Jillian Rayfield92683800
Before you can join the Laurens County Republican Party in
South Carolina and get on the primary ballot, they ask that you pledge
that you’ve never ever had pre-marital sex — and that you will never
ever look at porn again.
Last Tuesday, the LCGOP unanimously adopted a resolution that
would ask all candidates who want to get on the primary ballot to sign a
pledge with 28 principles, because the party “does not want to
associate with candidates who do not act and speak in a manner that is
consistent with the SC Republican Party Platform.”
Among the principles, according to Vic MacDonald & Larry Franklin of the Clinton Chronicle,
is standard fare like opposition to abortion and upholding gun rights,
as well as “a compassionate and moral approach to Teen Pregnancy” and “a
high regard for United States Sovereignty.”
But then they get even more specific. From the Chronicle:
You must favor, and live up to, abstinence before marriage.
You must be faithful to your spouse. Your spouse cannot be a person
of the same gender, and you are not allowed to favor any government
action that would allow for civil unions of people of the same sex.
You cannot now, from the moment you sign this pledge, look at pornography.
It is unclear how they will precisely determine this (or regulate
it), but an unidentified potential candidate for office in Laurens
County told the Chronicle that candidates will be interviewed
by a three-person subcommittee, who will then recommend to the full
executive committee whether to allow the candidate on the ballot.
Bobby Smith, who chairs the Laurens County Republican Party,
explained that “people feel the platform has not been adhered to. We
want candidates to believe in and uphold the party’s platform.”
Though at first the resolution would have required candidates to sign the pledge, Smith clarified
in a statement Monday that “due to various legal issues” the LCGOP
cannot require that the candidates sign the pledge if they meet all of
the other qualifications for a run. But, he said, the committee
“reserves the right to vet its candidates and will encourage all
candidates to uphold the principles of the party’s platform as well as
petition candidates to sign a pledge to do so. However, no candidate
will be denied access to the Republican Party primary ballot for
refusing to sign the pledge.”
State GOP chairman Chad Connelly told the Chronicle that he
doesn’t necessarily oppose the idea. “If we are wearing the same uniform
I want to be sure we are kicking the ball toward the same goal, or are
you moving against me.”
To be on the ballot as a Republican in Laurens County, you do not have to be “just” Republican.
You, apparently, have to be the “right kind” of Republican.
You must oppose abortion, in any circumstances.
You must uphold the right to have guns, all kinds of guns.
You must endorse the idea of a balanced state and federal
budget, whatever it takes, even if your primary responsibility is to be
sure the county budget is balanced.
You must favor, and live up to, abstinence before marriage.
You
must be faithful to your spouse. Your spouse cannot be a person of the
same gender, and you are not allowed to favor any government action that
would allow for civil unions of people of the same sex.
You cannot now, from the moment you sign this pledge, look at pornography.
You must have: “A compassionate and moral approach to Teen Pregnancy;”
“A commitment to Peace Through Strength in Foreign Policy;” and
“A high regard for Unites States Sovereignty.”
These
are just a few of the 28 principles of Republicanism, some taken from
the Jeffersonian view of democracy, that candidates must pledge to
adhere to if they want to be allowed on the Laurens County Republican
primary ballot.
These are in addition to the qualifications outlined in state law.
Bobby
Smith, chairman of the Laurens County Republican Party, said “A
Resolution of The Laurens County Republican Party regarding The
Qualifications of Candidates for the Primary Ballot” was passed
unanimously by the executive committee on Tuesday, Feb. 28.
A candidate who was at the executive committee meeting last week told www.clintonchronicle.com the members of the executive committee met in open session for about 30 minutes before asking everyone else to leave the room.
After
about an hour, the meeting was re-opened and Smith announced the
resolution had been adopted. The meeting was then adjourned and the
committee members would not answer any questions.
The candidate, who asked not to be identified, said he is puzzled by the action.
“I
think the majority of the Republican voters in Laurens County should
decide who will represent them in the general election,” he said.
He
said he was told unofficially that a subcommittee of three people will
interview candidates and then recommend to the entire executive
committee whether the candidate will be placed on the ballot.
Smith
said 13 of the 20 members of the executive committee were at the
meeting and the vote to approve the resolution was unanimous.
Smith said this is the first time the county party has required candidates to sign a pledge.
"It
is essential to try to protect the party's reputation," he said. "The
party has been pushing for closed primaries. People feel the platform
has not been adhered to. We want candidates to believe in and uphold the
party's platform." The pledge, which all Republican candidates
must sign if they expect to be on the Republican ballot, also says, in
its introduction, that the local party will “... seek to hold me into
account ...” if the candidate is negligent in upholding the principles
set forth in the Pledge.
The process for “holding into account” is not specified in the document. The Republican Primary is June 12.
This
statement says, in part, the the Laurens County Republican Party “does
not want to associate with candidates who do not act and speak in a
manner that is consistent with the SC Republican Party Platform; ...”
The
statement says that the Republican Party has “the right to freedom of
political association” that is guaranteed to it by the United States
Constitution.
The resolution document says that the Laurens County Republican Party also has “the right to free speech”.
The
party’s candidates make speeches and take actions that are “on behalf
of the party,” the resolution says, and the party’s
Constitutionally-guaranteed rights are infringed upon if the party
“cannot determine who are the party’s leaders and standard-bearers.”
Smith
said he is not aware of any other county that has taken the action of
qualifying candidates. "(Other counties may) have similar pledges, but
I'm not aware of anybody that has done this," he said.
Smith said that he is not personally involved in any campaigns.
An
inquiry via e-mail was made by The Chronicle to the South Carolina
Republican Party on Friday about the Laurens County resolution and
pledge.
The e-mail inquiry drew an immediate telephone response from Chad Connelly, chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party.
The
qualifications of Republican candidates process is something with which
counties and states throughout America are struggling, he said.
"If
we are wearing the same uniform," Connelly said, "I want to be sure we
are kicking the ball toward the same goal, or are you moving against
me."
Connelly said he does not believe the Laurens County
Republican Party will move forward with this specific process for
determining who is, and who is not, a true Republican. "I don't think
you will get to that stage," he said.
However, he added, some
kind of vetting process must be in place, now that the Republican Party
is in such a dominant position in state politics and government.
"We
have Democrats running as Republicans," Connelly said, "because it is
the only way they can get elected. And then we wonder, why didn't they
vote the way we thought they were going to vote. The pressure is on for
them to say what they are."
Connelly said President Clinton in the '90s proved to Americans that "character doesn't matter." "Now we are finding that character really does matter," the GOP chairman said.
"How
do we vet a candidate? How do we know they are who they say they are?
Do you recognize our core values?" Connelly said are all questions that
Republican organizations throughout the nation are grappling. "We just
heard (Republican) Gov. Charlie Crist (of Florida) say he might be
voting for Obama."
Also included in the resolution portion of the
Laurens County Republican Party’s documents, which were acquired
unsolicited by The Clinton Chronicle by someone interested in the local
party’s actions, is the stipulation that a Republican filing for local
office must undergo an interview prior to being included on the ballot.
The
resolution says, in part, “candidates must meet in person with the
Candidate Qualification Committee of the Laurens County Republican Party
prior to the qualification and certification process; AND
“...
No filing by a candidate will be accepted by the Laurens County
Republican Party unless the Laurens County Republican Party Executive
Committee has voted, within 24 hours of the closing of the filing
period, that the candidate meets the qualifications for the office for
which the candidate desires to file, or will meet the qualifications by
the time of the general election; ...”
No appeal process is
specified for the decision of the Laurens County Republican Party
Executive Committee, within the 24-hour window before filing closes at
noon on March 30.
Smith said the members of the Candidate Qualification Committee have been selected, but he would not release the names.
"You
can't keep them from filing, legally," Connelly said of potential
Republican candidates. "But we should be able to ask, 'What do you
believe in, and why.'"
Expanded coverage in March 7 issue of The Clinton Chronicle.
Sahil Kapur525547
From one top GOP senator openly lamenting the fallout of the ongoing fight over contraception,
to the author of the controversial legislation at the heart of that
fight effectively conceding defeat in the upper chamber, signs mounted
Tuesday that suggest Senate Republicans want to put the birth control
controversy to bed.
“You know, I think we’ve got as many votes as I think there were to
get on that,” Senate GOP Conference Vice Chairman Roy Blunt told TPM
Tuesday afternoon after a weekly Capitol briefing. “I think the House
side may take some further action. That debate will go on for a long
time, though I don’t know that there’s anything else to happen in the
Senate in the near future.”
The concession marks a departure for the GOP leadership, which as recently as last week insisted that Republicans were on the right side of the issue and would fight on.
Last Thursday, after his amendment was narrowly tabled 51-48, Blunt
vowed that, “The fight is not over.” He had maintained that he wants to tack it onto legislation
the president cannot veto. But on Tuesday, after a meeting with his
caucus, he dialed down expectations for any further action in the
Senate.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) told TPM that she has no indication
that leadership wants to continue the fight. “I really don’t know,” she
said. “I really don’t have any sense of that.”
Murkowski — a former member of the GOP leadership — originally
expressed reservations about the Blunt legislation and the broader fight
over health benefits. Though she ultimately voted for the amendment, she has largely disavowed that vote, and conceded Tuesday that Republicans have fallen on the wrong side of the issue.
More evidence that the GOP is ready to relent: Senate Republican
leaders have abandoned what they once considered winning turf, and gone
silent after weeks of publicly attacking President Obama and Democrats
for infringing on religious liberties.
Murkowski added that ripple effects — on the campaign trail and in
public comments by conservative commentators — have damaged the GOP as
well. She said she’s heard from constituents, and fretted that the
ongoing spat is giving voters the sense that her party is on the wrong
side of a war on women’s health.
“I heard a lot [from my constituents] because it was in the news this
weekend,” she told me. “There’s just an awful lot that’s been going on.
There have been some comments made by some of our presidential
candidates. There was the incendiary comments made by Rush Limbaugh. I
think [these incidents] are just adding to this sense that women have
that women’s health rights are being attacked — that in 2012 we’re
having a conversation about whether or not contraception should be
allowed. I think most thought that we were done with those discussions
decades ago. So it’s been kind of an interesting week for women’s health
issues.”
Murkowski said she was “just stunned” by Limbaugh’s protracted smear
of Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke. “In the end, I’m a little bit
disappointed that there hasn’t been greater condemnation of his words by
people in leadership positions,” she said. Even Republicans?
“Everybody,” she said.
These concessions delight Democrats, who plan to revisit the events
of the last several weeks, and the vote on the Blunt amendment, as the
election nears.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who devised the Democrats’ legislative and
messaging strategy in this fight, told TPM, “I think Republicans know
that it hasn’t served them well.”
The
Senate killed Republican-backed attempts to overturn several of
President Barack Obama's environmental and energy policies Thursday as
lawmakers worked against a March 31 deadline to keep aid flowing to more
than 100,000 transportation construction projects around the country.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz discusses implementation of the Keystone oil pipeline proposal.
The
two-year, $109 billion transportation bill before the Senate has wide,
bipartisan support, but has become a magnet for lawmakers' favorite
causes and partisan gamesmanship. Among the amendments batted aside were
GOP proposals to bypass Obama's concerns about the Keystone XL oil
pipeline, to delay tougher air pollution standards for industrial
boilers and to expand offshore oil drilling.
Action on those and other amendments came under an agreement between
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell, R-Ky., aimed at clearing the way for passage of the
transportation bill next week.
Obama lobbied some Senate Democrats by telephone ahead of the
Keystone vote, urging them to oppose an amendment by Sen. John Hoeven,
R-N.D., that would have prevented the president from intervening in
decisions related to construction of the pipeline and would have speeded
its approval. Pointing to the administration's environmental concerns
about the project, which would carry tar sands oil from Canada to the
Texas Gulf Coast, Republicans accused Obama of standing in the way
greater oil supplies at a time when Americans are coping with rising
gasoline prices.
But some Democrats, especially those from oil producing states, were
torn between support for the pipeline and their support for the
president. The amendment was defeated 56-42, even though 11 Democrats
broke ranks to support it. Sixty votes were needed for passage.
Recommended: In bipartisan vote, House jobs bill passes overwhelmingly Republican leaders jumped on the White House lobbying.
"Most Americans strongly support building this pipeline and the jobs that would come with it," McConnell said in a statement.
The president's lobbying against the Keystone provision came "a week
after the president signaled to me and to Sen. McConnell that he might
be willing to work with us on some bipartisan steps forward on energy
legislation that the American people support," House Speaker John
Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters. "If we're going to have bipartisan
action on energy, the Keystone pipeline is an obvious place to start."
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama felt it was "wrong to
play politics" with the pipeline, especially since the company behind
the project has said it still was working on a final route that might
satisfy environmental concerns. He also said it was "false advertising"
to suggest the amendment would have any impact on gasoline prices.
Also defeated was an amendment by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, which
would have forced the Environmental Protection Agency to rewrite a rule
requiring boiler operators to install modern emissions
controls. Boilers
are the second-largest source of toxic mercury emissions after
coal-fired power plants. Collins said the EPA's rule would drive some
manufacturers out of business.
And the Senate turned down an amendment to expand offshore oil
drilling even though its sponsor, Sen. David Vitter, D-La., contended it
would increase domestic energy supplies and reduce gas prices.
The transportation bill itself would overhaul federal transportation
programs, including boosting aid to highway and transit programs,
streamline some environmental regulations in order to speed up approval
of projects and consolidate dozens of programs.
Lawmakers are under pressure to act quickly because the government's
authority to collect about $110 million a day in federal gasoline and
diesel taxes and to spend money out of the trust fund that pays for
highway and transit programs expires at the end of the month. Chris
Bertram, a Transportation Department official, said that if Congress
doesn't meet the deadline, aid to about 130,000 transportation projects
around the country will be disrupted and federal workers who send that
money to states will be furloughed.
The construction industry, already suffering 17.7 percent unemployment at the end of January, would be especially hurt.
House Republicans crafted their own five-year, $260 billion bill, but
they've been unable to marshal the support of rank-and-file lawmakers
behind it. Conservatives say it spends too much money, while moderates
say it would penalize union workers and undermine environmental
provisions.
Boehner conceded Thursday that for the moment the House's best option
is to take up the Senate bill after it passes — "or something like it" —
although GOP leaders were still talking to their members in the hope of
resurrecting their bill.
The inability of House Republicans to pass a highway bill of their
own is an example of a paralysis that has struck several times in the
past year. Last summer, an impasse over labor issues and subsidies for
rural airports led to a two-week shutdown of non-essential Federal
Aviation Administration operations.
In December, Boehner overrode his own rank-and-file when he agreed to
a deal to extend the Social Security payroll tax cut after most
lawmakers had gone home.
At
first glance, the U.S. job market seems to be moving in the right
direction, although at a crawl. When you take a closer look, some of the
data showing improving conditions for job-seekers may be too good to be
true.
The latest signs of improvement came Wednesday from a
report by payrolls processor ADP, which showed the pace of job creation
by U.S. private employers accelerated more than expected in February.
Separate reports from the government showed wages rose much faster than
initially thought in the fourth-quarter as worker productivity continued
to inch higher.
The pace of layoffs has helped too, as seen in a
slowdown in government jobs cuts, according to John Challenger, CEO of
Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a job placement firm that conducts a
monthly payoff survey.
"That's been a real driving force of layoffs over the last two years, but not in the last two months," he said.
On
Friday, the Labor Department is expected to report that the economy
created more than 200,000 jobs in February with the unemployment rate
holding steady at 8.3 percent.
It's that last number - the portion
of the workforce still out of work nearly three years after the
recession ended - that remains stubbornly elevated.
"The labor
market is still fundamentally weaker than five years ago," said Craig
Dismuke, chief economic strategist at Vining Sparks, a Memphis brokerage
firm. "We are still in a big hole."
Millions of American workers
have been stuck in that hole for a long time. Some 43 percent of the
12.8 million unemployed Americans had been out of work for more than 6
months in January, the latest Labor Department data on the long-term
unemployed. In all, nearly 24 million people are either out of work
or underemployed. Those people aren't out of work for lack of trying: there just aren't enough jobs to go around. For every opening, there are four unemployed workers who need a paycheck.
The
pace of new claims for unemployment has been falling - another
sign that hiring is picking up and layoffs are slowing. But the
improvement has been uneven. The number of Americans filing new claims
for jobless benefits rose last week, according to a government report
Thursday. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 8,000 to a
seasonally adjusted 362,000, the Labor Department said.
Even with
the increase, claims are still near their lowest in four years. The
four-week moving average for new claims, considered a better measure of
labor market trends, edged up to 355,000, but still is hovering near a
four-year low.
With the presidential campaign in full swing, the
jobs numbers are taking a prominent place in the debate over the Obama
administration's economic policies.
The unemployment rate has
fallen by six-tenths of a percentage point from October's level of 8.9
percent. That is an unusually rapid decline and a growing band of
optimists expect it to fall below 8 percent by year end.
Though the jobless rate remains painfully high, some researchers believe it's the direction of the unemployment - not the absolute level - that has the greatest impact on the outcomes of re-election campaigns. So far, the downward trend has helped the president.
As
the job numbers have improved, so has Obama's approval rating - rising
from a low of 41 percent in October to 45 percent in February, according
to the latest Gallup poll.
But it remains to be seen whether that momentum can be sustained
until the November election. The rapid decline in the jobless rate in
the past few months has defied expectations; some economists argue that
the widely-followed seasonally-adjusted numbers may be too good to be
true.
Some suspect the government's formulas for smoothing out
seasonal factors may be inadvertently inflating the numbers. Gallup
chief economist Dennis Jacobe figures that, without those seasonal
adjustments, the jobless rate has actually been rising for the past three months, hitting 9.1 percent in January.
Seasonal
adjustment is a common practice used to analyze economic data because
filtering out the impact of seasonal forces usually gives a better
assessment of underlying trends. But, for reasons economists are still
debating, this winter's seasonal adjustments may have thrown the numbers
out of whack
"We think that the improvement over the last few
months dramatically overstates the underlying improvement," said Goldman
Sachs economist Andrew Tilton. "You will not see that rate of
improvement going forward."
Goldman Sachs expects the jobless
rate to end the year at 8.2 percent, barely below January's reading of
8.3 percent. That view is shared by economists at the Federal Reserve,
whose chairman, Ben Bernanke, has said central bankers don't
expect further big drops in the jobless rate.
If the improvement
in the job market slows, so could the Obama campaign's political
momentum. After dramatic improvement this winter, "slow and steady"
gains may not be enough to win the race.
"Employers are still
very cautious," said Challenger. "They are being selective about who
they hire. They're not adding loads of people."
Earthquake
researchers are studying a system that would provide a warning before
shaking begins on the West Coast. KNBC's Patrick Healy reports.
By Alan Boyle
One year after Japan's earthquake warning system was put to its sternest real-world test,
U.S. researchers have built a system that could provide the same type
of advance alerts for quake-prone California — the only problem is that
they can't afford to get it ready for prime time.
"I've got a
system that works in my office," said Thomas Heaton, director of
Caltech's Earthquake Engineering Research Laboratory. "It works for
maybe 100 of us who are prototyping the system. It's been a grassroots
effort where a number of scientists have cobbled it together as a
demonstration project. But to turn it into a system where literally 50
million Americans would have everything linked into it? It's not ready
for that."
The California network, known as Earthquake Early Warning or ShakeAlert,
has been in development since long before the magnitude-9.0 quake and
tsunami that swept over Japan last March 11. It operates much like the
Japanese network does: Readings from about 400 seismic monitoring
stations around California are processed on a real-time basis, and when a
quake is detected, computer software figures out how long it will take
seismic waves to reach your location.
The system takes advantage
of the fact that two types of seismic waves emanate from the epicenter:
The first waves to arrive are primary waves, or P waves, which are
followed by slower secondary waves, or S waves. The S waves, which
travel through Earth's crust at a speed of about 2 miles per second,
produce more up-and-down motion and tend to be more damaging. The P
waves serve as precursors, enabling experts to estimate the intensity
and arrival time for the S waves that will follow.
If the
projected intensity is above the level you're worried about, your
computer will start sounding an alarm and clicking through a countdown,
as seen in the video above.
"Right now it's working as well as you
could hope for a kludged-together demonstration project from a bunch of
professors," Heaton told me. He can adjust the controls downward to be
alerted about minor quakes heading toward Caltech in Pasadena, or turn
them up so high he can work undisturbed in his office.
"You can go days without anything, and then a day comes when there's a cluster," he said.
The
Japanese system, which was developed at an estimated cost of $500
million, turned in a stellar performance during last year's quake. As
the video below demonstrates, Tokyo residents had as much as 30 seconds'
warning before the shaking began.
Japanese video shows how an alert system provided advance warning of the magnitude-9.0 earthquake on March 11, 2011.
Thirty
seconds may not sound like much warning, but it's enough time to shut
off gas mains and issue a warning to take cover. In Japan, the warnings
are flashed via radio and TV, as well as through computer links and
mobile phones. Automated broadcast alerts can be set to turn on a car's
emergency flashers and warn drivers to slow down and pull over. The same
principle is applied to safeguarding Japan's extensive rail system:
Thanks to automated warnings, two dozen trains that were operating in
the earthquake zone on March 11 were brought to a halt within seconds,
with no reports of serious injuries or damage. Bugs in the system
During
last year's catastrophe, the biggest problem had to do with the fact
that the closer residents were to the quake's epicenter, the less
warning they received. Another issue was that the complexity of the
initial seismic shock and the aftershocks caused the system to become
overloaded, leading to a temporary shutdown.
Heaton and his
colleagues are encountering similar bugs in the California system.
"They're always being engineered to be better systems and less buggy,
but we'll never eliminate all the bugs," he said. Right now, the team is
working on an Android app version of ShakeAlert. Even the app would be
unsuitable for mass distribution, however.
"The technology exists to deploy it, but strategically, I don't see how we could ever support it," Heaton said.
Going
public with ShakeAlert would require a more concerted effort, backed by
the expertise and funds that are typically associated with federal
government agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey. So far, the USGS
has spent about $2 million on ShakeAlert, and the Gordon and Betty
Moore Foundation is backing the research
with $6 million in contributions to Caltech, the University of
California at Berkeley and the University of Washington over the next
three years. Other supporters include Google.org and Deutsche Telekom's
Silicon Valley Innovation Center.
The California Integrated
Seismic Network estimates that a statewide quake warning system would
cost about $80 million over five years, while the cost of a similar
system for the Pacific Northwest has been estimated at $70 million. But
it might take additional funding to get the system as fully linked in
with society as Japan's system is now.
"Ultimately, when it does
run, you don't want university professors running it," Heaton said, with
a tone of amiable self-deprecation. "We're the least reliable people to
run something like that."
Realistically, will ShakeAlert ever be
ready for prime time? Heaton thinks it might take more than a
catastrophic earthquake on the other side of the world to get Americans
motivated about earthquake alerts at home.
"My experience at this
point in my life is that it's hard to get people to focus on things like
this unless something bad happens," he said. "It's been really peaceful
and quiet in the western U.S. for quite some time now. ... We're very
concentrated on our own issues. We were shocked by what happened [in
Japan], but not enough to actually do something."
Caltech's
demonstration of the Earthquake Early Warning System's computer
software simulates a countdown for seismic waves (in yellow and red)
spreading outward from a theoretical magnitude-7.5 earthquake on
California's Elsinore fault line toward Los Angeles.
Longer-range prediction?
If
it's hard to put in a system based on well-tested geophysics that
provides a warning just seconds in advance of the Big One, it's a lot
harder to extend the lead time to hours, or days. But people keep
trying.
"One prediction that we have learned to make following
earthquakes, and this one is a very strong prediction, is that several
people will claim to have predicted the earthquake," Heaton joked.
Some
researchers are trying to determine whether a statistical analysis of
earthquake clustering can lead to better assessments of the chances that
a big earthquake will follow smaller tremors. This month's issue of
Physics World looks into the prospects for short-term probabilistic forecasting, as well as the controversy surrounding the researchers who didn't predict the deadly 2009 L'Aquila earthquake in Italy (and are now facing manslaughter charges).
Heaton is doubtful that statistics could ever predict the onset of
future quakes with the kind of reliability people expect. He noted that
50 percent of all earthquakes have foreshocks, and one quake out of 20
turns out to be a foreshock for a larger quake. "We can say, yeah,
earthquakes come in clumps, but to get more particular and specific —
personally, I don't think it's very helpful," he said. "What are people
going to do with that information, anyway?"
It's possible that
some as-yet-unknown mechanism might provide advance indications that a
big quake is coming. "There are interesting observations that seem to be
reliable about phenomena that are totally mysterious to us," Heaton
acknowledged. "Many of them concern electrical phenomena."
Heaton even keeps an open mind about claims that animal behavior can be analyzed to predict future earthquakes.
"I
think we know some things that animals are unlikely to do — that is,
pick up vibrations from the earth," he told me. "There may be other
things out there that are happening that we don't understand very well.
So I'm not going to say 'never' to something like that. But the more we
think about the problem, the more we recognize that once an earthquake
starts, at some point, trying to predict how big it will get before it
stops seems to be a particularly difficult dynamics problem." More about the Japan quake anniversary:
A February map from the U.S Geological Survey shows the estimated range of the great Cascadia earthquake of 1700.
By M. Alex Johnson, msnbc.com
A
massive earthquake like the one that unleashed a giant tsunami
and killed nearly 16,000 people in Japan a year ago not only could
happen here in the U.S., but probably will — and relatively soon in
terms of seismological history.
The Tohoku earthquake was the most
closely monitored in history, yielding an unprecedented breadth of
data, geophysicists and seismologists say. And for residents of the
Pacific Northwest, the new data should be worrisome.
"It's just
like Japan, only a mirror image," said Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist at
the University of Hawaii and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
The
disaster in Japan occurred because of stress from the Pacific tectonic
plate sliding below Japan, according to new research discussed last
month at the annual conference of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The lead researcher, John Anderson, a geophysicist at the University of
Nevada-Reno, said the plates locked together, slowly pushing Japan
westward.
Ben Gutierrez and Lisa Kubota of NBC station KHNL in Honolulu contributed to this report by M. Alex Johnson of msnbc.com. Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.
The plates released catastrophically
on March 11, 2011, creating a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami waves
that topped 100 feet, said Anderson, who spent most of the past year in
Japan as a visiting research professor in Tokyo.
While most
Americans probably think the San Andreas fault running through
California poses the greatest threat of unleashing a killer mega-quake,
data from the Japanese quake indicate that the distinction actually
belongs to the Cascadia fault line, which runs through southern Canada,
Washington and Oregon to Northern California, Anderson said at the
conference.
Biggest threat zones
The biggest threats of a U.S. mega-quake (generally defined as one of magnitude 7.0 or greater) lie along three fault lines:
The Cascadia subduction zone stretches from northern Vancouver
Island through Seattle and Portland, Ore., to Northern California,
separating the Juan de Fuca and North America plates. Giant quakes are
believed to occur there every 300 to 600 years; the last was Jan. 26,
1700. Recent research suggests the region could have a 37 percent chance
of a magnitude-8.2 quake or greater in the next 50 years.
The San Andreas transform fault runs the length of California,
separating the Pacific and North American plates. The last mega-quake
was in 1906 near San Francisco, but large earthquakes of magnitude 6.0
or above are relatively common in historical terms, having occurred as
recently as September 2004 near Parkfield.
The New Madrid seismic zone stretches southwest from New
Madrid, Mo. (pronounced MAD-rid), and is most active in Arkansas,
Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee, where
it regularly produces small- to medium-intensity temblors. Three
magnitude-8.0 quakes are believed to have occurred in the region from
December 1811 to February 1812; had Memphis, Tenn., existed at the time,
it likely would have been destroyed. Since then, the largest earthquake
was a magnitude-6.6 quake in October 1895 near Charleston, Mo.
msnbc.com research/M. Alex Johnson. Sources: NASA Astrophysics
Data System, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Oregon
State University College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, Scripps
Institution of Oceanography, U.S. Geological Survey.
Like Fryer, he called the Pacific
Northwest trench a "mirror image" of the Japanese trench — except
potentially even more dangerous.
"In this mirror image, one can
see that if the same earthquake occurred in Cascadia, the fault would
rupture to a significant distance inland, since the Cascadia trench sits
much closer to the coastline than the trench off the coast of Japan,"
Anderson said.
While some probability models predict that a
Cascadia earthquake wouldn't rupture so far under the land, "if it does,
the data from the Tohoku earthquake predict stronger ground motions
along our West Coast than those seen in Japan," he said.
In
layman's terms, what's happening is that the region "is being deformed
because the plates are locked together, and the shoreline is sinking and
the rest of the thing is being bent," Fryer said in an interview with
NBC station KHNL of Honolulu.
Fryer said the big question is not whether a Japan-like quake will happen, but when.
A
coastal Oregon town considers building a tsunami- and earthquake-proof
city hall. Experts and residents debate whether the plan will work.
"Where
are we here? Are we close or are we not close?" he asked. "I think the
suspicion is that it could be sooner rather than later."
Anderson's research supports that conclusion.
Experts
generally agree that last great Cascadia earthquake happened on Jan.
26, 1700. It generated tsunami waves that indicated that its magnitude
was also about 9.0.
"Earthquakes of this size in the past may have
recurred with intervals of as small as about 300 years," Anderson said
at the AAAS conference last month. "So it would not be a scientific
surprise if such an event were to occur in the near future. If you live
in the Pacific Northwest, look at the videos of Tohoku as a reminder to
be prepared."
In January, experts discussed lessons from the Japanese earthquake at a conference of the Cascadia Region Earthquake Workgroup.
The
warnings come as the White House is proposing a 2013 budget that would
cut $4.6 million from National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration's tsunami programs. Much of that would come from the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program,
which funds evacuation maps, training and education efforts —
important services given how deeply the Japanese quake and tsunami
transformed the science of seismology.
"The Japan earthquake told
us that a lot of what we understand about how earthquakes work is
wrong," Fryer said. "Do we now have to go back and look at all of our
evacuation maps and make sure that they're right? That's a question
that's still unanswered, and that question would be answered with
tsunami hazard mitigation program funds." More on the Japan Quake-Tsunami from msnbc.com and NBC News:
Suffragists
Alice Paul, Alva Belmont (seated) and members of the National Woman's
Party gathered around Susan B. Anthony's desk, circa 1922.
By Harriet Baskas, msnbc.com contributor
March
8 is International Women’s Day, a time to celebrate women's economic,
political and social achievements — and take stock of the work for
women’s equality still to be done.
The celebration continues
beyond today as March is Women’s History Month, and a great time to
visit one of these sites marking important milestones in women’s
history.
Seneca Falls, N.Y.: Women’s Rights National Historic Park
Maintained
by the National Park Service, the Women’s Rights National Historic Park
in Seneca Falls, N.Y., commemorates the struggle to gain equal rights
for women and pays tribute to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other women who
organized and held the first Women’s Rights Convention at the town’s
small Wesleyan Chapel on July 19 and 20, 1848.
In addition to an exhibit-filled visitor center, park activities
include a self-guided audio tour, ranger programs and guided tours of
historical properties around town, including the Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Home and the Wesleyan Chapel.“It’s one of my favorite spots,”
said Karen O'Connor, a professor at American University in Washington,
D.C., and founder of the school’s Women & Politics Institute. “It’s
the founding home of the modern American women’s movement and you are
actually walking in the footsteps of the women who set out a system of
demands for women’s equality.”
Rochester, N.Y.: The Susan B. Anthony House
Although
she died in 1906, 14 years before the passage of the 19th Amendment
giving women the right to vote, Susan B. Anthony is best remembered as
an American civil rights activist who campaigned tirelessly for women’s
suffrage, giving speeches and inspiring followers with the
still-much-quoted mantra: “Failure is Impossible.”
The Rochester,
N.Y. house that once served as the campaign headquarters for the
National Woman Suffrage Association and as Anthony’s home for 40 years
is now a National Historic Landmark filled with items related to her
life, including the doctor-bag-style alligator purse that became her
trademark.
Washington, D.C.: Sewall-Belmont House
Located
on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum
became the home of the National Woman’s Party (NWP) in 1929 and for
more than 60 years served as the strategic base from which to lobby for
women’s political, social and economic equality.
“Today many of
the important artifacts that contributed to the success of women getting
the right to vote are there,” said O’Connor. “Look for suffrage
banners, a desk that once belonged to Susan B. Anthony and the
information-filled 3x5 cards early activists took with them when they
visited house members and senators to lobby for suffrage.”
Richmond, Calif.: Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park
Established
in 2000 and still somewhat of a work in progress (a visitor center will
open late May 2012), the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front
National Historical Park preserves and shares stories of the country’s
home front response to World War II.
Eighteen million women worked
in defense industries and in war-time support services and the many
“Rosies” who toiled in the nation’s shipyards are honored at the Rosie the Riveter Memorial, a sculpture that is both inspired by and, at about 450 feet long, as long as one of the Victory ships the women built.
In addition to free ranger tours and a downloadable, self-guided auto tour (PDF), visitors to the park can tour the SS Red Oak Victory, a ship that was built in Richmond shipyards.
