No sense of irony or history - then again this is California.
Yep Lex, I thought it too.
3 hours ago
Proactively “From the Sea”; an agent of change leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case to synergize a consistent design in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.
So long, farewell, auf weidersein, goodbyeee. Ladies and gentlemen, I am sad to announce that from henceforth England Expects shall be consigned to the dustbins of history. I say this with a heavy heart, but it is the case. And this is why.This is what happens when you point out their failures and they decide to silence you. They first go after your ability to support your family and/or yourself. Then ....
Yesterday I was summoned by my Secretary General and informed that a formal complaint had been made about my posting on this blog. My activities were found to be in contravention of the Staff Code of Conduct
...
The problem was at the beginning of the month I had posted a piece about some gender language absurdity (please note that the staff regulations talk about his. I had included the name of the author and she had requested that I remove the name. This I did, as she pointed out that she had been phoned by a couple of journalists and was, as an official unable to talk to them.
Notwithstanding me removing her name, somebody made an official complaint about this blog to the powers that be. The Secretary General of the Parliament, Harald Rømer then wrote to my group pointing out my clear breech of the staff rules. I had, it said posted article upon England expects, a website that is ""ironique et eurosceptique". (One wonders which was the worse transgression, the scepticism or the fact that I laugh at them?).
The upshot is that I have a formal warning and, if I continue to blog then 'sanctions' may be applied. Given that the sanctions amount to upwards of a four month docking of wages, I really cannot afford to continue.
The far Right has made a grand return in Austria, emerging from yesterday’s elections as the second biggest parliamentary block, according to preliminary results.Center-Right to Reich gets you 18+11+25.6 = 54.6%
The two parties that campaigned on an anti-immigrant and anti-European Union ticket have captured about 29 per cent of the vote, pushing the country’s traditional conservative party into third place.
Heinz-Christian Strache and his Freedom Party, who were accused of xenophobia and waging an antiMuslim campaign, won 18 per cent — a rise of 7 per cent compared with the last elections. Mr Strache’s former mentor, Jörg Haider, won 11 per cent of the vote with his new party, the Alliance for the Future of Austria.
...
The mainstream parties recorded their lowest share of the vote since the Second World War, with the Social Democrats dropping 7 per cent to 29.7 per cent, while the conservative People’s Party won 25.6 per cent of the vote — a decline of 9 per cent compared with 2006.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative allies in the southern German state of Bavaria suffered heavy losses in a state election on Sunday, a development that could have far-reaching consequences for federal elections next year.Don't think the SPD surged though.
The conservative Christian Social Union won 43.4 percent of the vote — compared with nearly 61 percent five years ago — while support surged for smaller parties, including the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats.
It was a humiliating defeat for the Christian Social Union, which since the early 1960s had effortlessly won election after election and was able to govern alone in Bavaria, a largely Catholic state.
“It is a painful result for us,” said Günther Beckstein, the governor of Bavaria. “It is clear we now have to choose a coalition partner.”
The Christian Social Union has traditionally provided a crucial number of parliamentary seats for Mrs. Merkel’s party, the Christian Democratic Union, on the federal level.
But the Social Democrats, partners in Merkel's "grand coalition" government, were unable to capitalise on the conservatives' misery and slipped half a point to 19.1 percent.Nope what happened is that the establishment party of the right has lost touch, ahem, with its base and they are protesting. Der Spiegel puts it well; when you add CSU + FDP + FW....
The professional optimists at the SPD headquarters in Berlin will naturally spin this and turn to the tried and trusted argument that a state election is not the general election. That is true. However, there is a second phenomenon here: The Greens hardly profited either. Instead almost all the disappointed CSU supporters turned to the FDP or the Freie Wähler group. The camps, therefore, remain unchanged. There is hardly any movement between the bourgeois voters and the supporters of the SPD, the Greens and the Left Party. That has also been the case since 1998 at a federal level. The prospects that the SPD could attract voters away from the CDU in the next general election are thus very slim.Hmmmm - how do we do that in the USA?
LEHRER: Are you -- what priorities would you adjust, as president, Senator McCain, because of the -- because of the financial bailout cost?If you are not up to speed on the LCS problem - click back on the LCS post and read what I have been saying for YEARS.
MCCAIN: Look, we, no matter what, we've got to cut spending. We have -- as I said, we've let government get completely out of control.
Senator Obama has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate. It's hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left.
The point -- the point is -- the point is, we need to examine every agency of government.
First of all, by the way, I'd eliminate ethanol subsidies. I oppose ethanol subsidies.
I think that we have to return -- particularly in defense spending, which is the largest part of our appropriations -- we have to do away with cost-plus contracts. We now have defense systems that the costs are completely out of control.
We tried to build a little ship called the Littoral Combat Ship that was supposed to cost $140 million, ended up costing $400 million, and we still haven't done it.
So we need to have fixed-cost contracts. We need very badly to understand that defense spending is very important and vital, particularly in the new challenges we face in the world, but we have to get a lot of the cost overruns under control.Thanks Amy for keeping me focused.
FROM Brussels this week NATO brandished a fist at Russia, warning it that there could be no “business as usual” so long as Russian forces remained in Georgia. The Russians, oddly, did not quail. If anything, President Dmitry Medvedev and his mentor and prime minister, Vladimir Putin, seem to be enjoying the world’s impotent indignation in the face of their new-found machismo. And why not? They know that the West will not fight for the territorial integrity of Georgia, a trisected statelet of only 4m people in the faraway Caucasus. They also know that they will face no serious economic punishment. As a collective, NATO may huff and puff, but the cold fact is that many of its big members need a lot of business with Russia to continue. Germany and others in Europe need to keep buying Russia’s oil and gas. America needs Russia, too, in order to secure vital foreign-policy objectives of its own, such as preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.It also outlines well that, even though you have to respect her wilting power, her history, and her unpredictability - you also have to pity here - though like you pity an old bear with a limp and an abscessed tooth ....
Sound policy starts with a sense of proportion. Contrary to some excitable first reactions, Russia’s ability to crush the minuscule Georgian army does not make it a superpower, and its aggression in the Caucasus need not mark the start of a new cold war. To put things in perspective, America’s GDP is ten times bigger than Russia’s and it spends at least seven times more on defence. Russia’s economy would fall off a cliff if energy prices slumped and its population, racked by ill-health and inequality, is shrinking by up to 800,000 a year. Russia can make mischief, but it cannot project military and ideological power all around the world, as the Soviet Union did during the cold war. Although it scares some neighbours (but not the Chinese), its threats make them all the more determined to stay on guard. It is surely no coincidence that after months of prevarication the Poles agreed immediately after Russia invaded Georgia to let America base missile defences (ostensibly against a future threat from Iran) on Polish territory.
To say that Russia’s strength is exaggerated is not to say that it should be allowed to escape its Georgian adventure unpunished. A weak power can be more reckless than a strong one. Russia needs to learn that in spite of their own enervating foreign wars and economic worries the members of the Western alliance can still unite in front of a challenge. But because Russia is fundamentally less strong than it likes to pretend, the West’s response can afford to be patient as well as principled.
Dear Member,If you get this email - delete it right away. Any thief who targets Servicemembers and their families ....
The primary email address you have registered for your Navy Federal Credit Union was changed on Sep/28/2008.
This e-mail has been send to you based on the Member Notification preferences you previously established.If you would like to change you Member Notification preferences, please sign on to Navy Federal Online Account Access and click on the Other Services link, go to the Member Notifications by E-Mail option, and then click on the Manage My Notification tab.
If you did not change you email address, please sign on and review your email addresses.
Please Note: This Member Notification e-mail address is only used to generate Member Notifications.We will not read or respond to e-mail send to this e-mail address.If you would like to contact Navy Federal Online Account Access and click the Check Messages link send us and e-message.
Democrat Barack Obama continues to argue that only the systematic withdrawal of U.S. combat units will force Iraqi leaders to compromise. Yet the empirical evidence of the past year suggests the opposite: that only the greater security produced and guaranteed by American troops allows a political environment in which legislative deals and free elections are feasible.I'll take that as an "I was wrong" by the WaPo.
Story Updated: Aug 20, 2008 at 3:16 PM MDTHis MOH citation.
BOISE - Idaho Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Ed Freeman has passed away.
He was 80 years old.
Freeman, who lived in Boise, died at about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday from complications from Parkinson's disease, a family member said.
Freeman was a Vietnam veteran who was honored for his heroic services. He piloted a helicopter and saved more than 30 men during the war.
His heroics grew nation wide attention when his character was featured in Mel Gibson's war movie, "We Were Soldiers." Actor Mark McCracken played the character of Ed "Too Tall" Freeman in the popular flick.
The family released a statement Wednesday afternoon:
"Our family is grateful for all the wonderful wishes we've received these past few weeks, from our friends and from those we don't even know. The support of the people of Idaho has been overwhelming, and my father really appreciated those kind words and wishes."
"He had visits from Governor Otter, Secretary of the Interior Kempthorne and Major General Lafrenz of the Idaho National Guard. Many others either came to see him or passed on their kind words to us."
"My father touched a lot of people over the years during his career in the U.S. Army and as a civilian pilot with the federal government at the National Interagency Fire Center. People could relate to him, and those who knew him have told me they thought of him as a wonderful, friendly, humorous person with a lot of integrity."
"He made an impression on people. I knew him not only as my father, but as my best friend. We spent many hours together, fishing and just hanging out with each other. My family and I will miss him more than words can express."
Freeman's funeral will be held at 11 a.m. at 2760 E Fairview Ave. in Meridian. Burial will be at Idaho State Veterans Cemetery.
Captain Ed W. Freeman, United States Army, distinguished himself by numerous acts of conspicuous gallantry and extraordinary intrepidity on 14 November 1965 while serving with Company A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). As a flight leader and second in command of a 16-helicopter lift unit, he supported a heavily engaged American infantry battalion at Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley, Republic of Vietnam. The unit was almost out of ammunition after taking some of the heaviest casualties of the war, fighting off a relentless attack from a highly motivated, heavily armed enemy force. When the infantry commander closed the helicopter landing zone due to intense direct enemy fire, Captain Freeman risked his own life by flying his unarmed helicopter through a gauntlet of enemy fire time after time, delivering critically needed ammunition, water and medical supplies to the besieged battalion. His flights had a direct impact on the battle's outcome by providing the engaged units with timely supplies of ammunition critical to their survival, without which they would almost surely have gone down, with much greater loss of life. After medical evacuation helicopters refused to fly into the area due to intense enemy fire, Captain Freeman flew 14 separate rescue missions, providing life-saving evacuation of an estimated 30 seriously wounded soldiers -- some of whom would not have survived had he not acted. All flights were made into a small emergency landing zone within 100 to 200 meters of the defensive perimeter where heavily committed units were perilously holding off the attacking elements. Captain Freeman's selfless acts of great valor, extraordinary perseverance and intrepidity were far above and beyond the call of duty or mission and set a superb example of leadership and courage for all of his peers. Captain Freeman's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit and the United States Army.RIP, and thank you.
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.Yep, right in the lap of the Clinton Adminstation. That is where the seed (icky thought) came from.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''....and don't you just love this jewel?
Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.
...
annie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.....and the same reasons are being used to determine who gets preferential treatment in the Navy as well. Level playing field? No, that wouldn't be, well, fair.
...
In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.
The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.
A U.S. Navy security team fired warning shots Wednesday at two small boats approaching a navy supply ship off the coast of Somalia, Agence France-Presse reported…Relearning an old lesson about pirates - if you make yourself a tough target, they leave you alone.
The security team aboard USNS John Lenthall, an oiler, fired the shots after “defensive measures” failed to stop the two unmarked vessels…
All the warning shots hit the water, about 50 meters from the closest boat, and the vessels turned away after the shots were fired.
Here is a firsthand account of a pirate attack on two yachts. It took place only 30 miles off the coast of Yemen at 13°28' North 48°07' East on 8 March 5pm local.Oh Eagle1; you'll love this site.
This report has been filed with the relevant authorities: the Yemen Coast Guard, Yemen Navy, Aden Port Control, US Coalition 5th Fleet, US Embassy and State Department.
Richard Donaldson-Alves, Controller, Mobile Maritime Net, South East Asian Waters (14,323 MHz 0025 Z daily Wx @ 0055 Z daily)
On 8 March 2005, two sailing yachts, Mahdi & Gandalf, were moving SW 30 miles off the coast of Yemen proceeding to the port of Aden from Salalah, Oman.
At about 0900 two outboard powered boats, about 25 feet long with 3 men in each one, passed off our stern moving south at about 25 knots. An hour or two later they returned, one coming quite close and looking us over carefully. The second boat passed our bows but quite a ways away. These boats were obviously not engaged in a normal activity such as fishing, etc. At that time we were south of Al Mukalla, Yemen. The area around Al Mukalla is well documented as being a piracy problem area and we started watching carefully for anything out of the ordinary. At about 1600 we observed two different boats approaching us head on from the SW. These boats were 25-30 feet long, had higher freeboard and diesel powered. They were coming very fast directly at us. There were 4 men in each boat. The boats separated at about 200 yards, one boat ahead of the other, coming down Mahdi’s port side and firing into the cockpit. The other boat was firing an automatic weapon at both Gandalf and Mahdi from ahead, more at Gandalf. These guys were shooting directly at the cockpits, and obviously intended to kill us. The first boat swung around behind Mahdi’s stern to come up and board us. At that point I, Rod Nowlin aboard Mahdi and armed with a 12 gage shotgun loaded with 00 buckshot, started shooting into their boat. I forced them to keep their heads down so that they could not shoot at us. I am not sure I hit anyone at that point although I could see the driver of the boat crouched down behind a steering console. After firing 3 shots at them their engine started to smoke and I swung around to shoot at the boat ahead. At that point, I saw Jay Barry on Gandalf ram that boat amidships almost cutting it in two and turning it almost completely over. I turned back around to shoot again at the boat behind Mahdi and that is when they turned away from Mahdi and were heading toward the stern of Gandalf. Gandalf was beside us, about 100 feet away. The bow of the pirate’s boat came right up against Gandalf’s stern and two men stood up on the bow to board Gandalf. That was a serious and probably fateful error on their part. I shot both of them. That boat then veered away and I shot the driver, although I am not sure of the outcome because they were farther away and I did not knock him down like the other two.
Mahdi and Gandalf kept going at full speed to put as much distance between the pirates and us as possible. As soon as we were out of rifle range we looked back and both boats were drifting and appeared to be disabled.
If Jay on Gandalf had not had the presence of mind to veer over into one boat and ram it, the outcome of this attack would have been totally different. All they needed to do was stand off a ways and shoot us to pieces with automatic weapons. We were extremely lucky. We broadcast Mayday calls on all VHF and HF radio frequencies, including two HF emergency frequencies supplied by the US Coast Guard a few days before. The Coalition Forces in the area were supposed to be monitoring these frequencies. There was no response except from a commercial ship in the area on VHF 16 who approached and observed the disabled pirates for a bit, then sailed along side of us for 2-4 hours until dark to make sure we would be all right.
The pirates were well organized and well armed. There were at least 4 boats involved. They had set up a picket line out from the Yemen coast probably at least for 50-75 miles, so if you transited the area during the day they wouldn’t miss you. The two boats that attacked us appeared to have come from the south.
There has been speculation in the past that this ongoing piracy problem off the Yemen coast was being carried out by Somali pirates. Given the number, type of boats involved, and the direction the spotter boats came from, this does not appear to be correct in this case. This problem is getting worse and the pirate attacks are getting deadly. One could only expect that the Yemen Government will take more direct action. At the very least, allow yachts to group in Salalah, Oman and at some point on the NW Yemen coast to request an escort along the Yemen coast.
March 11, 2005
Rodney J. Nowlin, USN Retired
S/V Mahdi
...Yale law school dean Harold Koh is widely regarded as a leading contender for a Supreme Court appointment if Barack Obama becomes president. What sort of a justice would Harold Koh be?Change you can regret.
...
Koh believes that it is “appropriate for the Supreme Court to construe our Constitution in light of foreign and international law” in “at least three situations”: (1) “when American legal rules seem to parallel those of other nations”; (2) when (quoting Breyer) “‘foreign courts have applied standards roughly comparable to our own constitutional standards in roughly comparable circumstances’” and we can draw “empirical light” from their experience; and (3) “when a U.S. constitutional concept, by its own terms, implicitly refers to a community standard”. (Koh, International Law as Part of Our Law, 98 Am. J. Int’l. L. 43, 45-46 (2004) (emphasis added).) As the italicized weasel words indicate, in the hands of a living constitutionalist like Koh, foreign and international legal materials will virtually always be available to a transnational judge to help him reach the result he wants to reach.
Koh’s own writings amply prove this point. Koh believes that foreign and international law supports the conclusion that the death penalty always violates the federal Constitution: “The evidence strongly suggests that we do not currently pay decent respect to the opinions of humankind in our administration of the death penalty. For that reason, the death penalty should, in time, be declared in violation of the Eighth Amendment.” (Koh, Paying “Decent Respect” to World Opinion on the Death Penalty, 35 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1085, 1129 (2002).)
Schwartz did not rule drawing some lessons from the Army, which routinely uses enlisted people to fly UAVs and fire cannons and missiles. The Air Force has so far insisted on entrusting UAV ordnance to officers. “For the near-term, we will draw from the officer talent pools. But I don’t dismiss the possibility that we could go a different way. No options are off the table,” he said.I like the idea of taking sharp 2nd Class Petty Officers from the Intel Community stock and making them Warrants as a start --- but that is me.
As for ISR strategy, the service’s role in Africa consumed much of the conversation among the generals because of the scheduled “initial operating capability” for the new Africa Command Oct. 1. “Africom is a strange animal. It is a [combatant command] with no assigned forces,” said Gen. Roger Brady, who for the time being overseas Air Force operations in Africa as commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe.
After his workout, Petraeus donned a dress uniform bearing nine rows of ribbons. Someone called his attention to a full-page advertisement that had been placed in that morning’s Times by MoveOn, the liberal activist group. The ad featured the General’s photograph above the headline “GENERAL PETRAEUS OR GENERAL BETRAY US?” It accused him of “cooking the books” for the Bush White House. The Iraq conflict was “unwinnable,” the advertisement argued; it also claimed that some of Petraeus’s past accounts of progress there had been “at war with the facts.”You should read it all.
When we met recently in Iraq, I asked Petraeus if that ad in the Times had marked the low point of his personal experience in this command. It had not, he said; coping with the deaths of soldiers had been considerably more difficult. He added, however, that he rarely feels stress at all, an assertion supported by his appearance: at the age of fifty-five, he has a lightly lined face and chestnut hair that is barely marked by gray. When he does experience an occasional spike in his blood pressure, he said, it is usually caused by an unexpected event, particularly on the battlefield. By contrast, in Washington, he remarked, referring to the city’s culture of political ambush, “you know what’s coming.”
The military remains a hierarchical organization in which orders come from the top down. Yet as the officer corps grapples with its experience in Iraq, fresh ideas are coming from the bottom up. In today’s Army, the most-creative thinkers are not generals but mid-career officers—lieutenant colonels and colonels.In of all places, The Atlantic, has a must read called, The Petraeus Doctrine.
COA 1: Be the designated driver,Sad.
COA 2: Keep yourself to one drink an hour and then go home early.
The 21st century is seeing a globalization dynamic that is reshaping maritime commerce and the role of maritime power. Globalization increases the need to prevent strategic disruption from environmental disasters, piracy, terrorism or competitors seeking advantages from the inherent vulnerabilities of the global "conveyer belt" of maritime trade.This is a dry, dead type of writing that reads like what it is; largely a aggregate of talking points, buzz words, and doctrine tied together to sell something everyone knows about but no one seems to be buying. Probably largely written by one of his Staff Weenies and edited through a thought numbing blanderization of a chop-chain into the prose version of un-salted, un-buttered grits.
One of the U.S. Navy's strategic imperatives is to develop and enhance cooperative partnerships that can contribute to the security of the global commons. Maritime cooperation, both commercial and military, serves as an anchor to global prosperity and stability.
Promoting maritime cooperation takes time and effort and is founded on the principles of transparency and information sharing. The U.S. Navy is committed to enhancing long-standing maritime relationships and creating opportunities to develop new ones.
...
As the United States seeks to strengthen partnerships in the maritime domain, the theater commanders and their naval components are looking for new ways to build cooperation with countries in their areas of responsibility. Navy IPO works closely with their staffs to ensure programs are aligned with their specific requirements, and consistent with the secretary of the Navy and the chief of naval operations global, cross-theater perspective.
In short, maintaining maritime partnerships is central to the success of the 21st-century Navy. We cannot secure the global maritime commons alone. Navy International Programs is one important tool in the kit for our leadership to help build those partnerships and make them last.
As at last Thursday when the Niger Delta militants carried out the last of their attacks in continuation of the ‘oil war’ declared by them, about 60 persons, many of them militants, were feared to have been killed.This is the Navy version of what the Army and Marines have been dealing with since 9/11. We should ponder.
NO FEWER than sixty persons may have lost their lives within seven days, that is, between penultimate Friday and last Thursday, in the creeks of Rivers State to the ‘oil war’ declared by the Niger Delta militants. The guns boomed, dynamites detonated and grenades freely hauled by the warring groups.
It all started penultimate Friday when men of the Joint Task Force, JTF, in the state were on routine marine patrol on the waterways in Elem Tombia. And suddenly, according to spokesman of the security body and the army in the state, Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa, suspected militants opened fire on their boats. And, in self defence, they retaliated.
At the end of this encounter, about fifteen persons reportedly lost their lives.
...
About 0100 hours, today, September 14, 2008, Hurricane Barbarossa commenced with heavily armed fighters in hundreds of war boats filing out from different MEND bases across the Niger Delta in solidarity to carry out destructive and deadly attacks on the oil industry in Rivers State.”
The statement further claimed that the militant group killed about twenty two soldiers and fled with their rifles. They also allegedly blew up oil facilities in Soku and some other parts of the state. “By dawn, we have destroyed oil flow stations, gun boats, burst pipelines; dead and injured soldiers trailed in the aftermath of the “hurricane.” Some specific locations include the Soku Gas Plant, Chevron Platform at Kula; over 22 well armed soldiers sent as reinforcement were intercepted, killed and dispossessed of their weapons, a major crude trunk pipeline at Nembe creek was blown up at several points.
...
But in a swift reaction, the army spokesman said the militants lied on the claim of death of security personnel. According to Sagir, they foresaw the action of the militants coming, so they quickly put their men on red alert in all oil facilities locations in the state. So it was no surprise when the militants stormed Soku in several speed boats. He, however, confirmed that a soldier sustained gun shot wound.
“As a result of yesterday’s attack on our troops on marine patrol at Elem Tombia which led to an exchange of fire with heavy casualty on the militants, as anticipated, the bandits staged an attack in the early hours of today (yesterday) between 3.00 and 4.00 a.m, at Soku facility and Robertkiri where they met active resistance from the troops guarding the facilities. It was heroically and successfully repelled with casualty on the miscreants side. A soldier was, however, wounded and no death recorded. This message is necessary to pre-empt and avoid mischievous propaganda from the militants”, the spokesman said.
An official of Chevron who later spoke anonymously said one of its facilities was actually attacked in the fighting areas. In the early hours of Monday again, in about six speed boats, the militants headed straight to a Chevron flow station in Idama. But they met stiff resistance here.
The army spokesman said security operatives on ground sunk three of their boats with the aid of RPG. “Militants in six speed boats attempted to attack Chevron Idama flow station at about 1.00 a.m. today. Attack was heroically and commendably thwarted by the JTF troops on guard at the station. Three militants’ boats were shattered when our own troops unwillingly used RPG to foil the attack. Two boats were sunk with all the occupants on board. It is greatly and unfortunately feared that many of them might have lost their lives in the process. One soldier was, however, wounded and is in stable condition. No damage done to the flow station”, Sagir said in a statement.
He declined to speak on the casualty rate on the part of the militants, saying since it was an internal skirmish the army was not in the mood to celebrate any victory.
Seven years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the remains of 13 of the 19 men responsible have been identified and are in the custody of the F.B.I. and the New York City medical examiner’s office.Here is the solution. Pack them up, to deliver them to the following address.
But no one has formally requested the remains in order to bury them.
“Politically, one can understand that this is a hot potato,” said Muneer Fareed, secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America and a former professor of Islamic studies. “People don’t want to identify with the political equivalent of Jeffrey Dahmer.”
What would happen if someone asked for the hijackers’ remains is not clear.
The medical examiner’s office, which, like the F.B.I., refuses to say where exactly the remains are being kept, will eventually put together a committee to come up with a policy, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the office.
Groups representing the victims of Sept. 11 are not sure what should be done with the remains.
“It would be sadly ironic if they ended up being properly buried or sent to a Muslim country when many of the remains of the victims remain buried in a garbage dump,” said Kurt Horning, a founder with his wife, Diane, of the group WTC Families for Proper Burial. “I know we’d feel very distressed.”
200 Commerce St.This company's HQ is perfectly qualified to give the remains the respect they deserve.
Smithfield, VA 23430
Speaking of Reagan (Eureka College, Illinois), every chief executive we've had since the Gipper snapped his final salute as president has had the imprimatur of an Ivy League university. And we've gone from bad to worse:Ban back in place now, but I am open to change again if needed.
* George Herbert Walker Bush: Yale.
* William Jefferson Clinton: Georgetown, Oxford, Yale Law.
* George W. Bush: Yale and Harvard Business School.
The first lacked the sense to finish the job in Desert Storm; the second lacked the guts to go after al Qaeda when it was just a startup - and the third, well, let's just say he disappointed our low expectations.
Now we have the Ivy League elite's "he's not only like us but he's a minority and we're so wonderful to support him" candidate, Sen. Barack Obama (Columbia and Harvard Law).
Our country can't afford another one of these clowns. Harvard isn't the answer - Harvard's the problem.
So here's the message Palin is sending on behalf of the rest of us (the down-market masses Dems love at election time and ignore once the voting's done): The rule of the snobs is over. It's time to give one of us a chance to lead.
Sen. John McCain's one of us, too. He raised hell at Annapolis (quadruple ugh: military!), and he'll raise the right kind of hell in Washington.
McCain's so dumb he really loves his country.
Sarah Palin's dumb that way, too. How terribly unfashionable.
Tatarstan is a long way from South Ossetia. Where South Ossetia is a poor border region of Georgia battered by war, Tatarstan is an economic powerhouse in the heart of Russia, boasting both oil reserves and the political stability that is catnip to investors.Ivan needs to think that there are 2nd and 3rd order effects out there.
But the two places have one thing in common: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, both have given rise to separatist movements. And when President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia formally recognized the breakaway areas of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent nations two weeks ago, activists in Kazan, the Tatar capital, took notice.
An association of nationalist groups, the All-Tatar Civic Center, swiftly published an appeal that "for the first time in recent history, Russia has recognized the state independence of its own citizens" and expressed the devout wish that Tatarstan would be next.
The declaration was far-fetched, its authors knew: One of Vladimir Putin's signal achievements as Medvedev's predecessor was to suppress separatism. The Tatar movement was at its lowest ebb in 20 years.
"In the long term, they could have signed their own death warrant," said Lawrence Scott Sheets, the Caucasus program director for the International Crisis Group, an independent organization that tries to prevent and resolve global conflicts. "It's an abstraction now, but 20 years down the road, it won't be such an abstraction."History. Tough thing, isn't it Francis?
...
Tatarstan was a case in point. Tatars still commemorate the day in 1552 when Kazan fell to Ivan the Terrible, absorbing their country into Holy Russia.
When Yeltsin encouraged regions to assume sovereignty, Tatarstan complied with gusto, adopting its own taxes and license plates.
Gleaming new mosques competed with Kazan's onion domes, and ethnic Tatars, who made up 48 percent of the population to the Russians' 43 percent, opened their own schools. The Tatar parliament declared that local conscripts could not fight outside the Volga region.
When Putin eliminated regional elections, the Tatar president, Mintimer Shaimiyev, protested vociferously, calling the plan a "forced and painful measure." But in the years that followed, Akhmetov, the editor of the opposition newspaper in Kazan, saw prospects for autonomy drop to a new low.
"We understood that our president could be removed at any time, within 24 hours," Akhmetov said. But Medvedev's decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia, he said, "created a precedent, kind of a guideline" for gaining independence. Moscow is confident that it wields strict control over politics in the outlying regions, he said, but that could change in 10 or 20 years.
A similar stirring came out of Bashkortostan, a major petrochemical center where ethnic Bashkirs make up about 30 percent of the population. A small organization called Kuk Bure, which has pushed for the Bashkir language to be required in public schools, issued a manifesto accusing Moscow of "double standards" for championing ethnic groups like the Abkhaz and Ossetians while ignoring their platform.
Sir Ian Blair has punished the Asian police commander who accused him of racial discrimination by putting him on gardening leave and stripping him of his duties.Snicker. Gardening leave - again. But, on to the subject at hand. What pray tell, has he been put out to garden for?
After officially launching his employment tribunal claim last month, Mr Ghaffur - joint number three in the Met - held a press conference to explain why he had taken such drastic action.After all, he has had a terrible career - he was never promoted - and it is racist to expect a senior officer to not violate orders.
Although on annual leave, he ignored police convention by turning up to the press conference in his uniform - and then gave a five-minute monologue about his alleged ordeal.
In a statement, Sir Ian said his decision yesterday had nothing to do with Mr Ghaffur's case against the Met, but was because of his 'personal conduct' and 'media campaign' against the force.
He said: 'I have reflected whether operational effectiveness, leadership and confidence in the Metropolitan Police Service as an organisation and the security and safety concerns of Londoners are being affected.
'It is also clear this is having a negative impact on the London 2012 Olympic security programme and risks undermining confidence in it. Certainly, it is the case that the interests of Londoners are not being well served by this current situation.'
Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, who attacked the Met chief at a press conference last month, will no longer be in charge of security at the 2012 Olympics.
Mr Ghaffur, 53, was also warned he could face misconduct charges for speaking publicly about his £1.2million race discrimination claim against Sir Ian.Such actions such as this districts from real racism.
...
Sir Ian said the £180,000-a-year officer's comments to the media were affecting the Met's 'operational effectiveness'.
As Joe Chovelak stands in the World War II Memorial here, his bushy white eyebrows bristle at the notion that his beloved 29th Bomb Group is holding its last reunion.Time is what it is.
“That is harsh. I mean, ‘last reunion’ is like going to a funeral,” said Chovelak, 83, the tireless historian of the Army Air Forces that bombed Japan in 1945 and came here this weekend for the group’s 13th and final get-together. “This is a ‘farewell’ reunion.”
Farewell or last, the World War II generation is dwindling. Of 16 million who served, only one in eight remain. The Department of Veterans Affairs expects that 300,000 veterans will die this year.
Chovelak, of Naperville, Ill., will present a box of memorabilia to the Library of Congress on Monday. It will include a roster of the 2,500 men of the 29th Bomb Group. The unit’s other records will be donated to an Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio.
“I hate to see it end, but everything has to come to an end sometime,” said Cedric Fowler, 91, a B-29 radar mechanic who drove from Indianapolis with his wife for the reunion.
“They’re getting to where they can’t travel,” said his wife Dorothy, 90. “You notice all of them here are in wheelchairs, with canes and walkers.”
Date: Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:14 PMThe reference.
Subject: General Tasker: Coordination Office: Hot List: Cxxx Nxx
Cxxx DIVERSITY ACCOUNTABILITY BRIEF
Captains,
Sorry for the late turnaround on this from me to you. Cxxx sent us this hot tasker this morning with a COB Monday (Washington DC) deadline. They are asking for "a list of your Early Promote and Must Promote in Pay Grades 05 and 06." We must assume they want the names.
Please do not drill down to the tenant command level on this, only respond for those billets of yours which belong to Cxxx. The other enterprises should be similarly tasking their subordinates.
One piece which is clearly part of the original tasker from VADM Harvey (attached) but which is not mentioned at all in the CNIC tasker is "diversity;" however, as it appears to be the entire point of the data call, please annotate which of your O5/O6 EP/MP officers (from last cycle) are diverse.
----- Original Message -----Will it take a lawsuit to stop this racism, because that is what it is. Please explain to me how it isn't. I want to believe otherwise, but my eyes see what they see. The sky is blue; the sea is wet; this is a racist policy.
From: Harvey, John C Jr VADM N1, CNP
To: Cotton, John G VADM CNR; Burt, Robert F RADM; 'xxxx@navsoc.socom.mil'; Thompson, Alan S. RADM NAVSUP, 00; Shear, Wayne RADM NAVFAC HQ; Thorp, Frank RDML CHINFO PTGN; 'xxxx@med.navy.mil' ; Titley, David W RDML CNMOC; 'xxxx@jpac.pacom.mil' ; Conway, Bob VADM CNIC HQ, N00; Sullivan, Paul E VADM Naval Sea Systems Command ,SEA 00; Starling, Denby VADM NETWARCOM, N00; 'xxxx@js.pentagon.mil' ; Venlet, David VADM; Cothron, Tony L RDML N2
Cc: LeFever, Michael A., RADM, N13; Barrett, Ken J. CAPT, NAVPERSCOM N134; McLaughlin, Patrick SES; Ted Childs; James, John H SES SEA 04; 'xxxx@navy.mil'
Sent: Wed Feb 27 09:23:44 2008
Subject: CNO ACCOUNTABILITY REVIEWS
Admirals,
Wanted to provide all an update on the CNO Accountability reviews that started again with the JAG community last week. Attached is the CNO approved schedule.
As a reminder, the accountability template was designed to establish an initial baseline of diversity data that is "cut and sliced" in a number of ways. The success of our overall diversity efforts rest on your ability to detail the specifics of your enterprise and community. Armed with this information you will be able to determine if and/or why any variances exist and how they might best be addressed. Through these efforts-- YOUR efforts-- Navy's overall diversity strategy will be better informed and our collective efforts will be strengthened.
CNO Mullen completed reviews with the Surface Warfare Enterprise, Undersea Enterprise, Naval Aviation Enterprise, and Navy Expeditionary Combat Enterprise. Based on the lessons learned from these reviews and the concerns ADM Roughead has expressed, I strongly encourage you to prepare the following issues for a thorough discussion:
- CNO wants to see the enterprise demographic data that has been part of the previous reviews and will also want to review both percentages and raw numbers within each category.
- CNO will focus on middle career management -- who are the diverse hot runners in an enterprise (you should know them by name) and what is the plan for their career progression. In particular, be able to answer the following:
(1) Who are the minority O-5/O-6s in your community?
(2) What are YOU doing to ensure these men and women are being properly developed to attain the highest levels of leadership?
(3) What is being done within your Enterprise / Community to ensure that these men and women are assigned to the key billets that lead to promotion?
- You will need to know what your enterprise's benchmark for success is in regard to middle career management and the timeframe in which success will be achieved.
- A three year plan addressing your key issues that includes a measurable way ahead must, rpt MUST, be briefed.
- The CNO approved benchmark for officer success is a 2037 Flag Pool that is 10% AA / 13% API / 13% Hispanic. This goal is what you should measure your officer corps against. There is no need to create a new benchmark; certainly the benchmark itself should be a discussion topic, but no need to create a new goal that differs from CNO's stated targets.
Follow-on briefs will be scheduled by CNO after your initial brief with him. This brief will be your opportunity to showcase what your individual enterprise/community diversity make-up reflects and your plan to move ahead.
As always, CAPT Ken Barrett and his team in my diversity directorate are standing by to assist you in putting together the best product possible for your brief to CNO.
Standing by for any questions. All the best and v/r, John
Numbers from the latest posted CO/XO SWO Mentoring brief from Bupers, available here:With those numbers the only way you are going to get there is bold faced discrimination based on race, creed, or national origin.
(APR08, so none of this is new) I have cited this when talking about retention.
Goal for SWO Flags 2037:
62.9% White
10.7% African American
13.5% Hispanic
12.9% Asian/Pacific islander or Native American
I read Goal as Quota. Of note is the comparative ENS accessions (who I assume will make up the 2037 flag pool):
77% White
8% African American
6% Hispanic
9% Asian/Pacific islander or Native American