Russia's Arctic Land Grab

post from The Newshoggers on 28 June 2007 10:03:00 AM. © The Newshoggers

By Cernig

While the Bush administration have wasted years denying global warming, other nations have been thinking about how it will affect the geopolitical status quo and aiming to come out ahead of the game.

It is already the world's biggest country, spanning 11 time zones and stretching from Europe to the far east. But yesterday Russia signalled its intention to get even bigger by announcing an audacious plan to annex a vast 460,000 square mile chunk of the frozen and ice-encrusted Arctic.
According to Russian scientists, there is new evidence backing Russia's claim that its northern Arctic region is directly linked to the North Pole via an underwater shelf.

...Under international law, no country owns the North Pole. Instead, the five surrounding Arctic states, Russia, the US, Canada, Norway and Denmark (via Greenland), are limited to a 200-mile economic zone around their coasts.
On Monday, however, a group of Russian geologists returned from a six-week voyage on a nuclear icebreaker. They had travelled to the Lomonosov ridge, an underwater shelf in Russia's remote and inhospitable eastern Arctic Ocean.

According to Russia's media, the geologists returned with the "sensational news" that the Lomonosov ridge was linked to Russian Federation territory, boosting Russia's claim over the oil-and-gas rich triangle. The territory contained 10bn tonnes of gas and oil deposits, the scientists said.

Russia's Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper celebrated the discovery by printing a large map of the North Pole. It showed the new "addition" to Russia - the size of France, Germany and Italy combined - under a white, blue and red Russian flag.

The Lomonosov ridge, the article explains, lies under only 200 metres of water which is very calm by Arctic standards and is getting more accessible as the icecap melts, making it a prime bit of oil-drilling real estate.

Nor has Russia been the only nation planning ahead. Canada is already thinking about the future to the extent of seeing a day when their national interests will clash, perhaps violently, with that of the U.S. over rights to the NorthWest Passage.

I find it incredibly ironic that the very same group of 26%-ers who still see Russia as an imminent threat to U.S. interests and are so gung-ho to revamp Reagan's anti-missile plans because of that fear have handed the prize to Russia by their continued denial of climate change. As long as the neocon think-tankers aren't able to warn about the geopolitical consequences of global warming because they're so busy denying the bleeding obvious, there's no political pressure on the Bush administration to make plans for future reality in the Arctic.

Which means that, in future, we could be treated to the spectacle of a Republican president holding hands with a Russian premier as Bush has with Abdullah, or some Russian merchant prince accepting $2 billion in bribes from Western companies and laundering them through a D.C. bank - because Russia and Canada have the primary claims to having the kind of oil-fuelled political power over the U.S. that has gone to Saudi Arabia over the last four decades.

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http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2007/06/russias-arctic-land-grab.html

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WH Gives Congress The FingerAgain

post from Firedoglake on 28 June 2007 10:01:47 AM. © Firedoglake

Just off the AP wire, via MSNBC:“The doctrine of executive privilege exists, at least in part, to protect such communications from compelled disclosure to Congress, especially where, as here, the president’s interests in maintaining[...]

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http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/28/wh-gives-congress-the-fingeragain/

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Dead Iraqis

post from Eschaton on 28 June 2007 09:57:00 AM. © Eschaton

BBC:

On 22 June the US military announced that its attack helicopters, armed with missiles, engaged and killed 17 al-Qaeda gunmen who had been trying to infiltrate the village of al-Khalis, north of Baquba, where operation "Arrowhead Ripper" had been under way for the previous three days.

The item was duly carried by international news agencies and received widespread coverage, including on the BBC News website.

But villagers in largely-Shia al-Khalis say that those who died had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. They say they were local village guards trying to protect the township from exactly the kind of attack by insurgents the US military says it foiled.

What's the truth? Who knows. But the bigger point is that US military has no idea if these guys were "al Qaeda," or, more specifically, "al Qaeda in Iraq," which isn't really "al Qaeda" in the sense of being "the bad guys who attacked on 9/11." They may have thought they were "bad guys," and they may in fact have been "bad guys," but most likely all they know is that they're dead Iraqis and we have a stenographic press.

When you're playing all sides in multiple civil wars the bad guys are anyone you point a gun at.

(ht pseud in nc)

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http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_24_archive.html#430561542109024662

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Meanwhile

post from Eschaton on 28 June 2007 09:48:00 AM. © Eschaton

If we just give it another couple of Friedmans....

BAGHDAD ? A car bomb parked at a crowded Baghdad bus terminal killed at least 25 Thursday morning, while 20 beheaded bodies were found on the banks of the Tigris River southeast of the capital.

The car bombing shortly after 8 a.m. struck during the rush hour in Baghdad ?s Bayaa neighborhood as many of the victims were lining up to catch rides to work. About 40 minibuses were incinerated, police reported.

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http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_24_archive.html#2035170250695986177

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Christie Todd Whitman: I Quit EPA Over Cheney

post from All Spin Zone on 28 June 2007 09:47:00 AM. © All Spin Zone

Christie Todd Whitman has experienced a Colin Powell moment.Following two terms as the governor of New Jersey, and at the start of the Bush regime’s time in office, Whitman was appointed as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. On the face of it, her appointment appeared to be a good fit. As [...]

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http://allspinzone.com/wp/2007/06/28/whitman-quit-over-cheney/

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White House refuses to answer subpoenas.

post from Think Progress on 28 June 2007 09:42:00 AM. © Think Progress

Today was the deadline for the White House “to turn over documents linked to Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, and Sara M. Taylor, the former White House political director” to Congress. But instead, the White House this morning “asserted executive privilege” and “rejected lawmakers’ demands for documents that could shed light on [...]

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http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/28/white-house-refuses-to-answer-subpoenas/

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Who knew there is good Dick in D.C.

post from Town Called Dobson on 28 June 2007 09:38:08 AM. © Town Called Dobson

When did GOP Senator from Indiana, Dick Lugar get a voice? Lugar came out swinging on the Senate[...]

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Who knew there was good Dick in D.C.

post from My Left Wing - Front Page on 28 June 2007 09:37:53 AM. © My Left Wing - Front Page

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson

click to enlarge

When did GOP Senator from Indiana, Dick Lugar get a voice? Lugar came out swinging on the Senate floor yesterday in a full frontal assault (for him) on the Bush Administration's folly in Iraq.

Believe it or not, CNN said it best:

Two respected senior GOP senators this week publicly asked the president to look for a way out of Iraq. One of them -- Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana -- is the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"When Dick Lugar comes out against your foreign policy, it means your dam is breaking, and it means we're far more likely as a country to move from Plan A to Plan B this fall, when it comes to Iraq," said David Gergen, who has advised both Republican and Democratic presidents.
Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, is jumping straight to what he calls Plan "E" for "Exit."
"It's time for the United States to put together a comprehensive plan for gradual disengagement in Iraq," Voinovich said. "We're running out of time and I don't think it's fair to the next administration to say, 'Hey by the way, we're leaving this baby for you guys to figure out.' "
In a letter to the president, Voinovich, also a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, called for military disengagement and increased diplomatic engagement.

I am still picking myself off the floor. Voinovich's "Plan E" statement was a ball bat, studded with nails - he hit the carcass that is BushCo right out of the park.

Where did THEY get the courage to say no to Bush? Oh, I know. They must have found Pelosi's - ya know, she dropped hers a few weeks back!

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http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=17519

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Olbermann chews up, spits out Murdoch & OReilly

Keith slams Rupert Murdoch for sanctioning censorship on the Chinese version of NewsCorp’s MySpace and buying off Congress to keep his stranglehold on the US media, then smacks around Bill ORally for making an ass of himself…again. Download (1) | Play (2) Download (0) | Play (0)

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http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/06/28/olbermann-chews-up-spits-out-murdoch-ore
illy/

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The Daily Rant

JFC but I'm tired. 9 hours at an amusement park will do that to an adult.

I ended up really frustrated with my friend's kid. I've known him forever (literally) so treat him pretty much like my own kid. Except, well, he's not.

In any event, he's Younger Son's friend, and Younger Son wanted him to go along on the annual trek to Elitch's. Except...

He "didn't like" at least 95% of the rides. Not that he'd actually ridden on them. He just refused to try them. I think much of it was that he wanted to spend the entire day in the water park, and was pissed that his preference didn't rule the day. In any event, this one was "too high" and that one was "too fast" and the other one "went upside down". This is a kid who skis and snowboards. And will go down any water slide he can find -- no problem with those being "too high" or "too fast".

I mean, first problem was that it was cool and cloudy, so we needed to let it warm up a bit. So by fiat I declared we'd go to the water park after lunch -- and we did.

After we'd been in the water park section for about an hour and a half, Younger Son gouged the bottom of his foot with something. It was bleeding like mad, had ripped a quarter-inch section of skin loose, so needed to be covered with a bandaid. Which meant no more water park action for him.

Friend's son kept yammering that he wanted to go on this or that water slide. Ended up by just saying "it isn't an option. Ian can't do it, you are here as Ian's guest, I am not leaving you here on your own. Get over it".

So we went back to the rides. I mean, we're not talking about any of the extreme coasters or anything. After he had nixed the third suggestion in a row (that one being a large swing contraption -- it goes up in the air and twirls around very gently. I took my father on it when he was in his late 70's, ferchristsake) I just said "this is preposterous. We're going on it. If you don't want to, you can stand by the exit and wait for us".

So that's how the remainder of the afternoon went. We took turns choosing the rides -- if the kid didn't want to get on it, fine. He could wait. And no, I was not giving him money for the arcade (being that I'd already spent about $40 on arcade tokens earlier in the day). By that point even Ian had stopped deferring to what his "didn't like" -- Ian wanted to try some new rides. The kid spent the last 3 rides of the day standing by exit gates.

I think the kid does a lot of this stuff because it works with his dad (his parents are divorced, and his dad is, uhm, well, I guess I'd better not say anything), which encourages the kid to either act fearfully, or be fearful. When I talked to his mom and told her what had gone on, she, too, was baffled by his behavior -- and had no problem with how I handled it.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=17518

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