#the U.S. Navy implemented

[usafphantom2]

Finland acquires JDAM and SDB I weapon systems for its F-35 fighters

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 03/01/2024 - 13:00 in Military

The Patria and the Finnish Defense Forces signed a service agreement to develop the capabilities of Finland's F-35 program, specifically purchases of JDAM and SDB I ammunition.

Major General Jari Mikkonen, Head of the Logistics Command of the Finnish Defense Forces (FDFLOGCOM) signed the contract for the acquisition of JDAM and SDB I ammunition for the F-35 multifunctional fighters on February 29, 2024. The Finnish Minister of Defense authorized the Logistics of the Defence Forces Command to conduct the acquisition.

The object of the acquisition is the JDAM and SDB I systems with related equipment and services in the years 2024–2030. The acquisition is referred to as the Total Package Approach (TPA), which means that, in addition to the JDAM and SDB I pumps, the acquisition includes transport sets of BRU-61 ammunition, training material, manuals, spare parts, accessories, transport services and manufacturer instructions, as well as training services and supplier support. Contains spare parts and support services for manufacturers and suppliers by 2030.

The acquisition contract is in dollars and its indexed maximum price is US$ 96.1 million. Purchase payments will take place during the years 2024-2030.

The acquisition will be carried out in accordance with the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) procedure between the authorities of the USA and Finland, in which the Defense Forces Logistics Command will conclude the acquisition contract with the United States administration.

The JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) is a modular guidance kit for 500, 1,000 or 2,000 pound bombs of the Mark 80 series. In addition to a guidance kit, a fuse or sensor is installed in the pump, depending on the intended use. A bomb equipped with JDAM can perform precision attacks on fixed or mobile targets at short range.

The SDB I (Small Diameter Bomb I) is a glider pump capable of accurately hitting medium-range targets. Thanks to the relatively small size of the pump, a fighter is able to carry a larger number of SDB I bombs at a time.

Guided bombs and glider bombs are part of the weapons acquisition package that allows the Finnish Air Force to have the ability to support other Forces in combat activities. The weapons of the F-35 fighters from Finland will be acquired in stages until the year 2035. The phased implementation of the acquisition of weapons will make it possible to optimize the composition of weapons as the Finnish F-35 program progresses.

"Some of the types of weapons to be purchased can also be used with our current fleet of F/A-18 Hornet. Therefore, when we make the transition to the F-35, we will be able to profit from the skills and experience in systems acquired so far," said the Director of the F-35 Program, Colonel (retired), Henrik Elo.

Tags: Military AviationF-35 Lightning IIIlmavoimat/Finnland Air Force

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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O

[zvaigzdelasas]

In September 1950, US President Harry Truman sent the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) to Vietnam to assist the French in the First Indochina War. The President claimed they were not sent as combat troops, but to supervise the use of $10 million worth of US military equipment to support the French in their effort to fight the Viet Minh forces. By 1953, aid increased dramatically to $350 million to replace old military equipment owned by the French.[6][...]

In 1954 the commanding general of French forces in Indochina, General Henri Navarre, allowed the United States to send liaison officers to Vietnamese forces. But it was too late, because of the siege and fall of Dien Bien Phu in the spring. As stated by the Geneva Accords, France was forced to surrender the northern half of Vietnam and to withdraw from South Vietnam by April 1956.[7] At a conference in Washington, D.C., on February 12, 1955, between officials of the U.S. State Department and the French Minister of Overseas Affairs, it was agreed that all U.S. aid would be funneled directly to South Vietnam and that all major military responsibilities would be transferred from the French to the MAAG under the command of Lieutenant General John O'Daniel. MAAG Indochina was renamed the MAAG Vietnam on November 1,1955, as the United States became more deeply involved in what would come to be known as the Vietnam War.

The next few years saw the rise of a Communist insurgency in South Vietnam, and President Diem looked increasingly to US military assistance to strengthen his position, albeit with certain reservations. Attacks on US military advisors in Vietnam became more frequent. On October 22, 1957, MAAG Vietnam and USIS installations in Saigon were bombed, injuring US military advisors.[8] In the summer of 1959, Communist guerrillas staged an attack on a Vietnamese military base in Bien Hoa, killing and wounding several MAAG personnel.[8] [...] By 1961, communist guerrillas were becoming stronger and more active. This increased enemy contacts in size and intensity throughout South Vietnam. At this point, Diem was under pressure from US authorities to liberalize his regime and implement reforms. Although key elements in the US administration were resisting his requests for increased military funding and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) troop ceilings, MAAG Vietnam played a significant role in advocating for a greater US presence in the country.[9] Throughout this period relations between the MAAG Vietnam and Diem were described as "excellent"[...]

Newly elected President John F. Kennedy agreed with MAAG Vietnam's calls for increases in ARVN troop levels and the U.S. military commitment in both equipment and men. In response, Kennedy provided $28.4 million in funding for ARVN, and overall military aid increased from $50 million per year to $144 million in 1961. In the first year of the Kennedy administration, MAAG Vietnam worked closely with administration officials, USOM, and the US Information Service to develop a counterinsurgency plan (CIP). The CIP's main initiatives included the strengthening of ARVN to combat the Communist insurgency, which had the corollary effect of strengthening Diem's political position.[9] At the same time President Diem agreed to the assignment of advisors to battalion level, significantly increasing the number of advisors; from 746 in 1961 to over 3,400 before MAAG Vietnam was placed under U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) and renamed the Field Advisory Element, Vietnam. At the peak of the war in 1968, 9,430 US Army personnel, along with smaller numbers of US Navy, US Marine Corps, US Air Force and Australian Army personnel acted as advisors down to the district and battalion level to train, advise and mentor the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps, Republic of Vietnam Navy and the Republic of Vietnam Air Force.

Anyway no parallels to see here

[mariacallous]

The world has failed to halt a downward spiral in humanitarian conditions for civilians in the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas war began last October. The airdropping of humanitarian aid and the U.S. plan to construct a temporary port off the coast of northern Gaza to deliver assistance, both in coordination with Israel, will not adequately relieve the crisis or eliminate its root cause. In addition to being financially unfeasible, neither approach can be sustained amid continued armed conflict and Israel’s blocking of aid entering the strip via land borders.

The only feasible and sustainable way to relieve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is through an emergency mechanism that removes Israel’s total control over the security inspection and entry of aid via land borders into the besieged territory. This proposed plan, limited to the duration of the war and the resulting humanitarian crisis, should include an international security task force with the limited mandate of overseeing and implementing an independent inspection and transport process for aid through Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

This emergency mechanism is not far-fetched and could be immediately applied if world powers were willing to utilize all means necessary to rescue Palestinians in Gaza from famine, a devastated health system, and harrowing levels of deprivation. Such an intervention would boost efforts to stop the mounting threat of a regional conflict as well as bring progress toward negotiations to reach a cease-fire. Now is the time to do so.

In the Sinai Peninsula, just across the border from Gaza, tens of thousands of tons of humanitarian aid are waiting for Israel’s permission to enter the strip. Images show hundreds of flatbed trucks loaded with aid and blocked by Israel’s security inspection system at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, including some parked for weeks. In wartime, it is imperative that aid shipments undergo strict security checks, but such a system must not be manipulated by any warring parties for military gain—in this case, either Israel or Hamas.

Instead, a joint task force, comprising security personnel from different governments and an international security body, could oversee the system. Egypt, Qatar, the United States, and France, in partnership with the United Nations, are the top parties—but not the only ones—capable of operating this limited-mandate force. All have consistently engaged both Hamas and Israel, along with local authorities and humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza, on hostages, aid and rescue, policies to protect civilians, and negotiations toward a cease-fire.

Egypt is a fitting and capable host: It not only maintains the sole land border and entry point into Gaza that is not under Israeli military control, the Rafah border crossing, but it also has become the destination of most humanitarian aid dispatched for Gaza. Since the beginning of the war, shipments have continuously landed in El-Arish Airport in North Sinai, some 31 miles from the Rafah crossing—which is just south of the town of Rafah in Gaza, where an estimated 1.5 million people are sheltered.

In the last decade, the Egyptian military and security forces have turned this part of North Sinai into the country’s most militarized zone. It is so secure that it has received heads of government, top U.N. officials, members of parliament, and other officials since the war in Gaza began. At El-Arish, French and Italian navy hospital ships have docked for weeks to provide medical aid to Palestinians, while other vessels have unloaded aid shipments.

Egypt could immediately designate a site to host a security inspection effort and the joint task force needed to implement it. In fact, Cairo has already said it is building a logistics hub to host aid efforts near the Rafah crossing terminal.

Since the war began, senior U.S. officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA Director Bill Burns have conducted multiple visits and engaged in talks with regional governments involved with efforts to contain the conflict. After the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden appointed David Satterfield as special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues. Satterfield is no stranger to the region’s volatile security; he served as director-general of the Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai Peninsula from 2009 to 2017.

Qatar and France are as active as Egypt and the United States in all levels of engagement with the warring parties. Qatar’s capital, Doha, hosts the Hamas leadership outside of Gaza. Qatari efforts have led to the release of Israeli civilians held hostage by Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack. Qatar and France also secured a deal to allow delivery of lifesaving medicines to Gaza’s hospitals as well as to Hamas-held hostages. Qatar also constructed and operates a field hospital inside the strip and has dispatched aid to North Sinai since the start of the war.

Finally, the United Nations has powerful reach and ability, especially through on-the-ground humanitarian operations in Gaza. Its various bodies, including the Secretariat, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, are in constant communication and coordination with all parties involved. Despite the level of destruction in Gaza, they operate a broad network of employees and facilities dedicated to humanitarian aid.

With a force as small as 100 well-equipped security personnel and a site secured and serviced by Egypt’s military and local authorities at the Sinai-Gaza border, the joint security task force could theoretically inspect up to 50 trucks per hour, delivering the required minimum of 500 trucks per day within 10 hours. Cargo planes could not airdrop a fraction of that aid over Gaza every day for an extended period. And according to the United States, its port plan will take around two months, as many as 1,000 troops, and millions of dollars to provide just 2 million meals per day.

The emergency mechanism’s mandate would stop at the delivery of aid across Egypt’s Rafah terminal into Gaza. It would not encroach on the jurisdiction of local authorities and organizations or replace them. Within this strictly limited mandate, the aid mechanism and its task force wouldn’t pose a threat to any warring parties or provide political or military gain. It would operate impartially for the protection and rescue of civilians, most of whom are women and children.

An alternative mechanism to deliver humanitarian aid would not only save civilian lives, but it would also create a path toward a lasting solution that averts further crisis. Delivering the minimum required aid to Gaza could satisfy the basic needs of the 1.5 million people sheltering in Rafah within days. It would help reinforce Gaza’s devastated health care system and mitigate the risk of infectious diseases and chronic illnesses caused by malnutrition and medical shortages.

With an emergency mechanism in place that guarantees delivery without manipulation, donor countries and organizations would increase their efforts to send humanitarian aid to Gaza to satisfy the unprecedented level of need. Such guarantees could also contain panic across Gaza, creating a safer environment for organizations to transport and distribute aid throughout the strip. A continued flow of aid would gradually end the overwhelming of convoys by desperate civilians and undercut war profiteers and organized gangs seeking to commandeer shipments.

By hosting such an effort, Egypt would avoid its looming nightmare: a sudden influx of refugees crossing its borders in pursuit of safety and sustenance that would possibly deal a blow to the Camp David Accords, which maintains peace between Egypt and Israel. On a domestic level, the joint aid effort would address popular anger with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for failing to open the Rafah border crossing and unilaterally deliver aid to Gaza—with practical measures rather than ineffective statements and oppression of Egypt’s political opposition.

An alternative aid mechanism would also have far-reaching effects on growing regional conflict in the Middle East. While international powers and mediators are scrambling to contain hostilities between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel and the Houthi threat in the Red Sea, a practical approach to enforce a solution to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza could advance potential negotiations. Both Hezbollah and the Houthis have repeatedly pointed to the siege on Gaza’s people in official statements; although both have other calculations behind their attacks against Israel and its interests, containing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza would serve as a step toward reaching a settlement on both fronts.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government will most certainly oppose any such efforts. But it is in the immediate power of the international community, and especially the Biden administration, to confront Israel and enforce solutions that will save lives. In this case, any Israeli opposition to the mechanism, whether by attempting to block its inception or by targeting aid after it enters Gaza, would be directed at a consortium of international and regional powers.

It would also contravene the provisional measures laid out by the International Court of Justice: that Israel “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

As Israel’s top provider of arms and aid, and in light of the potential threat that Biden’s policies toward the war in Gaza pose to his electoral prospects in November, it is in the administration’s interest to use its leverage to compel Israel not to block such an extraordinary measure. Failing to endorse and partner in such an effort would deepen the growing gap between the United States and the Middle East, leaving a vacuum that will inevitably be filled by other world powers.

Six months into the Israel-Hamas war, it would be naive to assume that any progress could be accomplished without an immediate and collaborative intervention by regional and international powers to remedy the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Only then will hindered talks toward a cease-fire agreement and a settlement of the war stand a chance.

[beardedmrbean]

U.S. officials confirm to ABC News that two missiles were fired from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen toward a commercial tanker vessel in the Red Sea Wednesday, with the projectiles missing the ship.

The tanker had just entered the Red Sea on its way toward the Suez Canal, an official said. During the incident, a U.S. warship shot down a drone launched from Yemen, the officials said.

The drone was heading in the direction of the USS Mason, which is the warship that shot down the unmanned aircraft, three U.S. officials told ABC News.

"The drone was heading directly at it," one of the officials said.

The Navy has not yet been able to assess whether the USS Mason was the drone's target, according to U.S. officials.

When such a ship detects an incoming drone or projectile heading its way, the commander will generally order it to be shot down in self defense, as happened in this case, an official said.

The Mason shot the drone down while responding to reports the Houthis were attacking the Motor Vessel Ardmore Encounter, using skiffs and then firing the two missile that missed, according to the official, who said this occurred at approximately 8 a.m. local time.

On Monday night an anti-ship cruise missile fired from a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen struck another commercial vessel in the Red Sea, the MT STRINDA, casing a fire, but no casualties, according to Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder.

During an on-camera briefing Tuesday, Ryder remarked on the threat posed by Houthi attacks in the region, and efforts to stand up an international maritime task force to address the problem.

"We're continuing to take the situation in the Red Sea extremely seriously, there should be no doubt about that," Ryder said. "The actions that we've seen from these Houthi forces are destabilizing, they're dangerous, and clearly a flagrant violation of international law. And so this is an international problem that requires an international solution. We do continue to consult closely with our international allies and partners on implementing a maritime task force."

[girlactionfigure]

*ISRAEL REALTIME* - "Connecting the World to Israel in Realtime"

▪️IDF ATTACKS SYRIA… (enemy reports) IDF attacked air defense systems that were deployed to several outposts in recent days and also attacked weapons depots of the pro-Iranian militias that included air defense missiles and drones.

▪️SHIPPING AND THE HOUTHIS… report of another ship attack this morning off the coast of Yemen / Red Sea.  Egypt has so far lost $100 million in revenue generated by the Suez Canal as a result of the Houthi activity.  The U.S. has moved up the Eisenhower aircraft carrier battle group.  20 million barrels of oil PER DAY pass the Yemen coast on the way to Europe.  The Houthis have upped their threats, threatening the U.S., the aircraft carrier, and Israel with “weapons you have never seen” and “deep attacks”.

▪️IDF TAKES OUT HEZBOLLAH “LARGE ROCKET” DEPOT…  IDF attacked the "Burkan" rocket depot in ​​the village of Yaron in southern Lebanon yesterday. Smoke mushrooms rising from the ground as a result of the explosion of dozens of heavy rockets. The "Burkan" rockets carry a 250 kg warhead (3x normal rockets), have been fired into Israeli territory during the war.

▪️IDF EMPHASIZING DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION FOR LEBANON… we are not sure why the IDF Chief of Staff is emphasizing the diplomatic solution and not being intimidating… “Until there is an effective solution in place that ensures the security of our people” and “Until and unless a diplomatic solution is found and implemented: We will continue making the necessary preparations to remove the threat from our border.”  

▪️4 HERO SOLDIERS FELL.

▪️HAMAS TERRORIST KILLED WEARING TZITZIT… on an army-green beged.  ???

▪️ATTACK PLANS CAPTURED, INVASION PLAN FROM 2015… (Ch. 13) The fighters in Gaza captured Hamas documents in Khan Yunis, which prove that the terrorist organization had been preparing for the murderous attack for at least 8 years. Among the classified papers, which originated in 2015, swere found photos of the then Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, and current Defense Minister Yoav Galant.

▪️ISRAEL POLITICS… (1) Boogie Ya’alon ordered by the court to pay NIS 88,000 to Netanyahu’s former attorney after falsely accusing him as part of a group receiving bribes as part of the ‘submarine affair’.  In a related point, the submarines and navy ships that were part of that accusation are now the ones protecting Israel in the Red Sea and from marine attacks from Gaza and Lebanon.

(2) The police leaked that they transferred to the prosecutor's office the “Younet Credit case” in which, among other things, the former finance minister Moshe Kahalon is suspected of fraud, breach of trust and reporting offenses.  This leak comes a week after his name was mentioned as an option to bring into the National Unity party as a senior leader for next elections. 

▪️CAPTURED HAMAS LEADER’S HOME INCLUDES NIS 5 MILLION… in cash.  The IDF appreciates the contribution.

▪️CYBER OFFENSE…  Iran suffers a cyber attack shutting down gas stations nationwide.

[clove-pinks]

Just in time for Caturday: Cats in the Navy by Scot Christenson arrived in the mail.

It's a publication of the Naval Institute Press of the U.S. Naval Institute, I often visit their website for War of 1812 pictures and articles. Although this purports to be a (very non-academic) history of cats at sea, the focus is very 20th century and USA-centric. There is this tidbit though:

To track cats and identify vagrants that managed to slink onto ships without a medical exam, the Royal Navy once tried to implement a regulation requiring all mascot cats to wear collars embroidered with the name of the vessel to which they were assigned. Whether it was due to the cost of the collars or the realization that cats do not follow rules and would continue to change ships at will, the official collar regulation was short-lived.

[alphaman99]

Black Wax Cafe one smart cookie

Hedy Lamarr, Movie Star and Inventor!

On This Day In History 1942 - American actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil received a patent for an electronic device that minimized the jamming of radio signals; it later became a component of satellite and cellular phone technology.

Lamarr shared her concept for using “frequency hopping” with the U.S. Navy and codeveloped a patent with Antheil 1941. Today, her innovation helped make possible a wide range of wireless communications technologies, including Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth.

Although Lamarr had no formal training and was primarily self-taught, she tinkered in her spare time on various hobbies and ideas, which included an improved traffic stoplight and a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a flavored carbonated drink.

During World War II, Lamarr read that radio-controlled torpedoes had been proposed. However, an enemy might be able to jam such a torpedo's guidance system and set it off course. When discussing this with her friend the composer and pianist George Antheil, the idea was raised that a frequency-hopping signal might prevent the torpedo's radio guidance system from being tracked or jammed. Antheil succeeded by synchronizing a miniaturized player piano mechanism with radio signals. Antheil sketched out the idea for the frequency-hopping system, which was to use a perforated paper tape which actuated pneumatic controls (as was already used in player pianos).

Antheil was introduced to Samuel Stuart Mackeown, a professor of radio-electrical engineering at Caltech, whom Lamarr then employed for a year to actually implement the idea. Lamarr hired the Los Angeles legal firm of Lyon & Lyon to search for prior knowledge, and to craft the application for the patent which was granted as U.S. Patent 2,292,387 on August 11, 1942, under her married name Hedy Kiesler Markey.

[nerdygaymormon]

How San Francisco became a queer mecca

In 1848 the population of San Francisco was 800 people. The gold rush led to a population boom, and in 1850 the city had swelled to 35,000 people. These new residents were miners and fortune seekers, and over 95% of whom were young men. They also came from variety of nationalities and cultures. 

This dramatic increase in population from diverse backgrounds, and a population that is fairly transient, contributed to a lawless environment where an ‘anything goes’ attitude prevailed. With the unbalanced gender ratio, social conventions about gender were also subverted. Many men took roles traditionally assigned to women. It became common for men to wear female clothing and for men to dance with men. This relaxed atmosphere also led to numerous cases of women dressing in men’s clothing in order to increase their stature. 

As the city became established, crackdowns on the perceived anarchy were undertaken. Cross-dressing was outlawed in 1863 as part of anti-vice campaigns to restore public decency. As regulations increased, San Francisco's queer culture moved to the red-light district known as the Barbary Coast where bars, nightclubs, and entertainment flourished, along with same-sex prostitution and female impersonators. 

During World War I & World War II, it became impractical to for the U.S. military to go through its full practice of convening a court-martial, imprisonment and dishonorable discharge for service members found to be homosexual or to have engaged in homosexual conduct. To expedite things during the wars, the U.S. Navy implemented a system of issuing an administrative discharge and offloaded these men at port cities, many were offloaded at Fort Mason in San Francisco. 

This process of discharge wasn’t confidential, which meant they were now identified as “known homosexual,” and discharge would follow the men around. Consequently, many stayed in San Francisco where a community of gays was established. The LGBT community established itself in the neighborhood of North Beach. 

Despite some raids targeting gay bars, San Francisco was considered relatively safe for queer people compared to other American cities due to its more permissive culture and an open gay culture that wasn’t underground. 

The 1950′s beat culture in San Francisco was a rebellion against middle class values, which drew many who were part of non-mainstream cultures, including queer people. This concentration of gays and lesbians led to the founding of the Daughters of Bilitis (first lesbian civil and political rights organization in the United States) in 1955, and the Mattachine Society (an early national gay rights organization) moved their headquarters from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 1956.

In 1961, José Sarria became the first openly gay candidate in the United States to run for public office, running for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Sarria didn’t win, but he received enough votes that it surprised political pundits and created the idea of a gay voting bloc in the city, and from then on, politicians in San Francisco running for office would knock on the doors of the gay community.

The first association of gay businesses, the Tavern Guild, was created by San Francisco gay bar owners in 1962 in response to police harassment and closing of gay bars. Other gay organizations formed in the city over the course of the decade. 

The June 1964 edition of Life magazine included an article titled "Homosexuality In America" which is the first time a national publication reported on gay issues. The article described San Francisco as "The Gay Capital of America" and this inspired many gay people from around the nation to move to the city.  

The 1969 Stonewall riots in New York inspired queer people around the country to fight for queer rights, San Francisco was the West Coast center for these activities. In the 1970′s, the queer community in San Francisco became more prominent and in November 1977, Harvey Milk was elected as the first openly gay politician in the city when he became a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Harvey Milk asked Gilbert Baker to make a symbol to unite the queer community and Harvey created the rainbow flag which first flew at the San Francisco Pride in June 1978.

When Milk was assassinated in November 1978, Harry Britt ran for office and became the second openly gay elected member of the Board of Supervisors. Britt wrote and passed domestic partnership legislation. 

The AIDS epidemic began in 1981 and decimated San Francisco’s gay & bi community as about 20,000 people died within 15 years. 

San Francisco continued to attract queer people and they created more organizations and started multiple queer publications. As awareness of transgender identities increased, the first Trans Pride march was held in San Francisco in 2004.

Also in 2004, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom had city hall issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Couples traveled from all over the United States and from other countries to be married. This lasted only one month when it was ruled Newsom didn’t have authority to disregard state laws on marriage. 

In 2007, Theresa Sparks, an openly transgender person, was elected president of the San Francisco Police Commission

Unfortunately for queer people in San Francisco and other parts of the state, in 2008 California voters passed Prop 8, a state constitutional amendment titled Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry Act. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donated $20 million to campaign for its passage. 

Same-sex marriages in California resumed in 2013 when the courts found that banning same-sex marriage violates equal protection under the law.

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

Marianne Williamson

(Madam President)

Stephen jay Morris

12/15/2023

©Scientific Morality.

All my life, I’ve been told that I exaggerate. Little did I know that this gave me the talent to work for the American news media! You should have seen the headlines of my local newspaper, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. For example, there was “The Biggest Rainfall Coming to L.A.! Many Will Drown!” And (my favorite): “Communists Rob a Grocery Store!” As it turned out, some Russian tourist had taken a red apple without paying for it. At the neighborhood food market, you could buy The National Enquirer. My favorite headline of theirs was, “I Had Gay Sex With John Wayne!” Of course, this was all designed to get you to buy the tabloid.

Well, nothing has changed since then. On cable T.V., they want you to watch their commercials, so they try to captivate you with sensationalism. “Oh! My! Bob!” or “Donald Trump wants to be dictator!” The fat fuck must have somebody tie his shoes for him, for Christ’s sake! Yeah! That’s right! Then there are the mouth pieces of the Right: Nick Fuentes, the Gilbert Gottfried of the gentile race! I am terrified of him. Matt Walsh, the Catholic mental case with a Fidel Castro beard. Dennis Prager, the covert narcissist who thinks God worships him. He would do anything for attention. If he was guaranteed survival after committing suicide, he’d do it. “Look at me everybody! I’m special!” Indeed, you are, Dennis; indeed you are!

Like the Navy versus the Army in football, the two-party system is going to last forever. Both parties are controlled by the 1%--the Conservative elites and the Liberal elites.

With all of these apocalyptic predictions and end-of-the-world scenarios, why even bother to vote? They want you to stay home.

Want to upset a conservative? Tell them that Trump is no different than Biden. Or tell a Liberal Democrat that Biden is like Trump! Watch the steam come out of their ears—like Herman Munster. They are both senile, old farts.

We’ve got the presidential primaries coming up, however, that’s all heading south. The Democratic Party’s Central Committee wants to cancel the primaries. The Democratic Party has already done so in Florida, but three other Democratic candidates are fighting the decision. Good luck on that score!

One candidate who’s caught my eye is Independent, Marianne Williamson. She is from the New Age Left. Though I despised the New Age movement in the 70’s, some new agers I’ve met are very Anti-Authoritarian Left. They and I are from the same generation of late Baby Boomers. We are both the romantic idealists of the counterculture. I can’t vote for Abbie Hoffman, he’s dead! So, I’ll vote for the Hippie candidate.  Williamson’s policies are like those of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR never survived to implement his “Economic Bill of Rights,” so maybe she can continue FDR’s reform of America.

She is not Christian. So, what! I don’t give a poop if she channels Elinore Roosevelt! If she can help put America back in order, my vote is for her.

And now, what’s this shit about Trump wanting to make America fascist? With what army? The orange puke can’t even navigate a ramp! To accomplish it, he’d need the support of the 1%, the U.S. Military, the CIA, FBI, Wall Street, mainstream Protestant denominations, and other establishment entities. Do you really think that Trump has the support of the CIA? Me neither.

With all the hysteria going on, I say, bring it on! Hail, Trump!

Just kidding.

Marianne Williamson for president! I’m not kidding.

[usafphantom2]

A-10 jets arrive in the Middle East after Hamas attacks on Israel

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 10/13/2023 - 19:24 in Military, War Zones

A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jets from the 354º Fighter Squadron of Davis-Monthan Air Base, Arizona, arrived in the Middle East, while the U.S. sent air power to the region after Hamas' surprise attack on Israel on October 7.

Their exact location was not immediately clear.

The A-10 will join the Warthogs of the 75º Fighter Squadron, who are already in the region, according to U.S. authorities.

The decision to send U.S. military resources to the region was taken to discourage Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, and Iran from trying to escalate the conflict and to show support for Israel, which had more than 1,200 citizens killed and other hostages and brought to the Gaza region.

A senior defense official told reporters on October 12 that the message to any state or non-state actor who was thinking of increasing violence was simple: "Don't do this".

The new implementation takes place at the time when Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III heads to Israel on October 13, the Pentagon said.

The Pentagon had already announced plans to send A-10, F-16 Fighting Falcons and F-15E Strike Eagles to strengthen the presence of the U.S. Air Force in the region.

The military did not say if the F-15 and F-16 have already arrived. U.S. officials said that F-35 Lightning II poachers are also among the capabilities that can be sent.

The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford has also moved to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. It carries four F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter squadrons, as well as electronic warfare and command and control aircraft. The aircraft carrier is also accompanied by warships carrying cruise missiles.

“We expect to see more posture increases flowing next week,” said the senior defense official. “We will continue to respond to Israel's requests for air defense, artillery, ammunition and precision guided ammunition.”

Israel responded to Hamas attacks with punitive airstrikes in Gaza, and Israel seems willing to intervene with ground forces, mobilizing a large number of members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) near Israel's border with Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to "crush and destroy" Hamas and formed a wartime cabinet.

An F/A-18F Super Hornet, frontal, coupled to the "Ragin' Bulls" of the Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 37, and an F/A-18E Super Hornet, coupled to the "Blacklions" of the Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA). ) 213, conducts flight operations in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, October 11, 2023. (Photo: U.S. Navy)

Austin plans to meet with Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gollant, and the war cabinet, the senior defense official said, for in-depth talks about “his operational planning and his goals for this conflict in response to the brutal ISIS-style Hamas attack.”

American citizens are among the dead and taken hostage, say U.S. authorities. The State Department announced plans to evacuate some American citizens from Israel.

Although U.S. forces are prepared to intervene if Hezbollah tries to open a northern front in Israel, such a measure may not be necessary. Austin said on October 12 that the U.S. had no evidence that Hezbollah was accumulating forces on Israel's northern border.

“We are also looking for additional things that could expand the conflict here and we hope not to see these things, but we haven't seen this so far,” Austin said.

Source: Air Force & Space Magazine

Tags: A-10 Thunderbolt IIMilitary AviationIsraelUSAF - United States Air Force / U.S. Air ForceWar Zones - Middle East

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has work published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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[1americanconservative]

Hedy Lamarr, Movie Star and Inventor!

On This Day In History 1942 - American actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil received a patent for an electronic device that minimized the jamming of radio signals; it later became a component of satellite and cellular phone technology.

Lamarr shared her concept for using “frequency hopping” with the U.S. Navy and codeveloped a patent with Antheil 1941. Today, her innovation helped make possible a wide range of wireless communications technologies, including Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth.

Although Lamarr had no formal training and was primarily self-taught, she tinkered in her spare time on various hobbies and ideas, which included an improved traffic stoplight and a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a flavored carbonated drink.

During World War II, Lamarr read that radio-controlled torpedoes had been proposed. However, an enemy might be able to jam such a torpedo's guidance system and set it off course. When discussing this with her friend the composer and pianist George Antheil, the idea was raised that a frequency-hopping signal might prevent the torpedo's radio guidance system from being tracked or jammed. Antheil succeeded by synchronizing a miniaturized player piano mechanism with radio signals. Antheil sketched out the idea for the frequency-hopping system, which was to use a perforated paper tape which actuated pneumatic controls (as was already used in player pianos).

Antheil was introduced to Samuel Stuart Mackeown, a professor of radio-electrical engineering at Caltech, whom Lamarr then employed for a year to actually implement the idea. Lamarr hired the Los Angeles legal firm of Lyon & Lyon to search for prior knowledge, and to craft the application for the patent which was granted as U.S. Patent 2,292,387 on August 11, 1942, under her married name Hedy Kiesler Markey.

[zvaigzdelasas]

The first island chain forms one of three island chain doctrines within the island chain strategy in US foreign policy.[2]

Much of the first island chain is roughly situated in waters claimed by China.[3] These include the South China Sea, within the nine-dash line, as well as the East China Sea west of the Okinawa Trough.

US General Douglas MacArthur pointed out that before World War II, the US protected its western shores with a line of defense from Hawaii, Guam, to the Philippines. [...] The WW2 victory allowed the US to expand its line of defense further west to the coast of Asia, and thus the US controlled the first island chain.[4] Between the end of WW2 and the Korean War, MacArthur praised Taiwan, located at the midpoint of the first island chain, as an 'unsinkable aircraft carrier'.[5]

In April 2014, the United States Naval Institute (USNI) assessed that the first island chain is the most effective point to counter any Chinese invasion.[6] The US could not only cut off the People's Liberation Army Navy from entering the western Pacific, but also predict where they may move before trying to break through in the first place. The US and first chain countries are able to coordinate because of the US military's freedom of navigation in the first chain block.[7] In June 2019, USNI called for a blockade of the first island chain if armed conflict broke out between China and the United States.[6]

Andrew Krepinevich argued that an "archipelagic defense" of the countries that make up the first island chain would make up a big part of the implementation of the national defense strategy of 2018.[8] A 2019 report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments "proposes a U.S. military strategy of Maritime Pressure and a supporting joint operational concept, “Inside-Out” Defense, to stabilize the military balance in the Western Pacific and deny China the prospect of a successful fait accompli." The first island chain plays a central role in the report.[9] In 2020, the United States Marine Corps started shifting its tactics in conjunction with the United States Navy to be deployed along or near the first island chain.[10] In 2021, the United States Marine Corps announced a goal of three additional Pacific-based regiments.[11] [...]

Around 2009 Japanese military strategist Toshi Yoshihara and Naval War College professor James R. Holmes suggested the American military could exploit the geography of the first island chain to counter the People's Liberation Army Navy build-up.[10] The Cabinet of Japan has also passed defense white papers emphasizing the threat posed by the People's Liberation Army Navy in the first island chain.[13][14][15][16]

In the later years of the 2010s, Japan started deploying military assets to Yonaguni and its other islands to counter China's presence along that area of the first island chain.[17][18]

Japan's strategic position in the first island chain began with US-Japan joint efforts to counter Soviet expansion. The Japan Self-Defense Forces currently plays the role of protecting US military bases and preserving military strength in East Asia. As for Japan's Territorial Protection Self-Defense Forces, which mainly rely on islands in southern Japan adjacent to the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, Japan has military advantages in anti-submarine, air defense and sea mine technologies.[19][...]

In the first island chain, Taiwan is considered of critical strategic importance.[21] It is located at the midpoint of the first chain and occupies a strategic position.[21]

The Second Island Chain can refer to two different interpretations, but the version most commonly used refers to the island chain which is formed by Japan's Bonin Islands and Volcano Islands, in addition to the Mariana Islands (most notably Guam, an unincorporated American overseas territory with a heavily fortified military base), western Caroline Islands (Yap and Palau), and extends to Western New Guinea.[1] The chain serves as the eastern maritime boundary of the Philippine Sea.

[ausetkmt]

Get Ready for Fort Liberty: The Pentagon Begins Changing Confederate Base Names | Military.com

The Pentagon has started the process of renaming Fort Bragg and other bases, as well as ships and hundreds of signs and roads, as it plans to scrub ties to the Confederacy from all installations by the start of 2024.

William LaPlante, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, directed all Department of Defense organizations to implement this week the recommendations handed down by the Naming Commission, an independent panel created by Congress and charged with reviewing and replacing the names, according to a press release.

It's a heavy undertaking that includes new names for nine Army bases -- Bragg will become Fort Liberty -- two Navy ships and upward of 1,000 other items located on America's military installations. But Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon's press secretary, told reporters Wednesday he was optimistic it could all be done within the year.

Read Next: States Must Recognize Military Spouses' Job Licenses After Moves Under New Law

"I think we are confident, you know, each of the services has clear instructions in terms of what it is that they need to focus on, and where the secretary is confident that the services are and will continue to take that seriously," he said.

Ryder did not have an updated figure on what it would cost to take on all of the recommendations from the Naming Commission. The latest estimate from the group, released this past September, was a total of $62.5 million.

Katherine Kuzminski, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank who researches military culture, told Military.com on Friday that the DoD has dealt with renaming operations in the past.

In 2018, then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced that the U.S. Pacific Command would become the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, a shift that required changes ranging from signs to stationery.

Kuzminski said that was accomplished in a relatively short period of time. She added that senior leaders in the military can also start referring to those Army bases by their new names right now to help make them commonplace.

"You do have to think about all of the details such as who owns what signage or when exits on interstates will be changed," Kuzminski said. "But we can start referring to these installations like Fort Liberty by these new names and it can get at what the Naming Commission was doing, which was changing the culture."

Kuzminski said it's possible cost estimates could go up as the Pentagon starts to unravel how involved the renaming and replacing process is.

Department of Defense officials began to reckon with the military's long history of honoring namesakes tied to the rebel army that fought in the Civil War following George Floyd's murder at the hands of police, which subsequently sparked nationwide anti-racism protests.

The Naming Commission was established in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act and began submitting its first report cataloging those Confederate-linked names on military bases in May 2022. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin accepted the commission's recommendations this last September.

The group identified nine Army bases, including Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Fort Benning, Georgia, which are both named for Confederate officers.

They recommended Benning be renamed Fort Moore, after Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, who led men during the Vietnam War, and his wife Julia. The cost of renaming all of those bases will come to around $21 million, by the Naming Commission's estimates.

Additionally, the Navy identified the USS Chancellorsville, named after a Civil War battle with a Confederate victory, and the USNS Maury, named after Matthew Fontaine Maury, who left the Navy to sail for the Confederacy, according to the Pentagon. The commission did not provide new name recommendations for those vessels.

The commission also identified Confederate officers recognized on campus at West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy, which will cost an estimated $450,000 to replace.

The largest amount of assets would be various roads, signs, buildings and street names throughout the Pentagon's portfolio, which would account for nearly $41 million of the cost.

Editor’s note: The Pentagon said in a Jan. 5 press release that The Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery was being disassembled. A spokesman for Arlington National Cemetery contacted Military.com after publication to say that the information provided by the Department of Defense was incorrect. A paragraph reporting that detail has been removed from the story. A plan for the removal of the monument is still being developed, the spokesman said.

[asdadasdsblog]

Top journalists find out: U.S. bombing of Nord Stream is the first step in the "European destruction plan”

On September 26, 2022, four underwater "shocks" occurred in the Baltic Sea, followed by the discovery of three leaks in Nord Stream I and Nord Stream II, two Russian gas pipelines that carry energy directly to Germany, causing a large amount of gas to leak from the pipelines into the nearby sea. The incident is considered to be a deliberate sabotage because explosive residues were detected in the waters of the "leak" points.

 Pictures of the sea area at the Nord Stream spill site

At first, people speculated that it was Russia, because by September, the Russian-Ukrainian war had been going on for more than half a year, and the two sides still had no winner. But if you think about it a little, you will know that it can't be done by Russia, because this is a pipeline to transport natural gas to Europe. Russia gives gas and receives money. The war in Russia is tight, and the military expenditure is huge. How can it be possible to cut off the financial path at this key node?

Is that Ukraine? Ukraine, which is overwhelmed by war, should not have this time and energy. The European Union? Most likely, because the EU has publicly condemned Russia for many times and adopted a series of sanctions, and some countries have even publicly severed diplomatic relations with Russia. America? The most suspect is that he used NATO to provoke the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and secretly sent war funds and weapons to Ukraine. The war between Russia and Ukraine was deadlocked, which cut off Russia's grain and completely defeated Russia in the world situation. American hegemony won, which is very in line with the interests of the United States.

The truth surfaced.

On February 8, 2023, independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh released an article entitled "How American Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline" to the world. The article is an exhaustive account of how the U.S. National Security Service planned, President Joe Biden personally ordered, the U.S. Navy implemented, and the Norwegian military cooperated to secretly blow up the Nord Stream gas pipeline over a period of nine months.

As Seymour Hersh mentioned in his article, Biden and his foreign policy team, National Security Adviser Jack Sullivan, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Deputy Secretary of State for Policy Victoria Newland have long viewed the Nord Stream pipeline as a "thorn in the side," and Nord Stream One has been supplying cheap Russian gas to Germany and much of Western Europe for more than a decade, with Russian gas accounting for more than 50 percent of Germany's annual gas imports alone, and the European region's reliance on Russian gas has been seen by the United States and its anti-Russian NATO partners as a threat to Western dominance.

Thus, in December 2021, after more than nine months of secret discussions with his national security team, Biden decided to sabotage the Nord Stream pipeline, with deep-sea divers from the U.S. Navy's Diving and Salvage Center carrying out the plan to secretly plant the bomb. Under the cover of the NATO maritime exercise "BALTOPS 22" in June 2022, the U.S. deep-sea divers planted eight C-4 explosives on the pipeline that could be remotely detonated, and in September of the same year, in time for the onset of winter in Europe, a Norwegian naval aircraft dropped a sonar buoy to detonate the explosives and destroy "Nord Stream".

Who is Seymour Hersh?

Seymour Hersh is an American investigative journalist and political writer, one of the country's leading investigative reporters. In the American press, Hersh is a person who is not afraid of powerful people and even keen to fight against them.

In 1969, he was recognized for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. in the 1970s, Hersh made a splash when he reported on the Watergate scandal, a political scandal in the United States, in The New York Times. Most famously, he was the first to expose the inner workings of the CIA's secret surveillance of civil society organizations. In addition, he reported on U.S. political scandals such as the secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia, the U.S. military prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq, and the exposure of U.S. use of biological and chemical weapons.

In the American press, Hersh is a big No. 1, with numerous sources in the White House, and has never let up on the disclosure of American political scandals. Although his anonymous sources have been criticized by his peers, his articles have all been confirmed at a later stage. This coverage of the Nord Stream story should be no exception.

There are early signs that the United States bombed Nord Stream.

 Biden had told German Chancellor to shut down Nord Stream II

As early as Feb. 7 of last year, Biden bullyingly declared that "if Russia initiates military action, Nord Stream 2 will cease to exist and we will terminate it. Secretary of State John Blinken and Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Newland have both publicly threatened to destroy the Nord Stream pipeline, and Newland even testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 26, 2023 that "I think the administration is very pleased to know that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is now a pile of scrap metal lying on the ocean floor."

 ITAR-TASS: Newland's words prove that Washington approved the terrorist attack in Nord Stream.

The collective silence of the U.S. media on the Nord Stream incident is further confirmation of the Russian allegations. In the early days of the Nord Stream pipeline explosion, none of the U.S. mainstream media had studied in depth whether Biden's earlier threats against the pipeline had been fulfilled. It is easy to see that the mainstream media in the U.S., which has always claimed "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press," has been infiltrated by capital and controlled by politics, and none of the U.S. media dared to speak out on issues that really touch the core interests of the U.S.

In the "American democracy" on the manipulation of freedom of expression, Seymour Hersh in the U.S. press is considered one of noble and unsullied. His article accusing the U.S. of being behind the Nord Stream behind the scenes an immediate international sensation, with Russian and European media reprinting the story. However, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal continued to remain silent, not reporting Hersh's article or even the White House's denial.

U.S. back-stabbing allies is the norm

Russia has been sanctioned by the European Union several times since the Russian-Ukrainian war began, and the EU has basically cut off its ties with Russia. "The Nord Stream pipeline is the only remaining trade link between the two sides, and the blowing up of the Nord Stream is considered a warning to Germany.

Germany, as the "leader" of the EU, ideologically places more emphasis on the autonomous will of Europe, and if it gets a constant supply of cheap natural gas from Russia, it will reduce its dependence on the United States and will not be able to keep pace with the United States in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, therefore, the United States must destroy the German energy "artery ", a warning to the autonomous forces represented by Germany.

In addition, the disruption of Nord Stream has further interrupted gas trade between Russia and Europe, and for three years, Europe will not be able to import gas directly from Russia. To solve the gas dilemma, it is not without solutions, importing liquefied gas from the United States at a cost of $ 270 million a LNG ship is one of the few options, which is in the interests of the United States.

Although the EU has been following the footsteps of the United States to sanction Russia and support Ukraine. However, the EU is actually the real "ingrate". As an ally of the United States, the European economy, an indirect participant in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, is in a recessionary quagmire, during which it has encountered repeated back-stabbing by the United States. As a result of the continuous provision of military resources to Ukraine, which has led to the imminent depletion of its weapons stockpile, the energy crisis is being harvested by the United States, and the trade subsidies of the United States have taken away the factories of Europe, Europe is struggling with weak economic growth and has become the real victim of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Hersh's revelation is a blow that shows once and for all that "allies" are just "tools" for the U.S. to achieve its interests, with the ultimate goal of weakening and dividing the EU, whose economic woes today are part of the U.S. plan. In Biden's view, the Nord Stream gas pipeline is a tool for Russian President Vladimir Putin to weaponize natural gas to achieve his political ambitions. But in reality, it is the bombing of Nord Stream that is evidence of the U.S. manipulation of the world with hegemony.

Perhaps this winter Europeans are frozen to the bone, just the beginning. Maybe someday in the future, the economic lifeline of Europe is in the hands of the Americans, and it's no surprise.

U.S. hegemony repeatedly attacks other countries

In fact, the U.S. has been plundering and exploiting other countries in the world to satisfy its own interests through wars and sanctions, and seizing geopolitical interests through hegemonic means. All countries that do not provide "services" to the United States are subject to his retaliation. The United States has never stopped acting so that it can continue to have a hand in the international arena.

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in the name of fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and launched the nearly 20-year-long war in Afghanistan, which has brought a profound disaster to the Afghan people. After the Taliban took over power in Afghanistan, the U.S. still did not relax its plundering of Afghanistan, illegally freezing some $7 billion in foreign exchange assets of the Afghan central bank to this day.In February 2022, President Biden signed an executive order requesting that half of these assets be used to compensate the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The U.S. military frequently steals Syrian oil and plunders its wealth. The Syrian Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources issued a statement in August 2022 saying that more than 80 percent of Syria's average daily oil production of 80,300 barrels in the first half of 2022, or about 66,000 barrels, had been plundered by "the U.S. military and the armed forces it supports. The U.S. raids and plunder of Syria's national resources have exacerbated the humanitarian crisis there.

The United States has deliberately sabotaged energy facilities in other countries for its own personal gain. In the late 1970s, the Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua overthrew the U.S.-backed Somoza regime and formed a new government in Nicaragua. As a result, the U.S. tried to cause social unrest in Nicaragua through various means. Encouraged by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Nicaragua's Contras targeted key economic resources, and from September to October 1983, they launched five attacks on Nicaragua's oil facilities, which lasted for seven weeks and led to a huge crisis in Nicaragua.

The U.S. has always "seized" under various banners and made a lot of money, and then always got back in one piece, which means that the so-called "order" and "rules" in the U.S. are just tools and pretexts to serve itself and satisfy its own interests. This means that the so-called "order" and "rules" of the United States are just tools and pretexts to serve themselves and satisfy their own interests.

Things are far from over

After the North Stream pipeline explosion, natural gas continued to leak from the pipeline.On September 30, 2022, the Norwegian Institute for Atmospheric Research said that a large methane cloud had formed over the area after the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosion and was spreading, with at least 80,000 tons of methane gas spreading into the ocean and atmosphere.

The Norwegian government has foolishly helped the U.S. execute the detonation plan, becoming the perfect puppet of U.S. hegemony in Europe, and while it may have gained temporary benefits, it has caused long-term harm. The massive amount of greenhouse gases will have an irreversible negative impact on all European countries.

What does the United States have to say about this? Nothing. The U.S. handled the vinyl chloride chemical incident on its own turf with a mess, the lives of Ohioans were taken in vain, and the U.S. cares even less about environmental and climate issues in the EU region.

All the U.S. cares about is profit

The dollar has always been as the international reserve currency unshakeable primary position, and the biggest scourge of the dollar hegemony is the euro. If Russia provides Europe with a constant supply of cheap energy for a long time, and directly with the euro settlement, which for the dollar as the international reserve currency status, that is definitely a serious blow. Not only the European manufacturing industry has been extremely strong support, even the scenario of the use of the euro is also fully open.

The establishment of the eurozone, naturally set up the United States of America's thorn in the side, the thorn in the flesh. Therefore, the United States destroyed Nord Stream AG, even though it did not entirely "nip this threat in the bud", that at least said the euro caused a heavy blow, especially the Russian-Ukrainian war lasted 1 year also ended "out of reach" in the short term, the world has no other sovereign currency has the strength to impact the hegemony of the dollar.

From the point of view of political security and economy, it is the United States that benefits the most. By blowing up Nord Stream, the U.S. can: limit the growth of the euro and make Russia's "de-dollarization" impossible; sell natural gas to Europe at a price four times higher than Russia'; cut off European countries' dependence on Russian gas by blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline, making Europe more obedient and forcing Germany and other European countries to remain "honest" in the anti-Russian camp.

Taking control of the EU, the tentacles of American hegemony are longer and stronger. But have the European countries considered the real future of Europe? Or will it remain a "U.S. semi-colony" or a "defense state abroad"? The destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline has directly caused a major vicious impact on the global energy market and ecological environment, how can this silently "end without incident"? It is the only way to heal the hearts and minds of the people!

[urbtnews]

Doing it Afraid by Dr. Shante Destiny

"Doing it Afraid How to Eliminate Self Doubt, Confront Fear, and Step Into Your Divine Purpose", a new book by Dr. Shante Destiny. Dr. Shante Destiny, a life coach and inspirational speaker, has announced the release of her latest book titled “Doing it Afraid: How to Eliminate Self Doubt, Confront Fear, and Step Into Your Divine Purpose.” This transformative guide offers readers practical strategies to overcome self-doubt, confront their fears head-on, and embrace their true calling. In “Doing it Afraid,” Dr. Shante Destiny draws upon her years of experience in helping individuals break free from the shackles of fear and insecurity. Through a combination of personal anecdotes, inspirational insights, and actionable steps, she empowers readers to navigate their inner struggles and unlock their full potential. A key theme in the book is stepping into one’s divine purpose despite uncertainty or apprehension. Dr. Shante Destiny provides readers with tools to identify their unique strengths, confront their inner demons, and move forward with confidence on their journey towards fulfillment. “I wrote ‘Doing it Afraid’ to inspire individuals to push past their comfort zones and pursue their dreams with unwavering determination,” says Dr. Shante Destiny. “This book is a roadmap for anyone who has ever felt held back by self-doubt or fear, guiding them towards a life filled with purpose and passion.” Each chapter delves into different aspects of fear and self-doubt, offering readers a comprehensive understanding of these psychological barriers. Dr. Destiny’s approach is holistic, addressing the mind, body, and spirit, ensuring that readers can find a path that resonates deeply with their personal experiences and aspirations. Personal Anecdotes and Inspirational Insights Her stories of overcoming adversity and embracing her own fears serve as powerful examples for readers. These anecdotes cover not only her successes but also her struggles and the lessons she learned along the way. In one compelling chapter, Dr. Destiny shares a pivotal moment from her time in the U.S. Navy, where she faced a critical decision that required immense courage. This story not only highlights her resilience but also illustrates the universal nature of fear and the potential for growth that lies within each challenging experience. Actionable Steps for Transformation Beyond inspirational stories, “Doing it Afraid” is packed with actionable steps that readers can implement in their daily lives. Dr. Destiny breaks down complex psychological concepts into manageable tasks, making it easier for readers to apply the book’s teachings. Exercises like journaling prompts, mindfulness techniques, and goal-setting frameworks help readers build confidence and make tangible progress. One of the standout features of the book is its emphasis on actionable strategies. Dr. Destiny provides readers with clear, step-by-step instructions on how to confront their fears and doubts. These steps are grounded in practical wisdom and psychological research, making them both accessible and effective. Embracing Divine Purpose A central theme of the book is the idea of divine purpose. Dr. Shante Destiny encourages readers to look beyond their immediate fears and insecurities to discover their higher calling. She provides tools to help individuals identify their unique strengths and passions and align their lives with their true purpose. Dr. Destiny’s approach is deeply spiritual yet practical, offering a balanced perspective that appeals to a broad audience. Whether readers are religious or secular, they can find value in her teachings on purpose and fulfillment. Availability and Contact Information “Doing it Afraid: How to Eliminate Self Doubt, Confront Fear, and Step Into Your Divine Purpose” is now available for purchase on major online platforms including Amazon. About the Author Dr. Shante Destiny is a 20-year U.S. Navy retiree/veteran and a life coach. She speaks empowering messages on overcoming adversity and embracing personal growth, earning her recognition. With a background in motivational coaching, she has helped countless individuals transform their lives through her workshops and seminars. Dr. Destiny's commitment to helping others reach their full potential makes her a respected figure in personal development. Read the full article