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Say No to Vaccine Passports

The Libertarian Party opposes 'vaccine passports' and any government mandated documentation, surveillance, restrictions, mandates, or laws which tread on the rights of the people.

With vaccination progressing across the US and internationally, there is a growing danger that 'vaccine passports' of some type will become reality. As the Washington Post reported last week, "the Biden administration and private companies are working to develop a standard way of handling credentials often referred to as 'vaccine passports' that would allow Americans to prove they have been vaccinated against the novel coronavirus as businesses try to reopen" and Reason.com had a long list of efforts to establish some form of 'vaccine passport'.

After a year of ever expanding government overreach justified by the Covid Pandemic, and which the Libertarian Party of Massachusetts opposes, 'vaccine passports' are among the most dystopian measures to be added. They represent egregious violations of privacy and are nothing less than an attempt to establish mandatory vaccination by restricting the lives of non-vaccinated persons, regardless of any actual infection and risk of spread. This is a power the government should not have.

The Libertarian Party at the National level, of which the Libertarian Party of Massachusetts is the local state affiliate, has adopted a resolution, rejecting vaccine passports. It states that the Libertarian National Committee stands in stark defiance of all attempts by government to interfere with the private sector response to COVID19 as well as the degradation of civil liberties and livelihood at the hands of legislators. We oppose vaccine passports and any government mandated documentation, surveillance, restrictions, mandates, or laws which tread on the rights of the people. We stand in service of those seeking freedom in the United States as the centrifugal force of liberty.

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Libertarian Association of Massachussetts

The cloud company published a new blueprint for a fault-tolerant quantum computer that describes a new way of controlling qubits to make sure that they carry out calculations as accurately as possible.

Amazon's cloud subsidiary AWS has released its first research paper detailing a new architecture for a future quantum computer, which, if realized, could set a new standard for error correction.

The cloud company published a new blueprint for a fault-tolerant quantum computer that, although still purely theoretical, describes a new way of controlling quantum bits (or qubits) to ensure that they carry out calculations as accurately as possible.

The paper is likely to grab the attention of many experts who are working to improve quantum error correction (QEC), a field that's growing in parallel with quantum computing that seeks to resolve one of the key barriers standing in the way of realising useful, large-scale quantum computers.

Quantum systems, which are expected to generate breakthroughs in industries ranging from finance to drug discovery thanks to exponentially greater compute capabilities, are effectively still riddled with imperfections, or errors, that can spoil the results of calculations.

SEE: Hiring Kit: Computer Hardware Engineer (TechRepublic Premium)

The building blocks of quantum computers, qubits, exist in a special, quantum state: instead of representing either a one or a zero, like the bits found in classical devices, quantum bits can exist in both states at the same time. While this enables a quantum computer to carry out many calculations at once, qubits are also highly unstable, and at risk of collapsing from their quantum state as soon as they are exposed to the outside environment. Consequently, the calculations performed by qubits in quantum gates cannot always be relied upon -- and scientists are now exploring ways to discover when a qubit has made an error, and to correct the mistake.

"The quantum algorithms that are known to be useful -- those that are likely to have an overwhelming advantage over classical algorithms -- may require millions or billions of quantum gates. Unfortunately, quantum gates, the building blocks of quantum algorithms, are prone to errors," said AWS Center for Quantum Computing research scientists Patricio Arrangoiz-Arriola and Earl Campbellin a blog post.

"These error rates have decreased over time, but are still many orders of magnitude larger than what is needed to run high-fidelity algorithms. To reduce error rates further, researchers need to supplement approaches that lower gate error rates at the physical level with other methods such as QEC."

There are different ways to carry out quantum error correction. The conventional approach, known as active QEC, uses many imperfect qubits (called 'physical qubits') to correct one qubit that has been identified as faulty, to restore the particle to a state of precision. The controllable qubit created in this way is called a 'logical qubit'.

Active QEC, however, creates a large hardware overhead in that many physical qubits are required to encode every logical qubit, which makes it even harder to build a universal quantum computer comprising large-scale qubit circuits.

Another approach, passive QEC, focuses on engineering a physical computing system that has an inherent stability against errors. Although much of the work around passive QEC is still experimental, the method aims to create intrinsic fault-tolerance that could accelerate the construction of a quantum computer with a large number of qubits.

In the new blueprint, AWS's researchers combine both active and passive QEC to create a quantum computer that, in principle, could achieve higher levels of precision. The architecture presents a system based on 'cat states' -- a form of passive QEC where qubits are kept in a state of superposition within an oscillator, while pairs of photons are injected and extracted to ensure that the quantum state remains stable.

This design, according to the scientists, has been shown to reduce bit-flip error, which occurs when a qubit's state flips from one to zero or vice versa. But to further protect qubits from other types of error that might arise, the researchers propose coupling passive QEC with known active QEC techniques.

Repetition code, for example, is a well-established approach to detect and correct error in quantum devices, which Arrangoiz-Arriola and Campbell used together with cat states to improve fault tolerance in their theoretical quantum computer.

The results seem promising: the combination of cat states and repetition code produced an architecture in which just over 2,000 superconducting components used for stabilization could produce a hundred logical qubits capable of executing a thousand gates.

"This may fit in a single dilution refrigerator using current or near-term technology and would go far beyond what we can simulate on a classical computer," said Arrangoiz-Arriola and Campbell.

Before the theoretical architecture proposed by the researchers takes shape as a physical device, however, several challenges remain. For example, cat states have already been demonstrated in the lab in previous proof-of-concept experiments, but they are yet to be produced at a useful scale.

The paper nevertheless suggests that AWS is gearing up for quantum computing, as major tech players increasingly enter what appears to be a race for quantum.

IBM recentlyunveiled a roadmapthat eyes a 1,121-qubit system for 2023, and is currently working on a 127-qubit processor. Google's 54-qubit Sycamore chip made headlines in 2019for achieving quantum supremacy; and Microsoft recently made itscloud-based quantum ecosystem, Azure Quantum, available for public preview.

Amazon, for its part, launched an AWS-managed service called Amazon Braket, which allows scientists, researchers and developers toexperiment with computers from quantum hardware providers, such as D-Wave, IonQ and Rigetti. However, the company is yet to build its own quantum computer.

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AWS reveals a new method to build a more accurate quantum computer - ZDNet

[Courtesty of LG Electronics]

Multiphysics is the coupled processes or systems involving more than one simultaneously occurring physical field and the studies of and knowledge about these processes and systems. Multiphysics simulations are used to analyze and validate them.

LG Electronics said the joint study would increase the competitiveness of future technologies by utilizing quantum computing that uses quantum bits or qubits, based on the principles of quantum theory, which explains the nature and behavior of energy and matter on the quantum level. Theoretically, a quantum computer would gain enormous processing power and perform tasks using all possible permutations simultaneously.

"Quantum computing is an innovative technology that goes beyond existing technologies and has considerable potential," said LG Electronics chief technology officer Park Il-pyung."Based on open innovation strategies, we will strengthen technological competitiveness with potential companies like Qu&Co and promote a high-level application study."

Qu&Co CTO Vincent Elfving said his company would cooperate with LG Electronics to introduce a new technology that effectively solves non-linear problems by utilizing quantum algorithms. The Amsterdam-based company develops quantum-computing algorithms, software and services running on currently available quantum hardware.

South Korea has joined an international race to develop quantum computing technology and hardware. The Ministry of Science and ICT aims to develop a practical five-qubit quantum computer by 2023.

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LG Electronics works with Dutch firm to develop quantum computing technology for multiphysics simulation - Aju Business Daily

Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., here in 2017, is pushing his party to focus on working-class voters as a way to win back the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms and the White House in 2024. Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images hide caption

Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., here in 2017, is pushing his party to focus on working-class voters as a way to win back the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms and the White House in 2024.

A growing number of working-class voters were drawn to Donald Trump's Republican Party, and now top Republicans are searching for ways to keep those voters in the fold without Trump on the ballot.

"All of the statistics and polling coming out of the 2020 election show that Donald Trump did better with those voters across the board than any Republican has in my lifetime since Ronald Reagan," Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., told NPR. "And if Republicans want to be successful as a party, win the majority in 2022, win back the White House in 2024, I think we have to learn lessons that Donald Trump taught us and how to appeal to these voters."

Since 2010, the most significant growth in the Republican coalition has been white voters without a college degree an imperfect but widely used metric to quantify the working-class voting bloc along with some marginal growth among similarly educated Black and Hispanic voters. Banks believes the only winning path forward for the GOP is to reimagine itself permanently as the party of working-class America.

Banks is the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a conservative faction in the House long rooted in small government, low taxes and social conservatism, and he recently sent a six-page memo to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., making his case. For Banks, it means tougher immigration laws and cracking down on China, Big Tech and, perhaps most provocatively for the GOP, corporate America.

"For too long, the Republican Party fed into the narrative and the perception that the Republican Party was the party of big business or the party of Wall Street," Banks said.

Read the full memo below:

Republicans are increasingly comfortable attacking corporations these days, a political stance made easier after Wall Street donors gave more to President Biden in 2020, major companies halted donations to Republicans who objected to Electoral College results on Jan. 6, and as companies take more liberal positions on controversial issues such as Georgia's new voting law.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., last week issued a rare public lashing toward companies that oppose the law. "My warning, if you will, to corporate America is to stay out of politics. It's not what you're designed for," he said. McConnell a top recipient of corporate political donations walked back his comments, but not a statement his office released warning corporations of "serious consequences" for "behaving like a woke parallel government."

Top Senate Republicans some considering 2024 presidential runs have been echoing the call to remake the party even before the 2020 election. "We've got a big battle in front of us, Republicans do, to try and make this party truly the party of working-class America," Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said in November.

He's among a number of Senate Republicans who have taken recent positions that run counter to longstanding party orthodoxy, such as linking up with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in support of stimulus checks last year and supporting a mandatory $15 minimum wage for companies with annual revenues over $1 billion.

Others include Florida's Marco Rubio, who recently sided with pro-union forces in an organizing dispute at Amazon and speaks frequently of "common good capitalism," and Utah's Mitt Romney, who has introduced legislation to expand the welfare state to provide more generous benefits to combat child poverty.

"I think the claim that says the Republican Party is the party of the working class is at best, insincere, and more likely, political misdirection and rebranding exercises," said John Russo, a visiting scholar at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University and a co-editor of the publication Working-Class Perspectives.

The working-class vote is complicated and too often confused with whiteness when about 40% of the working-class vote is people of color, Russo said. Their support also didn't cut overwhelmingly toward Republicans in 2020. Biden still won a majority of voters who earn less than $50,000 year, while Trump won a majority of voters who earn over $100,000 a year.

Russo said about one-third of working-class voters are considered persuadable in elections, and it's never reliable whether cultural or economic forces will drive their vote. "The working class, like all of us, carry multiple identities, race, class, gender, religious, geographic, and people may vote different parts of their identity as situations and moments change in their lives."

Democrats are not ceding this vote without a fight, led by a new president with a blue-collar upbringing who wants to enact the most radical economic investment in working people since the New Deal, with a message to sell it targeted almost squarely at the working-class vote. "I'm not trying to punish anybody, but damn it, maybe it's because I come from a middle-class neighborhood, I'm sick and tired of ordinary people being fleeced," Biden said in a recent speech promoting his $2 trillion infrastructure and economic stimulus plan.

Republicans think Democrats are overreaching with their economic largesse. Banks compared Biden's plans to a feel-good sugar high that will lead to a crash. "And I predict it will crash long before the 2022 midterm election, as we see a lot of government spending inflate the economy, but then when it bottoms out and American workers, blue-collar working-class Americans feel the effect of it, they're gonna blame Joe Biden and Democrats for it," he said.

The battle for the working class is even more urgent for the two parties because it's a growing bloc of voters. Since the 2008 financial crisis, Russo said, more middle-class people have slid economically backward and are experiencing what he calls "the fragility of working-class life."

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Top Republicans Work To Rebrand GOP As Party Of Working Class - NPR

On Saturday, the Nevada Republican Party Central Committee formally censured Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske (R) for her "disregard of her oath of office by failing to investigate election fraud, her dismissive public statements regarding election integrity concerns, and her failure to ensure compliance with Nevada and federal election law."

Shorter version? Nevada Republicans slapped Cegavske on the wrist because she didn't go along with the Big Lie -- the idea, contra all available evidence, that the 2020 election was somehow stolen from former President Donald Trump due to election irregularities.

Cegavske, for her part, said this in the wake of her censure: "Unfortunately, members of my own party continue to believe the 2020 general election was wrought with fraud -- and that somehow I had a part in it -- despite a complete lack of evidence to support that belief."

Rather than punishing her for doing her job, Republicans should be picking her brain to find out how she managed to win a second term in 2018 while every other Republican statewide candidate was losing.

But that's not this version of the Republican Party. Which is why, unless something changes (and soon), they could be spending a lot more time in the political wilderness than they'd like.

The Point: Retribution and relitigation rarely lead to positive future steps for a political party. And the GOP seems hellbent on doing both in service of the former President.

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A Republican election official just got censured for not buying into the Big Lie - CNN