We're back

I'll blog more tomorrow. Lots of fun and comments from the NM trip.

Russian Military Movements Around Ukrainian Lighthouse

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry on Thursday protested alleged Russian military movements around a lighthouse on the Black Sea coast, the latest development in a dispute between the neighbors over navigation facilities.

Ministry spokesman Vasyl Fylypchuk said that a note was sent demanding Russia observe an agreement governing the presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet. The fleet's home port is in Sevastopol, on Ukraine's Crimean peninsula

"We don't want provocative steps to worsen our relations," Fylypchuk said.

Ukrainian media reported that Russia had blocked entrance to the Sarych lighthouse with armored vehicles. The Unian news agency also reported that the Russian fleet sent 15 armed marines to each of four main Crimean lighthouses.

Last week, Russia accused Ukraine of attempting to seize another Crimean lighthouse. Ukraine insists the lighthouse falls under its control, which Russia disputed.

Read the rest here.

This is going to spiral out of control...legally, the Ukrainians are right, but is this the time to 'poke the bear'?

Ukraine Seeks Control of Russian Naval Facilities

Ukrainian state authorities seized the Yalta lighthouse on January 13 from Russia's Black Sea Fleet, and a Ukrainian student organization is picketing the Russian radar station in Henychesk around the clock since January 15 with tacit approval from Kyiv authorities. The Ukrainian government wants Russia to agree to hand over by February all the 35 coastal installations (outside Sevastopol's bays) that Russia's Black Sea Fleet is using since 1997 without a legal basis.

Designated collectively as "hydrographic installations" and including mainly lighthouses and communications stations, these facilities are strewn along the Crimea's coasts and are manned by Russia Black Sea Fleet personnel. Kyiv seeks to transfer them to the Ukrainian Transport Ministry's Hydrographic Service for civilian use. Under the 1997 inter-state agreements, Russia's fleet is stationed in the Crimea until 2017 for a lease payment of just under $100 million annually. Yet the Russian side is failing to pay for rent and electricity at many of the "hydrographic installations," or is deeply in arrears on such payments.

The picket in Henychesk on the Azov Sea, amply televised in Ukraine, started one day after the Russia side had beefed up the guard by sending in 20 Marines from the main base in Sevastopol. As Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs pointed out in a statement, the deployment was illegal: under the 1997 agreements, any movement of troops and materiel of the Russian Black Sea Fleet may only take place with the Ukrainian authorities' approval. Compounding the violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, the guard hung up a sign, "Territory of the Russian Federation."

Read the rest here.

Remember that I said that the Gas War would get uglier? Well, here's the start of another round of it.

US kills MTHEL

Sources inform ''Globes'' that the Pentagon has killed the joint US-Israeli Natulus mobile tactical high energy laser (MTHEL), designed to intercept aerial targets such as rockets, missiles, artillery shells and other aerial threats at ranges of 5-6 kilometers.

Over the past three years, Israel’s defense establishment developed a system to use lasers to intercept kassam rockets. The defense establishment has been informed of the US decision. A senior Ministry of Defense official said, “I feel we’ve missed an immense opportunity.”

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Prof. Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael, who served as IDF chief R&D officer when the decision to develop the Nautilus was taken said, “This is a fateful decision. We’ll have to live with kassam rockets for decades. Technologically, the laser system was the only solution in the foreseeable future that could intercept them.”

Read more here.

This is another not-so-surprising-turn-of-events. The US has been heavily investing in solid state lasers and the fact that the MIRACL->THEL->MTHEL line of lasers are chemical lasers and use deuterium and fluorine to work. Fluorine on the battlefield?! Yikes!

Reading update

I had a bit of a disruption for my reading habits. First off, we had our expedition to Seattle. Then we had Christmas come and go. Also my wife's classes ended, so my reading time in the evening went away after I put our daughter in bed.

Additionally, the book I was planning on reading in Seattle got left on the plane! I got it back but much delayed me reading it.

That said, I have read three books in the mean time. The first one was on the Chinese Space Program. The second was on drilled pier foundations. The third, which I just finished, was a biography of Marcus Tullius Cicero.

The book on the PRC's Chinese Space Program, entitled China's Space Program - From Conception to Manned Spaceflight, was a very inclusive book. It had more information about the Chinese space program than I had seen anywhere else. While it covered the history of the Chinese space program, it was enamoured with the prospect of rattling off all the places and capabilities of the space program, currently or in the past. I have to say that, despite it being a short book, it was one I ahd to plow through rather than enjoy. The prose was just, well, dull. I don't go for flowery in the nonfiction books, but this should have been a fascinating read (it wasn't). It was actually quite soporific.

The drilled pier foundation book was interesting, but turned out to have two of the same authors as one of the previous ones I read. a lot of the information (and even prose) was recycled from this one to the newwer book. That was disappointing.

The book on Cicero I picked up at a bookstore in Point Reyes Station when we were up there during my Xmas break. I was giving my wife a break by setting her up to go horseback riding while my daughter and I goofed off. My wife had a good time. My daughter and I explored the town of Point Reyes Station. Avrora had a good time talking, or babbling really, at some of the children we encountered in town. I realized that it was getting close to her nap time and was horrified to find that I forgot to bring a book. I thought perhaps that I could get one, cheaply, from a local book store. Cheaply? Not really. However, I do like to support independant bookstores because I love to browse them. While briefly considering a PK Dick story, I settled on this book since Cicero, and his actions, are the essential background character for the alternate history I am writing in what is probably going to be a vain attempt to get published. We'll see. Anyways, as Avrora settled down for her nap, I began to read. it's quite engaging and I would have finished it faster if I hadn't mislayed it for almost a week.

The next book I am going to read is about the economic and demographic problems of Siberia. This is the one that I left on the plane. Doh! After that I have another construction project book.

I am putting together what I will buy next month for my books to read. One is about terrrestiral ecologies through deep time. Two are about mass extinctions. Two are about precolumbian mesoamerican civilizations. Two are about insulating concrete forms. I am also considering on on the Little Ice Age. I am wishing that there was some fiction that was catching my attention, but, alas, there isn't.

We'll see. That'll be a post NM trip purchase in any case.

UKrainian WTO Laws stall...big surprise?

The Ukraine parliament Wednesday refused to consider another series of bills needed for the country to join the World Trade Organization, making it unlikely the measures will be taken up before the March parliamentary election.

President Viktor Yushchenko had initially pledged to take this ex-Soviet republic into the WTO by the end of last year, but the government repeatedly failed to win support among lawmakers for changes needed to legislation covering the banking, metals and cattle export sectors.

The latest setback means that WTO membership is likely to be pushed further off the agenda as parliament begins a break Friday. After the March 26 election, the new lawmakers are likely to be occupied initially with coalition talks, which will lead to the formation of the new government.

From here.

This is not unexpected. You're faced with a major election. You're faced with laws that are likely to be rather unpopular at home. Are you going to take them up prior to said election?

*snork*

You're a very funny guy, President Yuschenko, sir!

Prediction: They're passed after the election if the Orange Team wins big.

A Fascinating Planetary Configuration

While reading James Nicoll's LJ I saw a note that linked to a blog of an astronomer. Inside there was a fascinating article entitled "i wish i had an evil twin" about multiple planetary bodies in a system with the same orbital period.

I'd love to see a SF setting with those worlds done right. I mean, wow...

Blogging interruption

My daughter is sick and we're not getting much sleep. So don't count on much blogging for a bit.

On Friday we're also leaving for New Mexico as well.

Frog Extinctions Linked to Global Warming?

Global warming may cause widespread amphibian extinctions by triggering lethal epidemics, a new study reports.

J. Alan Pounds and colleagues suggest that many harlequin frog species (Atelopus) across Central and South America have disappeared due to deadly infectious diseases spurred by changing water and air temperatures.

"Disease is the bullet killing frogs, but climate change is pulling the trigger," said Pounds, lead study author and resident scientist at Costa Rica's Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve.

"Global warming is wreaking havoc on amphibians and will cause staggering losses of biodiversity if we don't do something fast."

Biodiversity refers to the number of species in a given area. It is often used to gauge the health of an ecosystem.

The study appears in today's issue of the journal Nature.

Read more here too.

Ukraine Bullied into Using RosUkrEnergo

"Today, the pipe, which goes from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to the Ukrainian border, is being filled up by the gas of the GazProm's contractor RosUkrEnergo company. We were to choose whether to agree on that circumstance or to transport gas via railroad. So, we didn't have a choice, the Premier said. Yuriy Yekhanurov expressed his doubts on holding a comprehensive audit of the RosUkrEnergo activities during signing the contract on establishment of a joint enterprise with the NaftoGaz Ukrainy. "We will send an inquiry to the Russian side with regard to this company. But I'm not sure about the answer. The only thing I know that if we want to receive gas, we have to work with it", the Prime Minister stressed. Yuriy Yekhanurov said all hopes to receive Turkmen gas in another way are groundless.

From here.

Sadly, that's about what I expected.

:(

Cancukistani Electioneering is SOOOOO Cute!

Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin warned Canadians on Thursday that his main rival, Conservative leader Stephen Harper, would turn the country into a bastion for a U.S.-style extreme right.

"I really do believe that Canadians don't want to buy the far conservative right in the United States," Martin said in a television appearance.

"They don't want to see (it) imported here and they do understand that a sharing, working together has been the way we've built this country."

and...

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is saying "No" to Kyoto, "Maybe" to missile defence, and "Sort of" to aboriginals.

And that has Liberals shouting: "We told you so." Harper signalled Thursday that he would turn his back on the Kyoto climate-change accord and renegotiate a recent $5-billion federal-provincial deal with natives. And he left the door open to joining the controversial U.S. missile defence system, while promising to hold a free vote in Parliament before signing on.

The Liberals, who have been painting Harper as a pro-American, right-wing extremist, jumped on his statements.

From here and here respectively.

Aren't they just adorable. Sad part is from reading the blogs of the Canadians that the Liberals are actually the Least Bad decision. Ah well. Glad to see that Yanqi bashing is part and parcel of this election.

Further Russo-Ukrainian Relations Complications

The seizure by Ukrainian officials of the Russian Black Sea Fleet's lighthouse in Yalta, in Ukraine's Crimea, cannot fail to harm Russian-Ukrainian relations, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.

The incident is "all the more disappointing in the light of the constructive meetings in Astana between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents," ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said.

The head of the Yalta lighthouse and two of its workers were prevented from working Friday morning on the grounds that the staff's documents enabling them to enter the port had allegedly expired, Russian officials said.

Ukraine has responded to Russia's complaints by saying that it has the right to use the facility, and that talk of a "seizure" constitutes deliberate disinformation on Russia's part.

Read here.

A Canuckistani Take on the Gas War

Ukraine gas dispute -- Has Putin gone nuts?

It’s more useful to assume that the answer is ‘no.’ Then we must ask what is Russia doing with its gas price policy demands and supply cut-off to Ukraine?

It’s clear that the move is one part of a complex series of Russian moves in the ongoing Grand Chess Game. That game is between Washington as sole global superpower, and Russia as a reconstructing nuclear power--one with a vast resource wealth needed by its Eurasian neighbours from China to Germany and beyond. Russia, which holds far the world’s largest known reserves of natural gas, is playing its own energy card with Ukraine as the current field of that battle.

Read here.

It's an interesting take on the whole affair. Unfortunately, there's biug fanfare about the new nuclear missiles that Russia is introducing (the Topol-Ms). When it comes to geopolitics, new nukes for an existing nuclear power are not that useful. If they'd been talking about completely revamped tank divisions or some such, I'd be worried, but as soon as the Russians use a nuke...well...they're worse than pariahs then.

Quantum Processor (Pre?)Prototype

It's both closer and further away than most people realize. :D

Read for yourself.

NASA CEV Requirements Revision

Congressional pressure to avoid a gap in U.S. human space access is behind a NASA push to accelerate the first piloted flight of the planned Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV).

While President Bush originally wanted an operation CEV by 2014, the final RFP for the shuttle replacement called for a first flight with crew "as close to 2010 as possible, but no later than 2012, without compromising safety." The new document also drops requirements for a LOX/methane engine on the CEV service module as a placeholder for future extraction of the fuel from the atmosphere of Mars, and for delivery of unpressurized cargo to the International Space Station, although nothing would prevent the winning team from proposing them, according to a program spokesman at Johnson Space Center.

Read the rest here and more here.

2010. Interesting.

Deep-rooted plants have huge impact on climate

Trees, particularly those with deep roots, contribute to the Earth's climate much more than scientists thought, according to a new study by biologists and climatologists from the University of California, Berkeley.

While scientists studying global climate change recognize the importance of vegetation in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and in local cooling through transpiration, they have assumed a simple model of plants sucking water out of the soil and spewing water vapor into the atmosphere.

The new study in the Amazonian forest shows that trees use water in a much more complex way: The tap roots transfer rainwater from the surface to reservoirs deep underground and redistribute water upwards after the rains to keep the top layers moist, thereby accentuating both carbon uptake and localized atmospheric cooling during dry periods.

The researchers estimate this effect increases photosynthesis and the evaporation of water from plants, called transpiration, by 40 percent in the dry season, when photosynthesis otherwise would be limited.

Read more here.

Another argument for reforestation?

Innovation Comparison: EU, Japan, and USA

The European Union's record on innovation is so poor that it would take more than 50 years to catch up with the US, according to a survey presented by the
European Commission on Thursday.

The Innovation Scoreboard compares the performance of the 25 EU countries with the US, Japan and several other nations, and ranks them according to factors such as the number of science and engineering graduates, patents, research and development spending and exports of high-tech products. The survey finds that only four EU countries - Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Germany - can compete with the US and Japan in terms of their innovative abilities.

"The innovation gap between the EU25 and Japan is increasing and the one between EU and US is close to stable," the report notes. It adds that it would take more than 50 years to close the gap between the average EU performance and the current US level.

Read more of the news report here or better yet, go read the report itself.

Planetary Systems Can Form Around Binary Stars

New theoretical work shows that gas-giant planet formation can occur around binary stars in much the same way that it occurs around single stars like the Sun. The work is presented today by Dr. Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, DC. The results suggest that gas-giant planets, like Jupiter, and habitable Earth-like planets could be more prevalent than previously thought. A paper describing these results has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.

Read more here.

Kazakhstan Supports Belarus in SCO

Kazakhstan will support Belarus’ application to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an observer, speaker of the Senate of the parliament of Kazakhstan Nurtai Abykaev stated at a meeting with chairman of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of Belarus Gennadiy Novitskiy.

Read the pitiful rest here.

Now teh question is whether or not the SCO will allow Belarus to move past being an observer.

Birth Rates Among Immigrants In America

Analysis of data collected by Census Bureau in 2002 shows that women from the top-10 immigrant- sending countries living in the United States collectively tend to have higher fertility than women in their home countries. As a group, immigrants from these countries have 23 percent more children than women in their home countries, adding to world population growth.

Read the rest here.