Jumpers & 25nm ...

 

Jumpers

Smart beyond belief, sighted and dreamers to the max with a brain the size of a grain of sand, these little guys run rings around supercooled and isolated chandeliers of QCs while moving at light speed in planning the best line of attack in realtime. How do they do it? Microtubules and their deep connect to 25nm.

In comparison ...

IBM quantum computer demo at ITU WTSA 2024 in Delhi

Quantum computers are not yet practical for real-world applications. Physically engineering high-quality qubits has proven to be challenging. If a physical qubit is not sufficiently isolated from its environment, it suffers from quantum decoherence, introducing noise into calculations. National governments have invested heavily in experimental research aimed at developing scalable qubits with longer coherence times and lower error rates. Example implementations include superconductors (which isolate an electrical current by eliminating electrical resistance) and ion traps (which confine a single atomic particle using electromagnetic fields). 

For jumpers, a leaf, prey close enough to catch and a place to anchor

it's silk thread in case the spider misses.

Why 25nm? As per Gemini

The theory

First example of 25nm  - The Microtubule

Casimir force using metal plates 25nms apart

The microtubuel is the Casimir effect as it's width is exactly 25nm

The MT's cut in half to show why this is so.

25 nm also applies to ...

It from Bit

Which means everything that's exactly 25nm is, in effect, a Casimir effect including the timeless
speed of light blur connecting analog to digital and vis versa. 

The analog, forever separated by the timeless blur from digital. Said transaction goes both ways  

The white line is the 25 nm timeless blur forever separating analog from digital and vis versa

The exact process, as defined by Gemini, shows we live in a participatory reality
endlessly switching from analog to digital and vis versa as needs warrant. :)

There are other numbers like 25nm vital to showing why 25nm is significant.

Gemini with linguistic addons for added spice by yours truly. :)

It from Bit lives. :)

The ultimate recycler

ER = EPR is a theory involving wormholes and entanglement, thus providing the support structure enabling the particle zoo to emerge as we are but temporary arrangements of the quantum foam
as described by Susskind and Maldacena.

Time emerges from entanglement. The only entities not experiencing time
are photons, gluons and gravitons
as all are massless and travel at the speed of light.

ER = EPR is a conjecture in physics stating that two entangled particles (a so-called Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen or EPR pair) are connected by a wormhole (or Einstein–Rosen bridge)[1][2] and is thought by some to be a basis for unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics into a theory of everything.[1]

The conjecture was proposed by Leonard Susskind and Juan Maldacena in 2013.[

So, what could cause this connect to be able to link two objects together instantaneously without regard to distance? As a total lay person not versed in math or physics in anyway, the take yours truly will take may be laughable but it's not totally crazed when one thinks about the quantum foam, a construct conceived by physicist John Wheeler to explain what space time would look like at the Planck length of 10-20 of a diameter of a proton. Seems the foam would not have space or time assigned to it as the foam is conjectured to consist of minuscule black holes winking in and out of existence at about 10-43 seconds, the time it takes for light to traverse the Planck distance of 10-20 of a diameter of a proton.

If this is the case, the question to ask is, does time exist in the quantum foam where only virtual particles issue forth and disappear according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, thus precluding any chance of time happening in the foam as "real" protons, neutrons and all the rest of the subatomic zoo appear, AFAIK, to be temporary arrangements of the quantum foam subject to varying rates of decay, thus creating the illusion of time as seen in this part of the multiverse. If this is true, then, could the act of entanglement create a link consisting of, in some weird way, a "thread" akin to a wormhole of the quantum foam, forever separate from the constraints of time or the speed of light in enabling two (or more) linked particles to instantly "talk" to one another no matter how far apart they may be. RM

Pray, my dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up the clock?

Laurence Sterne: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Volume I (1760), Chapter I

Entanglement, the Link to Forever

A fun meander for the ages begins to show why nature's the ultimate recycler. :)

Hawking radiation

Hawking Evaporation with the black hole exploding as end result

On creation and destruction. Black holes/Wormholes evaporate and explode as per Stephen Hawking's brilliant conjecture that nothing is forever save for photons, gluons and gravitons as all three are massless and travel at the speed of light. As possible proof, we may have actually seen one explode. 

As a study in the journal Nature noted last year, the neutrino was more than 100,000 times as energetic as any particle ever produced in colliders on Earth, and more energetic than astrophysicists can easily explain based on the part of the sky the neutrinos came from. But astrophysicists are trying, and some have proposed a truly ambitious explanation: This cosmic bullet came from an exploding black hole, an object so dense that not even light can escape its gravity.

In 1974, the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking calculated that black holes leak and eventually explode, releasing energy that had been entombed for centuries in a sort of mini-replica of the Big Bang. But no one has ever seen it happen.

The recycle

Exploding blackholes/wormholes at the Planck length of 10-35

If the NYTimes piece rings true, then black holes of all sizes evaporate and explode from Planck length size of 10-35 to the one we live in, the only difference being the size of the hole and the life time of same, which means ... endless big bangs have powered reality forever. 13.7 billion years ago "our" big bang was just one of the endless. Everything spins. 

A mass–radius log plot of various objects

In particle physics and physical cosmology, Planck units are a system of units of measurement defined exclusively in terms of four universal physical constants: c, G, ħ, and kB. Expressing one of these physical constants in terms of Planck units yields a numerical value of 1. They are a system of natural units, defined using fundamental properties of nature (specifically, properties of free space) rather than properties of a chosen prototype object. Originally proposed in 1899 by German physicist Max Planck, they are relevant in research on unified theories such as quantum gravity.

If this is the case, the question to ask is, does time exist in the quantum foam where only virtual particles issue forth and disappear according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, thus precluding any chance of time happening in the foam as "real" protons, neutrons and all the rest of the subatomic zoo appear, AFAIK, to be temporary arrangements of the quantum foam subject to varying rates of decay, thus creating the illusion of time as seen in this part of the multiverse. The answer is yes save for photons, gluons and gravitons as these massless particles, aka bosons,  travel at the speed of light, hence they are immortal and do not experience time.

ER=EPR the connect to It from Bit

It from Bit

Reality is a transaction engine. Jonathan Wheeler's It from Bit proves this to be so.

"It from bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe. 

What's also true is It from Bit arises whenever a black hole evaporates and explodes due to the participatory nature of existence. Also, the exact moment the transaction occurs is the blur, the infinitely thin speed of light/timeless entity enabling reality to complete the process of going from analog to digital in order to balance out the energy equation generated by the two entities in question. Think Day in the life when the rising indefinite analog pitch of the piece races to the ultimate, only to be firmly resolved by the finality of the E Major Chord for the ages.

The analog, forever separated by the timeless blur from digital. Said transaction goes both ways.  

The white line is the 25nm timeless blur forever separating analog from digital & vis versa

Why timeless? Because the speed of light and the move from analog to digital demands it as S.O.L. is the both the exact blur of energy transitioning to matter, i.e. E =. MC2, and analog to digital. The vis versa bit applies because whenever an electron releases the digital photon, aka a quanta, the newly released photon, running in free space, becomes analog once again.

What is this? Being rather math challenged to the extreme, I asked Gemini to verify my explanation for the Einstein and Wheeler-DeWitt equations as I understand the first as C = light/Photon, a Boson, the force carrier particle equivalent to matter with the dividing line being the speed of light as that is the exact center point where the analog boson of light transitions into digital matter i.e. Photon transitions to a quanta to enter into the Electron. Think photoelectric effect to visualize why this is so. In effect, Einstein's equation depicts the analog to digital process from the energy side.

 

Note: Photons, gravitons and gluons travel at the speed of light.

As for Wheeler-DeWitt, it depicts the analog to digital transition as a balancing act, directly equivalent to Einstein in execution but different in application as it shows why the collapse of the wave function from analog to digital (decoherence) dissipates the energy of analog by transiting to digital. Think the E Major chord in Day in a Life - Sgt. Peppers and Yang & Yin as the two equations are complementary.

Fermat's principle, also known as the principle of least time, is the link between ray optics and wave optics. Fermat's principle states that the path taken by a ray between two given points is the path that can be traveled in the least time. The principle of least action deals with classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, particle physics, and general relativity.[1] where nature will also choose the most efficient path in going from point A to point B. Nature's lazy, never expending more energy than absolutely necessary to accomplish any given task. 0.57721 aka slippage, is also necessary as without it, existence would freeze up like a car engine without oil.

Principle of least action where the optimal path is the one always selected. 

Nature doesn't draw straight lines as energy is generated from within. Man draws straight lines
as energy is applied from without. Think corporate identity.

I/O the logo for Ionomer - RM

Self similarity, the fractal

In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illustrated in successive magnifications of the Mandelbrot set.[1][2][3][4] This exhibition of similar patterns at increasingly smaller scales is called self-similarity, also known as expanding symmetry or unfolding symmetry; if this replication is exactly the same at every scale, as in the Menger sponge, the shape is called affine self-similar.[5] Fractal geometry relates to the mathematical branch of measure theory by their Hausdorff dimension.

From the Planck length of 10-35 to the black hole in which we all live, the images shown here detail scale invariance, an essential trait necessary to show how reality works at deep level.

Lastly,incompleteness and uncertainty rule and there is no certitude.
Remember, when going to a store, one knows a parking space will open up,
we just don't know when. :)

And ... This sentence is false.

"Space acts on matter, telling it how to move.

In turn, matter reacts back on space, telling it how to curve.”  - Johnathan Wheeler 1973

God must be a boogie man - Joni Mitchell

Note; All the art in the post was created by yours truly using NanaBana 2 on Magnific
save the Wikipedia graphic depicting the Planck Units.

Putting it in perspective ...

 

An Amazon Web Services data center near single-family homes in Stone Ridge, Virginia. Northern Virginia is the largest data center market in the world, according to a report this year cited in published accounts, but is facing headwinds from availability of land and electric power.

Your's truly lives in a small town, devoid of monstrosities like the AWS data center seen at the top of the pix. No doubt, the folks buying houses in in Stone Ridge a few years ago never envisioned a monster like this coming in, up close and personal, along the lines of The Man who came to Dinner but with the DC, there is no intention on ever leaving. 

The play is set in the small town of Mesalia, Ohio in the weeks leading to Christmas in the late 1930s. The famously outlandish New York City radio wit Sheridan Whiteside ('Sherry' to his friends) is invited to dine at the house of the well-to-do factory owner Ernest W. Stanley and his family. But before Whiteside can enter the house, he slips on a patch of ice outside the Stanleys' front door and injures his hip. Confined to the Stanleys' home, Whiteside is looked after by several professionals: Dr. Bradley, the absent-minded town physician, Miss Preen, his frantic nurse, and Maggie Cutler, his faithful secretary.

Confined to the house for a month, Whiteside drives his hosts mad by viciously insulting them, monopolizing their house and staff, running up large phone bills, and receiving many bizarre guests, including paroled convicts, and the eccentric Professor Metz, who brings him a glass-encased cockroach colony. Although he earns the intense dislike of Mr. Stanley, Whiteside manages to befriend his adult children, June and Richard, as well as his wildly eccentric older sister, Harriet Stanley.

Absolutely hilarious while being frightening at the same time, the play's a hoot.
Unlike Whiteside, the DC will be around far longer then an month. 

While some are worse than others, the stories people tell about how data centers invade and disrupt their communities follow the same contours. The tech company and their swarm of contractors are in town before you know it, and they’re already scheming with local leaders. In no uncertain terms, your elected officials have chosen tech billionaires over their own neighbors.

Soon, an army of men with bulldozers are tearing out trees near your home and ripping up fields. Dump trucks careen around town, and the night sky is so polluted with light, you can’t see the stars. A year or so later, the data center is up and running. By then, the high-paying construction jobs have all but disappeared.

After months of digging, you finally have an idea of how much water the data center actually consumes. If you’re lucky, your area isn’t in a drought. You hope things won’t get dire. Meanwhile, the monolith is droning and hissing, wearing you and your neighbors down with constant noise. You hope the water you do have will be drinkable this time next year as you try to adjust to the unnatural heat the data center generates.

The militaristic drive to build the best chatbot and somehow “beat China” knows no bounds, including those of logic. This nightmarish iteration of the extraction economy was made possible by undemocratic processes and a national administration that sold us and our resources out to tech oligarchs. But people in these towns and cities are smarter and tougher than the plutocrats accounted for—and they’re putting up one hell of a fight. Told by people whose communities have been impacted, this is the story of unhinged data center expansion in America.

Amazon’s Web Services data center in Stone Ridge, Virginia, in July 2024

Anger is beginning to build ...

Up Goer 5/Rev II

Copyright AP Photo/Eric Gay

I'm not a financial guy or savvy investor but I do know the smell of desperation when you gotta get money and it seems SpaceX is doing just that by offering bonds to keep the lights on. Going into debt right after offering an IPO is not smart business unless yours truly is missing something in thinking about this. The pix computes as this is a setting sun, not a sunrise as rockets are not the long term solution for man to reach the stars in any significant way.

SpaceX sheds $600 billion in three days as it taps the bond market for the first time

SpaceX shares have fallen for a third straight session, sinking to their lowest level since the firm's market debut and wiping out most of the spectacular gains made after its IPO, just as it launches its first-ever bond sale.

SpaceX shares closed at $154.63 on Monday, down around 16% on the day. That leaves them within touching distance of the $150 at which the shares first changed hands when public trading opened, the level set once underwriters finished building the order book, though still some way above the $135 price at which the IPO itself was struck.

The slide has erased more than $600 billion (€524.2bn) in market value over three trading days, dragging the company down from a peak that had lifted it past Amazon and, fleetingly, Microsoft, in terms of market capitalisation.

Its valuation now sits just above $2 trillion (€1.74tn), below Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), making it the seventh most valuable company in the world.

The retreat unwinds a remarkable opening run.

After the open at around $150 on 12 June, shares climbed to almost $226 by 16 June, a gain of roughly two-thirds before the company had published a single set of results as a public firm.

Currently, SpaceX is trading over 30% lower than the intraday high of around $226 and only 3% higher than the opening price.

That rally always rested on a thin pool of freely traded shares and lofty expectations for its AI ambitions, leaving it exposed to a sharp reversal once sentiment turned.

A brief blast of intense light applies then ...

SpaceX lands investment-grade credit ratings as shares tumble from record high

SpaceX buys AI coding startup Cursor for $60bn as AI race with OpenAI and Anthropic intensifies

Tapping debt to fund the AI push

The latest leg down on Monday coincided with SpaceX's first move into the corporate debt market.

The company announced an inaugural offering of senior unsecured notes, with people familiar with the plans reportedly putting the target at around $20 billion (€17.4bn).

fades away.

Up Goer 5/Rev II applies along with 1634-7 = 2026??? 

You can't polish a turd son ...

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the “Winning the AI Race” AI Summit at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, DC, on July 23, 2025. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Getty Images

You can't polish a turd son, you can't polish a turd, an old Texas catch phrase applies as does Lincoln's take on stupidity ... Better to Remain Silent and Be Thought a Fool than to Speak and Remove All Doubt

This is where we are at. From data centers eating the world to an administration not knowing anything,

the pix says it all. All the bloviation in the world cannot cover the fact this once great nation has lost it's way.

The U.S. Is Losing the AI Credibility War—to Itself

Recent restrictions on advanced AI models are undermining critical U.S. cybersecurity outcomes. The administration needs a coherent strategy to work with the private sector, stay ahead of adversaries, keep allies on board, and maintain trust in the U.S. AI stack.

On June 11, Anthropic apologized after it emerged that its newest AI model, Fable 5, had been silently limiting responses to users suspected of attempting to replicate its technology. The model had also been criticized for refusing to respond to any cyber-related queries, redirecting users to less capable models instead. Two days later, President Donald Trump’s administration barred foreign nationals from accessing Anthropic’s two newest frontier models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, citing national security concerns. Unable to screen users by nationality, Anthropic announced it had disabled both models worldwide.

The TA kinda knows but not really.

The episode underscored how much both administration officials and frontier model developers now recognize the serious cybersecurity risks posed by advanced AI. For Anthropic’s founders, AI safety and security have long been central to their mission. For the White House, Mythos’s emergence earlier this year produced a remarkable about-face, forcing the administration to shift from an aggressive deregulatory agenda to one that is more risk-conscious.

Different depictions of Janus from Bernard de Montfaucon's
L'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus (/ˈdʒeɪnəs/ JAY-nəs; Latin: Iānus [ˈi̯aːnʊs]) is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways,[2] passages, frames, and endings. He is usually depicted as having a double-sided head. The month of January is named for Janus (Ianuarius).[3] According to ancient Roman farmers' almanacs, Juno was mistaken as the tutelary deity of the month of January,[4] but Juno is the tutelary deity of the month of June.

Indirectly this applies to the TA save for the fact this administration spins chaotically out of control
and cannot function as a viable entity when it comes to competent governance. 

Although this shared focus on AI and cybersecurity is a positive development, over-indexing on risk and failing to align on a clear way forward could cause the United States to miss out on a generational opportunity to improve national cyber defenses.

Using AI for defensive advantage

The administration’s post-Mythos strategy centered on a cyber window of opportunity. The White House believed that American companies and agencies could leverage advanced AI tools to fix as many software vulnerabilities as possible before adversaries acquired and weaponized similar capabilities. Frontier labs operationalized this approach by providing—and sometimes funding—limited access to models with advanced cybersecurity capabilities.

Reacting, not thinking. Situational awareness applies ...

But two recent developments reportedly drove the White House to abruptly reverse course: first, that restricted models had been accessed by unauthorized parties, and second, that guardrails in public models could be bypassed in limited cases. The restrictions on Anthropic’s models are now causing widespread uncertainty in the cybersecurity market and risk wasting a fleeting opportunity to harden U.S. networks.

Transparency is crucial. No system is invulnerable. Everything can be hacked.
This is why transparency is NOT an option.

AI tools promise to shift the dynamics of cyber defense and exploitation in favor of defenders. Realizing this outcome requires putting these capabilities in the hands of as many defenders as possible, even if malicious actors also gain access along the way. Transparency has long been a foundational principle of information security. Open-source software and bug-bounty programs provide shared resilience, even when they surface vulnerabilities along the way.

Adversaries will eventually obtain their own advanced AI capabilities. That may come from jailbreaking publicly available frontier models, gaining illicit access to controlled U.S. models, or developing their own. Estimates put China’s leading models at roughly three to eight months behind the most advanced U.S. models. Even if U.S. labs preserve their relative advantage, Chinese offensive cyber capabilities will continue to mature.

It's inevitable ...

When China acquires its own Mythos-like capability, the United States will need to be ready. That means maximizing this window of opportunity to expand access to defensive tools and increase the speed and scale of software patching.

Double herm. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek original.

The Midas touch ...

 

Donald Trump has said the reflecting pool will probably need to be drained

for a second round of repairs. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

On June 20th, Perfect! was the initial blurb on the Reflecting Pool delineating just how grossly incompetent and evil this administration truly is. This short rant isn't about liberal or conservative, it's about being able to do anything of consequence without screwing the pooch. The Guardian pix says it all. A know nothing, a very stable genius, has shown to everyone he doesn't know his ass from a hole in a ground but still looks for the hole. It's like bellybutton lint, it too is kinda gross but at least the condition remains private, this insult to America and the world does not.

Narcissus, oil painting by Baroque artist Caravaggio.

Narcissus was cursed to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Donald Trump is finding that his effort to overhaul the Lincoln ⁠Memorial reflecting pool in Washington has turned into a perverse tourist attraction and 2,028ft national metaphor.

On Monday afternoon a massive algae bloom had turned the pool a green reminiscent of a plane passenger clutching a sick bag. It also stank, but that did not deter a steady flow of curious tourists snapping photos and TV crews doing eyewitness interviews about the folly of Donald Trump’s $14.7m renovation.

“He has a contrary of the Midas touch, which is everything he touches becomes crap,” said José Lebron, 32, a local tour guide standing poolside. “I’m worried because now the point of visiting the pool is seeing the whole spectacle of the mistake. It’s not enjoying what the pool actually is meant for, which is a reflective space.”

The pool was designed more than a century ago to connect the Washington Monument with the Lincoln Memorial, Lebron added. “Now we’re not talking about that; now we’re analysing what a bad job it is, how it’s peeling, how the animals are dying, that it’s not a healthy ecosystem, that the algae are blooming. I don’t like that changing conversation. It feels like personification of this whole thing.”

Truer words never spoken.

Guardian graphic.

Source: EarthCam archive.

Methodology: Colour of pool averaged daily, calibrated against satellite imagery.
Red hues filtered to visualise greens and blues.

The Midas touch ...

Ghost in the machine

The first use of a hydrogen bubble chamber to detect neutrinos, on November 13, 1970. A neutrino hit a proton in a hydrogen atom. The collision occurred at the point where three tracks emanate on the right of the photograph.

Neutrino's are everywhere, passing through us by the trillions every second. They are truly ghosts in the machine. They are the only particle connecting to the weak force and gravity, hence their unique ability of being in the world but not of it.

A neutrino (/njuːˈtriːnoʊ/ new-TREE-noh; denoted by the Greek letter ν) is an elementary particle that interacts via the weak interaction and gravity.[2][3] The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small (-ino) that it was long thought to be zero. The rest mass of the neutrino is much smaller than that of the other known elementary particles (excluding massless particles).[4] The weak force has a very short range, the gravitational interaction is extremely weak due to the very small mass of the neutrino, and neutrinos do not participate in the electromagnetic interaction or the strong interaction.[5] Consequently, neutrinos typically pass through normal matter unimpeded and with no detectable effect.

As per Gemini, 

They are the only particles that exclusively feel the macro fabric of spacetime (Gravity)
and the discrete quantum decay of the atomic world (the weak force).

Standard Model of Particle Physics. The diagram shows the elementary particles of the Standard Model (the Higgs boson, the three generations of quarks and leptons, and the gauge bosons), including their names, masses, spins, charges, chiralities, and interactions with the strong, weak and electromagnetic forces. It also depicts the crucial role of the Higgs boson in electroweak symmetry breaking, and shows how the properties of the various particles differ in the (high-energy) symmetric phase (top) and the (low-energy) broken-symmetry phase (bottom).

Perhaps a way to achieve unification of the four forces may be possible by looking closely at the relationship of the neutrino to gravity and the weak force as the Standard Model doesn't include the one entity keeping all of reality together 24/7. It's worth a shot, right? :)

Thru the back door ...

 Donald Trump welcomes Benjamin Netanyahu to his Mar-a-Lago club on Dec. 29, 2025,
in Palm Beach, Fla. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Thru the back door applies as this pix says it all. Like a tick latching onto a host to draw blood, Israel, via AIPAC, controls congress via monies, hence, the endless MOUs favoring Israel while compromising the US, continues unabated. Now, the latest ploy is to join the military of the two nations at the hip if the latest proposed Israeli/US MOU, Memorandum of Understanding become law. Dangerville comes to mind here as this is not only an entangled alliance, but now, is forced teaming to the nth degree, something Eisenhower, Kennedy or the the troika of Washington, Jefferson or Madison, would never allow under any circumstances.

The Trump Administration and Israeli government are reportedly negotiating a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on U.S. foreign assistance to Israel, which, if completed, would make it the fourth such bilateral understanding reached between the two countries. MOUs are not legally binding agreements like treaties and do not require Senate ratification; ultimately, lawmakers' appropriations power subjects foreign assistance levels delineated in MOUs to congressional approval. Past MOUs have significantly influenced U.S. aid to Israel; historically, Congress has appropriated foreign aid to Israel largely according to the terms of the MOU in place at the time (with the exception of supplemental appropriations acts). Congress last authorized military aid to Israel per the terms of the current MOU in P.L. 116-283, the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for FY2021. With potentially consequential elections scheduled this fall in Israel and Israel seeking munitions replenishment in light of the war in Iran and other conflicts, both sides may seek to complete a new MOU in the months ahead.

The Camel's Nose

According to this classic tale, one cold night, a camel asks his master if he can put his head in the tent for warmth. “By all means and welcome,” said the man; and the camel stretches his head into the tent. Soon after, the camel inquires if he may also bring his neck and front legs inside. Again, the master agrees.

Finally, the camel asks, “May I not stand wholly within?” With pity, the master beckons him into the warm tent. But when the camel comes forward it becomes clear that the tent is too small for them both. “I think,” the camel said, “that there is not room for both of us here. It will be best for you to stand outside, as you are the smaller; there will then be room enough for me.” And with that, the man is forced outside of his tent.

The danger.

 

A controversial insertion in the National Defense Authorization Act currently winding its way through the House would permanently intertwine U.S. and Israeli defense technology, including artificial intelligence and autonomous systems.

Lawmakers and military experts told The Intercept that Section 224, named “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” is highly irregular — and closely resembles a bipartisan bill backed by the pro-Israel lobby that died in Congress earlier this year.

“I can’t think of another example of Congress formalizing integration of critical national security technologies with a foreign power,” said retired Air Force Lt. Col. William Astore.

Unlike traditional foreign military aid programs, Section 224 would establish a framework for integrating Israeli-developed technologies directly into U.S. research, procurement, manufacturing, and acquisition processes — which military experts warned would be complicated, if not impossible, to unwind. It would apply across areas including AI, autonomous systems, cyberwarfare, biotechnology, missile defense, and defense industrial production.

A handful of legislators from both parties have rebuked Section 224. Among them is Rep. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican known for opposing all foreign military aid — a stance that drew the ire of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and drove millions in spending against him in the recent primary he lost to a Trump-backed challenger.

Any questions?