The NAMAZU CHRONICLES

 Here is another of the many NAMAZU School postings that we promised to repost in closer temporal proximity to each other so that late starters wouldn't have to search all over the blog space to read up on the Namazu School. Again, the Namazu school is all about how to deal with sudden drastic climate change not whether or not climate change is happening.


OCEANOGRAPHY/CLIMATE CHANGE

NAMAZU SCHOOL                          
Can Urban Farming Go Corporate?

  As we have so often mentioned in the Namazu School our focus is on the measures that government, corporations, and individuals should take to position society for less trauma in the event of sudden drastic climate change. As described in previous postings the earth is constantly subject to the possibility of sudden drastic climate change from solar flares, orbit wobble, axis wobble, volcanism, ocean current changes, meteor strike, comet strike, or any combination of these elements. The scientific evidence is that this has happened in the past on more than one occasion and it is more probable than not that it will happen again. Ours is not the current debate over the effects of our carbon footprint which no doubt is having some effect on weather, and if trends continue could change the climate. The extent and nature of that change may vary depending on the effectiveness of the carbon reduction measures being taken and discussed now. In any event no one expects a dramatic climate change tomorrow. What the Namazu school is all about is the change that we could wake up to over night caused by of any of the big natural climate changers,  like a dozen Mount St. Helen volcanic eruptions around the globe in short sequence. How do we position society so that we don't experience mass starvation with the wide spread collapse of agriculture, especially in urban centers.

 As mariners a great source of cargo has been food stuffs. Maritime transport is an important part of the global food distribution system. But we do have to ask are our urban supply lines now spread out too far. Also, even if farming could be brought closer into the cities what type of farming could survive rapid cooling, heating, and /or drying. Previously we have suggested hydroponic urban "food factories". We have pointed out the Kraft Exhibit at Disney World as an example. Now Reuter's News service presents a look at someone who is practicing urban green house / hydroponic farming and trying to take it corporate.
Click on the link below to read all about it. Then we'd love to get your comments on whether or not the government should be encouraging this.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/22/can-urban-farming-go-corp_n_1693177.html

Below is a video about a non profit architectural firm with a plan that could turn New York self sufficient over about 40 years, their idea is driven by the the concept of insulating a large urban area from the negative effects of climate change. Thiss is the type of thinking we hope our readers will eventually bring to the NAMAZU school. http://on.aol.com/video/creating-a-self-sufficient-new-york-294373440

COMING BOAT SHOW

The American Admiralty Books On Line Boat Show is being built even as you read this ! Coming to this site October 5-8, 2012; the show that pushes the marine design and concept envelope. You won't see this stuff in Annapolis or Monaco. No airline ticket needed, no cost of admission, no hotel expenses. If you have a "mouse" you have a ticket!

                          
Click On The Book Cover Icons Above To explore the Envelopes We Are Going To Push

Hurricane Station ID and Test Pattern 9/2/12

AMERICAN ADMIRALTY BOOKS 

`SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 2, 2012

Official U.S.Navy Photograph

LIVE FROM NEW ORLEANS AT PJ's COFFEE SHOP

 We still have no electricity at home. Now it seems we may not have it for a long time through the nearby mall is lit up and people as close as three doors away have it. The power company explains these pockets  of power loss like this. If everyone around you has it and you don't, it may be a downed pole in your particular area or a blown transformer. (Its never the house next door there is always a street between the breaks.)  If that's the case they label it a "neighborhood problem", and they'll get back to it after they have restored power state wide. In short I'm low man on the totem pole for electrical grid triage. The power company estimates that these "neighborhood problem"s will take 5 days to 5 weeks to clear up, ....depending...on what... they don't like to specify. There is just nothing like losing power when you are in an electrically driven business and living in a climate with many weeks of 90 degree (f) heat and 90% humidity. Hey, but its just a "neighborhood problem", no need for any sense of urgency.

 They have been real nice here in the mall with letting all the laptop users tap into the electricity. There are bunches of us here. The city didn't experience a mandatory evacuation and much of the electrical grid is back up so a lot of Yuppies are facing Tuesday with report deadlines, but because they suffer from a "neighborhood problem" they can't get the work done.  Of course to the typical Master of the Universe Wanna Be Boss that most of these Yuppies work for a "neighborhood problem" translates to" personal problem". People with "personal problems" sometimes are seen as "not team players". I'm glad I've gotten out and actually met some of my neighbors. Just as we professional mariners often complain that "civilians" are totally unaware of life on "the wet side of the levee" we mariners are often blind to the stresses of the dry side. Personally I'm glad I was a mariner, especially a pilot. It seems a lot of dry land bosses are not very understanding.

 I remember when I was a 27 year old pilot and suffered an engine failure coming out of a slip and did some very minor damage. I was the junior pilot and feeling pretty distraught when Capt. Cecil Deal came to the bridge, looked at me and said. "Piloting is a contact sport, if you haven't bent any steel you haven't done much steam boating. I bent some steel in my time and I'm going to bend some more. If your boss can't understand that, get your self a new boss, pilots don't grow on trees." Later I met the  late Capt. (Commodore) Wagner of the Delta Queen Steamboat Company. He had a useful saying too: "What in the hell is the point of being a steamboat captain if once in a while you can't tell somebody to go to hell?"  Good points. I kept them in mind, especially when I became a maritime union representative. But you sure don't learn how to offer a suit his head in a hand basket at Harvard Business School. I really enjoyed being a pilot,  I think an awful lot more  than the yuppies I'm meeting enjoy being successful yuppies. 

 So since they are under such pressure and I'm really not I've decided to go a little easy  on the network time and electrical out let plug in time. Really no one messes with Og. Stay tuned though, the instant the electricity comes on we'll be back at it full tilt.

 Meanwhile it's Sunday, and holiday routine and all, but even on Sunday we always start our day with morning colors.

Click here to start the Star Spangled Banner:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jusP47mMThI  today's guest artist is MS Christina Aguilera

Check Back with us every now and then. If we can get a socket and an internet service without having to mug any yuppies we'll be watching the maritime world. Meanwhile don't forget all of the "special pages" are up and so is the News Service. Live the sailor's truths: Time and tide wait on no man. Anything that can go wrong , will, and usually at the worst possible time. Be ready, be flexible, adapt and over come. But if you are going down despite your best efforts give 'em the single finger salute! 

WHO THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS ANYWAY? PART 3

A Different Motley Crew From Another Time and Place

Meet Vegee and Yoda

"Vegee" is a retired senior commissioned officer of the one of the sea services that will go unnamed, a marine educator, and lawyer, a graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Mechanical Engineering and a leader in the maritime labor movement as well as a working licensed U.S. Merchant Marine Engineering Officer. He was once the commanding officer of Og and later his academic boss when Og was a nautical educator. It was Vegee who taught Og "there is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting". Vegee has written for publication many times and actually signs his real name. You have read something by him in our blog not so long ago as a news release. He has an official position within the National Mariners Association. Vegee is actually older than Og which really makes him one day older than water and two days older than dirt but he is the one among us who exemplifies the Buck attitude of utter fearlessness.

 The Yoda is so named because he is small of stature but a mental and spiritual giant, and he literally lives in a South Louisiana swamp that looks for all the world like the Yoda lair in Star Wars. The Yoda is a former nautical arts and science educator and author of nautical texts many times over. He virtually invented the National Mariner's Association. He has a 1600 ton ocean master's license and experience working in the offshore oil and mineral industry both on board ship and in management. He has often been constructively critical in print about certain Coast Guard policies and programs. Despite the fact that his criticisms of the USCG have been constructive, as we have so often said  power doesn't like truth and he has been called in print "Coast Guard Public Enemy Number One". Unfortunately for the USCG the YODA has never been proved wrong in the long haul. We don't call him the YODA for nothing. You have read many pages of his stuff if you read the National Mariners Association reports some of which we have reprinted on these pages. In the maritime world there is only one Yoda and in South Louisiana we know how to find him.

                                                                                                                        

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Station ID 9/1/2012 B)

AMERICAN ADMIRALTY BOOKS 

`SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 1, 2012

Official U.S.Navy Photograph

LIVE FROM NEW ORLEANS AT PJ's COFFEE SHOP

HELLO!  Sorry about yesterday.  SWWBO and I left Montgomery after we had posted the news about Egypt sending its military to both sides of the Suez, the Russians announcing that they were going to develop an Ageis system of their own, and the departure of the Russian Northern Fleet from the MED. We had received some of these stories through AAIS foreign language sources. The last thing I wrote before making a very big tactical error was that we would find English language accounts and get back to you. Then we received word that  electrical power had been restored to our neighborhood in New Orleans. We immediately departed Montgomery. When we arrived home about five hours later we found that while power was restored in our general vicinity it was not restored to our block. It's still not restored. So this morning we made our way to PJs where  coffee and internet are up, but my battery is down We're working on it. We'll be back to you shortly.

We're back!  Battery is charging!  Just like Montgomery we are still down to a laptop and I phone. Unlike Montgomery we can't just fire up the lap top whenever we want. Blog work is now a constant search for working electricity and an internet connection. Damn I miss those little electrons, who knew?


OK, OK, enough self pity it may be late but you can't start your day without morning colors. We'll get that up for you in a minute.

And here it is:

Clck here for the Star Spangled Banner : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTwuYxGMPPM

Please check in at intervals during the day.  We will try to update as much as we can and even try to publish the promised weekend postings that started with last weekend's "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS"

The first post up this morning is a collection of links to interviews and other videos on "THE WAR IN TEXAS", an updated post that we posted last week end and intended to follow up with this posting providing you with some recorded interviews with some of the officials quoted in the first post on the War on the Rio Grande. Sorry for the delay apparently it slipped down the postings pending scroll and in the confusion over the storm I failed to post it. Please read about the war in Texas, it is such an important story and the national media carries so little on it. American should know about the real state of border security.

TECHNICAL GLICH: The News Service jumped out of alphabetical order on our home page. It is still working, somewhat up dated, and now located at the bottom of the lists instead of among the other pages like Navigation, and Naval Interest, that start with N. We are not able to correct the situation from PJs.  I will be contacting SOG in Latin America where he should have full dashboard capability to see if we can correct that for you.Meanwhile don't forget that at the bottom of the News Service scroll are links to news papers all over the world and most of the English language maritime news and trade journals where you can follow any of the day's or week's stories. Our technical difficulties caused by the storm may be affecting our News Service but not our "News Reading Room" which is what the News Service started out as.  Its a bit "do it yourself" but the world maritime news is still all there even if we are having difficulty analyzing it for you at the moment. Don't stop keeping an eye on the maritime world; the national media and our elected officials pay it too little attention as it is.

Sorry but due to circumstances beyond our control we had to shorten today's version of "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS ANY WAY?"

AMERICAN ADMIRALTY INFORMATIONAL  SERVICES

WHO THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS ANYWAY? PART TWO

(Continued from Last Week End)

A totally Different Motley Crew in a Totally Different Place and Time

  Last weekend we introduced you to some of the crew that makes up American Admiralty Informational Services,  (the loose network of maritime academics and operators who generate the American Admiralty Book Blog). We explained that since we are dedicated to the truth it is necessary to avoid, among other things, the use of real names. You see all too often in America lately power doesn't want to hear truth. Unfortunately power doesn't want you to hear it either. Many of us in the AAIS are dependent on federal pensions or are in active federal service. The Feds have many ways of silencing their own if employee or service member writings can be in any way mistaken for official positions. So we are up front about our "outlaw" status. We avoid any and all reference to ranks or titles or real names. We also avoid all classified and sensitive subjects ( but not politically sensitive subjects or embarrassing subjects).  So while truth is best served with our identities secret, we feel you have a right to know why we are considered experts in the maritime fields, so we associate resumes with pen names in this series.

 Last week you were introduced to Og (Old Guy), Master of steam, motor and sail, any gross tons, Chief Purser, former steamship agent, maritime regulatory law practitioner, author, and former government analysts, naval and Coast Guard veteran, among other things. We also introduced you to SOG (Semi Old Guy), second in command and serious scholar , cyber guru to the rest of us. And Buck, our irrepressible "attitude coach". Today we want you meet "Capn Ben". "Capn Ben's " pen persona is older than the real guy, but since he will get older every day we thought that was OK. The real person represented by "Capn Ben" is just 30 years of age and a combat veteran of the Marine Corps, and now an oceanographer and commissioned officer of one of the sea services which will go unnamed. " Capn Ben" is a real life navigator executing navigational and oceanic research duties daily. He is responsible for the Oceanography page and a major contributor to the Navigation page including the "special features" that show you how to use your lap top as a force multiplier for the effectiveness of such navigational tools as your GPS. The "Captain's"hobbies include cinematography and he is assisting us with many of the growing visual elements of the blog. He is also a contributor of news items and occasional comments. "Capn Ben" author of "Capn Ben's technical Corner is our regularly employed early mid career mariner. What he brings to the effort is the insight of daily work at sea on modern ships. We had hoped to feature another crew member or two today but the PJ's barriestas are giving me that look, like either consume another gallon of coffee or pack your lap top and split.  So we'll close it out here and get back to you later.

Originally intended for publication on Monday August 27, 2012 "The WAR in Texas" in video part 1


THE WAR ALONG A TEXAS RIVER 

The Rio Grande River Border Between Texas and Mexico Uncontrolled It Has Become A Drug Smuggler's Highway

Editorial Note: If you missed "The Weekend Edition"for August  you might want to check out Sunday's posting on this subject.

Contrary to popular belief the Rio Grande is not a narrow stream bed that vacillates between being a dry gulch and a seasonally babbling brook. In the 19th century the river was navigable by steamboat for many miles. Today from the mouth at the Gulf of Mexico to Laredo the river is usually easily navigable by fairly large motorboats in the 20 to 40 foot range. Above Laredo the river is divided into large impoundments like Falcon Lake where large house boats and yachts routinely navigate, or at least they did before drug cartel violence made the river a less desirable vacation destination. Today the State of Texas operates at least two Vietnam style "Swift Boats" on these artificial lakes to suppress violence by the Mexican Zeta Drug Cartel.  

After the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security presented testimony before Congress that the Southwest Border had "never been more secure", the Texas delegation to Congress presented witness after witness to the fact that a "state of war" exists on the Texas side of the Rio Grande and the enemy is organized paramilitary forces of the Mexican ZETA cartel. The Texas Congressional delegation requested the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to produce "a persistent Coast Guard presence on the Rio Grande". The Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard was tasked with the delivery to Congress of a plan for such a "persistent presence" by January 2012. When it had not been delivered by June the Congress pressed the Commandant on the where abouts of the report. Under cross examination like pressure he finally admitted that it was on the desk of the Secretary DHS. 

 Clearly there are two different official opinions about security along the river that divides Texas from Mexico. The view of state and county officals on scene is that a virtual state of war exists. The officials in Washington think the border has never been more secure. In this post we will present videos of recent local news coverage and documentaries made on scene. You already know the Washington position; "The Southwest Border Has Never Been More Secure"

This first video was shot from a law enforcement air craft. The action starts with a car chase on the Texas side of the river. The drug smugglers drive right into the river and are immediately rescued with paramilitary precision by cohorts who cross over in inflatable boats from the Mexican side. If shots had been fired in this instance, U.S. law enforcement authorities would have been firing into Mexican territory. We could not avoid liability for "collateral damage", while the Mexicans, had they fired into U.S. territory, were all criminals and the Mexican national government would not be liable. According to Texas Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez's' testimony before Congress the incident depicted here is fairly common in the Rio Grande Valley and has involved cross border gun fire in the past.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRG7E3thfVo

This next video provides a bit of background on the Zetas, the driving force in the Rio Grande valley problems:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zSz0VazNzQ


The link below provides a graphic look at the methodologies of the Zetas, WARNING GRAPHIC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB57jg48JmY

The video linked here describes the public relations methods of the Zetas as used in Mexico. According to Texas authorities testifying before Congress these methods are also being employed in the Rio Grande Valley, in recent months numerous Federal CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) Agents have been prosecuted for accepting bribes from the Cartels. At least two local Texas Sheriffs as well have been arrested. Questioning of the law enforcement agents caught up these schemes reveal that the "bullet or the bribe" proposition is becoming common in the border Rio Grande Valley counties of Texas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFasg6qI1TY&feature=related 


Here is a FOX TV video in which we hear for the first time of a Texas law enforcement unit being authorized by local authorities to return cross border fire. The reporter also describes an incident similar to the one in our first video presentation and to the one described by Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez of Zapata , Texas before Congress. This singular event, law enforcement use of force rules allowing cross border fire is our main concern over the lack of a Coast Guard presence on the Rio Grande as requested by Congress and the apparent lack of concern by the DHS. Texas, both as a Republic and a State has had to deal with problems of lawlessness from safe havens in Mexico. Texas has never allowed those safe havens for long. This time however if Texas rangers or other state forces cross the river the other side is teeming with Mexican army units as well as Zetas. Given the history between Texas and Mexico vice the overall U.S. Mexican relations we doubt that the Mexican Army would hesitate to fire on Texas Rangers. Additionally since the ZETAS evolved out of the Mexican Army can easily imagine that some Zeta units and Army units look quite similar. We might even see a Texas Ranger on Mexican Army attack in error. Much more needs to be done along the Rio Grande by U..S. Federal Forces starting with the delivery of that "persistant Coast Guard presence"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov_6umepg08


Here is a CNN Take on the ZETAS and their rivals the "MATA ZETAS"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7a1-HXBCAU

Meet Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez of Zapata, Texas. His explanation of why he doesn't use his department's boat on Falcon Lake what he "wants to tell America ", and his description of the violent crime engulfing the Rio Grande Valley is the story in a nut shell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC4P1s6gkOs

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