Photo, left: SNP MPs take House of Commons oath 'Scottish style' (and John Nicolson does so in Gaelic)  Scotland's new SNP MPs have sworn allegiance to the Queen during the traditional oath-taking ceremony at the House of Commons.
There are 50 new nationalist members at Westminster, joining six SNP MPs who were re-elected from the 2010 intake.  The MPs took their oaths in the Scottish style, which involves holding the right hand in the air. Each was required to read the passage in English, but a number also performed it in Gaelic and Scots.
The first MP to swear in at the second Commons session of oath taking was the Conservatives' Europe minister David Lidington.  The first of the new SNP intake was Ian Blackford, representing Ross, Skye and Lochaber, followed by Angela Crawley, MP for Lanark and Hamilton East. Livingston MP Hannah Bardell had to retake her oath after the "genuine mistake" of omitting the word "Queen" while reading the passage of allegiance. The vast majority of the nationalist MPs read the non-religious version: "I do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, according to law."
Among the new intake who spoke in Gaelic:  Philippa Whitford, Richard Arkless and Marion Fellows spoke in Scots. The Ochil and South Perthshire MP, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, swore on the Koran.  A number sported tartan ties and dresses and two MPs, Alison Thewliss and Ann McLaughlin, wore thistles.  The traditional Scottish swearing-in, or "oath in the Scot's form", was a traditional feature in courts in Scotland, although it is rarely used nowadays. Non-Scottish MPs asked the female clerk if they needed to raise their hand during the oath. She informed them it was not necessary and only the Scottish MPs were opting for that gesture.
"Have I seen you somewhere before?"
The former Tory minister Ken Clarke and new SNP MP John Nicolson spoke while waiting to take the oath.
The former BBC journalist John Nicolson - now SNP MP for East Dunbartonshire - was just behind former Tory minister Ken Clarke in the chamber. They shook hands and spoke:
JN: "I am John Nicolson." [Offers his hand]
KC: "Pleased to meet you, I have met you before. Been here before?"
JN: "No, I have interviewed you before, I am a journalist. I presented BBC breakfast news, saw you a few times."
KC: "Whose side are you on?"
JN: "I am Jo Swinson [former Lib Dem MP], for the new parliament - I am SNP."
KC: "I am going to get that reply from an awful lot of people."
JN: "Yes you are, Mr Clarke."
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-hosts: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com. Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show.
 
Hour One
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 1, Block A: Evan Ellis, professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, in re: Laurent Fabius demand a 24-day delay between a possible infraction of nuclear obligations and the arrival of an inspector.  Also, Premier Li Keqiang [usu pron: li kai-chung] goes to Brazil to hand out money: $58 billion.  Btw, Premier Li said $27 billion.  China wants entree to Brazil and to Mercosur; esp to sell low-cost foods such as soy.  Brazil's economy is to contract 2% this year, and Pres Dilma Rousseff is enmeshed in scandal. China also very much wants to export Chinese workers China's electric grid in deeply involved in Brazil's grid; China wanted to bring in 11,00 workers, leading to much protest.  Trans-Ocean.  Note proposed Nicaraguan canal (behind schedule), and a handful of other, similar, proposed Central American projects. Washington merely expresses concern over a lack of Chinese transparency – not China's moving in gangbusters, but modest ideological objections.  China always says it never meddles in internal politics of sovereign nations, but that falls away when Chinese companies are working in a country. 
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 1, Block B: James Holmes, professor of strategy at the Naval War College and a former surface warfare officer, in re: Japan is exporting arms for the first time in generations. Recall the Doolittle raid, which after its success crash-landed in China – where local Chinese people helped the American flyers, and the Japanese then killed thousands in revenge.  . . . The nuclear mafia in the US Navy, and the mafia in the Australian navy.  . . . The democratic security diamond: Australia, Japan, Hawaii, India.  Can this be one in which the US is a hub and the other three merely spokes? It'd be significant and beneficial if each of these developed independent relations with the others.  India is reluctant to take military hardware delivery from a single supplier – note that the US has a habit of refusing to sell spare parts to India. Arms race?  Not quite the same as pre-WWII.  The DARPA image of Japan is WWII, but pacifism is deeply imbued in the Japanese mentality, esp since Macarthur's constitution.      China absent as Japan parades military eqpt at trade fair.
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 1, Block C: William Harwood,  CBS News,  in re: Mini-shuttle X-37B – abt a quarter the size of the big shuttle; we don't know what it does. "Long-duration space flight" – at 1300 days so far, that's a lot more than the original shuttle.   We don't know velocity, trajectory, the like – it; all classified.  A lot of sophisticated amateurs are working on it. Obviously, the Russians and Chinese (inter al.) know all that stuff; we the citizen-taxpayers seem to be the only ones who don't.
CubeSat is 4" on a side; one was financed by the Planetary Society. Will deploy a mylar sheet: photons from ht Sun impart a small but continuous force to keep the satellite moving forward. Bill Nye: shoul be able to see reflected sunlight just after sunset and before dawn.
A piloted craft needs to be able to get a crew away from the craft in case of problem.  SpaceX succeeded with Super-Draco motors –a dramatic test that bodes well for their dvpt program.  Dragon Capsule (at 5 miles per second) space missions bring back a lot of trash, plus critical research samples.  NASA TV will show the unberthing, the robot arm; thereafter, it comes in autonomously to land west of California.   Brownsville began its bldg last year: SpaceX program is great. Avoids usual conflict with timing of military missions; Texas site gives Elon Musk the freedom to fly when he wants to. Will launch commercial missions on his own. First orbital launch site unconnected to a govt agency.  At some point may be launching astronauts – maybe even planetary missions. 
The Air Force/ULA are launching the X-37B mini shuttle on Wednesday from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas 5.   The mission includes the Planetary Society’s LightSail demo
An unpiloted Air Force X-37B spaceplane, a mini shuttle making the program's fourth flight, is poised for launchWednesday on a mostly classified mission featuring an unusual hitchhiker: a small publicly-funded satellite built to test the feasibility of using sails and the pressure of sunlight for propulsion. The winged X-37B, the LightSail satellite and several other small hitchhiker payloads are scheduled for launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station between 10:45 a.m. and 2:45 p.m. EDT. Forecasters are predicting a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather.

The Atlas 5 first stage, powered by a Russian-built RD-180 engine generating 860,000 pounds of thrust, was expected to fire for about four minutes and 24 seconds to climb out of the dense lower atmosphere. At that point, the rocket's Centaur RL10C-1 second stage engine will take over, boosting the craft into an initial orbit. 
But in keeping with past practice, details about the spaceplane's planned orbit, including its altitude and inclination, or tilt with respect to the equator, were classified as were the primary goals of the mission, the planned duration and where it might eventually land. 
The first three flights ended at Vandenberg Air Force Base northwest of Los Angeles, but two shuttle processing hangars at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida have been taken over for the X-37B program and the fourth mission could end on the 3-mile-long shuttle runway.

In any case, the X-37B, also known as an Orbital Test Vehicle, or OTV, presumably will be released from the Atlas 5's Centaur second stage shortly after reaching its intended orbit. And if past practice is any guide, the public won't hear anything else about the mission until landing. Whenever that might be.  "It is what it says it is, it's a technology demonstrator," said Joan Johnson-Freese, a space policy analyst at the Naval War College. "I think they designed it to see what they could get out of it. And one of the things they're testing is how long can we leave it up? One of the things they seem to be testing is maneuverability. So I think it basically is what it says it is.

"But what's interesting to me is it's being done in such an opaque manner. If the Chinese were doing this, oh my God, there would be congressional hearings on a daily basis and programs being ginned up to respond to it. It has capabilities that other countries aren't sure about, and so they're going to be very nervous about them. If it's a highly maneuverable space vehicle, that has some pretty significant implications."  The Planetary Society's small LightSail satellite will be deployed from the Centaur about two hours after liftoff, presumably well after the X-37B's departure. The LightSail spacecraft, about the size and shape of a loaf of bread, is made up of three small CubeSats connected together. CubeSats are widely used for relatively modest space experiments because of their small size and low cost.

LightSail is one of 10 CubeSat payloads on board the Atlas 5. Other sponsors include the U.S. Naval Academy, the Aerospace Corp., the Air Force Research Laboratory and California Polytechnic State University. On a Kickstarter page seeking funding, Bill Nye, the "Science Guy" and CEO of the Planetary Society, said light sails may one day open up the solar system to low-cost exploration by citizen-scientists. "Imagine it: unlimited free energy from the Sun will provide . . .
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 1, Block D:  John Tamny,  Forbes.com, in re:  Bill and Hillary Clinton Rob Inequality of Its Unrelenting Beauty In a McDonald's recently, a witnessed interview between the restaurant's manager and a potential new hire was striking for its economic significance.  At one point the manager went back behind the counter to help with a surge of customers, at which time the interviewee took out her mobile phone to send texts, read e-mails, check Facebook...   Schumpeter: "The rich will create the scenario by which they’ll be taken down" – we forget how bad life was for the rich before the robber barons (electricity, cars – made by the very people whom pols rail against.) Tax rate was 83% . . .
Hour Two
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 2, Block A: Stephen Yates, chairman of the Idaho Republican Party, CEO of D.C. International Advisory, and former advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, in re:  Downward trend of Chinese economy, co-termminuos with Chinese aggresson against its neighbors.  CNN reports: a US surveillance aircraft at 15,000 ft or above, looking at areas where China has dumped staggering amounts of sand and earth in order to "create" islands that China can claim in order to have oil and gas rights.  The drone heard a Chinese voice in English:
 
"This is the Chinese navy. Please go away to avoid misunderstanding."
 
The only consistent US Navy policy for 220 years ahs been to maintain global freedom of navigation; recently, the Chinese effort has been to confront and prevent that. It's reactive. Secy Kerry was just in China.    Xi Jinping was invited to the US in September.  Traditionally, we do not yield on freedom of navigation on the high seas; a core principle affirmed y every US Administration along with many of our  allies. The word agrees to a 12-mi claim, while China s trying to amplify that enormously by building bogus islands. This began when we watched China take Scarborough Shoals and did nothing; however, we seem to be seeing a rapid change from the White House. India is also responding; the world's most powerful and most populous nation together?  Hah – Ramadi is in the hands of savages and the WH says nothing,  This is will be a test of wills: one side decides not to risk a collision.  "China is a state going rogue."  On April Fool's day of 2001, a US plane was forced down, miraculously landed on Hainan Island. 
 
"China is a state going rogue."
 
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 2, Block B: Rick Fisher, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, in re: ICBM carries multiple warheads: MIRV'd (between 3 and 10 missiles). The US academic estimate is that China has 300 warheads; Russians say 800-900 deployed warheads.  Early on, the purpose of the Chinese missile force was deterrence.  Then it became something more than assured deterrence.  US should have asked if the US was being deceived.  Mssrs Putin and Xi together watching the Great Patriotic commemoration in Moscow.  China wants to gang up with Russia, esp could benefit in a Taiwan invasion. US has agreed to limit itself to 1,500 warheads in a treaty with Russia, which China is moving to and past 1,500.   The US-Russia treaty is outdated, a product of a time when there were only two nuclear superpowers; now there  are three. "The Underground Great Wall" is thousands of miles of tunnels – 3,000-plus km – specifically for concealing nuclear weapons.  Include power projection: to the Moon, naval, other; nuclear warheads are only part of the larger plan.
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 2, Block C: Michael Auslin, Director of Japan Studies, AEI, in re: In 2o12, Filipino fishermen at Scarborough Shoals; Chinese ships showed up, blasted the fishermen with water cannon. US brokered an agreement by which both sides would withdraw. Philippines did, China did not, US did nothing.   Now, Chinese PLA Navy constructs "islands" for provocation and land-grab – rather, ocean-grab.  Now, in 2015: CNN reports that a US surveillance aircraft at 15,000 ft or above, looking at areas where China has dumped staggering amounts of sand and earth in order to "create" islands that China can claim in order to have oil and gas rights.  The drone heard a Chinese voice in English: "This is the Chinese navy. This is the Chinese navy. Please go away to avoid misunderstanding." We have not only bad policy in the Obama Administration but worse in the previous one.  The Chinese Poseidon warned the US Navy away from much farther than 12 miles – not declaring the grab but doing it by stealth, Any Administration will have to confront China.  The US must say: We do not acknowledge sovereignty of constructed land; China now has over 2,000 acres. This is the early stage of a pushing match, The ball is currently in the Chinese court; if they try to enforce this physically they know that the US will have to push back.   This is a really dangerous time - could have an accident at 600 mph and everything could spin out of control with no rues of the road. The US-Filipino alliance: Some things are covered, others not.  US obviously missed the greater geopolitical meanings. In 1994 the US let China take over bits and pieces of Vietnamese territory. A long arc; two decades of the US not responding. Parallel to the Third Reich's deeds. In a zero-sum confrontation, neither side can back down. The upcoming accident will be the one that history remembers,  The US has been molasses-slow to clarify what the real redlines are.  If we find ourselves in a situation where we have no choice but to respond, but have not telegraphed our intentions in advance, high danger. And China has no intention of integrating into the world ethos of naval and military conduct.
A number of reports last week indicated that the Obama administration is thinking about hardening its opposition to China’s island building in the South China Sea.  In the Wall Street Journal, I argue that shaping China’s regional environment is a better way to blunt Beijing’s expansionism in the South China Sea than waiting for a change in the nature of the regime. In National Review, I discuss the risks and benefits of a confrontational US strategy in the region. 
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 2, Block D: Tom Mitchell, FT, in re: CNN reports that a US surveillance aircraft at 15,000 ft or above, looking at areas where China has dumped staggering amounts of sand and earth in order to "create" islands that China can claim in order to have oil and gas rights.  The drone heard a Chinese voice in English: "This is the Chinese navy. This is the Chinese navy. Please go away to avoid misunderstanding." Was the possibility of this friction hinted at in the recent meeting between Secy Kerry and Wang I, Chinese foreign minister? No.  . . . Frequent mentions that the US is out of line, meddling in affairs that are nine of its business – advocate bilateral relations between China and Vietnam, or China and Philippines.   Beijing has a habit of lurching unpleasantly forward two steps, then having to pull back one step after huge public objections; then it aggressively lunges forward again. 
CHINA /  China and US seek to defuse tensions Wang Yi defends construction but pledges ‘peace and stability’ US ‘welcome’ to use China’s new islands
Hour Three
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 3, Block A:   Monica Crowley, Fox, & Washington Times Online opinion editor; in re: Going to Normandy was my vivid intention for my lifetime; I finally got there last week, It's beyond description; awe, amazement, gratitude. If you haven't gone, you must – and bring your chidren. The American cemetery holds over 9,000 white crosses and Stars of David, almost 200 acres. I stopped in my tracks. I expected to see more WWII veterans, and their children and grandchildren, walking here, but I realized why not, and it almost broke my heart.  This is the Normandy where William the Norman lived and from where he left to conquer England, The people are hospitable and the food is terrific; the cheese, butter, seafood: all are fabulous. It takes several days.  Utah beach is different, with white sand; whereas Omaha is a perfect crescent, a vast seascape that comes right up to the bluff.  John Steele, whose parachute caught in the steeple.  Church bells rang all night because there was a fire in the village.   Two American medics in a three-farmhouse village tending to not only American wounded but also to German wounded. Bloodstains still permeate the pews of the church. Pointe du Hoc.  German gun emplacements shot directly down on Americans: of 22o Army Rangers dropped, only 90 survived. The battle: 750,000  casualties on all sides, lasted till liberation in Paris.
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 3, Block B: Monica Crowley, Fox, & Washington Times Online opinion editor; in re:  ·  First Draft | Today in Politics: Hillary Clinton's Busy Week Presents More Opportunities for No Questions  ·  Hillary Clinton hires DREAMer to head Latino outreach
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 3, Block C: Eric Trager, Washington Institute, in re:  Congressional Testimony  Egypt Two Years after Morsi
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 3, Block D:   Francis Rose, Federal News Radio, in re: 1.     Funding decision looms in Denver VA hospital predicament Workers work on the Veterans Affairs hospital in Aurora, Colo., in April. The VA is trying to find a way to reallocate money from another budget ... / VA hospital complex in Aurora would lose two buildings under ...  / 2.      VA mismanagement, malpractice detailed in reports  More than 120 previously unpublished investigations by the Veterans Affairs Department's inspector general, dating as far back as 2006, reveal ...
Hour Four
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 4, Block A: A Christmas Far from Home: An Epic Tale of Courage and Survival during the Korean War, by Stanley Weintraub (1 of 4)
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 4, Block B: A Christmas Far from Home: An Epic Tale of Courage and Survival during the Korean War, by Stanley Weintraub (2 of 4)
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 4, Block C: A Christmas Far from Home: An Epic Tale of Courage and Survival during the Korean War, by Stanley Weintraub (3 of 4)
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 4, Block D: A Christmas Far from Home: An Epic Tale of Courage and Survival during the Korean War, by Stanley Weintraub (4 of 4)