Friday, July 26, 2013

The lake currently at the North Pole starts at 1:14 on the film loop.



It was picked up by USA Today.

Hoping for a second Taiwan?

July 26, 2013
HANOI - Two ships (click here) of Vietnam Marine Police are ready to join the eighth joint patrol with the Chinese side on fishery cooperation of the Tonkin Gulf on Thursday, local media reported.
The joint sea patrol in the common fishing ground in the Tonkin Gulf is aimed at preserving and developing the friendly neighboring relations between Vietnam and China, reported local VNExpress.
It will also enhance their coordination in implementing agreed regulations on the maritime joint patrols, thus contributing to preserving and exploiting maritime resources in a sustainable manner in waters designated in the Tonkin Gulf Agreement between the two countries, said the report.
Participants at the patrol will exchange experience in controlling fishing activities, informing each other of their implementation of the signed agreement on fishing cooperation among fishermen of the two countries, and in ensuring maritime safety, security and order of fishing activities at sea.
Members of the Vietnam Marine Police Department on board two vessels CSB 2005 and CSB2008 on Wednesday left northern Hai Phong Port for the joint patrol.
I thought Vietnam was trembling in fear of China? So, now the USA is like sorry for the stupid war in the first place? 
WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 24, 2013 6:41pm EDT
"Vietnam has come a long way(click here) in addressing its own challenges to meet the high standards of the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), but we still have work to do together," USTR Michael Froman said in a statement after a meeting with Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang.
Froman's remark came shortly after a coalition of labor and human rights groups urged President Barack Obama on Wednesday to suspend free-trade negotiations with Vietnam because of concerns over that country's treatment of workers and people who criticize the government.
"President Obama must hold Vietnam accountable for its record on worker and human rights before America rewards the country with greater trading privileges," Teamsters union President James Hoffa said in a statement....

Cheney must have lent them his Veep paper shredder. Interesting. The methods are so similar.


Jonathgan Stempel and Braden Reddall
9:37 a.m. CDT
July26, 2013
(Reuters) - Halliburton Co. (click here) has agreed to plead guilty to destroying evidence related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday.

The government said Halliburton's guilty plea is the third by a company over the spill and requires the world's second-largest oilfield services company to pay a maximum $200,000 statutory fine....

I have to wonder if it runs in the family? The paper shredding, I mean. 

Did any of these companies believe they were not guilty? What took so long? Lawyering? Hoping to avoid the entire part called RESPONSIBILITY. Halliburton is good at that. They were provided for in Iraq. Halliburton could do no wrong in Iraq. I suppose they thought they might be given the gift of Cheney 'favorite child' status again.

He was disillusioned by all that defined Iraq. When immediate withdrawal didn't occur in 2009 and the killing continued it was the final straw.

July 26, 20138:57 a.m.
...Coombs displayed (click here) in large blue-and-white letters copies of Manning’s personal emails, some after his 2009 deployment to Iraq as a classified intelligence analyst, others around his arrest in early 2010 for the largest breach of U.S. secrets in the nation’s history.
“I’m more concerned about making sure that everyone — soldiers, Marines, contractors, even the local nationals get home to their families,” Manning emailed.
“I place value on people first,” he said in a later email. “One of the bad parts of the job, having to think about bad stuff,” he emailed further.
In yet another email Manning described to a fellow Internet chatter his angst over whether to start disclosing classified data. “What would you do?” he asked, if you knew explosive material was stored away in a “dark room in Washington” that if exposed would reveal the inside story of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the inner workings of the State Department, and how terror detainees are treated atGuantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“That is a whistle-blower. That is somebody who wants to inform the American public,” Coombs told the judge, Army Col. Denise Lind.
Coombs played for her a video clip of a now-notorious U.S. Apache helicopter firing indiscriminately at a group of civilians, killing and wounding journalists, children and others.
“Look at this from the eyes of a young man who cares about young life,” Coombs told the judge....

The real issue surrounding Snowden's leaks isn't Snowden at all, it is the secret precedents of FISA.

Now, we are getting to the heart of the problem. It isn't Snowden or the NSA program, it is the FISA court and it's secret proceedings.

The FISA Court under Robert's is a star chamber. The FISA Court CANNOT move beyond their assignment of the legislation without Congressional action. They are not allowed to be ACTIVISTS to suit their own idea of what their proceedings are all about. 

The FISA Court is not suppose to set up it's own rules. There is precedent in surveillance and they were to follow that precedent and decide the necessity of the wiretaps requested. They aren't doing their job if they have to make up their own rules. That is what 'complex legal analysis' is. It is making up their own rules to suit their purpose. They do not have that authority. Who the hell told FISA they could operate outside the USA Constitution? They are not the Supreme Court or the Legislative Branch or the Executive Branch. They are conducting themselves without checks and balances.

DOJ and Congressional Oversight need to subpoena the proceedings of this court and evaluate their ILLEGAL activities. I don't care if their decisions were benign, they ARE NOT suppose to be making the rules that govern their decision making. Either the FISA court is constitutional or it is not, but, they cannot be their own autonomous body making up their own rules. 

The ONLY venue to set up this judicial unit came from the legislature with SPECIFIC understandings. It is ONLY the legislature that can set the standard for this court.


by Charles Savage
July 25, 2013

...In making assignments to the court, (click here) Chief Justice Roberts, more than his predecessors, has chosen judges with conservative and executive branch backgrounds that critics say make the court more likely to defer to government arguments that domestic spying programs are necessary....


...The court’s complexion has changed at a time when its role has been expanding beyond what Congress envisioned when it established the court as part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The idea then was that judges would review applications for wiretaps to make sure there was sufficient evidence that the F.B.I.’s target was a foreign terrorist or a spy.
But, increasingly in recent years, the court has produced lengthy rulings interpreting the meaning of surveillance laws and constitutional rights based on procedures devised not for complex legal analysis but for up-or-down approvals of secret wiretap applications. The rulings are classified and based on theories submitted by the Justice Department without the participation of any lawyers offering contrary arguments or appealing a ruling if the government wins....
Ten of the court’s 11 judges — all assigned by Chief Justice Roberts — were appointed to the bench by Republican presidents; six once worked for the federal government. Since the chief justice began making assignments in 2005, 86 percent of his choices have been Republican appointees, and 50 percent have been former executive branch officials....
...At a public meeting this month, Judge James Robertson, an appointee of President Bill Clinton who was assigned to the surveillance court in 2002 by Chief Justice Rehnquist and resigned from it in December 2005, offered an insider’s critique of how rapidly and recently the court’s role has changed. He said, for example, that during his time it was not engaged in developing a body of secret precedents interpreting what the law means....

The foreign operations of FISA is actually an act of war when there is no TREATY signed to carry out the program. Just because 'it can be done' doesn't mean it should be done. The FISA Amendment Act attempts to override Interpol, the State Department and other nation's sovereignty.

...The court’s power has also recently expanded in another way. In 2008, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act to allow the National Security Agency to keep conducting a form of the Bush administration’s program of surveillance without warrants on domestic soil so long as only foreigners abroad were targeted. It gave the court the power to create rules for the program, like how the government may use Americans’ communications after they are picked up....

It is also a burgeoning war all the time. Information garnered through these programs could easily be used to ram up war. What if Fort Hood was not mentored by a Cleric by a government officer of some kind? What's next then? War.


...The first of the documents disclosed by Mr. Snowden was a top-secret order to a Verizon subsidiary requiring it to turn over three months of calling records for all its customers. It was signed by Judge Roger Vinson, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan who had previously achieved prominence in 2011 when he tried to strike down the entirety of President Obama’s health care law.

Chief Justice Roberts assigned Judge Vinson to the surveillance court in 2006, one of 12 Republican appointees, compared with 2 Democratic ones....
There is a very good chance the orders for these records are less about national security and more about politics. No one can blame Chief Justice Robert's for his appointee acting outside the parameters of the legislative purpose, but, the individual justices on FISA can be held responsible for abuse of power.

Please don't tell me there was no oversight provision when FISA was first developed!

Hercules Offshore provides further information on incident on jackup drilling rig Hercules 265 (click here)

Friday, Jul 26, 2013

Hercules Offshore (NASDAQ:  HERO) today provided further information the incident aboard jackup drilling rig Hercules 265, a 250'mat-supported cantilevered unit, operating for Walter Oil & Gas Corporation in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico OCS lease block South Timbalier 220.  Based on a visual flyover inspection conducted by Hercules Offshore, the jackup rig is still standing, however it appears to have sustained extensive damage to the derrick package as a result of the continuing fire that ignited yesterday evening.

The visual inspection revealed debris near the well site. The Company, Walter Oil & Gas and regulatory authorities are continuing to review the area for potential environmental impacts. The Company has contracted an outside environmental expert to monitor currents, wind direction and wave height for the potential trajectory of any conceivable environmental spill.

The Company is working with Walter Oil & Gas and their third party expert in efforts to regain control of the natural gas well, including preparation to drill a relief well.  In the event that a relief well is necessary, the Company is preparing to promptly mobilize the Hercules 200, a 200' mat-supported cantilevered unit to execute drilling of the relief well.

The Company continues to coordinate response activities with the U.S. Coast Guardand the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

As previously reported, all 44 personnel aboard the jackup rig were safely evacuated during the afternoon of July 23rd.  There have been no injuries sustained as a result of this incide
nt.

MINDSET. Some said why don't we talk about what is wrong with White people. Here it is.

The Millionaire Mindset (click here)

She is well invested into the idea that being a millionaire is where it is at. Nothing else matters.  She can travel the world, learn about the Maasai war culture and build schools. She is by far the darling American of all darling Americans. THE EXAMPLE of what OCCUPIES the mind of Americans. Don't you just love her? A real life with purpose compliments of SUCKERS.

She has no skills, except, how to sell 'the mindset' that will make you a millionaire. No skills except the money she carries to build schools, which of course is other people's money. No skills, but, style and grace, the perfect smile and a great figure.

"Oh, isn't that a shame about Mr. Martin, he should not have confronted Mr. Zimmerman. Sincerely, the boy was not to be civil. Do you want to see my gun? I carry it right here in my handbag. It is pink like my jacket."

No social conscience. No reality of other people's reality except the ones without schools and without millions of dollars. NO CLUE about what morality actually is. Meet the Commercialized White Woman that has it all.

Simply walking the streets of the USA a person can be profiled and die.

Florida will lose it's tourism industry. No one wants to visit the real life Wild West. It won't be long before the USA has travel warnings by other nations. Some probably exist already. No one wants to take justice and their lives in their own hands. The streets of the USA aren't safe anymore. At all. It is a proven fact that gun control lowers gun violence and saves lives. Fact.

I"ll use Mark O'Mara's own Public Relations words in defense of his client, "Race isn't the issue. George was seeking to carry out his responsibilities as Neighborhood Watch Captain according to the description by the neighbors."

There you have it. Florida gun laws allow for equal opportunity killing.

Just apologize for being irrevent to life and the country will love you.

We are right back there again. The most propagandized country on Earth has been swindled out of their homes and now they have been swindled out of there lives. 

That is nothing but a society run by propaganda. The entire culture is counter intuitive to allow Wall Street profits. The food. The air. The water. A child's education. Pay rates at poverty levels. Whoever heard of a man working a 40 hour week and being eligible for Medicaid and Food Stamps and the Republicans state American are lazy and need their SOCIALISM stopped. 

Yeah, right.

Heck, PAY FOR TELEVISION isn't even commercial free anymore. Americans are sheep.

George Zimmernan had intent.

A member of the jury (click here) that acquitted George Zimmerman said Thursday she thinks Zimmerman "got away with murder" but that jurors had no choice in finding him not guilty under the law.
In an interview Thursday with ABC News, the woman identified as Juror B29 during the trial discussed the deliberations that led to the acquittal of Zimmerman on second-degree murder and manslaughter charges on July 13 in the shooting death last year of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman said he shot Martin in self defense....