Is The Yellowstone Supervolcano ready to erupt?

From The Times
January 5, 2009

Fears over earthquake 'swarm' at Yellowstone National Park

Hundreds of earthquakes have hit Yellowstone National Park, raising fears of a more powerful volcanic eruption.

The earthquake swarm, the biggest in more than 20 years, is being closely monitored by scientists and emergency authorities.

The series of small quakes included three last Friday which measured stronger than magnitude 3.0. The strongest since this latest swarm of quakes began on December 27 was 3.9.

No damage has yet been reported but scientists say this level of activity - there have been more than 500 tremors in the last week - is highly unusual.

"The earthquake sequence is the most intense in this area for some years," said the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. Some of the larger earthquakes have been felt by park employees and guests, according to the observatory.

The swarm is occurring beneath the northern part of Yellowstone Lake in the park. Yellowstone sits on the caldera of an ancient supervolcano and continuing geothermal activity can be seen in the picturesque geysers and steam holes, such as Old Faithful.

About 1,000 to 2,000 tremors a year have been recorded since 2004. The most devastating earthquake in recent history in the Yellowstone region occurred on August 17, 1959, when a magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit.

It was centered near Hebgen Lake, Montana and it caused landslides that killed 28 people and caused more than $11 million in damage.

Geysers in Yellowstone National park changed eruption times, and new ones began to erupt. On June 30, 1975, a magnitude 6.4 tremor hit the park.

Professor Robert B. Smith, a geophysicist at the University of Utah and one of the leading experts on earthquake and volcanic activity at Yellowstone, said that the swarm was significant.

"It's not business as usual," he said. "This is a large earthquake swarm, and we've recorded several hundred. We are paying careful attention. This is an important sequence."

The last full-scale explosion of the Yellowstone Supervolcano, the Lava Creek eruption which happened approximately 640,000 years ago, ejected about 240 cubic miles of rock and dust into the sky.

Geologists have been closely monitoring the rise and fall of the Yellowstone Plateau as an indication of changes in magma chamber pressure.

The Yellowstone caldera floor has risen recently - almost 3in per year for the past three years - a rate more than three times greater than ever observed since such measurements began in 1923.

From mid-summer 2004 through to mid-summer 2008, the land surface within the caldera moved upwards as much as 8in at the White Lake GPS station. The last major earthquake swarm was in 1985 and lasted three months.

The observatory said similar swarms have occurred in the past without triggering steam explosions or volcanic activity. However, the observatory said there is some potential for explosions and that earthquakes may continue and increase in intensity.

Joe Moore, director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security, said his office is tracking the events at Yellowstone on a minute-by-minute basis. "It's being followed very closely," Mr Moore said.

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House passes Bill to create Obama's Brown Shirt Army. Oops! I mean Civilian National Security Force

Altruism at the point of a gun
by Rick Moran
from American Thinker
March 21, 2009

The House has passed the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, known as the GIVE Act (where do they come up with these Orwellian acronyms?). The bill fulfills an Obama campaign promise to create a "civilian national security force."

This legislation will not mandate or force our young people into national service - not yet anyway. But there is little doubt that we are being set up for just such an eventuality.

Under section 6104 of the bill, entitled “Duties,” in subsection B6, the legislation states that a commission will be set up to investigate, “Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.”

Section 120 of the bill also discusses the “Youth Engagement Zone Program” and states that “service learning” will be “a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency.”

“The legislation, slated to cost $6 billion over five years, would create 175,000 “new service opportunities” under AmeriCorps, bringing the number of participants in the national volunteer program to 250,000. It would also create additional “corps” to expand the reach of volunteerism into new sectors, including a Clean Energy Corps, Education Corps, Healthy Futures Corps and Veterans Service Corps, and it expands the National Civilian Community Corps to focus on additional areas like disaster relief and energy conservation,” reports Fox News

Clearly, the goal of this program is to involve every single young person in America in a mandatory service program. The "Commission" is a smokescreen. Of course they are going to recommend that there be mandatory service and they will lay out procedures on how to do it.

During the campaign, Obama envisioned a program that would require youngsters to spend several hours a week in community service. Many high schools already require a certain number of hours devoted to "community service" in order to be eligible to graduate. How this all fits into "national security" will be very interesting to see.

What we have here is nothing less than altruism at the point of a gun. Fine thing we're teaching our kids - that government can compel you to do "good."
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Don't be saying that Naughty "T" word! No, not Treasury, Terrorism!

If we can't say Terrorism, rather than 'Man-Caused Disaster', how about:
-Religion-Caused Disaster
-Religious Zealot-Caused Disaster
-Crazed Religious Zealot-Caused Disaster
or my favorite all-inclusive term:
-Islam-Caused Disaster
My last suggestion pretty much covers 99% of all the terrorist acts being committed.
Rees

Obama-Speak: Homeland Security Secretary Replaces 'Terrorism' With the Term 'Man-Caused Disaster'

Even as President Obama compares bankers to suicide bombers, his Homeland Security Secretary is suggesting the T-word, terrorism, is too inflammatory and representative of old-fashioned "politics of fear." She's announced a new term: "man-caused disaster." From an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel:

SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word "terrorism." Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?

NAPOLITANO: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.

But what if the suicide bomber is a female? Isn't it sexist to use "man-caused disaster"?
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