There are 7 sunspot clusters on the Sun today, but big sunspots AR1967 and AR1968 are rotating over the sun's western limb to begin a two-week transit of the sun's farside. Although none of these appear to be ready to launch dangerous flares at Earth, the sunspot layout could result in elevated levels of radiation near Earth. At their current location, any flares or magnetic eruptions today could funnel energetic particles in our direction, possibly triggering a radiation storm. Yes, the solar wind is 458 km/sec, and the proton count is only 2.0 protons per cubic centimeter, but it is the arrangement of those two sunspots that make them well-connected to our planet by the sun's spiraling magnetic field. Any launch of energy into space will likely couple that radiation and direct it to Earth. It will expose people traveling at high altitudes to fairly high levels of radiation. Aluminum is transparent to this kind of energy. We’ll keep you posted.

When North is Brighter than Normal

A team led by Scott Engle of Villanova University in Pennsylvania recalibrated historic measurements of Polaris by Ptolemy in 137 C.E., the Persian astronomer Al-Sufi in 964 C.E., and others.

They investigated the fluctuations of the star over the course of several years, combing through historical records and utilising the Hubble Space Telescope.

The team found that Polaris is 2.5 times brighter today than in Ptolemy's time, which they say is a remarkable rate of change. Although I do find it a bit strange that the Hubble was able to travel back to Ptolemy’s day to actually run that comparison, there is no surprise here for me.

 'If they are real, these changes are 100 times larger than predicted by current theories of stellar evolution,' says Villanova astronomer Edward Guinan.

The team's data also hint that the star's cyclic 4-day variation in brightness, although still weak, is once again growing more robust--but no one knows what's driving these flutterings or how long they will last.

Engle and his team began to research the star around the beginning of 2000, when they found that the dropping brightness was on the rise again.

'It was unexpected to find,' Engle  told SPACE.com.'It started increasing rather rapidly.'

'Polaris is arguably the best-known star in the Northern Hemisphere, since it lies within a degree of the North Celestial Pole,' the researchers wrote.

'For much of human history, Polaris was highly regarded for its unchanging nature.

'However, we now know that Polaris is a Cepheid variable, undergoing ultra-low-amplitude pulsations.

'Thirty years ago, a paper in the Astrophysical Journal by A. Arellano Ferro announced that the amplitude of these pulsations was diminishing.

'This behavior was confirmed, and it was believed that soon enough Polaris would no longer be a Cepheid variable.

+3

Star Trails above Beccles, with Polaris in the centre

'We started photometrically monitoring Polaris in 1999 and discovered that the amplitude of pulsations had reached a minimum and was now, in fact, growing again.

'It was while gathering historic photometry for the amplitude study that we noticed the published magnitudes of Polaris were systematically fainter, the further back in time the data went.

'This is an entirely unexpected behavior for a Cepheid variable, and one that we wanted to investigate further.

I think they are not taking into consideration the magnetic lensing of the galactic plane. We entered the plane in early 2012, and by December the center node of gravity, created by whatever mass sits at the center,

began to have its greatest influence. Einstein proved that light bends around stars, and massive stars with ten million suns worth of mass will really bend some light. The fluctuation of spacetime between galaxies may be interacting with the way light appear to us, here on Earth. Is Polaris really getting brighter where it is? I doubt it. But the light will be pulled into gravitational highways like a dual slit experiment, and we are part of a speeding solar system through the space fabric at 7 km/sec. That means, we may be passing from bright band to bright band, and noticing it as the star Polaris getting brighter and dimmer alternativley.

Solar Magnetics and Galactic Plane Resonating with Earth

A map showing the location of the epicenter of Saturday morning's quake near Hollywood. (Bing Maps / February 8, 2014)

Full coverage: California earthquakes

By Ken Schwencke

February 8, 2014, 10:18 a.m.

A shallow magnitude 3.0 earthquake was reported Saturday morning two miles from Hollywood according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 10:13 a.m. Pacific time at a depth of 5.0 miles.

According to the USGS, the epicenter was three miles from Los Angeles, four miles from Glendale, four miles from West Hollywood and 357 miles from Sacramento.

In the last 10 days, there have been three earthquakes magnitude 3.0 and greater centered nearby.

A new study by the University of Utah revealed that the hot molten rock beneath Yellowstone National Park is 2 ½ times larger than previously estimated, meaning the park’s supervolcano has the potential to erupt with a force about 2,000 times the size of Mount St. Helens. By measuring seismic waves from earthquakes, scientists were able to map the magma chamber underneath the Yellowstone caldera as 55 miles long, lead author Jamie Farrell of the University of Utah said after presenting his findings last week to the American Geophysical Union. The last Yellowstone eruption happened 640,000 years ago, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The chamber is 18 miles wide and runs at depths from 3 to 9 miles below the earth, he added. That means there is enough volcanic material below the surface to match the largest of the supervolcano’s three eruptions over the last 2.1 million years, Farrell said. The largest blast — the volcano’s first — was 2,000 times the size of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state. The USGS’ Yellowstone Volcano Observatory listed the park’s volcano alert level as “normal” for December.

Some scientists tracking earthquake swarms under Yellowstone have warned the caldera is overdue to erupt. Farrell dismissed that notion, saying there isn’t enough data to estimate the timing of the next eruption. “We do believe there will be another eruption, we just don’t know when." A large earthquake at Yellowstone is much more likely than a volcano eruption, Farrell added. The 7.5-magnitude Hebgen Lake earthquake killed 28 people there in 1959.

Some 640,000 years ago there was a colossal cauldron of magma, a supervolcano, that exploded with such violence that it left an ash layer almost ten feet deep a thousand

miles away in eastern Nebraska killing all plant life and covering almost all of the United States west of the Mississippi. Modern geological surveys have shown that this supervolcano erupts catastrophically every 600,000 years. The land that supervolcano is trapped in was called by Blackfoot Indians 'the land of evil spirits' -what we know today as Yellowstone National Park.

A report from scientists at the University of Utah shows that the “supervolcano” underneath Yellowstone has risen at a record rate since mid 2004. Apparently, a “pancake-shaped blob” of molten rock he size of Los Angeles was pressed in to the slumbering volcano, some six miles down.

“There is no evidence of an imminent volcanic eruption or hydrothermal explosion. That’s the bottom line,” says seismologist Robert B. Smith, lead author of the study and professor of geophysics at the University of Utah. “A lot of calderas [giant volcanic craters] worldwide go up and down over decades without erupting.”

The journal Science however reported that the caldera floor of the massive volcano has risen 3 inches, per year, for the past three years. This is a rate of growth three times more rapid than ever observed, since records were first kept back in 1923.

“Our best evidence is that the crustal magma chamber is filling with molten rock,” Smith says. “But we have no idea how long this process goes on before there either is an eruption or the inflow of molten rock stops and the caldera deflates again,” he adds.

If you were traveling Yellowstone's pristine backcountry peaks and alpine valleys, you would never realize that you're traveling atop of the world's most massive active volcano. Only when you got down to the boiling thermals of Firehole River and the Geyser Basin whould you realize that you're a stranger in a strange land.

A brief history lesson on Yellowstone shows us an area that crosses over the Wyoming border in to Montana and Idaho, and holds North America’s record as being the largest volcanic field. Produced by a “hotspot” 400 miles beneath the Earth’s surface, it rises to 30 miles underground, at which point it widens in to an area about 300 miles across.

At this point, blobs of magma which have been channeled up from the hotspot – a gigantic plume of hot and molten rock – break off from the top of the plume, and rise in to the magma chamber beneath the Yellowstone caldera.

It is this magma – that is believed to exist between 5 and 10 miles beneath the surface of Yellowstone – that heats the geysers and hot springs that have made Yellowstone National Park one of America’s foremost attractions.

The problem that the seismologists are facing is that they simply have not enough data to make an educated guess as to what will happen next. We know of three supervolcanic eruptions that happened before our time on Earth, but nothing more. Is

Yellowstone nearing an explosion, or is this just part of the supervolcano’s normal processes?

Since the most recent blast 640,000 years ago, about 30 smaller eruptions—including one as recent as 70,000 years ago—have filled the caldera with lava and ash, producing the relatively flat landscape of the Yellowstone plateau we see today. According to the US Geological Survey, the rate slowed between 2007 and 2010 to a centimeter a year or less. However, since the start of the 2004 swelling, ground levels over the volcano have been raised by as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) in places.

"It's an extraordinary uplift, because it covers such a large area and the rates are so high," said the University of Utah's Bob Smith, a longtime expert in Yellowstone's volcanism in an interview with National Geographic.

Scientists believe a growing magma reservoir four to six miles (seven to ten kilometers) below the surface is the culprit, driving the uplift. The surge doesn't seem to herald an imminent catastrophe, Smith said.

"At the beginning we were concerned it could be leading up to an eruption," said Smith, who co-authored a paper on the surge published in the December 3, 2010, edition of Geophysical Research Letters. "But once we saw [the magma] was at a depth of ten kilometers, we weren't so concerned. If it had been at depths of two or three kilometers [one or two miles], we'd have been a lot more concerned."

Studies of the surge, he added, may offer clues about what's going on in the volcano's subterranean activity, which may eventually help scientists predict when Yellowstone's next volcanic eruption will break out.

Smith and colleagues at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Yellowstone Volcano Observatory have been mapping the caldera's rise and fall using tools such as global positioning systems (GPS) and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), which gives ground-deformation measurements.

Ground deformation can suggest that magma is moving toward the surface before an eruption: The flanks of Mount St. Helens, for example, swelled dramatically in the months before its 1980 explosion.There are also many examples, including the Yellowstone supervolcano, where it appears the ground has risen and fallen for thousands of years without an eruption.

According to current theory, Yellowstone's magma reservoir is fed by a plume of hot rock surging upward from Earth's mantle. As the amount of magma flowing into the chamber increases, the reservoir swells like a lung and the surface above expands upward. Models suggest that during the recent uplift, the reservoir was filling with 0.02 cubic miles (0.1 cubic kilometer) of magma a year. When the rate of increase slows, the theory goes, the magma likely moves off horizontally to solidify and cool, allowing the surface to settle back down.

"These calderas tend to go up and down, up and down," he said. "But every once in a while they burp, creating hydrothermal explosions, earthquakes, or—ultimately—they can produce volcanic eruptions."

Predicting when an eruption might occur is extremely difficult, in part because the fine details of what's going on under Yellowstone are still undetermined. What's more, continuous records of Yellowstone's activity have been made only since the 1970s—a tiny slice of geologic time—making it hard to draw conclusions.

"Clearly some deep source of magma feeds Yellowstone, and since Yellowstone has erupted in the recent geological past, we know that there is magma at shallower depths too," said Dan Dzurisin, a Yellowstone expert with the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory in Washington State.

"There has to be magma in the crust, or we wouldn't have all the hydrothermal activity that we have," Dzurisin added. "There is so much heat coming out of Yellowstone right now that if it wasn't being reheated by magma, the whole system would have gone stone cold since the time of the last eruption 70,000 years ago."

The large hydrothermal system just below Yellowstone's surface, which produces many of the park's top tourist attractions, may also play a role in ground swelling, Dzurisin said, though no one is sure to what extent. "Could it be that some uplift is caused not by new magma coming in but by the hydrothermal system sealing itself up and pressurizing?" he asked. "And then it subsides when it springs a leak and depressurizes? These details are difficult."

The roughly 3,000 earthquakes in Yellowstone each year may offer even more clues about the relationship between ground uplift and the magma chamber.

For example, between December 26, 2008, and January 8, 2009, some 900 earthquakes occurred in the area around Yellowstone Lake, which may have helped to release pressure on the magma reservoir by allowing fluids to escape, and this may have slowed the rate of uplift, the University of Utah's Smith said.

"Big quakes [can have] a relationship to uplift and deformations caused by the intrusion of magma," he said. "How those intrusions stress the adjacent faults, or how the faults might transmit stress to the magma system, is a really important new area of study."

Overall, USGS's Dzurisin added, "the story of Yellowstone deformation has gotten more complex as we've had better and better technologies to study it."

Thankfully, our ability to use our planets past to predict its future continues to grow, to a point where, maybe someday, we will be able to predict what Yellowstone is up to.

TSA and the Great Liberty Heist

LIKE many Americans, Jason Edward Harrington suspects that most of the airport security measures enforced by the country's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are useless theatre and unlikely to catch actual terrorists. There's one important difference, though: Mr Harrington is a former TSA agent. For years, he wrote an anonymous blog, "Taking Sense Away", about his experiences as a screener at O'Hare airport in Chicago. Now he has quit his job and gone public, writing a lengthy piece in Politico magazine about his time with the agency . The whole piece is worth your time, but here's a highlight:We knew the full-body scanners didn’t work before they were even installed. Not long after the Underwear Bomber incident, all TSA officers at O’Hare were informed that training for the Rapiscan Systems full-body scanners would soon begin. The machines cost about $150,000 a pop.Our instructor was a balding middle-aged man who shrugged his shoulders after everything he said, as though in apology. At the conclusion of our crash course, one of the officers in our class asked him to tell us, off the record, what he really thought about the machines.“They’re shit,” he said, shrugging. He said we wouldn’t be able to distinguish plastic explosives from body fat and that guns were practically invisible if they were turned sideways in a pocket.We quickly found out the trainer was not kidding: Officers discovered that the machines were good at detecting just about everything besides cleverly hidden explosives and guns. The only thing more absurd than how poorly the full-body scanners performed was the incredible amount of time the machines wasted for everyone.The saga of the first full-body scanners at airports is a testament to government incompetence. Within three years of the machines being ordered, Congress forced the TSA to discard many of them. Now we are told that the machines never worked correctly in the first place. (Mr Harrington links to one blogger's video alleging that a metal object held sideways to the body would not show up on the scanners, and adds that this flaw was "known to everyone I talked to within the agency".) What the scanners did do, though, was allow officers to gawk at Americans' bodies: "Jokes about the passengers ran rampant among my TSA colleagues," Mr Harrington reports, to no one's surprise.Congress did, eventually, force the TSA to get rid of some of the worst body scanners and replace them with machines that show only a Jane Doe-like outline of a body.The TSA recently allowed pocket knives on planes and the Federal Aviation Administration scrapped its ridiculous ban on using personal electronic devices during takeoff and landing. Those were positive steps. But there is still a lot more that lawmakers could do to make flying faster, better, and less humiliating. (Allowing passengers to keep their shoes on and bring larger containers of liquids onboard would be wonderful.) Let's hope Mr Harrington's piece generates some real action.

Iran says warships headed close to U.S. bordersTEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian warships dispatched to the Atlantic Ocean will travel close to U.S. maritime borders for the first time, a senior Iranian naval commander said Saturday.The commander of Iran's Northern Navy Fleet, Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad, said the vessels have already entered the Atlantic Ocean via waters near South Africa, the official IRNA news agency reported.The fleet, consisting of a destroyer and a helicopter-carrying supply ship, began its voyage last month from the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas. The ships, carrying some 30 navy academy cadets for training along with their regular crews, are on a three-month mission.The voyage comes amid an ongoing push by Iran to demonstrate its ability to project power across the Middle East and beyond.IRNA quoted Haddad as saying the fleet is approaching U.S. maritime borders for the first time. The Islamic Republic considers the move as a response to U.S. naval deployments near its own coastlines. The U.S. Navy's 5th fleet is based in Bahrain, just across the Persian Gulf.

The Great Banker Bugout

The apparent suicide death of the chief economist of a US investment house brings the number of financial workers who have died allegedly by their own hand to four in the last week.

50-year-old Mike Dueker, who had worked for Russell Investment for five years, was found dead close to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State, says AP.

Local police say he could have jumped over a fence and fallen 15 meters to his death, and are treating the case as a suicide.

Dueker was reported missing by friends on January 29, and police had been searching for him.

A Sheriff’s spokesman said investigators learned that he was having problems at work but did not elaborate.

Jennifer Tice, a company spokeswoman declined to comment, however said, that Dueker was in good standing at Russell.

“We were deeply saddened to learn today of the death,” Tice said in an e-mail on Friday. “He made a valuable contributions that helped our clients and many of his fellow associates.”

Dueker joined Russell Investment in 2008. He wrote for Market Outlook financial services publications, forecasting the business cycle and the target federal funds rate.

He is the creator and developer of a business cycle index that forecast economic performance published monthly on the Russell website.

He was previously an assistant vice president and research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and is ranked in the top 5 percent of published economists.

Over the past two decades he wrote dozens of research papers mostly on monetary policy, according to the bank’s website.

His most-cited paper was “Strengthening the case for the yield curve as a predictor of U.S. recessions,” published in 1997 while he was a researcher at the Federal Reserve.

“He was a valued colleague of mine during my entire tenure at the St. Louis Fed,” said William Poole, the bank's ex-president. “Everyone respected his professional skills and good sense.”

Dueker held an undergraduate degree in math from the University of Oregon, a master’s degree in economics from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington.

Streak of bankers’ deaths

Dueker’s apparent suicide was the fourth among financial experts in a week.

A 58-year-old former senior executive at Deutsche Bank AG, William Broeksmit, was found dead on January 26 in his home after an apparent suicide in South Kensington in central London.

The next day, January 27, Tata Motors managing director Karl Slym, 51, was found dead on the fourth floor of the Shangri-La hotel in Bangkok. Police said he could have committed suicide. Mr. Slym was staying on the 22nd floor with his wife, and was attending a board meeting in the Thai capital.

Another tragic incident occurred on January 28, when a 39-year-old Gabriel Magee, a JP Morgan employee, died of natural causes. His heart stopped he allegedly fell from the roof of his European headquarters in London.

CEO Shoots Himself to Death with Nail Gun

The founder and CEO of American Title Services in Centennial was found dead in his home this week, the result of self-inflicted wounds from a nail gun, according to the Arapahoe County coroner.

Richard Talley, 57, and the company he founded in 2001 were under investigation by state insurance regulators at the time of his death late Tuesday, an agency spokesman confirmed Thursday.

It was unclear how long the investigation had been ongoing or its primary focus.

A coroner's spokeswoman Thursday said Talley was found in his garage by a family member who called authorities. They said Talley died from seven or eight self-inflicted wounds from a nail gun fired into his torso and head.

Also unclear is whether Talley's suicide was related to the investigation by the Colorado Division of Insurance, which regulates title companies.

The division is a part of the Department of Regulatory Agencies.

DORA spokesman Vince Plymell confirmed that the investigation was focused on Talley and the company but would not provide additional details.

Before coming to Colorado, Talley was a former regional financial officer at Drexel Burnham Lambert in Chicago, where he met his wife, Cheryl, a vice president at the company. The two married in 1989.

Talley had formed a number of companies, some now defunct, according to the Colorado secretary of state's office. Among them: American Escrow, Clear Title, Clear Creek Financial Holdings, Swift Basin, Sumar, American Real Estate Services, and the American Alliance of Real Estate Professionals.

In addition to its headquarters in the Peakview Tower near Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre in the Denver Tech Center, American Title has offices in Pueblo, Brighton, Boulder, Westminster, Lakewood, Wheat Ridge and Fort Collins, according to its website.

Talley's 1989 wedding announcement in the Chicago Tribune noted he was a graduate of the University of Miami and had a graduate degree from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

It also said he was "a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic swimming team." A spokeswoman for USA Swimming on Thursday said Talley was not on the team

We have not had this many suicides since Obama quit hanging out with gay men in Chicago, and before that since the Clintons began raising money to run for president.

Climate Change Update

Ice continued to build this past week on the Great Lakes due to the cold air and temperatures staying below freezing, and Lake Superior's new record shows it.

The lake is 92 percent frozen, toppling a 20-year-old record of 91 percent set on Feb. 5, 1994. That statistic helped total Great Lakes ice cover soar, and we can expect to see more form in coming days.

The air temperatures this past week averaged around five degrees below normal for the Great Lakes area. This amount of deviation from normal means it was a fairly cold week.

As of February 5, 2014, the entire Great Lakes system is now reportedly covered 77 percent with ice, according to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. Last week at this time the ice cover was 66 percent. The 77 percent ice cover now still lags behind 1994, when the entire Great Lakes system had an average ice cover of 84 percent on February 5. This data is according to Jia Wang, physical oceanographer at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Center in Ann Arbor, MI.

Let's look at each individual lake.

Lake Superior

Lake Superior is almost frozen over as of yesterday February 5, 2014. Lake Superior is 92 percent covered with ice now. The ice has increased rapidly in the past week, from 76 percent ice cover on January 30, 2014. The high resolution satellite picture from February 3, 2014 shows all of the ice cover on Lake Superior. The current ice cover on Lake Superior is the highest amount ever for February 5. In 1994, Lake Superior was reportedly 91 percent covered in ice.

Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan is now 51 percent covered with ice, as opposed to 42 percent at this time last week. Coyotes were seen walking on the ice just offshore of Chicago this week. This makes us wonder if the lakes freeze over totally, will animals from Canada be able to cross over Lake Huron or Lake Superior, and enter Michigan. It is thought that this is how the last wolverine spotted in Michigan made it into Michigan. Lake Michigan has been covered with more ice on this date in the past. In 1977 and 1996, Lake Michigan was up to 74 percent ice covered.

More: A first-hand look of ice on the Great Lakes from a U.S. Coast Guard Cutter

Lake Huron

Ice cover on Lake Huron rocketed up an additional 14 percent this week, climbing to a total ice cover of 86 percent. If the ice continues to build at that rate in this next week, Lake Huron could be almost frozen over, or frozen over by the end of next week. People ice fishing are reporting 24 inches of ice on Saginaw Bay near Bay City. Lake Huron has been as much at 95 percent covered in ice on this date back in 1981 and 1994.

Lake Erie

Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, with an average depth of 62 feet and a maximum depth of 210 feet. It also has the least volume of any Great Lake, with 116

cubic miles of water. So it should come as no surprise that Lake Erie currently has the highest percentage of ice cover. Lake Erie is 96 percent covered with ice. Last week at this time Lake Erie had 94 percent ice cover. Erie was entirely ice covered on February 5, 1996.

Lake Ontario

Lake Ontario is an interesting lake. It is the smallest Great Lake when it comes to surface area, but actually holds more than three times the amount of water when compared to Lake Erie. The average depth of Lake Ontario is 283 feet, making it the second deepest Great Lake behind Lake Superior. The deepest spot in Lake Ontario is 802 feet. The ice cover on Lake Ontario is the lowest of any of the Great Lakes, with only 32 percent covered in ice. Last week at this time, Lake Ontario had 27 percent ice cover. Lake Ontario has been covered with as much as 79 percent ice up to this point in the winter in 1994.

Will ice continue to grow?

The ice cover should continue to grow at a rapid rate based on temperatures expected in the next few weeks. You may not want to hear this, but I don't see several days in a row cracking the freezing mark until at least February 21. There could be a few hours above freezing late next week, but that won't slow the ice growth. Also, the weather pattern is going to be fairly quiet in the next two weeks. This means lower wind speeds around the Great Lakes, which should help accelerate ice cover growth.

It is going to be close, but we may be living in a historic winter with regards to amount of Great Lakes ice.

We will see some fascinating ice sculptures if we get a big wind that breaks the ice, and piles it up.

We will also be fascinated when the ice has melted, and we see spring.

ABC, 123, IRS

Executors say Michael Jackson was worth $7 million when he died. The IRS says it's more like $1.125 billion and wants $702 million in taxes and penalties.

The spectacle that was Michael Jackson's life shows no signs of abating with his death.

There was the conviction of the doctor who gave him the fatal overdose of a powerful anesthetic, battles over his will, attempts to remove the executors of his estate and the wrongful death suit against the promoter of his doomed comeback tour.

Now, Jackson's estate is in the midst of a fight with the Internal Revenue Service.

PHOTOS: Michael Jackson | 1958-2009

The agency has told Jackson's executors that the estate owes $505 million in taxes and an additional $197 million in penalties, for a total of more than $702 million.

According to documents filed with the U.S. Tax Court in Washington, Jackson's executors placed his net worth at the time of his June 2009 death at slightly more than $7 million.

The IRS placed it at $1.125 billion, a difference so vast it looks like a typo.

Jackson's return was so inaccurate, the IRS said, that it qualified for a gross valuation misstatement penalty, which would allow the government to double the usual 20% penalty for underpayment.

"I've never even heard of the gross valuation misstatement penalty being asserted," said Andrew Katzenstein, an estate tax expert at the law firm Proskauer Rose in Los Angeles.

Few estates are valuable enough that they are required to file with the IRS. In 2012, the latest year for which statistics are available, only 9,400 estate-tax returns were filed in the nation. Because the value of the estates that file is relatively high, they usually are audited, tax experts said, but few end up in Tax Court.

"Estate planning is like playing a game of hot potato, and the potato is wealth, and you don't want to die with the potato in your hands," said Edward McCaffery, a professor in USC's Gould School of Law. "You want to get it out to your kids or into trusts."

The family is hoping Michael’s grammy winning words will hold true for them. Just beat it. Beat it.

The Photo of a Photo of a Photo

Bused-in activists and professional agitators, including the NC NAACP are in Raleigh, North Carolina, today for the so-called "Moral March" - morality being defined as support for progressive causes such as abortion rights, and minimum wage hikes, and opposition to  "racist" voter ID requirements. 

Problem is, one of the important do's on the list of  Do's and Don’ts for Marchers, is for them to bring a “driver’s license, passport or other valid photo id” to the march, and make sure they have their photo ID handy “at all times.” 

In reality, “Moral Monday” consists primarily of disgruntled activist North Carolina Democrats in the left wing Triangle and Western areas of NC  who are sick that the Democrats’ century-plus domination of this state came to a halt in 2010, and even more so in 2012 with a GOP super-majority and GOP Governor. The Triangle area, I should note, is where most of the left wing Blueprint NC think tanks are located, and I’d be remiss in my duties as a citizen journo if I didn’t note that it was reported last February (surprisingly enough by the local media)  that these think tanks more or less agreed to coordinate to  try and”cripple” state government in order to try and get what they wanted because they knew they could no longer do it legislatively.  

Now, I’m sure there are rank and file people who are part of Moral Monday who have previously never demonstrated before, but most of them are there because the professional left here – led by “spiritual leader” Barber – have convinced them that the state GOP are racist, sexist, evil capitalist “white men” who want to take us back to  60s and before. Ironically enough, that sad and reprehensible time in NC politics happened to be when Democrats were in control, but why bother with that inconvenient little fact?

Ten Tenets of Karl Marx

The first plank of Communism is the abolishment of private property. America is certainly here in terms of eminent domain, where the state has the ability to expropriate private property “for the public good.” Per the Fifth Amendment, the government must fairly compensate a citizen in return, but lines tend to blur when the government is given the authority to assess what is “fair and just” in the first place. Regardless of whether the final sum is one agreeable to the private citizen, the property will still be confiscated with or without the owner’s consent.

Typically, land or property acquired through eminent domain is used to house public works that

are intended to benefit the community such as public utilities, freeways, libraries and schools. It is a slippery slope, however.  After the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, the scope of eminent domain was expanded outside its traditional boundaries to include revitalizing “depressed areas.” In other words, in the spirit of gentrification or regeneration, a citizen’s private property can be seized by the government to build a sports complex, or even a shopping mall if the state deems it a public good.

Another example of government encroachment on citizens’ private property is evident in the far-reach of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE) that buy mortgages on the secondary market.  If a citizen’s mortgage is held by one of these government-backed giants, Uncle Sam is entirely “too close to home.”

Interconnected is property tax. Simply, if one is subject to property tax, then the land or property being taxed doesn’t actually belong to the “owner.” Fall behind on these payments and the government will  seize a citizen’s home, business or land, regardless of whether his or her mortgage is paid in full.

Homes are not the only area subject to government encroachment, however. In fact, Uncle Sam owns roughly  650 million acres   of land across the 50 states — with its highest ownership stake (85%) in Nevada.  The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) also has the authority to seize private property during “emergency” situations.

 

 

 

2. Heavy progressive income tax

This particular tenet needs no introduction, nor example. America now holds the world record for highest corporate tax rate, surpassing even Japan. This is a crucial plank of the Manifesto, as it ensures that nary a high income earner will remain standing and everyone may subsist in equal mediocrity or (worse).

Ironically, Communists bang on incessantly about “equality” when in fact a flat-tax is arguably the fairest system of all and one that could still, by design, ensure Marx’s ultimate goal of “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” If a 10% flat tax were implemented, then 10% of a $5,000 income would amount to far less than 10% of a $500,000 income. Thus, those who make more money, still pay more. Alas, that is certainly not the way Marx would have portrayed it. Nor is it the way the current administration seems to see it given the president’s renewed push to instate ”The Buffett Rule,” which seeks to raise the income tax rate on high income earners — including small business owners — even higher than it is now.

Regardless, whether one is subject to a flat or a progressive tax system, a foreboding and omnipotent force looms dangerously over the American ether: The IRS. Fail to pay your “fair share,” and you will soon learn of the government’s ultimate power — to freeze your bank

accounts, seize your property, penalize and, in some instances even imprison you. There is perhaps no greater example of a Marxist economic policy in action than this.

3. Abolition to all rights of inheritance

One of the many stark contradictions found in the Manifesto is outlined in this particular pillar. What was most ironic about Marx’s desire to abolish inheritance was that, if he had his way, citizens would not own anything of value to bequeath upon death in the first place. Nonetheless, his odd and arguably redundant tenet has worked its way into the American landscape via the estate tax. And its very alias, the “death tax,”  should alone raise eyebrows, if not outright suspicion of government’s dubious motives.

First, many argue the estate tax is unconstitutional because it creates a direct tax that is not disbursed to the states for collection. But the more obvious discrepancy is that it allows the government to tax individuals twice, as the items that find their way into one’s estate — be they a car, house, land, jewelry or other valuable possessions — have already been subject to either sales or property tax once before. The Federal government’s carte blanche to double-dip is spurred further by Democrats’ renewed push to resurrect and expand what the Wall Street Journal dubs President Obama’s “night of living death tax.”

With the staggering rate applied to estates worth over $5 million, citizens may soon wonder why it is worth the bother to spend a lifetime building a personal or business empire to pass down to their children and grandchildren at all. By the second generation, there would be nothing left.

4. Confiscation of property of all emigrants & rebels

This Manifesto pillar is perhaps best laid out in the recent string of government crackdowns on “homegrown militias.” Those who have paid careful attention to Janet Napolitano know that one of Homeland Security’s preoccupations of late has been the “rise” of “homegrown militias.” With this in mind, the department is likely honing in on anyone considered an “opposition group,” be they merely survivalists or those with a more militant bent.

Some may recall the Michigan militia, or ”Hutaree,” as they are known — a group of anti-government “rebels” who were allegedly engaged in preparations for a potential future clash with federal agencies. The defendants were accused of conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government, a planned assassination of a police officer, and an ambush of that officer’s funeral with explosives in order to incite an uprising against the Federal government. While the anticipated attack never actually occurred, this did not stop the Feds, under the blessing of Attorney General Eric Holder, from raiding the Hutaree’s various outposts, confiscating its members’ arms and waging an all-out legal battle against the group.

At the end of March, 2012, presiding U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts dismissed the most serious of the charges against the Hutaree, leveling a staggering blow to the Fed. She said the members’ hatred of government did not amount to a conspiracy to overthrow it.

It remains unclear whether the Hutaree were indeed poised to be the aggressors of a violent assault or if they were simply anti-big-government, “good ol’ boy” survivalists preparing to “defend themselves” against a perceived government threat. But the Federal agencies’ indictment of the group perhaps reveals how government will deal with homegrown “threats” — be they real or perceived — moving forward.

Another key element, and one that warrants mention due to its relevance in modern day America,

is the confiscation of citizens’ weapons. Those who have felt their Second Amendment rights slowly whittle away understand that disarming the public is a crucial step vital to ensuring the state’s grip over its citizenry.  In fact, one of the first tasks performed by the then-fledgling Soviet state was the confiscation of citizens’ private arms — even hunting rifles. By stripping people of the ability to defend themselves, the authoritarian state could reign over the vulnerable Russian populace. Many Americans consider this a highly plausible reality given increasingly stringent gun laws and regulations spread across all 50-states.

It should also be noted that IRS liens, levies and seizures are all means by which the Federal government can confiscate a “rebel” entity’s assets — one instance being the recent IRS “shakedown” of Tea Party members.  And, in terms of “emigrants,” taxing the off-shore income and assets of American citizens, or causing Americans to give up their U.S. citizenship and flee to foreign lands to avoid abusive U.S. taxes, is yet another means by which the Fed’s confiscatory, overreaching tentacles are changing the American landscape.  Statistics point out a rising trend…

5. Centralization and monopolization of credit by means of a national bank 

Created by Congress in 1913, the Federal Reserve is, for all intents and purposes, America’s national bank charged with setting the monetary policy that controls the nation’s economic stability. The Federal Reserve holds the power to guide interest rates, thus controlling inflation. The effects of this agency’s actions are felt in measurable ways by everyday Americans, every day. From the interest rate accrued to mortgages and other lines of credit to determining the value of one’s home, it is both the seen and unforeseen reach of this institution that sets the tone for Americans’ financial security.

On the grander scale, the Federal Reserve has the more sinister power of devaluing U.S. currency, and thus the value of goods, services and property, via “quantitative easing,” or, as it is affectionately dubbed, printing money.

“One of the fundamental problems with the U.S. economy right now is the Federal Reserve thinks the answer to all our economic problems is printing money,” said the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore. “We haven’t created new jobs from all of this printing of money, but what we have produced is inflation in prices.”

6. Centralized control of communication & transportation

a) Transportation

The ways in which the Federal government controls America’s communication and transportation systems are almost too vast to count, but a few shining examples stand out. In terms of transportation, the Interstate Highway System, the Federal Aviation Authority and the Department of Transportation are of course the most obvious government bureaucracies controlling the country’s means of transport. Less-obvious, perhaps, is Amtrak, a government owned corporation and essentially the only passenger rail carrier in the country. Indeed the railroad industry’s metamorphosis from a private enterprise to a nationalized entity perhaps tells the greatest tale of the insidious ways in which the Federal government appropriates what it wants, when it wants.

In the first half of the 20th century, the U.S. rail industry enjoyed what many called it’s “Golden Age.” But the once flourishing U.S. rail industry’s day in the sun was eclipsed when the Fed introduced a “rate-setting” scheme by which rail carriers were forced to adopt. The result was a decrease in profits, decrease in rail system growth, decrease in investments and an increase in labor costs. Not surprisingly, this had the reverse effect than that intended by the Fed when it

first set rail carrier rates. After World War II the industry was in steady decline and by the 1960s service had degenerated to such a degree that the U.S. government formed Amtrak. The obvious lesson here is that if government can destroy an industry to such a degree that that industry’s only means of survival moving forward is through nationalization, there is no reason to think it couldn’t just as easily happen to a commercial air carrier, for example, or any other privately held mode of transportation.

As mentioned above, air traffic, ground traffic and maritime traffic via the nation’s port authorities are all overseen and subject to take-over by the government should FEMA deem a state of emergency.

b) Communication

Presently, when it comes to communication, conservatives argue that nothing screams of Marxism louder than the Federal Communications Commission and Obama’s appointment of its “Chief Diversity Officer,” Frank Lloyd.

One of the administration’s many “czars,” Lloyd was a senior fellow at the progressive think tank, Center for American Progress, where he authored a June 2007 report titled, ”The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.” The content may point to Lloyd’s intentions when it comes to silencing voices of opposition, and many conservatives believe that Obama’s “Diversity Czar” intends to revive the Fairness Doctrine.

For those unfamiliar, the Fairness Doctrine, adopted in 1949, obligated broadcasters to provide opposing points of view on issues of national importance regardless of actual market demand for the content. Media Research Center’s Setton Motley   said, if reinstated, caps would be placed on local and national ownership of commercial radio stations; local accountability over licensing would be ensured; and those not in compliance would be subject to paying a fee to support public broadcasting. As it stands, the FCC already levies heavy regulations on broadcasters and monitors all communication aired across radio and television waves.

Looking forward, another impending threat can be found in the current struggle for control over the Internet. Currently, the World Wide Web is controlled by the U.S. government via the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and its subsidiary, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Both are under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

There has been a growing push, however, for America to relinquish its control in the name of a world “without borders,” or “one world government.” Countries like China and Russia, in particular, have vied for control, doggedly pursuing the United Nations for assistance in breaking the U.S. stronghold.

If the U.N.’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU), along with its nearly 200 member state allies were to take control of the levers, cyber security and data privacy would be subject to international control.

While even in the land of the free no information received or transmitted over the Internet escapes the prying eyes of Big Brother, it goes without saying America’s First Amendment rights still ensure a far more liberated information superhighway than the one that would exist under the reins of a dubious global body formed by the U.N. and led by China and Russia. Meanwhile, the entire global economy hangs in the balance.

7. Government ownership of factories 

In terms of government owned factories, few could ever forget “Government Motors.” After nearly $53 billion in bailout funds over the course of two administrations, the U.S. government now owns a controlling stake in GM, raising the obvious question of how government can fairly regulate its own business.  While GM asked the government to intervene, and while Amtrak was instead a victim of a federally-engineered scheme, both are examples of how government assumes control of private enterprise. Typically, it is the American taxpayer who fails to reap the dividends and becomes the victim of these machinations.

8. Equal liability of all to labor

The first thought which springs to mind when reading the Manifesto’s tenet on equal labor is the overriding presence of labor unions within the U.S. workforce. While labor unions in and of themselves are not nationalized organizing bodies, they have enjoyed a long and harmonious relationship with government, particularly through the progressive policies and lawmakers that prop up their various agendas. In fact, there may be no brighter an illustration of socialism manifested than the collective organizing body of America’s labor unions. Although subject to regulation and oversight by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), unions still overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates, thus a cycle of quid pro quo is perpetuated.

Another example of government control in the workplace emerges via the Labor Department’s Affirmative Action policies. By mandating that employers meet a staff-quota comprising women, minorities and people with disabilities, private business is being forced to relinquish its ability to hire on the basis of merit, thus failing to deliver excellence and best practices. While many women, minorities and those with disabilities do indeed possess the skill sets needed to succeed in a specific job, it should, critics argue, be left to private enterprise to determine which candidate is best suited for the task at hand.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries

The Tennessee Valley Authority   (TVA), a government owned corporation, has been hailed a prime example of true socialism in America. It is the country’s largest public power company, with a generating capacity of 31,658 megawatts. Its 17,000 miles of transmission lines deliver power through 158 locally owned distributors to 8.5 million residents of the Tennessee Valley. While even Republicans, for the most part, consider TVA to be a success, its case is considered unique in that the government model has never been able to be successfully duplicated along any other State waterway.

Agricultural subsidies are another prime example of this Manifesto plank in motion. An extensive analysis conducted by the CATO Institute   determined that, when it comes to corporate welfare no one has reaped a greater windfall, or hurt taxpayers more than the “supermarket to the world,” Archer Daniels. An excerpt from the report reads:

ADM and its chairman Dwayne Andreas have lavishly fertilized both political parties with millions of dollars in handouts and in return have reaped billion-dollar windfalls from taxpayers and consumers. Thanks to federal protection of the domestic sugar industry, ethanol subsidies, subsidized grain exports, and various other programs, ADM has cost the American economy billions of dollars since 1980 and has indirectly cost Americans tens of billions of dollars in higher prices and higher taxes over that same period. At least 43 percent of ADM’s annual profits are from products heavily subsidized or protected by the American government. Moreover, every $1 of profits earned by ADM’s corn sweetener operation costs consumers $10, and every $1 of profits earned by its ethanol operation costs taxpayers $30

Aside from being incongruent with the free market, the nation’s agricultural subsidies cost tax payers tens of billions of dollars each year and typically only benefit larger farming outfits.

On the flip side, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is placing greater and greater restrictions on business in the form of cap and trade and in mandating the purchase of carbon credits.

10. Free education for all children in government controlled schools

What can be said of America’s beleaguered public education system could fill volumes, yet one needn’t look far to pluck one or two prime examples as proof that there are indeed no “free lunches.”

The Blaze recently uncovered a series of reports revealing what happens when a bureaucrat decides that the school district, along with its unionized faculty members, know better about a child’s needs than his or her parents do. Whether the control comes via mandating  a child’s school lunch box contents, or altering the Pledge of Allegiance to omit the phrase “one nation under God,” or subjecting students to inadequate instruction from a teacher solely on the basis of that teacher’s tenure – a teacher who cannot be fired or replaced — the public school system is, arguably, setting up generations for failure.

Free medicine…the 11th tenet?  

While not addressed specifically in the 10 tenets of the Communist Manifesto, national health care is perhaps — at least in modern day America — “the key to the empire.” It is why the fate of Obamacare is of utmost importance to the left. If passed, it sets precedent by establishing the “new normal” in government authority over private citizens. Legal experts and pundits alike have consistently argued   the unconstitutionality of the health care bill, underscoring its significance as a “gateway” to other forms of government intrusion.

The bill’s unconstitutionality is irrelevant to those who, while claiming to champion the founding document, appear to be working to dismantle it.

Some balk at the use of the word “Communism,” dismissing its invocation as hyperbole. Yet when dissecting actual policies, laws, regulations and bureaucratic government approaches which Americans are increasingly subjected to, and weighing them against the 10  progressive “rules to live by,” the facts scream loudly and clearly in the face of those who deny the ever-creeping onset of Socialism.  Marx’s Communist “utopia” is only one evolutionary stage away from reality.

One in a Million Family

They were a British family on a day out — almost a million years ago.

Archaeologists announced Friday that they have discovered human footprints in England that are between 800,000 and 1 million years old — the most ancient found outside Africa, and the earliest evidence of human life in northern Europe.

A team from the British Museum, London's Natural History Museum and Queen Mary college at the University of London uncovered imprints from up to five individuals in ancient estuary mud at Happisburgh on the country's eastern coast.

British Museum archaeologist Nick Ashton said the discovery — recounted in detail in the journal PLOS ONE — was "a tangible link to our earliest human relatives."

Preserved in layers of silt and sand for hundreds of millennia before being exposed by the tide last year, the prints give a vivid glimpse of some of our most ancient ancestors. They were left by a group, including at least two children and one adult male. They could have been be a family foraging on the banks of a river scientists think may be the ancient Thames, beside grasslands where bison, mammoth, hippos and rhinoceros roamed.

University of Southampton archaeology professor Clive Gamble, who was not involved in the project, said the discovery was "tremendously significant."

"It's just so tangible," he said. "This is the closest we've got to seeing the people.

"When I heard about it, it was like hearing the first line of (William Blake's hymn) 'Jerusalem' — 'And did those feet, in ancient time, walk upon England's mountains green?' Well, they walked upon its muddy estuary."

The researchers said the humans who left the footprints may have been related to Homo antecessor, or "pioneer man," whose fossilized remains have been found in Spain. That species died out about 800,000 years ago.

Ashton said the footprints are between 800,000 — "as a conservative estimate" — and 1 million years old, at least 100,000 years older than scientists' earlier estimate of the first human habitation in Britain. That's significant because 700,000 years ago, Britain had a warm, Mediterranean-style climate. The earlier period was much colder, similar to modern-day Scandinavia.

Natural History Museum archaeologist Chris Stringer said that 800,000 or 900,000 years ago Britain was "the edge of the inhabited world."

"This makes us rethink our feelings about the capacity of these early people, that they were coping with conditions somewhat colder than the present day," he said.

"Maybe they had cultural adaptations to the cold we hadn't even thought were possible 900,000 years ago. Did they wear clothing? Did they make shelters, windbreaks and so on? Could they have the use of fire that far back?" he asked.

Scientists dated the footprints by studying their geological position and from nearby fossils of long-extinct animals including mammoth, ancient horse and early vole.

John McNabb, director of the Center for the Archaeology of Human Origins at the University of Southampton — who was not part of the research team — said the use of several lines of evidence meant "the dating is pretty sound."

Once uncovered, the perishable prints were recorded using sophisticated digital photography to create 3-D images in which it's possible to discern arches of feet, and even toes.

Isabelle De Groote, a specialist in ancient human remains at Liverpool John Moores University who worked on the find, said that from the pattern of the prints, the group of early humans appeared to be "pottering around," perhaps foraging for food.

She said it wasn't too much of a stretch to call it a family.

"These individuals traveling together, it's likely that they were somehow related," she said.

Research at Happisburgh will continue, and scientists are hopeful of finding fossilized remains of the ancient humans, or evidence of their living quarters, to build up a fuller picture of their lives.

The footprint find will form part of an exhibition, "Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story," opening at the Natural History Museum next week.

The footprints themselves, which survived for almost 1 million years, won't be there. Two weeks after they were uncovered, North Sea tides had washed them away