Monday, June 29

Maritime Monday 168 Posted at gCaptain

This week's edition of Maritime Monday has been posted at gCaptain.


You can find last week’s edition here.

You can find Maritime Monday 118 here. (Published 7 July 2008).

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The MV Baltimore arrived in the port of Nampo, North Korea, on Sunday, carrying 37,000 tons of bulk US wheat as part of a major expansion of international aid. (Associated Press/WFP/Lena Savelli) - The Boston Globe

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Saturday, June 27

Explanation: 'Universal' Health Care First - Then Mass Amnesty

Quick thought - The Democrats are real quick to point out that their proposed health care Legislation does not include covering illegal aliens. How nice of them.

What they are not telling you is that once they have stuck us all with more expensive 'free' health care, they are going to grant all of the illegal aliens not only legal status, but also citizenship. And with Citizenship, they will surely get free health care.

Just watch.
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Monday, June 22

Maritime Monday 167 Posted at gCaptain

This week's edition of Maritime Monday has been posted at gCaptain.


You can find last week’s edition here.

You can find Maritime Monday 117 here. (Published 30 June 2008).

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Thursday, June 18

White House Clarifies - "North Korea not an imminent threat to the US"

Just a couple weeks ago, the Administration was busy downplaying the threat of North Korea: (As covered in my post: Total BS: "North Korea not an imminent threat to the US")
President Obama’s national security adviser on Wednesday said that North Korea’s recent nuclear detonation and subsequent missile tests are not “an imminent threat” to the safety and security of the United States.

Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, in his first speech on the administration’s approach to national security, said that the “imminent threat” posed by North Korea is that of the proliferation of nuclear technologies to other countries and terrorist organizations.

North Korea still has “a long way” to “weaponize” and work on the delivery of its nuclear missiles before they pose a threat to U.S. security, Jones said in a discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council.

“Nothing that the North Koreans did surprised us,” Jones said. “We knew that they were going to do this, they said so, so no reason not to believe them.” - Hot Air
So I wonder, since when does something that is not an 'imminent threat' require defense against a threat they say does not exist:
Gates, speaking at the same news conference, said the Pentagon is concerned about the possibility of a North Korean missile launch "in the direction of Hawaii."

Gates told reporters at the Pentagon he has sent the military's ground-based mobile missile system to Hawaii, and positioned a radar system nearby. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles in their last stage of flight.

"We are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect Americans and American territory," Gates said.

A Japanese newspaper reported Thursday that North Korea might fire its most advanced ballistic missile toward Hawaii around the Fourth of July holiday. - Knoxnews
So is the planned North Korean missile launch pointed at Hawaii not a threat because they are pretty sure they can shoot it down or because they are pretty sure that the missile, even if it does strike Hawaii, will not contain a warhead, nuclear or otherwise? Then again, I bet the White House discussion a couple of weeks ago that decided that North Korea was not an imminent threat did not discuss the possibility of Hawaii being threatened. (Other than some analyst who was quickly dismissed from the meeting and who is now thinking 'I told you so' out loud.)

As for the threat that was recognized 'the proliferation of nuclear technologies to other countries and terrorist organizations' seems that the North Koreas have wasted no time in testing that theory as well.
The U.S. military is tracking a flagged North Korean ship suspected of proliferating weapons material in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution passed last Friday, FOX News has learned.

The ship, Kang Nam, left a port in North Korea Wednesday and appears to be heading toward Singapore, according to a senior U.S. military source. The vessel, which the military has been tracking since its departure, could be carrying weaponry, missile parts or nuclear materials.

"It is believed to be 'of interest,'" a senior U.S. official told FOX News.

This is the first suspected "proliferator" that the U.S. and its allies have tracked from North Korea since the United Nations authorized the world's navies to enforce compliance with a variety of U.N. sanctions aimed at punishing North Korea for its recent nuclear test. - Fox News
Just imagine that this is what we know that they are up to. What are they doing that we are not aware of yet...
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Russia Seeks to Outlaw Inconvenient Truth About Their Criminal Past

One of the greatest feats of World War Two was how the Soviet Union managed to escape accountability for their actions in helping Hitler take half of Europe. (Not to mention the fact that at the end fo the War they did take half of Europe!)

One of the greatest feats during the breakup of the Soviet Union is how the Russian Government never had to face up to their country's complicity in Helping Hitler and managed to keep the truth from the Russian people.

Now, as information becomes more free and as Russia's neighbors push back with inconvenient facts, Russia is planning to outlaw questioning The Soviet Union's victory over the Nazis in WWII:
And in the lead-up to the country's annual Victory Day celebrations, the Kremlin has made a move that it touts as yet another display of Russia's patriotism and pride: the government has announced that it is considering passing a law to criminalize statements and acts that deny the Soviets won World War II, or claim it used poor tactics in battle or did not liberate Eastern Europe. - Time
and:
Valery Ryazansky, a United Russia Duma MP and a chief supporter of the bill, said on Thursday he hoped the law would appear before the Duma before June 22 — Russia's Day of Remembrance and Mourning. "Those who attempt to interpret the outcome of World War II, to turn everything upside down, to represent those who liberated countries from the Nazi invaders as subjugators" will be punished, he said.

Violators of the new addition to the criminal code would face a fine of up to around $9,200 or up to three years in prison. If the perpetrator is a government official and uses his status to break the law, the fine is increased to more than $15,300, a five-year term in prison and the deprivation of the right to occupy certain government positions, said Ryazansky. - Time
Yes, it might get pretty damn uncomfortable if the Russian Government would have to explain the following: (This is by no means a complete list of collusion between the Soviets and Nazis)
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Stalin's Intervention to ensure Hitler's Election in Germany:
During the critical 1932 German elections, he forbid the German Communists from collaborating with the Social Democrats. These parties together gained more votes than Hitler and could have prevented him from becoming Chancellor. - Wikipedia
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Removal of Jews from the Diplomatic Corps:
Stalin purged his diplomatic apparatus of Jews in preparation for signing his “non-aggression” pact with Hitler. - National Review
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Alliance with Hitler / Nazi Germany
The Soviet Union had Hitler's back at the start of World War II by agreeing to split Europe amongst themselves drawing a line right through Poland. (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) It is common knowledge that Nazi Germany attacked Poland (on 1 September 1939) but not so common knowledge that the Soviet Union attacked Poland from the East. (On 17 September 1939)
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Support of Nazi Germany
From the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August, 1939 through almost the end of the first half of 1941, Stalin and the USSR fed and equipped Hitler and Germany as Germany invaded Western Europe and then attacked Great Britain by air. - Wikipedia
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Partially Responsible for World War II
According to the Historian Richard Pipes, the Communist states share some responsibility for World War II. Both Hitler and Mussolini used the Soviet Union as a model for their own totalitarian states and Hitler privately expressed that Stalin was a "genius". In turn, Stalin expressed desire for another great war that would leave his enemies weakened and allow Soviet expansion. He allowed the testing and production of German weapons that were forbidden by the Versailles Treaty to occur on Soviet territory. - Wikipedia
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Soviet-Finnish Winter War
The Soviet Union attacked Finland to take land that the Finns declined to cede to the Soviets voluntarily.
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Soviet Union escorted a Nazi raider disguised as neutral merchant ships to the Pacific so that they could avoid attack by the British:
Breakout into the Pacific - Under the command of Kapitän zur See (later Konteradmiral) Robert Eyssen, HSK7 (German auxiliary cruiser KOMET) departed for her first raiding voyage from Gotenhafen on 3 July 1940. With the consent of the then neutral Soviet Union and with assistance from Soviet Icebreaker Joseph Stalin, KOMET, disguised as the Soviet steamer Dezhnev, passed through the Arctic Ocean north of Russia and entered the Pacific Ocean. - Wiki
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Murmansk Shipyards converted a German ship into an Auxiliary Cruiser
The German motor vessel ILLER was converted into an auxiliary cruiser in the Murmansk shipyards - The Deadly Embrace
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Murmansk was used by the Nazis as a safe haven for their ships at the outbreak of WWII including the:
  • German Liner BREMEN
  • German Liner ST. LOUIS
  • US cargo ship CITY OF FLINT which was taken by the German Battleship DEUTSCHLAND as a prize. The ship and German crew should have been interned by the Soviets but were not.
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Soviets provided a Navy base for Nazi Use:
The Soviets also provided Germany with a U-boat base at Basis Nord (Russia) for refueling, maintenance location and a takeoff point for raids and attacks on shipping. In addition, the Soviets provided Germany with access to the Northern Sea Route for both cargo ships and raiders (though only the raider Komet used the route before June of 1941), which forced Britain to protect sea lanes in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. - Wikipedia
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Circumvented Sanctions against Nazi Germany:
The Soviet Union also bought and shipped other materials to Germany, such as rubber from India. - Wikipedia
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Oddly enough, the Soviet Union's assistance to Nazi Germany provided Germany with the raw materials needed to attack the Soviet Union:
Despite fears causing the Soviet Union to enter deals with Germany in 1939, that Germany came so close to destroying the Soviet Union was due, in large part, to Soviet actions taken from 1939 to 1941. Without Soviet imports, German stocks would have run out in several key products by October of 1941, only three and a half months into the invasion. Germany would have already run through their stocks of rubber and grain before the first day of the invasion were it not for Soviet imports.

Without Soviet deliveries of these four major items ( Oil Products, Rubber, Manganese, Grain ), Germany could barely have attacked the Soviet Union, let alone come close to victory, even with more intense rationing. - Wikipedia
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Stalin attempted to join Hitler's Axis Alliance between Germany and Italy and Japan:
In October and November 1940, German–Soviet Axis talks occurred concerning the Soviet Union's potential entry as a fourth Axis Power. The negotiations included a two day Berlin conference between Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, Adolf Hitler and German Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentrop, followed by both countries trading written proposed agreements. Germany never responded to a November 25, 1940, Soviet proposal leaving the negotiations unresolved. Germany broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in June 1941 by invading the Soviet Union. - Wikipedia
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As for being allied against Hitler for the second-half of WWII, they were not exactly the best allie for the US either:
How Russians copied captured B-29

By 1946, Tupolev had produced the Tu-4, a fully working version of the B-29, plugging a gap in Stalin's arsenal. Mr Hardesty said: "The British and the Americans were flabbergasted when Stalin rolled this out at an air show in the West in 1947 and they hurried to find out how it had been produced."

MI6 and the American CIA obtained information about the three missing B-29s, but full details of how the Russians had copied the Superfortress were not known until Mr Hardesty published an article on the subject this week after being shown top secret Kremlin documents by Russian historians.

The dismantled B-29 and two others made emergency landings near Vladivostok after attacking Japanese targets in Manchuria exactly 12 months before another B-29, the Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Unable or unwilling to fly back to their bases on the Chinese mainland, the crews chose to land in the Soviet Union, reasoning that Stalin was an ally.

"This was a bad choice, because they were imprisoned for up to 12 months near Tashkent." The pillaging of the B-29s had immense significance after the war when, with the help of atom spies such as Klaus Fuchs, the Russians stole enough British and American nuclear secrets to build their own atomic bomb.

"Having the Tu-4 meant he had some way of delivering it to America. Suddenly he had a strategic bombing force and was going to be able to stand up to America in the Cold War." - Telegraph, UK
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The only reason Russia is getting away with white-washing over it's criminal behavior during WWII is because the other countries of the world have declined to press them about it. And yet Bush is still one of the greatest monsters of all times, all the while Putin plays old Soviet games such as turning off the pipelines to Western europe and chipping away bits off Georgia.

It is not fair to simply declare this ancient history either. Look at the international incident Russia forced when Estonia decided to move a Soviet statue from the center of their capital. The Russians claimed that the Soviet Union 'liberated' Estonia from the Nazis. Yes, it is true that the Nazis had control of Estonia when the Red Army arrived. What the Russians refuse to say is that the Nazis took Estonia from the Soviets who had invaded first.

Modern Russia will not alter it's aggressive ways until there is a full accounting of Soviet crimes.
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Link:
"Falsifiers of History" Targeted by the Kremlin - Jamestown Foundation

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Tuesday, June 16

Things I can do, Thanks to Democrats

With the opening of a position on the Supreme Court, it might be a good time to acknowledge all the 'rights' we Americans enjoy, thanks to Liberal Americans like our President. Here are a couple points I thought of in just a couple minutes.
  • I can marry another man
  • I can use abortion as a form of birth control
  • My underage daughter can get an abortion or 'day after pill' without bothering me for permission
  • I can be proud that my Government is funding the abortions of children around the globe
  • I can commit murder with an almost zero chance of facing the death penalty
  • I can go vote without having to prove who I am
  • I can go vote after I'm already dead
  • I can show up at a polling place during a presidential election with a nightstick and threaten people without fear of prosecution. (Applies to Black America only)
  • I can vote while in jail
  • I can forget about paying my mortgage
  • I can cheat on my taxes (Applies to Democrat-Americans only)
  • I can avoid responsibility for my irresponsible actions
  • In some states, I can do drugs with little fear of retribution
  • I can have friends from overseas come and visit and work with the knowledge that if they are arrested for being here legally, instead of being punished, they just might get authorization to work legally
  • I can pay for someone else's healthcare because they never bothered to get an education for themselves.
  • I can always blame someone else for my problems as nothing is ever my fault. I am the victim.
What did I miss?
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Monday, June 15

Maritime Monday 166 Posted at gCaptain

This week's edition of Maritime Monday has been posted at gCaptain.


You can find last week’s edition here.

You can find Maritime Monday 116 here. (Published 23 June 2008).

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As linked below or click on the label ‘MaritimeMonday’:
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Thursday, June 11

JungFrauJoch Mountain, Switzerland (Photos)

Last November during a trip to Zurich, Switzerland, I took a train trip to the 'Top of Europe'. The destination was Jungfraujoch. which is the location of the highest railway station in Europe. Here are a couple photos from the trip:


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- The Sphinx Observatory on Jungfraujoch -


- Glacier -


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- The Sea of Ice -


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- 'Emergency' exit -


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- View from the top -


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- Feathered friend -


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- Into the Glacier -


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- Watch that step! -


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- A High Altitude Lunch -


- Eiger -

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