Merchant marine

This week the Coast Guard's National Maritime Center hosted the quarterly Merchant Marine Personnel Advisory Committee meeting. MERPAC serves as a deliberative body to advise the Coast Guard on matters relating to the training, qualification, licensing, certification and fitness of seamen serving in the U.S. merchant marine. The committee members' expertise, knowledge, and experience in the U.S. merchant marine affairs are invaluable to the Coast Guard's Office of Operating

In my earlier post about the Navy League , my writing was sufficiently careless and ambiguous as to imply that the Navy League is a lobbying group.  It isn’t.  It is a 501 organization “ dedicated to nonpartisan, enhanced public understanding of the missions and challenges facing today’s Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine, as well as advocating for the well-being of the men and women of each service.” What I meant to say, and I’ve since updated my post to say, is thCan we say how much we appreciate our friend over at NBCNewYork.com Josh Alper ? Earlier this week Michael Ventre of NBCSports wrote a banal column on Rex Ryan and what a blustery joke he is, while hoisting up Jets fans for public scrutiny. I’m at a point in my life where I generally don’t bother posting links to this stuff anymore, but since Josh made a point of defending Jets fans honor we wanted to applaud him, and make you aware of what an autopiloting drone Ventre is. Without furtherThere were two interesting stories out in the last week involving Iran and the fight against pirates. First, we have Iran’s statement that the best way to protect merchant shipping against pirates is to arm the ships: Iran backs guns on ships – ARMED forces placed aboard merchant ships would be the cheapest and most effective way to deter pirates, an Iranian shipping leader said today. Mohammad Souri, chairman of National Iranian Tanker, told the International Union of Marine InsuranDr Stock Pick HOT News & Alerts! _________________________________________ FREE Daily Stock Alerts From DrStockPick.com _________________________________________ Thursday September 24, 2009 DrStockPick.com Stock Report! CSRH, CME, PWRM, GRMN, CVAT, HERO, CVX ************************************************************** CSRH, Consorteum Holdings Inc, CSRH.OB CSRH is a company in the financial services, payment and transaction processi

September 23, 2009 Is the Jones Act a legitimate reason for a travel insurance company to deny a claim, or a convenient excuse? Depends on your perspective.The Jones Act prohibits foreign-flagged cruise ships from transporting passengers between two ports within the United States. And if you’re Mariann Cutroneo, it’s a cop-out. She and a friend recently missed their Celebrity Alaska cruise because of a mechanical problem with a flight, and were unable to meet the ship at the next port. Her traveMichael Ventre has made a career out of condemning the sinners of sport with his fancy moralizing. But many feel his latest screed — "Fat, Boorish Jets Fans Have a Slovenly Coach to Match"— may have gone too far. The piece is basically a 1,587 word pot shot at Jets fans, as written by a 19th century English countess or Kelsey Grammer after a couple of mimosas. And if you happen to have an Olde English Dictionary on hand, you'd understand why Jets fans want Ventre's head. Fans of the N

Climate disruption will disrupt volcanism tooEPA Office of Inspector General finds standard gases not so standard after allDriest years in Pacific Northwest drier than expectedNortheast Passage opened this year for commercial shipping12% of the merchant marine fleet is idledRecycling used plastic into fuelUS Chamber of Commerce and car dealer industry group fight California emissions waiverSlowing population growth more effective than renewables at slowing GHG emissions Nature News reported lastYama is my name , QE4A, quality education for all , my game. Maybe a repetition of terms there: education , to be real, has to have quality built in, and to really work it has to be for all . My 1995 book already tells a lot of what my views on Quality Education are, using my endearing "get this done, pronto!" style. I have softened up a bit since. Being married does that to you. Ahoy, lake Titikaka! Kde domov můj? For me that is a bit of more than a poetic question

Credit: Gold Cartoonist Joel Pett knows his job is unconventional. “Once a day I have to figure out something I’m angry about, and then I make fun of it,” said the Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist. Pett spoke on campus Tuesday as an O’Donnell visiting professor. His lecture, “What in the world is so funny?” took on global issues from a more humorous standpoint. “Joel Pett brings a creative approach,” said Associate Professor of Politics Shampa Biswas. “He’s a cartoonist, and he

My mind is full of Fleet Week events.  As in the past two years, it promises to be a very exciting week for me and my family.  I know I’m going to be on a Coast Guard boat on the Bay when the Blue Angels fly, I know I’m going to a reception to meet the fliers themselves, and I hope that my family and I will get to hear the Marine Corp band playing .  The Blue Angels reception and the Marine Corp band performance are events that were made available to the publiWatching a movie about the environment is one thing. But watching a movie about the environment that is powered with solar power? That is taking eco cinema to a whole other level. And hopefully Israel … ...Emply cargo vessels moored off S. Malaysia They sit anchored off the sea ports of Singapore  and southern Malaysia; virtual “ghost ships” with no crews or cargos, and nowhere to sail. The ships, all kinds of merchant cargo vessels, come in all sizes, including mammoth tankers and other bulk carrier vessels, container vessels without their usual number of 40 foot “high cube” cargo containers on board, and many other types as well. These ships, all victims of the ongoing world economic slump

Interested in attending West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy, Air Force Academy or Merchant Marine Academy? The deadline to apply is fast approaching.U.S. Rep. John Adler, D-3rd of Cherry Hill, issued a reminder to students interested in attending the service academies that the application deadline is Sept. 30.A member of Congress must nominate applicants unless individuals are applying to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.“I applaud the hard-working, young men and women who make the decision to apply This from DoD this afternoon: ************************************************ “ Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates announced today that the President has nominated Navy Vice Adm. David J. Dorsett for reappointment to the grade of vice admiral, and assignment as deputy chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance , N2/N6, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations/Director of Naval Intelligence, Pentagon, Washington, D.C. “ ************************************************ “

by P.J. Blount with the blog faculty From the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation : For Immediate Release 09/15/09 Contact: Jena Longo – Democratic Deputy Communications Director 202.224.7824 Hearing Summary – Aviation Safety: The Hudson River Midair Collision and the Safety of Air Operations in Congested Space WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a subcommittee hearing today on Aviation Safety: The HuWASHINGTON — The U.S. Coast Guard’s Marine Safety, Security and Stewardship Directorate announced Thursday publication of a final rule in the Federal Register that amends regulations for merchant mariner documentation previously published as an interim rule April 24, 2007. The final rule implements Section 3509 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year

Piracy has long been the stuff of song and story. Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan is funny and has a happy ending. We have tended to glorify and to turn pirates of the past into folk heroes. Unfortunately, the pirates of Somalia are neither heroic nor funny. By and large, the ones who attack merchant vessels are very poor young kids who have liSingapore                      September 15/16, 2009                     Wed-Thu  0:16 AM Oops !  I goofed up. Sandeep Bamzai is Kaveree Bamzai’s brother and not her husband. Her husband is Sourish Bhattacharyya and has been for the last 16 years. He is a journalist also and Kaveree is spelt Kaveree and not Kaveri. My apologies for this error ! Sandeep too has emailed on this ‘boo boo’ and informed me that Kaveree is his younger sister and followed him into journalism but kept her maidThe more I mull the arguments against the individual health-insurance mandate , the more merit I see in them: It's inevitable that any such mandate, no matter how light the requirement begins, will eventually become a rigid rule that everyone must buy gold-plated ObamaPlans... which themselves are unsustainable and will quickly dissolve into full-blown, United Kingdom style National Health Service, with all the insane medical rationing and treatment denial that entails. Even