Reduction in Military Reduces Navy Size

Aboard US ships, 2/3 rds of the unlicensed crew, and all officers must be US citizens. THAT is the law. I've had numerous foreign seamen on my ships and tugs.

 

Oh! My apologies for an unintentional fib. I recall I did long ago know someone who sued.
He was mate on a deep sea tug, different company. They were making tow. Normally when breaking tow and retrieving tow wire, before stainless tow wires, they'd dribble poggie fish oil on the galvanized tow wire.
The chief engineer got lil confused, and opened the fish oil valve when they were putting out wire. Instead of the oil saturating the spooled wire, it got carried over and dripped on the stern deck and made everything slippery for the hands.

This mate was last to leave the stern. He slipped re-entering the fidley forward of the winch. He was impaled on a 6 inch long WT door dog thru his left eye and into the brain.

The crew wisely decided not to pull him off the dog, for fear it would suck out his brains. He was conscious the entire time. Several hours later a medivac chopper arrived. Paramedics dissassembled the dog, bandaged it to his head, and flew him in.

I've removed and serviced many door dogs and always had to heat with a torch and beat with a hammer to get them off! I didn't ask or want to know.

He lost an eye and part of his brain. He sued. Lived over a bar in NO, La and cleaned bar after closing to survive, for 3 years while suit dragged thru courts.

After court costs and lawyers cut, he ended up with $700 thousand.

A real WOOS huh?

 

Further to the Obama announcements the other day... One view from Australia - will eventually get posted here http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/ "The "After America" Blowback for Australia "
Now posted here http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/us...er-america-blowback-for-australia/2012/01/09/
by From Dan Denning in St Kilda:
--The United States government has decided it can no longer afford to fight two land wars at the same time. You may have missed that little news item from last week. And if you didn't miss it, you'd probably agree that for a nation over $15 trillion in debt, it's going to be pretty hard to pay for two big land wars, much less fight them. But still, that little fact, and what it means for Australia, is the subject of today's Daily Reckoning.
--We're referring to President Obama's vision of US defence strategy in the 21st century. The President went over the Pentagon unveiled the document. It's called Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defence. Australians interested in what the next twenty years of gradually weaker US military power will look like ought to have a read."

The essay has several hours lead for email service subscribers and usually gets posted at their website as above... It may be of interest to some...

 

Those were exceptional circumstances, obviously; some idiot bureaucrats should have been fired for not using common sense -- if nothing else, Congress could have passed an emergency exception, had it been asked.

But I repeat: how did the Jones Act kill American shipping?

 

I'll ask again: how did reserving American coastal trade for Americans kill American shipping? That's basically all the Jones Act does.

Are you possibly lumping other parts of US maritime law in with the Jones Act?

 

What ever the reason the US fleet diminished, I had the best of it. I retired just in time. And I'm fortunate my credentials and reputation are top notch so I get occassional nibbles for a short term contract. A nice shot in the arm financially.

 

So Obama succeeded where his friend Bill Ayres failed. He has torn the fabric of America's shield.

 

Hoyte--What many citizens in the U.S. don't realize is thier country still has some very powerful nations as allies in any majour conflict that would threaten it 's borders. The list would include: Britian-Canada-Australia-New Zealand- 100% for sure, France,Mexico,Japan and Germany possibly and a host of other countries that i'm sure would surprise us all. Using U.S surplus equiptment (most better than what we presently have) and the highly trained ground troops of the first four countries above (possibly even better trained than the U.S) plus the air and navy forces of the British (very highly trained and modern), Who in their right mind is going to risk facing such a united force. By the way all have similar basic arms, communications eqpt.,speak the same language and have very similar cultures. No other country (s) on earth can come even close to this bonding (the former British Empire). While we don't get involved in the majority of your economical/power of influence conflicts we certainly would do the right thing if one or all faced a majour threat to any or all of our borders. Your President Obama is possibly the first to expand his view and understanding of countries beyond your borders enough to realize this and as such gives us the credits due as equals and friends. My hat goes off to him. By the way he is very well respected and trusted by Canadians and a very pleasant change from the former.

 

Thanks for the show of support.

 

Thankyou Viking North and all our friends in the world.

 

can you say China ;-)

 

In Mandarin it is "zhong guo". (pronounced joong kwah). It means "Middle Kingdom". 中国

 

I can't picture the Chinese coming after the west anytime soon but give it about ten or twenty years and things might just be quite a bit different

 

I figure the chinese will seek economic control of places like africa. And continue to loan money to US. They're gambling US won't default and issue new dollars and the interest income is good investment. When things get bad enough, I think US govt will issue new currency. The debt is too huge. Some future generation will refuse to accept it's burden. France issued new francs, Germany new marks, Mexico new pesos. Lots of countries did it.

 

China is still a mystery to me in terms of an aggressor. It is a hard one to read, while it is an economic giant in the making i'm not sure it has any great asperations of military conquest. It seems to be bucking the trend of military conquest/influence to better obtain economic benifit. In fact it is attaining world economic benifits without using the military other than to openly control it's own people. This by the way not unlike most of the free world whereby in times of what is perceived as internal turmile the military is called in to forceably set the citizens back on the right track. The difference is we do it under guise. The other important point here is China is not a patriotic united country. It is a forceably united country and historically has had repeditive internal conflicts (civil war). As such the controlling tribe (no insult intended) can not depend 100% that the others will follow if it releases it's military power over them to concentrate on external conflict. It's is and has been for a long time a country held together by a careful balancing act of power within. I think the people in power must show military strength more for internal political control than take the chance of their own dog biting them if they released it to fight a war.