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Archive for the 'Maritime Security' Category
Please join us at 5pm (EDT) on 30 Aug 2015 for Midrats Episode 295: "NATO Goes Back to Fundamentals" With Jorge Benitez:
From the Balitic to the Black Sea, the last year has seen the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) return to its roots – the defense of Europe from Russian aggression.
The names and players have changes significantly since a quarter century ago – but in many ways things look very familar.
To discuss NATO's challenge in the East in the second decade of the 21st Century for the full hour will be Dr. Jorge Benitez.
Jorge is the Director of NATOSource and a Senior Fellow in the Atlantic Council's Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security.
He specializes in NATO, European politics, and US national security. and previously served as Assistant for Alliance Issues to the Director of NATO Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He has also served as a specialist in international security for the Department of State and the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis.
Dr. Benitez received his BA from the University of Florida, his MPP from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and his PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Join us live if you can, or pick the show up later by clicking here. Or you can also find the show later at our iTune page here.
Tags: NATO
Pearls, Lily Pads, and Presence
By CDRSalamander
Alternative title: The News of the Neo-Isolationist Superpower Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
If as Americans we have trouble figuring out from "Lead-From-Behind" to Stryker road rallies, Aegis Ashore, and Abrams to the Baltics what direction we are going concerning international involvement, imagine the confusion we are creating in the halls of our competitors.
Nice PSYOPS plan – intentional or not.
No one can deny that in many areas we have signaled a withdraw under fire in the last six years or so. From the premature exit from Iraq, to the great decoupling in Afghanistan, that gets the headlines. From the Maghreb to the Levant, we also had experienced the strange experiment of "Lead-From-Behind" a concept as disconnected as its results.
There was also the long goodbye from Europe that began with the end of the Cold War, and until the Russians started playing in their near abroad, was drip-by-remaining-drip continuing apace.
2015 put that in the dustbin of history.
In the last year, we have returned to Iraq and Europe. Indeed, we have expanded in critical areas in some subtle but important ways, especially for the maritime services. These recent moves tie in closely with larger programmatic decisions we need to make now.
I want to pick two specific examples of where we are starting to move back in to the world and how these moves should shape our debate. They are subtle, and in many ways echo some of the broader concepts outlined by Jerry Hendrix's "Influence Squadrons." Low footprint, modest cost, high flexibility, high return – scalable impact.
Let's start with the Pacific Pivot first.
Darwin, Australia; never will be a hard-fill set of orders. Show the flag, build partnerships, and presence in a primary SLOC that, to no surprise, has the most critical choke point in China's maritime silk road within … err … range;
"My priority right now would be, we've got over a thousand Marines in Australia; I would like them to have routine access right now to a platform that they can use to conduct engagement in the area," he continued. "But it isn't just about one ship and it's just not about one location; it's about dealing with a logistics challenge, a training challenge, a warfighting challenge in the Pacific with a shortfall of platforms."
Ideally, in the future PACOM would have two ARGs deployed throughout the theater instead of today's one-ARG presence. But Dunford said the Marines have to handle today's problems with today's resources, so the Marines are looking into a variety of non-amphibious platforms that could carry Marines around the Pacific and elsewhere in the world.
OK, there is your Pacific Pivot, but what is going on in Europe?
U.S. and Spanish officials yesterday signed an amendment to the nations' defense agreement that will change the deployment of the U.S. crisis response force at Moron Air Base from temporary to permanent, defense officials said today.
In the State Department's Treaty Room, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Spanish Deputy Foreign Minister Ignacio Ybanez signed the Third Protocol of Amendment to the U.S.-Spanish Agreement for Defense and Cooperation.
The amendment, when the Spanish parliament approves it, will make permanent the temporary deployment of the Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force for Crisis Response at Moron Air Base.
Nice bit of kit for a variety of uses. Knowing how hard the Army has tried since 1919 to keep Marines out of continental Europe – well played;
SPMAGTF-CR-AF is a rotational contingent of approximately 800 Marines, sailors and support elements sourced from a variety of Marine Corps units to include II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C. Its organic assets include 12 MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, four KC-130J Hercules aerial refueling tankers, one UC-35, a logistics and sustainment element, and a reinforced company of infantry Marines.
How do we hedge expanding a footprint while capabilities shrink? Start by thinking.
Our traditional amphibious ship shortfall is well known, but with the budgetary pressures and need to recapitalize our SSBN force through the Terrible 20s, there simply is not enough money to have it all. Knowing that – what can we do?
There are other areas we can look for capability relief, and the last month has seen good ideas addressing both.
First, though few in number, our partner nations have usable ships;
Where some nations are game to contribute at sea, but they may not be game to go ashore (like the Canadians and British at Iwo Jima) – so why not use what they have available?
Among the concepts the Marines are trying out now is putting U.S. Marine Corps units onto NATO allies' ships. Allies including Spain and Italy already host SPMAGTF units on the ground, and "the Allied Maritime Basing Initiative is designed to cover gaps in available U.S. amphibious ships by leveraging our European allies' ships, just as we leverage our allies' land bases," U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe & Africa spokesman Capt. Richard Ulsh told USNI News.
"Ideally, we would partner with our Navy brethren to provide a year-round, day and night crisis response force. However, with more requirements world-wide than available U.S. Navy amphibious ships, the Marine Corps has had to adopt a land-based deployment model from allied countries such as Spain, Italy, and Romania," he said. Having these units land-based, however, means they are limited to operating in a hub-and-spoke model and deploying only as far as their MV-22 Osprey and KC-130J tanker combination will take them.
Operating from a ship not only offers a mobile home base, but "basing at sea offers allies and international partners a visible deterrent when a warship – be it American, British, Italian, Spanish, or French – with U.S. Marines embarked aboard is sitting off the coast. In any language, such a sight means it is best to not cause trouble here," Ulsh added.
Marines will first head to sea on an Italian ship this fall, followed by a British amphib and eventually French, Spanish and Dutch ships, the Marine Corps Times reported.
Also, not just JHSV, but other USNS are there for the pondering. What kind of USNS might be useful?
We can look back;
MSC's two aviation logistics ships — S.S. Wright and S.S. Curtiss. Six hundred-and-two feet long, displacing 24,000 tons fully loaded, the twin loggies each boasts a large helicopter landing pad, multiple cranes and a full-length cargo hold opening onto ramps on its sides and stern. With a crew of just 41, each of the vessels can accommodate more than 360 passengers.
While less tough than dedicated amphibs and totally lacking defensive weaponry, under the right circumstances the aviation logistics ships could embark potentially hundreds of Marines and their vehicles plus thousands of tons of supplies. Joining other specialized ships, the loggies could help send the Leathernecks ashore to invade an enemy, defend an ally or help out following a natural disaster.
… and now;
The Navy accepted delivery of the first Afloat Forward Staging Base, USNS Lewis B. Puller(MLP-3/AFSB-1), two weeks ago, and though the ship was built to support mine countermeasures efforts, the Marines have been eyeing the new platform for operations in the Gulf of Guinea in Western Africa. Currently, the closest presence the Marines have to the Gulf is a Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force (SPMAGTF) operating out of Spain.
"The combatant commander from AFRICOM and the combatant commander from EUCOM have already written a letter to the secretary of defense outlining their requirement for an alternative platform" to support theater security cooperation, embassy evacuations, counter-piracy missions and more, Dunford said. "They recognize that while a Special Purpose MAGTF provides a great capability, and while the V-22 does mitigate" the great distance between Spain and southern parts of Africa, having Marines on American ships allows more freedom to operate as needed and to sustain the force from the sea without becoming dependent on partners.
That is just what the Navy-Marine Corp team is doing. Our sister services are busy too.
So much for our inevitable retreat. What next? Well, step one might be to reactivate Maritime Prepositioning Squadron One we decommissioned in 2012.
World changes; change with it.
Tags: msc, Spain, USNS
Please join us at 5pm Eastern Daylight Time (U.S.) for Midrats Episode 286: A Restless Russia and its Near Abroad with Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg:
It is time to catch up with Putin's Russia, her domestic developments, involvement in Ukraine, and the changes she is forcing on border nations and the near abroad.
To discuss this and more, for the full hour we will have returning guest Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg, Senior Analyst, CNA Strategic Studies, an Associate at Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, an author, and host of the Russian Military Reform blog.
Dr. Gorenburg focuses his research on security issues in the former Soviet Union, Russian military reform, Russian foreign policy, ethnic politics and identity, and Russian regional politics. He is also the editor of the journals Problems of Post-Communism and Russian Politics and Lawand a Fellow of the Truman National Security Project. From 2005 through 2010, he was the Executive Director of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies.
Join us live if you can or pick the show up later by clicking here. You can also pick the show up later from our iTunes page.
The Navy as an Extension of Diplomacy
By VADM James Foggo
"A good Navy is not a provocation of war. It is the surest guarantee of peace." -Theodore Roosevelt
On 8 June I reported in this media forum on the launch of 49 ships from the port of Gdynia, Poland for the largest BALTOPS exercise ever — BALTOPS 2015.
The reason we are assembled as the maritime arm of the NATO alliance for this exercise is to show unity of effort and purpose, and to strengthen the combined response capabilities of our NATO allies and partners in the Baltic Sea region.
We come with 49 ships of all varieties large and small, over 60 aircraft, 5,600 air, ground and maritime forces from 17 participating nations to include 700 Marines from Finland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.
During the first day of operations, we were over-flown by Russian Air Force and shadowed by three Russian Navy surface ships. This was not unexpected based on recent experience.
The Russian planes made a few passes and then a couple of Russian Corvettes came up on either side of the formation as we were conducting our exercises – nothing untoward, just showing interest and an acknowledgement that they know we are here.
As Navies have done for centuries, we have taken a dual track approach to maritime security. What do I mean by that?
While BALTOPS 2015 is demonstrating a sizeable and highly capable force at sea, we are pursuing other avenues to assure security in this and other maritime regions in Europe. As an example, we invited a Russian Navy delegation for the annual Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas (INCSEA) review, which took place yesterday at the U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet Headquarters in Naples, Italy. The Russian delegation was headed by Vice Adm. Oleg Burtsev and the U.S. delegation by Rear Adm. John Nowell, Chief of Staff, U.S. 6th Fleet.
Discussions between the two delegations were frank and professional with the intent of alleviating any miscues, misunderstandings or miscalculations between our two naval and air forces wherever they might encounter one another.
Established in 1972, the bilateral INCSEA agreement between our two countries codified the mutual interest of both sides in promoting safety of navigation and safety of flight when operating on and over international waters and specified an annual meeting to review compliance with the articles of the agreement.
The last time our two navies met was in November 2013, in St. Petersburg, Russia.
BALTOPS 2015 and the subsequent INCSEA review is a good example of naval forces and naval officers acting as an extension of diplomacy.
For me, as Commander of BALTOPS, I look forward to the positive outcome of the INCSEA discussions filtering down to the deck plate level of the Baltic Fleet. The true measure of success will be when ALL Navies operate ships, submarines and aircraft safely and professionally not just here in the Baltic Sea, but elsewhere around the world. Stay tuned…
Setting Sail for BALTOPS
By VADM James Foggo
Today, June 8, a fleet of Allied and partner ships set sail from Gdynia, Poland, in one of the largest naval exercises the Baltic Sea and greater Atlantic Ocean area has seen in the 21st Century. In its forty-three year history, BALTOPS has been a means by which NATO and its partners have demonstrated an enduring commitment to regional stability and a Europe that is safe, secure, and prosperous.
In 1971, fewer than a dozen ships and only a handful of nations participated in the exercise. BALTOPS 2015 has 49 ships representing seventeen nations participating. I am often asked by European Allies what impact, if any, the rebalance to the Pacific will have on Europe? To put those numbers in perspective, last year, the Pacific Rim of the ocean exercise (RIMPAC), the world's largest naval exercise, also had 49 participating ships. What is happening right now in the Baltic Sea is NATO's own version "RIMPAC."
NATO's integral role in the exercise is seen in BALTOPS from the top down. For the first time in recent memory, the exercise is led by a NATO headquarters. As Commander of Striking and Support Forces NATO, I am now embarked on USS SAN ANTONIO (LPD 17), which is serving as the command ship for my STRIKFORNATO staff. The STRIKFORNATO staff has been mobilized from Lisbon and is operating from both here onboard SAN ANTONIO and HMS OCEAN, a testament for their expeditionary headquarters staff capabilities.
This, however, is not my first time to sail in these waters. As a Lieutenant onboard USS SEA DEVIL (SSN 664), I deployed to the Arctic Ocean in 1985. On our way home, we scheduled a port visit in Kiel, Germany. I was one of the primary OODs on the bridge for the long maneuvering watch through the Straits of Denmark, also known as the Kattegat, Skaggerak and Storr Belts. It was the best surface OOD training a JO could ever have with a completely different kind of traffic separation scheme, two superb chain-smoking Danish pilots, whose mantra was "speed equals safety," as we maneuvered the boat through a multitude of ferries crisscrossing the channel at right angles to our track.
We made it safely into Kiel, but this was a different era and a different geo-political situation at the time. The Berlin Wall would not come down for four years and Germany was still divided. Many of the NATO Allies and partners participating in BALTOPS 2015 today were reluctant members of the Warsaw Pact in 1985. My how times have changed! Today's BALTOPS includes 14 NATO Allies and three Partnership for Peace (PfP) nations aligned and unified for a common purpose—peace and security in the Baltic Region. The crowds of people that greeted our BALTOPS Fleet just days ago for the pre-sail in Gdynia, Poland were a clear sign that these relationships are solid and enduring.
BALTOPS is just one of the many ways NATO and its partners demonstrate a continued commitment to the foundational principle of mutual defense. While the number and type of ships have changed, it is this consistent message over the last nearly half century that has guided the exercise. When we talk about reassurance we are not just talking about capabilities, but a commitment that has been consistent throughout the years.
BALTOPS represents an excellent example of a global network of navies, a concept based on participation, robust exercises, relationship building, communication, and interoperability. BALTOPS demonstrates how these global priorities are expressed in a regional context, each participant contributing to the success of the whole.
Today's BALTOPS Photo-Ex captured an image of this unified effort for all to see. A picture is worth a thousand words…
Midrats on 31 May 2015 at 5pm EDT U..S. is Episode 282: Summer Kick-off Free For All in which we discuss the sea services and other matters in 2015 so far and do a little prognostication about the future. Listeners who may actually know about such things are invited to call in or join us in the chat room. Come on along, it's just for fun and to educate the hosts.
At the time of this post, the actual show page was not up, but if you click on the link here before show time, it should be there. UPDATE: Link to actual show page is here.
As always, if you can't listen live, all our shows are available in the Midrats archives here or on iTunes here.
Looking for Security in Disaggregation
By CDRSalamander
Robert D. Kaplan over at FP is looking at the world from the Atlas to Hindu Kush and harkens back to something that no one is looking for, wants, or realistically thinks can be done;
A new American president in 2017 may seek to reinstate Western imperial influence — calling it by another name, of course.
The challenge now is less to establish democracy than to reestablish order. For without order, there is no freedom for anyone.
The article is now called, The Ruins of Empire in the Middle East – but you can still see in the web address its original title, "It's Time to Bring Imperialism Back to the Middle East."
Yes, the title was bad – but I am curious as to the thought process behind choosing it – … and just as bad as the idea.
I'm also not sure how a review of the present major candidates for 2016 shows anyone who wants to try to force peace on a peaceless people. There is only one effective way to do that, but piles of skulls and salted fields are not in alignment with our laws, national character, or relatively sanity.
To start out, let's review the very accurate summary of events that Kaplan outlines in this besotted part of the world that for thousands of years has been at peace only under one system – the mailed fist;
… the region historically has been determined by trade routes rather than fixed borders. … Middle Eastern chaos demonstrates that the region has still not found a solution to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. For hundreds of years, Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Jews, Muslims and Christians, in Greater Syria and Mesopotamia had few territorial disputes. All fell under the rule of an imperial sovereign in Istanbul, who protected them from each other.
… the Islamic State has brought to an end the borders erected by European imperialism, British and French, in the Levant. … the United States, remember, since the end of World War II, has been a world empire in all but name.
To that point; in two elections the American people voiced their desire to back away from that role – to give the world a chance to police itself – to "lead from behind."
Well, we have seen the results – desired or not – of that policy.
The fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya, and the reduction of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria to that of an embattled statelet has ended the era of post-colonial strongmen. … the so-called Arab Spring has not been about the birth of freedom but about the collapse of central authority,
Old school realists, and the growing cadre of neo-realists warned of this outcome, but strategically we tried another way. The fuzzy faculty room theories desiring a word of self-affirmation, ran up against the grizzled hard realities of a world governed by the aggressive use of force, religion, and the attraction of and to power.
(some nations are) geographical expressions and … with much weaker identities — and, in fact, many have identities that were invented by European imperialists. Libya, Syria, and Iraq fall most prominently into this category. Because identity in these cases was fragile, the most suffocating forms of authoritarianism were required to merely hold these states together.
Algeria, also an artificial state, essentially invented by the French … Jordan, too, is a vague geographical expression, but has enjoyed moderate governance through the genius of its ruling Hashemites and the overwhelming economic and security support this small country has received from the United States and Israel. Yemen may also be an age-old cluster of civilization, but one always divided among many different kingdoms due to its rugged topography, thus ruling the territory as one unit has always been nearly impossible.
Totalitarianism was the only answer to the end of Western imperialism in these artificial states, and totalitarianism's collapse is now the root cause of Middle East chaos.
The Ottomans disintegrated, the French and British were exhausted, and the Americans seem to be trying to shrug off the burdens history gave it.
Kaplan is not alone in this train of thought, looking for some solution to a rapidly deteriorating region, and when you look at what has become of the Muslim world in the last half-decade plus, it is easy to despair at what has oozed out of the tube – but what has happened has happened.
You cannot have imperialism without imperialists, and in a world bereft of those seeking that title in a benign manner – what can the West do that is in line with both its national security interests and its modern sensibilities?
Most interested parties would agree that if nothing else, the events of the last few years should largely put an end to two neo-imperialist concepts; Responsibility to Protect (R2P) on the left, and the Wolfowitz Doctrine on the right.
How do we, the West in general and the USA in particular, respond? What are our options besides neo-imperialism? Let's set out a few planning assumptions.
1. There will be no more nation building or coercive democracy injected in places that do not create it organically or desire it. It doesn't work, and there is no popular call or political will to try it again.
2. Libya was the low high-water mark of R2P internationally. Today's Mediterranean drowning pool is Ref. A. on the international community's preferred answer to R2P.
3. Economics and demographics will drive the virulence of secular pressure to export strife outside existing or natural borders of nation states. As these borders deteriorate and if pressures build, so will your ability to contain undesired effects on the cheap.
4. Forward deployed, global reach, long dwell, deep strike. If you are not training, manning, and equipping your military forces bounded by these essential concepts, you are doing it wrong. If you are not prepared for scalable, quick infiltration and exfiltration of boots on the ground, you are doing it wrong. Hedge big heavy; light and mobile gets priority.
5. China will continue to build, reinforce, and prepare to defend critical nodes on her new land and sea "Silk Road." She is and will continue to be a growing, global, mercantile power – one without Western sensibilities.
6. There is only one significant power that is showing actual expansionist imperial desire; Russia. Watch her closely in the former Soviet republics to see where she either takes physical land as in Ukraine, or expands her constellation of sad little satrapy such as Belarus.
7. No matter how hard we shrug, we are and will remain for this century the indispensable nation. We are the imperial republic, in a waning phase of desire for now – but with no other suitable global replacement, we will still be look at to help keep the chaos at bay.
What could we do now, even with the political, economic, and diplomatic restraints and constraints – to at least partially answer Kaplan's call?
The first step, not shocking for a maritime nation, should start at sea. Use the template of NATO's standing naval forces. We should help build standing naval forces in the Indian Ocean. The core is already there off the Horn of Africa – why not work to make something a bit more established from CTF-150, 151, the EU's ALALANTA and the other patchwork nations who are there?
Why not have one fom WESTPAC? USA, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia looks like a good core. Singapore, New Zealand, Vietnam, and The Philippines would play now and then. Feeling cheeky – invite Taiwan for a time or two.
There is low risk and high reward for this minimal step – keep the open seas … open. Give space and capability to inject power and influence when needed, without finding yourself staked to the ground – and provide flexible options for future leaders who may face different global realities that have yet to appear to the present eyes.
If the goal is to try to bring order, in the 21st Century, the Western democracies do not have the desire to play the game of empire wholesale. It isn't profitable, it isn't appreciated, and to be blunt – it is probably a fool's errand.
Contain, influence, and help those who help themselves? Sure. Soak the sands of the Middle East with blood from Ohio, Essex, New South Wales, Burgundy, Maastricht, and El Salvador for failed theories of the past? To tilt at the windmill one more time?
No, no time soon.
Tags: Middle East, R2P, The Long War
On a muggy and overcast day this past March, I set out to the Gulf of Guinea with members from the U.S. State Department in Lagos, Nigeria. It was just past sunset. Our pilot, an athletically built Nigerian with dark skin and a shaved head, greeted us on the pier and welcomed the delegation aboard his Boston Whaler. All of us were overdressed in suits and sweat was noticeably percolating through our shirts.
That time of day is particularly charming in Lagos. The water and the sky interweave in a deep cerulean palette, transforming the landscape into a wondrous countryside.
The smell of stagnant petrol consumed us as we sailed past bulk freighters and crude carriers loading cargo. Containers slammed onto chassis on the adjacent piers and oil sheens along with garbage and debris saturated the waterway. Throughout the channel, campaign billboards promoting President Goodluck Jonathan's reelection were omnipresent
And the most dubious promotion of all: #BRINGBACKGOODLUCK2015, which was a campaign slogan based off #BRINGBACKOURGIRLS. This one did not resonate well in northeast Nigeria.
Off our port bow, donned in orange life jackets, were locals taxiing home together in motorized canoes. They stared at us uneasily as our boat sprinted past their starboard beam. A few yelled in detest when a member in our delegation snapped off a photo with his iPhone.
On the other side of the river, directly across from the commercial shipping terminals were residents of Lagos' notorious floating slums. Many of the lagoon's inhabitants are immigrants, who earn less than $2 a day and use the river to dump trash, excrement, and everything else they cannot keep on their makeshift homes. Our guide told us that the people along the sprawling bamboo community subsist largely as fishermen and workers in the nearby sawmills, cutting up timber that floats regularly into the city. They, too, looked perplexed when a boat full of whites drove by at 30 knots.
It took fifteen minutes to reach Takawa Bay at the southern entrance of Lagos harbor. We gazed southeast and saw scores of anchored ships dotted along the horizon like a cityscape at dusk. Our boat idled for a few moments, swaying to and fro in the trough of the seas and all of us were silent. A sea breeze kicked up and the cool air felt good. It was as if at that moment we could sense all of Nigeria's potential in the idle ships a few miles distant, waiting offshore to deliver cargo and with it, a better future for the people ashore.
Our pilot turned sharply to starboard, sped up and headed back toward Lagos. My shock in Nigeria was total.
Over the past two decades, Lagos and several other ports along the Gulf of Guinea have evolved into a major hub for global energy supplies for North America, Europe, and Asia. With several natural harbors throughout the region – from Cape Verde to Angola – and a coastal terrain rich in hydrocarbons, the countries along this fertile coastline have flourished.
This uninterrupted growth had not come about by accident. Many West-African governments have enhanced their infrastructure, liberalized trade policies, and reduced barriers to emerging transcontinental businesses. As a result the Gulf of Guinea increasingly relies on the seas for their economic prosperity. After all, it's their only lifeline to remain competitive in the global marketplace.
This transit hub and facilitator to the world, however, is threatened. Despite West Africa's continuing economic boom, three years ago the Gulf of Guinea surpassed East Africa and became the region with the highest number of piracy attacks in the world. Nigeria is said to be losing a staggering $2 billion to maritime insecurity each year. Maritime experts agree that the nation loses $800 million yearly to unchecked poachers who come to take away fish from Nigeria's Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ), in addition to about $16 million to oil theft and $9 million to general piracy.
Given the limited number of ships providing security off the West African coast, narcotics traffickers are using West African ports to smuggle and then distribute drugs in Europe. Oil theft and illegal bunkering also continue to rise uncontrollably. According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, Nigeria loses between 40,000 and 100,000 barrels a day due to theft.
These attacks also tend to be violent. Unlike Somalia, where pirates attack ships transiting through the region, West African pirates typically prey on ships berthed or anchored waiting to berth. These attacks typically occur within twelve nautical miles. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) and the Oceans Beyond Piracy Group have shown that more seafarers were killed in the first nine months of 2014 than the whole of 2013, when over 1,200 were affected.
This is a conservative estimate. IMB reported last year that about two-thirds of all West-African piracy attacks go unreported.
Piracy in West Africa are different from those associated with East Africa in a variety of ways. First, unlike Somali pirates who attach ships in transit, pirates operating in and around the Gulf of Guinea prey on ships berthed or anchored within territorial waters. As noted by the Oceans Beyond Piracy Group, this changes the character of operations tremendously. Pirates have access to infrastructure and robust intelligence ashore, which provide them with the content and structure of ships operating in the area. It is thought they have access to information shared with the maritime sectors in the region.
Robbery, kidnap and ransom, and oil theft are the three main piracy models being monitored in West Africa. Pirates hijack vessels and often force ship captains to navigate the vessel to an unknown location where the cargo is lightered to another vessel or a storage facility shore side. Eventually, the oil finds its way to the black market or in some cases, back into the mainstream supply to be sold domestically or in the global marketplace.
If threats of piracy are left unchecked, the economies of West Africa will suffer. The waters off Nigeria, Togo and Benin are deemed a "war risk area," thereby pushing up insurance costs and deterring maritime traders from even entering ports.
Most scholars and military planners would agree the root of the problem in Nigeria stems from state corruption, lackluster job creation, and a hollow security force. With only a couple dozen ships and a poorly trained military facing Boko Haram on their eastern flank, it seems unlikely that Nigeria and the surrounding nations will be able to control this problem alone. Regional actors are taking promising steps, but their coordination efforts are not developed enough to thwart terrorist networks.
Nigeria received two 1700 ton P-18N offshore-patrol vessels in 2014, which are based on the Chinese Type 056 corvette. Built in China and fitted out in a Nigerian shipyard, the 312-foot warships complement the Okpabana and the Thunder, former US Guard WHEC class cutters transferred in 2014 and 2011, respectively.
The revised Cooperative Strategy in the 21st Century (CS-21R) aptly points out that the sea services must continue working alongside partner security forces to combat terrorism, illicit trafficking, and illegal exploitation of natural resources through initiatives such as the African Maritime Law Enforcement Partnership and the Africa Partnership Station. We should not delay in executing this blueprint – the moment is ripe for changes to West African maritime security. On May 29th, Muhammadu Buhari will succeed Goodluck Jonathan as the President of Nigeria. The election of Buhari has created a potential breakthrough for American diplomacy and with it, a chance for us to work hand-in-hand with the largest nation and economy on the continent. Through public-private partnerships, along with interagency work by USAID, America has the opportunity to establish a better long-term relationship with Nigeria's incoming executive government.
Amphibious Ready Groups (ARGs) or destroyers are not needed to assist our partners in Africa. Afloat Forward Staging Bases, coupled with Joint-High Speed Vessels, Patrol Craft and Littoral Combat Ships can fulfill this mission with ease and bring the necessary equipment to the inshore zones that need the most attention. Utilizing UAVs like ScanEagle and Firescout will help discover patterns of piracy and provide security for oil platforms and anchored vessels throughout the region.
Navy SEALs and Special warfare combatant-craft crewmen (SWCC) should liaise with the Special Boat Service (SBS), a special operations unit of the Nigerian Navy. Their mission is focused on littoral and riverine operations, including reconnaissance and surveillance; covert beach reconnaissance in advance of an amphibious assault; recovery or protection of ships and oil installations subject to hostile state or non-state action; maritime counter-terrorism; and offensive action. In order to strengthen partnerships and protect international interests in the region, this must be done year-round.
If we don't step in, then expect China to dominate the region with short-term investments that will fail to lift African nations out of poverty and conflict. The imbalance in trade is staggering. According to John Burnett of U.S. News and World Report, China made $75 billion in investments from 2000 to 2011 compared to our $14 billion. Given the number of natural resources throughout the region, it would be foolish for American business to sit out as the needs of economies throughout West Africa grow. But security is paramount for potential investment from the West.
Ensuring secure littoral sea lines of communication within Nigeria's territorial seas require trust and over time we can help alter West Africa's perception of the West. Like Americans, Nigerians are proud and stubborn. They want to solve problems on their own. Unfortunately, more than anything, West Africa needs a naval presence to help shore up their ongoing problems with piracy. Our Navy can and should do more, especially with an incoming president bent on ending corruption and improving Nigeria's security.
This will be a war of attrition, but it's a fight worth undertaking. After all, success in Nigeria means potential success for Africa, which translates to economic benefits throughout the continent.
Tags: Africa, China, CSBA, JHSV, LCS, Piracy, seapower, Unmanned Systems
Another Age of Migration
By CDRSalamander
Take a moment and look at this map, what do you see?
At first glance, what you see is an invasion. That is exactly what it is.
Throughout human history, masses of people have been pushed out of one area, or attracted in to another. Trying to escape a more determined foe, a homeland that can no longer support its population, or simply attracted by a weaker neighbor that inhabits more desirable territory – people move.
Small scale migrations are always happening – what moves history are large scale migrations.
There are three things that need to exist in order to trigger large scale migrations; (a) a drive to leave a present home; (b) a more attractive location to move to; (c) a manageable barrier of entry that is less of a concern than the forces producing the drive in (a).
If (a+b)>c, then you have then entering arguments set to trigger a migration. The greater the magnitude of a & b, the stronger flux of the migration.
That is the reason that North-Central Asian Finns, Estonians, and Hungarians now reside in Central Europe. Why the Goths from Southern Scandinavia wound up taking a long route to North Africa. Why the people of Madagascar are ethnically closer to the people of Indonesia than right across the channel to mainland Africa. That is why you have Englishmen in the North Pacific, Germans in the South Atlantic, and every soccer team in Asia has someone related to Genghis Khan.
With the exception of the Goths, the Mongols, and the more recent events in the Western Hemisphere, all the major migrations through we know of occurred in pre-history. We can guess how these went, but let's stick to those we know.
There are three different migration themes on how migrations start.
On two extremes are:
-The Dove: the peaceful migration of the initial waves of the Polynesian through Pacific – peaceful because in their islands from New Zealand to Easter Hawaii, there were no other humans (though the second wave to Hawaii by Polynesians was far from peaceful). This is the most rare.
– The Wolf: Red in tooth and claw Mongol invasions of, well everyone. The Iberian colonization of South America. Australian colonization. Magyar invasions of Europe. This is more common, but not the majority.
In the middle, and the one that is the most common in the way it starts, is;
-The Other: economic, ecological, or political migrants; North American colonization from Europe. New Zealand colonization from Britain. Gothic/Germanic population of the Western Roman Empire.
Those are the major examples of the most disruptive of The Other. There is a subset of The Other that is minor, bur as a result are not very disruptive and mostly positive and integrative to the host nation; the Jewish diaspera; French Protestant migrations following their expulsion from France; 19th & 20th Century Italian immigration to the USA.
The Other is the most common and the most successful. It usually starts with small populations of migrants who get a foothold and then grow as the host population, for a variety of demographic, economic, cultural, or political reasons, grows weaker. More migrants come attracted to the land, or given more reason to escape from their homeland – or more often a combination of the two.
In time, one of two things happen, once a critical mass is reached, either the host and migrant cultures blend together and almost without notice become one. The previously mentioned Italian, French and Jewish examples are like this. You could also add in the 19th Century German migrations to the USA – one of the more under told stories locally.
If the two cultures for religious, cultural, or more often political reasons cannot become one – then there is conflict, usurpation, and a new host culture take control. The Germanic populations in the Western Roman Empire, the Reconquista of the Iberian peninsula, and parts of the former Yugoslavia are variations of this.
That is also why Spanish was and now English is the language of Comancheria.
There is your broad, sliding scale; from Dove, to The Other, to Wolf. Just because something starts as one, does not mean it stays there.
The N. American pattern went from Other to Wolf inside a generation. New Zealand at one point or another saw all three. The normal result of mass migration is conflict – the exception is peaceful integration.
One would think that the historical example would lead to host nations to promote integration-centric policies. Sadly, that is largely not the case.
The largest barrier to this era's migration success is a cultural malfunction where assimilation – a process that blends people together – is not the predominate mindset in the host nation, and as a result, encourages the sectarian tendencies of large groups of The Other. It is apartness, multiculturalism, and the – to use a very accurate description of the problem – Balkanization of land and people that will warp the trends toward conflict.
This is why nations are, in different ways, pushing back against this rising tide of migration. They know where this ends. The era of plenty of open land and expanding economic resources is long gone. More people after finite resources; this social science historical dynamic is well known.
The push back is relatively weak but growing stronger in Europe – but strong and getting stronger in Asia and other parts of the world.
Now that the table is set – look again at the map at the opening of this post. As most of the news reports reflect – there is a maritime crisis in the Mediterranean. This is only going to grow, and not just in the Mediterranean.
Australia has known for a long time and now the rest of Southeast Asia are seeing the problem in Asia is also largely a maritime one.
Clashes in 2012 between the state's Buddhist community and Rohingya Muslims, a long-oppressed linguistic and ethnic minority in this majority Buddhist country, left hundreds dead and more than 140,000 people homeless.
The United Nations estimates more than 100,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar by sea since ethnic and sectarian violence erupted.
"I feel so sorry for them," Kraiwut said. "It's so different to when you see these refugees on land, and the conditions are so terrible."
Late last week, residents on Koh Lipe Island in southern Thailand could be seen collecting food, water and clothes to take to the migrants on board the boats, but since then the military has told them not to take supplies out to the boats, or to talk to journalists about the situation.
A top Malaysian official has said the surge of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh seeking asylum in his country and neighboring Indonesia in recent days is unwelcome — and despite a U.N. appeal, his government will turn back any illegal arrivals.
"We cannot welcome them here," Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Jaafar told CNN by phone last week.
"If we continue to welcome them, then hundreds of thousands will come from Myanmar and Bangladesh."
Last night, Malaysia and Indonesia, predominately Muslim nations, have agreed to temporarily take in these desperate people, but for nations already struggling with their own ethnic conflict, and knowing the dangers of opening the door, it is unlikely to be a permanent solution.
When you look at the dual force of demographics and poor economics in the nations the migrants are coming from – and combine that with a growing "no thanks, we're full" mindset in already overcrowded developed and developing nations – are the world's maritime powers ready to respond to the masses at sea?
When pulses of desperate migrants surge forth as conflict occurs in these tottering and dusty edges of modernity – what will be the response as the walls grow and thicken while the oceanic commons fill with the boats and bodies of migrants?
The politicians will eventually decide on a path. Any path will require the tools of national will – military, paramilitary, legal, and police power – to respond and act. That requires training, equipment, and procedures – all done in a multinational environment.
We might as well start increasing this part of our toolbox; the requirement is only going to grow. The mission you may not want, but may get anyway.
– Will we just block, send back and watch as more ships founder and drift?
– Will we intercept, tow, and divert?
– If the pressure-valve of migration is stopped, then the stress for resources and justice in the source nations can only lead in one direction – conflict. Will we be in the consequence management business even more – or like the international fleet off Smyrna (now Izmir), just hang out and watch the bloodbath?
A final note: why not mention the issue of immigration to the USA? Different problem in both geography, culture and scale. Much easier for a diluted majority Anglo-Saxon-Germanic culture to absorb migrants from mostly Catholic Iberianesque cultures than what the rest of the world if facing. As I grew up in just that environment – I don't see the issue. We're fine. Also, more of a land and as a result police issue. I'll let the Army and law enforcement side of the house address that if they wish.
I have also lived at the edges of the unassimilated masses of N. Africans, Turks, and S. Asians that are swelling in Europe – I see the huge challenge those nations will have to learn to deal with one way or the other. The trend lines speak for themselves.
Tags: Asia, East Asia, Europe, immigration, Law, law enforcement, Migrants
A Question for the Service Chief
By Nick Myhre
Last year on National Public Radio's "Marketplace," host Kai Ryssdal closed many of his interviews in the Corner Office segment by asking those captains of industry to describe what their firms do in 5 words or fewer. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich came close: "We make everything connected and smart." Most didn't come that close.
A couple of months ago, DoD and DHS teamed up to unveil "A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower." Admiral Greenert, General Dunford, and Admiral Zukunft got together at the Center for Strategic and International Studies with Admiral (ret) Stavridis to discuss the new strategy, and give those in attendance a chance to ask a few questions. They didn't make it in 5 words.
The challenge for the Chief of Naval Operations: In 5 or fewer words, what does the Navy do?
To be fair, bedrock guidance for the at-sea service of a global power will probably have to flesh things out a bit, and the Cooperative Strategy certainly does: What does the Navy do? How do we aim to do it? How do we sustain those efforts into the future? Check, check and check, but at 48 pages it isn't exactly accessible. To those of us who live, eat, and breathe Navy, it is clear and understandable. How does it resonate with the millions of Americans who do not spend their days poring over budget exhibits and JCIDS documents, but still pay taxes, vote and watch CNN?
The 5 word definition by itself is not important. The conversation is. The Navy doesn't need this description to replace the "global force for good," and 5 words is probably impossible. To paraphrase Ike: plans are worthless; planning is everything. It is important to our young talent pool who may choose to honor us with their service. Junior officers and NCOs will want to know why to stay. Taxpayers will want to know what they're buying. So why 5 words? The Navy needs to hone its messages, and needs a barrier to drive creativity. Set the bar high, and force discussion, argument and compromise. In 5 words, no one will get everything they want, but everyone will have to make a strong case for it. So where does this exercise drive us?
The Navy needs champions, vocal leaders in the service, in Congress, and elsewhere to communicate a compelling vision of the value the United States Navy provides for the country and the world. Alfred Thayer Mahan's compelling argument of the importance of Seapower left a lasting imprint on U.S. policy. He didn't see the future in terms of hardware and tactics, but he didn't have to. Presidents, Congressmen, and the people took note, and the United States funded and built a Navy capable of playing in a balance-of-power world. Champions of the Navy must articulate clear objectives and cogent arguments. While the QDR and 21st Century Strategy provide top-level guidance, they seem to indicate that we should be doing everything. If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority, and we're left with POM competition to determine our path. "Five words" discussions will force us to be brutally honest about what we want to achieve, what we can afford, and what the limits of American Seapower may be.
Another important group the Navy needs to inspire is young people, the workforce of the future. While pop-cultural generalization indicates Millennials seek out inspiration in their careers, the truth is everyone, of all generations, wants to be inspired. Everyone wants to believe that their contributions are meaningful. Access and aptitude for using technology and navigating the ever-growing web of information apparently makes Millennials more difficult to lead than the coffee house slackers and the "Me Generation" that came before them. This changes neither the Navy's requirement to recruit and train a fighting force, nor the fierce competition with other services for talent. As economic recovery continues, recruiting and retention challenges will only continue to mount. Focus counts to anyone who considers joining the Navy.
While the economy may have taken a step forward from 2009, pressure on the national budget remains. Even though years have passed since 9/11, virtually no one will say that defense spending is not important, but increased funding for defense spending is not in the offing. Many tax payers will wonder if it is as important as it once was, and as critical as other agencies' concerns today. The focus and debate stimulated by the 5-word question will help hammer out how best to spend limited resources. How do we put a price on readiness? How can we calculate the cost of a sufficient deterrent? We must prove to the country that we are making the most of our resources.
How would the CNO respond, in 5 words or fewer: What does the Navy do? (At best, they need to do it in 140 or fewer characters.) The answers may determine how the Navy is viewed, funded and used as a component of U.S. foreign policy, and the U.S. role in global affairs. Let's start with the corner office challenge. How about "Deterrent and coercive force of American Foreign Policy in the Global Commons?" Twelve words. Missed out on humanitarian operations, and "coercive" seems a bit impolite. "Sea control in maritime domains?" Five words, but should the United States aspire to truly control the seas? Credit Mr. Ryssdal (a former naval aviator himself), this is a tough question.


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Magic bullets
A crew of thugs pummeled and then tried to shoot a Canarsie man on May 6 — but couldn't hit the victim because of lousy aim.
Police found the Canarsie resident at his home, which is on E. 79th Street near Glenwood Road, bleeding, but his injuries could have been much worse.
Witnesses told investigators that the victim was sitting on a car parked on E. 79th Street near Glenwood Road at 6:45 pm when the three punks approached and began arguing with him.
After a few heated words, the trio pulled the victim off the car and began beating him, leaving him with a deep cut under one eye.
Then, as the victim lay on the ground, one of the suspects pulled a gun and opened fire — but missed.
Cops found the shell casings, but the victim told police that he didn't remember the violent exchange.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is urged to come forward.
Calls can be made to the NYPD CrimeStoppers hotline at (800) 577-8477. All calls will be kept confidential.
Caught in the act
A 31-year-old is facing rape charges this week for allegedly having sex with a disabled E. 87th Street autistic teen on May 4. But the girl's father is also facing prison — for shooting at the would-be deviant when he caught him having sex with his daughter.
Shots were fired inside the teen's home, which is near Avenue M, at 5:30 pm when the 48-year-old father came home and found the 31-year-old having sex with his daughter.
Enraged, the father, an MTA employee, grabbed his gun, which he had a license for, and fired at the lewd lover as he hot-footed it out of the house.
The 31-year-old ran home and called police. The father surrendered to authorities the next day and cops charged him with attempted assault.
Investigators also charged the 31-year-old with rape, claiming that the MTA worker's disabled daughter was unable to consent to sex.
Flowery fraud
A 33-year-old woman was arrested on May 8 after she tried to buy a bushel of Mother's Day flowers with a counterfeit $100 bill.
A street vendor on Flatlands Avenue near Rockaway Parkway told police that the woman had given her a $100 bill as she purchased flowers at 8:30 am.
The vendor gave the woman $85 in change, but quickly realized that the bill was fake and flagged down a cop.
The officer found the would-be counterfeiter a few blocks away and charged her with petit larceny and criminal possession of a forged instrument.
Utica raid
A pair of thieves barreled into a Utica Avenue store on May 4, taking $930.
The crooks, who were sporting black masks and latex gloves, flashed firearms and ordered everyone to the ground once they stepped inside at 10:45 pm. The suspects fled after forcing a manager to empty out a store register and a safe.
Shot on a dare
A gunman shot a stranger in the leg on E. 83rd Street on May 2 — because the victim dared him to.
The 20-year-old resident told police that he was standing outside his house, which is between Avenues K and L, at 10 pm when the gunman walked down the street.
The two stared each other down — then challenged each other.
"What are you looking at?" the stranger asked.
"Not much" the victim chided.
"Maybe I should shoot you," his opponent seethed.
"Maybe you should," the victim challenged — apparently not knowing that the stranger was a bit trigger-happy.
The assailant pulled a gun and opened fire, striking the victim in the leg. He was taken to Brookdale Hospital, where he was treated and released.
Gun robber sought
Three thugs jumped a 19-year-old on Avenue J on April 26 — taking the young man's gun.
The victim was nearing E. 57th Street at 5:25 pm when the thieves attacked, running off with his weapon.
A thief broke into the Floyd Bennett American Legion Post on Avenue N, taking $60 during the April 28 burglary.
Post members said the thief wiggled his way into the building, which is near E. 56th Street, through an open air conditioner sleeve in the wall.
©2011 Community News Group
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subset: commoncrawl


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You know a Dell is exactly the type of computer I first tried this on and it wouldnt recognize the hard drive and I tried messing with the Bios, changed settings and everything else too. It seems Diddi is using a Dell as well so there have been a few of us that havent been able to do with with a Dell so that might be something for Textbook to mention in the tut.
When I switched to an older HP it worked just fine (other than the shadow C thing)
dell has some kind of protection in their bios.. HD are only recognized if originally there was a harddrive in primary master.. if there was an dvd drive in primary master and you try to swap xbox harddrive with the dvd drive.. xboxhdm doesnt work although bios picks up the harddrive..


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I am new to MapBasic.
I googled for tutorials and found various PDFs but could not get started with the resources.
I would be glad if anyone could provide some path for learning MapBasic.
I was lucky enough to learn MapBasic from some other colleagues.
I have not found many resources for MapBasic other than what Pitney Bowes offers on the site.
There is currently only a handful of MapBasic questions on this site, and only a few people following that tag, but if you have more specific questions, feel free to ask here and we will try and help out.
Also if you are looking for a way to learn MapBasic more than a way to learn programming, there is a huge help in MapInfo Pro thru the MapBasic window.
Open the MapBasic window (Options > Show MapBasic Window) and do the task you want to code in MapBasic in MapInfo Pro. MapInfo Pro will now write the MapBasic statements required. You can now copy these into your MapBasic source code and work from this.
It's not all that can be done this way, but it gives you a very good insight into a lot of the MapBasic statements
There are also a number of web pages where you can find tools including MapBasic source code to get you on the right track.
Sometimes it might be helpful to have a look at the source code for an existing tool to see how it has been made.
Have a look at these sites:
Some of these site do hold some pretty old tools but many of these will still work.
As for actual writing MapBasic application I will only recommend the MapBasic Text Editor for small projects. As soon as you start creating more advanced projects I would recommend that you find a better text editor.
One option here would to use the MapBasic IDE developed by Mustafa ÖZÇETİN. On the blog you can find a very good guide to getting started with the MapBasic IDE.
Not a tutorial but something I found very useful is this site: http://www.twiav.nl/php/mapbasic.php
I would highly recommend setting up Notepad++ (or something similar). Syntax highlighting, bulk indenting and bulk commenting can speed things up massively.


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Just in time for Halloween, RiffTrax Live is back with a riff that will take your breath away... If you can't breathe, you can't laugh! Fathom Events and RiffTrax.com® are excited to bring indisputably the best digital snake movie of 1997, Anaconda, back to the big screen for a LIVE riff on Thursday, October 30 at 8:00 p.m. ET/ 7:00 p.m. CT and tape-delayed to 7:00 p.m. MT/ 8:00 p.m. PT, followed by a special re-broadcast on Tuesday, November 4 7:30 p.m. (local time).
Rated: NR
Starring: ,
Directed by:
Run Time: 2 hr. 0 mins.
Released by: NCM Fathom
Official Site
Corporate Office
About Cinemagic


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Technology and Currency
A thought while waiting at the gate at Frankfurt Airport: 20 years ago before the near-universal availability of credit cards and ATMs, having a single currency for Europe would have offered tremendous practical advantages. You could fly from Dublin to Paris to catch a connecting flight to Helsinki and back without the need for constant visits to the currency exchange bureau. Or take a day trip from Belgium to the Netherlands.
But of course back then there was no Euro. Today, we have the currency union but information technology has drastically reduced the practical benefits. Last fall I was in Germany for a week, then in Sweden for a week, and then in Denmark for a week—three currencies in three weeks—and it honestly was no problem at all. You basically just live life as you always do, paying for lots of things with plastic and withdrawing small amounts of cash when you need it.
Which makes me wonder if moving the different countries of Europe into a single currency wasn't actually a step against the tides of change. Maybe the real move for the 21st century is for large to go to smaller currency areas. It would arguably have done the "rust belt" some good over the past 30 years to be able to devalue relative to higher-growth portions of the United States. And everyone knows that economic conditions in China's coastal cities are radically different from what you find in the rural north and west.


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Video Industry News Video Company News Technology Industry News Technology Company News Novelty Industry News Novelty Company News Gay Industry News Gay Company News Legal Industry News All Company News
Released: Sep 01st, 2004
Running Time: 131,104
Director: Zora Banx
Company: Smash Pictures
Cast: Bruno (I), Betty (I), Renato (I), Izabella (I), Cora Carinna, Jaqueline Stone, Dominic (I), Amanda (I), Mike Foster, Melanie (I), Zoltan, Victoria Swinger, Judy (I), Christina Bella, Electra Angel, Nikky (I), Laura Blue, Lauro Giotto, Clark (I), Noemi, Lianna, Dia (I), Chris (I), Monica Unco, Mario (I)
Critical Rating: AAA 1/2
Genre: All-Sex
This stockable entry should get some serious shelf space.
This above-average title keeps viewers on their toes while keeping the girls on their knees. It features some great footage of cute girls not talking, but just smoking pole with heavy eye contact to the lens. Twelve girls suck and lick meaty treats for several minutes,; each in various scenarios such as a koi pond garden and dungeon bedroom. Bravo to all.
The only complaint would be the lite-jazz music selection taken from an obvious library of elevator Muzak.


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Share Photo
In this April 1, 2008, file photo, St. Louis Cardinals' Troy Glaus tosses his batting helmet after striking out in a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies in St. Louis. Glaus is expected to miss at least two months following a setback in his rehabilitation from arthroscopic shoulder surgery in January. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)


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Juvenile Arthritis Center - Charlotte, NC
- WebMD Physician Directory of Charlotte Pediatric Rheumatologist Doctors
- The City of Charlotte
- Related Juvenile Arthritis Articles
- Charlotte Emergency Contacts
- Nearby Charlotte Hospitals
- Find a Local Pharmacy on RxList - Charlotte
Charlotte Pediatric Rheumatologist Doctors for Juvenile Arthritis
Type of Physician: Pediatric Rheumatologist
What is a Pediatric Rheumatologist? A subspecialty certification by the Board of Pediatrics; practitioners treat the infant, child, or adolescent with rheumatic disease (causing painful disability in the muscles, tendons, bones, joints or nerves). He or she also participates in the prevention, understanding, and treatment of the various rheumatic disorders and also promotes understanding of the basic mechanisms of the disease in the interrelated areas of immunology, genetics, inflammation, and infectious diseases.
Specialty: Pediatric Rheumatology
Common Name:
Pediatric Rheumatologist Doctors in Charlotte * results
- 2
Sheetal S. Vora
Levine Childrens Specialty Center
1001 Blythe Blvd Ste 200
Charlotte, NC 28203
(704) 381-6850
- 17 years experience
- 1 office location(s)
- 3
Thomas R. Griffin
Levine Childrens Specialty Center
1001 Blythe Blvd Ste 200
Charlotte, NC 28203
(704) 381-6850
- 24 years experience
- 1 office location(s)
Don't see your city? Use the WebMD Physician Directory to expand your search.
Charlotte, North Carolina
Nicknamed the Queen City, Charlotte and the county containing it are named in honor of the German Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg, who had become queen consort of British King George III the year before the city's founding. A second nickname derives from later in the 18th century. During the American Revolutionary War, British commander General Cornwallis occupied the city but was driven out afterwards by hostile residents, prompting him to write that Charlotte was "a hornet's nest of rebellion," leading to another city nickname: The Hornet's Nest.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte)
Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis)
Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) facts
- Epidemiologic studies estimate that approximately 294,000 American children are affected by JIA.
- Children of European ancestry are more likely to develop the condition while those of...
Read the Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis) article »
Other Related Juvenile Arthritis Articles
Emergency Contact for Charlotte
- In case of Emergency, call 911
- Police non-emergency 817-335-4222
- Fire Deptartment 817-392-6850
Nearby Charlotte Hospitals results
- 1Presbyterian Hospital
200 Hawthorne Ln
Charlotte, North Carolina 28204
(704) 384-400
- 2Carolinas Medical Center
1000 Blythe Blvd
Charlotte, North Carolina 28203
(704) 355-200
- 3Presbyterian Orthopedic Hosp
1901 Randolph Rd
Charlotte, North Carolina 28207
(704) 316-400
- 4Mercy Hospital
2001 Vail Ave
Charlotte, North Carolina 28207
(704) 379-500
- 5Carolinas Rehabilitation
1100 Blythe Blvd
Charlotte, North Carolina 28203
(704) 355-430
- 6C M C Randolph Behavioral Hlth
501 Billingsley Rd
Charlotte, North Carolina 28211
(704) 358-270
- 7Carolina Med Ctr Univ
8800 N Tryon St
Charlotte, North Carolina 28262
(704) 548-600
- 8Carolinas Medical Ctr-Pineville
10628 Park Rd
Charlotte, North Carolina 28210
(704) 667-100
- 9Presbyterian Hospital-Matthews
1500 Matthews Township Pkwy
Charlotte, North Carolina 28105
(704) 384-650
- 10Presbyterian Hospital
10030 Gilead Rd
Charlotte, North Carolina 28078
(704) 316-400
- 11Gaston Memorial Hospital
2525 Court Dr
Charlotte, North Carolina 28054
(704) 834-200
- 12Carolinas Medical Center NE
920 Church St N
Charlotte, North Carolina 28025
(704) 783-300
- 13Piedmont Medical Center
222 S Herlong Ave
Charlotte, North Carolina 29732
(803) 329-123
- 14Lake Norman Regional Med Ctr
171 Fairview Rd
Charlotte, North Carolina 28117
(704) 663-111
- 15Carolinas Medical Center-Union
600 Hospital Dr
Charlotte, North Carolina 28112
(704) 283-310
- 16Carolinas Medical Ctr-Lincoln
433 McAlister Rd
Charlotte, North Carolina 28092
(704) 735-307
- 17Kings Mountain Hospital
706 W King St
Charlotte, North Carolina 28086
(704) 739-360
- 18Springs Memorial Hospital
800 W Meeting St
Charlotte, North Carolina 29720
(803) 286-121
* Provider Directory Terms of Use:
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AppAdvice's Top 10 Best Free iPhone Apps Of 2012
What were the best apps released in 2012? Find out what our top free iPhone app picks are for the year! Did yours make the cut?
Christine Chan
| December 28
App Showdown: What's The Best iPhone Camera? Camera+ Vs. KitCam Vs. ProCamera Vs. Camera Awesome
Looking for something more full featured than Apple's own Camera app on your iPhone? Then make sure to see how the top four camera replacement apps stack up in this week's App Showdown!
Christine Chan
| December 19
Camera Awesome Is Now More Awesome With Native iPad Support
If you enjoy dabbling with photography on your iPad, then you don't want to miss the new update to Camera Awesome.
Christine Chan
| October 5
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Business, Financial & Legal Posts - Page 9
The best-paid CEO in the US is Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google
The best-paid CEO in the United States is Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, which comes as a surprise.
Pichai received the equivalent of $199 million in stock earlier this month, which increased his stake in Alphabet to $650 million. Pichai won't be able to cash in all of his Alphabet chips in for a while, with his shares vesting in quarterly phases through to 2019.
If we compare Apple CEO Tim Cook to Pichai, Cook pulled in $376.2 million when he sat int the CEO throne at Apple. While a $650 million stake in Alphabet would seem like lifetimes of money to mere mortals like you and I, it pales in comparison to the founders of Google. Larry Page and Sergey Brin are worth $34 billion, while ex-CEO Eric Schmidt has around $3 billion in stock. Guys, can I have a loan? I need to buy lots of cans of alphabet soup.
Microsoft acquires predictive keyboard maker SwiftKey for $250 million
There's one app that I absolutely must have on my Android smartphone, and that's SwiftKey. SwiftKey is a predictive keyboard maker, that Microsoft has just acquired for $250 million.
Microsoft paying $250 million for the company will see SwiftKey founders Jon Reynolds and Ben Medlock receive $30 million or more each, which is pretty damn good for eight years of work being pumped into SwiftKey. SwiftKey itself has been installed on over 300 million devices, whether that's the free or paid versions on either iOS or Android.
What is Microsoft's interest in SwiftKey? Well, the artificial intelligence behind its super-accurate predictive text suggestions, which we should see baked into future iterations of Microsoft's mobile OS.
Yahoo's new 'aggressive strategic plan' slays 1700 jobs, 5 offices
Yahoo has just announced its new "aggressive strategic plan", where it has announced a slew of new products and a new way to tackle Google, Microsoft, and Apple. Wait, no they didn't - their strategic plan involves culling 15% of its workforce (1700 people) and closing down 5 offices around the world.
The company will be closing its offices in Dubai, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Madrid and Milan, with the layoffs leaving the company with 9000 staff by the end of the year. Yahoo's goal is to reduce operating costs by $400 million as we go into 2017. During its recent quarter, Yahoo pulled in $1.27 billion in revenue, but had a massive write-down of $4.5 billion. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said in a statement: "today, we're announcing a strategic plan that we strongly believe will enable us to accelerate Yahoo's transformation. This is a strong plan calling for bold shifts in products and in resources".
When Mayer took over at Yahoo, she said the company was full of legacy businesses and a declining revenue stream that had to be stopped. Its Mavens (mobile, video, native and social) side had a revenue source that had an "incredibly fast growth line of business". Mayer also noted that Yahoo needs to engage its users, and double down on its top businesses: Search, Mail and Tumblr.
Alphabet passes Apple as world's most valuable public company
Google's parent company Alphabet is now the world's most valuable publicly traded company, according to earnings reports released today.
Revenue stands tall at $21.3 billion and earnings are at $8.67 per share -- both exceeding analyst predictions of $20.8 billion and earnings of $8.09 per share. Market cap comes in at $558 billion, surpassing Apple at $535 billion, a company which has struggled to grow in recent times following a long period of flourishing.
Alphabet attributes the wild success to its investments in mobile search as well as YouTube and "programmatic" advertising. Its 1 billion active Gmail users probably don't hurt, either.
Former AMD engineer Jim Keller is now Tesla division VP
Last we heard, CPU architect Jim Keller had left AMD for Samsung. Turns out that's only half true, as Keller is now confirmed to be the new Vice President of Autopilot Hardware Engineering at Tesla Motors, where he'll help build self-driving cars.
"Jim will bring together the best internal and external hardware technologies to develop the safest, most advanced autopilot systems in the world," said Tesla, relaying the news.
The company should do well to have him on staff. Keller -- who has been working at AMD on and off since the late 90s and most recently designed the Zen architecture -- is widely regarded as one of the most talented engineers in the technology industry, and Tesla has been hurting for engineers following recent departures.
Circuit City is planning a retail comeback
While Tiger Direct and Radio Shack have bit the dust, the once-reigning Circuit City has risen from its grave to peddle electronic wares to a new age of consumers.
According to tech industry site Twice, the first resurrected Circuit City will open its doors as early as June, with 50 to 100 stores planned for 2017. The new stores will feature "product zones" specifically tailored to millennials, stocked with popular tech like smartphones, tablets, laptops, 3D printers, wearables, and more. The new brick and mortar stores will have electronic web terminals connected to a "million-SKU online selection" of products.
The company will be helmed by Ronny Shmoel and Albert Liniado, who have an ambitious multi-faceted approach for business. The new Circuit City will fire on all cylinders with web storefronts, "express" kiosks placed in convenience stores, airports and pharmacies, mobile shops, franchised stores, and even a line of Circuit City-branded products.
Continue reading 'Circuit City is planning a retail comeback' (full post)
PayPal joins internet earner spree, reports 17 percent revenue rise
PayPal has joined Facebook in a positive earnings announcement , stating that it has enjoyed a revenue rise of 17 percent.
The result of this rise was a 6 percent increase in stock, thanks to the reported fourth quarter adjusted revenue of $2.56 billion, marking a 17% improvement year-over-year and an adjusted net income of $443 million. This net income figure made for a 36 cents per share earning, ensuring a 27 percent growth since the fourth quarter of 2014 and helping cement PayPal as the king of digital payments.
Sporting a market cap of $39 billion, PayPal is enjoying a higher evaluation and better results than its sister company EBay, which is rated at $32 billion and has seen a recent 10 percent drop in shares, part of a turbulent existence since the seperateion of these two giants 2015.
EBay shares down 10 percent as other websites see record profits
While Facebook has smashed its profit reports and is seeing considerable growth, the online marketplace of EBay has hit some rough times.
Its fourth-quarter earnings report was met with a 10 percent drop in shares, possibly due to a slow-moving holiday season - something that is certainly the bane of any marketplaces existence. Posting earnings of 50 cents per share on revenue of $2.3 billion, Tech Crunch reported that analysts were fairly on point - predicting this report to showcase 50 cents per share on revenue of $2.32 billion in this time period.
After the separation from PayPal in 2015 EBay hasn't seen any vast improvements, with experts placing further pressure on this internet giant to perform under the watchful eyes of worried investors.
Instagram's new product boss is an ex-Twitter executive
While Instagram is enjoying its ad network success, Twitter is bleeding staff. Kevil Weil, an ex-executive with the social media giant, has just left Twitter for the warm arms of Instagram.
Weil will be Instagram's new Head of Product, and will be reporting directly to Twitter CEO Kevin Systrom. Weil has replaced Peter Deng who moved onto another part of Facebook's ever-increasing reach on the world, joining Oculus, earlier this month.
Instagram has been trying to snag Weil since last year, so Weil was smart to make his decision considering the exodus of staff from Twitter continues to mount.
Bill Gates tops richest person alive list once more
Research firm Wealth-X tracks data on the world's richest people, and their latest says Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates is on top of the pile yet again. What's more, it's not even close: he stands tall at $87.4bn, with fashion businessman Amancio Ortega in at 2nd with $66.8bn. Other familiar names include Warren Buffett (3rd with $60.7bn) and Mark Zuckerberg (8th with $42.8bn).
To put things in broader perspective, Gates was recently ranked #9 on a list of the richest people of all time. Those ahead of him held claim to hundreds of billions of dollars or more; Augustus Caesar possessed $4.6 trillion, and Mansa Musa, the King of Timbuktu, is believed to be far beyond even that.


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From Japan (Part 13): One more day in Takayama
by Mark V on Jul. 09, 2007 at 6:40 AM
Alright, then…at the time of posting, I'm actually back from Japan. Yes, I'm so glad to be back in Seattle because .because .the,uh ..hmmmmmm .actually I'm not at all happy to be back. Well, there is pizza, of course I'm happy about having…» Read More »


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Moral Relativism: A Reader
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Moral Relativism: A Reader
Paul K. Moser
Format: Hardcover
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Want to Know about Relativism? Start Here.
on May 17, 2004
Format: Paperback
This is an anthology of papers by contemporary analytic philosophers about moral relativism. It's chalk full of papers in which analytic philosophers do what they do best: clarify the nature of positions, lay out the arguments for and against various positions, relate various positions and arguments to one another, etc. If you want to know just what relativism is, just why someone might defend it, and just why someone might criticize it, this is the place to go.
And, clearly, this is a topic where the clarity and patience you find in this collection is sorely needed. Relativism is something about which there is a lot of discussion in academia, in the media, and in everyday conversation. But rarely, if ever, do people discuss what they think relativism really is. This is where this anthology can be very helpful, for many of these papers go to great pains to spell out just what relativism is and why it may or may not be a defensible position. The way to get at relativism is to look at various common-sense ideas that are connected to relativism: that the same thing can be right for people in one group and wrong for people in another, that morality is relative to a person's group, that there is no single true morality, that morality isn't objective, etc. And it is also important to focus, as many of these papers do, on the fact that moral relativism is not simply a matter of the sociological and anthropological facts about moral disagreement and differences. These facts are often take to suggest relativism, but it is important to recognize that they do not immediately imply it. Relativism is one possible response to these facts about disagreement and differences in moral codes between different groups of people. What we need is a way to formulate something approaching a theory of the status and nature of morality from this response to diversity in moral views and these common-sense ideas about relativism says and implies about morality.
Here's a first pass. The basic ideas of relativism are that the moral facts are somehow constituted by the moral attitudes, beliefs, conventions, standards, etc. of a group of people, and that the truth and falsity of particular moral claims depends upon the moral attitudes, beliefs, conventions, standards, etc. of a group of people. But, as David Lyons points out in his paper, there are two ways to understand this dependence, because there are two different groups that might matter here: the group of the person making a moral judgment and the group of the person whose action is being judged. I'll explain the distinction by focusing on what the two types of relativism tell us about the truth of a particular person's, b's, moral judgment that another person, a, ought not to commit murder. One way of understanding this dependence gives us agent relativism, a view according to which b's judgment that a person a ought not to commit murder is true if and only if people in a's group have a negative moral attitude towards committing murder, or believe that committing murder is wrong, or have a convention against committing murder, or have moral standards that rule out committing murder, or something similar. So, according to agent relativism, what matters is the group of the person being judged, the group of the person doing the action. The other way of understanding the dependence gives us appraiser relativism, a view according to which b's judgment that a person a ought not to commit murder is true if and only if people in b's group have a negative moral attitude towards committing murder, or believe that committing murder is wrong, or have a convention against committing murder, or have moral standards that rule out committing murder, or something similar. So, according to appraiser relativism, what matters is the group of the person doing the judging.
Now that we know what moral relativism is, I can tell you about the selections here. The anthology opens with a section intended to introduce the issues that includes papers from Richard Brandt and James Rachels in which they try to formulate just what relativism is, why people are tempted to think it is true, and what issues its plausibility turns on.
This is followed by a section on the nature and importance of cultural relativity as an argument for relativism. William Sumner and Ruth Benedict defend (fairly crude) forms of relativism by appealing to the facts of cultural diversity. Then there are three responses to this sort of argument: W. D. Ross and Carl Wellman argue that cultural diversity does not obviously imply moral relativism in the way Sumner and Benedict appear to think, while Michele Moody-Adams argues that, regardless of the connection between the truth of relativism and the existence of moral diversity, the evidence for moral diversity of the relevant sort is far from convincing.
The next section is on whether relativism is even a coherent position. The best paper here is the one by David Lyons in which he carefully sets out the different sorts of relativism and argues that appraiser relativism leads to contradictions and so it incoherent. Also included is a subtle and evenhanded paper by T. M. Scanlon. The section following this is probably the one with the most philosophical meat. It includes papers by Gilbert Harman and Philippa Foot in which they attempt to formulate defensible forms of relativism. Harman argues that a certain sort of agent relativism is the appropriate moral theory for naturalists, and Foot argues that a sort of appraiser relativism can be defended for some moral judgments, but not all. These two defenses of relativism are followed by responses from various angles: Martha Nussbaum draws on virtue ethics to dispute relativism, Gordon Graham rebuts arguments from tolerance and pluralism for relativism, and Thomas Nagel argues that a sort of moral rationalism is to be preferred to relativism.
The final significant section concerns relativism and its connection to realism and rationality. Much of this work isn't clearly connected to moral relativism, though it's all interesting. Finally, there is a case study by Loretta Kopelman about the plausibility of moral relativism once we consider the nature of the real world practice of female genital mutilation.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A *Serious* Beginners Guide
William B. Starr
on March 14, 2004
Format: Paperback
Contrary to the previous reviewer's statements, this is not a terrible introduction to the topic of moral relativism. In fact it is a rather good one. I suspect the previous reviewer was put off with the very slightly technical stage setting that goes on in contemporary philosophical ethics. For those who can't handle this, avoid this book and look forward to a life of conceptual confusion.
Some of the selections of this reader are excellent, tightly (but not necessarily correctly) argued intro-level articles, particularly the pieces by Harman, Mackie, Scanlon, Nagel and Nussbaum (all very accomplished writers in this area). Others are not as well-written or tightly argued, but they nevertheless raise the crucial issues at stake in discussion of moral relativism, and, therefore, have at least a pedagogical value. Overall a solid starting point for those with a serious interest and willing to think about the issues in detail.
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1.0 out of 5 stars
I can't believe how bad this was
Todd Bradley
on December 8, 2002
Format: Hardcover
A professor of philosophy at the local university recommended this book as a good introduction to the topic of ethical (moral) relativism, suitable for the layperson. It definitely isn't. I read the lengthy introduction, which lays out the landscape of the topic and defines a bunch of terms. Then I read the first essay, which does exactly the same thing. I started on the second essay and realized that these essays just are not suited for a layperson novice in the field.
So I skipped to the final section, which is purported to be "a case study on female circumcision/genital mutilation that vividly brings into focus the practical aspects and implications of moral relativism." It sure looked more "user friendly". But the case study isn't really much of a case study as it is a poorly thought out argument against using moral relativism to defend these practices. It's been 15 years since I took my last philosophy course in college, but even I noticed the glaring logic errors used one after another in this argument.
I don't think I've ever been this dissatisfied with a book, so I felt I had to write a review to warn you to stay away!
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Chow Hot Pockets
posted by January 31 at 17:35 PMon
I was introduced today to El Salvador's take on starch stuffed with protein. The Salvadoran Bakery in White Center serves several varieties of pupusas, which are grilled rounds of corn flour dough filled with, among other choices: cheese and beans, chicken, pork or even squash. I was too hungry to stop and take pictures. These dainty but sturdy pockets were lustily devoured in our office. They're lightly charred and pleasantly greasy, but won't leave an oil slick your hands. Lucky for me, White Center is far far away from Capitol Hill.


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Gluten development and pandoro
This video is driving me crazy: http://vimeo.com/8012448
My dough never windowpanes like that, but I can't tell if the gluten is under- or overdeveloped, because it has characteristics of both. It can't stretch out that far and thin without tearing, which might mean underdevelopment, but the gluten is definitely active. The dough is tough and resists pulling. The flour mix has 14% protein.
How do I get the dough to windowpane properly? Lower-protein flour? More or less mixing?


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K-League Embroiled In Match-Rigging Scandal
While South Korean soccer fans set their eye on Saturday's Champions League Final, expecting to see outstanding performances by the country's "Forever Captain" Park Ji-sung of Manchester United, the domestic K-League finds itself under a cloud for a match-fixing allegations.
On Wednesday, prosecutors arrested two gambling brokers who allegedly bribed professional players into manipulating a game result to win sports lotteries. Also two K-League players were arrested Thursday morning in connection with the alleged bribes. A goalie is suspected of of receiving 100 million won ($91,900), while a midfielder is suspected of receiving 1.2 million won for taking part in the manipulation.
Kim Dong-hyun, a former member of the national squad who is now serving his military duty, was also investigated by police yesterday for allegedly fixing games in return for money. The police also said it started looking into the widespread rumor that the death of player Yoon Ki-won early this month has something to do with organized crime rings and match-rigging brokers. The 24-year-old goalkeeper was found dead in his car in an apparent suicide.
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It is the first time in South Korea's professional football league that such a scandal is coming into public view, even though there have long been unsubstantiated rumors in the industry and online forums about possible game manipulation.
In recent years, illegal sports-betting sites have been mushrooming. According to the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation, the number of such sites has increased to 7,951 in 2010 from 40 in 2007, with the volume, varying widely among agencies, being estimated at 35 trillion won ($32 billion) in 2010. The trade volume in the legal industry is estimated to be 12 trillion won.
Thursday afternoon, 16 directors of the K-League teams convened an emergency meeting to discuss how to handle what could be one of the industry's biggest scandals, which broke at a time when K-League teams have stepped up efforts since late last year to educate players about the dangers of illegal gambling or colluding with brokers who rig games.


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Shrewsbury: Red Cross blood drive
June 27, 2013
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An American Red Cross blood drive will be held June 27, from 2 to 8 p.m., at the Shrewsbury Senior Center, 98 Maple Ave.? Open to the public, with residents from all surroundings towns invited to participate. Appointments are preferred, but walk-in donors are also welcome.? The Red Cross is hoping to collect at least 45 life-savings pints of blood at this drive. All donors will receive a free Red Sox T-shirt. The Red Cross requires a positive ID before donating.? You must be at least 17 years old (16 years with a signed parental consent form).? You can donate blood every 56 days.? Please call 1-800-REDCROSS or visit www.redcrossblood.org to schedule an appointment to donate.