other peoples audiences, as Russel Brunson would say.Using the power of other peoples audiences by getting influential guests on your show can instantly build your credibility and authority in the industry.

Brown managed to get huge namessuch as Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Jay Shetty, Gary Vaynerchuk, Tim Ferriss, Grant Cardone, Gabrielle Bernstein, Lisa Nichols, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Brendon Burchard, Bob Proctor, John Assaraf and more through a combination of perseverance and luck. His podcast has been downloaded more than fourmillion times, and the YouTube videos of his podcast episodes have more than two million views.

I messaged Gary Vaynerchuk and told him I would purchase25 copies of his book Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hookand give them away as a competition on my social media channels in return for a quick 20-minute video interview," Brown wrote to me. "He loved the idea and said yes."

"I set a calendar reminder in my phone on the 21st of each month for 12 months straight to remind me to try another way to get in touch with Tony Robbins," he wrote."It took nine months and nine attempts until I finally got a yesfrom Tony. By the time he agreed, he had heard my name and Addicted2Success mentioned to him a few times from a few gatekeepers. It was perfect timing as his new book Money: Master The Gamehad just come out."

"John Assaraf, who was in the hit movie The Secret, was running a Masterclass to promote one of his courses," Brown told me."I put myself in his shoes and knew that he would need support to get as many subscribers as possible to fill his course. I offered to promote his course to my social media followers and email list, which at the time had 30,000 subscribers. He said yes."

For Addicted2Success, traction picked up very quickly once it hit 10,000 downloads per month. That kind of success isachievable when you have a solid game plan and strategy to consistently get all-star guests on your platform and are promoting each episode to your audiencemultiple times. It helps even more when you ask and encourage people to share your episodes with their friends, fans and followers too.

This more quickly you grow and the more listeners you have, the more you'll be picked up by podcast algorithms. That helps you rank in the top charts on Apple's podcast app and get featured on the main page of Soundcloud, for example.

Lets take the closer look at Scot Chrismanspodcast, The Athletic Stance,which focuses on mindset, nutrition, fitness and more for skiers.I was blessed to see a lot of traction quickly," Chrisman wrote in an email."It was the top podcast in sports on iTunes within 90 days. I was able to interview a lot of the best skiers and influential minds in skiing think of the Tony Hawks or the Michael Jordans of the skiing world including two-time Olympic gold medalist and six-time world championDavid Wise and 16-year-old bronze medal winner Nico Porteous. Getting these athletes on the show was a matter of persistence and passion. I sent out lots of requests, and I literally only got one no. The rest just ignored me if they didnt want to be a part of it. It helped that I was an up-and-coming pro, but it didnt mean it was always easy.

Coaches, consultantsand course creators can hugely benefit from starting a podcast, because it encourages them to create "Gary Vee-style" content that can then be broken down, multipliedand posted across social media platforms and blogs. To be able to keep selling online courses consistently, you need as much content as possible.

Podcasting is a great practice for speaking about your topic, diving into your expertise, creating content regularlyand systematically syndicating it out through multiple mediums.

So, when are you starting your podcast?

Related:4 Crucial Things To Consider Before Creating An Online Course

Related: How to Grow Your Entrepreneurial Superpower Why Family-Owned Businesses Need Specialized CFO Services 5 Productivity Rules to Keep You Focused When Working From Home

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How Podcasting Can Help You Grow Your Online Course Business And Sell More Digital Products - The Advocate

They say money can't buy happiness, but when it comes to retirement,a little extra cash never hurts.

Retirement is becoming more and more expensive, and the average U.S. adult is expected to outlive their savings by around eight to 10 years, according to a report from the World Economic Forum. If you run out of money later in life, it can be tough to enjoy your senior years.

While everyone will have different financial needs and goals in retirement, a new study shows there may be a dollar amount tied to happiness. Here's how much it costs to retire happy.

Image source: Getty Images.

In a study conducted by Audley Villages, a retirement home community based in the U.K., researchers ranked the happiest cities in the world, and determined how much the average person in those cities needs to retire comfortably.

The results revealed that it costs, on average, $288,240 to retire in the world's happiest cities. The city scoring highest on the "happiness index" was Helsinki, Finland, where it costs approximately $252,599 to retire. The least expensive city on the list was Wellington, New Zealand, with retirement costing $206,228.

Among U.S. cities, Honolulu was revealed to be the happiest. Researchers found that it costs around $304,591 to retire there.

While there's nothing wrong with seeing how much retirement costs on average, it's important not to base your retirement plan around these numbers alone.

Everyone's retirement will look different, and each retiree will also have a different definition of "happiness." Some retirees will be perfectly happy staying home and spending very little outside of their basic necessities. Others, though, may want to travel the world or take on expensive new hobbies in order to be happy in retirement.

As you're saving for retirement, it's important to think about your expectations for your senior years. Ask yourself what type of retirement lifestyle will make you happy, and consider how your future costs will compare to what you're spending now. You may find that your expenses will decrease in retirement, but they could just as easily skyrocket. By thinking about these expenses now, you'll have a better idea of how much retirement will cost.

Because everyone's retirement needs will differ, it's wise to calculate your retirement goals based on your unique situation.

Once you've determined approximately how much it will cost each year for you to enjoy a happy retirement, plug that information into a retirement calculator. Be sure to consider Social Security benefits as well, because although they likely won't cover all your expenses, they can reduce the amount you'll need to save.

As you're inputting your information into the retirement calculator, be honest with yourself about factors such as your retirement age and the amount of time you expect to spend in retirement. If you're battling health issues, for example, it may not be realistic to assume you'll be able to continue working into your 70s or spend several decades in retirement. The more accurate your inputs are, the more accurate your results will be as well.

Enjoying a happy retirement is a goal nearly everyone can strive for, but it takes strategic planning to achieve this target. By calculating your retirement needs and preparing accordingly, it will be easier to enjoy your senior years to the fullest.

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Report: This Is How Much It Costs to Retire Happy - The Motley Fool

Reforming the private retirement system has been one of the rare issues that Congress has been able to move on in a bipartisan way in recent years.

The SECURE Act was signed into law last December as part of a larger appropriations bill and Congressional advocates on the issue were hoping for a repeat in 2020. The House Ways and Means Committee recently unveiled a bill known colloquially as Secure Act 2.0 with further reforms.

But as Washington finalizes its spending plans for the end of the year, it appears that retirement reform measures wont be included and will have to wait until 2021.

It's more likely now that it would be right after the first of the year, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D., Mass.) told Yahoo Finance in an interview this week, adding that he sees no reason we couldn't have this done and on the new president's desk in late winter.

One of the bills main sponsors, Rep. Kevin Brady (R., Texas), had told reporters immediately after the election he was hopeful "that there's such a strong bipartisan support for a new retirement security bill that we can move that quickly. Brady, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee, pointed to end-of-the-year spending bills as a possible vehicle for the bill. Those must-pass pieces of legislation were the vehicle that got the SECURE Act - which included measures like removing the age limit restricting IRA contributions and expanding access to annuities in retirement plans - done in 2019.

The details on the reported $1.4 trillion spending package the type of bill that Congress must pass every year are currently being kept under wraps and many aspects still need to be negotiated, so things could change. Its also unclear if any economic stimulus measures will end up as a part of the final funding package.

Neal remains optimistic of a retirement bill in 2021: We intend to get this up and going, it's ready to go, he said. But it could be equally or more challenging to find space on the Congressional calendar for the legislation as President-elect Joe Biden will be trying to get his Cabinet approved and his campaign agenda enacted.

Story continues

Neal called the 2019 SECURE Act the most important advance of retirement savings in 15 years, and pointed to provisions in his new bill that build on it.

Perhaps the most significant piece of the new legislation is a rule pushing new employees to automatically enroll in their companys retirement plan if one is offered. Employees could opt out, but the default would be enrollment.

The bill would also push up the age for mandatory distributions in all private retirement plans (including 401(k)s and IRAs) from 72 to age 75.

Other provisions include changes to the SAVERS credit, which lets certain lower-income workers get additional tax breaks when they save for retirement. This change would simplify the program and index the credit to inflation.

Another provision in the bill makes it easier for employees to find their lost retirement accounts by creating a national database. The provision would help workers who move from company to company keep track of their retirement accounts. It would also help workers who move from state to state who participated in the various state-level plans (state-level IRA plans have been gaining traction around the country).

In addition to the bipartisan support in the House, many of these provisions have found backing in the Senate in a similar bill championed by Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio) and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).

Neal notes that, whatever the timeline for this particular bill, retirement reform is a career issue for him with broader ambitions in the years ahead. Democrats and Republicans have been able to show remarkable bipartisan support on the issue when the focus is on reforms to the private retirement system.

I think [the bipartisan streak] is because a lot of this stuff is forward-looking, said Andrew Biggs, a conservative-leaning retirement expert and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, in a recent interview. Where things get divisive is how you deal with the mistakes of the past, he said, pointing to some of the funding shortfalls that Social Security could see in the coming years.

According to recent analyses, the Social Security program could run short of money by 2031.

Clearly, I think that at some point we're going to need to look at the whole idea of raising Social Security benefits, Neal said. President Biden did indicate during the campaign that he's open to the discussion, I'm open to the discussion.

The average Social Security benefit for 2020 is about $1,503 a month. The debate during the Democratic primary was around how much not whether to increase those payouts. At the time, Sen. Bernie Sanders advocated the most ambitious plan, with Biden more focused on targeted benefit increases. Biden has voiced support for increases in survivor benefits and benefit increases for the oldest Americans, as well as a minimum benefit for workers who spent at least 30 years paying into the system.

Any Democratic plans to boost benefits, which will almost surely require an increase in payroll tax rates, will likely face strong Republican opposition.

Talking with reporters just days after the 2020 election, Rep. Brady pointed to Republican gains in the U.S. House of Representatives and said his takeaway was that Americans rejected higher taxes at the ballot box.

Ben Werschkul is a writer and producer for Yahoo Finance in Washington, DC.

Read more:

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Retirement reform likely slips to 2021 as Washington finalizes end-of-year spending - Yahoo Finance

A man in his 20s called 911 to say he fired in self-defense after being threatened with a gun, the Hillsborough Sheriffs Office said.

LITHIA A man shot to death by a relative at his Lithia home Wednesday appears to be a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who worked with U.S. Central Command in Tampa.

Citing an active investigation, the Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office declined Wednesday to release information on the shooting at a home in FishHawk Ranch including the name of the shooter or the person who was shot. A sheriffs spokeswoman confirmed the man who was shot was in his 50s.

Based on Sheriffs Office activity at the scene, the shooting happened at a home in the 15000 block of Starling Water Drive owned by Timothy and Colleen Missler, property records show.

The Tampa Bay Times requested a preliminary case summary report and autopsy for a 50-year-old Timothy Missler from the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner, but a county spokeswoman said the records are exempt from disclosure because they are part of an active criminal investigation.

A woman who answered at a phone number listed for Colleen Missler hung up Wednesday when a Times reporter identified himself. According to information released by the Sheriffs Office, a call was made from the home to 911 at 6:56 p.m. Wednesday.

The caller, a man in his 20s, told dispatchers that a male relative had threatened him with a gun. The caller said he armed himself because he was in fear for his life then shot the relative several times, the Sheriffs Office said.

When deputies arrived at the scene, they found the older man dead.

The caller was cooperating with investigators, the Sheriffs Office said. No arrests had been made as of Wednesday.

According to his Facebook and LinkedIn pages, Timothy Missler was a retired lieutenant colonel who served in the U.S. Marine Corps for 22 years, retiring in 2016, and worked as an instructor pilot for L3 Technologies.

From 2014 to 2016, he worked in Tampa at U.S. Marine Corps Central Command, or MARCENT, according to the LinkedIn profile. Among his duties was to supervise three top secret and secret operational and concept supporting plans to Central Commands ... series campaign plans, the profile says.

His Facebook profile describes him as a happily married father of two wonderful boys.

Breaking News Reporter Tampa Police and Hillsborough Sheriff

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Man fatally shot by relative in FishHawk Ranch home could be retired Marine officer - Tampa Bay Times

Does your ideal retirement include hours at the beach, challenging hikes or tennis matches? Maybe you want to enroll in writing classes, volunteer or finally get to some art museums. Whatever youre dreaming of, the first question to ask is: Where should I live?

While theres no simple answer, we tried to make it a little easier for you to decide the best place to retire. Money combed through about 47,500 data points and considered factors like housing, climate, diversity and safety to create a list of destinations to suit every taste and budget. You can see more about our methodology below.

Of course, 2020 isnt a normal time, and the pandemic means that some of the fun activities weve highlighted cant happen right now, or are only happening with special safety modifications. Even traveling to scope out new places may be unsafe for the time being. But choosing the right spot is a decision youre making for the long haul. So our list weighs factors that will make these cities stand out over time, plus natural attractions that can be enjoyed right now.

Focal Flame Photography / Courtesy of Destination Madison

Population: 256,000 Population 50-plus: 28.2% Days of sunshine a year: 185 Median home price: $292,000

A college town in the Badger State might not spring to mind as an ideal place to retire. But with tons of recreational activities and natural beauty, Madison, Wis. a metropolitan area sandwiched between two lakes has taken the top spot on our list.

Its many charms come at an affordable price. The citys median home price, $292,000, is one of the lowest of all our winners.

Usually, living near the University of Wisconsin has its perks. People aged 60 and older can also audit courses at the university for free, and during this fall semester, 800 did so virtually, according to the university. During a typical weekend, people can stroll in the university Arboretum and the Lakeshore Nature Preserve on campus.

Madison has a bustling restaurant scene and free events, like Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra concerts on the lawn of the state Capitol. Also near the Capitol is the Dane County Farmers Market, which touts itself as the largest producer-only market in the country and has extended its outdoor season during the pandemic.

The citys art institutions, like the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, and many movie theaters can provide a safe haven during a cloudy day. And when family visits, you can easily entertain kids by visiting the Madisons Children Museum and Henry Vilas Zoo, or renting a paddle board or kayak at one of the nearby lakes.

The state capital has 38 retirement communities, the most of all our winners.

Wisconsins sales tax is just around 5% among the five lowest in the country and the state provides property tax breaks for older residents. COVID-19 has certainly taken its toll on Wisconsin, but its workforce has fared better than much of the country, with its unemployment rate at 5.7% in October compared to the countrys 6.9%.

Population: 83,000 Population 50-plus: 48.4% Days of sunshine a year: 244 Median home price: $211,000

Once known as the Citrus City for its shipping of citrus to northern states, Largo, Florida is at the heart of Pinellas County, a peninsula surrounded by Tampa Bay and Gulf of Mexico. The city may not be a well-known retirement destination like Boca Raton to the southeast, but it offers plenty of beautiful beaches and sun for less.

Largo has the lowest median home price of our winners at $211,000. And Florida ties with Tennessee as being the most tax-friendly on our list, according to our data; neither has a state income tax. With 24 retirement communities in the area and nearly half the population aged 50 or older, its a welcoming place for retirees.

The city along the Gulf Coast scored highest among our winners for a pleasant atmosphere, thanks to its walkability and great weather. On a sunny day, residents can explore the Florida Botanical Gardens or 70-acre Largo Central Park with fountains, picnic pavilions and a playground. Those looking to entertain visiting friends and family can head to the Central Park Performing Arts Center to see music, dance and theater performances.

Of course, a main attraction for Largo is its proximity to beaches along the Gulf of Mexico and there are many to choose from. Largo residents are close to beaches with public access, like Indian Rocks Beach, St. Pete Beach and Clearwater Beach, which was named TripAdvisors best beach in the U.S. for three of the last five years (the other two years it was Siesta Beach, which is under a 90-minute drive from Largo). Finally, you cant talk about Florida without mentioning golf courses, and Largo is home to plenty, including the East Bay Golf Club and Pinecrest Golf Club.

Population: 62,000 Population 50-plus: 43.9% Days of sunshine a year: 205 Median home price: $500,000

Settled in the 1600s by Welsh Quakers, Lower Merion, Pennsylvania borders Philadelphia. The township has a suburban feel and easy access to a vibrant city known for its food and art scenes.

If being close to health care options in retirement is a concern, this city could be a good spot for you. In addition to having both the Bryn Mawr Hospital and Lankenau Hospital, Lower Merion has a high number of primary care providers, mental health providers and doctors in the area for its population, according to our data. However, this access does come at a cost. While Lower Merion scores highest among our winners for the strength of its economy, it also has the highest median home price on our list at $500,000.

But if youre looking for a variety of ways to stay mentally and physically active, Lower Merion the home of the womens college Bryn Mawr could be worth it. From the 12-acre Barnes Arboretum (which housed the well-known art institution the Barnes Foundation before it moved to Philly in 2012) to hikes along the Main Line, like the Cynwyd Heritage Trail, this spot is great for walkers. The pedestrian and bicycle network connects parks and the Schuylkill River with neighborhoods, businesses, schools and more.

For those looking for some indoor entertainment, being so close to the City of Brotherly Love means Lower Merion has 234 museums and 367 theaters within a 15-mile radius. Meanwhile, those 55 years old or older can become members of the Center For Positive Aging in Lower Merion (PALM), which offers services including weekly grocery shopping and free medical screenings, as well as classes, workshops and entertainment, some of which has continued virtually through the pandemic.

Population: 84,000 Population 50-plus: 36.5% Days of sunshine a year: 208 Median home price: $495,000

Most cities cant boast a history that spans from Benjamin Franklin to Neil Diamond and Taylor Swift but Franklin, Tenn. can. Named after the founding father and home to Dark Horse Recording Studios, where many well-known musicians have recorded albums, the city has made the top 10 of Moneys Best Places to Live lists for three of the last four years. Its secret is out: Franklin was one of the fastest growing large cities between 2010 and 2019, according to the Census Bureau.

While Franklins median home price is $495,000 high compared to some other cities on our list its lower than those in neighboring city Brentwood. The citys overall housing market ranked high among our winners, as relatively few households spend more than half their income on housing.

It may be just a half-hour drive to Nashvilles legendary music scene, but Franklin offers plenty of attractions in its own right. From walking tours of sites from the Civil Wars Battle of Franklin, to museums like the Lotz House and Williamson County Museum, youre not likely to get bored of the citys history. The historic district in Downtown Franklin also has 15 blocks of modern-day activities: restaurants, shopping, art galleries and more. And if you want to hear good live music, you dont have to travel to Nashville. At Pucketts Grocery & Restaurant you can enjoy live performances over some BBQ, and the Pilgrimage Music Festival has brought a wide variety of artists the Foo Fighters, Lionel Richie, Sheryl Crow and Justin Timberlake, to name a few to Franklins Harlinsdale Farm.

Focal Flame Photography/courtesy of Destination Madison

Brett Sayles / Boise Convention and Visitors Bureau

Population: 234,000 Population 50-plus: 34.1% Days of sunshine a year: 210 Median home price: $335,000

Where is the largest concentration of Basques the ethnic group with roots in the western foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains in the U.S.? If you somehow guessed Boise, Idaho, youd be correct. Idahos capital and most populous city even has the Basque Block downtown, with the Basque Museum and Cultural Center and The Basque Market, where you can find pintxos (Basque for tapas, small plates meant to be shared) and paella.

Boise State University makes Boise a university town, with over 26,000 students enrolled in 2019. Thats likely why it scored high for convenience in our rankings, with its proximity to grocery stores and food markets, pharmacies, banks, shopping centers and more.

Boise has the feel of a big city without the price tag that usually comes attached. Idahoans have low utility costs compared to the rest of the country and the lowest average monthly gas bill, according to a recent report from Move.org. And people 65 and older can ride the local bus system for as low as 75 cents.

Boise also has a thriving art scene. The city not only has street art and the Boise Art Museum, its also home to the Gene Harris Jazz Festival and Idaho Shakespeare Festival, as well as Ballet Idaho and the Boise Philharmonic. Yet amid all this culture, you dont have to compromise access to nature: residents also enjoy the view of Idahos mountains. In just one day, you can easily go from fishing or canoeing on the Boise River in the morning, to biking along the 25-mile Boise River Greenbelt in the afternoon to grabbing a bite downtown for dinner.

Population: 154,000 Population 50-plus: 38.6% Days of sunshine a year: 245 Median home price: $392,000

Just eight miles west of Denver a 15-minute ride on the light rail train Lakewood isnt bogged down by skyscrapers. Neighboring the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Lakewood has more than 7,200 acres of open space.

Houses in this city may cost more than some of our other winners, but median home prices fall short of the home sale prices in many other Colorado cities, like Centennial and Denver. And it makes up for that cost elsewhere, especially with inexpensive fun for the whole family. There are more than 850 amusements (think festivals, zoos, boat rentals and more) and 265 theaters within 15 miles.

Colorado is a go-to spot for anyone who loves the outdoors, and living in Lakewood means you have skiing, boating and hiking destinations like Bear Creek Lake Park, which has 15 miles of trails just a short drive away. But there is also plenty to keep you entertained indoors, from the Belmar shopping and dining spot with over 80 retailers and restaurants, to the Lakewood Cultural Center with art galleries and performing arts classes throughout the year.

For those over the age of 55, the Lloyd G. Clements Community Center offers day trips, drop-in activities like dance and art classes, sports, community meals and more. The Older Adult Wellness Fair (although cancelled this year due to COVID-19) usually brings the community together for fitness classes, strength tests and health assessments.

Courtesy of Explore Asheville

Population: 94,000 Population 50-plus: 35.8% Days of sunshine a year: 212 Median home price: $328,000

Youre probably not looking to retire in the largest privately-owned house in the country, but if you were, youd head to Asheville, N.C. The Biltmore House, now a museum, has 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces.

Biltmore aside, the cost of living is relatively low in Asheville. You can get a hamburger at Tastee Diner for just $5, and the bus fare for those aged 65 and older is just 50 cents (or $110 for an annual pass).

At the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at University of North Carolina (UNC) Asheville, older adults can take classes from UNC faculty on everything from economics to photography (classes have moved online during the pandemic). You can also take advantage of the local Blue Ridge Mountains with Senior Treks, low-impact hikes run through the Asheville Parks and Recreation Outdoor Programs. The hiking opportunities dont stop there Asheville is less than an hour-long drive from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Pisgah National Forest.

And once youre comfortable dining out again, you wont run out of new restaurants to try. Asheville was on The Daily Meals 2019 list of top foodie towns in America, and its visitors bureau Explore Asheville refers to it as a Foodtopia. It seems to live up to the name. Asheville has the highest numbers of bars and restaurants per capita among our winners.

There are also 12 retirement communities in the area.

Population: 45,000 Population 50-plus: 43.7% Days of sunshine a year: 205 Median home price: $390,000

Bridgewater Township in New Jersey has changed plenty since the stars-and-stripes flew above it for the very first time in 1777. From a small farming community as recently as the fifties, the township has evolved into one of the hottest suburbs of New York City because of its proximity to the Big Apple alongside affordable real estate and lower crime rates.

Located just 40 minutes from Newark and 90 minutes by train from Penn Station in Manhattan, Bridgewater has median home prices of $390,000. Compare that with half a million dollars for the New YorkNewarkJersey City metro area.

One of Bridgewaters major draws is the Washington Valley Park, where visitors can enjoy 720 acres of pine and hemlock forests, as well as a 21-acre reservoir open to fishing. A network of trails allows for hiking and mountain biking, while the Hawk Watch Area is popular with birdwatchers, as it provides a spot to view the August to November migration of raptor birds (including hawks, ospreys, and bald eagles) down south.

Back in town, golf enthusiasts will enjoy hitting the links at the Green Knoll Golf Course, one of the many publicly maintained courses in Somerset County. Green Knoll offers challenges for golfers of all levels, while aspiring golfers can take courses at the Learning Center in the Neshanic Valley Golf Course in nearby Neshanic Station.

For a taste of MLB-level talent without the price tag, you can catch the Somerset Patriots, the New York Yankees Double-A affiliate team, at TD Bank Ballpark. Premium field box tickets go for as low as $15 (though games with crowds are currently on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.)

Population: 143,000 Population 50-plus: 36.2% Days of sunshine a year: 265 Median home price: $461,000

The city of Roseville is located 20 minutes north of Sacramento to the east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Like the rest of the Sacramento area, Roseville enjoys a Mediterranean climate. Living there doesnt just mean great weather; it also means great wine.

There are 52 vineyards within 25 miles of Roseville, the most of any city on our list. From family businesses like Dora Dain Wines to world-class wineries like Wise Villa, its easy to make a weekend (or four) out of tasting the best varieties the region has to offer.

All these sunny days mean theres plenty of fun to be had outdoors. There are plenty of golf courses in the city, including the Sierra View Country Club and the Woodcreek Golf Club. Roseville also has the All-American Speedway, a NASCAR-sanctioned racetrack that is a favorite with locals.

The Westfield Galleria, the second-largest mall in northern California, is located in the city, featuring flagship store Nordstrom and everything from Hugo Boss to the Disney Store. Other malls in downtown Roseville are Stanford Ranch and the Ridge at Creekside.

And once youve explored everything Roseville has to offer and it might take a while just remember that Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada ski resorts are just two hours away.

Population: 84,000 Population 50-plus: 41.8% Days of sunshine a year: 278 Median home price: $367,000

This vibrant state capital in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains is famed for its cultural scene and natural beauty, making it ideal for retirees who want to live life to the fullest.

Santa Fe has the most clear-sky days of any city or town on our list, which is great news for outdoor enthusiasts. There are hundreds of trails in and around Santa Fe for beginners and experienced hikers alike, with the Santa Fe National Forest being a major destination. This forest spans over one million acres, including 300,000 acres of untouched wilderness, 1,000 miles of rivers, and almost 20 lakes open to fishing with a New Mexico license.

If youre more drawn to cultural attractions, theres a lot to love about Santa Fe. History buffs will enjoy walking the historic city center, with its old-fashioned adobe buildings, local eateries and shops, and landmarks like the Loretto Chapel, famous for its miraculous staircase, a spiraling wooden structure with two 360-degree turns and no visible means of support.

Santa Fe is also home to dozens of museums and art galleries. Some standouts are the Museum of International Folk Art, where the Girard Wing features a Mexican town in miniature, and the Georgia OKeefe Museum, dedicated to the artist who lived her last years in Santa Fe. Another local favorite is El Rancho de las Golondrinas, a living 18th-century village with adobe houses and costumed re-enactors. Multiple events are held in the ranch year-round dont miss the Santa Fe Wine Festival in July or the Harvest Festival in the fall.

To find Moneys Best Places to Retire, we looked only at places with populations above 50,000. We eliminated any location that had more than double the national crime risk, less than 85% of its states median household income or a lack of racial diversity. This gave us 1,890 places.

We then collected about 47,500 different data points to narrow the list, and filtered out locations with a median sales price above $550,000 in the first quarter of 2020. We considered data on each places housing market, economic health, cost of living, quality of life, mental and physical health factors, diversity and amenities, all provided by research partner Witlytic. You can view more information about the data we used here. To pick the retirement destinations noted here, we put the greatest weight on quality of life factors (like weather and percentage of residents age 50 or above), cost of living, health and safety amenities and the housing market.

Among the statistics called out here: Population and percent of population age 50 or above data reflect Synergos Technologies Inc.s interpretation of Census and IRS data. Median home sale price reflects the first quarter of 2020 median from Attom Data. Count of days of sunshine a year reflects clear day data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

See the article here:
The 10 Best Places to Retire in America - Money

Justice of the Peace Pedro Hernandez performs a wedding in 2011.

Yellowstone County Justice of the Peace Pedro Hernandez is sworn in by Judge Ingrid Gustafson during a ceremony at the County Commissioners offices in 2010.

Three years after retiring, former Yellowstone County Justice of the Peace Pedro Hernandez died Sunday afternoon of COVID-19 related pneumonia.

At the time his retirement was announced in Sept. 2017, Hernandez was 76 years old and had worked as a judge for 42 years. He said at the time that he was the longest-serving elected judge in Montana.

The judge was married to Debby Hernandez, who served as Yellowstone County's auditor from 2003 to 2017. She also announced her retirement in September 2017.

Pedro Hernandez was appointed in 1975 to fill a vacancy. He served in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War and studied criminal and juvenile justice at Eastern Montana College, now known as Montana State University Billings.

In 1970, Hernandez became a police officer before taking a job in 1972 as a probation officer for the 13th Judicial District.

Hernandez did not have a law degree, which is not a requirement for a justice of the peace. He had said in the past that he met all of the education requirements to serve as judge, completed mandatory training and testing and maintained his certification as required by the Montana Supreme Court.

At the time of his retirement he was a member of the Yellowstone County Bar Association, the American Bar Association and the American Judges Association.

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Pedro Hernandez, retired justice of the peace, dies - Billings Gazette