PufPuf23
PufPuf23's JournalRussia seeks naval bases in Cuba, Vietnam
I am surprised that this is not bigger news.
Russia seeks naval bases in Cuba, Vietnam
Russia is in talks to set up naval bases in former Cold War allies Cuba and Vietnam as President Vladimir Putin undertakes the country's biggest military overhaul since the Soviet era.
"We are working on establishing navy bases outside Russia," Vice-Admiral Viktor Chirkov said in an interview with the state-run RIA Novosti news service and confirmed by the navy. "We aim to set up resupply bases in Cuba, the Seychelles and Vietnam."
Russian plans for overseas military expansion threatens to further strain relations with the United States at a time when the former superpower rivals are at loggerheads over American missile-shield plans and fighting in Syria. Putin's government plans to spend $712 billion this decade on defense spending.
Russia risks losing its only military base outside the former Soviet Union, a naval resupply facility in the Syrian port of Tartus, as President Bashar Assad fights for survival in the face of a 17-month uprising.
more at: http://www.sfgate.com/world/article/Russia-seeks-naval-bases-in-Cuba-Vietnam-3742218.php#photo-3248734
The Obama Diary
Wish I had found this link before regards to keeping abreast of POTUS Obama.
The Obama Diary - Photos, Videos, and a word or two.
There is a day to day account and more pictures than one could ever want of POTUS and his family and activities.
http://theobamadiary.com/
Fantastic picture. Like your narratives over the last several years.
I was USFS 1969-1986 and have done consulting work in your area.
My experience in the USFS and corporate consulting grew my cynicism and despair.
There are far less USFS Lookouts than in the 1970s and aeriel technology has not kept up.
There is less local (USFS RD or Guard Stations with Engine Crews) and KV/BD crews that were also regional smokejumpers or hot shot crews as needed now than in the 1970s.
There are larger and less controlled wildfires because of negligence compared with prior to 1980 or so. One could even conclude that wildfires were allowed to grow to justify abusive timber salvage and removal of Federal lands within National Forests from Wilderness consideration. Many tracts of land have been treated post "wildfire" to preclude any economic use as timberlands and also greatly decreased the carbon storage potential within the soil and subsequent forest / vegetation for generations.
The fire suppression $$ could be more than replaced by net management $$ if silviculturists, engineers, and economists were not trumped by politics and short term cash flow.
The same is true for Tribal, BLM, and corporate forest lands with rare exceptions. Too many professionals do not even see much less comprehend their own institutional propoganda, the public is clueless for lack of understanding of scale and practice. The politics and PR trump reality.
Is "fuck 'em" mood regards to the USFS?
I was USFS from 1969 to 1986; a 460 series GS-11 Forester age 28 and resigned age 32 under Reagan.
Now live on my great great uncle and then great grandfather and then father's National Forest inholding as a senior citizen.
My adolescent rebellion was to go to work for the "Piss Fir Willies" rather than work for Dad in quarry or building road age 16 under YOC.
Graduated highest honors from a world class university and forestry program (UC Berkeley) and was a GS-11 professional age 28 that resigned age 32 under the federal corruption that was Reagan.
I would say "fuck 'em" all; the USFS, professional environmentalists (not professional scientists), and Federal. state, local, and Tribal politicians.
Broke my heart.
Siriusly (sic), I have scant respect for my (former?, as I no longer practice and years distant but still knowledgeable but am licensed and able but not active) profession.
I recall when KSR's Mars books were first issued.
I had quit new science fiction by then but also knew of KSR's PKD thesis as I was on academic/collector email lists for PKD circa 1992-1994.
However regards Mars and American fiction:
1. Bradbury's Martian Chronicles was one of the most influential books I read in grade school (during the time of Sputnik and Apollo).
2. John Carter Martian's novels are my favorite ERB and were read contemporay to Martian Chronicles.
3. The first PKD novel read belonged to my 67-68 boarding school roomate via scifi bookclub, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Later The Martian Time Slip blew my perceptions and led to other source material.
But quit new scifi about the time of the emergence of William Gibson.
Knew of the KSR - PKD connection and pawed the Mars books in retail outlets and chose not to buy nor read KSR. My awareness of the KSR Mar's books occurred because of the loose PKD - KSR connection.
Seems KSR was a Orange county homeboy and PKD lived his final and most secure years in Orange county (but most of life in northern California).
I have no idea of the KSR Mars books contents, assumed space opera.
Now have read the California Trilogy - I'm a native Californian. KSR uses much California ecology as frame and filler and he makes technical mistakes but to me the framing is a plus (as a Californian).
Psyching out KSR in the California Trilogy, I would ponder KSR had distant parents, an influential but sphinx grandfather, poor relations with women (often used or heartbroken, the second choice or fool), and used his high school and university friends as character models. KSR also used some PKD techniques in his writing.
Liked the California books as easy, comfortable, and familiar entertainment (and after getting 400 pages into Years of Rice and Salt and liking) work of an immature but talented novelist that that improved.
Think I will scan Leary, Alpert, and Metzger's The Psychedelic Experience (a sort of Cliff Notes version) rather the the Tibetan Book of the Dead English translation itself about the bardos et al after reading Years of Rice and Salt.
Mountain Song Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra 1971
Paul Kantner Jerry Garcia Grace Slick et al.
UFO On The Beltway? Aircraft On A Truck Sparks Curiosity - Real Drone article.
WASHINGTON -- Don't worry, the strange object seen just outside the nation's capital Wednesday night wasn't a UFO. It was a drone.
A strangely-shaped saucer-like aircraft was seen in D.C.'s Maryland suburbs around 11 p.m., causing traffic backups and speculation about government coverups. Photos, like like this one widely circulated on Twitter, show the mysterious object being driven along the Capitol Beltway near College Park on the back of a truck.
Officials identified the flying machine to WTOP:
Maryland State Police at the McHenry Barrack have confirmed the aircraft seen on the Beltway was a military airplane being moved from West Virginia to Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Southern Maryland.
The plane is 82 feet long, 32 feet wide and 14 feet high. The X-46B is the same type of military vehicle that crashed earlier this week near Salisbury, Md.
Article with picture at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/14/ufo-beltway-drone_n_1596165.html?utm_hp_ref=dc&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D169971
The HuffPo may have totally lost edgy and is just weird. So is life.
Here is article at Public Citizen and link to document PDF
June 13, 2012
Controversial Trade Pact Text Leaked, Shows U.S. Trade Officials Have Agreed to Terms That Undermine Obama Domestic Agenda
http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2012/06/controversial-trade-pact-text-leaked-shows-us-trade-officials-have-agreed-to-terms-that-undermine-ob.html
PUBLIC CITIZEN PRESS RELEASE
After Two Years of Closed-Door Negotiations, Trans-Pacific Partnership Text Replicates Alarming Bush Trade Pact Terms That Obama Opposed as Candidate, and Worse
WASHINGTON, D.C.– A leak today of one of the most controversial chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) reveals that extreme provisions have been agreed to by U.S. officials, providing a stark warning about the dangers of “trade” negotiations occurring under conditions of extreme secrecy without press, public or policymaker oversight, Public Citizen said.
“The outrageous stuff in this leaked text may well be why U.S. trade officials have been so extremely secretive about these past two years of TPP negotiations,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “Via closed-door negotiations, U.S. officials are rewriting swaths of U.S. law that have nothing to do with trade and in a move that will infuriate left and right alike have agreed to submit the U.S. government to the jurisdiction of foreign tribunals that can order unlimited payments of our tax dollars to foreign corporations that don’t want to comply with the same laws our domestic firms do.”
Although the TPP has been branded a “trade” agreement, the leaked text of the pact’s Investment Chapter shows that the TPP would:
•limit how U.S. federal and state officials could regulate foreign firms operating within U.S. boundaries, with requirements to provide them greater rights than domestic firms;
•extend the incentives for U.S. firms to offshore investment and jobs to lower-wage countries;
•establish a two-track legal system that gives foreign firms new rights to skirt U.S. courts and laws, directly sue the U.S. government before foreign tribunals and demand compensation for financial, health, environmental, land use and other laws they claim undermine their TPP privileges; and
•allow foreign firms to demand compensation for the costs of complying with U.S. financial or environmental regulations that apply equally to domestic and foreign firms.
The document in PDF:
http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/tppinvestment.pdf
Suggestions to Owners about Alerts and Jury Statistics
Alert statistics have not yet been programmed but have always been "coming soon" at DU3.
Jury statistics do not include a category statistic for % of times that a juror has been on the prevailing side of a jury.
These statistics may be informative or rational reason for various exclusion or ignore options (including free will regardless of written standards).
For my transparency, I do not alert nor ignore but serve on juries (although for a time my setting was unwilling and also have opted out of jury duty in the process).
I read much more than post at DU but 2012 is my 40th year as a registered and voting Democratic Party member.
Mitt Romney is unfit to be POTUS.
The fact that Mitt Romney is a presumed candidate for POTUS is chilling.
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