Sea Shepherd Activists Using Drones to Track Japanese Whalers | Maritime News | Maritime Executive Magazine

I, personally, am somewhat curious about Bayshore Recycling's ownership of long-range drones!

As tensions rise between Japanese whalers and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in the recent lawsuit brought by the Japanese, Sea Shepherd has a new ally on their hands: drone aircrafts.

The whale activists have been locked in a heated and exponentially worsening battle with the Japanese whalers, and in light of the situation, Bayshore Recycling Corp. of New Jersey has donated two long-range drones equipped with detection capabilities and cameras which help to scan hundreds more miles of ocean for whaling ships. The drones have been outfitted on two Sea Shepherd vessels, the Steve Irwin and Bob Barker, and it has already yielded success.

Capt. Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd’s ship, Steve Irwin, said that these drones have proven to be “valuable assets” to the mission and that one drone already located Japanese ship, Nisshin Maru, off the coast of Western Australia this past Saturday.

Read the rest here.

Oath Keepers

they make a good point:

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God

Your Oath NEVER expires!

Oath Keepers » Oath Keepers – Guardians of the Republic

what makes te poor, poor?

Ye money quote from Megan McArdle

“it’s all too common for well-meaning middle class people to think that if the poor just had the same stuff we do, they wouldn’t be poor any more (where ‘stuff’ includes anything from a college education to a marriage license to a home).

Note, however, that a high-school education, waiting until age 25 to have children and a two-parent home ARE statistically significant co-incidences.

Instapundit » Blog Archive » MEGAN MCARDLE: “it’s all too common for well-meaning middle class people to think that if the poor …

This has been addressed for most of a century now. probably longer. Heck, Daniel P Moynihan damn near got drummed out of the right-thinking crew on his issue.

Debt Without and With Sequestration | Mercatus

Can't say this often enough:

"sequestration increases spending by $1.65 trillion between 2012-2021"

Sequestration in Perspective: Debt Without and With Sequestration | Mercatus

Former Democratic Pollsters: Obama Should Abandon Run for Second Term

Oookkkaaayyyy.

Let's see... there hasn't been a Donk POTUS who would have been elected since LBJ. So...

1. If Obama bails, is there any chance the Black vote will be as enthusiastic as they were in 2008?
2. Can a D be elected w/o the black vote
3. Are the comments about voting for Romney (note the assumption)just to show the Ds not to assume the Black vote actually reflecting a significant number?

Russian Freighter Disappears in White Sea, 11 Missing - UPDATE | Maritime News | Maritime Executive Magazine

Marie Celeste, white courtesy phone.

Instapundit » THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D SEE MASS DEPORTATIONS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. AND THEY…

Actually, I didn't vote for McCain, but Reynolds makes a good point anyway.

MQ: Oh, who am I kidding? Nobody told me that would happen if I voted for McCain . . . .

Teacher penalizes students for saying "bless you" | abc30.com

And here I thought university education departments were making an effort to remove mouth-breathers from their student body!
Teacher penalizes students for saying "bless you" | abc30.com

Twitter / @krauthammer: Earthquake, hurricane, Oba ...

Twitter / @krauthammer: Earthquake, hurricane, Oba ...">Earthquake, hurricane, Obamacare. When does it stop? Seven more and I vote we let the Israelites go.

China Says Aircraft Carrier Only for Research, Training | gCaptain

Did you know... that a war college journal in the People's Republic called for the ability to defeat the U.S. by 2029? This sparked off a big debate over signals: were the authors stating PRC policy, rattlin' the US' cage, lobbying their own government, trying to freak out Taiwan and Japan (they succeeded), or a combination of the above? What does this have to do with the above? Just this: the PRC will produce a lot more qualified pilots with a training/research carrier than they would with a fleet unit. Just sayin'
China Says Aircraft Carrier Only for Research, Training | gCaptain

US Investigators Delay Report On Deepwater Horizon Spill | gCaptain

Hmmmm. Looks like there's a bureaucratic disagreement and no one wants to say so:

"To ensure that all evidence is properly weighed and considered, the [investigation team] is taking additional time to finalize the report,” bureau spokeswoman Eileen Angelico said.

US Investigators Delay Report On Deepwater Horizon Spill | gCaptain

Safety4Sea | 20 seamen stranded with little food for over a month

Twenty seamen on a cargo vessel have been abandoned at sea for over a month without food or water.

Safety4Sea | 20 seamen stranded with little food for over a month

Balancing the budget is hard; try it yourself. -- Government Computer News

Money quote: "The game starts you off with a look at the budget in the year 2021, should our government’s current policies stand as they are without any changes. Things look pretty bleak; some of the buildings representing the various sections of the budget are literally sky-high. The game predicts that, if no changes are made, our budget will go bust in 2031, at which point our debt will equal 100 percent of our GDP. That’s pretty sobering."

2031 isn't set in concrete. Nota Bene!
Balancing the budget is hard, so try it yourself. -- Government Computer News

Human IED threat elicits DHS warning -- Government Computer News

From Government computer news (GCN).
There is something rather strange about this. Earlier this year, there was an assassination attempt on the King of Saudi Arabia. The suicide bomber carried the bomb internally, but it wasn't surgically implanted. I'll leave you to fill in the blanks.

There is, in other words, not very good reason to assume that 'sensitivity from recent surgery' will accomplish much.
Human IED threat elicits DHS warning -- Government Computer News

Safety4Sea | STCW 2010 Amendments : What you need to know

Here's a pretty good summary from -- of course -- our Atlantic allies of what IMO inflicted on us in Manila.
Safety4Sea | STCW 2010 Amendments : What you need to know

Welcome to Our Future, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty

So, back in 1983, a recently, not to say soundly, defeated candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates opined that the powers-that-be would change the rules for IRAs (originally, Chilluns, anyone who earned more than $2,000/year could contribute to an IRA), AND would eventually announce that "it's time the fortunate helped the less fortunate" and started to tax private pensions.

Well, the IRA rules changed some time ago, and (h/t Dr Kling)the Irish Republic has taken a step toward the second.

Y'all need to listen up; just because you're not interested in politics doesn't mean politics isn't interested in ...well, you know.
Welcome to Our Future, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty

US Naval Update: CVN 65 Enterprise Abandons Libya, Reinforces CVN 70 Vinson In Straits Of Hormuz | zero hedge

Man, I hope...
Please tell me this isn't...
They couldn't be dumb enough...
US Naval Update: CVN 65 Enterprise Abandons Libya, Reinforces CVN 70 Vinson In Straits Of Hormuz | zero hedge

Should Holocaust Deniers Be Heard? | The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy

Emphasis mine:

Some courses that are supposed to teach critical thinking amount to nothing more than severe criticism by professors of ideas they dislike. Students don’t learn how to think. Instead of learning to exercise careful judgment, they learn to mimic their professors’ opinions.

Second, critical thinking ought to mean thinking that reflects the Western rationalistic tradition. Unfortunately, that tradition is incommensurable with other prevalent academic orthodoxies, such as social constructivism, multiculturalism, and postmodernism. The philosopher John Searle has asserted that critical thinking is founded on epistemological assumptions that enable us to build a framework for determining whether a conclusion is legitimate or not. Those assumptions are basic and easy to understand, for example, that “reality exists independently of our representations of it” and that “knowledge is objective.”

“IT IS EASY TO PROPOSE IMPOSSIBLE REMEDIES.”

Belling the Cat. Aesop. 1909-14. Fables. The Harvard Classics

You don't have to be a Vet, nor do you have to ride a motorcycle

Home

CMA CGM offers cruises on giant containerships

The ONLY way to go. FYI the Euro trades at ~1.4:1.0 to the dollar.

Money quote: "They may not look like cruise ships from the outside, but CMA CGM, the world's third largest container shipping group, is offering cruises on board the largest vessels in its fleet, its 13,800 TEU containerships. It says that last year 690 people chose to experience "cruising another way" by traveling on a containership."
CMA CGM offers cruises on giant containerships

AP: Browner leaving as Obama energy adviser - USATODAY.com

Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
AP: Browner leaving as Obama energy adviser - USATODAY.com

Across America, Latino Community Sighs With Relief : NPR

Safe to say that being Hispanic is the most important thing about this gal:

I wasn't the only person on Saturday who rushed to her Android when news came of the Tucson shooting. I wasn't looking however to read about what had happened. My auntie had already filled me in — "Someone tried to murder una representante. People have been killed," she'd reported. What I wanted to know was the killer's surname.

My eyes scanned the mobile papers. I held my breath. Finally, I saw it: Jared Loughner. Not a Ramirez, Gonzalez or Garcia.
Across America, Latino Community Sighs With Relief : NPR

U.S. on the Way toward Losing AAA Credit Rating - By Kevin D. Williamson - The Corner - National Review Online

I todja so, I todja so. Hah hah hah, I todja so!
From the Wall Street Journal:

Moody’s said the U.S., Germany, France and the U.K. still have debt metrics, including the debt affordability, compatible with their triple-A ratings at Moody’s. But all four countries must bring the future costs arising from pension and healthcare subsidies under control if they “are to maintain long-term stability in their debt burden credit metrics,” Moody’s said in its regular triple-A Sovereign Monitor report.

Moody’s noted that measures were recommended by the U.S. National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, appointed by President Obama, to achieve a balanced primary budget by 2015, but that there was insufficient support to trigger consideration of those recommendations by the full Congress.

U.S. on the Way toward Losing AAA Credit Rating - By Kevin D. Williamson - The Corner - National Review Online