The solar wind is clipping along at a brisk 408 km/sec and The sun is peppered with spots, but not one of the eight numbered sunspot groups on the solar disk has the type of unstable magnetic field that poses a threat for strong flares. Solar activity is low. NOAA forecasters estimate a 15% chance of M-flares today, decreasing to only 5% tomorrow. On Wednesday morning, Oct. 8th, there will be a total lunar eclipse. Observers across the Pacific side of Earth can see the normally-pale full Moon turn a beautiful shade of red as it passes through the sunset-colored shadow of our planet. The Moon first dips into Earth's shadow at approximately 9:15 UT (2:15 a.m. PDT), kicking off the partial phase of the eclipse. Totality, when the Moon is fully immersed, begins at 10:25 UT (3:25 a.m. PDT) and lasts for nearly an hour.
The Global Warming that Wasn’t
Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, Dr Peiser said: "What has happened is that the public has become more skeptical because they were told we are facing Doomsday, and suddenly they realize ‘Where is the warming that we were promised?’"
"They say we can predict the climate and the reality is that they can’t."
Because of this so-called "global warming hiatus", Dr Peiser says climate change is not as pressing of an issue as it once was, a fact that should be embraced by the scientific community.
"The reality is that they are quite relieved in a way, and we should all be relieved that it isn’t such a big problem at present.
"We might have much more time than many people once told us."
However, the reason behind the current pause in rising temperatures remains a mystery, and there are said to be more than 30 theories attempting to decipher what caused this stability.
Some scientists suggest the heat may have gone into the ocean, but Dr Peiser remains unconvinced by this theory.
"Something is clearly balancing out the warming effect of the CO2 [carbon dioxide]," he explained.
"It might be natural factors, it might be the ocean, no one knows for sure.
"It [the warming] could start anytime - and that is an indication that we don’t fully understand the climate.
"That’s a reality that most climate scientists are reluctant to admit."
A host of world leaders gathered last month to discuss the topic of global warming at the UN Climate Change Summit.
US President Barack Obama said it was an issue "that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other" - but Dr Peiser could not help but notice there were a few faces missing from the meeting.
A handful of countries - including China, India and Canada - did not attend the summit, something that did not surprise Dr Peiser.
We the People Vote for Mayberry
Residents of an Idaho town are asking their city council to return an armored vehicle to the federal government and just say no to militarization.
John Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, said he was contacted by a group of residents from Nampa, Idaho, and asked to urge their elected leaders to send the town’s military-grade equipment back where it belongs — to the Pentagon. Of particular concern is a mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle, or MRAP, acquired with grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The discussion of whether local police need machine guns, night-vision scopes or an armored vehicle needs to engage the entire community, and should not be unilaterally decided by the federal government, the military, or law enforcement, Whitehead said.
“Whenever this kind of armament is brought into a community, it should only be done with the knowledge and consent of the citizenry,” Whitehead, a constitutional attorney based in Charlottesville, Virginia, said in a statement released to WND.
John Whitehead
Law enforcement agencies across the country have quietly returned more than 6,000 unwanted or unusable items to the Pentagon in the last 10 years, according to a report by Mother Jones.
And the trend seems to be gaining steam since the August unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. That’s when many Americans got their first glimpse of camouflage-clad cops roving the streets in tanks and armored vehicles, blurring the lines between police and soldiers.
Recently, in response to a local outcry over aggressive policing tactics, San Jose, California’s police department announced plans to return its MRAP, and the Los Angeles school system police department has agreed to return its three grenade launchers.
Whitehead said military recycling programs carry hidden costs and result in heightened risk for the community by transforming local police into extensions of the military.
The Rutherford Institute’s letter to Nampa Mayor Bob Henry can be read here:
While local police departments often argue that MRAPs and other military hardware are essential “tools” in the fight against drug crimes, the reality is that violent crime nationwide is at a 40-year low, Whitehead says in the letter.
“Most of this equipment is not only largely unnecessary but is completely incongruous with the security needs of smaller communities,” the letter states.
Nampa, in Canyon County, Idaho, has a population of just over 97,000.
Whitehead says 17,000 local police departments are equipped with military equipment ranging from Blackhawk helicopters and machine guns to grenade launchers, battering rams, explosives, chemical sprays, body armor, night vision, rappelling gear and armored vehicles. Some have tanks and others have drones.
Whether or not the use of such sophisticated military equipment is justified, many local police feel compelled to use it once they have it.
The misuse of military gear by police is a growing problem that has been documented in books such as Cheryl Chumley’s “Police State USA: How Orwell’s Nightmare is Becoming Our Reality:” and Radley Balko’s “Rise of The Warrior Cop.”
Heavily armed SWAT units were introduced in the 1980s for the purpose of handling highly volatile hostage situations and confrontations with active shooters. But now they are rolled out for the most routine police procedures such as serving warrants.
SWAT raids, which numbered about 3,000 a year in the early 1980s, now occur over 80,000 times per year across America, according to research by Professor Peter Kraska, chair of the graduate program at the School of Justice at Eastern Kentucky University and author of the book “Militarizing The American Criminal Justice System: The Changing Roles of the Armed Forces and Police.”
WND previously reported on an incident in rural Habersham County, Georgia, in which a SWAT team threw a flash-bang grenade into a home where they believed a drug dealer was hiding out. The grenade landed in the crib of a 19-month-old boy and blew open his face. The toddler spent five weeks in the hospital following the May 28 incident which the local sheriff called “a mistake.”
Bounkham “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh was permanently scarred by a SWAT team in Habersham County, Georgia.
Little “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh has had to undergo multiple reconstructive surgeries, including the reattachment of his nose, and is still badly scarred. The drug dealer was arrested later that same night at a different house and the family maintains they have no involvement in illegal drugs. A Habersham grand jury has been meeting for the past week to consider a possible criminal indictment against the Sheriff’s Office.
“While we all want our law enforcement officers to be able to do their job, which is to maintain the peace and uphold the Constitution, and we want them to be safe and protected while doing so, we cannot afford to sacrifice our freedoms in the process,” said Whitehead, author of “A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State.”
He believes it will take local citizen activists stepping up to roll back the police state.
“The American police force is not supposed to be a branch of the military but exists for a sole purpose: To serve and protect the citizens of each and every American community,” he said. “Thus, it now falls to local governing bodies to restore the rightful balance between the citizenry and those appointed to safeguard their freedoms.”
Local police agencies in all 50 states and four U.S. territories participate in the Pentagon’s 1033 “recycling” program, and the share of equipment and weaponry delivered to local communities each year continues to expand.
Since 1990, the 1033 program has transferred $4.2 billion worth of military weaponry and equipment from the Pentagon to domestic police agencies, much of it in the name of fighting the war on drugs.
The MRAP is an intimidating part of this “recycling” program. Weighing in at 20 tons, an MRAP is built to withstand everything from small arms fire to IED bomb blasts that were common during the Iraq War but unlikely to be encountered during domestic policing.
And, as many small cities have discovered, the costs of maintaining an MRAP can quickly add up.
“While supposedly acquired for little up front, these $733,000 battering rams come with hidden costs that can add up to tens of thousands of dollars yearly in maintenance and repair,” Whitehead said.
However, as Whitehead notes in his letter to the city council, when Homeland Security launched its 1033 surplus military equipment program, it laid the groundwork for a transformation of local law enforcement into extensions of the military, “upsetting a critical balance established by our Founding Fathers who warned against establishing a standing army that would see American citizens as potential combatants.”
For the sake of greater transparency, accountability, and oversight when it comes to police acquisition and deployment of military-grade equipment, Whitehead said The Rutherford Institute is recommending that the Nampa City Council adopt a policy of direct oversight to ensure that if local law enforcement acquires such weapons, they do so with the blessing of the community
18 Months After NSA is Outed
It's been a year and a half since Edward Snowden revealed to the world just how much private information the National Security Agency has been collecting on just about everyone. The massive spying operation raised privacy and Constitutional concerns and set off alarms with reports that some employees had used the system to keep tabs on their love interests.
Sadly, but not surprisingly, the government has done little to reform the program and reassure the public. Even relatively weak legislation that fails to address core concerns has stalled in Congress.
Action has come, however, from Silicon Valley. The new Apple iPhone 6 includes an encryption program that could take years to break. Even more important, Apple won't have access to the password. That way, it will be impossible for government officials to pressure the digital giant to violate their customer's privacy.
The importance of that protection was recently revealed in court documents showing that government officials threatened Yahoo with a $250,000 daily fine if they didn't turn over user data to the NSA. The fine was set to double every week.
Public demand for action on privacy issues led Google to quickly announce that it, too, would offer smartphone users additional protection. The Washington Post notes that this "is part of a broad shift by American technology companies to make their products more resistant to government snooping."
Many government officials are aghast at the notion that a private company would offer such privacy protections to consumers. The head of the FBI suggested it might prevent officials from finding a kidnapped child. Others raise concerns about terrorists.
A number of security experts dismiss those concerns, particularly because the agencies can access so much other information. But discussing only the law enforcement angle misses the larger point. The privacy issue is not just about catching bad guys; it's about the threat to good guys as well.
Seen from that perspective, the cost of giving government agencies easy access to everyone's smartphone data is extraordinarily high. Smartphones carry all the details of our daily lives in the form of pictures, texts, contact lists, emails and more. That includes fond memories and great moments, but embarrassing gaffes and painful mistakes are also recorded.
In the wrong hands, such information could be used for a variety of nefarious purposes. To grasp the potential harm, your imagination doesn't have to stretch beyond those NSA officials spying on love interests and ex-spouses.
In fact, it's easy to imagine that giving government agencies unrestricted access to the digital lives of more than 300 million Americans would lead to far more crimes being committed than solved.
Seen from that perspective, the iPhone 6 is providing a valuable public service.
This entire episode highlights an often overlooked part of the public policy debate in America. Change does not come from political leaders or the political process. It comes from popular culture and technology. Politicians lag behind. By the time any NSA reform legislation passes Congress, technology advances will have already addressed the key issues.
In the case of the privacy debate, those key issues eventually come back to what kind of society we want to live in
Common Core is full of Common Criminals
A new front has opened in the Common Core wars — over testing contracts.
The high-stakes battle is undermining one of the Obama administration’s most prized initiatives: its vision, backed by more than $370 million in federal funds, of testing students across the country on a common set of exams in math, reading and writing.