It's Earth Day 2009 - Tuesday Morning
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
"Vacant Planet" by Death
Mysterious object of flight on a voyage
To correct what they have done, what we are doing Perhaps submerged, living in the inner most
Recesses of the planet - no choice but
To adapt to an underground world
Limiting our passages of thought
Are they the examples of regression
A life form's abusive progression
In a realm so vast, we sit among the Vacant Planets
[Solos: Masvidal, Schuldiner]
So many worlds yet to be seen that once have shared
The same effects that come from greed, mass production
Perhaps submerged, living in the inner most
Recesses of the planet - no choice but
To adapt to an underground world
Limiting our passages of thought
Are they the examples of regression
A life form's abusive progression
To correct what they have done, what we are doing Perhaps submerged, living in the inner most
Recesses of the planet - no choice but
To adapt to an underground world
Limiting our passages of thought
Are they the examples of regression
A life form's abusive progression
In a realm so vast, we sit among the Vacant Planets
[Solos: Masvidal, Schuldiner]
So many worlds yet to be seen that once have shared
The same effects that come from greed, mass production
Perhaps submerged, living in the inner most
Recesses of the planet - no choice but
To adapt to an underground world
Limiting our passages of thought
Are they the examples of regression
A life form's abusive progression
Monday, April 20, 2009
Earth Day
Severely wilted tropical tree.
I'll address the 'Tropical System' issue soon.
There is data from Panama that was and is very alarming to me.
I have to pull up some information and pictures to illustrate what I want to convey.
The bottom line is that we need to stop throwing greenhouse gases and primarily carbon dioxide into the troposphere. We need to deal with it now.
April 22nd is Earth Day. I'll post on that day, the information I am accumulating. I'll try to make it as comprehensive as I can.
I'll be back in a couple days.
Street of vortices - caught in a rut? Moving Slow? There is a reason no one talks about.
There are two forces at work here. The more 'northern' air mass which can be noted as 'moving' in the '12 hour loop' at the title to the entry is the jet stream. BUT. The jet stream is not moving the 'heat transfer system' coming off the equator.
The 'heat transfer system' which is bringing all the 'weather' to the USA and all the turbulence is the lower, very sluggish air mass. Now, I know others understand this, so what is causing the sluggishness of these heat transfer systems?
Don't know? Sure. It is easy. If Earth has an air mass that is over the Equator and it starts to move with the Earth spinning 'under' it, what then is causing the 'sluggishness' to the air mass as it has no driving winds?
Clue: Horse Latitudes.
The Coriolis Effect.
April 20, 2009
0230z
UNISYS Water Vapor Satellite of North and West Hemisphere
The air mass west of the Baja Peninsula is going to follow the same path across the nation as the last air mass that carried all the tornadic winds with it.
As these 'slow air masses' move with the driving force of the Earth spinning, there is a reverse effect. The air mass DOES have mass. It does have friction. The friction between Earth and the air mass facilitates the movement of the air mass. What does that mean, when a sluggish heat transfer system interacts with Earth to find its impulsion?
The friction between the air mass, OVER TIME, will retard the spinning of Earth and it slows. This is Human Induced Global Warming. We need to deal with it, NOW !
The 'heat transfer system' which is bringing all the 'weather' to the USA and all the turbulence is the lower, very sluggish air mass. Now, I know others understand this, so what is causing the sluggishness of these heat transfer systems?
Don't know? Sure. It is easy. If Earth has an air mass that is over the Equator and it starts to move with the Earth spinning 'under' it, what then is causing the 'sluggishness' to the air mass as it has no driving winds?
Clue: Horse Latitudes.
The Coriolis Effect.
April 20, 2009
0230z
UNISYS Water Vapor Satellite of North and West Hemisphere
The air mass west of the Baja Peninsula is going to follow the same path across the nation as the last air mass that carried all the tornadic winds with it.
As these 'slow air masses' move with the driving force of the Earth spinning, there is a reverse effect. The air mass DOES have mass. It does have friction. The friction between Earth and the air mass facilitates the movement of the air mass. What does that mean, when a sluggish heat transfer system interacts with Earth to find its impulsion?
The friction between the air mass, OVER TIME, will retard the spinning of Earth and it slows. This is Human Induced Global Warming. We need to deal with it, NOW !
The United States has Talent.
President Barack Obama runs down a corridor with the family's new dog, Bo, a six-month old Portuguese water dog, in the White House in Washington. Bo is a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy and his wife Victoria to the President's daughters, Sasha and Malia. (The White House photo by Pete Souza / April 13, 2009)
What a shame we have a perfect President for once !
Obama says reaching out to enemies strengthens US (click title to entry - thank you)
President Barack Obama, left, talks to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez,right, as El Salvador's President Tony Saca , second from right, Uruguay's President Tabare Vazquez, center, and Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, second from right listen during the group photo of the 5th Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Saturday April 18, 2009. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Policy changes toward Cuba has sparked enthusiasm for a White House that can extend 'openness' to Latin American and South American countries to facilitate 'dialogue' resulting in peace. Our 'near borders' may be getting more and more secure everyday.
President Barack Obama, left, talks to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez,right, as El Salvador's President Tony Saca , second from right, Uruguay's President Tabare Vazquez, center, and Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, second from right listen during the group photo of the 5th Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Saturday April 18, 2009. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Policy changes toward Cuba has sparked enthusiasm for a White House that can extend 'openness' to Latin American and South American countries to facilitate 'dialogue' resulting in peace. Our 'near borders' may be getting more and more secure everyday.
Since the 9th of April, there have been tornadoes everyday, except, on the 18th. Last night as well. The other planet with daily tornadoes is Mars.
Oh, yeah. It's THE HEAT under a dense layer of carbon dioxide. In case there was any doubt.
Published: April 20, 2009 at 3:22 PM (click title to entry - thank you)
...The National Weather Service said a tornado touched down in Alabama's Marshall County Sunday night. The twister destroyed an Asbury-area mobile home, killing Janice Salter, The Huntsville Times reported.
Her son, Gary Wayne Salter Jr., said he was in his mobile home next door when the tornado grabbed his parents' mobile home and slung it more than 100 yards. He said he found his mother's body in a field about 50 feet from the home, the newspaper said....
Tornadoes Touch Down in Western Kansas (click here)
April 18, 2009 07:27 PM EDT
By Eyewitness News (WICHITA, Kan.)
Several tornadoes touched down Saturday afternoon in western Kansas.
Two storms were reported near the town of Kalvesta in Finney County (see photos). According to the National Weather Service, a tornado destroyed a shed and a detached garage. A nearby home suffered roof damage. No one was hurt.
In Hodgeman County, a tornado hit some outbuildings near a home. No one was hurt. Emergency dispatchers in Hodgeman County say mud and hail covered most roads.
The National Weather Service reports at least one tornado touched down in Gray County, possibly two.
April 16, 2009
Photographer states :: A series of storms hit the Central Texas area on the 16th spawning tornado's, heavy rain, wind and record setting hail, shutting down interstate 27 and trapping many motorists The photo shows highway 86, near Tulia, Texas with up to 8 inches of hail covering it. The wallcloud in the background unleashed at least two short lived tornado's.
April 16, 2009
Photographer states :: This tornado wasn't on the ground too long. (about 10 seconds) but was part of a severe weather system that hit the Plainview/Tulia area of central Texas on Thursday the 16th. The series of storms spawned record setting hail and rain witch shut down Interstate 27 and trapped many motorists.
4/17/2009 1:25:00 PM
Weather Service Confirms Tornado In Sampson County (click here)
A follow-up report of the storm system that brought severe weather through Harnett, Sampson and Johnston counties Friday, March 27 has confirmed a tornado touched down in Sampson County.In the days following the storm, National Weather Service meteorologists would not confirm whether a tornado had touched down in the area.The report concluded that property damage on OBJ Road and surrounding areas in Sampson County was caused by a weak EF-0 tornado.The system appeared to eventually merged in Johnston County with another system that had earlier produced an EF-1 tornado in Hope Mills.Damage in the Plain View area was consistent with typical EF-0 tornado damage. Fences and screen doors were damaged. Debris and property were flung through back yards, and shingles and siding were torn from homes.The report also mentioned a single home on Roslin Farm Road outside Four Oaks that has been damaged by tornadoes three times since the owner moved there in 1968.
This one was in Great Britain. It doesn't count in the 'daily tornado tally.' There have been daily tornadoes in the USA !!! It is just that there are very few tornadoes in the British Isles. There was one last year as well.
A tornado is suspected to have damaged the roofs of two houses in Newport, south Wales. (click here)
Slates from the homes in Haisbro Avenue, St Julian's were found in gardens several doors away on Thursday.
Veronica Stacey said a neighbour saw the sky turn dark and then watched as the tiles were ripped off the roofs.
A BBC weather forecaster said a funnel cloud creating a tornado could have been possible in unstable air when the incident happened at 1610 BST....
2 Tornadoes struck Pasco, National Weather Service says (click here)
By NEIL JOHNSON The Tampa Tribune
Published: April 14, 2009
Updated: 04/15/2009 06:57 am
The National Weather Service said two tornadoes hit Pasco on Tuesday. One hit Wesley Chapel with winds of 80 miles per hour and the other one hit the Trinity area with winds of 95 mph.
Contractor David Miller got the thrill of his life Tuesday when he said he nearly drove his pickup truck into a funnel cloud about 8:30 a.m. as it swept east across Ridge Top Drive, a two-lane suburban street south of New Port Richey.
Miller said he had just left his office when a tree branch flew past. Moments later, the funnel cloud appeared in front of him.
He slammed on the brakes, shifted into reverse and gunned the engine. Even as the tires smoked, the vehicle inched toward the funnel cloud. Hail pounded the truck and a wrought-iron fence flew by.
A few seconds later, the twister moved away from him, allowing the vehicle to break free. Miller said he sat there for a few moments in stunned silence....
Tornadoes spotted as storm line rumbles over Fla. (click here)
By CHRISTINE ARMARIO – 5 days ago (April 15th)
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A strong line of storms spawned at least three tornadoes Tuesday as it tore across central Florida, scattering roof shingles, uprooting trees and forcing schools to evacuate children from trailer classrooms.
No injuries were immediately reported and the storms eventually moved off Florida's Atlantic coast. It was the latest round of bad weather to hammer the South after heavy rain and strong winds Monday that hit Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky and northern Florida, already reeling from storms and tornadoes last week.
The National Weather Service was still tallying damage information, but initial reports were that three tornadoes had touched down north of Tampa and two others may have struck in central and east Florida.
Twenty Florida counties were under a tornado watch for much of the day.
"To our knowledge, there's been no true structure damage and no injuries," said Jim Martin, Emergency Management Director for Pasco County north of Tampa, where at least one twister was spotted Tuesday morning,
Martin said high winds damaged about 25 homes and flipped over one car. Students were evacuated from trailer classrooms at some Tampa-area schools....
2 killed as severe storms move across South (click here)
April 13, 2009
By DORIE TURNER – 6 days ago
ATLANTA (AP) — A swath of severe weather moved across a storm-weary South on Monday, killing at least two, downing trees and cutting power to thousands of homes and businesses.
The storm system that hit Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky and northern Florida brought torrential rain, flooding, hail and gusty winds to states still reeling from strong storms and tornadoes last week.
And the states braced for more rough weather with tornado watches or warnings were in effect in several states Monday night.
In eastern Tennessee, McMinn County Sheriff Steve Frisbie said 18-year-old Michael Aaron Byers Jr. was killed in Etowah early Monday morning when a tree fell on his family's home as he slept. A tree fell on a car in Atlanta, killing a second person whose name was not immediately released.
In south Alabama, authorities said a possible tornado touched down in the Geneva County town of Slocomb, damaging a high school baseball field and blowing the roof off a barn....
Anderson storm included tornado, weather service says (click here)
By Titus Ledbetter III
Sunday, April 12, 2009
...No serious injuries were reported, however.
The tornado was 4 miles in length, had winds of more than 105 miles per hour, and dropped about one and a half inches of rain on the area, said Scott Krentz, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service out of Greer. Krentz said it was an F-1 tornado, the second-lowest; an F-5 is the highest.
The storm caused about $1.5 million worth of damage in Anderson County and many families are still looking for places to stay, according to Independent-Mail coverage partner WSPA News Channel 7. It caused the most damage in the Townville area....
Tornadoes confirmed in state (click here)
STAFF/WIRE REPORTS • April 12, 2009
At least one person died in connection with spring storms that brought hail, damaging winds and at least two confirmed tornadoes to South Carolina, officials said Saturday.
A 63-year-old Beech Island man died around 11:30 p.m. Friday when a car he was driving struck trees that had fallen over the roadway, according to Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton.
The man was wearing a seat belt, and the state Highway Patrol is investigating, Carlton said.
The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado touched down in Anderson County, 5 miles north of Townville, said spokesman Neil Dixon....
2 dead, 42 injured as homes lie in ruins after tornado (click here)
Most of Middle Tennessee escapes heavy damage; thousands lose power
By Kate Howard
THE TENNESSEAN
April 11, 2009
The rain that christened dawn on Good Friday transformed, by midday, into unforgiving tornadoes that would kill a mother and her baby, injure dozens more, and level hundreds of homes and businesses in Rutherford County. Winds flipped over cars and trucks on Interstate 24, and people hid in fear in closets and bathtubs....
Tornado causes severe damage in Benton County (click here)
04/16/09
Susan Corbin
A line of severe thunderstorms rolled through West Tennessee before noon on Friday, April 10, triggering tornado watches and warnings. It didn’t take long after the warnings were issued for the sky over Benton County to turn an ugly shade of yellow-green, indicating the possibility of hail. Hail covered most the yards in the middle of the county as a tornado formed overhead. The trail of damage began with Prospect Cemetery, damaging the trim on the church and uprooting trees in the cemetery....
Storms Bring Hail, Tornadoes To Region (click here)
Tornadoes Reported In Latimer, Le Flore Counties
POSTED: 7:26 pm CDT April 9, 2009
UPDATED: 8:47 pm CDT April 9, 2009
FORT SMITH, Ark. -- Authorities in Latimer County, Okla., said three tornadoes touched down in their community on Thursday evening.
The tornadoes were part of a thin, but powerful line of storms that meteorologists from 40/29 News were tracking.
Emergency management officials said that the worst damage is south of Wilburton on Yourman Road. There are also reports of a barn roof that was blown off and trees down along Highway 1....
Published: April 20, 2009 at 3:22 PM (click title to entry - thank you)
...The National Weather Service said a tornado touched down in Alabama's Marshall County Sunday night. The twister destroyed an Asbury-area mobile home, killing Janice Salter, The Huntsville Times reported.
Her son, Gary Wayne Salter Jr., said he was in his mobile home next door when the tornado grabbed his parents' mobile home and slung it more than 100 yards. He said he found his mother's body in a field about 50 feet from the home, the newspaper said....
Tornadoes Touch Down in Western Kansas (click here)
April 18, 2009 07:27 PM EDT
By Eyewitness News (WICHITA, Kan.)
Several tornadoes touched down Saturday afternoon in western Kansas.
Two storms were reported near the town of Kalvesta in Finney County (see photos). According to the National Weather Service, a tornado destroyed a shed and a detached garage. A nearby home suffered roof damage. No one was hurt.
In Hodgeman County, a tornado hit some outbuildings near a home. No one was hurt. Emergency dispatchers in Hodgeman County say mud and hail covered most roads.
The National Weather Service reports at least one tornado touched down in Gray County, possibly two.
April 16, 2009
Photographer states :: A series of storms hit the Central Texas area on the 16th spawning tornado's, heavy rain, wind and record setting hail, shutting down interstate 27 and trapping many motorists The photo shows highway 86, near Tulia, Texas with up to 8 inches of hail covering it. The wallcloud in the background unleashed at least two short lived tornado's.
April 16, 2009
Photographer states :: This tornado wasn't on the ground too long. (about 10 seconds) but was part of a severe weather system that hit the Plainview/Tulia area of central Texas on Thursday the 16th. The series of storms spawned record setting hail and rain witch shut down Interstate 27 and trapped many motorists.
4/17/2009 1:25:00 PM
Weather Service Confirms Tornado In Sampson County (click here)
A follow-up report of the storm system that brought severe weather through Harnett, Sampson and Johnston counties Friday, March 27 has confirmed a tornado touched down in Sampson County.In the days following the storm, National Weather Service meteorologists would not confirm whether a tornado had touched down in the area.The report concluded that property damage on OBJ Road and surrounding areas in Sampson County was caused by a weak EF-0 tornado.The system appeared to eventually merged in Johnston County with another system that had earlier produced an EF-1 tornado in Hope Mills.Damage in the Plain View area was consistent with typical EF-0 tornado damage. Fences and screen doors were damaged. Debris and property were flung through back yards, and shingles and siding were torn from homes.The report also mentioned a single home on Roslin Farm Road outside Four Oaks that has been damaged by tornadoes three times since the owner moved there in 1968.
This one was in Great Britain. It doesn't count in the 'daily tornado tally.' There have been daily tornadoes in the USA !!! It is just that there are very few tornadoes in the British Isles. There was one last year as well.
A tornado is suspected to have damaged the roofs of two houses in Newport, south Wales. (click here)
Slates from the homes in Haisbro Avenue, St Julian's were found in gardens several doors away on Thursday.
Veronica Stacey said a neighbour saw the sky turn dark and then watched as the tiles were ripped off the roofs.
A BBC weather forecaster said a funnel cloud creating a tornado could have been possible in unstable air when the incident happened at 1610 BST....
2 Tornadoes struck Pasco, National Weather Service says (click here)
By NEIL JOHNSON The Tampa Tribune
Published: April 14, 2009
Updated: 04/15/2009 06:57 am
The National Weather Service said two tornadoes hit Pasco on Tuesday. One hit Wesley Chapel with winds of 80 miles per hour and the other one hit the Trinity area with winds of 95 mph.
Contractor David Miller got the thrill of his life Tuesday when he said he nearly drove his pickup truck into a funnel cloud about 8:30 a.m. as it swept east across Ridge Top Drive, a two-lane suburban street south of New Port Richey.
Miller said he had just left his office when a tree branch flew past. Moments later, the funnel cloud appeared in front of him.
He slammed on the brakes, shifted into reverse and gunned the engine. Even as the tires smoked, the vehicle inched toward the funnel cloud. Hail pounded the truck and a wrought-iron fence flew by.
A few seconds later, the twister moved away from him, allowing the vehicle to break free. Miller said he sat there for a few moments in stunned silence....
Tornadoes spotted as storm line rumbles over Fla. (click here)
By CHRISTINE ARMARIO – 5 days ago (April 15th)
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A strong line of storms spawned at least three tornadoes Tuesday as it tore across central Florida, scattering roof shingles, uprooting trees and forcing schools to evacuate children from trailer classrooms.
No injuries were immediately reported and the storms eventually moved off Florida's Atlantic coast. It was the latest round of bad weather to hammer the South after heavy rain and strong winds Monday that hit Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky and northern Florida, already reeling from storms and tornadoes last week.
The National Weather Service was still tallying damage information, but initial reports were that three tornadoes had touched down north of Tampa and two others may have struck in central and east Florida.
Twenty Florida counties were under a tornado watch for much of the day.
"To our knowledge, there's been no true structure damage and no injuries," said Jim Martin, Emergency Management Director for Pasco County north of Tampa, where at least one twister was spotted Tuesday morning,
Martin said high winds damaged about 25 homes and flipped over one car. Students were evacuated from trailer classrooms at some Tampa-area schools....
2 killed as severe storms move across South (click here)
April 13, 2009
By DORIE TURNER – 6 days ago
ATLANTA (AP) — A swath of severe weather moved across a storm-weary South on Monday, killing at least two, downing trees and cutting power to thousands of homes and businesses.
The storm system that hit Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky and northern Florida brought torrential rain, flooding, hail and gusty winds to states still reeling from strong storms and tornadoes last week.
And the states braced for more rough weather with tornado watches or warnings were in effect in several states Monday night.
In eastern Tennessee, McMinn County Sheriff Steve Frisbie said 18-year-old Michael Aaron Byers Jr. was killed in Etowah early Monday morning when a tree fell on his family's home as he slept. A tree fell on a car in Atlanta, killing a second person whose name was not immediately released.
In south Alabama, authorities said a possible tornado touched down in the Geneva County town of Slocomb, damaging a high school baseball field and blowing the roof off a barn....
Anderson storm included tornado, weather service says (click here)
By Titus Ledbetter III
Sunday, April 12, 2009
...No serious injuries were reported, however.
The tornado was 4 miles in length, had winds of more than 105 miles per hour, and dropped about one and a half inches of rain on the area, said Scott Krentz, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service out of Greer. Krentz said it was an F-1 tornado, the second-lowest; an F-5 is the highest.
The storm caused about $1.5 million worth of damage in Anderson County and many families are still looking for places to stay, according to Independent-Mail coverage partner WSPA News Channel 7. It caused the most damage in the Townville area....
Tornadoes confirmed in state (click here)
STAFF/WIRE REPORTS • April 12, 2009
At least one person died in connection with spring storms that brought hail, damaging winds and at least two confirmed tornadoes to South Carolina, officials said Saturday.
A 63-year-old Beech Island man died around 11:30 p.m. Friday when a car he was driving struck trees that had fallen over the roadway, according to Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton.
The man was wearing a seat belt, and the state Highway Patrol is investigating, Carlton said.
The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado touched down in Anderson County, 5 miles north of Townville, said spokesman Neil Dixon....
2 dead, 42 injured as homes lie in ruins after tornado (click here)
Most of Middle Tennessee escapes heavy damage; thousands lose power
By Kate Howard
THE TENNESSEAN
April 11, 2009
The rain that christened dawn on Good Friday transformed, by midday, into unforgiving tornadoes that would kill a mother and her baby, injure dozens more, and level hundreds of homes and businesses in Rutherford County. Winds flipped over cars and trucks on Interstate 24, and people hid in fear in closets and bathtubs....
Tornado causes severe damage in Benton County (click here)
04/16/09
Susan Corbin
A line of severe thunderstorms rolled through West Tennessee before noon on Friday, April 10, triggering tornado watches and warnings. It didn’t take long after the warnings were issued for the sky over Benton County to turn an ugly shade of yellow-green, indicating the possibility of hail. Hail covered most the yards in the middle of the county as a tornado formed overhead. The trail of damage began with Prospect Cemetery, damaging the trim on the church and uprooting trees in the cemetery....
Storms Bring Hail, Tornadoes To Region (click here)
Tornadoes Reported In Latimer, Le Flore Counties
POSTED: 7:26 pm CDT April 9, 2009
UPDATED: 8:47 pm CDT April 9, 2009
FORT SMITH, Ark. -- Authorities in Latimer County, Okla., said three tornadoes touched down in their community on Thursday evening.
The tornadoes were part of a thin, but powerful line of storms that meteorologists from 40/29 News were tracking.
Emergency management officials said that the worst damage is south of Wilburton on Yourman Road. There are also reports of a barn roof that was blown off and trees down along Highway 1....
I don't want to hear it from FOX anymore. We have never had so many military personnel with mental health issues ever !
So, what's the deal? Weapons smuggler to Mexico or wife killer or worse?
US Marine arrested at Logan (click title to entry - thank you)
April 19, 2009 05:42 PM
John C. Drake, Globe StaffA
US Marine was arrested today at Logan International Airport after federal airport screeners discovered a gun, bomb-making materials, and ammunition in his checked baggage, State Police and Transportation Security Administration officials said.
Corporal Justin Reed, 22, of Jacksonville, N.C., was booked on US Airways Flight 877 to Charlotte, N.C., said TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis. She said Reed had arrived on a flight from Las Vegas this morning.
TSA screeners in Terminal B called State Police at 7:10 a.m. after a screen discovered the following items in his checked baggage: a locked handgun box containing a semi-automatic handgun, a fully loaded gun magazine, several boxes of 9 mm and 7.62 mm ammunition, three model rocket engines containing an explosive mixture, military pull-type fuses, switches, electronics kit boxes with various components, and a hand grenade fuse assembly with detonator.
Reed was charged with possession of an infernal machine and possession of a concealed weapon in a secure area of an airport. He was booked at the State Police barracks at Logan and held in lieu of $50,000 bail. He will be arraigned at East Boston Municipal Court on Tuesday.
Davis said it is legal to have a firearm in checked baggage but that it must be declared to security officials. The passenger in this case had not declared the weapon, she said. Davis said all checked baggage on domestic flights is required to be screened by TSA on originating flights.
Reed's bags had to be screened again at Logan because baggage handlers inadvertently routed them to baggage claim instead of onto his connecting flight to Charlotte. Typically bags are not rescreened during a layover, she said.
Davis said TSA was "actively investigating" why the gun and explosive materials were not detected during the screening in Las Vegas.
Homeland Security report mentions Poplawski (click here)
By Carl Prine, TRIBUNE-REVIEWSaturday, April 18, 2009
...The report was intended only for law enforcement leaders, but the Tribune-Review was able to obtain a copy. It paints a disturbing picture of the rise of American hate-based groups that reject governmental authority in an era of foreclosures, unemployment and dwindling credit.
The report cites Poplawski, 22, as an example of "white supremacist lone wolves" or "small terrorist cells" inflamed by the possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the recent election of America's first black president.
The Trib has documented hundreds of angry internet comments made by Poplawski before the shooting about gun control, police surveillance, immigration, Jews and blacks.
Men like Poplawski "pose the most significant domestic terrorist threat because of their low profile and autonomy ... which hampers warning efforts," according to the report....
Homeland Security deputy: "We can't be complacent" (click here)
By TIM TALLEY Associated Press
Published: 4/19/2009 2:30 PM
Last Modified: 4/19/2009 2:39 PM
OKLAHOMA CITY — The deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security said Sunday that the Oklahoma City bombing and the deaths of 168 people in the nation's most deadly domestic terrorist attack is "a reminder to the country that we can't be complacent." "How do we prevent something like this from happening again?" Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute said following ceremonies that marked the 14th anniversary of the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. "We know more than we knew on that April day," Lute said. "There is a need for all of us to be vigilant." Lute said domestic terrorism "certainly remains a threat" and defended a Homeland Security Department intelligence assessment that said returning military veterans who have difficulties assimilating back into their communities could be susceptible to extremist recruiters or might engage in lone acts of violence. Distributed to law enforcement officials two weeks ago, the assessment specifically mentions Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Timothy McVeigh, a decorated U.S. Army veteran who was convicted of parking a truck loaded with 4,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil in front of the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and detonating it. The resulting blast ripped through the building, killing the victims while injuring hundreds more and causing millions of dollars in damage to other structures in parts of downtown Oklahoma City....
Janet Nepolitano couldn't be more correct. I applaud those that had to make statements the Right Wing Bush Republicans couldn't make and can't today simply because of their electorate. We love our military, but, they haven't been taken care of. They just haven't been taken care of the way they should.
US Marine arrested at Logan (click title to entry - thank you)
April 19, 2009 05:42 PM
John C. Drake, Globe StaffA
US Marine was arrested today at Logan International Airport after federal airport screeners discovered a gun, bomb-making materials, and ammunition in his checked baggage, State Police and Transportation Security Administration officials said.
Corporal Justin Reed, 22, of Jacksonville, N.C., was booked on US Airways Flight 877 to Charlotte, N.C., said TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis. She said Reed had arrived on a flight from Las Vegas this morning.
TSA screeners in Terminal B called State Police at 7:10 a.m. after a screen discovered the following items in his checked baggage: a locked handgun box containing a semi-automatic handgun, a fully loaded gun magazine, several boxes of 9 mm and 7.62 mm ammunition, three model rocket engines containing an explosive mixture, military pull-type fuses, switches, electronics kit boxes with various components, and a hand grenade fuse assembly with detonator.
Reed was charged with possession of an infernal machine and possession of a concealed weapon in a secure area of an airport. He was booked at the State Police barracks at Logan and held in lieu of $50,000 bail. He will be arraigned at East Boston Municipal Court on Tuesday.
Davis said it is legal to have a firearm in checked baggage but that it must be declared to security officials. The passenger in this case had not declared the weapon, she said. Davis said all checked baggage on domestic flights is required to be screened by TSA on originating flights.
Reed's bags had to be screened again at Logan because baggage handlers inadvertently routed them to baggage claim instead of onto his connecting flight to Charlotte. Typically bags are not rescreened during a layover, she said.
Davis said TSA was "actively investigating" why the gun and explosive materials were not detected during the screening in Las Vegas.
Homeland Security report mentions Poplawski (click here)
By Carl Prine, TRIBUNE-REVIEWSaturday, April 18, 2009
...The report was intended only for law enforcement leaders, but the Tribune-Review was able to obtain a copy. It paints a disturbing picture of the rise of American hate-based groups that reject governmental authority in an era of foreclosures, unemployment and dwindling credit.
The report cites Poplawski, 22, as an example of "white supremacist lone wolves" or "small terrorist cells" inflamed by the possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the recent election of America's first black president.
The Trib has documented hundreds of angry internet comments made by Poplawski before the shooting about gun control, police surveillance, immigration, Jews and blacks.
Men like Poplawski "pose the most significant domestic terrorist threat because of their low profile and autonomy ... which hampers warning efforts," according to the report....
Homeland Security deputy: "We can't be complacent" (click here)
By TIM TALLEY Associated Press
Published: 4/19/2009 2:30 PM
Last Modified: 4/19/2009 2:39 PM
OKLAHOMA CITY — The deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security said Sunday that the Oklahoma City bombing and the deaths of 168 people in the nation's most deadly domestic terrorist attack is "a reminder to the country that we can't be complacent." "How do we prevent something like this from happening again?" Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute said following ceremonies that marked the 14th anniversary of the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. "We know more than we knew on that April day," Lute said. "There is a need for all of us to be vigilant." Lute said domestic terrorism "certainly remains a threat" and defended a Homeland Security Department intelligence assessment that said returning military veterans who have difficulties assimilating back into their communities could be susceptible to extremist recruiters or might engage in lone acts of violence. Distributed to law enforcement officials two weeks ago, the assessment specifically mentions Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Timothy McVeigh, a decorated U.S. Army veteran who was convicted of parking a truck loaded with 4,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil in front of the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and detonating it. The resulting blast ripped through the building, killing the victims while injuring hundreds more and causing millions of dollars in damage to other structures in parts of downtown Oklahoma City....
Saturday, April 18, 2009
I'll check back in a few days. I'll leave this thought.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was initiated by the United Nations in 2001 as “an international work program designed to meet the needs of decision makers and the public for scientific information concerning the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and options for responding to those changes.” The results of the study are comprehensive and often quite alarming.
We need an Earth for our children to inherit. There is an opinion, that impoverishment increases the danger to our biotic Earth. I believe that. I believe when people are left in poverty they lose any parameters to reaching beyond their own daily needs to find what is actually vitally important to their existance.
Think about it.
Earth is valuable. More valuable than money.
Friday, April 17, 2009
FOX News - No need to say another word. Except. Dead Enders.
The man that would be God and Rule the World all at the same time. By the way, how's Murdoch doing since the collapse? As good as Goldman Sachs?
Which brings us to the next of the justifications for disclosing and thus abandoning these measures: that they don't work anyway, and that those who are subjected to them will simply make up information in order to end their ordeal. This ignorant view of how interrogations are conducted is belied by both experience and common sense. If coercive interrogation had been administered to obtain confessions, (Confessions? Is that what was hopefully gained from torture? Confessions? Mr. Mukasey doesn't believe in trials? I guess not. What's his name didn't. Ah. Gonzalez. He never held any of significance. Confessions. Now, that makes sense. When the Bush administration didn't have a case it would seem torture would insure confessions to what ever extent it could take place. That really makes sense.) one might understand the argument. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who organized the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, among others, and who has boasted of having beheaded Daniel Pearl, could eventually have felt pressed to provide a false confession. But confessions aren't the point. Intelligence is. Interrogation is conducted by using such obvious approaches as asking questions whose correct answers are already known and only when truthful information is provided proceeding to what may not be known. Moreover, intelligence can be verified, correlated and used to get information from other detainees, and has been; none of this information is used in isolation.
The terrorist Abu Zubaydah (sometimes derided as a low-level operative of questionable reliability, but who was in fact close to KSM and other senior al Qaeda leaders) disclosed some information voluntarily. But he was coerced into disclosing information that led to the capture of Ramzi bin al Shibh, another of the planners of Sept. 11, who in turn disclosed information which -- when combined with what was learned from Abu Zubaydah -- helped lead to the capture of KSM and other senior terrorists, and the disruption of follow-on plots aimed at both Europe and the U.S. Details of these successes, and the methods used to obtain them, were disclosed repeatedly in more than 30 congressional briefings and hearings beginning in 2002, and open to all members of the Intelligence Committees of both Houses of Congress beginning in September 2006. Any protestation of ignorance of those details, particularly by members of those committees, is pretense.
And after all, Musharraf had to give up someone ever once in awhile. What good was all the money he was getting?
The techniques themselves were used selectively against only a small number of hard-core prisoners who successfully resisted other forms of interrogation, (Successfully resisted ALL forms of interrogation, even your torture techniques. Jerks. They actually think they did something here. If that were the case, Omar wouldn't want to ride his ass (donkey) into Kandahar today.) and then only with the explicit authorization of the director of the CIA. Of the thousands of unlawful combatants captured by the U.S., fewer than 100 were detained and questioned in the CIA program. Of those, fewer than one-third were subjected to any of the techniques discussed in these opinions. As already disclosed by Director Hayden, as late as 2006, even with the growing success of other intelligence tools, fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of al Qaeda came from those interrogations.
Why doesn't that impress me? Can't imagine. Maybe its because more than seven years after September 11, 2001 American soldiers are still dying in Afghanistan in a reinvigorated Taliban militia. Maybe that's why.
Nor was there any legal reason compelling such disclosure. To be sure, the American Civil Liberties Union has sued under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain copies of these and other memoranda, but the government until now has successfully resisted such lawsuits. Even when the government disclosed that three members of al Qaeda had been subjected to waterboarding but that the technique was no longer part of the CIA interrogation program, the court sustained the government's argument that the precise details of how it was done, including limits and safeguards, could remain classified against the possibility that some future president may authorize its use. (I guess the courts ain't generals, huh?) Therefore, notwithstanding the suggestion that disclosure was somehow legally compelled, there was no legal impediment to the Justice Department making the same argument even with respect to any techniques that remained in the CIA program until last January.
There is something of the self-fulfilling prophecy in the claim that our interrogation of some unlawful combatants beyond the limits set in the Army Field Manual has disgraced us before the world. Such a claim often conflates interrogation with the sadism engaged in by some soldiers at Abu Ghraib, an incident that had nothing whatever to do with intelligence gathering. The limits of the Army Field Manual are entirely appropriate for young soldiers, for the conditions in which they operate, for the detainees they routinely question, and for the kinds of tactically relevant information they pursue. Those limits are not appropriate, however, for more experienced people in controlled circumstances with high-value detainees. Indeed, the Army Field Manual was created with awareness that there was an alternative protocol for high-value detainees. (Is that right. Somehow, I think the memos made it to Abu Ghraib as well. I think so. Something I recall about Don Rumsfeld and some memo. Could be wrong about that. But, there was some kind of understanding 'the night shift' was supposed to 'prepare' the detainees for interrogation the next day. Let's see. Nudity. Humiliation. Leading to electrocution. Something about the 'commonality' of the 'methods' seem too familiar to be 'contrived' all by themselves. I mean there were a lot of people at Abu Ghraib guarding those folks. Someone let it leak that Gitmo had the upper hand when Abu Ghraib didn't. Had to be.)
How much of the torture practiced at Gitmo was 'learned' from foreign CIA prisons?
And how much 'incentive' did the Gitmo interrogators have to 'produce' or lose the chance at promotions or otherwise?
You know all the incentive they needed was to try to protect the country, but, I want to know how much information was demanded on a regular basis especially when they had reached their limits with people like Padilla. He was not just torchured, his ability to cognate was eliminated. How much of that achievement was 'incentive' driven?
There was a lot "W"rong about that 'entire' mind set. A desperation to stop more terrorists that simply filled the 'culture' at that time. The real crime is that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9-11. Nothing. Abu Ghraib should have never happened.
In addition, there were those who believed that the U.S. deserved what it got on Sept. 11, 2001. Such people, and many who purport to speak for world opinion, (God forbid we should actually be criticized. Have adverse opinion in our pain over dead civilians. The USA can't sustain some VERBALIZATIONS? That is a sorry state of affairs. I guess we have enemies, huh? I think the Palestinians were partying, if I remember right. Surprise. And NO ONE has a right to criticize any citizen of the USA for speaking their minds either. No one.) were resourceful both before and after the Sept. 11 attacks in crafting reasons to resent America's role as a superpower. Recall also that the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the attacks on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the punctiliously correct trials of defendants in connection with those incidents, and the bombing of the USS Cole took place long before the advent of CIA interrogations, the invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, (Actually viewed as a legitmate use of the American military. Amazing.) or the many other purported grievances asserted over the past eight years.
The effect of this disclosure on the morale and effectiveness of many in the intelligence community is not hard to predict. Those charged with the responsibility of gathering potentially lifesaving information from unwilling captives are now told essentially that any legal opinion they get as to the lawfulness of their activity is only as durable as political fashion permits. (It is the culture. Neocons believe they are motivated by pure thoughts. They never can do anything "W"rong. Why? I guess even when administering torture, they have God on their side. This is so ludicrous. IF the intelligence community wraps itself around the SAME form of CIVILIZATION called The Geneva Conventions, just like everyone else does, I doubt they have anything to worry about. I guess God didn't win the last election for you guys, huh?) Even with a seemingly binding opinion in hand, which future CIA operations personnel would take the risk? There would be no wink, no nod, no handshake that would convince them that legal guidance is durable. Any president who wants to apply such techniques without such a binding and durable legal opinion had better be prepared to apply them himself.
People don't see the very real danger in this thinking? This holier than thou stuff? They put themselves above an entire international community. They put themselves above allies and turn their backs on 'established' principle and they want us to believe the words they speak? No. Do I have to relay the 'sigh of relief' the world breathed when President Obama finally took office? We don't live on this planet alone.
When we take on the characteristics of the enemy, we risk becoming the enemy to ourselves and others.
Beyond that, anyone in government who seeks an opinion from the OLC as to the propriety of any action, or who authors an opinion for the OLC, is on notice henceforth that such a request for advice, and the advice itself, is now more likely than before to be subject after the fact to public and partisan criticism. It is hard to see how that will promote candor either from those who should be encouraged to ask for advice before they act, or from those who must give it.
In his book "The Terror Presidency," Jack Goldsmith describes the phenomenon we are now experiencing, and its inevitable effect, referring to what he calls "cycles of timidity and aggression" that have weakened intelligence gathering in the past. Politicians pressure the intelligence community to push to the legal limit, and then cast accusations when aggressiveness goes out of style, thereby encouraging risk aversion, and then, as occurred in the wake of 9/11, criticizing the intelligence community for feckless timidity. He calls these cycles "a terrible problem for our national security." Indeed they are, and the precipitous release of these OLC opinions simply makes the problem worse.
Agreed. Politicians should not be involved with intelligence gathering, which raises a lot of questions. Like, what was Dick Cheney doing with young members of the intelligence community. We didn't learn from Mogadishu? Where then is 'the line' that separates politics from national security. You mean to tell me part of the argument here is that there is some kind of political agenda that will weaken intelligence? I doubt it. I believe the intelligence community is performing some very patriotic vigilance. There is a reason to believe our current administration is telling the CIA and FBI to 'stand down?' I find that incredibly hard to believe considering the level of expertise that has been maintained at the Pentagon and through any political transition.
Gen. Hayden was director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 to 2009. Mr. Mukasey was attorney general of the United States from 2007 to 2009.
"...if you cannot beat 'em, why not join 'em and try to make some extra money on the side."
Really. You mean there aren't FREE tee-shirts at the Republican Tea Parties? Hm. Tee Shirts. Taxation of another form. Business people including the Neocons at FOX really miss Bush, don't they? Yep. Make the Right Wing angry and keep their audience. Sounds right to me. Freedom costs, besides the lives of soldiers and funding the military in wars of necessity rather than merit for profit. Freedom costs real money. Freedom does not mean kicking everyone to the curb with deregulation and Republican rhetoric about profits at the cost of effective government. They couldn't come up with anything new, huh?
"...if you cannot beat 'em, why not join 'em and try to make some extra money on the side."
Sounds like the same philosophy as Halliburton, doesn't it?
The Ringleaders. Or. Maybe just Circus Masters.
The President Ties His Own Hands on Terror
The point of interrogation is intelligence, not confession.
By MICHAEL HAYDEN and MICHAEL B. MUKASEY
The Obama administration has declassified and released opinions of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) given in 2005 and earlier that analyze the legality of interrogation techniques authorized for use by the CIA. Those techniques were applied only when expressly permitted by the director, and are described in these opinions in detail, along with their limits and the safeguards applied to them.
The release of these opinions was unnecessary as a legal matter, and is unsound as a matter of policy. Its effect will be to invite the kind of institutional timidity and fear of recrimination that weakened intelligence gathering in the past, and that we came sorely to regret on Sept. 11, 2001.
Proponents of the release have argued that the techniques have been abandoned and thus there is no point in keeping them secret any longer; that they were in any event ineffective; that their disclosure was somehow legally compelled; and that they cost us more in the coin of world opinion than they were worth. None of these claims survives scrutiny.
Soon after he was sworn in, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that suspended use of these techniques and confined not only the military but all U.S. agencies -- including the CIA -- to the interrogation limits set in the Army Field Manual. This suspension was accompanied by a commitment to further study the interrogation program, and government personnel were cautioned that they could no longer rely on earlier opinions of the OLC.
Although evidence shows that the Army Field Manual, which is available online, is already used by al Qaeda for training purposes, it was certainly the president's right to suspend use of any technique. (Sounds like typical Hayden and Mukasey, doesn't it? Paranoid and unable to cope with a 'real' war strategy, not having confidence in tried and true measures that are so well implemented that they can be put in trust of the public. Typical paranoid rationalization by Neocons that want to kill in war without any sincere reason. Spy on Americans without any real result. Hiding behind rhetoric that never even insured the security of USA Passport processes. Hello?) However, public disclosure of the OLC opinions, and thus of the techniques themselves, assures that terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them, and can supplement their training accordingly and thus diminish the effectiveness of these techniques as they have the ones in the Army Field Manual.
Moreover, disclosure of the details of the program pre-empts the study of the president's task force and assures that the suspension imposed by the president's executive order is effectively permanent. (Did I hear the name Valerie Plame? Oh, getting a taste of your own medicine, boys?) There would be little point in the president authorizing measures whose nature and precise limits have already been disclosed in detail to those whose resolve we hope to overcome. This conflicts with the sworn promise of the current director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, who testified in aid of securing Senate confirmation that if he thought he needed additional authority to conduct interrogation to get necessary information, he would seek it from the president. By allowing this disclosure, President Obama has tied not only his own hands but also the hands of any future administration faced with the prospect of attack.
Disclosure of the techniques is likely to be met by faux outrage, and is perfectly packaged for media consumption. It will also incur the utter contempt of our enemies. Somehow, it seems unlikely that the people who beheaded Nicholas Berg and Daniel Pearl, and have tortured and slain other American captives, (They tortured the murderers of Pearl and Berg? Really? What exactly were they hoping to gain? Their gun suppliers?) are likely to be shamed into giving up violence by the news that the U.S. will no longer interrupt the sleep cycle of captured terrorists even to help elicit intelligence that could save the lives of its citizens.
The point of interrogation is intelligence, not confession.
By MICHAEL HAYDEN and MICHAEL B. MUKASEY
The Obama administration has declassified and released opinions of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) given in 2005 and earlier that analyze the legality of interrogation techniques authorized for use by the CIA. Those techniques were applied only when expressly permitted by the director, and are described in these opinions in detail, along with their limits and the safeguards applied to them.
The release of these opinions was unnecessary as a legal matter, and is unsound as a matter of policy. Its effect will be to invite the kind of institutional timidity and fear of recrimination that weakened intelligence gathering in the past, and that we came sorely to regret on Sept. 11, 2001.
Proponents of the release have argued that the techniques have been abandoned and thus there is no point in keeping them secret any longer; that they were in any event ineffective; that their disclosure was somehow legally compelled; and that they cost us more in the coin of world opinion than they were worth. None of these claims survives scrutiny.
Soon after he was sworn in, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that suspended use of these techniques and confined not only the military but all U.S. agencies -- including the CIA -- to the interrogation limits set in the Army Field Manual. This suspension was accompanied by a commitment to further study the interrogation program, and government personnel were cautioned that they could no longer rely on earlier opinions of the OLC.
Although evidence shows that the Army Field Manual, which is available online, is already used by al Qaeda for training purposes, it was certainly the president's right to suspend use of any technique. (Sounds like typical Hayden and Mukasey, doesn't it? Paranoid and unable to cope with a 'real' war strategy, not having confidence in tried and true measures that are so well implemented that they can be put in trust of the public. Typical paranoid rationalization by Neocons that want to kill in war without any sincere reason. Spy on Americans without any real result. Hiding behind rhetoric that never even insured the security of USA Passport processes. Hello?) However, public disclosure of the OLC opinions, and thus of the techniques themselves, assures that terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them, and can supplement their training accordingly and thus diminish the effectiveness of these techniques as they have the ones in the Army Field Manual.
Moreover, disclosure of the details of the program pre-empts the study of the president's task force and assures that the suspension imposed by the president's executive order is effectively permanent. (Did I hear the name Valerie Plame? Oh, getting a taste of your own medicine, boys?) There would be little point in the president authorizing measures whose nature and precise limits have already been disclosed in detail to those whose resolve we hope to overcome. This conflicts with the sworn promise of the current director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, who testified in aid of securing Senate confirmation that if he thought he needed additional authority to conduct interrogation to get necessary information, he would seek it from the president. By allowing this disclosure, President Obama has tied not only his own hands but also the hands of any future administration faced with the prospect of attack.
Disclosure of the techniques is likely to be met by faux outrage, and is perfectly packaged for media consumption. It will also incur the utter contempt of our enemies. Somehow, it seems unlikely that the people who beheaded Nicholas Berg and Daniel Pearl, and have tortured and slain other American captives, (They tortured the murderers of Pearl and Berg? Really? What exactly were they hoping to gain? Their gun suppliers?) are likely to be shamed into giving up violence by the news that the U.S. will no longer interrupt the sleep cycle of captured terrorists even to help elicit intelligence that could save the lives of its citizens.
I am getting bored. The premise to these arguments are all faulty. They are anti-government, anti-military and fly in the face of the Geneva Conventions. The premise put forward here is that terrorists of networks like al Qaeda fear torture and death. I don't think so.
Which brings us to the next of the justifications for disclosing and thus abandoning these measures: that they don't work anyway, and that those who are subjected to them will simply make up information in order to end their ordeal. This ignorant view of how interrogations are conducted is belied by both experience and common sense. If coercive interrogation had been administered to obtain confessions, (Confessions? Is that what was hopefully gained from torture? Confessions? Mr. Mukasey doesn't believe in trials? I guess not. What's his name didn't. Ah. Gonzalez. He never held any of significance. Confessions. Now, that makes sense. When the Bush administration didn't have a case it would seem torture would insure confessions to what ever extent it could take place. That really makes sense.) one might understand the argument. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who organized the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, among others, and who has boasted of having beheaded Daniel Pearl, could eventually have felt pressed to provide a false confession. But confessions aren't the point. Intelligence is. Interrogation is conducted by using such obvious approaches as asking questions whose correct answers are already known and only when truthful information is provided proceeding to what may not be known. Moreover, intelligence can be verified, correlated and used to get information from other detainees, and has been; none of this information is used in isolation.
The terrorist Abu Zubaydah (sometimes derided as a low-level operative of questionable reliability, but who was in fact close to KSM and other senior al Qaeda leaders) disclosed some information voluntarily. But he was coerced into disclosing information that led to the capture of Ramzi bin al Shibh, another of the planners of Sept. 11, who in turn disclosed information which -- when combined with what was learned from Abu Zubaydah -- helped lead to the capture of KSM and other senior terrorists, and the disruption of follow-on plots aimed at both Europe and the U.S. Details of these successes, and the methods used to obtain them, were disclosed repeatedly in more than 30 congressional briefings and hearings beginning in 2002, and open to all members of the Intelligence Committees of both Houses of Congress beginning in September 2006. Any protestation of ignorance of those details, particularly by members of those committees, is pretense.
Let's try this question. Where is Osama bin Laden? Did any of the illegal torture techniques result in that? Maybe by offering 'others' far less important to the 'network' but only the planning al Qaeda continued to evade the very purpose of the retaliation into Afghanistan. We already know, where one 'terrorist' dies there are a million others waiting at the ready. So what was the question that was going to find bin Laden, Omar and the people that would actually prove the victory to the war? What was the technique that would disclose information that would end it all? Huh? Where was the torture that 'ENDED IT.' They offered up 'chosen' information to survive and was able to contain their loyalty to the fight even today. You never 'broke' anyone. They simply wanted their friends to enjoy the pleasure of distracting the USA military.
And after all, Musharraf had to give up someone ever once in awhile. What good was all the money he was getting?
The techniques themselves were used selectively against only a small number of hard-core prisoners who successfully resisted other forms of interrogation, (Successfully resisted ALL forms of interrogation, even your torture techniques. Jerks. They actually think they did something here. If that were the case, Omar wouldn't want to ride his ass (donkey) into Kandahar today.) and then only with the explicit authorization of the director of the CIA. Of the thousands of unlawful combatants captured by the U.S., fewer than 100 were detained and questioned in the CIA program. Of those, fewer than one-third were subjected to any of the techniques discussed in these opinions. As already disclosed by Director Hayden, as late as 2006, even with the growing success of other intelligence tools, fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of al Qaeda came from those interrogations.
Why doesn't that impress me? Can't imagine. Maybe its because more than seven years after September 11, 2001 American soldiers are still dying in Afghanistan in a reinvigorated Taliban militia. Maybe that's why.
Nor was there any legal reason compelling such disclosure. To be sure, the American Civil Liberties Union has sued under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain copies of these and other memoranda, but the government until now has successfully resisted such lawsuits. Even when the government disclosed that three members of al Qaeda had been subjected to waterboarding but that the technique was no longer part of the CIA interrogation program, the court sustained the government's argument that the precise details of how it was done, including limits and safeguards, could remain classified against the possibility that some future president may authorize its use. (I guess the courts ain't generals, huh?) Therefore, notwithstanding the suggestion that disclosure was somehow legally compelled, there was no legal impediment to the Justice Department making the same argument even with respect to any techniques that remained in the CIA program until last January.
There is something of the self-fulfilling prophecy in the claim that our interrogation of some unlawful combatants beyond the limits set in the Army Field Manual has disgraced us before the world. Such a claim often conflates interrogation with the sadism engaged in by some soldiers at Abu Ghraib, an incident that had nothing whatever to do with intelligence gathering. The limits of the Army Field Manual are entirely appropriate for young soldiers, for the conditions in which they operate, for the detainees they routinely question, and for the kinds of tactically relevant information they pursue. Those limits are not appropriate, however, for more experienced people in controlled circumstances with high-value detainees. Indeed, the Army Field Manual was created with awareness that there was an alternative protocol for high-value detainees. (Is that right. Somehow, I think the memos made it to Abu Ghraib as well. I think so. Something I recall about Don Rumsfeld and some memo. Could be wrong about that. But, there was some kind of understanding 'the night shift' was supposed to 'prepare' the detainees for interrogation the next day. Let's see. Nudity. Humiliation. Leading to electrocution. Something about the 'commonality' of the 'methods' seem too familiar to be 'contrived' all by themselves. I mean there were a lot of people at Abu Ghraib guarding those folks. Someone let it leak that Gitmo had the upper hand when Abu Ghraib didn't. Had to be.)
How much of the torture practiced at Gitmo was 'learned' from foreign CIA prisons?
And how much 'incentive' did the Gitmo interrogators have to 'produce' or lose the chance at promotions or otherwise?
You know all the incentive they needed was to try to protect the country, but, I want to know how much information was demanded on a regular basis especially when they had reached their limits with people like Padilla. He was not just torchured, his ability to cognate was eliminated. How much of that achievement was 'incentive' driven?
There was a lot "W"rong about that 'entire' mind set. A desperation to stop more terrorists that simply filled the 'culture' at that time. The real crime is that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9-11. Nothing. Abu Ghraib should have never happened.
In addition, there were those who believed that the U.S. deserved what it got on Sept. 11, 2001. Such people, and many who purport to speak for world opinion, (God forbid we should actually be criticized. Have adverse opinion in our pain over dead civilians. The USA can't sustain some VERBALIZATIONS? That is a sorry state of affairs. I guess we have enemies, huh? I think the Palestinians were partying, if I remember right. Surprise. And NO ONE has a right to criticize any citizen of the USA for speaking their minds either. No one.) were resourceful both before and after the Sept. 11 attacks in crafting reasons to resent America's role as a superpower. Recall also that the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the attacks on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the punctiliously correct trials of defendants in connection with those incidents, and the bombing of the USS Cole took place long before the advent of CIA interrogations, the invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, (Actually viewed as a legitmate use of the American military. Amazing.) or the many other purported grievances asserted over the past eight years.
The effect of this disclosure on the morale and effectiveness of many in the intelligence community is not hard to predict. Those charged with the responsibility of gathering potentially lifesaving information from unwilling captives are now told essentially that any legal opinion they get as to the lawfulness of their activity is only as durable as political fashion permits. (It is the culture. Neocons believe they are motivated by pure thoughts. They never can do anything "W"rong. Why? I guess even when administering torture, they have God on their side. This is so ludicrous. IF the intelligence community wraps itself around the SAME form of CIVILIZATION called The Geneva Conventions, just like everyone else does, I doubt they have anything to worry about. I guess God didn't win the last election for you guys, huh?) Even with a seemingly binding opinion in hand, which future CIA operations personnel would take the risk? There would be no wink, no nod, no handshake that would convince them that legal guidance is durable. Any president who wants to apply such techniques without such a binding and durable legal opinion had better be prepared to apply them himself.
People don't see the very real danger in this thinking? This holier than thou stuff? They put themselves above an entire international community. They put themselves above allies and turn their backs on 'established' principle and they want us to believe the words they speak? No. Do I have to relay the 'sigh of relief' the world breathed when President Obama finally took office? We don't live on this planet alone.
When we take on the characteristics of the enemy, we risk becoming the enemy to ourselves and others.
Beyond that, anyone in government who seeks an opinion from the OLC as to the propriety of any action, or who authors an opinion for the OLC, is on notice henceforth that such a request for advice, and the advice itself, is now more likely than before to be subject after the fact to public and partisan criticism. It is hard to see how that will promote candor either from those who should be encouraged to ask for advice before they act, or from those who must give it.
In his book "The Terror Presidency," Jack Goldsmith describes the phenomenon we are now experiencing, and its inevitable effect, referring to what he calls "cycles of timidity and aggression" that have weakened intelligence gathering in the past. Politicians pressure the intelligence community to push to the legal limit, and then cast accusations when aggressiveness goes out of style, thereby encouraging risk aversion, and then, as occurred in the wake of 9/11, criticizing the intelligence community for feckless timidity. He calls these cycles "a terrible problem for our national security." Indeed they are, and the precipitous release of these OLC opinions simply makes the problem worse.
Agreed. Politicians should not be involved with intelligence gathering, which raises a lot of questions. Like, what was Dick Cheney doing with young members of the intelligence community. We didn't learn from Mogadishu? Where then is 'the line' that separates politics from national security. You mean to tell me part of the argument here is that there is some kind of political agenda that will weaken intelligence? I doubt it. I believe the intelligence community is performing some very patriotic vigilance. There is a reason to believe our current administration is telling the CIA and FBI to 'stand down?' I find that incredibly hard to believe considering the level of expertise that has been maintained at the Pentagon and through any political transition.
Gen. Hayden was director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 to 2009. Mr. Mukasey was attorney general of the United States from 2007 to 2009.
"...if you cannot beat 'em, why not join 'em and try to make some extra money on the side."
Really. You mean there aren't FREE tee-shirts at the Republican Tea Parties? Hm. Tee Shirts. Taxation of another form. Business people including the Neocons at FOX really miss Bush, don't they? Yep. Make the Right Wing angry and keep their audience. Sounds right to me. Freedom costs, besides the lives of soldiers and funding the military in wars of necessity rather than merit for profit. Freedom costs real money. Freedom does not mean kicking everyone to the curb with deregulation and Republican rhetoric about profits at the cost of effective government. They couldn't come up with anything new, huh?
"...if you cannot beat 'em, why not join 'em and try to make some extra money on the side."
Sounds like the same philosophy as Halliburton, doesn't it?
The Ringleaders. Or. Maybe just Circus Masters.
I've run into some interesting information. I can't write about it yet...
...but, I am glad I started this journey.
If what I am discovering is true, we have a lot of work to do in recognizing the degree at which Earth is deteriorating. I have to finish some inquiries. But, I am even running into 'attitudes of helplessness' by scientists due to the inability to stop or slow the warming while realizing some stark realities. The 'entire' awakening for me is alarming.
Sorry, I want to be more specific, but be patient, more later. Promise.
At any rate, I found this laptop called an HP Mini. This is the result of its operation and it seems as though it uses far less power with a good battery.
I have something to say about this so called, "Tax Rebellion" by the "Right Wing Extremists" of the USA that brings justification to the 'concept' of torture.
next entry
If what I am discovering is true, we have a lot of work to do in recognizing the degree at which Earth is deteriorating. I have to finish some inquiries. But, I am even running into 'attitudes of helplessness' by scientists due to the inability to stop or slow the warming while realizing some stark realities. The 'entire' awakening for me is alarming.
Sorry, I want to be more specific, but be patient, more later. Promise.
At any rate, I found this laptop called an HP Mini. This is the result of its operation and it seems as though it uses far less power with a good battery.
I have something to say about this so called, "Tax Rebellion" by the "Right Wing Extremists" of the USA that brings justification to the 'concept' of torture.
next entry
Monday, April 13, 2009
I am taking a lenghty trip. A trip to save Earth. For the kids.
To herald the call of Human Induced Global Warming is quite another thing from actually seeking to change patterns of deterioration of our troposphere to save Earth for our children. It has been a focus of mine for a long time (click here).
I'll be traveling for about five days or so to reach a subtropical climate where a study is being discussed to start to understand how drought manifests in tropical systems, how it can be monitored and how intervention will take shape to stop the loss of any tropical carbon sinks. Tropical systems are especially sensitive to drought and react in catatrophic ways that result in desertification and profound loss of highly valued carbon sinks.
The USA is an incredible country, but, it is also greedy in its needs for energy and individual transportation. Besides demanding protections for tropical forests by their respective countries, we also have to be cognizant to new technologies that are currently valued by the USA such as ethanol and where exactly the biomass is coming from to manufacter such a product. To lose highly valued carbon sinks, such as our tropical forests, to greed merchants that seek to satisfy the American conscience by producing ethanol rather than bananas, cashews and coffee is completely reprehensible.
Americans need a change in vehicle to one that runs on electricity while appreciating the dilemma they are left with when alternative fuels become a reality to gasoline, but, cost them carbon sinks that will ultimately defeat their 'change.'
At any rate, saving tropical systems from drought and not greed merchants is my focus and to that I hope you all will understand my 'vacation' from the net and this blog.
I believe in President Obama and his cabinet. I believe we need to leave Iraq, seek answers in Afghanistan, bring bin Laden and Omar to justice for the events of September 11th. I believe the pirates of Somalia are an issue, but, can't be solved by war so much as protection from further attacks. War after all is a vehicle of al Qaeda, exampled by Iraq.
I wish all of you well, as I hope you wish for me. I will be back sooner or later and if I can I will post between now and my return. I am hoping to return to this blog about May 15th. Until then, keep the faith and check in with Michael Moore (click title to entry - thank you).
Regards.
I'll be traveling for about five days or so to reach a subtropical climate where a study is being discussed to start to understand how drought manifests in tropical systems, how it can be monitored and how intervention will take shape to stop the loss of any tropical carbon sinks. Tropical systems are especially sensitive to drought and react in catatrophic ways that result in desertification and profound loss of highly valued carbon sinks.
The USA is an incredible country, but, it is also greedy in its needs for energy and individual transportation. Besides demanding protections for tropical forests by their respective countries, we also have to be cognizant to new technologies that are currently valued by the USA such as ethanol and where exactly the biomass is coming from to manufacter such a product. To lose highly valued carbon sinks, such as our tropical forests, to greed merchants that seek to satisfy the American conscience by producing ethanol rather than bananas, cashews and coffee is completely reprehensible.
Americans need a change in vehicle to one that runs on electricity while appreciating the dilemma they are left with when alternative fuels become a reality to gasoline, but, cost them carbon sinks that will ultimately defeat their 'change.'
At any rate, saving tropical systems from drought and not greed merchants is my focus and to that I hope you all will understand my 'vacation' from the net and this blog.
I believe in President Obama and his cabinet. I believe we need to leave Iraq, seek answers in Afghanistan, bring bin Laden and Omar to justice for the events of September 11th. I believe the pirates of Somalia are an issue, but, can't be solved by war so much as protection from further attacks. War after all is a vehicle of al Qaeda, exampled by Iraq.
I wish all of you well, as I hope you wish for me. I will be back sooner or later and if I can I will post between now and my return. I am hoping to return to this blog about May 15th. Until then, keep the faith and check in with Michael Moore (click title to entry - thank you).
Regards.
The weather in Antarctica (Crystal Ice Chime) is:
April 13, 2009
3:00 PM utc
Antarctica Surface Winds show same 'onshore' pattern under the heat transfer systems noted in the two images below.
April 13, 2009
0600 gmt
Antarctica Jet Stream shows an arriving vortex from the equator noted in both satellites above and below.
April 13, 2009
1325 gmt
Antarctica Satellite - There is a frigid air mass over the center of Antarctica with heat transfer systems at noon, 3:30, 4:00, 8:00, 9:00 and 11:00; arriving to the continent from the equator.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver)
Clinton urges Antarctica enviro-guards (click title to entry - thank you)
BALTIMORE, April 6 (UPI) -- Protection of the Antarctic region against increased tourism is the goal of a proposal to the Antarctic Treaty, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
"Strengthening environmental regulation is especially as important as tourism to the Antarctica increases," Clinton said Monday during the 32nd Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Baltimore. "The United States is concerned about the safety of the tourists and the suitability of the ships that make the journey south. "
The U.S. resolution would place limits on landings from ships with large numbers of tourists, as well as
list new requirements for lifeboats "to make sure they can keep passengers alive until rescue comes," she said. "And we urge greater international cooperation to prevent discharges from these ships that will further degrade the environment around the Antarctica."
The Obama administration is committed to working with world leaders to battle climate change globally, Clinton said, noting that focus must be heightened on both the Arctic and the Antarctic regions.
"We need to increase our attention not only to the Antarctic, but to the Arctic as well," she said.
Clinton said the United States strongly supports the Antarctic Treaty and its purpose of maintaining the continent as "a place of peace and to use the science that can only be performed there to benefit the entire planet."
She said President Barack Obama sent to the U.S. Senate an accompanying document to the treaty's environmental protection protocol that deals with liability arising from environmental emergencies.
April 13, 2009
3:00 PM utc
Antarctica Temperature Map (click here for animation)
The map above is missing the 3AM, 6AM and 9 AM images.
The warmest base in Antarctica :
Base Orcadas, Antarctica
Local time :: Local Time: 4:11 PM GST (GMT -02)
Lat/Lon: 60.8° S 44.7° W
Temperature :: 45 F
Conditions :: Light Snow
Humidity :: 85%
Dew Point :: 32 F
Wind :: 25 mph from the East
Wind Gust :: -
Pressure :: 28.93 in (Rising)
Visibility :: 1.0 miles
UV :: 0 out of 16
Clouds :: Mostly Cloudy 492 ft
Overcast :: 492 ft
(Above Ground Level)
Elevation :: 20 ft
The coldest reporting station is:
Vostok is not reporting.
Amundsen-Scott, Antarctica
Local Time: 6:21 AM NZST on April 14, 2009 (GMT +12)
Lat/Lon: 90.0° S 0.0° E
Temperature :: -79 F
Conditions :: Blowing Snow
Wind :: 15 mph from the ESE
Wind Gust :: -
Pressure :: in (Falling)
Visibility :: 0.0 miles
Clouds :: Few 1476 ft
(Above Ground Level)
Elevation :: 9285 ft
Global warming greatest threat to polar bears
TROMSOE, Norway – The five countries that ring the Arctic on Thursday declared climate change the single greatest threat to polar bears, calling for urgent action to curb global warming.
Months ahead of a crucial global climate conference, the five countries -- Canada, Denmark (with Greenland), Norway, Russia and the United States -- expressed their "deep concern" at the end of a three-day meeting in the northern Norwegian town of Tromsoe.
"The parties agreed that long-term conservation of polar bears depends upon successful mitigation of climate change," they wrote in a joint statement following discussion on threats to the white bear that have emerged since they first signed a conservation agreement in 1973.
That agreement was aimed mainly at banning the hunting of polar bears, which at the time was considered the only real threat to the animal....
Months ahead of a crucial global climate conference, the five countries -- Canada, Denmark (with Greenland), Norway, Russia and the United States -- expressed their "deep concern" at the end of a three-day meeting in the northern Norwegian town of Tromsoe.
"The parties agreed that long-term conservation of polar bears depends upon successful mitigation of climate change," they wrote in a joint statement following discussion on threats to the white bear that have emerged since they first signed a conservation agreement in 1973.
That agreement was aimed mainly at banning the hunting of polar bears, which at the time was considered the only real threat to the animal....
The Abuses of Humans of Earth has gone on too long and in ways that have caused 'negative feedback loops' causing deterioration to occur even faster. There is no choice but to look beyond the ability of Earth to cope with human abuse of its troposphere and find enhancements to assist the planet in its geophysics to stop the deterioration of our biosphere. The continued abuse of emitting CO2 is out of the question.
Tinkering with climate could have unintended impact (4/13/09) (click here)
The Issue: Officials in the Obama administration are discussing so-called geoengineering to lessen the impact of global warming.
Our Opinion: Such efforts could have an impact far beyond what was intended.
There is something terribly frightening about members of the Obama administration discussing the use of so-called climate engineering to ease the threat they perceive from global warming.
Although there are many people who would argue that global warming is a fairy tale foisted upon the public by tree-hugging fanatics, there seems to be ample evidence that the average global temperatures are rising. For evidence one needs to look no further than the glaciers in a couple of the national parks in the United States: Glacier National Park in Montana and Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska. The size of those glaciers has shrunk dramatically in the last 50 years or so.
For additional evidence, look at the polar ice cap, which is shrinking with each passing year and threatens the long-term survival of the polar bear, which uses the pack ice to avoid drowning....
The weather at Glacier Bay National Park (Crystal Wind Chime) is:
I don't care what the patriarchal Interior Department has to say. We dont' need or do we want the oil. We want auto makers to make electric cars and we want wind power to dominate the energy delivery of the USA. What's so hard to understand?
Public Comments Urge Halt to Arctic Ocean Petro-Development (click title to article - thank you)
WASHINGTON, DC, March 30, 2009 (ENS) - More than 150,000 people have asked the federal government to halt plans currently underway to open 73.4 million acres of the Arctic Ocean to oil and gas leasing – the largest block of Arctic Ocean waters yet to be offered to the oil and gas industry.
In the public comment period that closed today, thousands of people from across the country asked the Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service to call for a timeout on all industrial activity in the Arctic, until a precautionary conservation and energy plan is developed.
The comments were submitted on a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for four lease sales in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, due to take place from 2010- 2012. The Bush-era draft EIS proposes to conduct the lease sales, despite the risks to the Arctic ecosystem.
"The unique and fragile Arctic Ocean is already suffering from climate change and people across the country understand the critical need to protect it from a risky rush to drill," said David Dickson, western arctic and oceans program director for the Alaska Wilderness League.
"We hope the Obama administration will suspend all new industrial activities until a sound, science-based, comprehensive plan for America's Arctic is developed that ensures no further harm," he said....
Local Time: 9:25 AM AKDT (GMT -08)
Lat/Lon: 58.8° N 137.0° W
Temperature :: 41 °F
Conditions :: Clear
Windchill :: 36 F
Humidity :: 76%
Dew Point :: 34 F
Wind :: 7 mph from the WSW
Pressure :: 30.02 in (Rising)
Visibility :: 10.0 miles
UV :: 2 of 16
Clouds :: Clear
(Above ground level)
Elevation :: 33 feet
Public Comments Urge Halt to Arctic Ocean Petro-Development (click title to article - thank you)
WASHINGTON, DC, March 30, 2009 (ENS) - More than 150,000 people have asked the federal government to halt plans currently underway to open 73.4 million acres of the Arctic Ocean to oil and gas leasing – the largest block of Arctic Ocean waters yet to be offered to the oil and gas industry.
In the public comment period that closed today, thousands of people from across the country asked the Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service to call for a timeout on all industrial activity in the Arctic, until a precautionary conservation and energy plan is developed.
The comments were submitted on a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for four lease sales in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, due to take place from 2010- 2012. The Bush-era draft EIS proposes to conduct the lease sales, despite the risks to the Arctic ecosystem.
"The unique and fragile Arctic Ocean is already suffering from climate change and people across the country understand the critical need to protect it from a risky rush to drill," said David Dickson, western arctic and oceans program director for the Alaska Wilderness League.
"We hope the Obama administration will suspend all new industrial activities until a sound, science-based, comprehensive plan for America's Arctic is developed that ensures no further harm," he said....
Local Time: 9:25 AM AKDT (GMT -08)
Lat/Lon: 58.8° N 137.0° W
Temperature :: 41 °F
Conditions :: Clear
Windchill :: 36 F
Humidity :: 76%
Dew Point :: 34 F
Wind :: 7 mph from the WSW
Pressure :: 30.02 in (Rising)
Visibility :: 10.0 miles
UV :: 2 of 16
Clouds :: Clear
(Above ground level)
Elevation :: 33 feet
Arctic Ice Is Melting (click here)
The 30-year decline is accelerating, new data show.
Saturday, April 11, 2009; Page A12
MAKE NO mistake, Arctic Sea ice is melting. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the maximum extent of the winter sea ice cover for 2008-09 was the fifth-lowest on record. Underscoring their point, the agencies added, "The six lowest maximum events since satellite monitoring began in 1979 have all occurred in the past six years (2004-09)."...
The journey is not over...
...as there are others still in the possession of the pirates. For their outcomes are vital to peace. There is one worse case scenario that has yet to be realized, in how do pirates turn a hostage ship into a floating 911 plane?
Regards and good luck.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Mission Accomplished. The Navy did a great job. We are all proud of everyone, including, Captain Phillips who never lost his perspective.
Proof of a successful rescue mission. The two Captains together. My sincerest 'thank you' to all involved and 'congratulations' to the Navy Seals, the Naval crews and to our Commander and Chief for the safe return of the Maersk Alabama, the crew and their Captain. It is amazing to witness the bravery of Americans. Makes a nation proud.
The picture and story below is from The New York Times.
U.S. Captain Held by Pirates Is Rescued (click here)
By R.M. SCHNEIDERMAN
Published: April 12, 2009
The captain of an American cargo ship held hostage by armed Somali pirates was rescued on Sunday by United States Navy personnel, who killed three his captors, government and shipping officials said.
After receiving news that their captain was free, crew members of the Maersk Alabama celebrated on deck. The ship had reached its port destination of Mombasa, Kenya.
U.S. sea captain rescued after gunfight with Somali pirates (click here)
Richard Phillips, 53, had been held for more than four days by the pirates.
“This is truly a very happy Easter for the Phillips family,” said Alison McColl, an official with the ship’s owner, Maersk Line, Limited, who has been representing Captain Phillips’ family. “They are all just so happy and relieved.”
Maersk was told at 1:30 p.m. Sunday that Captain Phillips had been rescued, the company said in a statement. “John Reinhart, President and Chief Executive Officer of Maersk Line, Limited, called Captain Phillips’ wife, Andrea, to tell her the good news,” the statement continued. “The crew of the Maersk Alabama was jubilant when they received word.”
The picture and story below is from The New York Times.
U.S. Captain Held by Pirates Is Rescued (click here)
By R.M. SCHNEIDERMAN
Published: April 12, 2009
The captain of an American cargo ship held hostage by armed Somali pirates was rescued on Sunday by United States Navy personnel, who killed three his captors, government and shipping officials said.
The pictures and story below is from The Los Angeles Times.
After receiving news that their captain was free, crew members of the Maersk Alabama celebrated on deck. The ship had reached its port destination of Mombasa, Kenya.
U.S. sea captain rescued after gunfight with Somali pirates (click here)
Richard Phillips, 53, had been held for more than four days by the pirates.
“This is truly a very happy Easter for the Phillips family,” said Alison McColl, an official with the ship’s owner, Maersk Line, Limited, who has been representing Captain Phillips’ family. “They are all just so happy and relieved.”
Maersk was told at 1:30 p.m. Sunday that Captain Phillips had been rescued, the company said in a statement. “John Reinhart, President and Chief Executive Officer of Maersk Line, Limited, called Captain Phillips’ wife, Andrea, to tell her the good news,” the statement continued. “The crew of the Maersk Alabama was jubilant when they received word.”
They are all brave men, from the crew of the Maersk Alabama, to the Captains and crews of our Navy Ships, to the Seals and to the President. They are all men to be proud of. They did great.
39 min 44 sec ago
Navy: Rescue under Obama’s authority; only seconds to decide (click here)
(NECN: Washington, D.C.) - The rescue of Captain Richard Phillips was under the direct authority of President Barack Obama, U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Bill Gortney told reporters over the phone on Sunday.
"Authorities came directly from the president," Vice Adm. Gortney said. "The number one authority for incidents if we were going to respond was if the captain's life was in immediate danger, and that is the situation in which our sailors acted."...
The question is 'out there,' 'Are we making too much of the Somali Pirates?" My opinion, "No." I'll explain.
Mombasa, Kenya, Africa (harbor security - click here) Noted that Somalia 'holds' a great length of Africa's coastline. It is a strategic location. Directly west of Madagascar.
Mobasa Harbor is noted with this map (click to enlarge - thank you).
The footage of a returning crew member to the Kenyan port is rather graphic in its verbiage, however, I believe the crew may be misinterpreting the actions of the media. To some extent, the returning crew may be feeling shame for living through it when there Captain is still in peril. They don't stop to realize this isn't a media circus so much as media exposure of a serious set of circumstances with a dynamic that brings pressure to the kidnappers of the Captain.
To begin there is still a life 'at risk.' There are actually many lives at risk, including the pirates and their other hijacked ships and the crews. But, for the most part, the life that is most at risk is Captain Phillips and for that reason, the media and the people they serve have a vested interest.
Making too much of the Somali pirates? No, simply because the 'idea' of invasion into Somalia to stop the pirates completely and forever isn't even a viable strategy at this point. There are too many innocent people at risk for an operation like that and I doubt sincerely if the USA Navy is even considering such an agenda, although, they most certainly have a strategy that might include that scenario if the opportunity either allows it OR DICTATES it.
The focus on the pirates of Somalia and the international waters they operate in, is an important one. It focuses on the 'rights' of civilization to secure their transports WITHOUT being militarized. The real question is NOT "Are we making too much of the Somali Pirates?," but "Are we NOT making enough of the security of our ocean going transports?"
...Somalia's 2,300 kilometer long coast (click title to entry - thank you) is the longest in Africa and its waters are rife with pirates. Last year, they seized more than 100 ships. This year, pirates have already captured more than dozen vessels, including an Italian-flagged boat and its crew of 16 that were captured Saturday in the Gulf of Aden.
The United Nations Security Council has authorized nations to pursue the pirates beyond international waters "by land, sea and air" including onto Somali territory if necessary. But there has been no decision on what to do with the pirates once they are in custody....
To illustrate the 'vigilance' to safety of all involved, the USA sailors when fired 'upon' moved to safe distance and did NOT 'return fire.' Although. They had every right to do so. It was a valient and brilliant stance the USA Navy took in this regard, because, it showed the pirates were truly interested in 'a war' and not simply 'hijacking.' They wanted to invite war without regard to the people of Somalia. They proved once again they have little to no regard for human life except for it's fiscal value to their economy.
The statement above by the United Nations is a strategically important one. It provides 'safety' to allow 'benevolent transport ships' to protect themselves from the Somali pirates no matter what it takes to do so. There are lives in the balance and without such consent any 'move against' the pirates, their bases and their mother ships could be construed by some countries as unwarranted aggression rather than self defense.
The footage of a returning crew member to the Kenyan port is rather graphic in its verbiage, however, I believe the crew may be misinterpreting the actions of the media. To some extent, the returning crew may be feeling shame for living through it when there Captain is still in peril. They don't stop to realize this isn't a media circus so much as media exposure of a serious set of circumstances with a dynamic that brings pressure to the kidnappers of the Captain.
To begin there is still a life 'at risk.' There are actually many lives at risk, including the pirates and their other hijacked ships and the crews. But, for the most part, the life that is most at risk is Captain Phillips and for that reason, the media and the people they serve have a vested interest.
Making too much of the Somali pirates? No, simply because the 'idea' of invasion into Somalia to stop the pirates completely and forever isn't even a viable strategy at this point. There are too many innocent people at risk for an operation like that and I doubt sincerely if the USA Navy is even considering such an agenda, although, they most certainly have a strategy that might include that scenario if the opportunity either allows it OR DICTATES it.
The focus on the pirates of Somalia and the international waters they operate in, is an important one. It focuses on the 'rights' of civilization to secure their transports WITHOUT being militarized. The real question is NOT "Are we making too much of the Somali Pirates?," but "Are we NOT making enough of the security of our ocean going transports?"
...Somalia's 2,300 kilometer long coast (click title to entry - thank you) is the longest in Africa and its waters are rife with pirates. Last year, they seized more than 100 ships. This year, pirates have already captured more than dozen vessels, including an Italian-flagged boat and its crew of 16 that were captured Saturday in the Gulf of Aden.
The United Nations Security Council has authorized nations to pursue the pirates beyond international waters "by land, sea and air" including onto Somali territory if necessary. But there has been no decision on what to do with the pirates once they are in custody....
To illustrate the 'vigilance' to safety of all involved, the USA sailors when fired 'upon' moved to safe distance and did NOT 'return fire.' Although. They had every right to do so. It was a valient and brilliant stance the USA Navy took in this regard, because, it showed the pirates were truly interested in 'a war' and not simply 'hijacking.' They wanted to invite war without regard to the people of Somalia. They proved once again they have little to no regard for human life except for it's fiscal value to their economy.
The statement above by the United Nations is a strategically important one. It provides 'safety' to allow 'benevolent transport ships' to protect themselves from the Somali pirates no matter what it takes to do so. There are lives in the balance and without such consent any 'move against' the pirates, their bases and their mother ships could be construed by some countries as unwarranted aggression rather than self defense.
The reasoning could become completely bizarre, including ideas as far ranging as 'we recognize' this is how a 'warrior' society in Somalia addresses their economy. They do not kill people so long as their fiscal needs are met and ransom money is simply a part of doing business in this part of the world. An 'ideation' like that would raise questions to even the World Courts to attempt to intimidate civilization as to a 'lost culture' in Somalia and opening the door to questionable genocide if an invasion took place costing the Somalies children and women.
So, I find the statement by the United Nations refreshing and definitive. Already, the 'focus' by the media and the 'actions' of the USA Navy have paid off to the international shipping community.
Sometimes victories are won when not shedding one corpusle of blood, but, in the rooms of power and recognition of 'human rights.' This shipment on The Maersk Alabama was most egregeious to stop since it was food aid to countries within Africa. A delay could cost millions of people, including women and children, their lives and hence providing reason to believe the Somali pirates are indeed a grave danger to people and capable of mass genocide by starvation.
Let's take this one step further. What indeed 'defines' when a naval vessel of any country can 'fire upon' another vessel regardless of its cargo? There are methodologies to war that would include cutting off supplies, etc. So, then, what indeed defines these parameters?
One very logical and overt answer is, "A ship can be 'fired upon' if it is armed." NOW, with the permission of agencies/institutions such as the United Nations Security Council stating ocean going vessels can have 'prophylactic' volumes of arms to protect themselves and cargo OR hire such escorts is a huge jump to stopping this insane mess with the Somalian coastline. It doesn't matter, in this case, if indeed the Somalian people have this 'inane' definition of culture, we as civilized people can now define OUR RIGHT to protect our goods, ships, people and 'rights of way' in international waters.
In my opinion, the incident that still keeps Captain Phillips as a hostage has resulted in huge international steps to free merchant ships from such horrible circumstances and begins to set parameters to tolerance of aggression by people that see harming civilization as an option.
Eminent Domain is becoming a vehicle to protect economies.
...The state Senate passed a bill (click title to entry - thank you) from Gov. Martin O'Malley 32-14 yesterday to purchase or exercise eminent domain to acquire the Maryland assets of Magna, which declared bankruptcy in March. Those properties include Laurel Park in west county, the Bowie Race Course Training Center, Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore and all rights and events associated with the Preakness Stakes....
Another Illegal Immigrant? A Portugese what? Water Dog and evidently the breed registry takes its name seriously.
The Washington Post scooped everyone with its article in the early morning hours. The Kennedy Family is presenting the Obama family with a house warming gift.
So, like ah, who told you Manuel? Easter Bunny?
The First Puppy Makes a Big Splash (click title of entry - thank you)
Bo, the Portuguese Water Dog, Is All Over the Web Before His Official Debut
By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 12, 2009; Page A01
Who let the dog out?
That's the Washington mystery du jour
...The little guy is a 6-month-old Portuguese water dog given to the Obama girls as a gift by that Portuguese water dog-lovin' senator himself, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. The girls named it Bo -- and let it be noted that you learned that here first. Malia and Sasha chose the name, because their cousins have a cat named Bo and because first lady Michelle Obama's father was nicknamed Diddley, a source said. (Get it? Bo . . . Diddley?)...
Am/Intl CH Floodtide's Meet Me At Dockside CD AX AXJ RE CWD GROM CGC "Docker" (click here)
The breed association notable members (click here)
-Is medium-sized, strong and durable, athletic and agile
-Has a curly or wavy coat
-Sheds less than many other breeds, because shed hairs are trapped in the tousled coat
-Thrives on vigorous exercise and athletic activities.
-Makes a fine watchdog, but is too polite to be a guardian
-Is usually fine with other pets
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