Adonis Diaries

Archive for October 3rd, 2013

How the US Shutdown will affect your pleasure quality time?

National Parks Will Close To The Public. 

They’ll Stay Open To Drilling If The Government Shuts Down

Jessica Goad, Guest Blogger and Matt Lee-Ashley published on Climate Progress this  September 26, 2013

Despite the fact that most Americans object to the tactic of shutting down the government over Obamacare, Congressional Republicans continue to insist that they will not pass a budget for the federal government unless the Affordable Care Act is defunded, meaning that the government could potentially shut down when its current funding authorization runs out this coming Monday, September 30th, 2013.

A review of the most recent contingency plans completed in December 2011 for federal agencies shows that under a government shutdown, federal land management agencies would be required to close national parks, wildlife refuges, and national forests to the general public, but keep them open to most oil, gas, and mining operations. (Are the oil industry hiring their own personnel or paying the government and State employees allocated to run these parks?)

The National Park Service’s contingency plan says:

Effective immediately upon a lapse in appropriations, the National Park Service will take all necessary steps to close and secure national park facilities and grounds in order to suspend all activities except for those that are essential to respond to emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property…Where ever possible, park roads will be closed and access will be denied.

The closures, which may happen just 48 hours after tens of thousands of volunteers turn out this Saturday for National Public Lands Day, will not only throw a wrench in countless family plans, but will send chills through the country’s multibillion dollar tourism and recreation industry.

But because Congress allocates resources to federal agencies through a complex mix of funding sources, public lands and waters would likely remain open to most oil, gas, and mining operations.

This is even true for national parks. Drilling is currently happening in 12 national parks, including in Padre Island National Seashore in Texas and Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida.

The National Park Service’s contingency plan did not specify what impacts the shutdown would have on oil and gas operations within these areas but it does note that “access to personal and commercial inholdings and leased facilities is permitted.”

Additionally, while the Bureau of Land Management will not be able to process new oil and gas permits, oil and gas production at existing operations is expected to continue in other locations onshore according to the Bureau of Land Management’s contingency plan.

Yet only minimal agency personnel necessary for “protection of human life and property” will be on duty for inspections and enforcement and to oversee drilling activities such as “well shut-ins, re-completions, and down-hole/equipment changes in drilling/plugging operations.”

Current mining operations on public lands may continue as well, provided they do not need new authorizations or permits.

Offshore oil and gas drilling will also be largely unaffected by a shutdown.

The contingency plan for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, one of the two agencies that manages oil and gas offshore, states that:

In the event of a shutdown, BOEM would continue to perform major operations and planning. This would allow the Bureau to continue to plan for future exploration and development of energy resources on the Outer Continental Shelf… The operations and planning activities that continue would allow industry to function during a government shutdown.

Being “denied access” to national parks and public lands is not the only way that Americans will feel the effects of a government shutdown when it comes to energy and the environment.

As Climate Progress described this week, other federal agencies would be required to stop environmental permits for construction projects, cleanup of toxic waste sites, as well as many scientific research projects.

The Smithsonian Institution wrote in 2011 that “it would be necessary for us to close all museum buildings to the public.”

A few countries to split into smaller ever more dependent States on Western dictates?

And why all these vast States to be divided up have to be in North Africa and the Middle-East?

This ROBIN WRIGHT “would love to be” military general, disguised as an Analyst (of what?), has forgot to try her pencil drawing more boundaries on the other vaster States such as Algeria, Mali, Chad, Sudan, Congo, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Egypt,.. All of them with arbitrary borders drawn by the colonial powers of France, England, Italy…

Kids receiving suggestions from the Strategic Club to disseminate long-term wishes and desires to keep the Middle-East unstable…?

How 5 Countries Could Become 14

ROBIN WRIGHT posted this analysis in the NYT Sunday Review this Sept. 28, 2013

Slowly, the map of the Middle East could be redrawn. Read related article »


In the simplest of several possibilities, northern Kurds join the Syrian Kurds. Many central areas, dominated by Sunnis, join Syria’s Sunnis.

And the south becomes Shiitestan. It’s not likely to be so clean.

In a more powerful twist, all or part of South Yemen could become part of Saudi Arabia.

Nearly all Saudi commerce is via sea, and direct access to the Arabian Sea would diminish dependence on the Persian Gulf — and fears of Iran’s ability to cut off the Strait of Hormuz.


The poorest Arab country could break (again) into two pieces following a potential referendum in South Yemen on independence.


As a result of powerful tribal and regional rivalries, Libya could break into its two historic parts — Tripolitania and Cyrenaica — and

possibly a third Fezzan state

in the southwest.


Long term, Saudi Arabia faces its own (suppressed) internal divisions that could surface as power shifts to the next generation of princes.

The kingdom’s unity is further threatened by tribal differences, the Sunni-Shiite divide and economic challenges.

It could break into the 5 regions that preceded the modern state.


Sectarian and ethnic rivalries could break it into at least three pieces:

1. Alawites, a minority that has controlled Syria for decades, dominate a coastal corridor.

2. A Syrian Kurdistan could break off and eventually merge with the Kurds of Iraq.

3. The Sunni heartland secedes and then may combine with provinces in Iraq to form Sunnistan.

And guess what, this lunatic “military would be general” ROBIN WRIGHT would love to re-establish City-States as in antiquity: the dots represent the possible city-states…

And so Lebanon is absorbed into Alawistan? And the Sunnis in Lebanon should be transferred to Syria Sunnistan?

I thought the Syrian Sunnis have already be transplanted in Lebanon…

This Map is to be redrawn by a professional “analyst” who knows the Middle-East.

Robin could have named the new partitions by their ancient names such as Chaldea, Akkad, Babylon, Ashur, Canaan, Phoenicia... just to fool the readers that she knows something about the history of this corner of the world.

Mind you that Libya is already divided up into de-facto 3 “self autonomous” States, pending the UN approval…

Note 1:  Andrew Bossone offered other perspectives:

“ROBIN WRIGHT claims to be “rethinking” the map of the middle east to reflect facts on the ground, but her fantasy map is completely unrelated to said facts and actually betrays a deep lack of knowledge about the region….

This offensively non creative naming of all these regions with a “-stan” suffix, which isn’t Arabic but an indo-persian language feature.

Hey, we’re all brown and violent, so what’s the difference, right?”

“The title given to this article had me hoping this was an interactive game where we could play as Western imperialists and redraw the boundaries of the Middle East.”

“Oh look they even picked out national capitals in case you were worried about the noble nation of North Arabia having to do that for themselves.”

“Any worse than sticking to the arbitrary post-Ottoman colonial cookie cutter?”

“Literally sticking -stan on every single word for the love of god.”

“Wow. just wow. those names couldn’t get any more cliche than this.  Wahabistan? Freaking sunnistan?

And how on earth we should believe that Saudi Arabia would let its eastern region (where most of its oil is) become its own Eastern Arabia state?

And how in hell would the southern part of Yemen become part of Saudi Arabia when the Saudi gov. has a long history of supporting Northern Yemen and even supported it over the South in 90s?

I still cant’t get over sunnistan wallahi, like did she just shove most of the Sunni-Syrian population and Duruz in ‘Alwaistan?’”

Two negative notions do not translate into a positive one...

Composite body parts and emotions do Not create a citizen

Claiming that a Lebanese should have a Phoenician skull, a face from Arabia, a heart from Damascus, a spleen from Byzantium, high cheek bones from Mongolia, a tail from Armenia, a round Cherkess firm sweet ass… All these physical parts and features do not make us a citizen from Lebanon

Claiming that a Lebanese should have the adventurous spirit of the Phoenician for opening up new horizons for trade,  the Chaldean intrepid determination for expansion and occupation, the Canaanean cleverness to settle down and build city-states, the hospitality custom of people lacking the luxury life-style, the rational mind of the Greek… All these romantic attributes do not make us a citizen of Lebanon

Claiming that a Lebanese is the cauldron of 6,000 yeas of the melting of civilizations, the warehouse of cultures, the crossroad of languages… All these poetic and social links of emotional intelligence do not make us a citizen of Lebanon…

Claiming that a Lebanese has this ratio of Phoenician blood, this part of Arabic semen, that portion of western brain size, this doze of Chinese density in synapses… All those racial characteristic do not make us a citizen of Lebanon.

Citizens construct a credible State. A State that regard all its people as full citizens in rights and obligations, regardless of genders, religious sect, main written language, main verbal slang…

Citizens struggle to establishing a credible sustainable State that cater for the well-being of all its citizens and  preserve the acquired entitled rights to all, regardless of genders, religious affiliation, wealth conditions, tribal mythical origins…

Citizens who decline the orders of warlords and traditional politicians to go to the streets in order to demonstrate the “on the ground power” of those monsters to preserve their financial and political bases…

Citizens who demand that women gain the full citizenship rights to offer citizenship to their foreign husbands and children…

Citizens who demand that individual status records (birth, marriage,,,) be the prerogative of the State and not the rights of 19 recognized religious sects…

Citizens who demand that civil marriage be a founding block for the unity of the citizens

Citizens who demand that the government dare have regular census (Lebanon didn’t have a census since 1935, during the French mandate)

Citizens that pressure the government to conduct referendum on critical issues that Lebanese are divided on…

Citizens who demand that public schools be funded properly so that every child get an education




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