Those who defend marriage as a union of one man and one woman plan to use the November 6 defeats as a rallying cry and fundraising tool. The National Organization for Marriage, the leading group opposed to gay marriage, has called on allies to raise $30 million in the coming year - more than double its haul in 2012.

"Frankly, Americans never really thought that they would have to defend something so obvious as the reality that it takes a man and a woman to make a marriage, and only recently has the threat become clear," Brian Brown, the organization's head, said in an interview. "We're committed to not letting that happen again, to being outspent in that way. And I think a lot of our donors will step up to the plate, in a way that you haven't seen before, in any future state fights."

This Election Days, voters in Maine, Maryland and Washington state approved ballot initiatives legalizing same-sex marriage, marking the first time in US history voters approved gay marriage at the polls, and bringing to nine the number of states allowing gay marriage. Weeks later, both sides are preparing for more wrenching battles. Brown acknowledges that defenders of so-called traditional marriage now find themselves on the defensive.

"All of the cultural power is being exerted on the side of redefining marriage," Brown said. "Therefore, in colleges, students are constantly hearing about how it's discrimination or bigoted to stand up for traditional marriage."

"We are the rebels now," he said.

This year, Barack Obama became the first US president to say he believed same-sex couples should be allowed to marry. The move was seen as energizing voters ahead of [Mr] Obama's re-election against Republican challenger Mitt Romney, rather than as a liability.

But they did fret about the future of the euro and the EU, their chef d’œuvre. To keep it glued and duct-taped together, they came up with a laundry list of recommendations concerning its governance. It included the vampire item that simply refuses to die, namely shifting sovereignty over national budgets to the European government.

To their credit — or was it just window dressing, given the uproar on the internet? — they also called for more “democratic legitimacy and accountability,” of which only trace elements are discernible in the EU government. One of the key items: “a directly elected Commission President.”

Then came the eurocrat response. “If this is not going hand in hand with large powers for the Commission, then forget it,” said European Council President Herman Van Rompuy at a conference centered on that Final Report. It would give that top job “a huge legitimacy,” he said, but it would “organize the disappointment in advance.” Only by handing “large powers” to the Commission could a directly elected Commission President become functional. Another step in the ongoing and ever so methodical power grab.

Just then, a 52-page draft report by the unelected European Commission President José Manuel Barroso bubbled to the surface — a continuation of his bureaucratic drive to create the United States of Europe come hell or high water.

To overcome “the crisis of confidence,” he called for “fast and deep” integration and envisioned a powerful European government. It would, for example, have the power to coordinate how Member States tax their citizens — with the unspoken goal to alleviate tax competition between countries, a recurrent complaint by high-tax countries against their lower-tax brethren. Even in the USA, the federal government doesn’t attempt to tell the states how to tax their residents. It would cause a revolt.

Barroso, building on his idea of a United States of Europe, also wants to give the Commission, his Commission, the power to veto the budgets of Member States. He wants to endow that souped-up government with the ability to levy its own taxes, rather than be dependent on handouts that are determined during bitter budget negotiations by the 27 Member States. It would be a coup. It would give the European government the power to impose taxes on already overtaxed people — with little or no democratic limits. And all that without a constitution.

Yesterday, the Dallas Fed President said this policy without limits would result in "horrific consequences". Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, a self-identified inflation hawk, said the US central bank could get into trouble if it does not set a limit on the amount of assets it is willing to buy. 'You cannot expand without limits without horrific consequences,' he told reporters on the sidelines of the conference organized by the Levy Economics Institute in Berlin. 'There is no infinity in monetary policy, we know that from the German experience.'

It is highly unlikely that buying bad paper from banks and monetizing the US government's debt will make one bit of difference for the real unemployment problem no matter how much they spend doing it. And when it doesn't work, we can be assured of one thing: they will throw even more money at it, and it will most certainly result in "horrific consequences" for the value of the dollar.

While the Catalans are still arguing about their referendum, the Scottish Nationalists have already arranged theirs for 2014. It is, in other words, perfectly plausible that in two years, Great Britain will no longer exist. Across Europe, separatist movements are buoyant. Many, after toiling in obscurity for years, have profited from the collapse of the European economy, exploiting popular resentments at their governing elites. In the Basque Country, for example, separatist parties won 48 out of 75 seats in October’s parliamentary elections.

In Italy, the separatist Lombard League, which demands greater autonomy for the industrial north, won a record 26 per cent of the vote in recent regional elections. Belgium has been paralysed by ethnic tension for more than a decade, with Dutch-speaking Flemings and French-speaking Walloons barely on speaking terms.

Indeed, since Antwerp (one of Northern Europe’s greatest ports) is now controlled by a party demanding Flemish independence, many experts believe the disintegration of Belgium is only a matter of time. Even France - historically the most centralised country in Europe and famously intolerant of regional differences - has seen a surge in separatist sentiment. In Napoleon’s homeland of Corsica, support for independence has jumped threefold since 2004, and the Corsican nationalists came second in 2010’s regional elections.

It would be tempting to dismiss all this as merely a reaction to the dreadful woes of the eurozone, with ordinary voters turning to the nationalists to express their anger and frustration at the corrupt political classes that have led them into penury. But the rise of separatism is also a reminder that no nation lasts for ever.

The UN victory for the Palestinians was a diplomatic setback for the United States and Israel, which were joined by only a handful of countries in voting against the move to upgrade the Palestinian Authority's observer status at the United Nations to "non-member state" from "entity," like the Vatican. Britain called on the United States to use its influence to help break the long impasse in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Washington also called for a revival of direct negotiations.

There were 138 votes in favor, nine against and 41 abstentions. Three countries did not take part in the vote, held on the 65th anniversary of the adoption of UN resolution 181 that partitioned Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. The assembly approved the upgrade despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinians by withholding funds for the West Bank government. UN envoys said Israel might not retaliate harshly against the Palestinians over the vote as long as they do not seek to join the International Criminal Court.

If the Palestinians were to join the ICC, they could file complaints with the court accusing Israel of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious crimes. The much-anticipated vote came after Abbas denounced Israel from the UN podium for its "aggressive policies and the perpetration of war crimes," remarks that elicited a furious response from the Jewish state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded quickly, condemning Abbas' critique of Israel as "hostile and poisonous," and full of "false propaganda. "These are not the words of a man who wants peace," Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office. He reiterated Israeli calls for direct talks with the Palestinians, dismissing Thursday's resolution as "meaningless."

The vote highlighted how deeply divided Europe is on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At least 17 European nations voted in favor of the Palestinian resolution, including Austria, France, Italy, Norway and Spain. Abbas had focused his lobbying efforts on Europe, which supplies much of the aid the Palestinian Authority relies on. Britain, Germany and many others chose to abstain.

The traditionally pro-Israel Czech Republic was unique in Europe, joining the United States, Israel, Canada, Panama and the tiny Pacific Island states Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands and Micronesia in voting against the move.