Feb. 12, 2020 The U.S. Department of Energys Office of Science, under the leadership of Under Secretary of Energy Paul Dabbar, sponsored around 70 representatives from multiple government agencies and universities at the firstQuantum Internet Blueprint Workshop, held in New York City Feb. 5-6. The primary goal of the workshop was to begin laying the groundwork for a nationwide entangled quantum Internet.

Building on the efforts of theChicago Quantum Exchangeat the University of Chicago, Argonne and Fermi National Laboratories, andLiQuIDNet(Long Island Quantum Distribution Network) at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University, the event was organized by Brookhaven. The technical program committee was co-chaired by Kerstin Kleese Van Dam, director of the Computational Science Initiative at Brookhaven, and Inder Monga, director of ESnet at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

The dollars we have put into quantum information science have increased by about fivefold over the last three years, Dabbartold the New York Timeson February 10 after the Trump Administration announced a new budget proposal that includes significant funding for quantum information science, including the quantum Internet.

In parallel with the growing interest and investment in creating viable quantum computing technologies, researchers believe that a quantum Internet could have a profound impact on a number of application areas critical to science, national security, and industry. Application areas include upscaling of quantum computing by helping connect distributed quantum computers, quantum sensing through a network of quantum telescopes, quantum metrology, and secure communications.

Toward this end, the workshop explored the specific research and engineering advances needed to build a quantum Internet in the near term, along with what is needed to move from todays limited local network experiments to a viable, secure quantum Internet.

This meeting was a great first step in identifying what will be needed to create a quantum Internet, said Monga, noting that ESnet engineers have been helping Brookhaven and Stony Brook researchers build the fiber infrastructure to test some of the initial devices and techniques that are expected to play a key role in enabling long-distance quantum communications. The group was very engaged and is looking to define a blueprint. They identified a clear research roadmap with many grand challenges and are cautiously optimistic on the timeframe to accomplish that vision.

Berkeley Labs Thomas Schenkel was the Labs point of contact for the workshop, a co-organizer, and co-chair of the quantum networking control hardware breakout session. ESnets Michael Blodgett also attended the workshop.

About ESnet

The Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) is a high-performance, unclassified network built to support scientific research. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energys Office of Science (SC) and managed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, ESnet provides services to more than 50 DOE research sites, including the entire National Laboratory system, its supercomputing facilities, and its major scientific instruments. ESnet also connects to 140 research and commercial networks, permitting DOE-funded scientists to productively collaborate with partners around the world.

Source: ESnet

Excerpt from:

Quantum Internet Workshop Begins Mapping the Future of Quantum Communications - HPCwire

With help from John Hendel, Cristiano Lima, Leah Nylen and Katy Murphy

Editors Note: This edition of Morning Tech is published weekdays at 10 a.m. POLITICO Pro Technology subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 6 a.m. Learn more about POLITICO Pros comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, at politicopro.com.

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If Sanders wins in New Hampshire: If the polls hold true, the tech world may see a ton more heat from the Vermont senator, who has long been critical of tech giants market power and labor practices.

Trumps 2021 funding requests: President Donald Trumps 2021 budget proposal would give big funding boosts to artificial intelligence and quantum computing, as well as the Commerce Departments NTIA and the Justice Departments antitrust division, but not to the FTC or FCC.

Bipartisanship at risk?: House Judiciarys Republican leaders say recent comments from the Democratic chairman about Silicon Valley giants threatens the panels tech antitrust probe, a rare point of bipartisanship in a hotly divided Congress.

ITS TUESDAY, AND ALL EYES ARE ON THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY OF 2020: NEW HAMPSHIRE. WELCOME TO MORNING TECH! Im your host, Alexandra Levine.

Got a news tip? Write Alex at alevine@politico.com or @Ali_Lev. An event for our calendar? Send details to techcalendar@politicopro.com. Anything else? Full team info below. And dont forget: add @MorningTech and @PoliticoPro on Twitter.

WHAT NEW HAMPSHIRE MEANS FOR TECH A week after winning the most votes in Iowa, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is polling first in New Hampshire, with Pete Buttigieg a close-second. (Further behind, and mostly neck-and-neck, are Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar.) What could this mean for the tech world? Just about anything.

But if the Vermont senator prevails in tonights Democratic presidential primary, we can expect to hear more of his usual anti-Amazon commentary (Sanders has repeatedly criticized Amazons labor practices and complained that the online giant pays zero in taxes); more break up big tech talk (Sanders has said he would absolutely look to break up tech companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook); and more attacks on corporate power and influence (he has proposed taxing tech giants based on how big a gap exists between the salaries of their CEOs and their mid-level employees).

Several prime tech policy issues are also fair game: Sanders criminal justice reform plan includes a ban on law enforcements use of facial recognition technology, and he has spoken out about tech's legal liability shield, Section 230 debates that are playing out (often, with fireworks) at the federal level. (Further reading in POLITICO Magazine: Is it Bernies Party Now?)

Plus: Could New Hampshire be the next Iowa? State and local election officials running this primary without apps (voters will cast their ballots on paper, which in some cases will be counted by hand) say no. POLITICOs Eric Geller provides the birds-eye view.

Heres everything you need to know about the 2020 race in New Hampshire.

BUDGET DISPATCH: HUGE JUMP FOR DOJ ANTITRUST, NO BIG CHANGES FOR FCC AND FTC The White House on Monday rolled out its fiscal year 2021 funding requests, including a proposed 71 percent bump in congressional spending on the Justice Departments antitrust division an increase that, as Leah reports, is another indicator that the agency is serious about its pending investigations into tech giants like Google and Facebook. (It would also allow the agency to hire 87 additional staffers.)

In contrast, the FCC and FTC arent requesting any big changes in their funding or staffing. The FCC is seeking $343 million, up 1.2 percent from its 2020 funding level, while the FTC is asking for a little over $330 million, which is about $800,000 less than its current funding. The FCC noted its on track to move to its new Washington headquarters in June, while FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, a Democrat, objected to the request for her agency, saying in a statement that it does not accurately reflect the funding the FTC needs to protect consumers and promote competition.

Artificial intelligence and quantum computing would also receive big funding boosts under the budget proposal, Nancy reports. So would the Commerce Departments NTIA, to help prepare the agency for 5G and other technological changes, as John reported for Pros.

IS THE BIPARTISAN TECH ANTITRUST PROBE IN JEOPARDY? The House Judiciary Committees investigation into competition in the tech sector which garnered rare bipartisan momentum in a hotly divided Congress could now be in trouble. On Monday night, the committees Republican leaders criticized Democratic Chairman Jerry Nadlers recent remarks railing against the power of Silicon Valley giants, writing in a letter that Nadlers comments "have jeopardized" the panel's "ability to perform bipartisan work." Spokespeople for Nadler did not offer comment. A Cicilline spokesperson declined comment.

The dust-up marks the first major sign of fracturing between House Judiciary Republicans and Democrats over their bipartisan investigation into possible anti-competitive conduct in the tech industry a probe widely seen as one of Silicon Valleys biggest threats on Capitol Hill, Cristiano reports in a new dispatch. The dispute could threaten the push to advance bipartisan antitrust legislation in the House, something House Judiciary antitrust Chairman David Cicilline (D-R.I.) has said the committee plans to do early this year.

T-MOBILE-SPRINT WIN T-Mobile and Sprint can merge, a federal judge is expected to rule today, rejecting a challenge by California, New York and other state attorneys general, Leah reports. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero is expected to release his hotly anticipated decision on the $26.2 billion telecom megadeal later this morning.

FCCS FUTURE-OF-WORK FOCUS Amazon, AT&T, Walmart, LinkedIn and Postmates are among the tech companies expected at a future-of-work event today that Democratic FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks is hosting at the agencys headquarters.

The public roundtable will address the same kinds of issues that several Democratic presidential candidates have raised, such as concerns about AIs effect on labor economies. Issues of #5G, #InternetInequality, automation & education are colliding in ways that will impact all Americans, Starks wrote on Twitter. Eager to host this important policy discussion!

CCPA UPDATE: GET ME REWRITE! California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Monday published a business-friendly tweak to his proposed Privacy Act regulations, a change that his office said had been inadvertently omitted from a revised draft unveiled on Friday.

Only businesses that collect, sell or share the information of at least 10 million Californians per year thats about 1 in 4 residents would have to report annual statistics about CCPA requests and how quickly they responded to privacy-minded consumers, under the change. That threshold was originally 4 million.

The update will come as a relief to companies that no longer need to pull back the curtain on their Privacy Act responsiveness. Its also good news for procrastinators, as the new deadline for submitting comments on the AGs rules was pushed back a day to Feb. 25.

TECH QUOTE DU JOUR Senate Judiciary antitrust Chairman Mike Lee (R-Utah) offered colorful praise on Monday for Sen. Josh Hawleys (R-Mo.) proposal to have the Justice Department absorb the FTC, a plan aimed in part at addressing concerns over the FTCs enforcement of antitrust standards in the technology sector.

Having two federal agencies in charge of enforcing antitrust law makes as much sense as having two popes, Lee told MT in an emailed statement. This is an issue weve had hearings on in the Judiciary Committee and I think Sen. Hawley has identified a productive and constitutionally sound way forward. (Hawleys proposal swiftly drew pushback from one industry group, NetChoice, which said it would make political abuse more likely.")

The state of play: Some Republicans in the GOP-led Senate now want to reduce the number of regulators overseeing competition in the digital marketplace. A small contingent of House Democrats wants to create a new federal enforcer to police online privacy. But a vast majority of the discussions happening on Capitol Hill around those issues have so far focused on ways to empower the FTC, not downgrade it.

Mike Hopkins, chairman of Sony Pictures Television, is joining Amazon as a senior vice president overseeing Amazons Prime video platform and movie and television studios.

AB 5 blow: Uber and Postmates on Monday lost the first round in their challenge to Californias new worker classification law, POLITICO reports.

Uber IPO fallout: As tax season begins, some of Uber's earliest employees are realizing they had little idea how their stock grants worked and are now grappling with the fallout on their tax bills after last May's disappointing IPO, Protocol reports.

JEDI latest: Amazon wants Trump and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to testify in its lawsuit against the Pentagon over the award of the multibillion-dollar JEDI cloud computing contract to Microsoft, POLITICO reports.

ICYMI: Federal prosecutors announced charges Monday against four Chinese intelligence officers for hacking the credit-reporting giant Equifax in one of the largest data breaches in history, POLITICO reports.

Facebook ad tracker: New Hampshire saw more than $1 million in Facebook spending in the month leading up to todays presidential primary, Zach Montellaro reports for Pros.

Can privacy be a piece of cake?: A privacy app called Jumbo presents a startling contrast to the maze of privacy controls presented by companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google, Protocol reports heres how it works, and how it plans turn a buck.

Virus watch: Following Amazons lead, Sony and NTT are pulling out of this months Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as a precaution during the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters reports.

In profile: Zapata Computing, a startup that creates software for quantum computers by avoiding as much as possible actually using a quantum machine, Protocol reports.

Out today: Alexis Wichowski, New York Citys deputy chief technology director and a professor at Columbias School of International and Public Affairs, is out today with The Information Trade: How Big Tech Conquers Countries, Challenges Our Rights, and Transforms Our World, a book published by HarperCollins.

Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Bob King (bking@politico.com, @bkingdc), Mike Farrell (mfarrell@politico.com, @mikebfarrell), Nancy Scola (nscola@politico.com, @nancyscola), Steven Overly (soverly@politico.com, @stevenoverly), John Hendel (jhendel@politico.com, @JohnHendel), Cristiano Lima (clima@politico.com, @viaCristiano), Alexandra S. Levine (alevine@politico.com, @Ali_Lev), and Leah Nylen (lnylen@politico.com, @leah_nylen).

TTYL.

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For the tech world, New Hampshire is anyone's race - Politico

US research on artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing would see dramatic boosts in funding for 2021, under a proposed budget released by the White House on 10 February. Thebudget requestissued by President Donald Trump makes cuts across most science agencies for the 2021 fiscal year, which begins on 1 October 2020. Although Congress has repeatedly rebuffed such requests for cutsand has, in fact, increased science spending in the enacted budgetsthe 132-page document from the White House offers a view into the administrations priorities and ambitions leading up to the November election.

Among US agencies that fund and conduct research, NASA would see big gains. The National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Energy (DOE), among others, are slated for budget reductions.

Trump is being Trump, says Michael Lubell, a physicist at the City College of New York who tracks federal science-policy issues. All of Trumps budgets have sought to slash funding for the US research enterprise, but he has yet to convince lawmakers on Capitol Hill, Lubell says. He can ask for what he wants, but it doesnt mean its going to happen.

Under the presidents request, NASA would get US$25.2 billion for fiscal year 2021, a jump of nearly 12% over funding enacted by Congress for the current year. The money is meant to jump-start the administrations plans to send astronauts to the Moon by the end of 2024. The request includes $3.4 billion to develop lunar landers that could carry humans. Last year, lawmakers granted $600 million towards developing such landersless than half of what the White House asked for.

Under the banner of a Moon-to-Mars strategy, the presidents request also includes $529 million for robotic exploration of Mars. That would include bringing back a set of rock samples that will be collected by a rover slated to launch in July, and developing an ice-mapping mission to gather information for future landing sites.

NASAs Science Mission Directorate, which funds external research projects and partners, would receive $6.3 billion, which is the same amount proposed by the White House last year but would be a nearly 12% decrease from what Congress allocated. As in previous years, the presidents request aims to cancel NASAs next flagship space telescope, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, as well as the planned Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) and Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) Pathfinder Earth-science missions. Also on the proposed chopping block is the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a telescope that flies aboard a jumbo jet. Congress has rejected those requested cuts in past years.

The presidents budget proposes $38.7 billion for the NIH, about a 7% cut on the current level of $41.7 billion. The proposal is consistent with past White House budget requests; last year, the administration requested a $5-billion cut. As in the past 2 years, the budget proposes creating a new $335-million NIH institute, the National Institute for Research on Safety and Quality, to replace the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality at the Department of Health and Human Services. Also, as part of the administrations broader push to use and develop AI across sectors, the White House allocates $50 million of its proposed NIH budget for the study of chronic diseases using AI.

The White House proposal seeks a total of $7.7 billion for the NSF for fiscal year 2021, a decrease of more than $500 million from the enacted 2020 budget. This includes a 6% decrease in funding for research and development.

The presidents request includes reductions to six of the NSFs seven research directorates, including cuts of more than $100 million each for biological sciences and engineering. Computer and information science and engineering would be the only major research area to see an increase in its funding, consistent with the administrations plans to prioritize AI and quantum computing. These two areas will receive a combined $1 billion of the NSF budget under the presidents proposal. The NSF budget also includes $50 million for workforce development, with a focus on community colleges, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and other minority-serving institutions. But the budget calls for deep cuts to other diversity-focused initiatives, such as the HBCU Excellence in Research programme

Proposed cuts of more than 10% would slash the budgets for geoscience research, the Office of International Science and Engineering and the Office of Polar Programs, which maintains the US research presence in the Arctic and Antarctic.

Tim Clancy, the president of Arch Street, a consulting company in Alexandria, Virginia, with a focus on federal science policy, says that although Congress has typically rejected Trumps proposed cuts to science funding, strict budget caps this year might mean that legislators will have to make difficult decisions about cutting programmes in order to free up money for the presidents AI and quantum initiatives.

The budget would provide $5.8 billion for the DOEs Office of Science, a drop of nearly 17% from 2020 levels. The office would see sharp decreases across its portfolio, which spans biological and environmental research, fusion and high-energy physics. Only the advanced scientific computing programme, with roughly level funding of $988 million, would escape the cuts.

The White House once again proposed slashing funding for clean-energy research. The popular Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E)which received a record $425 million last yearwould be eliminated, and the office of energy efficiency and renewable energy would see its budget slashed by roughly 74%. Funding for fossil-fuel research and development would drop by less than 3%, to $731 million.

The proposal faces long odds on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have balked at such cuts. Last year, for instance, the administration sought to cut the Office of Sciences budget by nearly 16%; Congress responded by nudging the total up 6%, to a record $7 billion.

The White House is once again seeking to drastically cut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which would see its budget drop by roughly 26%, to $6.7 billion. The budget would provide just $478 million for science and technology, a decrease of 33%. But Congress has repeatedly rejected the administrations attempts to cut funding for the EPA, whose budget has increased since Trump entered the White House.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would receive more than $4.6 billion, a drop of 14%. The core science budget in the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research would fall by more than 40% to $327 million, although Congress rejected a similar cut last year. The administration has once again proposed eliminating the National Sea Grant College Program, which promotes research into the conservation and sustainable development of marine resources, and which Congress has thus far maintained. The budget would provide $188 million for sea-floor mapping and exploration efforts along the US coasts.

This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on February 10 2020.

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NASA Soars and Others Plummet in Trump's Budget Proposal - Scientific American

wbur "Electrons will collide with protons or larger atomic nuclei at the Electron-Ion Collider to produce dynamic 3-D snapshots of the building blocks of all visible matter," according to the U.S. Department of Energy. (Courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory/DOE)

The United States will soon have its first new particle collider in decades.

Earlier this year, the Department of Energy announced that Brookhaven National Laboratory in Uptown, New York, will be home to the Electron-Ion Collider [EIC], which will investigate whats inside two subatomic particles: protons and neutrons.

Brookhavens website describes this instrument as a machine that will unlock the secrets of the strongest force in nature. Its essentially an electron microscope that shoots electrons at protons and neutrons in order to measure them, says Paul Dabbar, undersecretary for science at the Department of Energy.

You need to accelerate it to very high levels of energy in order to basically shoot it, to do the mapping a little bit like an MRI or a CT scan for the inner workings of matter, he explains.

The electron beam is accelerated very fast in a circle, Dabbar says.

We will generate an electron beam and accelerate it to very, very close to the speed of light, he says. We basically circle around them imparting energy into the electron beam until it reaches the level that we want it so that we can image the protons and neutrons.

Scientists cant accelerate it exactly to the speed of light because as any piece of matter approaches that speed, its mass changes, Dabbar says.

That mass change makes it increasingly hard to get faster and faster, he says. And as you reach the speed of light, you reach an infinite amount of energy needed to get to that last step, and therefore, we cannot do that.

On the practical applications of this research

Well, the basic science research that this country has done and we have led particle physics since World War II, since the Manhattan Project, and a lot of the technologies that we use today have come out of the basic research that came out of the national labs, including in physics. These accelerators can be used for many different things. The first one is medical isotopes that are used for cancer treatment. So I think as many people know, you look at nuclear medicine and nuclear imaging, which is a core part of the medical community right now for treating diseases, that these accelerators can produce those isotopes on the nuclear medicine side that are really critical. And many times you have to produce some very locally. You have to have accelerators around the country to make these isotopes because they decay relatively quickly, some of them. And so for us to move forward, that certainly helps the medical area.

Another one, which is, I think, very interesting here in the near term, is around quantum information technologies. Utilizing quantum, which is inputting data into atoms rather than transistors, is basically a particle physics problem. And so the same equipment that we're looking at, technology that we're developing here and we've developed in the past for kind of older versions of accelerators, is the exact same particle technology that will be used for the upcoming quantum computing and the quantum internet.

Another area is around detectors. The MRI machine came out of the DOE national nuclear physics work. And so we certainly expect that we will have improvements in MRI and CT machines from detectors just like when we helped invent them.

On why this collider wont be up and running until 2030

So first of all, one of the advantages of this particular site and building it here is that we're actually using some existing collider infrastructure. There is a collider at Brookhaven National Lab right now called Rick, which is a relativistic hadron collider. So there's already a loop there that it was accelerating other types of ions. There was an accelerator infrastructure [already] there. And so we're going to finish that mission in terms of imaging for nuclear physics in 2024. Between now and then, we're actually going to be starting both the engineering design in more detail as well as design around components like the accelerators. And then in 2024, when we take down the Rick Collider at Brookhaven National Lab, then we'll start actually installing. And so from then it will take about six years to both do the construction and then do the commissioning and startup.

On why this is the first particle accelerator built in the U.S. in decades

There's a bit of a history around these accelerators. They cost a lot of money. There was one that was looked at a couple of decades ago called the Superconducting Super Collider, which ran into some ... challenges. The U.S. decided to invest in CERN [the European Organization for Nuclear Research] and the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva for that particular piece of science. We've been focusing on other areas. So one of them has been a neutrino piece of infrastructure at Fermilab outside of Chicago.

We've been investing in Europe for some colliders over the last, you know, the near term. And by the way, we continue that is for that particular type of collider. We're increasing our investment by the United States into the European collider at CERN. But we decided to take a look at building this particular collider in the U.S. I think a key thing for your listeners to kind of understand is that the budgets for the Office of Science and science in general at the federal level, including NASA and the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, are at all-time highs, and we're very excited about the support that, very bipartisan support from both Congress and ultimately president signing the budgets for all-time highs. So we're very excited about that.

Chris Bentley produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Kathleen McKenna. Samantha Raphelson adapted it for the web.

This segment aired on February 12, 2020.

Jeremy Hobson Co-Host, Here & Now Before coming to WBUR to co-host Here & Now, Jeremy Hobson hosted the Marketplace Morning Report, a daily business news program with an audience of more than six million.

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New Particle Accelerator In New York To Probe Protons And Neutrons - Here And Now

The eminent psychologist Jordan Peterson, who has been suffering from a severe addiction to benzodiazepine tranquilizers and the life-threatening cancer that his wife is currently battling, almost died recently in an induced coma, according to his daughter Mikhaila, who stated that the last year for her father has been an absolute hell.

Mikhaila Peterson also revealed her father, whose book Twelve Rules For Life became a gigantic bestseller, is being treated at a clinic in Russia; she claimed that he had repeatedly been misdiagnosed at hospitals in the United States and Canada.

In a script for a video released by The National Post, Mikhaila Peterson wrote:

The last year has been absolute hell for the Petersons. Dad was put on a low dose of a benzodiazepine a few years ago for anxiety following an extremely severe autoimmune reaction to food. He took the medication as prescribed. We werent aware that he was developing a physical dependence on the drug until last April when my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer and the dose of the medication increased. It became apparent that he was experiencing a paradoxical reaction to the medication, meaning the benzos did the opposite of what theyre supposed to do. These reactions are rare but are not unheard of.

The worst symptom for dad was akathisia. Akathisia is an absolutely god-awful condition where the person feels an incredible, irresistible restlessness, and an inability to sit still. It was so severe he was suicidal. For the last six months hes been in horrible, unbearable discomfort from this drug, made worse when trying to remove it because of the physical dependence. We took him to several hospitals in North America where he experienced multiple cases of misdiagnosis, and the addition of more medications to cover the response he was experiencing from the benzodiazepines. He nearly died several times.

The National Post reported that in Moscow last month, Peterson was diagnosed with pneumonia; doctors induced a coma for eight days. Mikhaila Peterson said her fathers withdrawal was horrific, adding that her father has suffered neurological damage and cannot type or walk without help, but is on the mend. She said, Hes smiling again for the first time in months.

Mikhaila Peterson added, This was not a case of psychological addiction. Benzodiazepine physical dependence due to the brain changes that can occur in a matter of weeks can destroy lives. It can be made even worse by paradoxical reactions that are difficult to diagnose. The medication almost killed my dad. Hes a psychologist and even he wasnt aware of how bad these medications are for some people. Physical dependence can occur in a matter of a few weeks of daily use to biologically susceptible individuals. Dad will recover fully but it will take time and he still has a ways to go.

Peterson was reported to have taken the medication clonazepam, which is a benzodiazepine that binds to GABA receptors in the brain, making the neurons less active and excitable.Psychologist Jonathan N. Stea wrote in Psychology Today:

If benzodiazepines are used repeatedly and temporarily to avoid or cope with uncomfortable emotions, thoughts, and memories, their use could lead to the development or worsening of psychiatricsymptoms, such as anxiety. They are not first-line treatments for anxiety disorders, and clinical guidelines recommend that their use be restricted to the short term, due to the high potential for both dependency and addiction, as well as other side effects, including severe withdrawal symptoms, sedation, cognitive impairment, and the potential for death.

The rest is here:

Jordan Peterson Almost Died In Induced Coma During Withdrawal From Anxiety Drug, Daughter Says - The Daily Wire

UPDATED: Tue., Feb. 11, 2020

Nicholas Mason scored 16 points, Jordan Petersen added 13 and third-seeded Medical Lake (16-5) eliminated visiting sixth-seeded Lakeside 57-52 in a District 7 1A first-round game Tuesday.

The Cardinals (16-5), ranked No. 7 in Class 1A, take on second-seeded Deer Park in a semifinal Friday.

Javon Williams led Lakeside (7-14) with 18 points.

Newport 69, Colville 53: Ben Krogh scored 33 points and the host Grizzlies (14-7) eliminated the Indians (8-13) in a first-round game.

Michael Owen added 14 points for Newport, which faces top-seeded Freeman in a semifinal Friday.

Rhett Foulkes led Colville with 13 points.

Odessa 104, Republic 23: Ryan Moffet scored 32 points with eight assists and the top-seeded Tigers (21-0) defeated visiting fourth-seeded Republic (4-14) in a first-round game.

Moffet is 10 points from tying the state scoring record of 3,100, set last year by Brock Ravet of Kittitas.

Odessa faces Cusick in a semifinal Saturday at Medical Lake High. Daeton Deife scored 19 points and Jett Nelson added 18 for Odessa. David Jensen led Republic with seven points.

Cusick 75, Wellpinit 61: Celias Holmes and Colton Seymour scored 18 points apiece and the second-seeded Panthers (16-4) beat visiting third-seeded Wellpinit (11-8) in a first-round game.

Cusicks Brandon LeVasseur scored 15 of his 17 points in the fourth quarter.

Kobe Stearns had 20 points for Wellpinit, which faces Republic in a loser-out game Saturday.

Selkirk 65, Valley Christian 46: Ryan Zimmerman scored 26 points and the top-seeded Rangers (14-7) defeated the visiting fourth-seeded Panthers (7-11) in a first-round game in Ione.

Selkirk faces Almira/Coulee-Hartline in a semifinal Saturday.

Adam Bruno led Valley Christian with 18 points.

Almira/Coulee-Hartline 77, Inchelium 37: Chase Gerard scored 16 points and the second-seeded Warriors (13-7) defeated the third-seeded Hornets (9-11) in a first-round game in Coulee City.

Inchelium faces Valley Christian in a loser-out game Saturday.

Lonnie Simpson led Inchelium with nine points.

Feb. 11, 2020, 9:24 p.m.

Feb. 11, 2020, 10:10 p.m.

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Boys district basketball: Nicholas Mason, Jordan Peterson lead Medical Lake to district tourney win - Sports and Weather Right Now

In a 2018 CBC interview, Wendy Mesley asked Jordan Peterson, then at the zenith of his celebrity, what he thought lay ahead for him. Peterson responded with his typical gloomy realism: I dont know whats next, really. The overwhelming likelihood, as far as Im concerned, and its been this way since September of 2016, is that this will go terribly wrong. Its too much, eh? Its been too much for a long time. Im surfing a hundred-foot wave and generally what happens if you do that is you drown.

Peterson surely meant the words metaphorically, suggesting that the publics interest in him would wane as rapidly as it had escalated. But in retrospect, the words too much and drown acquire an ominous prescience.

In a recent YouTube video, Petersons daughter, Mikhaila, summarized her familys past year of absolute hell. In dealing with anxiety, Jordan Peterson developed an addiction to a benzodiazepine (commonly known as benzos, this category of drugs includes Ativan, Serax, Klonopin, Xanax and Valium, amongst others), which led to numerous unbearable side effects, notably akathisia, an irresistible restlessness thats so maddening, it led to suicidal ideation.

It is unfortunate that it often takes the publicity surrounding a famous persons tragedy to jump-start a national discussion, but if ever there was a moment to shine a light on the scandal of decades of overprescription of benzos, this is it.

Janet Currie, a PhD candidate in the University of British Columbias School of Nursing, is a Canadian researcher and educator with long-time concerns over the safety and use of psychiatric drugs. She has no ties to any pharmaceutical companies, so her research is entirely independent. Before consulting her personally, I read Curries paper for the British Columbia Centre of Excellence for Womens Health, titled Manufacturing Addiction: The over-prescription of benzodiapezines and sleeping pills to women in Canada, which contains many sobering facts and statistics. Although published in 2003, Currie said the paper requires no material updates.

The first benzos were called tranquillizers and were marketed in the 1960s as a safe and effective alternative to barbiturates. But after only one year of availability, the first report in the medical literature describing their addictive nature was published, according to Curries report.

There is an elephant in the mental-health room that seems curiously invisible.

Currie notes that it is estimated that up to 15 per cent of adults may be using benzos; of them, up to 65 per cent are women. The majority of people who take these drugs at recommended dosages will become dependent on them, and of them, most will experience difficulties withdrawing from the drugs. Canadian and international studies indicate that 20 to 50 per cent of all women over 60 may be prescribed benzos or sleeping pills and that long-term use increases with age. A strong link has been established between falls in elderly women and drugs, of which 90 per cent are benzodiapezines, according to the report. In 2000, one in three status Aboriginal women over 40 in Western Canada were prescribed benzodiazepines.

I put a number of questions to Currie in an email exchange. Was Petersons story an outlier? Not really, she said, there are many stories like it. Most people do not know that benzos should be prescribed for a maximum of a few weeks. What Peterson experienced was a prescribing cascade, in which the withdrawal symptoms are not associated with the benzos, so more drugs are prescribed with even more deleterious effects.

Petersons desperation trip to Russia is understandable, Currie told me, because there is a serious lack of physicians (in Canada) who are willing to do tapers and no accessible community-based resources where people can get help. Tapering, the process of slowly weaning a person off a drug, can take months or years. By the way, Currie added, benzos are also sold on the street and widely used by heroin addicts and alcoholics.

Have there been lawsuits, I asked, and if so, what were the results? Currie responded that its difficult to go up against a big drug company, though some have tried. She cited the case of Joan Gadsby, a municipal official in B.C., who, following her young sons death from brain cancer, was prescribed benzos that led to addiction and multiple harrowing side effects. She sued her doctor, but lost the case and all her retirement savings. After interviewing thousands of stakeholders, however, Gadsby became an expert on the subject. Currie recommends her book, Addiction by Prescription.

The most significant attempt at legal redress was a years-long U.K. class-action lawsuit that was undertaken through Britains Legal Aid Funding Plan and involved 14,000 patients and 1,800 lawyers. It failed because legal aid couldnt handle the costs.

Canadians talk a lot about the need to address mental health issues openly and non-judgmentally. Thats good. But here is an elephant in the mental-health room that seems curiously invisible. Perhaps when Jordan Peterson is fully recovered and godspeed to him he will help to lead that discussion.

kaybarb@gmail.com Twitter.com/BarbaraRKay

More information on benzos and other psychiatric drugs can be found at psychmedaware.org.

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Barbara Kay: Jordan Peterson and the deadly overprescription of benzos - National Post

Dr. Jordan B. Petersons personal troubles are celebrated by his detractors. After his daughter, Mikhaila Peterson, opened up about the difficulties her father faced during this past year, a torrent of ill-wishes were released to social media.

A data scientist, engineer and social justice activist had this to say: do I think he deserves sympathy despite him not extending it to others? Also no.

Do I think Jordan Peterson deserves a pass on his bigotry because he's suffering? No.

But do I think he deserves dignity despite his situation being a product of views that he profits from? No.

But do I think he deserves sympathy despite him not extending it to others? Also no. Pronoun Enforcer (@EmilyGorcenski) February 8, 2020

Petersons legacy is evident in just how many people have been helped by his work. His message is simple, to take charge of yourself and your life, to avoid being controlled by aimless desire, and if you dont know where to start, begin by cleaning your room.

A professor of law and medicine at the University of Ottawa also prefers to show no sympathy. Heres hoping he doesnt teach ethics.

#KARMA Jordan Peterson, oracle to gullible young men, preacher of macho toughness, and hectoring bully to snowflakes, is addicted to strong drugs and his brain riddled with neurological damage.

He deserves as much sympathy as he showed others. https://t.co/a0lHWZlqrX Amir Attaran (@profamirattaran) February 8, 2020

Petersons message is one that so many who hear it can relate to, and hes travelled the world speaking to sold-out audiences. His views are rooted in western ideas, stem from our most ancient myths and legends, and embrace the Christian hero story of self-sacrifice as the ultimate strength.

A writer for the Toronto Guardian had this to say.

But wait a second, I thought an all meat diet and toxic masculinity was the key to a happy life

This man is a complete fraud. While I wish no ill will on anyone, Jordan Peterson will always be an idiot's genius. #cdnmedia https://t.co/RW13WxCYpj Neil Before Zod (@WaytowichNeil) February 8, 2020

Some guy with the Twitter username im nice who fancies himself a comedian had this to say:

jordan petersons method for living the perfect life works great unless anything bad ever happens to you at which point you develop the worst benzo habit of all time and end up being kidnapped by your daughter and experimented on in a russian prison im nice (@Lowenaffchen) February 8, 2020

Peterson has been vilified by detractors in media and the public at large about as much as he has been praised. The reasons behind this are that people dont like to hear that relativism is not the best way to live life. People who are mired in our contemporary driving philosophy of meaninglessness, that no one way to live is better than any other, that no one choice is a better or worse choice than another, dont want to listen to someone who says that the hard work of life is worth doing.

I'd like to come out as a big fan of @jordanbpeterson. Not only has he helped and inspired countless young men, but he inspired me to start writing after an 11-year hiatus. He re-tweeted and shared my articles on social media and even sent me an email of support. I owe him a lot. https://t.co/7PlR8E6C62 Kathrine Jebsen Moore (@JebsenMoore) February 9, 2020

Yet a podcaster, community organizer, and author from Quebec City wishes eternal damnation on Jordan Peterson.

I hope for years of hell in perpetua for Jordan Peterson. Nora Loreto (@NoLore) February 8, 2020

Peterson says that the idea that we should accept ourselves as we are is misguided, because at our core, were all probably monsters. He brings up the genocides and massacres of the 20th century as proof, invoking the memoirs of concentration camp guards to show that any of us are capable of the most horrific of human actions. None of us are safe from our own worst, or best, impulses. He holds us all accountable to ourselves, to each other, and to the people we love. He speaks about marriage as a relationship that must be nurtured and tended, not abandoned. Peterson recommends that you dont let your kids turn into unlikeable children.

Not everyone wished him harm, and some pushed back.

Through podcasts, books, speaking engagements, interviews, and YouTube videos, he talks about how essential it is that we each take on our own heros journey. He brings up the legend of King Arthurs knights, recommending that we must seek our journey in the dark placemeaning we must face our fears, not so that we can overcome them, but so that we can know that we are afraid and act bravely in the face of those fears. One very real place where this approach can be made is in the face of addiction. There is perhaps nothing more difficult than kicking an addiction that has you in its teeth.

You are shockingly petty and pathetic. Gloating over a man's struggle to overcome physical dependency to medication that was prescribed to him to cope with his wife's terminal cancer diagnosis is absolutely disgraceful. https://t.co/3HICCozHRi

On addiction and physical dependence, Peterson can speak from experience. That he has this understanding makes his message that much stronger. How trite it is to hear from a teetotaller who has never touched a drop that we should give up the hard stuff. Where it has more power is coming from someone who has been there before us, whether theyve beaten the addiction or not.

Those who criticise Peterson the most, have always been those who need his advice the most

It's easy to throw stones.

It's easy to nitpick.

It's easy to kick a man when he is down.

Cowards.

It's hard to have a positive impact on millions of people.

Be good buckos ZUBY: (@ZubyMusic) February 8, 2020

The calls for Petersons head on a spike came from the contemporary left, which is a movement that mirrors the heavy-handed vitriol that we used to see with the late 20th century right. This moralistic grandstanding on a foundation based entirely on narcissistic pleasure principles is eating itself. An ideology that purports to care for others only cares for those who adhere to the ideology. There is a growing intolerance for disagreement.

When I read some of the responses to Jordan Petersons illness, Im reminded why the Left has become so commonly associated with a lack of compassion, tolerance and basic human empathy.

We on the Left need to get our own house in order. These people are seriously fucking it up. pic.twitter.com/VRprW729G5

Petersons struggle to overcome benzodiazepines is so incredibly humanizing and real. It shows us that, in many ways, he is right. We are all capable of losing control, even those among us who are so great at guiding us how not to. Petersons all too human struggle can give the rest of us strength to know that we are not alone in ours. The identitarian, intolerant left could do well to face its demons, just as Peterson is facing his.

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EXCLUSIVE: Update on the health of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson - The Post Millennial

Kick em when theyre down, is a nasty way to live and it says more about the one doing the kicking than the kicked.

Consider reaction to the travails of controversial figures Rush Limbaugh and Jordan Peterson.

American talk show host Rush Limbaugh has always been a lightning rod. Controversy is his game. Perhaps you are familiar with him and hate everything he stands for.

No doubt you can find many examples of when Rush went over the line. I can, and I am a fan. Go ahead and argue his positions and criticize his mistakes.

But immediately upon his announcement that he has advanced lung cancer, supposedly reasonable and caring people cheered the disease.

Emmy nominated writer Arash Amel tweeted, F Limbaugh. Hope he dies. Enough of this we go high s.

He is right; he didnt go high. Amel went as low as he thinks Rush is.

Justin Lecea, a candidate for the Democratic nomination to run for Congress wrote, I will hold a party to celebrate when Rush Limbaugh begins exploring the past tense. God speed to hell you hypocritical f.

It is absolutely fair to argue strenuously against anything any commentator says, even to hate their ideas. Wishing for cancer to win displays darkness in the soul, doesnt it?

Travis Sarandos, who teaches English at Milwaukee High School of the Arts, tweeted that he hopes Rush Limbaugh dies a painful death from cancer.

Meanwhile clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson author of the international bestseller 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos announced dependence on an anti-anxiety drug he had been prescribed after his wifes cancer diagnosis.

While we increasingly worry about the prescribing of addicting drugs, that caring view was not one some felt for Peterson.

Professor of law and medicine at the University of Ottawa Amir Attaran tweeted, Jordan Peterson, oracle to gullible young men, preacher of macho toughness, and hectoring bully to snowflakes, is addicted to strong drugs and his brain is riddled with neurological damage. #KARMA.

See? Peterson deserved it. This from a man employed to teach.

Writing in Psychology Today, Dr. Johnathan N. Stea said, But irrespective of your views on Peterson, it is a gross disservice to everyone to perpetuate harmful myths about people who seek mental health and addiction-related treatment. The fact that the hostility directed towards Peterson has manifested as this type of stigma is a clear indictment against our cultural milieu.

Nora Loreto who describes herself as Canadas least obnoxious writer, wrote, I hope for years of hell in perpetua for Jordan Peterson.

(I am not sure perpetua is a word. Perpetua was an early Christian martyr.)

Dont get me wrong. A quick search on Google is likely to find examples of people on the right visiting the same sort of hatred on left-leaning figures when they were down. This isnt a one-sided argument; it is just the current one.

Twitter is a cesspool minute by minute, but when hatred toward a suffering person spews from educators, politicians and the media, we are in a bad place.

We only truly believe in free speech if we defend that of those with whom we most disagree.

We truly have compassion when we have sympathy for a fellow human beings suffering, even when that person is one whose views we find abhorrent.

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AGAR: The awful responses to Rush Limbaugh and Jordan Peterson - Toronto Sun

Rebel Media owner Ezra Levant hosted a Calgary townhall meeting in October, 2019. He asked those in attendance if Alberta should become the 51ststate. The room responded overwhelmingly, No. A Research Co. Study found that only 22 per cent of Albertans say their province would be better off as an American state. In contrast, 40 per cent of Albertansbelieve the province would be better off as its own country. In short, those Albertans ready to cut the chord with Ottawa do not want to reconnect it with Washington.

There are many reasons both social and political for this lack of enthusiasm. But leaving the maple leaf for the star-spangled banner merits consideration.

The economic benefits of becoming the fifty-first state are impressive. Albertans would save a huge sum of money if they no longer propped up the rest of Canada. The no-more-pipelines bill (C-69), the tanker ban (C-48), and the carbon tax would no longer hamper Albertas economy. The U.S. has no GST, and no direct equalization transfers.

Americas 327 million person-strong market is ten times the size of Canadas, and unlike Canada, they have much stronger internal free trade. Greater market access would be a boon, making it easier to diversify Albertas economy. There would also be increased access to global markets.The U.S. is the largest market for oil on the planet and has the largest concentration of refineries capable of handling Albertas heavy crude. Labour mobility would improve, and the strong U.S. dollar purchases far more than weak Canadian currency, which is artificially devalued to prop up Eastern manufacturing interests.

Less critical[KS1]but still important would be cheap gasoline and dairy, and access to U.S. Netflix and television without the CRTC shoving subsidized, amateurish CBC and can-con down our throats.

The U.S. carries a massive debt, but it is still slightly smaller per capita than Canadas on a combined federal-state/provincial basis. As of 2017, the United States had a public debt-to-GDP ratio of 82.3 per cent, and Canada, 89.7 per cent. Both countries continue to spend far beyond their means and force future generations to pay, but neither country has a material advantage on this front.

Critics of independence claim that a national Alberta would be landlocked. While this isfar from trueif Alberta can secure free trade agreements,union with the United States would guarantee that this was not the case with their greater protections for internal free trade.

While Washington does indirectly transfer some wealth from prosperous to less prosperous states, wealthier Americans [KS2][DF3]like wealthier Canadians pay more in federal taxes than others. So, while Washington does move money around, it does not do so as directly or as aggressively as does Ottawa. Right now, Alberta pays $20 billion net more than it receives back from Ottawa every year, representing the largest regional transfer of wealth in per capita terms in the Western World.

Suffice it to say, Alberta is the only consistent net contributor to the rest of Canada, but its votes count for less per capita than the rest of the country. The result of Albertas lackluster national influence is a federal government that plunders its wealth, while simultaneously working to stop it from generating that wealth.

Alberta with twice the population of all four Atlantic provinces has not quite half the Senators of tiny New Brunswick. As a state, Alberta would have equal representation with New York and California in the Senate. Importantly, Alberta would have influential allies such as Texas.

In Canada, the Conservatives can take Alberta for granted, while the Liberals ignore Alberta outright. In the U.S., Alberta would likely be a coveted swing-state, like Florida and Ohiowith both major parties falling over themselves for electoral support.

It is likely that Alberta would be welcomed as a U.S. state.Alberta has the third largest oil reserve on the planet, a world-leading GDP, and an educated workforce. While Alberta is Canadas most conservative province, it would be ideologically in the centre of American politics, and therefore would not represent a threat to either the Republicans or Democrats.

Geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan said that if Alberta ever applied for U.S. statehood, he would be stunned if more than a handful of people in Congress object.

Staying under the boot of Ottawa is no longer an option for any self-respecting Albertan, and independence is the preferred option for sentimental reasons. But joining the United States could be the more pragmatic route to a positive future. The U.S. has a long history of successfully integrating new territories: the Louisiana Purchase, Hawaii, and Alaska to name a few.

Trump recently offered to buy Greenland, not just to increase Americas geographic reach, but to build his legacy. It is conceivable that Americans might want to buy Alberta. By this, I mean: would the U.S. be willing to pay off Albertas provincial and share of the federal debt in return for joining?

As difficult as it is for many Albertans to wrap their minds around independence, it is understandably even more difficult to countenance joining our southern neighbors; but when we set sentimentality aside, its a proposal that we should consider on its merits.

Tessa Littlejohn is a Columnist for the Western Standard

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LITTLEJOHN: Ricky Gervais & Jordan Peterson are the Socrates of 2020 - Western Standard