- First China, Now Russia: Kremlin Considers Changing Constitution To Extend Putin Presidency
After last March’s not so shocking vote by China’s National People’s Congress to overwhelmingly pass a constitutional amendment to eliminate China’s presidential term limits, paving the way for President Xi Jinping to stay in power after his second term ends in 2023, it appears Russia is now inching toward the same scenario at a moment when, as one Moscow-based analyst put it, “The general sense is that there’s no one to replace Putin as the guarantor of the system.”
Just prior to Russian President Vladimir Putin getting elected to his final possible term allowed under the constitution last March, Newsweek announced The End of The Putin Era is in Sight — looking ahead to the end of his term in 2024 — but even this could be in doubt, perhaps predictably, as this week Russian parliament raised the possibility of altering the constitution as rumors continue to circulate that the Kremlin is seeking ways to keep the popular 66-year old multi-term leader in power.
Putin following his March 2018 reelection for 6 years, his fourth overall term, and his second consecutive, via AFP. Currently the Russian constitution prohibits a president from being elected for more than two consecutive terms, but on Tuesday during a scripted meeting with Putin the speaker of Russia’s parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, broached the issue, saying according to Bloomberg:
“There are questions in society, esteemed Vladimir Vladimirovich,” Volodin said, addressing Putin in the respectful form, according to a Kremlin transcript. “This is the time when we could answer these questions, without in any way threatening the fundamental provisions” of the constitution, he added. “The law, even one like the Basic Law, isn’t dogma.”
Noting that the current constitution was drafted a quarter-century ago, Volodin continued, “That was a very difficult time. A time when the state stood on the edge of collapse, when social obligations weren’t fulfilled, when our citizens lost faith in the authorities.” He proposed the possibility of a formal review of the constitution overseen by Constitutional Court judges and a panel of experts to examine “how the Constitution and the norms of development of the Constitution suit the tenets that were passed.”
During the meeting Putin didn’t appear to give comment in response to the proposal, but it’s being widely viewed as the first subtle opening to a process Putin will give a quiet nod to, and analysts suggest a constitutional change could be easily accomplished with the backing of the president.
When asked about the possibility, a presidential spokesman said Wednesday, “There’s no position on this issue yet” and further noted there’s no current amendments being worked on or considered.
But earlier this month Putin described the constitution as “not some fossilized legal construct but a living, developing organism,” and at a press conference last week vaguely mentioned that any changes to the Basic Law “a matter for broad civic discussion,” according to Bloomberg.
Perhaps the best quote on the issue came last Spring, however, when Putin was presented with a question of his prospects after 2024 just after his reelection to a second consecutive term. He said, “At present I don’t plan any constitutional reforms.” And when asked about seeking office in 2030, as allowed by current law, he quipped, “What am I going to do, stay until I’m 100 years old? No.”
- Government Shutdown Or Not, The Police State Will Continue To Flourish
Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
– Ludwig von Mises
The government has shut down again.
At least, parts of the government have temporarily shut down over President Trump’s demand for a $5 billion border wall.
Yet while these political games dominate news headlines, send the stock market into a nosedive, and put more than 800,000 federal employees at risk of having to work without pay, nothing about this government shutdown will diminish the immediate and very real dangers of the American Police State with its roadside strip searches, government surveillance, biometric databases, citizens being treated like terrorists, imprisonments for criticizing the government, national ID cards, SWAT team raids, censorship, forcible blood draws and DNA extractions, private prisons, weaponized drones, red light cameras, tasers, active shooter drills, police misconduct and government corruption.
Shutdown or not, war will continue. Drone killings will continue. Surveillance will continue. Censorship and persecution of anyone who criticizes the government will continue. The government’s efforts to label dissidents as extremists and terrorists will continue.
Police shootings will continue. Highway robbery meted out by government officials will continue. Corrupt government will continue. Profit-driven prisons will continue. And the militarization of the police will continue.
Indeed, take a look at the programs and policies that are not affected by a government shutdown, and you’ll get a clearer sense of the government’s priorities, which have little to do with serving taxpayers and everything to do with amassing money, power and control.
Not even NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command that tracks Santa Claus’ route across the globe, will have its surveillance efforts curtailed one iota.
Surveillance will continue unabated. On any given day, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. Police have been outfitted with a litany of surveillance gear, from license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices to biometric data recorders. Technology now makes it possible for the police to scan passersby in order to detect the contents of their pockets, purses, briefcases, etc. Full-body scanners, which perform virtual strip-searches of Americans traveling by plane, have gone mobile, with roving police vans that peer into vehicles and buildings alike—including homes. Coupled with the nation’s growing network of real-time surveillance cameras and facial recognition software, soon there really will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
Government spying will continue unabated. Government shutdown or not, the National Security Agency (NSA), with its $10.8 billion black ops annual budget, will continue to spy on every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone using programs such as PRISM and XKEYSCORE. By cracking the security of all major smartphones, including iPhone, Android, and Blackberry devices, NSA agents harvest such information as contacts, text messages, and location data. And then there are the NSA agents who will continue to use and abuse their surveillance powers for personal means, to spy on girlfriends, lovers and first dates.
Global spying will continue unabated. The NSA’s massive surveillance network, what the Washington Post refers to as a $500 billion “espionage empire,” will continue to span the globe and target every single person on the planet who uses a phone or a computer. The NSA’s Echelon program intercepts and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax and email message sent anywhere in the world. In addition to carrying out domestic surveillance on peaceful political groups such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace and several religious groups, Echelon has also been a keystone to the government’s attempts at political and corporate espionage.
Egregious searches will continue unabated. Under the pretext of protecting the nation’s infrastructure (roads, mass transit systems, water and power supplies, telecommunications systems and so on) against criminal or terrorist attacks, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) task forces (comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams) will continue to do random security sweeps of nexuses of transportation, including ports, railway and bus stations, airports, ferries and subways. Sweep tactics include the use of x-ray technology, pat-downs and drug-sniffing dogs, among other things.
The undermining of the Constitution will continue unabated. America’s so-called war on terror, which it has relentlessly pursued since 9/11, has chipped away at our freedoms, unraveled our Constitution and transformed our nation into a battlefield, thanks in large part to such subversive legislation as the USA Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act. These laws—which completely circumvent the rule of law and the constitutional rights of American citizens, re-orienting our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the rule of law, our U.S. Constitution, becomes the map by which we navigate life in the United States—will continue to be enforced.
Militarized policing will continue unabated. Thanks to federal grant programs allowing the Pentagon to transfer surplus military supplies and weapons to local law enforcement agencies without charge, police forces will continue to be transformed from peace officers into heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace, will continue to keep the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens.
SWAT team raids will continue unabated. With more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans for relatively routine police matters and federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions, the incidence of botched raids and related casualties will continue to rise. Nationwide, SWAT teams will continue to be employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community nuisances including angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession.
Overcriminalization will continue unabated. The government bureaucracy will continue to churn out laws, statutes, codes and regulations that reinforce its powers and value systems and those of the police state and its corporate allies, rendering the rest of us petty criminals. The average American now unknowingly commits three felonies a day, thanks to this overabundance of vague laws that render otherwise innocent activity illegal. Consequently, small farmers who dare to make unpasteurized goat cheese and share it with members of their community will continue to have their farms raided.
The shadow government— a.k.a. the Deep State, a.k.a. the police state, a.k.a. the military industrial complex, a.k.a. the surveillance state complex—will continue unabated. This corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials will continue to call the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House or controls Congress. By “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.
These issues are not going away.
They are the backbone of an increasingly aggressive authoritarian government, formed by an unholy alliance between the mega-corporations with little concern for the Constitution and elected officials and bureaucrats incapable or unwilling to represent the best interests of their constituents.
When it comes right down to it, no matter how long a government shutdown lasts, it will remain business as usual in terms of the government’s unceasing pursuit of greater powers and control.
So where do we go from here?
If public opposition, outright challenges, and a government shutdown don’t stop or even slow down the police state, what’s to be done?
Do what you must to survive.
Go to work, take care of your family, pay off your debts.
All the while you’re doing those things which allow you to survive from one day to the next, plan for the future and strive for freedom.
Pay attention to the political structure that is being created in the shadows, the economic system that is chaining us down with debt, and the feudal, fascist society borne out of the marriage of government and big business.
Avoid the propaganda mills posing as news sources.
Express your outrage, loudly and tirelessly, to the government’s incursions on our freedoms.
Act locally—taking issue with any and every encroachment on your rights, no matter how minor, whether it’s a ban on goat cheese or installations of red light cameras at intersections and on school buses—because reclaiming our rights from the ground up, starting locally and trickling up, remains our only hope.
Resistance may seem futile, it will be hard, and as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, there will inevitably be a price to pay for resisting the emerging tyranny, but to the extent that you are able, RESIST.
- China Selling Hypersonic Anti-Ship Missiles; Travels 6X Speed Of Sound For "Rapid, Precision Strikes"
China has brought to market a hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missile, said to be the first of its kind on the international market for buyers seeking a “reliable and affordable deterrence against threats from the sea,” according to China.org.
“The system is intended for rapid and precision strikes against medium-size ships, naval task forces, and offshore facilities,” said a representative from China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) in November.
According to CASIC, the CM-401 is fitted with a terminal radar guidance unit featuring a nose-mounted gimballed antenna. Once launched, the missile flies along a ballistic trajectory, reaching a near-space altitude. The weapon is stated to have an average speed of Mach 4 and a peak of Mach 6, although it is not clear at what altitudes these speeds are reached. –Janes.com
The missile flies between 20 and 100 kilometers above earth (12 – 62 miles) and maneuvers at hypersonic speeds.
Once fired, the missile ascends to a predetermined altitude until its target is identified, before entering an “ultrafast terminal dive” towards the target at hypersonic speeds according to the CASIC.
…the missile flies at an average speed of 1,360 meters per second – 4,900 kilometers per hour – or four times the speed of sound, during most parts of the flight, and reaches a maximum velocity of more than 2,000 m/s, six times the speed of sound as it approaches the target. It can carry a 290-kilogram warhead and has a maximum strike range of 290 km and a hit rate of 90 percent, meaning there will be nine effective hits on target out of 10 shots. –China.org
The missile – unveiled at the the 12th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai, Guangdong province – can be mounted to a variety of platforms, such as ships or land-based launch vehicles according to the company.
We wonder how China’s new hypersonic missile competes with Putin’s new toys?
- The 10 Daily Habits Of Highly Prepared People
Authored by Daisy Luther via SilverBearCafe.com,
For some people, preparedness is about the big things: the well-stocked retreat home, buying yet another firearm, or getting a super-fancy generator. While these things can certainly be classified as preparedness endeavors, it isn’t the expensive and dramatic gestures that make us truly prepared people.
The way prepared people spend their time before an emergency is the real key to survival, and this is something that no amount of money can buy.
It’s the small daily habits that become an innate part of our everyday lives – habits that may not even be noticeable to someone outside the lifestyle.
Real preppers, the ones you should look to for advice if you happen to be new to preparedness, are the ones who quietly conduct their daily lives with an eye towards readiness. Not only are these the qualities you should strive for yourself, but they are also the qualities that can help you to determine whether someone is the “real deal” or an armchair survivalist.
#1: Prepared people think beyond “Plan A”
Anytime one disaster occurs, several others are bound to follow closely in their wake. One of the most dramatic examples of this was the tsunami that followed closely on the heels of the 2011 earthquake in Japan, resulting in one of the most horrific nuclear disasters in the history of the world.
But it doesn’t have to be on such an epic scale to qualify. No matter how excellent your survival plan is, if things go awry you must immediately be able to accept that monkey wrench and adapt your plan to it.
Prepared people understand that even the most perfect plans can go wrong, and they are willing to abandon it and act on the fluid situation at hand.
#2: Prepared people react calmly.
Panic kills. When something terrifying happens, if your reaction is to freeze or to run around like a chicken with your head cut off, you’re probably going to die unless Lady Luck steps in and saves you through no action of your own.
Panic can show itself in two ways. For example, during the King Fire, a massive forest fire that burned over 97,000 acres of California wilderness, we witnessed some very visible panic in some of our neighbors.
When we got the first evacuation alert (a notice that evacuation was highly likely within the next 24 hours), a woman who lived down the street was wailing and sobbing as her husband tried to pack up their vehicle. She was rendered absolutely useless by fear.
Alternatively, panic can manifest in the inability to act. In psychology circles, completely freezing is called “tonic immobility”. This is a biological impulse related to an overload of stimuli due to extreme stress. It can also show itself in as an irrational sense of calmness as the brain denies the reality that a horrible event is truly happening. In her book, The Unthinkable, Amanda Ripley wrote about the cognitive dissonance experienced by some in the World Trade Center on 9/11.
The story that stands out in my mind the most was the one about the people in the World Trade Center on September 11. They described the last time they saw some of their coworkers. There were many people who simply could not accept the fact that a plane had crashed into the building and that they must immediately evacuate. They gathered their belongs, tidied their desks, finished reports. They didn’t feel the same sense of urgency that those who survived did, because the situation was so horrible that they just couldn’t accept it. Their inability to accept the scope of the danger caused many of them to perish in a tragic incident that other people, who acted immediately, survived. (source)
You can enhance this ability to accept events and act calmly by thinking through possibilities ahead of time and considering courses of action while your pounding heart is not pumping vast amounts of adrenaline through your veins.
Prepared people know that the ability to calmly accept the event, make a speedy plan, and then act on that plan is the key to survival.
#3: Prepared people are critical thinkers.
Thinking critically is an important skill. Those who passively accept everything they see on the TV news are missing the concept of propaganda. Six enormous corporations control just about everything seen on mainstream television. Through this control, they can promote their own desired agendas by putting their own spins on events. They can influence how the American people think about guns, about our nation’s enemies, and about the food we eat. It’s vital to think about how these corporations earn money – through advertising dollars. Will they really show the truth if it negatively affects their advertisers?
The same is true of nearly any situation. The “truth” presented is most often the “truth” that benefits the presenter.
Prepared people are able to assess the information provided to them and distinguish the difference between facts and manipulations. They keep up with current events, but strive to separate the reality of the event from the opinions of the broadcasters.
#4: Prepared people carry a kit with them everywhere, every day.
If you don’t have a basic everyday carry kit, you can’t consider yourself to be a prepared person. I personally carry the basics for fire, water, and safety in my purse at all times. I also have an extensive emergency kit stashed away in my vehicle for times that I am far from home.
Prepared people know that disasters don’t usually give warnings, so it’s necessary to have a few basics on hand at all times. Here are some ideas for gifts to enhance day to day preparedness and here is an article that gives the basics of an EDC kit.
#5: Prepared people are MacGuyvers.
People who are prepared don’t really solely on tools and preps though. They rely on a mindset that allows them to create what they need from what they have on hand.
Being able to work with what you have and develop solutions is a vital skill for preppers. Here are some tips on enhancing your make-shift engineering skills. As well, Jim Cobb’s new book, Prepper Survival Hacks, is a great way to develop that mindset if you are new to this line of thinking.
Prepared people are creative problem solvers who enjoy challenges to their skills.
#6: Prepared people live a skills-based lifestyle.
It isn’t enough to just plan. You have to have the ability to execute that plan. And the only way to know that you have that ability is to make the skills a part of your day to day life. Here’s an example. I recently moved to a farm to begin homesteading and discovered (the hard way) that my successful backyard gardens did not make me an instant self-sufficient homestead farmer. How many preppers do you know that stock seeds instead of food or say that they’re just going to “live off the land” when it all hits the fan? While it’s entirely possible to do this successfully, it takes a lot of practice and a substantial amount of time building a foundation to make this a viable plan.
But it isn’t just homesteading that people mistakenly assume will be an easy survival plan. If it’s part of your plan, you must work at it now. You have to practice skills like marksmanship – we put some ammo downrange every single weekend without fail. You have to practice skills like hunting if your plan is to provide meat for your family this way. You have to practice preserving the food that you raise or acquire if you intend to eat in the winter.
Prepared people practice what they plan. They focus on productive hobbies and live a skills-based lifestyle that is closely related to their SHTF plan.
#7: Prepared people are physically active.
Prepared people generally work some kind of fitness into their day-to-day lives. They work a physical job, they walk or jog, they go to the gym, and they don’t sit at a desk for 8 hours, only to relocate to a couch until bedtime.
I occasionally teach introductory preparedness classes in my area. Every single time, someone from the city tells me their plan is to hike to Lake Tahoe because of all of the water there.
It’s a pain in the neck to drive to Lake Tahoe, let alone walk there. Don’t let the 30-40 mile distance fool you. When hauling a 60 pound pack through the mountains, that 30 miles might as well be 300 miles, especially if this is not the type of thing you normally do. If your last walk was through the potato chip aisle at the grocery store, bugging out on foot through the mountains is probably not going to be a viable plan.
Moving more in your day to day life is a great way to gently break your body into a more active lifestyle. Just walking daily can make a world of difference to your fitness level.
#8: Prepared people require purchases to be multi-purpose.
Most of us do not have unlimited storage space, and we have a lot of things we want to store. For this reason, we tend to pass on the “one-hit-wonders” unless they are truly remarkable. We have supplies that will serve more than one purpose. Our pantry basics can be used to make cleaning supplies. We stock large amounts of items like vinegar, duct tape, and baking soda. Our tools are versatile instead of narrowly specialized.
Prepared people seek out high quality products that multitask and limit purchases that only serve on purpose.
#9: Prepared people are not wasteful.
How far can you stretch your leftovers? What kinds of things do you reuse that others simply throw away? The ability to make one’s supplies last for as long as possible isn’t something that just appears overnight.If your friends think you’re a “cheapskate” you’ve probably got this habit nailed down. (Check here to see if any of these signs apply to you.)
Prepared people live frugal, non-wasteful lives now, and they’ll be far better suited to make things last later. One day, a situation could arise in which the supplies we have are very limited.
#10: Prepared people practice situational awareness.
Over the past few years, we’ve heart about all sorts of incidents of mass violence, both in the US and abroad. Practicing situational awareness at all times is a habit that helps you to instinctively assess the baseline of normal for your location, and in turn, notice early on if something just isn’t right. This helps you to react more quickly if a threat occurs, and often those brief seconds can be essential.
Prepared people spend time participating in activities that enhance their situational awareness. My kids and I used to play a “game” of identifying exits when we went to new places. You can channel author Rudyard Kipling and teach your kids “Kim’s Game” to increase their observational skills. (Learn more about it here.)
What are some other habits for preppers?
Preparedness is not some finite goal that is achieved when you have amassed a certain amount of beans and bullets. It’s something that is an ingrained part of your personality. Our habits become such a natural part of us that we don’t have to think about them when we find ourselves in the midst of an emergency. The way you live your day-to-day life is the real key to survival, and this is something that no amount of money can buy.
- Chinese Media Highlights Rebound In Men's Underwear Sales As Sign Of Impending Economic Boom
China is reviving a leading indicator that was popularized during the aftermath of the financial crisis to tout a nascent economic recovery in one of its northeastern provinces. According to the Global Times, an English-language mouthpiece for the Communist Party, climbing sales of men’s underwear bodes well for the broader regional economy.
The Men’s Underwear Index was first popularized by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan as a surprisingly powerful leading indicator. Here’s the gist: Sales of men’s underwear are typically relatively stable due to their status as a consumer necessity. But during periods of financial distress, men will delay purchasing new drawers, causing sales to dip.
So, when sales start to climb again after a prolonged slowdown, it’s a sign that more consumers may be feeling optimistic about the economic outlook. As the Washington Post pointed out back in August 2009, rebounding underwear sales had prompted some to speculate that the recession that followed the financial crisis might be about to end. And sure enough, data later reflected that economic growth had in fact rebounded, suggesting that the underwear indicator might in fact be a reliable indicator.
In its news story, the GT traced the growth in sales of men’s underwear over three years, noting that not only had sales risen, but that men had been “paying more attention to the quality and color variety of the clothes”. Underwear made by Playboy and two local brands were among the most popular.
Sales of men’s underwear in Liaoning has risen for the last three years, as consumers pay more attention to the quality and color variety of the clothes, according to recent information released by JD Big Data Research Institute.
Sales of men’s underwear across the province rose 42 percent in 2017 over the previous year while the year-on-year increase stood at 32 percent to date in 2018, the industrial data showed. The provincial year-on-year sales increase in 2018 grew even faster than that of other provinces.
According to the institute, underwear made of cotton is most welcomed, accounting for 48 percent of total shorts sales, and consumers in Liaoning prefer such brands as NanJiren, Septwolves and Playboy, marking an improvement from their previous consumption.
Other similar indexes like the ‘yogurt index’, ‘bread index’ and the broader ‘consumer goods price index’ similarly traced the recovery in the local economy. (There’s also the notorious ‘hemline indicator’, though as one recent study pointed out, the economic cycle predicts the hemline, not vice-versa). Liaoning reported a turnaround to growth of 4.2% in 2017 before accelerating to 5.6% in the first half of 2018, and 5.4% in the third quarter.
“The recovery is mainly due to coal and steel prices rising during the period,” Liang said, “and the recovery can also be seen in the volume of railway and road freight, electricity consumption of industry, volume of business and employment.”
“About 44 percent of the local employment is created by new industries like e-commerce and food delivery. Private enterprise accounts for vast majority of the employment, along with self-employment,” Liang said.
However, China fears that growth across various industries has not been broad based enough to sustain this pace (particularly, we imagine, after the raft of troubling economic data out earlier this month, which itself was only the latest sign that China’s torrid GDP growth is finally beginning to cool).
To mitigate this risk, the Northeastern region needs to “make up for shortages with new businesses, services, and light industry,” the expert said.
And if China follows through on its widely touted market liberalization, these industries might soon have some help from foreign investors.
- The 7 Space Predictions From Arthur C Clarke That Came True!
Authored by Riz Virk via Hackernoon.com,
About a year ago, I was visiting Sri Lanka and had the pleasure of visiting Arthur C Clarke’s well-preserved office (you can read about my visit here if you like). Anyone who’s read that piece knows that I grew up as a big fan of Clarke’s science fiction, so it was a thrill to be there and see his books and office. He lived in Sri Lanka for 30 years before his passing in 2008.
This year, I’m unable to travel so far, but visiting my parents’ house in the midwest got me thinking about the times that I used to read Clarke’s science fiction books while growing up — imagining I was off with some crew on a “romp through the solar system”.
While there were some elements of Clarke’s books that are way out of our league even today (think star child or childhood’s end), there were always others that seemed like they weren’t too far away. So, this Christmas holiday, I wanted to write about a few things that Arthur C Clarke predicted in his science fiction and science-related works that have (mostly) come true (or will very soon!).
Science Fiction Turns Into Science
Of course, science fiction has always had a way of predicting the future, going all the way back to Jules Verne’s 1865 novel, From the Earth to the Moon. While he didn’t have it exactly right, Verne’s prediction that it would be the Americans who first got to the moon, firing off a giant gun (rockets didn’t exist) from somewhere in Florida, were pretty spot on. And who doesn’t know about the flip phone being a descendent of Star Trek, and today’s facetime and iWatch look a lot like Dick Tracy’s watch-phone, don’t they?
The difference between Clarke’s science fiction and much of these others was that he often put more thought into how these things could work and why they were the way they were — relying on them not just for convenience, but drawing on both scientific literature and scientific necessity. Unlike the Transporter in Star Trek, for example, which was created just for convenience (so that the producers wouldn’t have to pay for special effects of shuttles going to planets and back, which were costly), Clarke usually had some well thought out reason for the science fiction elements in his novels.
From ACC himself
Clarke himself once said that “trying to predict the future is a discouraging, hazardous occupation”, and some credit ACC (as he’s know in the science fiction world) with having predicted everything from the internet to email to google!
In this article, I’m going to stick to what ACC did best, write about outer space and aliens!
Now I’m not claiming that Clarke was necessarioly the first to think of all of these things — in fact, sometimes he was just the first to put them into popular science fiction even when a paper or a concept existed before.
So, without further ado, here are some predictions that have already (to different degrees, of course) come true:
1. The Gravity Assist Maneuver
In the novelization of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was written concurrently with the movie (released in 1968), ACC had the Discovery go to one of Saturn’s moon’s (Iapetus) and not to Jupiter. In the movie, Stanley Kubrick (who was collaborating with ACC and wanted to use the latest images from NASA) decided to go with Jupiter as the destination because they had pictures from NASA about what Jupiter looked like. Kubrick was worried that since they didn’t have as many images of Saturn, the film might look dated once NASA got more accurate images.
Just like in the novel 2001, the Voyager probes used Jupiter’s gravity to get to Saturn (src: the Planetary Society)
This is all a bit of history, but I recall reading the novelized version and it was the first time I had heard of the “gravity assist” maneuver. In the novel, the Discovery spaceship uses Jupiter’s gravity to speed itself up on the way to Saturn. While Jupiter is “only” 500 million kilometers away, Saturn can be almost a billion kilometers further away (depending on the position), even though we are used to them being close together . On average, the ringed planet is almost twice as far. This means that the ship didn’t have to carry as much fuel to get all the way to Saturn.
This idea of using planets to “assist” in slinging a spacecraft was actually used by NASA in many probes including the Mariner 10 and Voyager probes. In some cases the probes went inwards towards the sun and used Venus for gravity assist to slow down, while the Voyagers used Jupiter to speed up on their way to Saturn, just like in ACCs novel!
In another of his novels, Rendezvous with Rama (which we’ll talk more about in a minute), an alien spaceship built in an asteroid is using the Sun for a gravity assist on its interstellar mission! ACC wasn’t the first to think about this — the Soviets actually used the gravity of the moon for a flyby of a probe in 1959, but his use of it around a planet was the first time many science fiction readers like myself heard about it!
2. The Communication Satellite.
ACC proposed using a satellite in geosynchronour orbit for boucning off radio signals (src: Wikipedia)
Arthur C Clarke, in an article for Wireless World in 1945, proposed the idea of a geostationary communications satellite, which was a satellite that stayed in the same position relative to the earth. Such a satellite, ACC proposed could be used to bounce radio signals off of and send radio signals all over the Earth. The editor of Wireless World changed his paper title to Extraterrestrial Relays.
According to many sources, the idea wasn’t taken seriously at the time as no one knew how to get a satellite into what became know as the “Clarke orbit”. 20 years later, in 1965, the first communications satellite was launched into the Clarke orbit, and today there are over 300 satellites on this orbit!
3. The asteroid from outside the solar system.
In 2017, a controversial object appeared in the night sky and was observed for a matter of weeks. It was determined to be the first known object that came from outside of our solar system. Its strange maneuvers and properties made scientists think it was an elongated (cigar-shaped) type of asteroid or comet or alien space probe — we couldn’t be sure which.
Conception of our first interstellar visitor , ‘Oumuamua (src: CNN)
The scenario that astronomers found themselves in seemed eerily similar to ACC’s 1973 novel, Rendezvous with Rama. In the novel, an elongated asteroid was adapted into a space probe by an alien civilization, and wanders through our solar system, planning to use the sun as a gravity-assist maneuver to get where-ever it was going. The probe was abandoned in the book and its sequels by the alien civilization. Astronomers first proposed calling the asteroid discovered last year, which sure looked like it could be an asteroid steered by an alien civilization, Rama. In the end, the name ‘’Oumuamua was chosen (a good name which means “heavenly messenger” or “messenger from the past”), and of course scientists went ahead and stated confidently that there was nothing alien about the object.
It’s a year later and what do we know? The object did in fact swing around the sun, and its velocity increased in a way that wasn’t consistent with the asteroid or the comet hypothesis, leading some including Harvard astronomer Abraham Loeb, professor and chair of astronomy, and Shmuel Bialy, a postdoctoral scholar, at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics to speculate that it was an alien probe after all. It’s acceleration properties were more consistent with the properties of a light sail then either an asteroid or a comet!
So, while we don’t know what it was exactly, the best hypothesis we have that fits the data at present is that it was an alien probe going through our solar system swinging around the sun? Sounds familiar? Maybe it should be called Rama after all!
4. Building Ships in Orbit.
The Discovery from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (src: syfy wire)
ACC predicted that it would be much easier to build large space-faring ships in orbit and to use shuttles to get astronauts up to the ships. This is how the Discovery was built in 2001: A Space Odyssey and its successors in the sequels as well. This wasn’t an ACC invention — many science fiction writers predicted this. Are we doing this today? Not exactly, but it’s within reach. There are companies who have sent up 3d printers to assemble large structures in space (Made in Space is the company that has printed the largest 3d printed object ever in preparation for printing large structures in space) , and there are near-term plans for inflatable modules which get assembled into large structures in space (think Bigelow Aerospace). Thus far, the ISS is the only such structure that is fully deployed, but this prediction is not very far off.
5. Hal and Conversational Artificial Intelligence.
Who can forget the classic line from 2001, which came from HAL 9000, the on-board artificially intelligent computer: “I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do that?”
I’m sorry Dave, I can’t Do that — the HAL 9000 computer from 2001 (src: wikipedia)
There has been an artificial intelligence explosion in the last 10 years, as machine algorithms are now being used to learn to do everything from drive cars to play video games. ACC wasn’t the first to predict machine intelligence;
MIT Professor and Bell Labs fellow Claude Shannon was one of many who said that someday machines would be able to beat a human grand master at chess and write poetry. The chess thing has happened already, not so sure about the poetry. In the age of Sofia and so many different kinds of AI and virtual influencers and personalities, it seems like an intelligent computer like HAL from 2001, that can converse with us, is not that far off — give it 10 to 20 years say some experts.
6. Europa, liquid water, and life.
In the sequel to 2001, called 2010: Odyssey Two and its follow up 2061: Odyssey Three, Clarke scrapped Saturn’s moon Iapetus and made the books sequels to the movie, rather than to his novel. In this sequel, a crew of soviet and American astronauts went to Jupiter to find the Discovery and find out what happened to Dave Bowman and his crew, who had disappeared.
When they got there, one of the moons of Jupiter that is most interesting to them (and to the alien StarChild that Dave Bowman has now become) is Europa, which is found to be covered with ice with oceans underneath. The second book ends wiht a whopper: Jupiter is transformed into a small star and Europa is the reason why, because there is life that can develop here! In a now famous line from the end of 2010: All These Worlds Are Yours Except Europa. Attempt No Landings There.
In 2061, a crew actually goes to Europa, which has developed into a habitable planet thanks to Jupiter’s transformation at the end of 2010 into a small sun, called Lucifer from Earth. Leaving aside the super-intelligent aliens who were responsible for this, Clarke’s predictions about Europa being the most likely place for life in the solar system because of the presence of liquid water under the ice covering the planet has turned out to fairly accurate.
Plumes of water have been seen on Europa (src: Space.com)
Probes to the Jovian moons have shown that Europa has plumes of water that shoot up from the surface, and it’s estimated that it has a covering of water 100 km thick. Some estimates say that Europa may have more water than the Earth!
Now, what might lie in wait in all that water under the ice? To quote the History Channel’s hit series, could it be … Aliens??
7. Landing on a Comet.
At the beginning of the novel 2061:Odyssey Three, published in 1987, in what I thought was a cool sequence, the spaceship Galaxy is landing on the surface of Halley’s comet which has returned to Earth in (do the Math and you’ll see why the novel was set in 2061!).
Of course, there’s a lot more going on in this novel than the comet, but at the time, this part, along with the rest of the novel was thought of as science fiction. Today, we know that it’s not so far fetched. In 2004, the European Space Agency launched Rosetta, a space probe that was meant to study a comet. Twelve years later, in 2016, the probe not only surveyed a comet, 7P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, but it managed to hard land on the comet!
I wonder what we’ll be doing in 2061??
OK so there you have 7 predictions that have either already come true, or are very likely to in a decade or two. Not a bad track record. But, of course, science fiction being science fiction, there are still lots of things in ACC’s novels and papers for us to aspire to.
And those are just the ones that have or are likely to come true pretty soon! Wait until we talk about he Space Elevator (Fountains of Paradise), Diamonds in the heart of Gas Giants (2061: Odyssey Three), and interstellar colonization (Songs of Distant Earth), not to mention the tantalizing idea of artifacts hiding on the moon (if you were an ancient Alien visitor to the Earth, where would you put a communications device??).
- "Inappropriate Language" Used During Top Gun Incident As China Buzzes Canadian Plane
A Chinese military plane buzzed a Canadian surveillance aircraft, flying too close and using “inappropriate language,” according to a Wednesday statement by Canada’s top military commander.
The Canadian CP-140 Aurura, which has since returned home, was monitoring UN sanctions in international airspace off of North Korea in October when the Chinese plane harassed it as part of “a pattern of behavior that’s inappropriate,” revealed Canada’s Chief of the Defense Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance during a year-end interview with CBC News.
“We have been interfered with on our flights in the area and been challenged inappropriately in international airspace,” said Vance. He did not elaborate on the inappropriate language.
Vance referred questions about the specifics to National Defence officials, who were less than forthcoming.
They conceded having “contact with the Chinese Air Force operating” near North Korea and insisted that “at no time were our crews or aircraft put at risk.” –CBC
Part of a pattern
Similar incidents have been reported by Japan, Australia and New Zealand, according to the CBC.
The Canadians have come across the Chinese air force on 18 occasions over 12 missions in October. Of those, four had zero interactions with the Chinese, one had a single interaction, while seven had “multiple interactions,” according to a statement from Canadian National Defense.
Some in the diplomatic community, speaking on background Wednesday, said they see the incidents as China attempting to remind the West that they’re in a region that is very sensitive to them — one where they are the predominant power.
The badgering involving the Canadian patrol aircraft happened before the recent spike in tension over Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei — including the arrest in Vancouver of a top company executive, Meng Wanzhou, 46, and the detention of three Canadian citizens in China.
Canadian warship HMCS Calgary and the supply ship MV Asterix recently returned to Esquimalt, B.C. from sanction enforcement patrols in the North Korea region. –CBC
According to Vance, the Canadian crews “did not face overt interference, but it’s made very clear to anybody that’s in that region that you’re in China.” The recent sanctions-related provocations undermines the freedom of navigation from both the sea and the air, he added.
Vance also spoke of a “persistent cyber threat that we are relatively well-poised to counter,” which the Canadian military and allies have faced.
Arctic ambitions?
Vance also noted that Beijing’s provocations with Canada have important impilications when it comes to China’s interest in the Arctic. Earlier this year, China declared itself a “near-Arctic state,” and vowed to build a “Polar Silk Road” along Canada’s northern border.
“China attaches great importance to navigation security in the Arctic shipping routes,” according to Beijing’s Arctic Strategy – published by Chinese state media in January.
Beijing’s overall policy, officially known as the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’, involves plans to open up new trade corridors through the construction of new ports, roads, rail links and trade agreements around the globe.
China has spent tens of billions of dollars on oil and gas projects in Siberia and in waters off Russia. State-owned mining companies have also bought into rich mineral deposits in Greenland. –CBC
That said, China “is not a direct threat to Arctic-state interests and that mutually productive activity is possible,” according to a new policy paper by Adam Lajeunesse – a fellow at the Canadian Institute for Global Affairs. Lajeunesse says that the threat from Beijing is being blown out of proportion, and that “the values espoused in the Chinese document — environmental preservation, co-operation, consultation, support for Indigenous communities and science-based policy-making — strike many of the same chords as Canadian policy under the Liberal Party.”
Vance echoed that sentiment – saying that he does not see a threat of military confrontation in the Arctic. He still worries about China’s intimidation tactics, however, and its willingness to flaunt international rules – as evidenced by the construction of artificial islands in disputed regions of the South China Sea.
“China is a valued trading partner. China is a valued member of the international community,” said Vance, adding “China has enormous influence and stakeholdership in that part of the world. We respect that. We all do, but there is another side of the coin. At the same time, we face challenges.”
- Do Russiagate Promoters Prefer Impeaching Trump To Avoiding War With Russia?
Authored by Stephen Cohen via The Nation,
The year 2018 in the history of the new Cold War…
The new Cold War is not a mere replica of its 40-year predecessor, which the world survived. In vital ways, it is more dangerous, more fraught with actual war, as illustrated by events in 2018, among them:
The militarization of the new Cold War intensified, with direct or proxy US-Russian military confrontations in the Baltic region, Ukraine, and Syria;
the onset of another nuclear arms race with both sides in quest of more “usable” weapons;
mounting, but entirely unsubstantiated, claims by influential Cold War lobbies, such as the Atlantic Council, that Moscow is contemplating an invasion of Europe;
and the growing influence of Moscow’s own “hawks.”
The previous Cold War was also highly militarized, but never directly on Russia’s own borders, as is this one, from the small nations of Eastern Europe to Ukraine, a process that continued to unfold in 2018.
Russiagate – allegations that President Trump is strongly influenced by or even under the sway of the Kremlin, for which there remains no actual evidence – continued to escalate as a dangerous and unprecedented factor in the new Cold War. What began as suggestions that the Kremlin had “meddled” in the 2016 US presidential election grew into mainstream insinuations, even assertions, that the Kremlin put Trump in the White House. The result has been to all but shackle Trump as a crisis-negotiator with Russian President Putin. Thus, for attending a July summit meeting with Putin in Helsinki—during which Trump defended the legitimacy of his own presidency—he was widely denounced by mainstream US media and politicians as having committed “treason.” And twice subsequently Trump was compelled to cancel scheduled meetings with Putin. Americans may reasonably ask whether the politicians, journalists, and organizations that assail Trump for the same kind of summit diplomacy practiced by every president since Eisenhower actually prefer trying to impeach Trump to avoiding war with Russia.
The same question can be asked of major mainstream media outlets that have virtually abandoned the reasonably balanced and fact-based reporting and commentary they practiced during the latter stages of the preceding Cold War. In 2018, for example, their nonfactual, surreal allegation that “Putin’s Russia attacked American democracy” in 2016 became an orthodox dogma and the pivot of their Russiagate and new Cold War narrative. Also unlike during the preceding Cold War, they continued to exclude dissenting, alternative reporting, perspectives, and opinions. Still more, these media outlets persist in relying heavily on former intelligence chiefs as sources and commentators, even though the role of these intel officials in the origins of the Russiagate narrative now seems clear. A striking example of media malpractice was coverage of the maritime conflict between Ukrainian and Russian gunboats on November 25, in the Kerch straits between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. All empirical evidence available, as well as Ukrainian President Poroshenko’s desperate need to bolster his chances for reelection in March 2019, strongly indicated that this was a deliberate provocation by Kiev. But the US mainstream media portrayed it instead as yet another instance of “Putin’s aggression.” Thus was a dangerous US-Russian proxy war fundamentally misrepresented to the American public.
In large part due to such media malpractice, and despite the escalating dangers in US-Russian relations, in 2018 there continued to be no significant anti–Cold War opposition anywhere in mainstream American political life—not in Congress, the major political parties, think tanks, or on college campuses, only a very few individual dissenters. Accordingly, the policy of détente with Russia, or what Trump has repeatedly called “cooperation with Russia,” still found no significant supporters in mainstream politics, even though it was the policy of other Republican presidents, notably Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan. Trump has tried, but he has been thwarted, repeatedly again in 2018.
Meanwhile, the charge that Russia “attacked American democracy” and continues to do so might best be applied to Russiagate promoters themselves. Their allegations have undermined the America presidency as an institution and cast doubt on US elections. By criminalizing both “contacts with Russia” and proposals for “better relations,” and by threatening to weed out a capacious and nebulous body of “disinformation” in US media, they have considerably diminished the vaunted American marketplace of free speech and ideas. Also under growing assault are traditional concepts of US political justice, which, at least based on what is known in regard to Russia, have been abused in the cases of Gen. Michael Flynn and, in Soviet-like fashion, of Maria Butina. At worst, this young Russian woman seems to have been an undeclared (but candidly open) advocate of “better relations” and an ardent proponent of her own country. For this, something long pursued by young Americans in Russia as well, she was held for months in solitary confinement until she confessed—that is, entered a plea. And this in a nation that has long officially “promoted” democracy abroad.
Finally, while US political and media elites remained obsessed with the fictions of Russiagate – which increasingly appears to be Russiagate without Russia and instead mostly tax-fraud-gate and sex-gate – post–Soviet Russia continued its remarkable rise as a diplomatic great power, primarily, though not only, in the East, as documented recently in three highly informedpublications far from and scarcely noted by the US political-media establishment. Meanwhile, Washington’s primary base of allies in world affairs, the European Union, continued its slide into self-inflicted, ever-deepening crisis.
- China Charges Canadian Citizen With Smuggling 'An Enormous Amount Of Drugs'
The feud between Ottawa and Beijing climbed to absurd new heights late Wednesday after Beijing announced that it would bring drug smuggling charges against a Canadian national recently detained in the northeastern province of Liaoning. Reuters reported Wednesday that a Chinese court in Dalian has formally charged Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg with smuggling “an enormous amount of drugs” into China – a crime that typically carries the death penalty in the notoriously strict Communist judicial system.
Schellenberg will face an appeal hearing on Saturday, according to a local government news site. The English-language Chinese website Global Times reported that the amount of drugs purportedly smuggled by Schellenberg “will surprise you when it goes public.”
The GT listed the penalties for drug smuggling under Chinese law as follows:
According to China’s Criminal Law, persons who smuggle, traffic in, transport or manufacture opium of not less than 1,000 grams, heroin or methylaniline of not less than 50 grams or other narcotic drugs of large quantities shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of 15 years, life imprisonment or death and also to confiscation of property.
Following the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou – the daughter of one of China’s most celebrated titans of industry – at the behest of federal prosecutors in the US, Beijing detained two Canadians – former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and China-based businessman Michael Spavor – whom China has accused of engaging in activities that “endanger China’s security”. Canada has protested their arrest and demanded their release, but Beijing has mostly scoffed at Canada’s objections.
Kovrig is a senior advisor at the International Crisis Group think tank, while Spavor facilitates trips to North Korea (his clients include former NBA star Dennis Rodman). It has been widely speculated that the arrest of the two men was intended as retaliation for Meng, though no direct link has been substantiated. The circumstances surrounding Schellenberg’s arrest are less clear.
In addition, a Canadian woman named Sarah McIver is also being held in China and will likely be deported for working illegally in the country.
Back in 2009, China executed UK national and convicted drug smuggler Akmal Shaikh after he was convicted of smuggling 4,030 grams of heroin into China – over the protests of the British government.
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