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unhappycamper

unhappycamper's Journal
unhappycamper's Journal
December 12, 2013

PASTAFARIANS UNITE!: Wouldn't it be nice to see a FSM display on the Oklahoma statehouse grounds?

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/11/hindus-join-satanists-demanding-equal-placement-on-oklahoma-capitol-grounds/



Hindus join Satanists demanding equal placement on Oklahoma capitol grounds
By Travis Gettys
Wednesday, December 11, 2013 9:36 EST

Members of the world’s oldest faith would like to join a display of religious symbols at Oklahoma’s state capitol, joining a Judeo-Christian tablet and a proposed Satanist monument.

The Universal Society of Hinduism plans to submit an application to the Oklahoma State Capitol Preservation Commission for permission to place a statue of Lord Hanuman on the statehouse grounds.

“If the Oklahoma State Capitol was open to different monuments, we would love to have a statue of Lord Hanuman, who was greatly revered and worshipped and known for incredible strength and was (a) perfect grammarian,” said Rajan Zed, president of Universal Society of Hinduism.

State Rep. Mike Ritze (R-Broken Arrow) contributed $10,000 and raised an additional $10,000 in private funds to erect a 7-foot monument to the Ten Commandments last month on the statehouse grounds.


:lol:
December 11, 2013

Waiting For The F-35: Navy Cagey, Boeing Cocky, Over F-18's Future

http://breakingdefense.com/2013/12/navy-cagey-boeing-cocky-over-f-18s-future/



Navy Captain Francis Morley (left), program manager for the F-18 family of jets, and his boss Rear Adm. Donald Gaddis (right) at today’s ceremony celebrating the 35th anniversary of the first Hornet.

Navy Cagey, Boeing Cocky, Over F-18?s Future
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
on December 09, 2013 at 5:56 PM

PATUXENT RIVER NAVAL AIR STATION: “My job is to preserve options and that’s what I do,” said Capt. Francis Morley, Navy program manager for the F-18 fighter family. Will the Navy press ahead to buy more F-18s in the face of what seems pretty determined opposition from the Office of Secretary of Defense, eager to preserve F-35 funding? “I’ll let the folks in the building figure out what numbers they want,” Morley said.

In October, the Navy issued and then withdrew a pre-solicitation for “up to 36” F/A-18E/Fs and EA-18 Growlers to be bought in fiscal year 2015, when current long-term plans call for zero. “That was an error — my responsibility,” Morley said. “It got everybody excited, [but] it was no indication of what the intent was for FY ’15. That was purely the program maintaining options.”

In fact, Morley said, withdrawing the pre-solicitation was a formality that didn’t actually take any options off the table: “The decision space is still here.”

~snip~

“We spend too much time on this F-18 vs. JSF (question),” added Morley’s boss, Rear Adm. Donald Gaddis, who oversees all Navy fighter programs. No matter what happens with the Hornets, the Navy F-35C won’t enter service until 2019 and will take years to enter the fleet in numbers. “Until JSF does arrive in the fleet,” Gaddis said, “the Super Hornet is Navy aviation. That’ s our striking power, it’s the mainstay of our force structure, and there’s nothing else out there.”
December 11, 2013

‘Last Bill That Works:’ End Of An Era For National Defense Authorization Act?

http://breakingdefense.com/2013/12/last-bill-that-works-end-of-an-era-for-national-defense-authorization-act/



Bill Greenwalt played a major role in crafting the defense policy bill — the National Defense Authorization Act — each year for almost a decade, helping to squire the bill through the personalities and politics of the ever-fractious Senate. Now the muzzle is off — he’s a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute – and Bill can offer us the hard-earned wisdom he garnered on the Hill, in the Pentagon and in industry. With the current sad estate of affairs on Capitol Hill — mindless partisanship, sequestration deadlock, poll rankings in the single digits, rudderless leaders — Bill looks at perhaps the last single bill Congress can usually pass on a bipartisan basis, the NDAA. Is the process that made the bill a model — for the US Congress — of reason, commitment and patriotism now dead? Read on, MacDuff (apologies to The Bard). The Editor

‘Last Bill That Works:’ End Of An Era For National Defense Authorization Act?
By Bill Greenwalt
on December 10, 2013 at 11:10 AM

The Senate returned to work yesterday and Senator Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), and Buck McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), announced a deal on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2014. For those who still hold out any hope that the Congress can work in the face of ever-rising partisanship and a massive breakdown in comity, this agreement is bittersweet. While the deal offers a way forward, it appears that Senate leadership support for the bill is waning which will make it harder for the NDAA to pass in future years.

It is obvious now that the passage to the floor for the Senate NDAA had been blocked. The managers of the bill, Senators Levin and Inhofe, did not have any luck in their negotiations with their respective leadership to reach an agreement that would allow the bill to be completed on the Senate floor.

The odds were never in their favor. It has always been a challenging task to broker a deal to limit amendments and debate on the Senate version of the NDAA. It is now even harder since Senator Reid exercised the “nuclear option” on changing the filibuster rule in the Senate. The only alternative was to end-round Senate floor action (just as was done in 2010) and negotiate a more streamlined bill with the House that can hopefully pass the Senate by unanimous consent or after limited debate.

For the 52 years that the NDAA has been in existence, it has looked many times as if the bill would not make it over the goal line. In the end, cooler heads prevailed to ensure final passage and necessary compromises were reached. This time was different. The toxicity of the political environment and the absence of a bipartisan defense consensus meant the Senate did not spend the necessary time to debate the bill. It just did not seem important enough to the Senate leadership to justify spending the political capital.
December 11, 2013

Defense Lawmakers Cautiously Optimistic On Budget Deal – But It’s Just A 1st Step

http://breakingdefense.com/2013/12/defense-lawmakers-cautiously-optimistic-on-budget-deal/



Defense Lawmakers Cautiously Optimistic On Budget Deal – But It’s Just A 1st Step
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
on December 10, 2013 at 3:52 PM

THE NEWSEUM: In a glass-walled conference center overlooking the snow-shrouded US Capitol, three legislators expressed guarded optimism that Congress could reach a modest budget deal.

The bad news is that such a deal – even one that slows down the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration for the next two years – is just a first step backwards from the brink. So the burning question for the hardcore Navy and Marine Corps supporters at the US Naval Institute conference here, and for the pro-defense lawmakers who addressed them, is how to make the case for defense spending in the longer term.

“We’re shooting for a deal that would provide two years of certainty – a budget for the remainder, and appropriations bills for the remainder, of FY ’14 and also for FY ’15,” said Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who’d actually prefer Congress go to two-year budgets. Sworn in just in January, the former Virginia governor sits both on Armed Services and in the Budget Conference Committee now thrashing out the budget for fiscal year 2014, which began two months ago. “We’re in the hopefully closing phases of a budget conference that I think will offer some certainty to our military” and add back $20 billion that sequester would have taken away, he said.

“I’m guardedly optimistic,” Kaine said. “I’m actually completely optimistic….The guarded part is just that I’m new enough (that) I have not yet completely honed my ability to determine is it real or is it Memorex.”
December 11, 2013

Naval Academy chief discusses sexual assault case

http://hamptonroads.com/2013/12/naval-academy-chief-discusses-sexual-assault-case

Naval Academy chief discusses sexual assault case
By Brian Witte
The Associated Press
© December 10, 2013

ANNAPOLIS, Md.

The U.S. Naval Academy superintendent said Monday that he decided to court-martial two midshipmen in a sexual assault case against a military judge's recommendation because it is his duty to make sure the charges are fully examined.

Vice Adm. Michael Miller decided in October to court-martial Midshipman Eric Graham on a charge of abusive sexual contact and Midshipman Joshua Tate on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a female midshipman during an off-campus party last year. He spoke of his decision for the first time publicly on Monday during a break at a meeting of the academy's Board of Visitors.

"I wanted to ensure that after all of the investment of the time here that we were able to say, yes, we looked at this in great detail and that either there was an offense or there was not, and the only way I could get to that was through a court-martial," Miller said when asked about his decision by The Associated Press.

A military judge had recommended in a 171-page report that the cases not move forward. While the investigating officer found reasonable grounds to believe offenses may have been committed, he said heavy damage done to the alleged victim's testimony made it difficult "if not impossible" to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
December 11, 2013

Hagel tours low-profile U.S. base in Qatar

http://hamptonroads.com/2013/12/hagel-tours-lowprofile-us-base-qatar

Hagel tours low-profile U.S. base in Qatar
By Lolita C. Baldor
The Associated Press
© December 11, 2013

AL UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar

The U.S. air operations center in Qatar has long been a hub where combat sorties into Iraq and Afghanistan were tracked and international forces kept watch over hotspots in the Persian Gulf and western Mediterranean Sea. But for years it's kept a low profile in a region sometimes reluctant to advertise its significant U.S. military presence.

~snip~

His visit lifted a veil from a key American base and underscored one of the themes of Hagel's weeklong trip across the region: telling allies that the end of the Afghanistan war, the tentative Iran nuclear deal and budget pressures at home do not mean that the U.S. will abandon them.

He pressed that message in meetings in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar, where differences over U.S. policies on Iran and Syria have made Gulf allies nervous

In recent years U.S. officials have tried to limit public talk of al Udeid, although its existence is not a secret. But on Tuesday Hagel walked through the operations center, with about a dozen journalists trailing him, as three huge video screens lit up with maps of the Gulf, the western Mediterranean Sea and Syria, and tracking of bomber flights into Afghanistan.
December 11, 2013

ConocoPhillips budgets $1.7B for Alaska work

http://www.adn.com/2013/12/09/3222420/conocophillips-budgets-17b-for.html

ConocoPhillips budgets $1.7B for Alaska work
By The Associated Press
Anchorage
December 9, 2013

JUNEAU — ConocoPhillips is budgeting $1.7 billion for 2014 capital costs in Alaska, twice what it says it spent in 2012 and $600 million more than was budgeted for 2013.

The company in a release says the larger budget reflects increased spending on the long-planned CD-5 development within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and increased activity due to the oil tax cut passed by the Legislature earlier this year. Spokeswoman Natalie Lowman says funding also is included for exploration, including two wells in the Greater Moose's Tooth unit, and major maintenance.

She says the tax cut has improved the likelihood of projects ConocoPhillips added to its list following passage of the law moving ahead, including a new drill site at Kuparuk and Greater Moose's Tooth.

ConocoPhillips' total 2014 capital budget is $16.7 billion.
December 11, 2013

US ban on high-risk bank trades approved

http://www.adn.com/2013/12/10/3222960/us-ban-on-high-risk-bank-trades.html



FILE - In this March 18, 1980, file photo, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker listens to a question as he appears before the Senate Banking Committee in Washington, D.C. The Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. each unanimously voted to adopt the so-called Volcker Rule, taking a major step toward preventing extreme risk-taking on Wall Street that helped trigger the 2008 financial crisis. The rule which states that U.S. banks will be barred in most cases from trading for their own profit under a federal rule is named after Paul Volcker, a former Fed chairman who was an adviser to President Barack Obama during the financial crisis.

US ban on high-risk bank trades approved
By MARCY GORDON
AP Business Writer
December 10, 2013 Updated 4 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — U.S. regulators have taken a major step toward reining in high-risk trading on Wall Street, banning the largest banks from trading for their own profit in most cases.

~snip~

The Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency each voted Tuesday to adopt it.

The final version is stricter than many had expected. Its goal is to reduce the kind of trades that nearly toppled the financial system five years ago and required taxpayer-funded bailouts.

At its heart, the rule seeks to ban banks from almost all proprietary trading. The practice of trading for their own profit has been very lucrative for big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup. The rule also limits banks' investments in hedge funds.
December 11, 2013

Police Offensive: Fronts Harden in Kiev Opposition Protests

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/protest-anger-in-kiev-will-not-dissipate-as-police-go-on-offensive-a-938232.html



Kiev police are destroying barricades erected by protesters as the sub-zero showdown continues. With the Klitschko brothers at the lead, demonstrators continue to clash with security personnel over the government's move away from EU cooperation.

Police Offensive: Fronts Harden in Kiev Opposition Protests
By Benjamin Bidder in Kiev
December 10, 2013 – 03:37 PM

The barricades in central Kiev are controlled by men in helmets and red vests. They are veterans the Soviets' ill-fated war in Afghanistan, and now they see themselves as the "guards of the square." They have closed breaches in the barriers that face Kiev's government district, from where they believe the feared special unit known as "Berkut," or Golden Eagle, will come storming out.

A few hundred meters away is Kiev's city administration building, which for two weeks has been occupied by protestors known as the "Staff of the Revolution," as they have somewhat boastfully spray-painted on the exterior walls. A mobile hospital would be more useful. In a ballroom supported by giant pillars, activists lie sprawled on the floor while nurses wearing Red Cross vests they sewed themselves rush back and forth between them. The revolutionaries of Kiev are tending to their wounds. Sergei is wearing a tracksuit and sporting designer stubble. He has been burned by one of the iron barrels the protestors make fires in to ward off the bitter cold, and he's rubbing his leg with snow.

The Kiev native is 27 and works as the coach of a handball team during the day, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. He wants to rid Ukraine of President Viktor Yanukovych and to replace him with a government that looks toward Europe rather than Russia. He has been coming onto the streets when he is not at work, from 3 p.m. to 8 a.m., for two weeks already. But the cold is wearing him and his comrades down.

Police have surrounded the demonstrators. On Monday, Interior Ministry troops and personnel from the Berkut dismantled barricades across Kiev, while five metro stations around Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, in the center of the city were closed, supposedly because of the threat of terrorists. In truth, however, it was to impede the influx of protestors.
December 11, 2013

Round Two: EU Grooming Klitschko to Lead Ukraine

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/eu-grooms-boxer-vitali-klitschko-to-lead-ukraine-opposition-a-938079.html



The fight for Ukraine has now become a contest between the Russian president and the German chancellor. Putin won the first round. But Merkel and her fellow Europeans are grooming professional heavyweight boxer Vitali Klitschko to be their new strongman.

Round Two: EU Grooming Klitschko to Lead Ukraine
By Nikolaus Blome, Matthias Gebauer and Ralf Neukirch
December 10, 2013 – 02:51 PM

By Thursday of the week before last, it was abundantly clear that any friendship between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich was finished. They were gathered at a festive dinner in the former palace of the Grand Duke of Lithuania, with the city of Vilnius decked out for Christmas, together with leaders from the European Union and Eastern European countries. The truffled pastry hadn't been served yet when the Ukrainian president launched into a rambling monologue about his country's difficult relationship with Europe, on the one hand, and with Russia, on the other. But at some point Merkel interrupted Yanukovich and brusquely informed him that he might as well stop talking. "You're not going to sign anyway," she said bluntly. The Armenian president, who was sitting next to Merkel, looked up in surprise.

Russia has defeated the European Union in the latest round of the fight for Ukraine. To be more precise, Chancellor Merkel lost the round against Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the Russian defeating the German in a technical knockout. Within several weeks, Putin had brought Ukrainian President Yanukovich into line with a mixture of overt pressure and tempting promises. As a result, Yanukovich did not sign an association agreement with the EU at the EU-Eastern Europe summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, despite months of negotiations. For the time being, his country is now a part of the bloc of countries bordering Russia that Putin plans to join together into a Russian empire of sorts, from Vladivostok to the eastern border of the EU.

"The door remains open for Ukraine," Merkel repeatedly emphasized after the debacle, noting that the Europeans were still willing to talk. It sounded like a losing contestant's painstaking effort to save face. But it also suggests that the issue is not a done deal. And before the next round begins, the chancellor plans to bring a new player into the game: Vitali Klitschko. The tall heavyweight-boxing champion is to be groomed as the pro-European opponent of pro-Russian President Yanukovich, and the hope is that he will be the one to sign a pro-EU treaty, which they still believe will materialize.

While "regime change" is too strong a term for what Germany is seeking, it's not entirely off base. Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the European People's Party (EPP), a family of European conservative parties, have chosen Klitschko as their de facto representative in Ukraine. His job is to unite and lead the opposition -- on the street, in parliament and, finally, in the 2015 presidential election. "Klitschko is our man," say senior EPP politicians, "he has a clear European agenda." And Merkel still has a score to settle with Putin.

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