UK Chastises Kerry For Kicking Israel When They're Down, But Only After They're Through Kicking Israel In The Balls

What the hell is wrong with the UK?  Freaking treacherous bastards...
From Reuters:

Britain scolded U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for describing the Israeli government as the most right-wing in Israeli history, a move that aligns Prime Minister Theresa May more closely with President-elect Donald Trump.

After U.S. President Barack Obama enraged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by refusing to veto a UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building, Kerry's public rebuke of Israel has unsettled some allies such as Britain.

[...]While Britain voted for the UN resolution that so angered Netanyahu and says that settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, a spokesman for May said that it was clear that the settlements were far from the only problem in the conflict.

But that's nothing out of the ordinary; England has been screwing Israel even before it was a nation. The Brits allowed only 1500 Jews per month to enter Palestine after the end of WWII and violated the terms of their own Palestinian Mandate wherein Great Britain ruled Palestine. The Brits blockaded almost all Jewish refugee ships trying to deliver desperate Jews to Palestine and also turned over fortified positions and munitions to the Arab League when they exited Palestine in 1948 so the Arabs could end the Jewish Question by slaughtering them.

Our Coming Rapprochement With Russia

Rap•proche•ment (räˌprôsh-mäɴˈ)
n. A reestablishing of cordial relations, as between two countries.
n. The state of reconciliation or of cordial relations.

It's a French word (rapprocher - to bring together) so there's probably cheese or white flags involved. Maybe white gloves?

It's not like America and Russia are suddenly BFF and we be like wearing each others lipstick and underwear. Not yet anyways. It's more like the same guy screwed both of us royally and we want to get even. By ripping his head off and crapping in it. From Newsweak:

The Kremlin has praised U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s response to Monday’s attacks in Berlin and Ankara, claiming that his words are “in tune” with those of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump accused a “radical Islamic terrorist” of shooting dead the Russian Ambassador to Turkey on Monday before also commenting on an attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany’s capital. In response to the latter, he declared “terrorists and their regional and worldwide networks must be eradicated from the face of the Earth,” and called for international support to do so.

And their entrails worn as neckties.
Because, no one wears garters anymore.

Although little has yet been officially confirmed about the perpetrators of either attack, Russia welcomed Trump’s statement, claiming that Putin has been making the same argument for nearly two decades.

These remarks were made while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was speaking about Russia's desire for international cooperation in eliminating terrorism.

Of course we are referring to Presbyterian terrorists, right? Greek Orthodox terrorists? Baptist terrorists? Catholics? No?

He noted that no one country could win this fight alone, but “it can only be done together.”

Okay, lipstick, definitely lipstick. But no panties. At least not the skimpy, yellow bikini ones. They were a gift from Italy.

Grand Theft Drone

The next five weeks should be very interesting. I have no idea what the Chinese will do once Trump is President and you know they will test him severely. As far as Obama is concerned, the Chinese don't give a rat's ass what he will do. But for now, they will play games with the reset of the One China policy, oh, and here it comes. This is a continuation of clashes between the US and China since Trump took a congratulatory call from the President of Taiwan.

(CNN)A US oceanographic vessel Thursday had its underwater drone stolen by a Chinese warship literally right in front of the eyes of the American crew, a US defense official told CNN Friday.

In the latest encounter in international waters in the South China Sea region, the USNS Bowditch was sailing about 100 miles off the port at Subic Bay when the incident occurred, according to the official.

Bowditch had stopped in the water to pick up two underwater drones. At that point a Chinese naval ship that had been shadowing the Bowditch put a small boat into the water. That small boat came up alongside and the Chinese crew took one of the drones.

Subic Bay is about 60 miles west of Manila right on the coast. If you go 100 miles west of Subic Bay, you are still very, very close to the Philippines and no where near China. You have to admit it, the slanty eyed pricks haven't proved a thing going up against an unarmed research vessel.

USNS Bowditch

USNS Bowditch (T-AGS 62) is a Pathfinder class oceanographic survey ship. She is the third ship in the class. USNS Bowditch is a part of a 29 ship Special Mission Ship program and operates in the South China Sea. She is named after Nathaniel Bowditch. Bowditch was engaged in surveying at Tacloban shortly after typhoon Haiyan in advance of the Navy's Operation Damayan in an area known for its shifting hazards to navigation using its multi-beam contour mapping system.

Russian Show Of Force

Disabled Russian Warships - 1905

Anyone have an idea of the condition of Russia's navy? I'm wondering if Putin's navy is anything like the hollow shell that Russia threw against the Japanese Navy in 1905.

From the UK Daily Mail:

Cutting through the English Channel, the looming bulk of the Russian navy’s flagship passes the White Cliffs of Dover.

Belching black smoke, the ageing aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov sailed menacingly close to Britain yesterday in a provocative manoeuvre.

              Russian Aircraft Carrier - Admiral Kuznetsov - commissioned 1995

The Soviet-era vessel, leading a flotilla of eight naval vessels, is on its way to the eastern Mediterranean to bolster the Syrian bombing campaign.

[...]Putin's flagship was accompanied by the nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great and six other surface vessels including the world's biggest ocean going tug, the Nicolay Chiker.

The Kuznetsov never travels far from its home port in Severomorsk, outside Murmansk without the tug in case the vessel's unreliable diesel engines pack up.

The Russian flee is being shadowed by a British destroyer, the HMS Dragon. This Type 45 destroyer has it's own power plant problems:

The turbines are of a sound design but have an intercooler-recuperator that recovers heat from the exhaust and recycles it into the engine, making it more fuel-efficient and reducing the ship’s thermal signature. Unfortunately the intercooler unit has a major design flaw and causes the GTs to fail occasionally. When this happens, the electrical load on the diesel generators can become too great and they ‘trip out’, leaving the ship with no source of power or propulsion.

The Brits could have installed a more mature, reliable power plant produced by General Electric but chose Rolls Royce instead.

British Navy Type 45 Destroyer, HMS Dragon (D35) - commissioned 2008

This Russian warship may also be a sitting duck for the Type 45's modern  armaments and electronic counter measures.

 Russian Guided Missile Destroyer - Peter the Great - commissioned 1985

White House Pussy: We Continue To Be Concerned.

Russian Su-24 planes thundered over the USS Donald Cook at a height of just 30ft in what a military official branded the most 'aggressive' incident between Russia and the United States in years.

The 'simulated attack' maneuver saw the jets pass so close to the ocean that they created a 'wake in the water', the defense official said.

The shock move came as a Polish helicopter was taking off from the US Destroyer on Tuesday evening.

This is not the first time the USS Donald Cook was was buzzed by Rooskie aircraft.

Somebody oughta swat those flies.

Story

Grand Theft: The Panama Papers

Here is an interactive map of the people involved in the scams, paybacks, bribes and thievery detailed in the Panama Papers. The scope and scale of this is breathtaking.

Who they are.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

A US destroyer, the USS Lassen, passed within 12 miles of a Chinese artificial island in a disputed section of the South China Sea and the Chinese are squawking.

BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. guided-missile destroyer sailed close to one of China’s man-made islands in the South China Sea on Tuesday, drawing an angry rebuke from Beijing, which said it had tracked and warned the ship and called in the U.S. ambassador to protest.

The USS Lassen’s patrol was the most significant U.S. challenge yet to the 12-nautical-mile territorial limits China claims around artificial islands it has built up in the Spratly archipelago as Beijing exercises its growing maritime power.

Washington’s move followed months of deliberation by the administration of President Barack Obama and could ratchet up tension in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes and increase strains in U.S.-China relations.

A U.S. defense official said the Lassen also went within 12-mile limits of features in the disputed sea claimed by Vietnam and U.S. treaty ally, the Philippines. They said such “freedom-of-navigation” patrols were expected to become more frequent.

According to international law (Article 60 of the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea) no nation can create an artificial island as national territory and impose a 12 mile limit around it.

Just six weeks ago five Chinese war ships violated the 12 mile limit to the Aleutian Islands near Alaska. One of these vessels, the Shenyang, is shown below.

According to US naval command, it was a legal exercise in "innocent passage" rights granted by international law.

Apparently the Chinese interpret international law in different ways depending on where the water is.

Tightening The Lugnuts Of The South China Sea

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan (Reuters) - Taiwan's coast guard on Saturday commissioned its biggest ships for duty in the form of two 3,000-ton patrol vessels, as the island boosts defenses amid concerns about China's growing footprint in the disputed South China Sea.

The new vessels will be able to dock at a new port being constructed on Taiping Island, the largest of the naturally occurring Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, before the end of this year.

Source.

The Spratly Islands territory in the South China Sea is an international flashpoint. It is hotly contested by China, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Tibet, Brazil, Luxembourg, Finland and the Alabama National Guard. It is rumored that Canada is secretly drilling for beer in the Spratlys.

China is claiming sovereignty in the South China Sea within the red dotted lines. This disputed area includes several hundred yards of a popular topless beach area in Brunei and a sushi joint in Malaysia.

In all seriousness, this dispute is hundreds of years old. For centuries it has been a widely used trade route and provides a staple supply of fish for several nations. International negotiations have been underway for years. The UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea):

represents the only framework/set-of-rules that has been commonly agreed upon for establishing oceanic boundaries. As a result, it offers the claimants a common foundation from which to begin their negotiations.

UNCLOS, however, is not without its own shortcomings. While it is a useful piece of international legislation, it cannot be applied blindly to the Spratly conflict. Although the Spratlys conflict is in many ways a straightforward territorial dispute, it is also a function of the region's unique set of historical and geopolitical considerations that challenge the ability of the Convention to provide an authoritative framework that all the parties can use. Consequently, applying the Convention to this particular issue requires special consideration.

So basically everyone ignores the UN until the shooting starts.
Like everywhere else...

The following graphic shows some of the "who claims what" territory.

The Empty Chair

Remember the 2012 RNC nominations and Clint Eastwood's speech to the empty chair?

President Obama was nowhere to be found during the beginning of a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine commission in Wales on Thursday.

Obama was "noticeably absent" from the start of the meeting, according to a White House pool report, although U.S. Ambassador to NATO Douglas Lute was in attendance.

Obama was late to the Ukraine meeting because of other meetings on Afghanistan and a meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, according to a White House official.

These are the things that were not said by Obama. Once again, his chair is empty.

Back at the Ukraine meeting, leaders were addressed by NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen, who urged Russia to stop the "illegal" annexation of Crimea.

“We call on Russia to end its illegal and self-declared annexation of Crimea,” Rasmussen said. “We call on Russia to pull back its troops from Ukraine” and stop the flow of arms to separatists.

Rasmussen said the gathering of the leaders should telegraph a "clear message" to Ukraine that NATO stands with the nation and supports its reforms.

He said leaders would work with Ukraine to modernize its army and improve the ability of Ukrainian and NATO forces to work together.

Story here.

The President Who Wasn't There

Yesterday, NATO had an empty chair,

America's President wasn't there.

He wasn't there again today,

I wish, I wish he'd go away...

He spends much of his time on a golf tee,

The President isn't there for you and  me.

And when they looked around NATO's hall,

They couldn't see him there at all!

Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!

For you only protect traitors like Sgt. Bergdahl!

Francis Scott Key wrote our anthem by the rocket's red glare,

But now we have a President who isn't there,

He wasn't there again today

Oh, how I wish he'd go away...

This is my version/rewrite of "The Man Who Wasn't There,"  by William Hughes Mearns.

A Putrrhic Victory?

The Spectator has an interesting read by Newsweek’s former Moscow bureau chief, Owen Matthews, who tells us not to worry. In the long run, Putin's actions in Crimea will not be to Russia's advantage.

In a nutshell, Crimea is a worrisome carbuncle on Ukraine's backside. Cut it off, get your political and economic systems fixed and the Ukes will be a lot better off. And please, stop already with the mail order bride scams.

[...] Let Crimea go: it will be the making of Ukraine and the end of Vladimir Putin. Without Crimea, there will never again be a pro-Moscow government in Kiev. Ukraine will have a chance to become a governable country — a strongly pro-European one with a Russian minority of around 15 per cent. Putin will have gained Crimea but lost Ukraine for ever. And without Ukraine, as former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski famously said, ‘Russia can no longer be an empire.’

[...] Thanks to Putin’s rash decision to occupy Crimea, not just the EU but its most powerful members — notably Germany, the UK, France and Poland — realise that supporting Ukraine is no longer about handouts but principle. Countries that strive towards European values — and suffer for it — should be rewarded and protected. Angela Merkel, the European leader who knows Putin best and is usually the most conciliatory towards Russia, told the Bundestag last week that he was ‘on a different planet’. Brussels has hurried to offer an amended Association Agreement; the US has backed a generous bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

[...] What’s more, in taking Crimea Putin has made himself a hostage to Kiev. Putin’s main economic leverage is that he sits on Ukraine’s gas pipelines: but now Kiev sits on Crimea’s road, rail, water and power. And unlike the gas wars that the Kremlin launched against Ukraine in 2005 and 2009, which cut off Moscow’s European customers, a Ukrainian blockade of Crimea will hurt only Crimeans.

There's a lot more here.