Showing off by sending warships near the G20? Not at all, Vladimir Putin cares about the climate, don’tcha know?
He is having fun, pushing politically correct buttons; teasing the West for its infatuation with climate-goblins.
Climate Research anyone?
What kind of climate research will a Guided Missile Cruiser do?
RUSSIA has for the first time explained the presence of a fleet of warships off north-eastern Australia, saying that the ships are testing their range capability, in case they have to do climate change research in the Antarctic.
The Russian embassy also said the fleet could, if necessary, provide security for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who arrives in Brisbane for the G20 tonight.
The four Russian warships are conducting exercises in international waters around the Coral Sea in a move that has been interpreted as a show of force by Mr Putin.
Russia finally explains why it has dispatched four warships to Australia:
Daily Mail: Most leaders bring gifts for their hosts. Mr Putin brings a guided missile cruiser and three attendant ships. That show of unnecessary naval presence is what might be called an intended power display of swinging decks.
What a circus: three Australian ships deployed to watch, plus some planes, HMAS Sydney on backup, and Americans are following the Russians too. Fleets of warships on the rove, and Putin pretends it’s about “the climate”. It’s not even climate research, it’s research to see if they could do climate research. Can their boats go that far? Golly. Maybe they could test that Antarctic sea ice like one Russian charter boat did last year? They could make a few polynyas in the ice, the ballistic way. (And then count the dead whales…)
Daily Mail: Australia already has two navy ships watching the Russian boats but on Friday morning a Defence spokesperson confirmed: ‘HMAS Sirius has been positioned to support HMA ships Parramatta and Stuart, which are currently conducting maritime surveillance patrols.’
They revealed that ‘AP-3C Orion aircraft are also conducting maritime surveillance patrols’.
If even more backup against the Russian ships is needed, HMAS Sydney has been positioned in the South Queensland area ‘to be available to support G20 activities’.
‘HMAS Sydney is also available for maritime surveillance patrols as required,’ the spokesperson said.
Photo: Wikimedia copy of the Varyag Guided Missile Cruiser (which may or may not be the particular Cruiser near Brisbane).
It’s called probing your defences. The Tupolovs still do it over Europe. The game is to see how fast you have a fighter on the six of their bombers. Think of it as an alarm going off at a bank and how fast the police response is. You then know what your window of opportunity is then.
Four warships is so Russian excessive though. I think it was Marshal Vorishilov who said when told that the Tiger tank was technically much more advanced than the T-34, quantity has a quality all of its own.
Pointman
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The Kipper fleet used to keep an eye on Russian ships transiting the Western Approaches. Much fun was had dropping through the cloud to find a warship dressed overall in drying laundry, which would be hastily removed before the next pass. One of the Russian Navy’s major problems was maintaining serviceability on a long voyage. Putin’s flotilla is the size it is so that the ships can support each other in the event of breakdowns. Almost certainly, they’ll be loitering at about 6 kts to avoid stressing the hulls and engines and to conserve fuel. Have the Blue forces discovered a sub hiding under the surface ships yet? That was another cold war trick.
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A veteran of the GIUK gap games?
P
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Posted to the Third Division South for a couple of years. Logged a few trips as excess baggage. Deeply interesting job those Nimrod crews had.
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“…power display of swinging decks.”
I like it!
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Why all the fuss? There is no war or threat of war.
And how many nuclear submarines are out there all the time to greet them?
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Tell that in Ukraine, Georgia or even in Sweden and people will think you have no brain.
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I’m sure there are a couple of RN and US fast attack boats wandering around to do their own “climate research” and I don’t envy the Russians being in those sights. Of course with the spineless weasel we’re stuck with as NCA here in the US I believe I’d call the RN if you need anything quickly. Since Obama always seems to find things out from the news reports it might take him a while for him to hear about any problems… assuming he’s watching the news on the golf course.
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“…probing your defences”?
I dunno Pointman. “Climate research” sounds much more credible to me. It’s bound to be believed by 97% of the world.
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When this is all over maybe we can send the Russians some snapshots of what their ships look like from the periscope of one of our subs!
We used to do this with the Yanks,send them photos of their carriers.
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Meanwhile David Cameron compares Putin’s Russia to Nazi Germany. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/11230326/David-Cameron-compares-Russia-to-Nazi-Germany-on-eve-of-Putin-meeting.html
One hundred years on and some people still haven’t learnt the lessons of history.
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I like Putin’s joke about climate research but Cameron’s comparison is not going to win friends and influence people in Russia, of all places. It can only make things worse.
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Cameron is obviously a lightweight. He should know that the Germans killed hundreds of thousands of Russians for no good reason at all. Hell, I take offense at that, let alone the Russians.
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This is kind of like the way Japan conducts “scientific research” on whales, right?
Unending research into how nice they taste, apparently.
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The Japanese like eating whale meat. Provided the practice is married out in a humane way and the whales aren’t over-hunted, what’s the problem?
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Did anyone say there was a problem?
My point was that the excuse they give for whaling is not the whole story.
I’ve eaten whale once.
No, don’t go there, Griss. I mean the ocean-going type with flippers, and cut into thin strips and sold on a slice of bread to tourists in Norwegian markets.
As for their endangerment, I have no idea what the status there is. Presumably the Japs would not kill the whale that lays the golden whale stir-fry. Or something.
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Your presumption is correct , Minke whales are the ones the Japanese whalers target for “research” and their conservation status is :
IUCN Red List as Least Concern
COSEWIC puts them in the Not At Risk category
Natureserve lists them as G5 , which is global range , abundant lacking major threats or long term concerns
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“No, don’t go there, Griss.”
Don’t go where….. Please explain 😉
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People keep thinking that the Japanese whale research is somehow bogus, but fail to realize it is research into whale fisheries, not eco deification of quasi religious icons which most “whale research” is.
I would class the Japanese whale fishery research as more scientific and valid than the eco fascist types with their side agendas of “climate change” and misanthropy.
Without the Japanese studies we’d probably never know that the Minke whale is thriving and that the numbers are robust enough to sustain a fishery. Indeed they are probably in higher numbers now, than pre industrial whaling times… Greenpeace type scientists would have lied their heads off rather than admit that a sustainable fishery of certain whale species is feasible.
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Off topic.
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Putin and his new found concern for climate science is a pretty generalized topic at best…;)
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The Japanese must be getting slow. If they adjusted the name, ‘scientific research‘ to ‘Studying the effects of AGW on whales‘, much of their opposition would be muted.
Andrew Bolt has noted that the Global Warming has dispelled its competition for being the last refuge of the scoundrel. And why not? Unlike the theological kind, this religion actually does provide a safe hiding place. OK, Islam is pretty safe too.
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We’ve still got Pinchgut haven’t we?
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I have seen these boats in Vladivostock. They sit around all year doing nothing. At the same time I know people in their submarines which are nuclear armed and sail over the place without being detected. This is what they do. For anyone else it would be a goodwill visit.
The point is that everyone wants a piece of Russia, the world’s biggest country. There is no other major power who has not attacked Russia or threatened to do so, especially the old powers, the British, French and Germans. Remember them? The Russians are very suspicious of everyone’s motives, with good reason, especially with the US getting close and personal with with China while the US and NATO are punishing Russia for what is happening in the Ukraine. You would think the Ukraine was not a disaster being used by the West to destabilize Russia.
Yes Russia supplies arms to the old USSR countries, just as the USA and especially France and the UK ship arms all over the world, to old colonies countries like Australia. In the British bloody war with Argentina over the Falklands, the Sheffield was sunk by a joint French/British Exocet missile which came in as a friendly. The sinking of the ancient General Belgrano with 2,500 lives by a British nuclear submarine hardly rated a mention in British Australia and no condemnation. Russia though has been the target even in 1812, 1855 and Britain guaranteed Russian Jews a home in Palestine (the Balfour promise) just before they capitulated to Germany in 1918. They lost 40 million in WWII. Still everyone still blames the Russians and frankly wants a piece of the country. From the Mongol invasion to WWII, the Russians have been slaughtered by invading forces. They are wary of everyone’s intentions. Putin is particularly vilified by the Australian press, for reasons which are unexplained but go back a hundred and fifty years to Crimea, when it was the heart of Russia.
In 1865 the people of South Melbourne went to the beaches with shovels and mattocks to fight off the expected Russians. Meetings were held all over Australia. The Russians never came but the politicians cleverly used the fear to build a strings of expensive forts around the country like Lonsdale, Pinchgut, Queenscliffe and many more, even to Cooktown. These were finally used to fire the first shots former friends and Victorian relatives, the Germans in world war I and II. The terrible war in Crimea where England and France attacked Russia in a disastrous ‘punitive’ war was about stopping Russia from operating its own fleets. The joint navies sailed up to St. Petersburg too and laid waste to cities. Absurdly , thereafter the Russian fleet was berthed in the South of France at Ville Franche while the former Tsarina holidayed in Nice. She was joined by relative Queen Victoria and this made the place a holiday spot with the biggest Russian Church outside Russia. The menus in Nice are still in French and Russian.
Consider that after the Japanese Russian war of 1905 when the Japanese amazingly sank the entire Russian fleet with sea mines, the Japanese refloated the boats, painted them in Japanese colours and came here on a goodwill tour to Australia. They were welcomed but actually bombed Australia and invaded the whole Pacific and tried to invade Australia? However it is always the Russians we fear.
So the fear of the Russians continues, fanned by ignorance. They are the other world power, but they are maligned endlessly while China is our friend and signs lovely pacts where they promise to do nothing in return for a great deal. We will see, while we welcome everyone else but shirtfront the Russians. Of course Putin sent a few ships to get some respect and does anyone believe a frigate with a 4″gun is realistically going to stop a massive missile cruiser or a nuclear submarine? Or our one functioning submarine? We need to review our relationship with Russia and not blindly follow Britain, France, Germany and the US. There is far more to this with the growing power of China and the competition over oil in the Pacific, especially in the Spratlies and Sakhalin. Everyone else is welcome, but Putin is the Pariah. Ask yourself why? Why has it been so for centuries? We need Putin’s help to sort out what happened in Donetsk and to bring peace to the warring Ukraine. As the world’s energy giant outside the Arabian Gulf, Russia needs to be part of any talks on future energy, but it is all confrontation. Why?
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At any given time, about a third of the American maritime capability is actively deployed, in response to one geopolitical crisis or another, with another third ready to leave port reasonably quickly.
The Americans see themselves as the World’s policeman, so they have to walk the beat, and twirl the nightstick.
But TdeF is right, the Russians do the same thing with their Nuclear submarine fleet, which is must more subtle (as is the Russian way), and so the West deploys long-range surveillance aircraft to find and monitor them.
And “The Great Game” continues …
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And Americans are damned tired of dying for some political type to thump his chest and show what a bad-ass he is. Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved that people get “reasonable” when they see that glow in the sky. Korea could have been over in 30 minutes or so, but our glorious “leaders” decided 50,000 of our children was a good price to pay for a “cease fire”, not a victory. Same with Vietnam. Now we’re doing the same damned thing in the Middle East. Make some glass out of all that sand and let them ponder their 72 virgins as their skin melts. You do not simply kill the single hornet that stings you; you burn the entire nest. But, we’re civilized now.
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Agree! Russian bogeyman again-.you know we need them! Anyways , if we get really desperate we can send out HMAS Jervis Bay.
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Let’s not get carried away. Does the Australian Navy not have a pinnace they could send?
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But building Pinchgut etc. worked… The russians never invaded Australia!
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Julia Gillard and Helen Clarke’s carbon tax worked too.
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Somewhat O/T and meandering, I recently plugged a hole in my history when I learned about the War of the Sixth Coalition (1812–1814) when a coalition, a conceptually proto-political ‘Europe’ of sorts, dealt with the French and Napolean, who had taken what proved to be a disastrous war to Russia – The French Invasion of Russia The route to this lay in finding out about a French surgeon Jacques Lisfranc de St. Martin, who gave his name (Lisfranc) to a particular ‘joint’ and injury (1815).
Over the centuries it seems, the Russians have been conditioned by a demanding environment, by ruthless governmental regimes either side of the coin, by malignant invaders. They survived because they appear to have the will to use any and everything at their disposal to retain the very thing they have carved out of blood and earth, their independence, which is an independence of soul. Perhaps that is one reason why they are viewed with caution. It seems there is no price they would pay to maintain their independence. So, they may not make good UN bedfellows, nor do they view questionable attempts by Europe to sequester the Ukraine.
Meanwhile far darker UN forces appear at work in Africa that represent a much greater threat than a laughing bear with a few ships. UNICEF Denies Catholic Bishops’ Claim Kenyan Tetanus Vaccine Is Laced With Birth-Control Hormone
[Manfred, you are correct, it is ‘somewhat’ off topic and meandering. But it is also interesting. So I am holding it in moderation for Jo to decide. -Fly]
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Manfred, the tetanus vaccine story is nearly unbelievable!
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Mark D. We know from their own statements that a significant number of UN staff are millennialist,malthusian and misanthropic. Bearing that in mind, Manfred’s story is at the very least plausible.
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If you want to understand Russia, then look to the Mongol invasion. The “stukach” system dates back at least that far, and the Mongols probably inherited it from China. The Czars continued it, and the Soviets refined and improved it. Russian alcohol consumption is a matter of self protection since they are convinced real informers wont dare get drunk. Social drinking is a show of unity with one’s compatriots. Abstemious westerners tend to grate on Russian sensibilities because they fail those forms of sociability that indicate trustworthiness.
The Varyag is a USSR-built ship. Currently Russia seems to be looking beyond its borders for reliable ships – e.g. see the difficulties concerning the French-built Mistral amphibious assault ships Russia ordered. Then consider the places where it would be reasonable to expect Russia to use that capacity. Just who would they be considering raiding or invading, and why?
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TdeF
I enjoyed your post, thanks. I am not sure it that “Why” is supposed to be rhetorical? I would like to know what you think the answer to that question is.
I cant work out why the “left” is anti Russian, or anti Israel either but then I don’t know much history or history of the left. The ABC is reflexively big government. The rest of the media is also pro big government.
Is it just that it is oh so useful to have a big bogey man and Russia fits the bill?
I wish we could get back on good trading terms with Russia because the roos are chewing the paddocks out something fierce since the bushfire and Russia was the main market for roo meat. There is no commercial culling going on in this area since that market went a few years ago.
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The left, most noticeably their master the Green parties are descended from the Russian hardliners, Stalinists. Senator Lee Rhiannon was trained in Moscow. Adam Bandt’s thesis is on communism. However they hark back to an earlier brutal Stalinist communism and so they are against modern Russia which is a very different place. Even Hitler was a vegetarian outdoors loving Green. Mass murder went hand in hand with walking trails and outdoor healthy activities and tree worship. True Greens see people as less important than trees.
So the West are against Russia militarily as the other superpower and Europe is dependent on Russia for energy and everyone hates Putin, like they hate Abbott. Sense? Can’t see any. Jewish people? Anti Israel? The reality is that Russia is anti Jewish like Germany and Georgian Stalin in particular.
People are against Putin, but frankly, he is the best thing which has happened to Russia. When he goes, who knows? What did the world achieve in removing Gaddafi and Mubarek and Hussein and maybe Assad? Is the world a better place? I would have to say not.
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Look at this photo, you can just feel the atmosphere can’t you?
Shirtfronting is in the air.
Every glare and every frown.
Shirtfronting is in the air.
Every time Putin looks around.
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1. Airplanes
2. Submarines
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I should have added anti-ship missiles.
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Boy, what a pseudo missive and diatribe. Where does one start? Let’s try. The Exocet which sank HMS Sheffield was not a “friendly”. It was a FRENCH designed, built and sold missile which did its job, ie it came in at wave height and avoided detection. Know anything about these types of missiles? I do. The Super Entendard pilot also flew at wave height only coming up at the last moment to “fix” the target. It was a perfect piece of surprise attack and rule book engagement. As for the 2500 lives lost in the Belgrano, wow! The official death toll was 323; one wonders where the 2500 you state would fit in the old Brooklyn class light cruiser. Know anything about how to attack and sink surface ships and submarines? I do. And the Japanese used their ships to bomb Australia did they? Which ships would they be and what were the targets? And they invaded the WHOLE Pacific did they? Did the Chileans, Peruvians and other Pacific countries know about this? Therefore noting these minor factual erross (sic) the rest of the essay tends to be seen as, well, mistaken and a rant.
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The ships don’t seem to have cut much ice at the G20 meeting either.
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That’s probably because they are not Ice Breakers. 🙂
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Let us also not forget that it is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down.
This is a reminder, from our “friends and colleagues”, the Russians, that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The Soviet era may have come and gone, but Russia remains the bear it has always been.
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Remember that the Russians lost 350,000 men just in the fight for Berlin. This one battle cost much more than the entire US losses in the war against Japan, Germany and Italy. However we have to remember who our enemies were then and why we think differently now. It is very easy to manipulate public opinion if you look at news in Australia. The anti Russian images and prejudices pop up so easily.
However there is one great area where Russia is rich and the world is dependent and nervous. Energy. Europe is dependent on Russian energy and so Russia can dominate world affairs. Nothing would please world leaders more than the disintegration of Russia. The Chinese have pushed their new aircraft carrier into the Pacific and it is hardly mentioned. I just ask that people be objective and not so easily fall back to very old prejudices like the Russian bear image of bearded men in 1855 when Russians were vilified. It is amazing how easy it is to provoke a response when France has been the world aggressor in the last thousand years and Germany and Japan relative newcomers. Great places to visit now. So is Russia if you get the chance but how many have been? Few. That is why it is so easy to create fear.
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I wouldn’t be so quick to back a regime that behaves no differently to gangsters or mafia.
Putin is an ex KGB hardman who has jailed countless journalists, businessmen and citizens all the while lining the pockets of his close knit regime.
Although the same can be said for China, some leeway is afforded them because of the sheer magnitude of the task to transform 1.3b people from dire poverty.
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Who is backing a regime? And the Russians aren’t poor? Some are in dire poverty of a scale Australians could not comprehend, but increasingly better than in the Ukraine. Putin by most is doing a great job, given the circumstances. It is not all about one man and the place is brutal, not just the weather.
Before criticizing a regime, it would be good to have a better alternative lined up. As said, has life really improved in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan? Or are the cities in flames, the economies wrecked, huge numbers dead and the places in chaos? Try landing at an airport in the region. Sometimes the American formula for democracy just does not work. Not all freedom fighters are freedom fighters.
In Russia, as the Russian ambassador to Australia said, some oligarchs are very generous and some regions are doing well. Russia is simultaneously a rich country, the other world power and a total disaster for its population, so nothing has changed. How you drag such a country into the 20th century is the question. The same with China, who have developed their own form of Capitalist Communism, a unique Chinese invention.
You would almost argue that politically nothing has changed in Russia and China, except the names. Still everything is improving and it will take generations for Russia, where the average male mortality is only 51 and the population is dropping quickly. From my experience China is improving at incredible speed where the average Russian is seeing nothing much changed. As observers we do not help by just repeating what foreign commentators say about Russia and Putin. Ask a Russian. There are plenty in every country and they can speak freely.
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25 years after the wall fell, the mindsets of the East Germans who spent most of their adult lives under 40 years of “socialism” is still substantially different to that of their western cousins; who share the same language and much of the heritage and history. Those 40 years made a big difference. How they see the world isn’t wrong; it’s different.
Russia has never had a real democracy. They didn’t even get a good bite of the spirit of liberty characteristic of the West; a blend of Franconian, Bohemian and Saxon values. What it has now is the closest that it’s ever gotten to democracy. Freedom is perceived to be too dangerous for a (relatively) stable country. It might take a whole generation to re-shape perspectives to the East of the Caucasus.
Remember, 150 years ago, Russia operated essentially as a feudal society. The USSR didn’t overturn all of that because it was to its advantage to control the output of the population.
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The feudal system had worked but Alexander II had signed a bill to free the serfs and end the feudal system and head towards democracy but was blown up by reactionaries, including a lawyer cousin of the future Lenin. This stopped the process. So the church on Spilled Blood in St. Peterbergs on the place where he tried to help and was killed. The Tsars had felt the winds blowing across Europe, but others wanted totalitarianism, not the Tsars or democracy. Alexander III regressed after the murder of his father.
Socialism perhaps achieved the dream in the Nordic countries. The core concept not considered by Marx was consumerism, which did not exist in his time and came in only after WWII when the tractor factories started making refrigerators, people were paid, holidays were created and tourism started and cars were affordable. Then radio, TV and iPhones. You would wonder if Karl would reconsider, if he had thought of it. Making the poor rich makes the rich richer, but what point is it being rich if you have nothing? The Roman Emperors had no tomatoes, no potatoes, no chilli, no peppers, no spices (pepper and cardammon), read by the light of an olive oil lamp if they could see at all. By our standards, poor.
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But they did have slaves — lots of them — and gold, with which to buy land; and land gives you food production, and the ability to raise Legions of foot soldiers and cavalry; which gives you international influence, and a different form of diplomacy. I don’t think of that as being “poor”.
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“Putin is an ex KGB hardman who has jailed countless journalists,” There! I knew Putin couldn’t be all bad. 🙂
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As long as they are not “progressive” journalists.
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The only one backing Putin is Shorten, whose analysis of MH17 was “I’d say nothing to him because he’s wildly popular in Russia.”
They behave like the mafia because that’s what the West gave them. They wanted a weak, divided Russia. So we said “privatise your assets.” Only the mafia had the $ to buy the oil companies. And now there’s a dozen oligarchs. We did that.
Then took NATO and the EU into Ukraine, trying to turn Sevastopol into a NATO port on Russia’s doorstep. Imagine Tasmania joining the PRC. This was after the regime change of their pro-Russian president. And check out Hunter Biden’s new job. NATO is already in the Baltics, contrary to the agreement when the Berlin Wall fell.
It’s no wonder Putin did what he did – annoy the KGB enough times and they will react.
Is he popular? I spoke to average Muscovites. On the ground the view was he’s corrupt but they’re far richer than 1999 and doing very well now so they’re happy to have him in charge rather than the alternatives. But they say he’s not as popular outside Moscow and there’s more electoral fraud needed there to keep his supporters in.
They like his belligerent approach to the world after bending over in 1989 didn’t work. When he says he’s intervening to protect oppressed Russian minorities in Georgia, what’s not to like?
Their press is full of weak sycophants whose position is “Putin good, opposition bad” but how is that different to Riley asking Gillard how to best campaign for her agenda?
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Add to all this, that the EU is resisting mightily, fracking their own gas, & tight oil, & you really do have to wonder about our so called leaders.
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It was not my intent to draw that parallel. I was not aware of the 1855 use of the word (it was a little before my time).
I was using the Russian Bear as a metaphor for the fact that the West (and to some extent Asia) have always had trouble in predicting what the Russians would do, in any given situation. Real bears, in the wild, are also unpredictable, so I thought the metaphor would work. Obviously not.
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I wonder when we’ll be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Israeli wall coming down?
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About the same time as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Arab Leagues’ agreement to let Israel exist as a Nation-State, I imagine.
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Probably 25 years after the Arabs give up activities like suicide bombing civilians.
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Israel was a creation of the United Nations in 1948. The ‘Jewish problem’ was much bigger in Eastern Europe than in Germany. In Germany before WW2 Jewish people were only 2%, similar to Australian populations (around 100,000) but they were hated, partly because of the failure in WW1 (possibly because of the flu pandemic). Any way Jewish populations in Eastern Europe from Poland to Belorussia were up to 40%. Stalin had a problem because so many of his generals were Jewish and so many of the doctors. Stalin died just before his planned mass deportation of Russian doctors, which is possibly why Beria knew poison would work, but who knows? The Russian Cyrillic alphabet even has major four Hebrew characters, the others being mainly Greek and Roman. The history is in the alphabet.
Anyway, the world solution of Israel is now half secular Russian Jewish. The prominence of the Jewish religion in eastern Europe is allegedly due to the mass Kazakh conversion to Judaism around 900 AD, the third big military empire after the Arab and Western Christians. They were dispersed by the Mongol invasion. Even today the enemies of Israel claim the Jews have no right to be there, as they are Ashkenazi, from the Astrakhan region on the Caspian and not middle Eastern, Sephardic. They have a point. Perhaps everyone should go home, but to where?
Throughout Russia you see the tragic massive black monuments to the Black Tulips, the huge transport aircraft which brought home the thousands coffins of young men who died in Afghanistan, a proxy war fought against American weapons and Afghanistan opium, both of which were killing young Russians. The Americans trained and armed wealthy Saudi Osama Bin Laden to kill Russians. Then the Americans went in to do what the Russians had failed to do. How did that work out? So Russia ties together all the old stories, fears and hatreds, even today. Just watch James Bond.
What was really scary this year was the refusal of the US to listen to the Russians in Syria. The real weapons of mass destruction, the Sarin gas in the thousands of tons, were there and had been spirited out of Iraq to Syria. This was known. That they were going to fall into the hands of the American backed ‘freedom fighters’, not the mujahadeen but now ISIL was clear. Thank God Russia managed to broker their surrender by the Assad government and the destruction at sea by placing a huge army on the border and navy ships on the coast. The Americans agreed and everyone helped. A droplet of Sarin is instant death. Can you imagine the consequences if a ton of this were atomised in an explosion in New York harbour or London? Did the Russians get any credit for this? No.
So this hatred, this fear of Russia still blinds the US, England, France and Germany. Australia should have the maturity to deal fairly with the people who finally won against Napoleon in 1812 and against the Germans in 1945 and were ready to invade Japan in 1945 when the bombs were dropped. The British would not have won at Waterloo without the Russian victory. Still, the Russians have been the traditional enemy and so they remain apparently. We may have this wrong.
The Americans are a great and generous people and the backbone of Western democracy and freedom especially after WWII, but individually so ignorant of history and geography. We should not slavishly follow American opinion and American foreign policy has so often been misguided or economically calculated and generally anti Russian. Australia should be an independent voice of reason. Abbott needs to talk to Putin, discuss the problems without prejudice and bring Russia in from the cold. It is what the UN should be doing but the UN has become a focused on its own survival as a bureaucracy, so all the Global Warming nonsense when the real dangers are in front of us. It is amazing that Putin has only to move some ships to create a storm of fear. Still, he gets attention, which is why he has to do it.
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As an annex to TdeF’s excellent comments above even if you don’t go along with all of his thoughts, a read of the German on line version news mag Spiegel On Line International article below gives a very different picture on what is happening in eastern Ukraine as seen by German eyes to that which we are getting via the American dominated press releases parroted by our MSM.
The Chaos Republics; Stagnation and Infighting Take Hold in Eastern Ukraine
There was a time when it looked as though eastern Ukraine might become part of Russia. Now, though, rebels in the region have been fighting among themselves and Moscow is unsure how to proceed. Sunday’s election changed nothing
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Hi Tdef, which are those 4 characters in the Russian alphabet?
I’m learning russian and would like to know.
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Hard to type without Unicode
Ts, Ch, Sh, Shch. Like a U, u W W, You have to see them but they are not in this character set.
Eastern Europe needs a different character set to the Roman one.
If you want to learn to speak Russian quickly, learn 400 basic spoken Russian quickly with
Unforgettablelanguages by Michael M. Gruneberg Level 1. In his PhD he came up with a way to learn a language and remember it quickly using written English. Amazing stuff. He released another level of Russian for me. He has has many languages. I learn a new language quickly for a new country. For the character set, you can find a single page with uppercase, lower case (less useful) and the pronunciation on the internet. Learn to read and you can read every sign in Russia. Most are cognates, like STOP for stop. Pizza for Pizza. etc.
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PS. If you know the Greek alphabet, it is all in Russian. Alpha for A, Beta for B, Gamma for G, Lambda for L. Scientists learn this, but never speak it. Micro is m. etc.
In Cyrillic they pronounce C as S, as we do with celery. They pronounce PI as R. So the shirts reading CCCP are pronounced SSSR. H is interesting as it is N, which it was in Roman times.
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TdeF:
What you say makes sense. I learned some Greek and could make out Russian words reasonably well apart from those with those extra characters.
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Thanks for that TdeF will look up M. Grunebeberg
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Rereke,
Let us not forget also that this is the 70th anniversay of Grace Sullivan’s covert offensive into Nazi occupied France to find her wounded son, John, believed by all, but Grace, to be killed in action, and of her husband, Dave, with his decision to rejoin the army to help his brother Harry in New Guinea.
If it wasn’t for Crawford Productions we’d all be speaking Japanese by now.
41
Quite possibly. Coincidences and parallels happen all of the time. And it is a novice trap to assume that correlation automatically implies causation.
I am not familiar with your example, so I have no opinion, other than to point out that you don’t even attempt to link your first paragraph with the second, so you don’t even have a correlation.
In the case of my example, however, The Wall coming down was a direct manifestation of changes in attitude within the Soviet Bloc, and their adoption of a form of free trade that has seen Russia prosper. The Russian Military, however, still maintains its soviet era surveillance capability, including having a nice relaxing cruise in the Coral Sea, when the need arises.
10
The second paragraph is a summary of the first para. Tidily done.
00
Yeahbut,
Yep, you got it.
00
Rereke,
If you studied the culture classics of West Island TV drama more often you’d understand – and if that aint a clue I don’t know what is…
10
Right on, Shrilly, it is a little known fact that that British actors were the factor that gave the allies the winning edge in WW11. Where would we have been without Noel Coward,John Mills,Michael Redgrave? The Germans lost Marlene Dietrich to New York and only had Kurt Jurgens to keep on fighting a losing battle.
00
You assume that I own a TV, when I do not. I see television per se as a waste of time, and even if I had one, “just for the news”, I doubt I would be any better informed, than I am now.
I prefer investing time, in keeping up with what is going on in the world, from reading the raw wire services reports.
But it is worth the effort, because I find that the basic facts are rarely reflected accurately in the “news” published in the “popular” media, or on television, which seems to be more concerned with their current ratings and advertising revenue, rather than risk confusing their readers and viewers with objective facts.
60
Well said Rereke. Some of us don’t bother with films (movies) either; partly because they are too loud andmumbled and especially with the Hollywood interpretation of whatever the subject matter is.
30
Hey after the massive expedition by the Chinese to investigate the Antarctic for resource potential a couple of years back, the Russians would hate to miss out.
The Chinese show was an “in your face!”demo so whats the bet Vlad too wants to have a pissing contest at some stage in the future just for fun!
40
And this is a genuine experiment.. they’re trying to generate a bit of warming e.g. on the scale of a match applied to Abbot’s toes.
20
In Soviet Russia… Boats Stop Abbott!
🙂 I couldn’t resist.
20
In Soviet Russia climate changes you!
20
Pity. That was an awful pun.
20
TdeF – I agree about the number of Russians that died but remember why. Stalin dudn’t care about the ordinary soldier or the ordinary person. Why plan a proper battle and use proper equipment when you can throw millions of men at an adversary and simply overwhelm them. And where did the Russians get the majority of their equipment? The Russian leaders are suspicious of the motives of others simply because they themselves would act the way they suspect. That is their norm.
30
Much of the equipment in WWII came from the US, through Siberia and especially Iran. Tens of thousands of miles of railway lines, explosives, trucks, trains. The US steam trains line the Trans Siberian as memorials. They look Russian, but look at the wheels, They are stamped in inches. This was done under lend lease and when the Russians rolled into Berlin, they did so in US trucks. Their tanks used Chrysler suspension. I think even the food supplied would have fed their army for years. Russia would have fallen quickly without massive US aid, as would Britain. However as in WW1, the pacifist, isolationist US needed an excuse to enter the war. Pearl Harbour did that as the Mexican telegram did for WW1.
At least we are now talking about Russia, the economy, the people, the politics. It is just so awful to see pictures of a bare chested Putin as the complete picture of modern Russia. That would be like judging the US by Obama playing golf.
80
In passing, that was why the three allies met at the Tehran conference. Then Yalta. Then Potsdam.
10
Lets not forget the thin skinned Liberty ships that sailed up both sides of North America through the routes that blocked with ice after the “blip”.
00
Unlike the Kenyan, who tried and failed to make the US in his own image (except for healthcare, which may end up repealed as an unworkable disaster), Putin IS modern Russia. Politically and economically plus of course in their foreign affairs.
10
Use proper equipment? Watch Enemy at the Gate, the story of Stalingrad with Jude Law and Ralph Fiennes. Not even enough rifles or bullets. When the man in front dies, you pick up the gun.
40
TdeF
It is a great film, and underlines the difference between Russia and the current Western powers. Russia sees itself as a state and a people that needs protecting against any threat external or internal. The people’s include Russians in Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, and Georgia. It is the idea of the state and the people – the collective entities – that matter above all else. Tsarism was easily replaced by (the much more hideous) Stalinism. Putin is taking Russia back to the time of the Tsars.
20
Not sure that it ever left or that it could. Same with China. France too. The administrative layers and mechanisms and structures of huge countries and empires tend not to change and the physical ones never do, from the Kremlin in Moscow to the Forbidden City in Beijing to the Elysee Palace. What matters are the rights of the people, their basic freedom to speak and be heard. That has improved, but big societies have their own pressures.
With the dominance of the US and the democratic way after WWII, every country tries to appear to be democratic, but you have Tienammin square, vanishing reporters and a powerful military in Russia and even Watergate and the Military industry in the US. Even in little Australia, our PM Gillard tried to muzzle the press with threats and laws and had two reporters fired for trying to publish stories she did not like. She rang editors and owners directly. Imagine if Nixon did that to Bernstein and Woodward? Then the aboriginal riot on Australia day where the leader of the opposition was to be assaulted was organized at least by a member of her staff who fled the country. There is a closet totalitarian in many democratically elected leaders, especially those who espouse it.
Still Russia is lurching towards personal freedoms. Consumerism is the great force not expected by Karl Marx and the ambition for a better life, good health, travel, personal freedoms is strong everywhere. It is a product of seeing how others live through the twin miracles of television and the internet. Who in the late 19th century could have imagined television?
10
Better still, read the works of Vasily Grossman, Russian jewish war reporter who lived through Stalingrad and was in and out of favour with Stalin until Stalin’s death.
40
Russia’s “threat” is economic. Just a week before MH17 came down in the Ukraine Russia had signed an agreement with BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) to establish a new development bank worth $100 billion for trade between these countries which means and end to the US dollar being the reserve currency. THIS is the real new world order!
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/india-to-head-brics-100-billion-new-development-bank-559330
60
Pravda: Russia prepares nuclear surprise for NATO
On September 1, 2014 the US State Department published a report, in which it was stated that for first time since the collapse of the USSR, Russia reached parity with the US in the field of strategic nuclear weapons.
Thus, Washington admitted that Moscow regained the status that the Soviet Union had obtained by mid-70’s of the XX century and then lost.
http://english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/12-11-2014/129015-russia_nato_nuclear_surprise-0/
30
Washington has been hoping for this since the USSR collapsed. If Russia manages to form a “them block” the Cold War can come back and things will be well once more.
00
You are all being very unfair.
This is the new method of determining the range of a ship.
You fill ‘er up, go as far as you can until you run out of juice AND Hey Presto – that’s the range of the ship.
Sure beats slaving away on 4 or 5 calculations.
60
Umm.. wouldn’t those ships be nuclear powered ?
Wonder what the range actually is?
10
The Varyag is powered by 4 gas turbines. I don’t know why they are testing their range capability, all they had to do was look up Wiki and they would see it has a range of ~10,000 nautical miles @ 16 knots.
00
My bet is one of the following:
either it’s a usual display of gunboat diplomacy or they’re there to provide a rapid extrication for Putin and his delegation if the recent buildup of Russian forces in easter Ukraine start moving.
The climate research thing sounds like a dig at tony abbott. Putin sure is acting like a petulant child of late. His speech a few weeks ago was along the li es of “we want peace but if you provoke there will be war” – the whole speech sounded like something out of the 1930s.
I also wonder if there are any subs with this group of ships.
71
We need a list of excuses for the Russian convoy, similar to the list of excuses for the pause.
Since Colonel Krudd has his house up for sale, my chosen excuse for the Russian flotilla is to allow the comrade to defect and seek asylum in the Kremlin.
51
Year 12 exams finished. Is schoolies week. Club Med was fully booked. So party animal Putin has come to the rescue with his party boats. Party girls love vodka
That’s the only theory I have.
110
Actually Yr 12 finishes next week in Qld, Schoolies next weekend- couldn’t clash with G20.
10
Putin’s mindset hasn’t changed since his KGB days and the fall of the USSR.
BTW the Bolter has a post about the liars lobbying at the G20, exaggerating their nonsense about CAGW. Prof Michael Asten calls them out on their BS.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/why_are_the_warmists_using_two_year_old_data_that_hides_the_decline/
51
Hard to know about his mindset and what that means? As an agent in East Germany, he learned English and saw life on the other side of the wall, which few Russians did. So he probably has a far better understanding of Europe and America than any previous Russian President and most Russians. He also understands the underlying violence in Russian politics. While all Russians yearn for the days when they had world power, as do the Arabs after the collapse of the Caliphate, Putin is the most likely to be a realist. He needs to be engaged but Obama is entirely the wrong person to do it. Maybe our Abbott could act as a go between? He is also ridiculed for being athletic.
90
I understand his spoken English is poor, but understanding is another matter. German too. Few older Russians speak anything but Russian though.
20
Putin’s German is pretty good (starting at about 2:30), albeit with a strong accent.
20
The number of Russians, at least in Ukraine, that speak some English is astonishing. I learned about four phrases and “please” and “thank” (and those aren’t used much). With a little sign language, pigeon English and pigeon Russian you can get along quite well.
00
And yes … I did mean Russians. Sevastopol was mostly Russian. Odessa was a different story.
00
The citizens of Russia have no more control over their destiny than do the Americans.
“The elite [are] the ultimate authority [in Russia]: it provides the collective leadership of which [the president] is a member and which decides, among other things, how long he should serve as President. The elite has to have some mechanism at its disposal through which such decisions can be reached and through which controlled political events can be coordinated. It is essential to the success of the strategy that this mechanism should be well concealed from the West. I lack the facilities to study how it might be operating. The likelihood is, however, that it functions under cover of some openly acknowledged body. The National Security Council might be a candidate for investigation as a possible front for this secret mechanism.
– Anatoliy Golitsyn, Memorandum to the CIA: 1 October 1993”
30
Regardless of what we think of Putin, he continues to thrash Obama at chess.
90
Honestly after watching him in action since he was elected the first time I suspect that either of my dogs could thrash Obama at chess.
50
Not a fair fight. Dogs had some sense and an innate decency.
10
Not a fair fight. Dogs have some sense and an innate decency.
00
Russian ship here to see if they are capable of doing climate research. Sounds plausible to me !
Well at least as plausible as global warming.
130
This display is typical of small people who act like bantam roosters. It’s called “little man’s syndrome”.
29
Which is also called small dog syndrome.
22
There is an acronym for the Syndrome exhibited by blokes who drive around in utes/ 4WDs with excessive spotlights, aerials, and off road tyres- S.D.S. And the “D” does not mean “dog”. It’s all about compensating. Don’t know about Putin, has Abbott queried him?…..
20
Queried him?
What puzzles me is why ask Putin at all?
Did Putin cause Ukrainian air traffic control to direct the plane off course to that location? Does Putin know how the many perfectly round holes the world saw in the wreckage with the oddly shaped ones were made by a big missile. Would Putin know why so many witnesses saw a small aircraft up there as well? Me thinks Abbott should ask the people who are so determined to stop things from being decided by vote if they were using civilian aircraft as cover to hide behind on bombing raids.
30
Putin is indulging in chest-beating like he usually does. It’s the equivalent of a tinpot African dictator shooting guns in the air to look good to his followers. Don’t underestimate the Australian navy either. They’re well trained and well equipped. The Russians’ problems have always been lack of money and poor training. I’d back the Aussies in a showdown any time.
It won’t come to that. Both Abbott and Putin know the score. They may not like each other, but they know the game they are playing.
91
Why would there be a show down? Last time I checked it is not illegal to be in international waters.
Usual hysteria from Australia MSM, if it was the US fleet it wouldn’t get a mention. Same hysteria they do on climate change though so nothing new under the sun.
Putin is just having a laugh by saying it is for climate change research. I would love to talk to whoever came up with that line. Brilliant.
130
Darn cruise ships !! 🙂 🙂
10
Photo:
Polar bear threatened by dangerous carbon(sic)
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/photos-fnlmwzlq-1227123460314/?page=1
10
TdeF said.
“The sinking of the ancient General Belgrano with 2,500 lives by a British nuclear submarine”
I think you will find that the figure was 323.
60
Thanks. You are probably right, 323 died of the complement of the 2,500. Initial estimates were 1,000 dead. That is war. My point was the relatively little concern we in Australia have for wars where we automatically sided with British or American actions. However ordinary people do not create these opinions, they are created from the top and dictated. In a more open world even in Russia and China, we need to take an interest in such things and in this context the vilification of the Russians and the emotional context is hard to understand. Is Putin really laughing at us? Really?
40
And the Japanese kill whales for research too. Everyone understands these are political accommodations, patently absurd excuses. Actually I find the idea that the Russians are here for Climate research almost comical politics, poking fun at the absurd UN sponsored global warming, climate change thing. Like Prof Turney’s boys adventure voyage to Antarctica to demonstrate that all the ice was melted, it is high farce. Putin has played the ball straight back.
90
our Defence Force, our Government and our MSM all knew full well the reason the Russian warships were north of us, prior to the insane “Russian warships bearing down on Australia”(Ch7) headlines, etc & they could have stopped the sensationalist reporting before it began on the 12 Nov:
10 Nov: Lowy Institute, Interpreter: Putin flexes muscle ahead of G20
The ships were in town principally for last week’s Indonesian Defence Expo, at which 14 Russian defence companies were represented…
Though the presence of the Russian Navy near Australian waters is unusual, it is far from new… http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2014/11/10/Putin-flexes-muscle-ahead-of-G20.aspx?COLLCC=729404665&
janama got it in one. B-R-I-C-S. and the infantile & disgusting behaviour of all politicians & MSM re the Russian President constitutes an insult to the Brazilian, Indian, Chinese and South African leaders at the G20.
bring on a multi-polar world…and the sooner the better.
60
Dinosaur Media, aka Mainstream Media, puts “Climate Change”, formerly known as Anthopogenic Global Warming, on the G20 Agenda…
Google, self-declared AGW activists in their own right, show 4,780,000 results linking the two.
Even if a sizeable number of those results refer to previous G20 Summits, you get the picture. ABC News Radio this morning was virtually nothing but G20+CC, but none of that is found on their website. however, in the past 24 hours, we have:
First day of G20 hot and a little confused
Sydney Morning Herald – 7 hours ago
the Americans and the Chinese have done a fairly good job of hijacking the agenda and putting climate change front and centre
Climate change can’t be put on ice
Sydney Morning Herald-37 minutes ago
It’s not just the fact that climate change in itself, with hotter drier weather
G20 a chance to boost global economic health
Sydney Morning Herald-37 minutes ago
When the global financial crisis hit, that all changed. … not placing climate change on the formal agenda…
Heat will be on Abbott in Brisbane
Sydney Morning Herald – 8 hours ago
Climate change, and its growing impact on poorer countries and classes, was to be firmly relegated to UN conferences, as Australia’s affluent coal-based economy triumphantly showcased itself in Brisbane
Political climate warms to action and puts Abbott on the spot
The Age – 55 minutes ago
The Abbott government is furiously spinning a belated justification for having feet of clay in the climate change debate
Mr Abbott, the world doesn’t need another growth target at G20
The Age – 17 hours ago
And now that China and the US are racing ahead on climate change
Political climate warms to action and puts Abbott on the spot
The Age-48 minutes ago
Abbott, Cameron join forces to attack Putin
The Canberra Times – 7 hours ago
But Mr Abbott faced further pressure on climate change on Friday with the United States reportedly poised to unveil its second major global warming pledge
Aim to grow economy by $2t
The West Australian – 2 hours ago
And an issue that Prime Minister Tony Abbott had sought to keep off the agenda – climate change – has been brought to the fore by Mr Obama
Cairns protesters demand climate change be put back on G20 agenda
ABC Online-20 hours ago
Pope Francis and the G20 Agenda
ABC Local-14 hours ago
No doubt the freshly minted climate change agreement between Barack
Hunger Strike over Climate Change
ABC Online (blog)-21 hours ago
calling for positive G20 Action on Climate Change
G20: The politics of climate change
ABC Saturday Extra -1 hour ago
Australia is increasingly isolated at the G20 meeting in the wake of the climate change agreement between the U.S and China to target emissions.
G20 activists’ messages for the world leaders meeting in Brisbane
ABC-17 hours ago
“Torres Strait Islanders, on top of being very marginalised, are also having to face the very real impacts of climate change, and this is not an issue they can tackle alone.”
UQ lecturer Kitty van Vuuren, calling for greater action on climate change
Comment: G20, the Senate and the policy space oddity
SBS – 22 hours ago
With this announcement, Obama has pretty much ensured that official or not, climate change will get a major focus
Pollie Waffle November 14: All you need to know from this week in politics
SBS – 13 hours ago
Not only had he repeatedly stated that climate change wouldn’t be on the agenda for this weekend’s G20 Summit
Welcome to the G21, NZ
New Zealand Herald – 20 hours ago
While climate change diplomacy for the moment overshadows the G20
In pictures: Brisbane hosts G20 leaders and protesters
BBC News – 10 hours ago
Tony Abbott, says their focus will be on job creation, tax and strengthening the global economy, angering those who say climate change is the one pressing issue for the world
G20 summit: Leave your kayak and snake at home
BBC News – 14 hours ago
would not allow two adverts to be displayed on the grounds they were overly political. One of the adverts campaigned against climate change
Obama’s $3bn for climate fund could kickstart action on global …
The Guardian-18 minutes ago
Behind the motorcades and handshakes, what exactly is the G20 all about?
Daily Mail – 16 hours ago
But Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is expected to come under pressure to address other issues such as climate change
G20 summit: Who’s there, what will they talk about and will Tony Abbott really …
The Independent – 12 hours ago
Immediately the Australian press seized on Mr Abbott’s failure to focus on climate change
G20 in 20: All you need to know about Brisbane Leaders summit in 20 facts
The Independent – 13 hours ago
There has been criticism that Tony Abbott hasn’t pushed for climate change
Climate change on Mullum’s agenda
Echonetdaily-42 minutes ago
G20 Leaders Meet for Australian Summit
Billionaires Australia – 9 hours ago
The ongoing crisis between Russia and Ukraine, and climate change are also on the agenda.
Australian prime minister Tony Abbott tries to block talk about climate change at …
Metro – 8 hours ago
Aussies steamed as G20 dodges climate change
UPI.com – 12 hours ago
World leaders convene in Brisbane for the G20 Summit amid protests
Baltimore Sun – 5 hours ago
World leaders gather in Brisbane, Australia for the annual G20 Summit and are expected to discuss economic growth, free trade and climate change
G20 News Roundup: Russian Nuclear Submarine 5th In The Fleet, World …
International Business Times AU – 16 hours ago
Also, about 400 people of climate change protesters buried their heads in the sand
India under pressure to lay out climate plans at G20 summit
Economic Times – 18 hours ago
The G20 will put Abbott’s political management to the test
Business Spectator – 16 hours ago
“how on earth can Tony Abbott argue that climate change is not central to the G20 agenda?”.
G20: British PM David Cameron addresses Australian parliament -as it happened
The Guardian – 22 hours ago
sending a powerful signal of Obama’s determination to act on climate change…
G20: David Cameron tells Tony Abbott ‘I’ve got your back’
The Australian – 8 hours ago
but there was no doubt yesterday that he wanted to help Abbott keep climate change out of the spotlight at the G20
Brisbane 2014 G20 summit: live coverage
The Australian – 16 hours ago
Climate change, Ebola, tax evasion, counter-terrorism laws and Russia were all hot topics.
G20: David Cameron seeks detail on US, China climate claims
The Australian – 8 hours ago
“Make no mistake, when Tony Abbott says he only wants to concentrate on economic issues, what we see is a stubborn isolationist who won’t admit that climate change is an economic issue,” Mr Shorten said. Greens leader Christine Milne said Mr Abbott was …
Abbott and Hockey will be judged by how they steer Australia’s economy
The Australian (blog) – 7 hours ago
But even if there is a sufficient shift in the political focus back to those “tens of millions of jobs” to overwhelm the climate change army trying to make it the G20’s top priority
G20 focus on growth
The Australian – 22 hours ago
INTERACTIVE: G20 explained. Climate change did not figure in the early drafts of the communique to be issued at the end of the summit but OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria said it could be added to the talks in the wake of the China-US deal.
G20 grapples with climate change and global growth
Channel News Asia – 2 hours ago
Weekend catch-up: A G20 special
(Lowy Institute) The Interpreter-3 minutes ago
With the Brisbane G20 Summit on this weekend, The Interpreter’s usual … like global inequality and economic growth, financial stability and climate change.
Heads buried in sand in climate change protest ahead of Brisbane G20 summit
euronews – 12 hours ago
40
This is why google is dangerous in my view. They aren’t merely a provider of search results any more. They want to ‘shape’ opinion.
And they can do in very subtly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMYqzGwwoF8
20
I only ever use Google for trivia.
That’s all they are capable of.
40
Ditto……. Wikipedia
30
Try this.
http://www.yandex.com/
10
I will try to add some comments to the interesting post of TdeF. My experience with Russia dates back to the Soviet time and post Soviet time. This year I have tried to visit the Crimea by car(from the Netherlands) but I got stuck in South Russia, have seen it all, trucks with help for Donetsk, refugees many,army. People in the West don’t understand what the Crimea means for Russia. The position of Russia is simple, they don’t want any interference by the West and they have their own foreign policy. In 2008 I spent a month holiday in Sotchi, visited Abchazie and the trouble in SouthOssetie came at a predictable moment, undercover fueled by the USA followed by a strike back from the Red army. The Russiafobie started with the natural gas line thru the Baltic Sea
and in recent years with affairs of Chodorkovsky, Greenpeace,Pussy Riot, homo law.
Putin doesn’t want war, only money by selling oil and gas. The era of classic warfare is over and replaced by economic warfare and this is difficult. This is how our politicians try to blame Russia, this why the Ukraine gets a freehand.
140
Thanks. Good positive stuff. We need to engage and not encourage the return of the cold war. It has been seventy years since WWII and we have had relative world peace, the longest period in human history. Unfortunately it is due to MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction but no one wants the Cuban Missile Crisis again. Everyone wants peace but some want to go back a thousand years to old empires.
Having traveled through Russia privately, I saw the Crimea on “Russia Day”. Horns bleating. Marches. Parties. Why it was gifted to Ukraine by Kruschev in 1954 is the only mystery. Anyone over 60 born in the Crimea was born in Russia, the Russia they died for in the Crimean war and WWII. The Crimea is close to the emotional heart of Russia. The Ukraine is a relatively new affair created after 1800 from a real mix of peoples and Stalinist expansion into Poland. So it is younger than Australia.
You can see the huge Crimean war memorial in London on Pall Mall, an impressive monument to a useless, terrible and utterly pointless war. Do not forget also it was a joint French/British operation, like Gallipoli sixty years later, except this time their old friends, the Ottoman Turks, were now the enemy. Most Australians do not know 34,000 British and 10,000 French died at Gallipoli too. And 1500 from India. No wonder no one in the region trusts the French or British.
The site of the famous Charge of the Light Brigade was the same site where Russians fought to the death eighty years later against the German tanks. It was not Ukraine then. The port of Yalta was, as Churchill put it, “the riviera of Hades” and Sebastopol was utterly destroyed. However as a business and despite the Russian tourism, the Crimea lost $1Bn a year and almost everyone considered themselves Russian. The Ukraine is better off and so are the people. However the West declared it as a land grab and Prince Charles declared it was like the Sudatenland, which is ridiculous. Nearly an island and only 4% of the land area of even the Ukraine it was nothing of the sort. It was just time to go home after 60 years in exile. Of course they could have faked the 98% referendum as alleged, but no one believes that and the Tatars returning from exile boycotted the vote.
110
Ahem, Tdef I would have reason to believe that the longest period of peace in human history would be the Pax Romana between the the first and second centuries AD when the Roman Empire held hegemony over the then known world. I have heard some historians refer to our times as the Pax Americana but it will take at least another one hundred and thirty years to eclipse that of the Romans and will need leaders of far superior calibre than the recent occupiers of the White House.
60
Yes that’s true but also that was only the Mediterranean Roman world, a small place, as Alexander the Great found when he reached India and never tried to get to China. WWII was fought from Japan to Africa, New Guinea to the Aleutians, Argentina to Angola. Countries and peoples the Romans did not know existed. Battles raged across continents and across the world’s oceans, not just the seven seas of the Mediterranean. Now everyone lives in fear of a world war which could end human life in 20 minutes.
00
Also the point you make about a freehand to the Ukraine.
The Ukraine is a brutal place run by the mafia, who are the police. They shoot you. It is a pretend democracy. In fact in the winter demonstrations, 60 unarmed civilians were shot by police snipers in central Kiev alone and the previous president Yulia Timoshenko, the leader of the Orange revolution had been in jail for years. Europe protested a little. However you do not read any criticism of the Ukraine, a huge France sized country of 80 million people totally oppressed. All criticism is of Russia and Putin. Why? No energy? As long as NATO and the US support this brutal government, their only hope is Russia.
Nothing will be resolved in the Ukraine until the truth is told and pressure is put on the Ukraine Government to address the grievances of their long suffering people.
120
meanwhile, the very same media that hates the US under Republican leadership, is going literally insane over the current Leader (even tho many in the Progressive Left in America consider him to be “worse than Bush”). no other G20 head of State gets the following treatment by “their ABC”:
Live: Barack Obama arrives for G20 summit
ABC-13 mins ago
The spectacle sent early morning joggers and cyclists looking to the skies as news spread of president Obama’s arrival in Brisbane…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-15/live-g20-blog-saturday/5892850
is it possible to get any tackier than the following?
15 Nov: Australian: AAP: Aust dignitaries snub Putin on G20 arrival
Mr Putin was greeted by Queensland Governor Paul de Jersey and Assistant Defence Minister Stuart Roberts on the runway at Brisbane airport on Friday night.
When German Chancellor Angela Merkel touched down five minutes later a smiling Attorney-General George Brandis and Queensland Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney suddenly dashed out to the runway to meet her.
And within half an hour, as Chinese President Xi Jinping landed, even more senior officials seemed to appear from hiding places at the airport.
Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove and Queensland Premier Campbell Newman and his wife Lisa joined Mr Brandis in meeting Mr Xi’s plane…
But Mr Putin seemed nonplussed…
US President Barack Obama is due to arrive in the early hours of Saturday, no doubt receiving a bigger welcoming party than Mr Putin.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/latest/aust-dignitaries-snub-putin-on-g20-arrival/story-e6frg90f-1227123775056
note: RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has been named the world’s most powerful person for the second year in a row by Forbes magazine. The controversial Russian strongman beat out Barack Obama for the top spot…
guess our MSM think they are big-noting themselves! rather, it makes them look VERY small indeed.
should such non-diplomatic behaviour be dished out to our own political leaders when they are invited guests at international fora in the future, expect 24/7 outrage from our MSM.
70
O/T but a new study has found that California SLs were up to 20 metres( 66 feet) higher during the Eemiam IG ( 120,000 years BP) than SLs today.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/new-paper-finds-tectonic-uplift-of.html
20
Thanks for that Neville. I see your O/T and raise you.
A new paper says our star also effects Martian weather. Who knew? Apparently natural variability rules on that planet too.
Co-author Professor Jan-Peter Muller from the UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory, said: “We’re going to have a very hard time predicting the weather on Mars beyond two days given what we have found in weather records there, which could prove tricky for the European lander and rover!”
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/11/mars-dynamic-atmosphere-provides-insights-into-weather-on-venus-saturns-titan-the-gas-giants-new-res-1.html
20
I’ll throw in an O/T with an update of the Rosetta space mission to the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet. http://www.skynews.com.au/business/tech/2014/11/15/philae-to-attempt-comet-drill.html?cid=BP_RSS_sn-technology_1_philae-to-attempt-comet-drill_151114
This is fascinating stuff but being a climate denier I’ll have to say it’s a conspiracy and being filmed on a movie set. 🙂
30
Its awe inspiring stuff from humanity, considering our origins.
Back on earth there has been talk that Australia’s recent Millennial Drought was somehow connected to AGW, but a new paper dismisses this theory and says it was not unique by any stretch of the imagination.
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V17/nov/a12.php
21
As I have the floor, NOAA confirms US cooling trend.
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01bb07abbe66970d-pi
31
As you were sailors the Russkis are just studying lightning strikes
20
Those ships were carrying military equipment to display at the Defence Trade Show in Indonesia recently.
http://rostec.ru/en/news/4514955
Nothing to do with global warming, a ruse to hide the fact that supply ship is full of the state of the art weapons, systems and simulators.
Sure got the MSM and the blogosphere in a frenzy with the paranoid speculation. Mission accomplished, LOL.
100
Good catch scaper.
50
This is tantamount to an admission by Russia that CAGW is a joke that can be used to justify anything.
Once Obama is out of office the whole house of cards will hopefully come tumbling down…
180
A friend of mine, a Russian ex-geophysicist, has worked on a Soviet Union era nuclear submarine. He related to me with a wry smile how the captain of the submarine once snuck into San Francisco harbour and surfaced in the early hours of the morning. Then he sailed back out into the Pacific Ocean.
40
Goes on all the time even amongst “friends”.
Related to myself by an Australian Submariner during the era of the very good, very quiet for their time, British designed Oberon class submarines.
An exercise with the Americans around Pearl Harbor involved one of Australia’s submarine fleet being involved which necessitated a trip to Pearl.
The support crew flew to Pearl to await the arrival of our Sub.
The Americans of course have Pearl Harbor and the Hawaiian chain surrounded for up to hundreds of kilometres radius with high tech detection gear whose job was to pick up and identify any intruders into waters around Pearl Harbor.
As the arranged arrival date for our sub got very close, the American Navy anti submarine group got quite concerned that they had not found any evidence that our sub was anywhere within the area it should have been found on it’s way into Pearl. In short our sub was well overdue in american eyes.
The Aussie support crew in Pearl were very blase, telling the Yanks, “She’ll be right mate. It will turn up right on time”, A point the americans had a very hard time swallowing, in fact refused to believe as it meant that the sub had got past all their highly sophisticated anti submarine defense system around Pearl Harbor.
It was missing in their very concerned belief .
Come the day and the hour when the Australian sub was supposed to show up at Pearl harbor and the Aussie support crew rounded up the senior American anti sub experts and wandered down to the Harbor.
Right on midday at the appointed minute of arrival the Oberon class sub surfaced in the middle of Pearl Harbor where she had been laying on the bottom for the last day or so.
She had come in under a ship when the boom was let down and therefore was not detected by the technology of those decades ago.
The upshot seemed to have been very red faces indeed right across the American Navy officer class, a complete suppression of any details or even hints of such wide open vulnerabilities in their vaunted anti sub systems and that there were some very senior American Navy anti submarine experts were contemplating new postings to the Aleutian Island outposts or finding jobs in private industry outside of the Navy realms.
The Australian Navy anti sub boys also “Sank” an American nuclear sub in exercises during the Vietnam war, an impossibility from the American viewpoint with the equipment that the Aussie navy lads had. But they did have imagination and caught the american sub skipper right out.
The umpires deemed it sunk so sunk it was on the score sheet.
60
Rom in the late 70’s I once worked with an Aussie ex anti sub detection supervisor who told me that during exercises they sank US submarines with monotonous regularity. I looked at him rather incredulously and asked how they could do that given the superior US technology and he just tapped his head and said the Aussies were more cluey.
30
Being in the gliding game for 50 odd years one gets a lot of inside information and stories from both current jet jockeys as well as past drivers of the hot stuff plus getting to know some of the legendary figures of the aviation world who turn up at a competition to do a bit of relaxing [ ? ] competitive flying.
. In fact both the current and immediate past Commodores of the RAAF are glider pilots who regularly fly in competitions around Australia.
Good, decent guys and and very competent and competitive pilots who know full well and accept that they can and often do have the odd farmer or counter jumper or etc around who can and does beat them in the gliding competitive game, a quite humbling experience for anybody who believes he is top of the heap.
I know one of them but not the other.
30
Seeing there are a few Navy stories around heres another one from the Vietnam war.
One of Australia’s destroyers while on patrol off the Vietnam coast during the war used to get the **** beaten out of it early every morning by a gung ho US Navy reconnoissance Phantom fighter Jockey on this way to run the morning reconnaissance mission.
A Phantom motoring along at a 100 feet or so and 400 or 500 knots beats the daylights out anything that is not tied down, anchored and protected when it blasts overhead under full throttle so there was the usual mess to clean up after he had gone.
The Navy Pilot use to enjoyed his little beat up of the Aussies each morning and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about so he thought.
Well the boys got heartily sick of all this and figured they would make that Phantom jock just a mite more discrete in the future.
In those days the American fighter aircraft had a jink ability, they “jinked” hard and fast, acvery, very rough ride for the jet jockeys when an anti aircraft missile radar locked onto them.. The jinking was to try and break the radar lock on and throw any missile heading their way off course thereby losing the radar lock.
Well one morning the Aussie Navy lads got ALL of their radar gear nicely warmed up, turned all their antenna towards the usual spot where the Phantom came from but kept the radar output off and waited.
When the usual Phantom beat up appeared on the horizon they waited until he was nice and close and threw the switch to blast the full power of the ship’s radar systems straight at that jet jockey and his Phantom travelling at all of 500 knots and 100 feet altitude.
The Phantom jinked and it jinked hard and fast and it jinked at 500 knots and 100 feet above the sea!!
They never saw him again!
50
I Leonardo Di Crapio can borrow a luxury yacht to sail to a climate catastrophists’ bun fight, then Putin can have a few of his rather less luxurious boats come to Brissie for the G20 shin dig. Maybe Putin plans to “save carbon emissions” by not flying back to Moscow, but taking a boat back to Vladivostock and then catch the train.
You know it makes sense. 😉
70
This is Russia and China (see JoNova’s previous article) laughing at the west in general and Obama in particular.
60
Sorry about all the Russia posts. This is a science focused thinking persons’ site about Global Warming and I was distressed that there was such a knee jerk reaction to Russia in general and Putin in particular. It is critically important to discuss the issues and the characterizations are so shallow and unthinking that it reminds of the whole CAGW story. So it was almost humorous that the Russians chose to use Global Warming as the excuse for the Naval visit, but no one saw the ironic even sardonic side that Carbon dioxide emissions seem more important to the UN than world peace. If only because there is money in it for the UN. A lot of money.
100
‘If only because there is money in it for the UN. A lot of money.’ completely justified TedF as the first thing Obama and Ban Ki-Moon mouth off about when arriving here is how Climate Change is the defining issue in our times.
I would have liked to see the LNP scrap the RET and stand up at the G20 stating that Climate Change is a bogus non issue, I knew it would never happen but it was a nice thought, imagine the bedwetting! 🙂
80
O/T The Ukrainians did it:
Russian media releases satellite image claiming to show MH17 shot down by Ukrainian fighter jet
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/russian-media-releases-satellite-image-claiming-to-show-mh17-shot-down-by-ukrainian-fighter-jet/story-fniztvng-1227123846130?nk=2a5df9838422482fe8d911fd2a66b59e
BTW – this morning on ABC radio the news at 9am announced that the G20 would start today with main topics being Trade, taxation and Climate Change.
20
Looks only a little like a Mig-29.
Without image processing (just eyeballing) the widening of the silhouette at the cockpit doesn’t seem to match the aircraft in the photo and the trailing edges of the wings appear more sharply raked on the published “photo”.
20
Try SU-27 flanker or SU-35 “super” Flanker , You’ll find a much closer match in chine profiles and the the plane in the photo has wingtip pylons which the Mig 29 lacks .
20
That photo is alleged to be fake:
In my constant fruitless effort to get a spy satellite photo analysis job at ONA by exhibiting my Google Earth skills, I have manually located the area depicted in the alleged spy satellite photo. I’ve also located the positions in the photo of the fighter and airliner. You can download my place marker set here [ http://pastebin.com/download.php?i=TZ3SFgSR ] just save that as a .KML file and open in Google Maps.
You can turn Google Maps historic imagery slider back to 2011 and click the next time step button as many times as it takes to get back to the present, and at no time does the area update with imagery that looks anything like that cloud pattern. I don’t know how else to test this allegation that it is faked, but it doesn’t look good on first attempt. Anyhow, there are other reasons to think this is fake.
I will assume the spy satellite is looking straight down, or quite close to vertical. So the position in image of the aircraft is quite close to their ground position. That won’t be exactly true as the airliner would be flying 8..10 km altitude, the fighter a bit lower.
Note the MiG is only 25km from the control tower at Vesele airport in Donetsk. So the MiG has to be on their radar for sure. Why did nobody mention this before? Is the stealth technology on Mig-29 really that good?
Also the path of the missile must fly over the city of Donetsk to intercept the airliner. Most AA missiles fly supersonic. Why did nobody in Donetsk mention seeing or hearing a supersonic missile pass over their heads (albeit at 5km..8km altitude) let alone a MiG fighter?
It’s probably futile to speculate about the ability of an air-to-air missile to hit a target at that range, but just for fun I’ll give it a go. Assume the missile is the R-27 missile, radar extended range version. The maximum effective range is given on the Wikipedia page, and it is different for head-on targets versus tail-on targets. Assume we can estimate effective strike range using the cosine of the angle between the missile launch direction and target’s velocity direction. Since the plane is travelling at heading 100 degrees, the fighter at 43 degrees, the range will be closer to the tail-on rating than the head-on rating : 65.5−(65.5−16.5)×((cos(100−43) + 1)÷2) = 27km. But the aeroplane is over 50km from the fighter and the fighter is probably at lower altitude. Not only is it not a guaranteed hit, it looks like it is beyond the rocket motor’s range. Granted the true capabilities of these missiles may be classified, but double the advertised performance seems unlikely.
The missile moving at mach 4.5 will get to the plane in less than 45 seconds. The plane then has to continue cruising at 800km/h for another 3 minutes to get to the crash site… even though it has a big hole in it and may well be in little pieces already. It’s stretching my imagination.
What puzzles me is that the two leading theories both involve a surface-to-air missile, not a missile from another aircraft which would have been detected from radars far away by both sides.
Making up the fighter story just doesn’t make sense, it was never going to work.
20
When are politicians going to realise that its the COVER-UP that really stuffs things up.
If someone had come out straight away and said something like…….
“OH CRAP we did a major stuff-up.. really, really sorry.. here is a whole heap of money to fix things up”
……. then the issue would have been done and dusted.
Its always the LIES, MIS-INFORMATION and FRORD that follows that really gets up people’s noses !!!!..
Take the hint, IPCC, (although its way, way too late now) !!!
(note.. intentional mis-spelling to get past the auto-censor 😉 )
20
With oil trading in the mid to upper $70 range Putin will probably show up at the next G20 with a “Will work for food” sign draped around his neck. He will probably be standing there with a tin cup made from the scrap metal from one of the four ships he has off of the Australian coast now.
If Putin is counting on China to bankroll his adventures he is wishing in one hand and sh!tting in the other. We know which will fill the fastest! China is preoccupied with its shrinking economy and will probably give Russia little more than lip service.
My main concern is the encouragement that Putin receives by the timidity projected by the wimp in chief of the United States. A miscalculation or misunderstanding could escalate into a full blown nuclear war. It isn’t a major risk but any time you are dealing with probabilities what is probable eventually, over time, becomes inevitable.
32
Well no!
China needs energy, lots and lots of preferably clean energy.
Russia needs foreign exchange, lots and lots of foreign exchange to get it’s economy up to standards Russians see in the developed world and want for themselves.
Putin’s Russian Gazprom is obliging;
From Reuters just one of many commentaries on the two huge new 4000 km long gas pipelines from Russia’s immense Siberian and Far East gas deposits.
Under Putin’s gaze, Gazprom starts mega-pipeline to China
(Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin on Monday oversaw the start of construction on a giant pipeline that is due to ship $400 billion (240.78 billion pounds) worth of Russian gas to China in the three decades after flows begin in 2019.
The 4,000 km (2,500 mile) “Power of Siberia” pipeline, being built by state-controlled Gazprom (GAZP.MM), forms a key part of the Kremlin’s energy strategy, symbolising Russia’s attempts to wean itself off dependence on European markets that account for most of its exports.
“Just now, we along with our Chinese friends are starting the biggest construction project in the world,” Putin told a Chinese delegation, headed by Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, and a group of Gazprom workers in Russia’s far east.
61
To put a bit more perspective on Russia’s place in the International order.
Source; Knoema
Population; [ 2010 data ]
China ______ 1.36 billion
India_________1.2 billion
USA _________312 mill.
Indonesia_____240 mill.
Brazil ________195 mill.
Pakistan______173 mill.
Nigeria_______160 mill.
Bangladesh__ _151 mill.
Russian Fed.__143 mill
_______.
GDP; rankings 2013
USA___________$16,800,000,000,000
China
Japan
Germany
France
UK
Brazil
Russian Federation __$2,096,77,030,571
Italy
India
Canada
Australia _________$1,560,597,150,412
Spain
Korea
Mexico
ETC
40
A bit unfair. In a world used to money as the only trading object, it distorts things. For example Indonesians on only $200 per year should starve to death. A lot of the trade in Russia is cashless, bartering and an American dollar buys much more in Russia as in China. There is also a huge amount of black money, as in Italy or Greece where at least half the economy is black market, taxless. In fact in Greece, the average income of all doctors including surgeons is only EU10,000pa. So these numbers can deceive.
40
Yes. The use of pure GDP is to rank economies is unfair to some nations giving a somewhat false impression on the value of their real buying power.
I thought of using the PPP GDP data but even this has two versions, the long term constant comparison and the current comparison.
Using PPP overturns quite a lot of serious misconceptions about the real time, actual purchasing power of goods and services of many various national currencies
PPP GDP for the acronym challenged is; Purchasing Power Parity;
PPP GDP is gross domestic product converted to international dollars using purchasing power parity rates.
A PPP adjusted international dollar [ 2005 dollars in this case ] has the same US dollar purchasing power for goods and services as the U.S. dollar has in the United States.
The exchange rate, a national currency is adjusted so that identical goods and services in two different countries has the same price when expressed in the same currency.
Australia is way down the list in Purchasing Power Parity.
Our dollar when adjusted to match the same Purchasing Power for the identical good or service elsewhere buys far less of those goods or services in Australia than other national currencies do in the other nations.
Constant PPP GDP [ 2005 US dollars ] rankings
USA ___________16,800,000,000,000
China
India
Japan
Germany
Russian Fed [ 6 th ] __GDP expressed in adjusted PPP dollar equivalents ___ 3,461,258,723,665
Brazil
France
Indonesia
UK
Italy
Mexico
Korea
Saudi arabia
Canada
Spain
Turkey
Iran
Australia [ 19th ] ___________1,007,352,589,243
Nigeria
Thailand
Etc
From this it can be seen that rather than Russia’s economy only being 30% larger than Australia’s, when the Rouble and our Aussie Dollar are both adjusted to match an American dollar in the goods and services they can actually purchase, the Russians can in fact buy close to three and a half times the same identical goods and services with their total GDP compared to what we can buy with our GDP.
70
Thanks. Very interesting. When people do not need money to buy food or a car or pay off a mortgage or car parking or new clothes or holidays overseas or dishwashers or even hair products, it is a very different world from that of city dwelling employees in the consumer West.
So what do people want? Do goods poor people know they are technically poor? Yes, unfortunately. Television promotes a machine oriented entertainment oriented consumer lifestyle and there are TV aerials across the poorest countries. Everyone has a mobile phone, even the Bedouin on their camels in Jordan. Ultimately it was why the Iron Curtain came down.
40
(Beware, there may be sarcasm involved here, and, umm, I think you’ll all guess where)
Russia has recognised that there is a real need to be moving towards renewable power, and the Russian Federation forges ahead with implementation of Renewable Power, as Wind Power and Solar Power take hold in the Russian Federation.
Total Generated power in Russia 1026TWH – (and while their population is 6.13 times that of Australia, their power generation is only 5 times that of Australia.)
So, then, now we have a total for overall power generation, let’s look at the breakdown.
Fossil Fuel Power – 690TWH. (this includes both coal fired power and power from Natural Gas, which Russia has plenty of)
Hydro Power – 170TWH
Nuclear Power – 165TWH
I’ll, umm stop here, and allow you to add that up, because when you do, you’ll notice something pretty obvious really.
So then, this huge Russian move towards Renewable Power sees the following two totals from those renewables.
Wind Power – 0.004TWH
Solar Power – 0TWH
That total for wind power is, umm perhaps what you might expect from, umm, perhaps the one wind tower, maybe even two if the wind is not quite up to speed.
At least Russia is not wasting its money on these ghosts.
Tony.
Post Script – You’ll read all sorts of things at Wikipedia, but hey, I can only go from the actual data eh, and that is at this link. There are a couple of small wind plants planned, but all that exists now is basically a tower here and there.
70
Tony, I found this interesting paper:
Can the world run on renewable energy? An improved negative case.
16.10.12
Ted Trainer, (corresponding author)
Conjoint Lecturer, Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Kensington 2052. Australia.
https://socialsciences.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/CANW.htm
In his conclusion he says the following:
He really sums up the whole deabte – it’s between societies than can continue to have a high energy use or a socialist dream.
20
Hey, a move to total reliance upon renewables can actually be achieved really.
That is provided you have no cities or major towns, or even small towns for that fact, no buildings taller than two levels, no shopping centres, no Coles or Woolies, no hospitals, no rail system, no industry, no reticulated water supply, no sewerage, no traffic control, and hey, you won’t need traffic control because there will be no cars because there will be no power to run the pumps to put petrol in them anyway, no communications, like land lines, like mobile phones, pads, laptops, no internet.
Easy really!!!!!
Tony.
70
I think that those who would like to live in a yurt should be (and are) free to do so, however I think they should leave the rest of us alone…..
40
I did a study on mathematical yurts in a maths “fun” project
The dodecahedral/icosahedral duality can be quite fun… mathematically, of course 😉
One inside the other, inside the other, inside the other……… ad inf. 🙂
Look at an icosahedron, you can see the pentagonal structure within the triangles.
Its all so “platonic”.. 😉
20
Actually, Oil needs to be at $117 for a “fiscal break even price” to sustain the Russian economy. See http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100026424/60-oil-will-finish-russias-putin-regime-says-hermitages-browder/ The article also went on to say that at $60 Putin would be gone in a year. Me personally, I think $75 will tank the economy of Russia within nine months. Russia just announced it is going to bolster its military budget. Where is the money going to come from?
Thet may be able to sell oil and gas to China but at what price? The world market sets the price, not Russia. The US and other countries are going to begin to export large amounts of LNG to Europe. Selling to the Chinese will help to replace the market share Russia is about to lose in Europe but it isn’t enough to save their economy.
Saudi Arabia is floooding the market in an attempt to slow the rise of US oil output but that is a fool’s errand. Soon, the US will be an exporter of oil. California Resources Corporation, a spin off of Oxy, has figured out how to unlock the oil in the Monterey Shale play in California and that is a game changer.
As the US moves ahead as the world’s largest producer of oil and a major exporter the geopolitical repercussions will be massive. OPEC will be weakened and will become a paper tiger, the dynamics of the US China trade relationship will change to America’s advantage and Russia’s economy will become moribund.
I stand by my previous prediction.
11
“Escalate into full blown nuclear war”? No such thing. Everyone would be dead in 20 minutes. Maybe the aborigines would get their place back and in another ten thousand years, it would be as if nothing happened.
10
I pray that nobody ever pushes the button. That being said, most of the fallout would dissipate and, with the exception of the belligerent countries, life would go on. The movie On the Beach painted a bleak picture where fallout would destroy the world. It is a myth.
I believe only a madman would push the button but there have been several instances where a nuclear war almost started because of misinterpretation of intelligence data, human error, computer glitches, etc. It only takes one “oops” and the greatest disaster to ever befall the human race would occur.
I pray the world rids itself of nuclear weapons before humans demonstrate how human we really are!
21
Russia can be pretty sure that this is going to be a very cold winter indeed. No Western Europeans will do without Russian gas for heating; and increasingly; electricity. Gazprom is laughing all the way to the bank; especially at the proliferation of gas-fired, open-cycle electricity generating plant necessary to deal with the unpredictable and highly variable “renewables” of wind and solar PV.
“The West”, as evident from the media, understands neither Russia nor the more complex Putin. Putin is growing more political late in his term; but he is still fundamentally a rational, pragmatic realist. Evidently one intellectually superior to Obama and many western leaders. I’m working on translation/commentary of an interview of a German entrepreneur who’s been operating out of Russia since 1990 that casts a different perspective on Russia/Ukraine and Putin than the one to which we’re conditioned.
110
And now Russia have released a satellite photo showing a Ukraine Mig shooting down MH17.
I’m on my phone right now, so you’ll have to Google it, sorry.
21
The Russians will famously photoshop anything. It is a national pasttime. This is unlikely to be right.
10
You have to differentiate between “Russia have released” and “someone supporting Russias version of events has released”
30
TASS. And the 777 covered an area of ground 4km long in the pic. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest it was not photographed from 850km up with that parallax.
Also the clouds were from Google maps, taking in 2012.
00
The recent photoshop images are probably just stage props to make the story more readable but there may well be a element of truth to the written words of the story that it was a Ukrainian fighter jet that initially shot down MH17.
One has to ask why Ukrainian air traffic controllers allowed MH17 to pass over a war zone when most other airliners were directed on an alternative flight path.
Civilian ground observers are notoriously inaccurate but many report MH17 flying in the opposite direction prior to being blown out of the sky and radar images back up the idea that MH17 made a 180º turn, losing a lot of height prior to the missile explosion.
My suspicion is that the Russians had the first peek at the flight recorder and are well aware of what actually happened on that day and chose to release the story to the global press to coincide with the G20 but this information has been floating around fringe web-sites for months.
I’m confident that we (the general public) do not know exactly what happened.
00
And Obama has just pledged $3billion to the UN for climate change! So let’s see how the good folks at home react? here link
20
15 Nov: News Ltd: Anthony Sharwood: Vladimir Putin hates Australia and sees it as an economic threat. And that’s just one reason for sending in the ships
Firstly, Vladimir Putin is pissed off. And secondly, he’s showing off…
http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/vladimir-putin-hates-australia-and-sees-it-as-an-economic-threat-and-thats-just-one-reason-for-sending-in-the-ships/story-e6frflo9-1227123123276
14 Nov: theBRICSpost: Brics GDP bigger than G7 in purchasing power: Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said Moscow wants to work with other countries to “remove the imbalances in the global economy”.
In Vladivostok on Friday, Putin said the GDP of the BRICS countries calculated at the purchasing power parity is greater than that of the G7, the Group of major industrialized nations.
“As far as I know, the GDP of BRICS is $37.4 trillion, while that of the G7 is $34.5 trillion. And if we go and say: ‘No, thank you, we are going to do this and that here on our own, and you can do it the way you want it,’ this will only add to the imbalances. If we are really set to resolve some issues, we should do that together,” he told Russian agency Itar Tass.
The leaders of the BRICS states (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) will meet on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia this weekend to further boost political and economic ties between the group…
http://thebricspost.com/brics-gdp-bigger-that-g7-in-purchasing-power-putin/
20
btw there’s plenty of debunking of the pics showing the Ukrainian MIG shooting down MH17.
however, more interesting is the fact UK Daily Mail is the ONLY Western MSM carrying the latest round of evidence provided by Russia for a military aircraft or aircrafts alongside MH17 at the time it was brought down:
13 Nov: UK Daily Mail: Will Stewart: Russia produce radar data which ‘proves’ military aircraft was flying close to MH17 when it was shot down above Ukraine
Data from air traffic controllers claims to show mystery planes near MH17
Image is said to show objects remaining in the area 20 minutes after crash
‘The data from the Rostov radar station tells us about the situation at the moment of the crash and 20 minutes afterwards.’
It records other identified passenger planes and MH17 until its final signal.
‘We can clearly see that at the moment of the crash and after it, to the North of the Boeing’s route, some aircraft were flying.
‘It is likely to have been military because all the dots are very close to each other. We can make a conclusion that it was either one or two aircraft; in any case, there was something there…
Melnichenko: ‘It is also important that the location of these marks at the radar – to the left of the Boeing’s route – fits the photographs from the crash scene where we can clearly see the left side of the cockpit and the left wing were hit.’
It has been argued before that this is the wrong angle for a strike by a BUK missile…
Vladimir Putin this week called for a thorough probe to determine all the causes of the plane’s demise…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2832980/Russia-produce-radar-data-proves-military-aircraft-flying-close-MH17-shot-Ukraine.html
40
It will oibviously be gathering observations on Nuclear Winter experiments…
20
to date, Kiev authorities have not released air traffic controller recordings; US still has not produced satellite date it claimed to have; yet Russia produced satellite data in July, showing at least one aircraft flying close to MH17, while declining to make any conclusions:
21 July: MH17 Show & Tell: It’s the West’s Turn – Russian Satellites and Radars Contradict West’s Baseless Claims
Russia has now shown its satellite pictures and radar information from the Donetsk, Ukraine region during the July 17, 2014 Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash.
The Wall Street Journal reported in its article, “Russia Presents Its Account of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Crash,” that:
“Russia’s Defense Ministry on Monday presented its first detailed account of the final moments of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, saying Russian radar had spotted a second aircraft in the vicinity shortly before the crash and that satellite imagery showed Ukraine had moved missile systems into the area before the incident.”…
The Wall Street Journal also reported:
“In an elaborate presentation displaying radar and satellite imagery, Mr. Makushev said it was likely that the second airplane was a Ukrainian fighter jet. He also showed satellite photos allegedly portraying several Buk ground-to-air missile systems in the area close to where the plane crashed. The systems, he said, could only belong to the Ukrainian military.”…
He said Russia is prepared to hand all of the information it has to European authorities, which included satellite imagery and data from its own radars…
There were a series of questions asked throughout the presentation – nothing was “concluded” – which is in direct contrast to the West which has shown the world nothing in terms of evidence, but has drawn many inflammatory, politically-motivated conclusions.Russia has shown a great deal of evidence directly contradicting the West’s baseless claims. Now it’s time for the Pentagon to show the world their pictures and data along with their explanations…
VIDEO
http://www.globalresearch.ca/mh17-show-tell-its-the-wests-turn-russian-satellites-and-radars-contradict-wests-baseless-claims/5392468
the BBC Russian Service (not pro-Russian) eyewitnesses who saw at least one military jet flying near MH17. BBC disappeared this video but it is still available online:
UKRAINE Eyewitness Confirm Military Jet Flew Besides MH17 Airliner: BBC Censors Video 25Jul2014
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa_R2NA1txc
50
yes, Russia is suffering from Western sanctions, but so are EU & even US. me, i’m all for dialogue and peaceful solutions.
14 Nov: Irish Independent: Putin stockpiles gold, ready for economic war
Russia has taken advantage of lower gold prices to pack the vaults of its central bank with bullion as it prepares for the possibility of a long, drawn-out economic war with the West.
The latest research from the World Gold Council reveals that the Kremlin snapped up 55 tonnes of the precious metal – far more than any other nation – in the three months to the end of September as prices began to weaken.
Vladimir Putin’s government is understood to be hoarding vast quantities of gold, having tripled stocks to around 1,150 tonnes in the last decade…
The biggest buyers of gold after Russia are former Soviet states Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
http://www.independent.ie/business/world/putin-stockpiles-gold-ready-for-economic-war-30742978.html
James Conca, below, on the other hand, has a pro-military perspective of CAGW. in his profile, we learn Conca has been a scientist in the field of the earth and environmental sciences for 33 years, specializing in geologic disposal of nuclear waste, energy-related research, subsurface transport and environmental clean-up of heavy metals; consults on strategic planning for the DOE, EPA/State environmental agencies, and industry including companies that own nuclear, hydro, wind farms, large solar arrays, coal and gas plants; also consults for EPA/State environmental agencies and industry on clean-up of heavy metals from soil and water; and for over 20 years has been a member of Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the NRDC, the Environmental Defense Fund and many others. skin in the CAGW game, in other words:
14 Nov: Forbes: James Conca: Does Our Military Know Something We Don’t About Global Warming?
Every branch of the United States Military is worried about climate change. In the wake of an historic climate change agreement between President Obama and President Xi Jinping in China this week (Brookings), the military’s perspective is significant in how it views climate effects on emerging military conflicts.
China will be our biggest military and political problem by the middle of this century…
The Center for Naval Analysis has had its Military Advisory Board examining the national security implications of climate change for many years. Lead by Army General Paul Kern, the Military Advisory Board is a group of 16 retired flag-level officers from all branches of the Service.
This is not a group normally considered to be liberal activists and fear-mongers…
This year, the Military Advisory Board came out with a new report, called National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change, that is a serious discussion about what the military sees as the threats and the actions to be taken to mitigate them…
So why is the country as a whole, and those who normally support our military, so loathe to prepare for possible threats from this direction?…READ ON
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/11/14/does-our-military-know-something-we-dont-about-global-warming/
10
On Conca’s article, I wrote on Facebook in the Energy from Thorium group:
30
our best & brightest are in a frenzy, according to Victoria:
15 Nov: News Ltd: Victoria Craw: Obama’s University of Queensland speech: Students slam ‘scandal’ of ticket allocation
UQ Student Ashley Chandler organised a change.org petition which has already gathered nearly 150 likes about the ticket allocation process of the White House official event which has a capacity of around 2000 people…
“This seems to me to be a scandal that would rank somewhere between Watergate and the 2011 Greenfield incident,” it says online.
“There are many, many students who have contributed much to the UQ community who should have been offered the opportunity to attend, some even more deserving than me (maybe).”
“How about UQ Ambassadors who whore themselves out at Open Days and every other weekend to spruik the benefits of UQ to young, naive high school students who don’t realise that they’re about to enrol in an elitist, nepotistic university with little regard for its students or the practical skills they need to develop in order to thrive in their chosen career?”…
“With countless deserving and sensible-choice students excluded from the list, it leaves us in a position where we are unable to do anything but assume there must be some ulterior motive at play, some great conspiracy or discrimination. I’m inclined to think it is probably misogyny. After all, I am a woman and I was not invited and we all know that correlation is always causation”…
http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/obamas-university-of-queensland-speech-students-slam-scandal-of-ticket-allocation/story-e6frflo9-1227124071255
15 Nov: News Ltd: Victoria Craw: Hundreds queue for glimpse of Obama at the University of Queensland
Dominic Jorgenson, 20, said it was the chance of a lifetime to see the President and he doesn’t think Abbott would draw the same kind of crowd.
“I can’t think of too many other people in the world who you’d want to see on the same scale,” he said…
It’s not known if the President will take questions from the 2000 people invited at the official White House event but if he does, Stuart Kinsella is keen to ask him about what he thinks of Russian President Putin’s latest move.
“I’d like to see what he thinks about Vladimir Putin sending warships to Australia,” he said.
http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/hundreds-queue-for-glimpse-of-obama-at-the-university-of-queensland/story-e6frflo9-1227124037638
10
if u look between the 10,000 words of Obamania, you will eventually find Ban deciding the G20 agenda:
15 Nov: News Ltd: G20 Brisbane 2014: Ban Ki-moon puts climate change on agenda
by:Jennifer Rajca, with wires
Obama: “Here in the Asia Pacific nobody has more at stake when it comes to thinking about and then acting on climate change,” he told the audience, to applause.
“Here a climate that increases in temperature will mean more extreme and frequent storms, more flooding, rising seas that submerge Pacific Islands.
“Here in Australia it means longer droughts, more wildfires.”…
Earlier today, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon identified what he thinks should be the priorities for the G20 summit — with climate change topping the list….
http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/obamas-university-of-queensland-speech-students-slam-scandal-of-ticket-allocation/story-e6frflo9-1227124071255
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/brisbane-g20/barack-obama-joins-big-names-with-university-of-queensland-g20-speech-20141115-11n7kf.html
ABC doesn’t mention: “The ballpark figure of $2.5bn to $3bn is not that much higher than the $2bn pledged to climate finance by George Bush in 2008” Suzanne Goldenberg/Guardian 14 Nov.
15 Nov: ABC: G20 Live: Barack Obama pledges $3 billion to help developing nations deal with climate change
What an outstanding orator Obama is. Also fantastic to see him acknowledging the traditional owners. When was the last time we saw Abbott do that? Oh that’s right, never!
Audience comment by Clare Simpson
awesome
Audience comment by She ree king
Just watched President Obama’s address at Queensland University, what a charismatic, positive and uplifting speaker and person. Saw so many smiling faces in the audience who seemed intoxicated by his presence. 🙂
Audience comment by Kimbo
I was totally in awe at the Presidents Speech, he spoke openly, frank and so honest. He is the first politician that I have ever thought I could trust. Makes Abott look a little silly with his speech. Hmmmm
Audience comment by Elsie Turia
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-15/live-g20-blog-saturday/5892850
intelligent,classy readers as always, ABC.
30
Skeptics on Twitter reacted in the way the youthful didn’t.
10
Im not sure if Im the odd one out on here But unfortunately the Russia DOES have the evidence that MH17 WAS shot down by the Ukraine airforce by SU25 jets following the aircraft with 30mm cannons. Enough said. Its very sad, is Nuremburg still open for business?
30
Do you acknowledge a couple of serious inconsistencies with your hypothesis?
a) You maintain the villain was a flanker while the propaganda released by Russia today maintains it was a Fulcrum.
b) 30 mm canons don’t leave the same debris as the assessment from the investigators that MH17 was hit by shrapnel from an exploding device in close proximity.
Somebody is telling you furphies.
10
Personally I think the whole thing was faked in a Hollywood back lot. As for Putin, I’ve heard on the grapevine that he isn’t actually a Russian citizen but was born in the Congo to albino Pygmy parents and faked his birth certificate.
32
FIN,
That was Obama…
21
Tell me Shrilly…
…. how did you get an avatar that so appropriately matches SF ???????
20
Griss,
I designed it myself on paintbox – you like?
30
🙂
20
Yes, … and that was the point of FIN’s joke. I think most of us got the connection, and we at least smiled, but didn’t feel the need to make dorks of ourselves by pointing out the obvious.
30
Trouble is RW.. I suspect Fin was being serious !! 😉
20
Griss,
Me too…
10
Rereke,
You need to lighten up some – like I wrote you once before ‘hiwa hau maka’.
10
@FIN, ….And you probably believed it..
because, as you have shown with the climate stuff..
you are…
GULLIBLE !!!!
——
Only *** knows where O-bummer originated !!!
21
“30mm canons”. Are they part of the weapons fit with cloister bombs? 🙂
50
nice ! 🙂
10
These jokes of your are become a sort of habit !
30
please ignore typos..
Taylors’ ‘Promised Land’ Shi/Cab………. all gone ! 🙁
For the price.. eminently quaffable !!
10
So another conspiracy theory might like to explain why was MH 17 specifically shot down out of the hundreds of airliners traversing the same trans Ukraine routes?
From “Global Research”
Malaysian Airlines MH17 Was Ordered to Fly over the East Ukraine Warzone
[quoted ]
I would like to refer to recent reported comments by officials from Eurocontrol, the body which approves European flight paths under ICAO rules.According to the Wall Street Journal, the officials stated that some 400 commercial flights, including 150 international flights crossed eastern Ukraine daily before the crash. Officials from Eurocontrol also stated that in the two days before the incident, 75 different airlines flew the same route as MH17.MH17’s flight path was a busy major airway, like a highway in the sky. It followed a route which was set out by the international aviation authorities, approved by Eurocontrol, and used by hundreds of other aircraft.
&
The route over Ukrainian airspace where the incident occurred is commonly used for Europe to Asia flights. A flight from a different carrier was on the same route at the time of the MH17 incident, as were a number of other flights from other carriers in the days and weeks before. Eurocontrol maintains records of all flights across European airspace, including those across Ukraine.
What this statement confirms is that the MH17 ‘s “usual flight path” was similar to the flight paths of some 150 international flights which cross Eastern Ukraine on a daily basis. According to Malaysian Airlines “The usual flight route [across the sea of Azov] was earlier declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. The International Air Transportation Association has stated that the airspace the aircraft was traversing was not subject to restrictions.”
[ cont. ]
Far more likely was some trigger happy thug sitting at a control console somewhere in eastern Ukraine decided quite likely on his own volition to lock onto an aircraft, any aircraft and fire one of his deadly and spectacular toys he had been entrusted with just to see what would happen and give a boost to his own inflated ego.
He probably hadn’t counted on his eventual fate …
[The end of the last sentence was unnecessary, and supposition -Fly]
10
Most modern aircraft, both commercial, and military, have an identification transponder that is used to automatically tell the ground controllers which blip on the radar is what aircraft.
MH17 would have had one, and as a commercial aircraft, it should have been on all of the time. So, the SAM operators should have seen this, and not fired a missile, and the control computer for the SAM launcher itself, should have detected a civilian identification, and not permitted a missile to have been fired.
I don’t disagree with your argument, ROM. But it seems to me, that part of the causation is that the crew of MH17 must have turned the identification transponder off, for some reason. Let us not forget that this is the second Malaysian Airlines flight to have “gone dark” in recent history.
41
After the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight 370 on March 8th and the fact it’s transponder was no longer operating. I seriously doubt that in a very busy air route in July 17th, mid summer, only a couple of months after losing one aircraft and under constant monitoring by EuroControl plus Malaysian airline executives, all of whom would have got Very, Very upset if Malaysian MH17 flight crew had switched off their transponders or any “Friend or
Foe” systems they might have been carrying.
Nor is there any evidence that they did so.
There is a nasty little local war of sorts on in eastern Ukraine with quite a number of less than salubrious and rather nasty players involved, all looking out for what they could make of any advantages they could wangle out of any deals with no questions asked.
How doesn’t matter so some pretty undisciplined ego driven gung ho individuals are involved as always in any uncontrolled quasi military militia that is without a formal centrally controlled and disciplined officer corps.
There does not appear to be any senior officers from any armed forces involved in the decision to shoot down MH17.
This is unlike Korean Airlines flight KAL 007 which was shot down deliberately by the Russians in Sept 1st 1983 with the loss of 269 lives.,
The pilot of the Soviet SU15 Flagon Major Gennadi Osipovich was instructed by General Anatoly Kornukov, commander of Sokol Air Base and later commander of the Russian air force to destroy the Boeing over neutral waters off the Kamchatka Peninsula even though the pilot of the SU15, Major Osipovich was fairly sure it was a civilian airliner.
As with KAL007, one day the perpetrators of this MH17 disaster will identified and then ??
The Ukrainians have a point to prove.
The Russians got dropped into the **** from a great height this time which has done them no favours at all.
The Malaysians want revenge as do just about everybody else who had nationals on that flight.
Definitely not the sort of public prominence and attention the button pusher would likely to continue to stand around in to receive the plaudits.
30
Yes, but only works if you’re flying under radar coverage.
Australia (for example) only has radar coverage down the east side of australia, along the south coast and around to 100 miles north of perth. The rest is all precedural airspace where the air traffic controller calculates the approximate position of the aircraft based on the pilots corrent position and estimate for the next.
In the case of flight 370 an air traffic controller wouldnt have known anything was wrong until the pilot failed to call at his nextreporting point.
30
Most aircraft tracking is by transponder.
That’s how flightradar24.com does its thing, with contributions from receivers connected in many parts of the world.
10
theRealUniverse?
Obviously not this one, pinko…
00
a final post for the day. apologies for posting so much stuff.
i can well understand US power elite (and certain allies) see BRICS as a threat. i don’t. however, it makes no sense that Russia/Putin would shoot down a Malaysian airline 2 days after this momentous event in Brazil. wonder how many ever saw the featured pic in their MSM!
15 July: RT: BRICS establish $100bn bank and currency pool to cut out Western dominance
(L to R) Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, China’s President Xi Jinping and South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma join their hands during the official photograph of the 6th BRICS summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, on July 15, 2014 (AFP Photo)
BRICS represents 42 percent of the world’s population and roughly 20 percent of the world’s economy based on GDP, and 30 percent of the world’s GDP based on PPP, a more accurate reading of the real economy. Total trade between the countries is $6.14 trillion, or nearly 17 percent of the world’s total…
The idea is that the creation of the bank will lessen dependence on the West and create a more multi-polar world, at least financially.
“This mechanism creates the foundation for an effective protection of our national economies from a crisis in financial markets,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said…
Russia has also proposed the countries come together under an energy alliance that will include a fuel reserve, as well as an institute for energy policy
COMMENT: Ha! Two days later, the false-flag downing of MH17. Washington didn’t wait long to respond to the new BRICS bank.
COMMENT: How long before BRICS is labelled the new axis of evil and the bombing begins?
http://rt.com/business/173008-brics-bank-currency-pool/
it’s a pity Australia was leaned on
20
the final comment got posted somehow before i ended the final sentence which was to be:
it’s a pity Australia was leaned on by the US (according to NYT) not to join Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank at the last minute, after attending the preparatory talks.
bowing to the US, against our own business interests, didn’t do the Govt any favours at home either!
11 Nov: Xinhua: Jeremy Zhao: Australians voice strong support for joining Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
Australia’s joining the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) can serve as a stepping stone to further lift bilateral relations with China, former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has said.
His view is shared widely by people from business circles, media and academics in Australia.
In a recent interview with Xinhua, Keating urged the current Australian government to recognize and join the bank as soon as possible.
Australia turned down the invitation by China to become one of the founding members of the 100 billion U.S. dollar AIIB, saying that Australia would like to see more transparency in the governance of the bank…
The decision was criticized by the former prime minister (Keating) as the worst decision made since the current government took office in September last year…
“The West and the United States said they wish China would conduct in a multilateral structure. But when China proposed one like the AIIB, they rejected,” Keating said.
“China’s effort in working in a multilateral system should be supported not resisted.”…
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2014-11/11/c_133780674.htm
of course the UQ students at today’s speech would not have a clue about anything geopolitical. celebrity is their thing.
30
correct url for the following posted earlier:
15 Nov: PerthNow: G20 Brisbane 2014: Ban Ki-moon puts climate change on agenda
by:Jennifer Rajca, with wires From: News Corp Australia
Obama: “Here in the Asia Pacific nobody has more at stake when it comes to thinking about and then acting on climate change,” he told the audience, to applause.
“Here a climate that increases in temperature will mean more extreme and frequent storms, more flooding, rising seas that submerge Pacific Islands.
“Here in Australia it means longer droughts, more wildfires…
http://www.perthnow.com.au/business/economy/g20-brisbane-2014-ban-kimoon-puts-climate-change-on-agenda/story-fnkjjouy-1227123985075
20
If I were hosting G20, I’d tell that upstart from the UN to pull his head in because G20 isn’t the UN’s business.
20
An interesting article I thought.
http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2014/04/russia-report-putin-.html
20
Quote:
“The second was a former State Department official with whom I recently shared a radio interview on Russia.
Afterward when we were chatting, I remarked, “You might be interested to know that I’ve collected experiences of Putin from numerous people, some over a period of years, and they all say they had no negative experiences with Putin and there was no evidence of taking bribes”.
He firmly replied, “No one has ever been able to come up with a bribery charge against Putin.”
20
Of course those Russian warships are out to determine if they can do climate research.
Without them in the Coral Sea, the climate at the G20 talks in Brisbane would be quite different.
30
‘Having to do climate research’ is a diplomatic euphemism for having to rescue Russian assets stranded by the misdirected folly of Australian Universities, after both the Chinese and the Americans demonstrating such a capability last year.
30
That’s more realistic than Tony Abbott shirtfronting Vladimir Putin.
10
Way, Way of topic, but isn’t it 5 years since ‘Climategate ‘ broke ??
Haven’t seen anyone mention that on the blogs, or did I miss it.
My little dog ‘ Pepper ‘ died that day, and I was up late and saw it all first on ‘The Air Vent’.
If I remember rightly it was the early hours of the 10th here in Australia.
I down loaded the file FOIA.ZIP from the site ‘Megadownloads’ before it disappeared.
20
Why not look on the bright side? It’s essential that Abbott do his job in the matter of the Australian lives lost, and he appears to be doing that. But, for the rest of it, at least Krushchev isn’t organising Ukrainian agriculture while Stalin purges doubters and whoever walks past the house of a second cousin of a doubter. It’s not a nice part of the world politically, but it’s been worse politically. Do we really want to start sorting out the brawls between Tatars, Ukrainians, Russians etc from this distance? There’s a UN and EU to make a bigger mess of all that.
Let’s talk more softly while we make our own economic stick bigger. Let’s modernise our coal power gen, build our nukes, support rural industry against green lobbies and generally “put money in thy purse”. If Putin is satirising our Western greeniness, let’s just take the tip and show him the power of Western money-makeiness. That ship looks like it was made from recycled Lada Nivas (by Lada Niva) – but a coal and bauxite rich nation like Australia which can’t afford to run an aluminium smelter can hardly laugh at others’ backwardness.
There was a lesson not long ago about not slipping into foreign energy dependency.
The name of the lesson was “The 1970s”.
70
Methinks Mr. Putin doth swagger a little too much. If he wants to be seen as a world leader — and I’m sure he does — then a show of force, especially one under the guise of something that will be seen as a farce, won’t help his standing with the world around him.
Best leave his warships at home. I’m quite sure Australia and his own security detail can adequately protect him.
30
Roy,
I think the swagger is more for the gullible Western MSM to feed his exploits back to the folks at home.
10
Agreed, too many here appear to me to be basing their interpretations of Putin’s actions on what Western media has been feeding them for years since he took over from Yeltsin what was it, 15 years ago now?
So that’s 15 years of Western media, who really hates the man, tailoring the public’s opinion of him in the direction they desire. He is very aware of this and he seems to be one of the few who knows how and when to use it to his advantage.
I suspect many underestimate the man, unfortunately for us here in the US so does our President who on his best day and Putin’s worst day isn’t even close to a match for him.
People can and will say all sorts of things about Putin, but the man is not politically incompetent which is far more than we can say about Obama or some of the other Western leaders.
10
I have been trying to figure out Putin for a long time. Is he a bad guy or a good guy on the world stage?
After all has been said and done in and about Ukraine for instance, there hasn’t been the kind of military all out assault I would have expected. The violence seems to be from the separatists who were already there. But clearly Putin is interested in keeping his access to the Black Sea ports that give Russian military and merchant marine vessels access to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. But he already had long term agreements for the use of those ports or so I read. So exactly what else does he want in Ukraine? As for his behavior in general, I wish Obama paid as much attention to U.S. interests as Putin gives to Russian interests. We would be incalculably better off after 6 years of the man.
Certainly Obama is no match for Putin, not even close. Putin knows what he wants, why he should want it and then moves to secure it. He knows the world around him and the Russian people very well. Obama only wants to fight his long dead father’s battle against colonial oppression and what he sees as oppression in general by western nations. He’s blind to everything else. His whole public life as senator and president is a bluff and he’s a congenital, shameless liar. But behind the scenes I think he does have a plan and as we’re seeing, it’s not in the best interest of the United States.
10
But now the approval or disapproval of the Keystone pipeline is hung squarely around Obama’s neck since both the House and the Senate have passed the thing.
Passage in the Senate is interesting since it’s still dominated by Democrats who wouldn’t touch approving it until one of their own needs help winning a close runoff in Louisiana, a very oil and gas dependent state. Ain’t politics wonderful?
Obama’s going to be under a ton of pressure to sign that bill into law. I wonder if he’ll do it.
10
To me that is the key right there. I don’t have to like or hate Putin, I don’t have to like or hate his policies, I don’t even have to admire or fear the man.
But I do have to acknowledge and respect the fact that he has a genuine concern and interest in the welfare of his country. As far as I’m concerned that alone makes him a better leader than what most nations have found themselves saddled with these days.
20
I am irresistibly reminded of the scene in “Dumbo” when the little mouse has the elephants backed up panic-stricken against the wall. Label the mouse, “Putin” and the elephants, “MSM” and “G20” and the job’s done.
10
Far from laughing at the West the entire world is laughing at Putin.
01
Really, they are? The ENTIRE world eh? And your source for that would be?
There may be some in the West who are laughing at him, our media has hated him from day one, but I wonder in the end who will get the last laugh?
I live in the West, the US as a matter of fact. While I tend to avoid the MSM and what they try and pass off as news even I know that a large portion of the world is laughing at the West, specifically the clown we have in the whitehouse at the moment.
10
Dear God,
There but for your grace…
But I do agree with Shrilly.
I think Putin is going for Street Cred with the Western Main Suckers Media and using their handy external validation for home consumption.
10
If one reads, in its entirety, Putin’s speech in Sochi at the Valdai conference 24 October, one can see recent events in a far more clear light.
10
Thank you for linking that, since Western media apparently isn’t covering the speech or is busy trying to distort it. We live in interesting times. But this reinforces my opinion that whatever else may be said about the man he does care for his country, which is far more than we can say about Obama.
10
1) commercial and passenger aircraft shut down by army or guerrillas is unfortunately common. russia, china and the united states have a long streak of direct and indirect actions against civilians.
2) the post by Jo was not intended to discuss the russian involvement in the shut down by russian baked guerrillas of a netherland aircraft with on-board many aussie.
3) the statement by russian that they are sending their war ship to monitor climate is a proof how seriously russians take the western country science of carbon dioxide driven global warming similarly to the western country science of shrinking fossil oil reserves.
4) the only possible comment to the original post is that despite the US and Europe have huge interests in supporting the science of global warming possibly not every country is that sure the CO2 science is that solid.
5) if i remember well, the liberal opposition was not supporting the global warming theorem before the elections …. but now it seems international pressures forced the Aussie government to believe …
6) i am curious to see how the idea of sanctions against countries guilty of having not even real but only conventional co2 emissions high couples with the idea the world countries are free to determine their destiny
7) are the us going to invade australia if we do not support their carbon dioxide policy (or when they will finish their natural resources)?
00
This just shows that ‘for the climate’ is the universal excuse for anything you want to do.
10
Joanne,
On behalf of the majority of common sense Americans, I am heartily sorry for our national embarrassment, President Obama. I understand he made jabbing remarks toward Prime Minister Tony Abbott. He speaks for himself, and the small but vocal extremists who have been ramming rough shot through the constitution lately.
Obama has a habit of angering, and betraying allies, while acquiescing to our enemies.
I appreciate all the work you do. Your credibility makes you my “go to” site to anchor my AGW information.
On a side note……..of all the debating on line, and in person I have done, one common thread that runs through it all…..
This debate can’t be won with facts for most people, no matter how much proof one has. It is sold on emotion, which overpowers peoples logic. My only goal when first discussing it with someone is to plant a seed, and leave their ego in tact. Otherwise, the brick wall goes up, and any discussion becomes worthless mudslinging.
40
Well said.
10
If the us or the EU believe agw is real bring Australia the top co2 sequestering country of the world then they should start paying us moneys for their co2 pollution and our co2 sequestration. Not trying to destroy our economy to keep going with their control of the world. Is the co2 or the fossil fuel peak oil all about who has natural resources and who has nothing? May be
10
President Obama has fudged the truth about cause of any climate change at the G20. This report below to President Obama from the White House website in 2013 doesn’t even mention manmade climate change – under Climate Change it just states that this is Space Weather – which means the effects of our changing sun.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/spaceweather_2013_report.pdf
10
My point is that nobody has to impose sanction against countries that do not believe the global warming religion. And in the specific are top carbon dioxide sequestering countries. If co2 is pollution why Obama does not pay us Aussie for sequestering lot of co2?
10
Well now that G20 is over let’s review the huge beat-up that “their ABC made about how Tony Abbot would look so stupid over his handling of Vladimir Putin. When meeting was in its final phases Putin shook Abbot warmly by the hand and thanked him for running such a fine conference. “Their ABC” proved wrong once again. Can’t say I’m surprised though. “Their ABC” is wrong with monotonous regularity these days. All paid for by our taxes. Sheesh!
10
That nice Mr. Abbott is a Rhodes Scholar, which must really piss off the faux intellectuals of the Left, and also a man of action, his exploits as a volunteer fireman being well known but not overstated. There’s enough there for the bare-chested Mr. Putin to respect, which is more than can be said for the resumes of either POTUS or my own beloved PM.
praise should also go to the much-maligned civil service and security forces, who managed to shepherd the Great and Good without any fuss. That the controversial Frau Merkel could emerge unscathed from mingling with the proles does the Average Aussie much credit.
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Thought experiments are always fun, how we poor proles in the West laugh at Mr Putin and his antics, we would all have him round for dinner, we love his strongman shows compared to the weakness of our grubby wishy washy ,leftie tree hugging ,champagne socialists and continuing with the thought experiment,,,,, suppose Mr Putin has been advised by his science advisers that rather than global warming , there might be a bit of a cold snap coming along,might that explain his keenness to get a hold of all known Russian and ex Russian reserves whilst the West is still sticking its fingers in dykes ( further reading, the little boy who saved Holland)
Our Western leaders need to be sat down and given a sound education of the State of the World ,non global warming and imminent energy crisis , imminent as in within 25 years.The lack of political purpose in the west is nauseating,posturing and self aggrandizement seems to be all they have to offer, congratulations to Australia and Canada for having seeminglu intelligent leaders.
Fusion it seems will not provide the answer so fission it must remain.Notes from my Friend Stefan the Denier:-
http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/fusion-for-electricity-or-only-for-rip-off/
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It always fascinates me how much negative and hate comments come out when there is a posting that mentions Putin. It’s hard to realize there can be so much hostility over nothing. And it wasn’t Russia that caused the coup in Ukraine, and it isn’t the East Ukrainians that are killing western Ukrainian children and women with artillery and rockets. And no intelligence agency seems to believe that the Separatists or Russia had anything to do with the downing of MH17. Maybe you people need to get off the western propaganda Kool-Aid and start actually using your eyes, ears, and brains. go ahead, flame at will, I’m sure you will.
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Personally I do not believe Mr Putin is worse than Mr Obama. Certainly Mr Putin got no Nobel prize so far, but Mr Obama got his Nobel prize for peace only because he was the first afro-american president, not exactly a sufficient condition, and because he killed Osama bin laden, that again it does not seem a peace achievement. Then he did very little for the economy of the us that stuck for his faults. Considering the IPCC activists got the Nobel prize for peace killing the scientific process, I do not believe a Nobel prize for peace should be refused to Mr Putin for having killed the global warming consensus.
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