The solar wind is 457 km/sec and there are 7 sunspot clusters on the Sun today. Sunspots
AR1917 and AR1918 have 'beta-gamma' magnetic fields that harbor energy for M-class solar
flares. NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on Dec.
15th when a pair of CMEs could deliver rapid-fire glancing blows to Earth's magnetic field.
High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras mixed with bright moonlight. We
need something. The sun is quieter than it has been in more than 100 years.
Joshua Cook currently lives in Greenville, South Carolina. Joshua Cook's articles have also been
cited on sites such as InfoWars, Reason.com, WND.com, Breitbart.com, DailyCaller and
FreedomOutPost.com. If you have any tips please email me at joshuacook@benswann.com. Like
him on FB and follow him on Twitter.
China’s Jade Rabbit Hops slowly on the Moon
Beijing (AFP) - China's Jade Rabbit rover vehicle drove onto the moon's surface on Sunday after
the first lunar soft landing in nearly four decades, a huge advance in the country's ambitious
space programme.
Related Stories
The Yutu, or Jade Rabbit, was deployed at 4:35 am (2035 GMT Saturday), several hours after
the Chang'e-3 probe landed on the moon, said the official news agency Xinhua.
Both the rover and lander are expected to take photos of each other later Sunday, it said.
China is the third country to complete a lunar rover mission after the United States and the thenSoviet Union -- a decade after it first sent an astronaut into space.
It plans to establish a permanent space station by 2020 and eventually send a human to the moon.
The mission is seen as a symbol of China's rising global stature and technological advancement,
as well as the Communist Party's success in reversing the fortunes of the once-impoverished
nation.
View gallery
A graphic on China's lunar rover vehicle the Yutu, or Jade Rabbit (AFP Photo/)
"One Giant Leap for China," read the headline in Hong Kong's Sunday Morning Post, evoking
the words in 1969 of American astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon.
The lunar journey "once again lights up the China Dream", said a Xinhua editorial citing
President Xi Jinping's slogan for Chinese advancement.
"Chang'e-3 has successfully carried out a soft landing on the moon. This makes China the
world's third nation to achieve a lunar soft landing," the Chinese Academy of Sciences said in an
online post on the mission's official page on Sina Weibo, a Chinese Twitter equivalent.
The landing, nearly two weeks after blast-off, was the first of its kind since the former Soviet
Union's mission in 1976.
State broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) featured extensive coverage of the mission
and China's wider space ambitions.
View gallery
CCTV broadcasting footage shows China's first lunar rover transmitted back to the control
centre …
The potential to extract the moon's resources has been touted as a key reason behind Beijing's
space programme, with the moon believed to hold uranium, titanium, and other mineral
resources, as well as offering the possibility of solar power generation.
The China Daily, under the headline "Touchdown", said the rover mission realises "China's longcherished dream" of reaching the moon.
"China wants to go to the moon for geostrategic reasons and domestic legitimacy," said China
space expert Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor of national security affairs at the US Naval War
College in Newport, Rhode Island.
"With the US exploration moribund at best, that opens a window for China to be perceived as the
global technology leader -- though the US still has more, and more advanced, assets in space."
News of the landing quickly made an impact on China's hugely popular Internet message boards,
topping the list of searched items.
"The China dream has finally progressed one step forward!" wrote one person.
"Our lunar rover has made it to the moon, marking China's rise and making the Chinese people
proud," another wrote.
On its Sunday afternoon broadcast, CCTV aired video taken by the lander showing the rover
leaving tracks in the dust as it gently coasted onto the moon's surface and rolled away.
The probe touched down on an 400-kilometre (250-mile) wide plain known in Latin as Sinus
Iridum, or the Bay of Rainbows.
Before landing, the probe slowed down from 1,700 metres (5,610 feet) per second and then
hovered for about 20 seconds, using sensors and 3D imaging to identify a flat area.
Thrusters were then deployed 100 metres from the lunar surface to gently guide the craft into
position. The landing process started at 9 pm on Saturday and lasted for about 12 minutes.
Four minutes after landing, the Chang'e-3 unfolded solar panels that will provide energy to the
lander and rover, the China Daily reported.
The landing had been considered the most difficult part of the mission.
The rover will spend about three months exploring the moon's surface and looking for natural
resources.
It can climb slopes of up to 30 degrees and travel at 200 metres per hour, according to the
Shanghai Aerospace Systems Engineering Research Institute.
The Chang'e-3 mission is named after the goddess of the moon in Chinese mythology, and the
rover vehicle is called Yutu after her pet. Yutu's name was chosen in an online poll of 3.4 million
voters.
Among those beyond China's borders offering their congratulations on the landing was former
US vice president Al Gore, who wrote via Twitter: "Congratulations to China on reaching the
moon with its rover -- an impressive soft landing!"
China Imposes First-Ever West Coast Shellfish Ban
China has suspended imports of shellfish from the west coast of the United States -- an unprecedented
move that cuts off a $270 million Northwest industry from its biggest export market.
China said it decided to impose the ban after recent shipments of geoduck clams from Northwest waters
were found by its own government inspectors to have high levels of arsenic and a toxin that causes
paralytic shellfish poisoning.
The restriction took effect last week and China's government says it will continue indefinitely. It applies to
clams, oysters and all other two-shelled bivalves harvested from the waters of Washington, Oregon,
Alaska and Northern California. U.S. officials think the contaminated clams were harvested in
Washington or Alaska. Right now they’re waiting to hear back from Chinese officials for more details that
will help them identify the exact source.
State and federal agencies oversee inspection and certification to prevent the shipment of tainted
shellfish. Jerry Borchert of the Washington Department of Health said he's never encountered such a ban
based on the Chinese government's assertion that these U.S. safeguards failed to screen out contaminated
seafood.
“They’ve never done anything like that, where they would not allow shellfish from this entire area based
on potentially two areas or maybe just one area. We don’t really know yet,” Borchert said.
The biggest blow could fall to those who farm or harvest the supersized geoduck clams. In the Northwest,
they're concentrated in Washington's Puget Sound, where about 5 million pounds of wild geoduck are
harvested each year. Aquaculture accounts for an additional 2 million pounds, according to estimates
from the Washington Department of Natural Resources.
A barricade around the Chinese consumer market means trouble for those in the Northwest who rely on
Asian trade.
“It’s had an incredible impact,” said George Hill, the geoduck harvest coordinator for Puget Sound's
Suquamish Tribe. “A couple thousand divers out of work right now.”
The U.S. exported $68 million worth of geoduck clams in 2012 -- most of which came from Puget Sound.
Nearly 90 percent of that geoduck went to China.
Geoduck are highly prized in China, where the clams sell for retail prices of $100 to $150 per pound.
Although geoduck are harvested year round, demand peaks during the holiday season leading up to the
Chinese celebration of the lunar new year -- which falls on Jan. 31 for 2014.
The geoduck (pronounced "GOO-ee-duck") is a the world’s largest burrowing clam. It’s slow-growing,
regularly reaching 100 years old and often weighing as much as 10 pounds.
Harvesters are waiting for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to negotiate with the
Chinese government to come to an agreement on how to move forward and reopen shellfish trade. NOAA
stopped issuing certification for shellfish exports last Friday.
Officials say the investigation is ongoing but the closure could last for months. While the industry awaits a
resolution at the international level, it is adjusting to the new reality.
The Suquamish Tribe is trying to develop other markets in New York, California and locally at seafood
markets in Seattle, Hill said.
Bill Dewey, a spokesman for the largest shellfish supplier in Washington said his company, Taylor
Shellfish, is looking at other solutions.
"I was just talking to our geoduck manager and he’s got two harvest crews and three beach crews
essentially doing makework," Dewey said. "He’s too nice a guy to lay them off during the holidays but
there’s only so much you can be charitable about making work for people and eventually you’re going to
have to lay them off.”
Saudi activist sentenced to lashes and prison: rights group
RIYADH (Reuters) - A Saudi judge sentenced a political activist to 300 lashes and four years in
prison for calling for a constitutional monarchy in Saudi Arabia, his rights group said on Sunday.
Omar al-Saeed is the fourth member of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association
(ACPRA) to be jailed this year after the group issued statements attacking the ruling family over
its human rights record and calling for democracy.
Saeed did not have legal representation at the secret hearing when he was sentenced, ACPRA
said in a statement on its website.
"It's just another troubling instance of Saudi authorities' absolute refusal to countenance any
activism or criticism of Saudi policies or human rights abuses," said Adam Coogle, Middle East
researcher at Human Rights Watch.
A spokesman for the Justice Ministry said he could not comment on the report or confirm its
accuracy.
U.S.-allied Saudi Arabia is ruled by the al-Saud family together with powerful clerics from the
country's ultra-conservative Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam.
King Abdullah is the prime minister and he appoints the government, which includes top princes
in the roles of foreign, interior, defense and intelligence ministers. Most senior princes also have
extensive business interests.
Saudi Arabia's only elections are for half the seats on relatively powerless town councils.
Licensed media exercises stringent self censorship, public expressions of dissent are often not
tolerated and demonstrations are banned.
During the Arab Spring in early 2011, protests were restricted to the Shi'ite minority in the Qatif
district of Eastern Province.
Unrest among the Sunni majority was avoided after King Abdullah pledged $110 billion in
spending on social benefits and top clerics and tribal leaders said people should back the ruling
family.
Foreign analysts say there appears to be little public demand for big political changes in Saudi
Arabia now, although they point to evidence on social media of growing frustration at corruption,
poverty and poor state services.
The government has denied charges by international rights groups that it used a campaign
against Islamist militants over the past decade to stifle dissent.
However, human rights lawyers inside the country have said some of those sentenced in
security courts, including a group jailed in Jeddah in late 2011, were peaceful activists put on
trial for demanding political change.
Good News for Governors Planning the Constitutional Convention
President Obama and his family will leave Washington Dec. 20 for a 17-day holiday vacation in
Hawaii.
The White House announced Friday that the Obamas will depart next week after what is
expected to be a light work schedule for the president in Washington.
The president and his family traditionally spend their Christmas break in a rented home on Oahu
with spectacular ocean views.
For his first three years in office, Mr. Obama rented a $24,500-per-week gated Plantation
Estate, which offers security and privacy on the white sand beach of Kailua Bay.
Eviction Notice for Living Off-the-Grid
Robin Speronis, a Florida woman who lives off the grid, is being threatened with losing her
home due to her “alternative lifestyle”.
Last month, Robin’s story was featured on Fox 4 news in Florida. She does not have a
refrigerator, oven, running water, or electricity.
Robin explains her decision to live off the grid:
“It was an interest in empowering myself, like we did when we got off the health care system. I
wanted to look at every other part of my lifestyle and say, do I need this? Is this of value to me?
If it went away tomorrow, what would I do? The more I got into it, the more exciting, the more of
an adventure it became. My message was to create, so I created a happy place… a place
where I get up, and I’m like this is beautiful.”
Most of what Robin owns was free, donated, or bought for next to nothing.
She cooks on a propane camping stove, and her electronics run on solar-charged batteries.
Robin gets her water from rain barrels. She uses a colloidal-silver generator to disinfect the rain
water:
“I plug this into my inverter and my battery pack. This light will get brighter and brighter as silver
micro particles are suspended in the water. It’s natures antibiotic,” she explains.
Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), after Robin was featured on the local news, authorities took
notice: the day after the feature, Robin was slapped with a notice to vacate her property.
“A code enforcement officer came, knocked on the door then posts a placard that says
uninhabitable property, do not enter.”
The notice cites international property maintenance code and states the property is unsafe to be
lived in. Robin said code enforcement has never been inside her home and would have no idea
if her property is safe.
The city code compliance manager told Fox 4 that he tagged the home because it doesn’t have
running water or electricity – but neither is mentioned as a requirement in the code cited by the
city on the notice.
Robin said she owns her home free and clear and her taxes are up to date.
“Putting a woman who lives by herself, who is a widow, out on the street without any due
process of law is unfathomable. Where is the justice? Why did they choose me…because I was
exercising my First Amendment rights of free speech in discussing living off the grid.”
there has been an overwhelming show of support for Robin from people who have heard her
story:
A local attorney has agreed to take Robin’s case for free. The City of Cape Coral says that if
she can prove she can sustain herself and her home without electricity or water, both parties
may be able to come to a solution. But isn’t the burden of proof on the accuser? It seems that
the city should have to prove Robin’s lifestyle isn’t sustainable, not the other way around.
Humans lived for thousands of years without modern conveniences like running water and
electricity, and Amish families continue to thrive without either.
Time to pay the Ferryman: Impeachment Looms
At the first of December the House Judiciary Committee held hearings about whether or not
Barack Obama has upheld his oath of office by following and enforcing the laws of the land. It
seems clear from that hearing that Obama has indeed broken his oath. South Carolina
Congressman Trey Gowdy (R) asked pertinent questions with regard to the issue at hand.
The night before the hearing, Judge Andrew Napolitano appeared on The Kelly File and
explained, “The committee is looking into whether the president has substituted his judgment for
that of the Congress’s in such a way that he has enforced a law that Congress didn’t write
because he rewrote it.”
Napolitano said that Obama was unauthorized to change the date of the implementation of the
employer mandate in Obamacare and indicated that the House could pass a resolution which
pointed that Obama had not enforced the laws.
“It will further diminish and destroy the trust he once had with the American people,” Napolitano
said.
However, what would that actually do? Nothing. It would be a purely political move, but have
absolutely no teeth in it. There would be more sting in a ruler to the back of the hand than a
House resolution.
During the House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) asked whether or not
Obama had the “prosecutorial discretion” to not enforce immigration and marijuana laws.
Gowdy asked Simon Lazarus, the senior counsel to the Constitutional Accountability Center, an
expert who testified at the hearing, “If the president can fail to enforce immigration laws, can the
president likewise fail to enforce election laws? The President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully
Execute the Laws.”
“If you can dispense with immigration laws or marijuana laws or mandatory minimums, can you
also dispense with election laws?” Gowdy asked.
Lazarus answered, “No.”
“Why not? If he can suspend mandatory minimum and immigration laws, why not election
laws?” Gowdy asked.
“Because we live in a government of laws, and the president is bound to obey them and apply
them,” Lazarus replied.
“Well he’s not applying the ACA, and he’s not applying immigration laws, and he’s not applying
marijuana laws, and he’s not applying mandatory minimums. What’s the difference with election
laws?” Gowdy asked.
Lazarus then defended Obama, saying “We have a disagreement as to whether in fact he is
applying those laws. My view is that he is applying those laws.”
Gowdy then turned his questions toward Jonathan Turley, professor at George Washington
University Law School.
“Professor Turley, what are the limits of prosecutorial discretion, and if the president can
suspend immigration laws, marijuana laws, why not election laws?” asked Gowdy.
“I think that some of these areas I can’t imagine to be justified through prosecutorial discretion.
It’s not prosecutorial discretion to go into a law and say, an entire category of people will no
longer be subject to the law. That’s a legislative decision,” Turley answered.
“Prosecutorial discretion is a case-by-case decision that is made by the Department of Justice.
When the Department of Justice starts to say we’re going to extend that to whole sections of
laws, then they are engaging in a legislative act, not an act of prosecutorial discretion,” Turley
added
Turley continued, “Wherever the line is drawn has got to be drawn somewhere from here. It
can’t include categorical rejections of the application of the law to millions of people.”
“The president is outside the line, but it has to go in front of a court, and that court has to grant
review, and that’s where we have the most serious constitutional crisis I view in my lifetime, and
that is this body is becoming less and less relevant,” Turley concluded.
Obama’s executive orders have been playing a part in each of these issues, from his 2012
announcement that he would not be deporting young illegals, to his non-enforcement of DOMA
to his “fixes” of Obamacare. A House Resolution is not the answer for this matter. Impeachment
is. That is the Constitutional duty the House has, whether or not the Senate decides to do their
duty and remove Obama from office or not.
Now, his colleague, South Carolina Representative Tom Rice (R), is set to file a resolution to
direct Congress “to bring a civil action for declaratory or injunctive relief to challenge certain
policies and actions taken by the executive branch.” This could inevitably lead to impeachment
of Barack Obama
While the House hearing dealt with several laws that Obama ignored or re-wrote apart from
Congress, the specific one in question was his signature piece of legislation, the Affordable
Care Act, aka Obamacare. He has engaged in waivers and rewriting of the law at will, which is
unconstitutional according to Article I, Section 1 and Article II, Section 3.
Article I, Section 1 states:
All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which
shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Article II, Section 3 states:
He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and
recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient;
he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of
disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to
such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he
shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the
United States.
Tent Cities in America
Homelessness and hunger are spreading across America, according to a new survey. America’s
homeless are not just the mentally ill or drug addicts. They are college graduates, veterans
returning from the war, and middle class families who have fallen on hard times.
U.S. cities like Greenville, S.C. are experiencing rapid growth of new homeless communities
forming as the economy takes another downturn. Those who cannot find new homes can find
shelter in a “Tent City,” a community of homeless people who live in tents and makeshift homes
made from tarps. These new “tribes” can be found throughout the city, under bridges and in
nearby woods. For many, Tent Cities have become America’s new norm.
A local group recently visited Greenville’s Tent City to help the residents prepare for the winter.
Someone asked a member, who was called “Lt. Governor,” what they could do to help. “Give
me a job,” said the Army veteran. The man explained that several years back he was in the
Army where he learned to cook. He came back home from the war and worked in the same
restaurant for years as a cook, but after the restaurant went bankrupt he was out of work. He later
lost his wife to sickness, and he was broke, alone and unable to find work. He said he wasn’t sad
or bitter; he just wanted to work to “feel like a man again.”
Joshua Cook currently lives in Greenville, South Carolina. Joshua Cook's articles have also been
cited on sites such as InfoWars, Reason.com, WND.com, Breitbart.com, DailyCaller and
FreedomOutPost.com. If you have any tips please email me at joshuacook@benswann.com. Like
him on FB and follow him on Twitter.
I can tell you that when you find yourself on the bottom, have hope. There is a bottom below.
But when that bottom falls out, and you have nowhere to go, you may find yourself living in a
tent. I don’t share this very much, but back in the early 1980’s, the Savings and Loan industry
collapsed due to fraud and greed by the bankers who had perpetrated a very small version of
what is going on right now before our eyes. It evaporated small real estate investors like me. It
dumped nearly a thousand properties on the market in a matter of weeks in the Western
Kentucky market.
I lost my properties, my home, and my business. In order to lower my expenses to the point I
could begin to save some money and get back to business, I moved into a tent with my wife and
two small kids. I worked as a carpenter and after four months finally saved enough to make the
deposits and get us back into an apartment. Within a year, we bought another home, and within
three years I graduated college.
That was then. This is now. In the summer of 1983, it was only me and my family in a tent. 30
years later, there are small villages made of people who cannot find work. Now, I have Joshua
Cook, the author of the article that went viral a week ago and got America awakened to the
reality that while power and money continue to centralize in the hands of the few, the people
close to the edge of destitution are being ignored.
Now, we want to know what to do. We need a solution. The solution is not giving them money,
or rice and milk, and certainly not free health insurance, which may or may not lead to actual
health care. The solution is unchaining the free market to allow it to hire people and begin
moving commerce again.
How is that done? That is the easiest thing in the world. There are plenty of investors and
small sources for capital. The problem is that the federal government has made it legally
impossible for them to finance small businesses. Banks can’t do it. The Dodd-Frank Act turned
into ten thousands new regulations, and new ones every day, that make it impossible for banks
to loan money to small businesses. Inventors can’t do it. The capital gains, losses, and risks
are not protected anymore. The IRS may disapprove of certain deductions and investors can
make more money by leaving it in the stock market, because the Fed is pumping $85 billion a
month into it, so hardly any earnings are needed for the market to continue its climb into the
thinnest air on the planet. Many of the market leaders are enjoying stock prices hundreds of
times larger than their earnings. Some of those companies have actually never had a profitable
year…ever. And yet they trade millions of shares every day at prices that are completely
unjustified.
The naked short traders like City Group, JP Morgan Stanley, and a list of hedge funds so long I
couldn’t read it in an hour, have destroyed more than 6,000 small, profitable businesses in the
past 5 years alone, and none of them have been prosecuted for it. Funds managers have
walked away with billions in deposits that belonged to their clients without serving a single day
in jail or paying a nickel in fines. Why? How do they get away with it right in front of our eyes?
They donate millions to the administration. Nearly $30 billion in taxpayer money was
squandered by the Agency Government in the past two years on a handful of companies that
didn’t have a good product, didn’t have a market for it, and could not pay it back. Although there
were thousands of applicants who did meet those criteria, why did they get the taxpayer’s
money from the Agency Government? The investigation showed that these were the few
companies that agreed to give a large chunk of their “award” to the president’s campaign and
then swear to take the 5th when they were called before Congress to find out what happened.
The result is tent cities. The result is that the restaurants, the factories, and the craftsmen who
could hire the very same people that live in these tent cities are starved out. The money that
would get these good companies on their feet was squeezed out of every little town and hamlet
by global banks, and used to buy regulations to keep anyone from competing with them in what
should be a free and open marketplace. That, my friends, is fascism.
Single Moms Projected to be an Endangered Species
In a game-changer for the legal fight over same-sex marriage that gives credence to opponents’
“slippery slope” arguments, a federal judge has now ruled that the legal reasoning for same-sex
marriage means that laws against polygamy are likewise unconstitutional.
In his 91-page opinion in Brown v. Buhman, on Dec. 13, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups
struck down Utah’s law making polygamy a crime. In so doing, he may have opened Pandora’s
Box.
As a condition for becoming a state in 1896, Congress required Utah to outlaw polygamy, which
is marriage between three or more persons. This case involved a family of fundamentalist
offshoots of nineteenth-century Mormonism. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
disavowed polygamy in 1890, and again in 1904, but some splinter groups continue the practice.
Waddoups’ opinion would not only cover such groups, however, but also Muslims or anyone else
who claims a right—religious or otherwise—to have multiple-person marriages. He notes that
the Supreme Court ruled against polygamy in its 1878 case Reynolds v. U.S., but said he cannot
simply rest upon that decision “without seriously addressing the much developed constitutional
jurisprudence that now protects individuals from the criminal consequences intended by
legislatures to apply to certain personal choices.”
In its 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case, the Supreme Court overruled previous sexuality precedents
by declaring unconstitutional laws that made homosexual sodomy a crime, holding that
although the Constitution says nothing about sex or marriage, there is nonetheless a right to
consensual sexual activity between adults that government cannot regulate. This was over the
vigorous dissent of conservative justices, who said that the Constitution commits such questions
of marriage and morality to the states and the democratic process, and that therefore federal
courts have no power to impose their own moral judgments.
The Lawrence case lays the foundation that has been cited for a decade now in court to make the
case for a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. If government cannot forbid homosexual
conduct, this argument goes, then neither can it deny those who define themselves by
homosexual behavior to officially recognize any such relationship as a marriage. It began a
political, religious, and philosophical debate in America between two different definitions of
marriage and family.
For over 5,000 years of recorded human history, marriage laws worldwide were about providing
a social structure for producing and raising children. These laws simply acknowledged the
biological reality that only sex between a man and a woman can produce a baby, and that,
correspondingly, that every child born into the world has two parents, one of which is a man, the
other a woman.
Marriage laws were designed to secure parental rights for that man and woman over the child
they had created, and also imposed strict duties and obligations on each of them for raising that
child. As part of that, those laws also bound the man and woman to each other, imposing
obligations of sexually exclusivity, mutual care, and support.
Those laws were created for the nurturing of those children, and assign the gender role of
demanding the man’s protection and support of the woman during pregnancy and once the
children were born. They were designed primarily for the protection of children, and secondarily
for the support of women.
A man and woman would form a new family to act as a single unit in society, and care for any
children resulting from their monogamous sexual relationship. Thus, marriage has been defined
as the union of one man and one woman. More precisely, it is the union of (1) two consenting
persons, (2) of opposite biological sex, (3) who are not close blood relatives.
The new conception of marriage, rooted in the proliferation of no-fault divorce laws in the 1970s
and the sexual revolution, is that marriage is about personal happiness and fulfillment. People
should be free to form whatever relationships they find personally satisfying and to follow
whatever their personal sexual inclinations are to engage in whatever form of sexual behavior
they find gratifying.
If, therefore, you have a right to officially recognize those homosexual relationships through
redefining marriage to include same-sex couples, then there is no reason to say it cannot include
more than two people, so long as everyone is a consenting adult.
This lawsuit is the brainchild of Prof. Jonathan Turley at George Washington University. He’s
designed a two-step strategy, piggybacking on same-sex marriage: first, decriminalize polygamy,
then assert a right to official recognition of polygamy.
As Turley explained in previous court filings, he believes there is a “right to self-determination of
private relations and family matters free of government intrusion.” He noted that many oppose
polygamy, and goes on to assert that polygamists “are entitled to protection from such
majoritarian animus and bias vis-à-vis their private lifestyles and relations. Their status under
domestic law is a civil rights issue deserving the same protections afforded to homosexuals and
other minority groups.”
The exact legal arguments for same-sex marriage equally apply to multiple-person marriages.
Turley acknowledges that marriage laws that do not include both are “a tool for the imposition
of a uniform moral agenda or tenets on citizens.”
Turley then goes on to make clear he is not only arguing for the form of polygamy technically
called polygyny, which is one man with multiple women. In other words, he also argues for a
right to polyandry (one woman with multiple men) and polyamory (multiple men with multiple
women).
Waddoups concluded that Reynolds has been overtaken by Lawrence and other recent legal
developments. While keeping in place for now the Utah law against issuing multiple marriage
certificates for polygamous marriage (the second step of the Turley strategy), he invalidated the
criminal law against multiple adults cohabiting together as a family, which is the core of the laws
against polygamy.
This case will likely now go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver.
China is Buying America and Confiscating the Seas
The incident happened December 5th in the wake of China's declaration of a new Air Defense
Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
According to Reuters, the confrontation led to a "near-collision" between the two vessels.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that the USS Cowpens was ordered to stop, and when it
refused the order—because it was in international waters—a Chinese Navy vessel "sailed in front
of Cowpens and stopped, forcing the [U.S. vessel] to abruptly change course in what officials
said was a dangerous maneuver." This ship was one of several participating in disaster relief
after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.[10]
USS Cowpens was set to be decommissioned on 31 March 2013.[11] However, Cowpens was
retained under the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013.[12][13]
In February 2013, she was relieved by USS Antietam and was then homeported at Naval Base
San Diego, California.
Apparently, the Navy found itself short of assets, due to drastic reductions in funding from the
Adminstration, and In November 2013, after Super Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines
(especially the city of Tacloban and Leyte Province), the Cowpens was placed back into service
and sent there as part of the U.S. aid mission.[14]
On December 5, 2013, she was involved in a minor confrontation with a small Chinese warship
that was escorting the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning while operating in International waters in
the South China Sea. The Chinese amphibious dock ship crossed directly in front of the Cowpens
and then halted.[15] The two vessels were barely 500 yards away when the captain of Cowpens
ordered "all stop".
USS Cowpens (CG-63) is a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser in service with the United
States Navy. The ship is named after the Battle of Cowpens, a major American victory near
Cowpens, South Carolina, in the American Revolution. She was built at the Bath Iron Works in
Maine. The USS Cowpens is stationed at Naval Base San Diego. In 2003, the USS Cowpens
became the first United States Navy ship to launch ordnance in the opening stages of the Iraq
War, in which she fired 37 Tomahawk cruise missiles. In March 2003 Cowpens was assigned to
Carrier Group Five.[1]
Pentagon officials warned that this type of confrontation would be more likely in light of China's
new ADIZ.
It appears that China is not only claiming the Moon for its own territory, along with much of
Michigan and New York State, but they are also claiming international waters as well. China’s
declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea on November 23
confounded many observers, including veteran China-watchers.
The move alarmed China’s neighbors and was met with a rapid U.S. response, which involved
flying two unarmed B-52s through the zone as a form of calibrated defiance. My Georgetown
colleague, Oriana Mastro, goes through possible explanations for China’s surprise move – most
of which are disturbing for long-term U.S.-China relations – and assesses its implications for
international security. She calls for a strong U.S. response to China’s declaration, warning that
leaving Chinese actions unchecked could further destabilize the region.
Oriana Skylar Mastro is an assistant professor of security studies at the Edmund A. Walsh
School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Two weeks ago, the U.S. defied China by flying two B-52 bombers through the airspace over
the East China Sea. Just two days earlier, China had declared the establishment of an Air
Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the area, covering the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands,
and threatened “defensive emergency measures” against those who do not cooperate with the
instructions to identify themselves. South Korea and Japan have both announced that their
military planes have since flown through the zone unhindered by China.
China’s lack of response to the “violations” adds another dimension to the question: what does
China hope to accomplish by establishing this ADIZ? Why take such an apparently provocative
step – which will test China’s credibility – and why do it now? China has consistently articulated
its opposition to operations within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), holding the view that
military vessels and aircraft by their very nature cannot engage in peaceful and innocent
passage. However, this is the first time the Chinese government has explicitly applied this
position to the airspace over the East China Sea, which has implications for civilian aircraft as
well.
The timing of the ADIZ is especially puzzling because after five years of
Chinese complaints about U.S. operations within its EEZ – calling them a major obstacle to
bilateral relations at every major summit and meeting – Chinese officials now say that this will
no longer be a standard talking point. Just when things looked like they were starting to
improve, why rock the boat?
Unfortunately, all the logical reasons spell trouble for U.S. interests and regional security. We
can rule out miscalculation given that the Chinese government has stuck to its guns. Official
media stresses the legitimacy of the move, emphasizing that it is in accordance with
international convention (though there are no international agreements governing any aspect of
an ADIZ, twenty other countries have established their own ADIZ to enhance early warning.
Reports explaining the decision blame Japanese provocations – such as Japan’s September
2011 decision to transfer some of the disputed islands from a private citizen to the government
– for the need to enhance “defensive measures.” Chinese media sources are also echoing the
message that the ADIZ exemplifies an important step in transparency; foreign aircraft are now
clear about the dangers of operating in the ADIZ, thereby reducing the possibility of
miscalculation.
The first possible explanation is that Beijing now judges its military is finally in a relatively strong
position in the East China Sea and can use that to press its territorial claims. There is no doubt
that the airpower balance has been shifting in China’s favor. Beijing’s increasingly accurate and
lethal missiles beef up the nation’s capacity to project aerospace power. Theater missiles – that
is, conventional ballistic and land attack cruise missiles with medium ranges – enable China’s
air force to compensate for its longstanding incapacity to suppress enemy air defenses,
maintain air superiority, and go on the attack. China’s air force aspires to conduct more complex
aerospace operations and is developing the necessary technologies to do so. Its fifth-generation
fighter, the J-20, conducted its maiden flight in January 2011, and U.S. intelligence estimates
that this aircraft will be operationally capable by 2018.
However, while Xi Jinping and his comrades may believe China can now achieve local air
superiority against Japan, it seems unlikely that they are naïve enough to believe that
introducing the risk of escalation would compel Japan to give in to China’s demands.
Furthermore, even if the power balance has shifted against Japan, the Chinese air force still has
concerns about its ability to maintain air superiority, especially if the U.S. were to get involved.
A second potential rationale highlights the possibility that China may have established the ADIZ
to create a wedge in the US-Japan alliance and reduce the likelihood of U.S. involvement in a
crisis. Although the move has strengthened Tokyo’s resolve to defend the disputed islands, can
the same be said about the U.S.? Officially, yes. Secretary Kerry has announced that the United
States will not recognize the ADIZ and has warned its “escalatory action will only increase
tensions in the region and create risks of an incident.”
Although the U.S. government may have the will to stand up to China in the East China Sea,
can the same be said of the U.S. public? If China takes no aggressive action directly against the
United States, it increases the difficulty for a U.S. president to stand by Japan if that means
fighting a limited war against China. Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, is filled with netizens
interpreting U.S. recent moves and statements as proof that Washington will not fight over the
islands – the choice to fly “antiquated” B-52s without weapons is interpreted as recognition of
China’s ADIZ and lack of U.S. resolve. As one independent military analyst wrote on a more
reputable website, “thank you U.S. for confirming China’s ADIZ.” Under this backdrop, Beijing
may hope the U.S. will pressure Japan to back down or, at the very least, that the ADIZ will
create tension between the two allies as they debate and disagree on the best way to respond.
A third possibility is the one that shall not be named: China may be preparing to escalate
tensions up to the point of limited conflict. Throughout its history, the People’s Republic has not
hesitated to move beyond coercive diplomacy to use force to further its policy goals – although it
has had varying degrees of success. In these circumstances, Beijing creates a situation in
which the other side has to decide whether to back down, or to respond in a way that increases
the likelihood of war. China could be setting the stage to make its case to the international
community, as well as to the Chinese public, that any use of force in response to Japan is
legitimate and defensive.
It’s unlikely that establishing the ADIZ was preparation for war – but it isn’t crazy. Xi Jinping’s
calls for a new type of major power relationship with the United States show that China no
longer requests the accommodation of its interests, it demands it. Other scholars have pointed
out that the sweeping military structural reforms undertaken at the Third Plenum to enhance
combat effectiveness coupled with Xi’s exhortations to the PLA that it is time to “prepare for
military struggle,” China judges the risk of conflict to be on the rise.
Before creating the Air Defense Identification Zone, China’s leadership would have weighed the
possibility that Japan and the U.S. might defy it. China most likely expected exactly the
response Washington and Tokyo are giving it. This is the problem. China has the strategic
advantage, letting the U.S. fly through the zone, but giving itself the flexibility to respond – and
escalate – tensions with Japan on a case-by-case-basis.
This leads us to the most likely explanation for China’s establishment of the ADIZ: China felt it
could accomplish its goals of changing the status quo and bolstering its territorial claims without
push-back, thanks to U.S. impatience and desire to avoid confrontation at all costs. China
expected a harsh response at first from the Obama administration, but believed that, over time,
the U.S. would lose momentum and interest.
Already, there are indications that the Obama administration is changing course after its initial
show of resolve. Vice President Biden’s visit to the region last week ended with the general
conclusion that the U.S. is now prepared to live with the ADIZ as long as China backs off from
the demand that all aircraft traveling through it check in first. According to Dan Lamothe and
Yochi Dreazen, U.S. officials seem to have accepted that China will keep the zone in place, and
have shifted their focus to preventing a potential military clash between Japan and China.
This is a mistake. Crisis management is critical to avoid inadvertent escalation, but does little
when one side is escalating tensions on purpose to gain advantage and provoke conflict. China
has once again introduced risk and increased the potential costs of U.S. routine operations. By
shifting the conversation to safety measures, the U.S. government will reward Chinese coercion,
increasing the possibility that Beijing will rely on such measures again in the future. China has
been shifting the burden of peace onto the U.S. and Japan, and it is time we call China’s bluff.
The United States should announce it won’t recognize any ADIZ in or over disputed territory and
demonstrate this position by maintaining the same pattern of operations over the
Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, even if it means putting our people and platforms at greater risk.
Of course, this does not hold much credibility with America’s ultimate landlord. As long as we
owe them money, they can pretty much tell us what to do. Isn’t that the way debt works with
you?
Thought so.
Will China go to War?
No global company manufactures their own goods any more. German transaxle giant, Getrag,
has their product headquartered and manufactured in China. KIA, Hyundai, Apple, Panasonic,
Ford, GM, Harley Davidson, Cummins, Delta, Craftsman, and nearly every other brand we hold
so dear is also made in China. More than half our military hardware is made in China, including
the uniforms, radios, radar systems, and navigation systems.
Congress is bloated with Chinese cash, and they don’t care about it at all. The last four
presidential elections had hundreds of millions of Chinese cash pumped into them. Wall Street
would be full of condos and pigeons if it wasn’t for Chinese investors buying out the empty
buildings and renting them out. Tens of millions of square feet of closed factories have had
every pound of equipment, including cranes, conveyors, presses, lasers, and robotics bought by
Chinese and shipped to other countries they own.
Nearly every city hovering outside bankruptcy court is being lobbied by Chinese officials who
are paying cash for buildings, bridges, parks, reservoirs, and pension plans at a discount for
higher yields. Entire city blocks are being bull dozed and prepared for China Cities that will
have Chinese universities, malls, housing, and businesses. And by the way, English will not be
the primary language there. From Maine to Los Angeles, trillions in Chinese cash is buying out
America, and we have no choice but to sell.
So what does a war with China look like?
First, president Hillary Clinton will send the B-52s, although the fuselages were gray, wrinkled
skin even when I serviced them in the Vietnam war. She will make some bully statement with
comprehensive this, and multi-lateral that. She will not threaten, because every Congressman
and Senator and every single consumer, and every single business owner worried about
whether they will get through the quarter alive will forbid her to.
This time America will not rally behind the vast war inevitably building between China and
America. Americans are tired, and they are broken, and each man and woman for the next three
generations has been buried in debt from wars. They want to be left alone. They want their
Ipads, and their cheap shirts at WalMart, and they do not want to see Americans dying in other
countries any more.
Yes, China needs to avenge the horrors and atrocities inflicted by imperial Japan in World War
II. They have not forgotten. They never forget. And now or later this will be avenged. Better now
while they are still powerful. And China too remembers what we here for decades endlessly
called “the lessons of Vietnam” so as to not repeat them. So now, we do it like the cowardly
ghosts we detest. We stab in the night with stealth and without fingerprints. We poison. We
financially go to battle. We position and smile with powdered wigs and makeup and lights and a
theme song.
But for China, the lessons were clear: America did not win. American has not won since
Graneda. Since Reagan. And the fascists that control Washington know this, and they hate
Americans for that victory. They would hate cheesecake if they knew it came from a republican
bakery. They have ruled Washington for 80 years, all except for the 8 years that Republicans
ruled it. For these plutarchs it is about power and rules and the rule of law and ruling with law,
and ruling in spite of the law. For them it is about workers, not jobs. You work, and they spend
the fruits of that labor to make sure they get elected again and again. They buy your vote with
your own blood on a cracker. It’s people. They are feeding you people sweat and blood, so you
will smile and yell and wave their factory signs in front of their company cameras, so world
leaders will exchange emails with them. They have their royal palaces and their royal guards
for life and their royal expense accounts and their royal insider trading portfolios that turn the
winner from an ordinary citizen into a duke or an earl with wealth and gluttony that would shame
Cesar.
And China remembers that Americans did not rally against the exotic enemy of the East the last
time. And it has 17 trillion dollars that says America will not this time. Roosevelt brought the
Soviets into Washington to take advantage when the market crashed. Within months, they were
investing in war. Not for us. For Germany and for the Soviet Union. We sent money and
expertise to the Nazis, and we sent weapons and technology to the Soviets. We made a
fortune. America blossomed like the rose, and the Soviets got their Eastern Europe, and the
race to the Moon began.
Then it stopped. After a few presidents worth of prosperity and wealth building and graft and
fraud and amalgamation, it stops. And history starts over again. The only thing keeping the
music playing are the throngs on investors that haven’t had their chance to collect their payout.
China gets it. Everybody does. The role of the mainstream media talking heads is to pretend it
doesn’t happen that way, that it will be all right. That this is all a conspiracy and that we should
go back to the mall and keep buying, charging, whatever.
Meanwhile, the edge of this fake world has been reached by many. And they are falling off and
living in tents. They are solving the world’s problems every night around the fire made of trash
burning in a 55 gallon drum. But no one hears them. No one is listening, while megatons of
steel carve through the oceans to within range of targets long prepared by the folks down at
Wars-R-Us. No one cares about the ones who fall off the edge. It is a long way from here.
What is on TV? I’m tired of this story Mommy. What is wrong with Daddy? When is brother
coming home? I’m hungry. Let’s go out to eat. Good night John boy.
Cell Phone Eavedropping
The latest documents from the National Security Agency leaked by Noibel Peace Prize
Candidate Edward Snowden show that government spies are capable of listening in on mobile
phone calls that use a common form of encryption.
The Washginton Post on published confidential government documents provided by Snowden
that show that the NSA can 'process' cellular phone calls on GSM networks, even if they are
encrypted.
Observers have long known that military and law enforcement officials are capable of hacking
into a suspect’s mobile phone.
GSM, which stands for Global System for Mobile communications, is the world's most widely
used cellphone technology — though several large networks, notably Verizon and Sprint, rely
on an older network technology called CDMA
Calls that have been encrypted according to a common standard called A5/1 — which was
developed in 1987.
The vulnerability comes into play on 2G networks, which modern cellphones may resort to it
when 3G or 4G networks are not available or too congested.
More modern networks like 3G and 4G, found throughout the US and other wealthy nations, are
more difficult to decode.
The Post found that more than 80 percent of cell phones used in the world use outdated and
vulnerable technology.
David Wagner, a computer scientist at the University of California Berkley, said that type of
encryption 'was designed 30 years ago, and you wouldn’t expect a 30-year-old car to have the
latest safety mechanisms.'
Experts suggest that while it takes longer for analysts to decode and examine messages sent
on higher systems, it is indeed possible.
Some carriers are already making the change to the newer A5/3 method of encryption,
however, it doesn't matter how strong strong their encryption, the calls are automatically
decoded upon reaching the carrier's internal network.
The NSA has repeatedly stated that it only snoops on conversations involving foreign citizens,
as it has no legal basis by which to conduct such surveillance on Americans
Current US law makes it illegal for the NSA to monitor phone conversations between American
citizens without a court order, yet these documents reveal that the agency is capable of
overriding encryption and listening in on international citizens.
The Post warned that the intelligence agencies of other nations likely have the same
technology, and may even listen in on American phone calls.
This method of surveillance has made headlines recently because of the reported NSA tap on
world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
'The scale of foreign surveillance has become so vast, the amount of information about
Americans 'incidentally' captured may itself be approaching mass surveillance levels,'' said
Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty and National Security Program.
'The government should be targeting its surveillance at those suspected of wrongdoing, not
assembling massive associational databases that by their very nature record the movements of
a huge number of innocent people,' said Catherine Crump, a staff attorney for the American
Civil Liberties Union.
NSA Weak Spot
The National Security Agency has an Achilles heel, according to some anti-surveillance activists. The key
vulnerability, according to members of the OffNow coalition of advocacy groups: The electronic spy
agency's reliance on local utilities.
The activists would like to turn off the water to the NSA's $1.5 billion Utah Data Center in Bluffdale, Utah,
and at other facilities around the country.
Dusting off the concept of "nullification," which historically referred to state attempts to block federal law,
the coalition plans to push state laws to prohibit local authorities from cooperating with the NSA.
[RELATED: U.N. Advances Draft Anti-Surveillance Resolution]
Draft state-level legislation called the Fourth Amendment Protection Act would – in theory – forbid local
governments from providing services to federal agencies that collect electronic data from Americans
without a personalized warrant.
No Utah lawmaker has came forward to introduce the suggested legislation yet, but at least one legislator
has committed to doing so, according to Mike Maharrey of the Tenth Amendment Center. He declined to
identify the lawmaker before the bill is introduced.
"We are still very early in the campaign, and this is in fact a multi-step, multi-year long-term strategy,"
says Maharrey, whose group is part of the OffNow coalition along with the Bill of Rights Defense
Committee and a handful of other groups.
[BROWSE: Editorial Cartoons About NSA Surveillance]
The campaign is looking beyond Utah, Maharrey adds.
He says a Washington state lawmaker has also committed to introducing the legislation and says state
politicians in five other states have expressed interest in doing so without committing to it.
The city of Bluffdale successfully competed to supply water to the new NSA data center with an eye
toward future economic development and offered discounted rates, The Salt Lake Tribune reported Nov.
30. The city is reportedly charging the NSA a rate of $2.05 for every 1,000 gallons of water, significantly
less than the typical rate for high-volume consumers of $3.35 per 1,000 gallons.
[READ: White House Says It Will Respond to Snowden Petition]
KSL-TV reported in July the center will use up to 1.7 million gallons of water a day when it's fully
functional, in part to cool mega-computers that collect and store data from around the world. The datahub is encountering some problems, the Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 7, with meltdowns obliterating
thousands of dollars of equipment at the million-square-foot facility.
At the federal level, the USA Freedom Act sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Sen.
Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., would significantly curtail the most controversial NSA practices made public in June
by whistle-blower Edward Snowden. Despite appearing poised to pass the House of Representatives, the
bill has little chance of becoming law because of opposition from President Barack Obama, who supports
the NSA's phone and Internet surveillance programs.
Well, there is a response that has gone viral. TURN IT OFF
I was driving on the freeway just above the NSA headquarters last month. I looked down and told the
people in the car with me, “Hey, I kind of like that project.”
In dismay, they asked me, “What’s so good about it?”
“Well,” I said, “First, the federal government is giving Utah billions to build this center, which has created
jobs and made dozens of building contractors lots of money. And, if we ever wanted to stop the NSA
from spying on us, all you have to do is shut off the water. That’s easy enough. I wonder who’s bright
idea it was to put all the NSA eggs into one tiny basket in Utah?”