Tag Archives: North Sea

While You Were Watching The Election…

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The mainstream media in America is focused on Donald Trump to the point where they are ignoring a lot of things–they are not saying a lot about the emails released by Wikileaks and they are not saying much about the military buildup that is happening in Europe. When you read this story, please keep in mind how much of a threat Donald Trump is to the political establishment and how much of a change he will represent to American foreign policy. Also remember the things said about Ronald Reagan when he ran for office. Donald Trump is not Ronald Reagan, but he would be a strong President who would keep his word and defend America. There are people in this country who have a problem with that.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday about the move toward war in Europe. Somehow The New York Times has missed the story, but the U.K. Daily Mail is covering it.

Power Line reports:

It seems to be a closely guarded secret, but preparations for war are going on in Europe. A Russian fleet that includes that country’s only aircraft carrier made a point of sailing through the English Channel and along the European coast en route to Syria. Nuclear-capable Russian ships are making a demonstration in the Baltic Sea, and Russian troops, reportedly equipped with nuclear weapons, have moved near Russia’s borders with Poland and Lithuania. In response, NATO countries are hurrying troops and ships into the potential war zone.

The U.K. Daily Mail article includes the following picture:

russiantroopbuildupI realize the picture above is hard to read, a bigger version can be found in either the Power Line or U.K Mail article.

Just a few observations–Putin has sized up President Obama and concluded that America will not challenge Russia right now. If Donald Trump is elected, that may change. President Obama has already proven that he will not stand up to Putin. We also need to remember that on March 26, 2012, major news sources reported that President Obama had told outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev he will have “more flexibility” to deal with contentious issues like missile defense after the U.S. presidential election.

I understand that the mainstream media (and the Clinton campaign), which are pretty much the same thing, would like to convince everyone that electing Donald Trump as President is going to cause a war with Russia. I would like to point out that they said the same thing about Ronald Reagan. At this time we need a strong and possibly unpredictable President–weakness will bring war.

Meanwhile, Russia just completed a nuclear drill for 40 million citizens.

This is what Europe is doing about the current threat of war:

europeantroopbuildupPlease follow the link to the U.K. Daily Mail article to read the entire story.

There Are A Number Of Possibilities Here

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Yesterday The New York Times posted an article about American concerns that Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications

The article reports:

In private, however, commanders and intelligence officials are far more direct. They report that from the North Sea to Northeast Asia and even in waters closer to American shores, they are monitoring significantly increased Russian activity along the known routes of the cables, which carry the lifeblood of global electronic communications and commerce.

Just last month, the Russian spy ship Yantar, equipped with two self-propelled deep-sea submersible craft, cruised slowly off the East Coast of the United States on its way to Cuba — where one major cable lands near the American naval station at Guantánamo Bay. It was monitored constantly by American spy satellites, ships and planes. Navy officials said the Yantar and the submersible vehicles it can drop off its decks have the capability to cut cables miles down in the sea.

This is part of Vladimir Putin’s muscle flexing. It is the result of Putin’s knowing he will not meet resistance from President Obama. We can expect this sort of cat and mouse game to continue until America gets a stronger President. It is also quite likely that the Russians have tapped into our communications lines, just as we have done to them in the past.

The article further reports:

Attention to underwater cables is not new. In October 1971, the American submarine Halibut entered the Sea of Okhotsk north of Japan, found a telecommunications cable used by Soviet nuclear forces, and succeeded in tapping its secrets. The mission, code-named Ivy Bells, was so secret that a vast majority of the submarine’s sailors had no idea what they had accomplished. The success led to a concealed world of cable tapping.

And a decade ago, the United States Navy launched the submarine Jimmy Carter, which intelligence analysts say is able to tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on communications flowing through them.

The story of the Halibut is told in a book called, Blind Man’s Bluff, by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew. It is an amazing book that details some of the exploits of American submarines during the 1970’s.

The Problem With Green Energy

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A wind turbine at Greenpark, Reading, England,...

Image via Wikipedia

Green energy is a great idea. Unfortunately, we haven’t reached the point where it makes economic sense. I suspect we will get there in the near future, but we are not there yet. When the United States or other governments try to force the issue, they run into problems. (See rightwinggranny.com from March 8, 2011, which explains what has happened with green energy in Spain). Now it’s the Netherlands’ turn.

On Wednesday, November 16, Reuters reported that the Dutch government is preparing to end its subsidies of offshore wind power. There are 36 turbines in the North Sea that produce enough electricity to meet the needs of more than 100,000 households each year. Because of the need to cut its budget deficit, the Dutch government says it can no longer afford to subsidize the entire cost of offshore wind power (18 cents per kilowatt hour–4.5 billion euros last year).

The article reports:

The government now plans to transfer the financial burden to households and industrial consumers in order to secure the funds for wind power and try to attract private sector investment.

It will start billing consumers and companies in January 2013 and simultaneously launch a system under which investors will be able to apply to participate in renewable energy projects.

But the new billing system will reap only a third of what was previously available to the industry in subsidies — the government forecasts 1.5 billion euros every year — while the pricing scale of the investment plan makes it more likely that interested parties will choose less expensive technologies than wind.

The outlook for Dutch wind projects seems bleak.

There will come a day when green energy is practical. Today is not it. When the government interferes with the free market, bad things happen.

 

 

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