The composition of the Sun is not very different than that of Earth.

What I mean by that statement is not that Earth is a fireball, but, containing the same elements as the Sun. Earth actually has more elements on its table of elements than the Sun. 

The physical composition of the Sun is the picture in this entry. It has a core the same as Earth, a radiation zone that could easily be the outer core of Earth, the convection which is placed where the lower mantle exists, the chromosphere which can be considered the upper mantle of Earth and the photosphere where the crust of Earth would exist. 

The table of elements (click title to entry - thank you) was constructed from analysis of the solar spectrum, which comes from the photosphere and chromosphere of the Sun. But it is thought to be representative of the entire Sun with the exception of the solar core because of the degree of mixing which takes place between the layers of the Sun's interior.

About 67 elements have been detected in the solar spectrum.

The Sun is a powerful part of our lives. Without the sun there would be no life in our solar system.

We go to Mars to learn more about our solar system, therefore learning more about ourselves. Who are we in this wide flung universe? Why is the entire notion of what is beyond us so romantic and sought after with a thirst for knowledge?

The Sun has been the focus of every human culture since time began, as recent as the Greek and Roman empires there were Sun Gods to be worshiped, but, never understood beyond the benevolent worship of the priest and priestesses.

Knowing the world we are a part is vital to survival. The study of meteors have led to insight regarding our vulnerabilities and ways, if any, to protect from them.

If people are to fear the sun enough to take up arms to defend from it, I sincerely believe the Sun needs to be understood, as well as poems and songs written to it.

It's Sunday Night

Louis Armstrong - That Lucky Old Sun (click title for Satchmo's website - thank you)

Up in the mornin', out on the jobWork like the devil for my payBut that lucky old sun has nothin' to doBut roll around Heaven all day
Fuss with my woman, toil for my kidsSweat till I'm wrinkled and grayWhile that lucky old sun has nothin' to doBut roll around Heaven all day
Good Lord, up above, can't you know I'm pinin'Tears all in my eyes?Send down that cloud with a silver linin'Lift me to Paradise
Show me that river, take me acrossAnd wash all my troubles awayLike that lucky old sun, give me nothin' to doBut roll around Heaven all day
Good Lord above, can't you know I'm pinin'Tears all in my eyes?Send down that cloud with a silver linin'Lift me to Paradise
Show me that river, take me acrossAnd wash all my troubles awayLike that lucky old sun, give me nothin' to doBut roll around Heaven, Heaven, HeavenOh, roll around Heaven, Heaven, Heaven all dayLet me roll around in Heaven all day

The Opposition Forces do not have assets to jail those captured. We have seen this in Iraq as well.

Toward the later years in Iraq the Brits took on local militias. They were described as wolves coming into the street when the sun went down. They would seek out people in the immediate area they believed to be enemies to their purpose and kill them. They took few prisoners even though they had control of police buildings. 

Once the jails filled up with a few people their only options were to kill those they found. What was once considered benevolent by the people, became dangerous and unpredictable. Any opposition to their will were considered enemies. There was no formal process, there was simply death squads. The Brits took them on in order to hand control over to the citizens. 

The killing of Assad's military is due to this same type of dynamic. There is little they can do but seek and kill. They don't have court systems, they have arms. They don't have assets, they have their pure will to carry out their resistance. That is why the opposition forces appear to be inhumane. For a military to carry out justice they need the assets to make it happen and they don't. It is cruel but it is the way it is in Syria.

There is the option of moving them to the border for capture by the Turks, perhaps, but the militias are usually not that well organized to begin with and they usually lack trust. However, there are those in the military that have left Syria in opposition to Assad. They joined the rebel forces. The idea is that if soldiers from Assad's military are captured they may be valuable and could be an asset to the movement if spared and taken to a place where they can turn against their President rather than killing them.

By Hadeel Al Shalchi

updated 8/12/2012 2:56:51 PM ET

ALEPPO, Syria — Syrian rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad need the protection of foreign-guarded no-fly zones and safe havens near the borders with Jordan and Turkey, a Syrian opposition leader said on Sunday....

The Right Wing is lying about Social Security. Something needs to be done, but, the timeline has a SOURCE.

It ain't just a number, it's a contract.

...After 2020, Treasury will redeem trust fund assets in amounts that exceed interest earnings until exhaustion of trust fund reserves in 2033, three years earlier than projected last year. Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay only about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2086....

Those are the facts, so when Right Wingers state the fund is in trouble in 2023, that is ten years before the actual date stated by the actuaries.

And let's be clear, the reason the trust fund is reaching its limit by 2033 and not 2035 or 2036, IT IS BECAUSE OF BUSH ECONOMICS that lead to the economic collapse of 2008. There is no other reason SSI is in trouble. The tax increases to the wealthy are more than appropriate considering the damage done to our financial infrastructure.

There was huge damage done to our entitlements by the economic collapse of 2008. Just because benefits to recipients didn't change doesn't mean nothing changed. The collapse of 2008 was not simply a collapse of our economy, it was a collapse of the USA infrastructure of its entitlements. Shortening payments by 2 to 3 years is not a joke, it is not a minor issue. 

DO NOT WELCOME BACK THE SAME OLD POLICIES THAT CAUSED THIS, allowing Paul Ryan to attack the system for the sake of political fodder. This IS the highest and more immoral insult to the American people, their entitlements.

DO NOT PLAY WITH THIS! These payments to our elderly is not just a life line it is a right, an entitlement, a promise and the baseline to the USA economy. 

The Romney Ticket loses its moral standing on entitlements with their position to expand on hardship of the American people. The SSI Trust Fund should have a high priority in preserving its structure and should be one of the first places interest growth should be noted in the USA economy. If the interest rates grow to the SSI Trust Fund the more solvent the fund and the less change has to occur. Right now the economic plans of the Republicans does nothing to expand the solvency of SSI. Everyone should be demanding plans for the expansion of the solvency of SSI, not cuts. That means tax increases. 

Could it be Romney just wants Ryan out of the legislature? Romney needs to submit his own budget plans to the electorate.

It would seem as though Romney likes to take things out of contents and now he has an entire stump speech based on lies. 

In Romney's stump speech he is definitely not connected to the realty of the fact the President's plans for rebuilding the nation's infrastructure is vital. He is another 'pie in the sky' ideologue.

Mitt Romney needs to ask himself how many small businesses result from government contracts? 

Their precious USS Wisconsin was not possible without government funding and contracts. I mean when do these people ever connect with reality? Never? They continue to be elected on ideals and not reality?

Earthquakes of this magnitude happen very occasionally in California.

Monterey Shale of California(click here)

Some time ago a question asked by a 4th Grade Class in Southern California of the US Berkley Seismology Lab was, "How many earthquakes are recorded in California every day, week and month?

Earthquakes happen daily in Southern California, however, the majority are 1.0 and 1.5 on the Richter Scale. They grow in less frequency as the Richter Scale ratings increase.

The incidence of the 4.5 magnitude occurring repeatedly is a concern and not the usual. The incidence of daily earthquakes in Southern California being 4.5 is 0.055 in the statistics by Berkeley Seismology.


M4.5 - 2km NE of Yorba Linda, California (click here)

2012-08-08 16:33:22 UTC
Ten Hours previous.
M4.5 - 3km ENE of Yorba Linda, California (click here)2012-08-08 06:23:34 UTC

Less than 24 hours previous.
M4.5 - 24km SSW of Coalinga, California (click here)2012-08-06 07:35:49 UTC
The previous quake was 13 days previous.
M3.7 - 4km ESE of Marina del Rey, California (click here)2012-07-25 10:18:41 UTC
Thursday, February 10, 2011

Officials are scrambling to learn about a practice (click here) widely used by the oil industry, hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” even as a letter sent to the EPA by ranking U.S. House committee members found some fracking fluids violate the Safe Drinking Water Act.


The Monterey County zoning administrator in October approved a use permit for Denver-based oil company Venoco to drill up to nine exploratory wells in the Hames Valley using fracking. An appeal filed by Ventana Conservation and Land Trust of Lockwood is slated to be heard by the county planning commission on March 30. Until then, Venoco cannot proceed.
...

...“What we recommend is we look at the environmental ramifications a little deeper,” says Kinison-Brown. Although the county has been granting use permits to oil companies since the 1930s, “Fracking has just recently come to our attention in Monterey County,” he says. 


In addition to the Venoco permit, at least one oil company has expressed interest in leasing 2,445 acres of Bureau of Land Management mineral estates of the same Monterey shale formation. The BLM declined to identify that company.
...

Among citizens seeking to stop the ambitions Venoco, inc. by drilling shale are two vineyard operations in the area. To date no water quality standards have prevailed over the activities of the hydraulic fracturing, even when complaints are made by local vineyard operations.

August 04, 2011 12:30 am  •  By Marga K. Cooley, Associate Editor mcooley@lompocrecord.com

In an attempt to regulate hydraulic fracturing, "or fracking," (click here) as much as possible at the local level, Santa Barbara County is studying the possibility of a local moratorium on the common but controversial oil-recovery process.

The decision came after the county Board of Supervisors heard from at least 16 people at Tuesday's meeting - a number of them advocating for the safety of the process, but many expressing concerns.

The supervisors asked county staff to study the feasibility of a ban and return on Sept. 20 with more information.

"Before any more fracking is done near our groundwater basin, we need to be certain that it won't damage our water," Chris Wrather, chair of the Los Alamos Community Association, told the board. "I don't have the comfort that we have that level of certainty now."...

The legislature is obviously concerned and has only recently passed a bill demanding full disclosure of the contents of hydraulic fracturing fluids.

Wednesday, June 01 2011

SACRAMENTO - The California State Assembly by a 50-21 margin (click here) today approved a landmark bill to require oil and gas producers to disclose what chemicals they are using when they engage in hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" in California.

New technologies and drilling practices such as fracking are allowing oil companies to access previously unavailable oil and gas reserves in the state.  While industry is adapting to these new practices quickly, state regulators are falling behind.

"AB 591 would ensure that the public and regulators are aware of what chemicals are being injected into wells by oil and gas producers," Wieckowski said.  "It is critical that we take this important step to require this disclosure and add some transparency into this process.  The public has a right to know.  Other states are reevaluating fracking due to environmental concerns and we need to increase our oversight as well."...

The reasonable approach to earthquakes is early detection. Cal Tech is pursuing that ideal. Earthquakes are usually preventable, but, in the case of hydraulic fracturing earthquakes can be prevented. It can be prevented by ending hydraulic fracturing all together or defining the danger as unacceptable for a region of the country. There is no such thing as safe hydraulic fracturing, it is an 'odds game.' The odds of a person being effected by an earthquake when hydraulic fracturing is performed into the land is the best outcome expected by the petroleum industry. The industry is not interested in preventing earthquakes, so citizens have to be.

I can't believe vineyard operations aren't more important than petroleum industry designs on the land.

..."There are lots and lots of little faults all over that area," (click here) Given said of the northern Orange County region where the quakes were centered. "It's a known active area."

The shaking began with a magnitude 4.5 earthquake near Yorba Linda about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, bookended by another 4.5 quake about 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, but with many smaller ones in between.

At a news conference Wednesday morning, Kate Hutton of the USGS said that of all the quakes, only three were probably felt by residents. The two 4.5 temblors were felt across a wide swath of Southern California, with people reporting shaking as far away as Thousand Oaks, the Santa Clarita Valley, the Westside and northern San Diego County.

"This is all part of the same earthquake sequence; they're all in the same area,'' Hutton told reporters. "We haven't had anything in the L.A. Basin in the last few years, but that doesn't mean we're totally quiet."...

The nightmare belongs to the nation. The only reason there are areas unattainable, as in the Rock Mountains, is because the drilling technique needed to make it profitable and/or possible doesn't exist yet.

Cluster of Earthquakes Rattle Southern California

August 11, 2012
UNISYS Water Vapor Satellite of North and West Hemisphere
0030:00 z

This is Hurricane Ernesto as it was passing over the continent. It is now known as Tropical Depression Eight in the Eastern Pacific with winds of 30 mph.

There is a reason the Onagawa Nuclear Power Station was not damaged. The power station itself was not flooded, which was the major factor with Fukushima; but the reasons for the integrity of the power station itself is far more interesting.

The Onagawa Nuclear Power Station is on land without subduction zones or major faults. In Figure 2 (click here) on page 224 clearly illustrates there are no geological features of quake potential.

The primary reason the Onagawa Nuclear Power Station was sound without any signs of damage is because there was no earth movement in the area. The reason the plant didn't malfunction is because there was no flooding and the plant could be shutdown safely. The back-up systems were intact. Let there be no doubt the circumstances at Fukushima was very different than at Onagawa. To assume nuclear plants are safe on or near seimic faults based on the experience of Onagawa is incorrect. If anything it proves having nuclear power stations in zones without seimic activity or the danger of same have the best outcomes. 

Aug 10, 2012

An International (click title to entry - thank you) Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)-led team of international experts on August 10 delivered an initial report at the end of a two-week mission to gather information about the impacts of the Great East Japan Earthquake on the three-unit Onagawa Nuclear Power Station, and concluded the plant was "remarkably undamaged."

The Government of Japan and the IAEA agreed to deploy a team of 19 members from six countries, including IAEA staff, to the Onagawa plant. The team held discussions with the operators of the plant and reviewed logbooks and repair reports documented after the earthquake.

The Onagawa plant, facing the Pacific Ocean on Japan's north-east coast, was the nuclear power plant closest to the epicenter of the March 11, 2011 magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck Japan and resulted in a tsunami, the IAEA said.

The agency also said the plant experienced very high levels of ground shaking - among the strongest of any plant affected by the earthquake - and some flooding from the tsunami that followed, but was able to shut down safely.

In its draft report, the IAEA team said "the structural elements of the NPS were remarkably undamaged given the magnitude of ground motion experienced and the duration and size of this great earthquake".
The mission's objective was to observe how structures, systems and components with significance to the safety of the plant responded to the earthquake and heavy shaking.

The IAEA said the findings from the visual investigation will be added to an IAEA data base being compiled by its International Seismic Safety Centre (ISSC) to provide knowledge for Member States about the impact of external hazards on nuclear power plants.

Recommendations have been made that follow-up missions be conducted at Onagawa and reviews be conducted at other nuclear power plants in Japan that have experienced varying magnitudes of earthquakes.

"This is an initial step in a much longer process. The level of cooperation and frank sharing of information that we received from the staff at Onagawa NPS and its owners, the Tohoku Electric Power Company, sets a very good example," said Sujit Samaddar, mission leader and Head of the IAEA's ISSC said.

A man without a nation will represent the world during the Monday marathon.

I hope he wins.

1:50 PM Saturday Aug 11, 2012

A refugee runner without a country will represent the whole world in Monday morning's marathon after surviving a war-torn childhood and being separated from his family.

Guor Marial will run under the flag of the International Olympic Committee because South Sudan, where he was born, does not have its own Olympic organisations, after splitting from the Muslim north of the country following a vicious civil war.

The 28-year-old has not seen his family for almost 20 years but said they will walk 40 miles to get to the nearest town with a TV to watch him compete. Marial now lives in Arizona but could not run for the US because he does not have a passport or citizenship.

Between the warship and music all Preibus is missing is the Olympic torch.

Ryan's proposal adds $5.1 trillion (click here) to the debt from 2012 to 2021, an average of 71.6%  of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually

The GOP actually expects people want to vote for this duo? The choice will keep the Red States red, and might enforce the Republican label in State races, but, as a national ticket, it lacks diversity, women and the Middle Class.

I also have to chuckle when I hear how the poor are going to be put back to work with Republican initiatives. There are poor people that are elderly. They are being forced to look for work now they that they have lost homes and equity in their investment accounts, but, they won't be moving out of poverty anytime soon. Quite the contrary, they will further into poverty with any illness that might disable them completely.

The GOP is out of touch with real Americans, they run and make policy on ideology. It is all they can do.

The GOP has opened up play in states where the retired live, including North Carolina.

Now that he’s (click title to entry - thank you) Mitt Romney’s VP pick, Paul Ryan’s conservative plans to restructure Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security take center stage, especially in Florida, where the three programs account for $96 billion in yearly spending.

08.11.12

...Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, is the architect of the Ryan budget plan that makes big changes to Medicare and Medicaid and could allow for some privatization of Social Security.

And that’s widely seen by Democrats and most analysts as a politically risky stance in Florida, a must-win state for Republicans, where retirees cast a suspicious eye on changes to the three major government-entitlement programs that pump about $96 billion yearly into the hands of the elderly, the infirm and the hospitals, doctors and other providers who give them direct care.

By picking Ryan, Romeny shows he’s ready to fight for conservative changes to the liberal-legacy programs.

“We won’t duck the tough issues...we will lead!” Ryan said in his official acceptance speech in Norfolk, Virg. “We won’t blame others...we will take responsibility! We won’t replace our founding principles...we will reapply them!”

Democrats are ready, too, for a battle of ideas...

It makes too much sense. Senator Reid's source is Huntsman, Sr. a Bain investor.

Utah, Morman. Reid is correct. Huntsman, Jr. has no love affair with Romeny.

...But I do think Reid (click title to entry - thank you) has a real source here. Markos Moulitsas and a host of other online sleuths have compiled a pretty persuasive case that Reid’s source is Jon Huntsman Sr. Reid has described his source as a major Bain investor and a Republican. Huntsman (the father of the former candidate who’s now backing slowly out of the GOP) is a major Bain investor and a business partner with its managing director, as well as a Reid donor. Abby Huntsman curiously co-bylined a Huffington Post story claiming inside information about Romney’s returns.

So, assuming his source is Huntsman or some other legitimate figure, does Reid have a right to repeat what he heard? The answer becomes more clear if you consider it from Reid’s perspective....

Hillary on Turkish soil. That makes a great deal of sense. Turkey, while allied to the USA, has a relationship with Russia to be respected.

She is amazing. She is the best Secretary of State the USA has ever had.

ACCRA - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed in Turkey on Saturday morning for meetings as both countries plan for Syrian President Bashar Assad's fall.

Clinton, winding up an 11-day Africa tour, flew from the small West African state of Benin to Istanbul, where she plans to meet with Turkey's prime minister and foreign minister and hold talks with Syrians who have recently joined the growing exodus of refugees fleeing the violence.

In Washington, the Treasury and State departments announced new sanctions on Syria's state-run oil company Sytrol, saying it had supplied gasoline to Iran, and on Lebanon-based Hezbollah, charging that the group had provided training, advice and extensive logistical support to Assad's government.

The sanctions will add to Washington's arsenal of economic measures targeting both Syrian organizations and foreign entities, mostly in Iran, accused of helping Assad's government...

Rience Priebus cannot lose Wisconsin. He hung his hat on it. It is the birth place for his GOP priorities.

Ryan is the hopeful of the 1 percent. Priebus intends to make it happen. If sacrificing Romney will promote the GOP agenda, it will save Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District and further the agenda. But, the Right Wing is expecting to win by dollars, not votes.

...Given that a number (click title to entry - thank you) of Ryan’s positions fly squarely in the face of many voters in his district that have previously given the Congressman their vote, we are left to wonder if Ryan’s national stardom will carry him through with his constituency or whether the folks back home will send the message that they want a Congressman to represent their interests rather than serve as the star of a national ideological agenda that may be doing real harm to people in his district....

"Corporations are people my friend."

by STEVE MULLIS

UPDATE 1:30 a.m.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has chosen Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, to be his running mate, the Associated Press and other media organizations are reporting.

The Romney campaign said in press release that he will officially announce his choice Saturday morning in Norfolk, Va., at the Nauticus Museum following a tour of the USS Wisconsin....

Romney expects to buy this election. It is why his staff is not interested in polls.

By Michael Allen, Fri, August 10, 2012

GOP presidential candidate (click title to entry - thank you) Mitt Romney recently toured a cornfield in Des Moines, Iowa, to see the effects of the Midwest drought.

Romney's guide was corn and soybean farmer LeMar Koethe (pictured left), who wants the government to stay out of farming, except for the multimillion dollar farm bill, which includes subsidies for farmers.

Koethe told the Des Moines Register: “The people know what to do on their own. Just let them do it.”...

Romney hasn't really started spending the largest part of his campaign treasury. He is hoping post convention will give him a bounce he simply has to maintain.

If you thought the Right Wing attacks on President Obama are bigoted, you'd be correct.

Is this a personal attack on the President, you betcha.

By Dana Milbank,

...I covered welfare reform in 1995 and 1996 (click title to entry - thank you) as a congressional reporter for the Wall Street Journal, so I have followed the issue closely. And Romney’s assertion is, as has been widely documented, nonsense. Republican governors were among those requesting the recent waivers of the welfare work requirements, the “demonstration projects” that sparked Romney’s attack. Ron Haskins, who as a Ways and Means Committee staffer in the 1990s helped draft the welfare law for House Republicans, told NPR that “there’s no plausible scenario under which it really constitutes a serious attack on welfare reform.”

Why Romney is doing this is fairly plain. Romney polls best among white, working-class men, and he needs them to turn out in large numbers. Yet even at this late stage of the campaign, some of the GOP base remains suspicious of his candidacy — a suspicion that was encouraged by thisweek’s defense of “Romneycare” in Massachusetts by a Romney spokeswoman. And a poll by Pew Research Center last month found that nearly a quarter of white evangelicals were uncomfortable with Romney’s Mormonism. Romney therefore has incentive to revive the culture wars, which also accounts for his ad this week claiming Obama had launched a “war on religion.”

What makes Romney’s welfare gambit dispiriting is that, as a member of one of the most persecuted groups in American history, he knows more than most the dangers of fanning bigotry. Yet now he has injected into the campaign what has for decades been a standard device for race-baiting — a suspect move because welfare hadn’t been on the radar screen....

Are Republicans changing their minds about new taxes? Is Grover losing his grip on the GOP?

Osceola County Commissioner John Quinones

Perhaps Quinones is simply taking example from Jeb Bush who states he has refused to sign the pledge as well.

John Quiñones Leaves the Door Open to Tax Hikes (click title to entry - thank you)

Congressional candidate refuses to sign Taxpayer Protection Pledge to oppose higher taxes
Today, the John Quiñones for Congress campaign said that they will not be signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge in his bid for the GOP nomination in Florida’s 9th Congressional District.  Republican candidates Julius Melendez and Mark Oxner have signed the Pledge.
Without a concrete written promise to taxpayers in the district, Quiñones is leaving the door open to higher taxes. For voters familiar with Quiñones’s record as a state legislator, this may not come as a surprise.
State Senator Quiñones voted in support of transportation bill, SB 1350, that included higher taxes. The bill targeted tourists by imposing a $2-a-day tax on rental car customers. Then Republican Governor Jeb Bush vetoed the legislation, noting that the “taxes will be paid disparately by tourists visiting Florida, consequently creating taxation without representation on a large scale.”...

Then again it would seem as though Quinones takes his own path.

Intervening in Syria means confronting Russia.

By Tom Parfitt, Moscow

5:10PM BST 13 Jul 2012

The Alaed's previous attempt to convey the Mi-25 gunships to the regime of of President Bashar al-Assad under a Curaçao flag caused anger in London and Washington. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the aircraft would be used to kill innocent civilians.

The ship's new destination is unclear but maritime data show it was travelling south off Norway on Thursday and is due in Baltiysk on the Baltic coast of Kaliningrad, Russia's exclave between Poland and Lithuania, on July 17.

A spokesman for Femco, the Russian company which owns the cargo vessel, said on Friday that it would arrive in St Petersburg two days later and may then head to the Russian Far East....

Besides trying to get helicopters into Syria, Russia has signed an agreement for Assad for his oil. Russia is carrying on relations with Syria as if nothing is happening in the country. Madeline Albright stated the USA should pull into the Syrian port. That isn't possible unless the USA wants to confront Russia.

The bill passed by the House nearly doesn't matter, except, for a symbolic gesture. The delivery to Afghanistan of 21 Mi-17s already occurred. So, there isn't any other contracts pending this would effect.

It isn't as though the action by the House isn't admirable, it just isn't causing that much impression on the company.

JULY 20, 2012 06:25

U.S. lawmakers passed a bill on Thursday (click here) breaking contracts between the Pentagon and Russian state-run arms exporter Rosoboronexport, which they claim is “arming the oppressive Syrian regime,” the House of Representatives said on its website, the Russian news agency Novosti reports. The bill, introduced by Democrat Congressman Jim Moran (VA), was passed by an overwhelming 407-5 vote and was attached to the 2013 U.S. military budget, according to the House of Representatives’ statement. The passage of the bill came several hours after Russia and China vetoed for the third time a UN Security Council resolution on Syria authorizing non-military sanctions against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime if it fails to withdraw heavy weapons and troops from urban areas within 10 days....

In an article from RIA Novosti,  (the state newspaper) Russia is viewed as being backed into a corner and an embarrassment to the peace initiative.

Russia Caught Off Guard on Syria as Annan Leaves – Analysts (click here)

MOSCOW, August 3 (RIA Novosti, Alexey Eremenko)

...Annan’s decision to step down, voiced on Thursday, spells a diplomatic loss for Russia, which never managed to implement a proactive policy on Syria, experts said on Friday.

“We were chronically late on Syria,” said Vladimir Akhmedov of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Now we’ve backed ourselves into a corner.”...

Strategic Overshot

Russia would wait for appointment of a new UN envoy on Syria and continue its push for negotiations between Assad and his enemies, said Leonid Kalashnikov of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Russian State Duma.

“I just hope it would not be a partisan person, because that will cause parties to retire into their respective shells,” said Kalashnikov, a member of the Communist Party.

Akhmedov agreed, saying that Russia will wait and see how the situation in Syria develops. He added it was time for “intricate secret diplomacy” as well as economic action, such as helping the three million Syrians who do not receive enough food at the moment.

But foreign policy expert Alexei Malashenko was more skeptical. “I have no idea how we are going to save face over this,” he said....

Russia and China have to come to terms with the fact Assad is committing genocide against the Sunnis within the country. He is killing without inhibition to whom he is killing including women and children. He is treating everyone in Syria as his enemy. He has no governance of the country anymore, he is simply killing on a daily basis.

Russia is putting itself in the middle of these killing fields and permitting Assad his agenda.