31 Jan, 2023 00:25

US nuclear sub docks shut down over ‘seismic’ concerns

Four drydocks in Washington state have been idled amid worries raised by an earthquake study

The US Navy has announced the shutdown of four drydocks in the Seattle area on concern over the safety risks posed if a major earthquake strikes the region. Theservice is already struggling to keep upwith the maintenance needs for its nuclear-powered attack submarines.

Three nuclear-certified drydocks at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington and one slot at the Trident Refit Facility in nearby Bangor, have suspended submarine docking for further evaluation and upgrades, the Navy said in a statement.

Officials didn’t specify what the recently completed seismic study showed; nor did they offer an estimate as to how long the affected drydocks will be out of commission.

The seismic assessment “identified potential issues associated with the remote possibility of a large-scale earthquake occurring simultaneously with a submarine maintenance availability,” the Navy said. “With this new information, the Navy is taking additional measures to further ensure the safety of the shipyard workforce, sailors, the local public, the environment and the submarines.”

The Pacific Northwest lies near the Cascadia subduction zone, a fault line that runs 700 miles along the coast, from Vancouver Island to northern California. Scientists have warned that the fault is capable of unleashing a “megathrust” earthquake registering a magnitude upward of 9.0 on the Richter scale, as it did in 1700, and that it has a 37% chance of causing a quake of at least 7.1 magnitude within the next 50 years.

The Navy knowingly built the Puget Sound shipyard in an active seismic zone, but some of its drydocks weren’t adequately girded for a major earthquake. For instance, one of the slots included in the suspension order was reportedly built on “unconsolidated earth and fill,” putting it at bigger risk of liquefaction during a big quake.

Although the Navy insisted that the drydock shutdowns won’t affect the nation’s “strategic deterrent capability,” the move comes at a timewhen 36% of US attack submarines are either undergoing maintenancework or awaiting service. Even before the suspension, the Navy had only 18 drydocks to tend to all of its submarines and aircraft carriers. Over the past decade, only 20-30% of submarine maintenance projects were completed on time, the Navy said last year.

The Puget Sound shipyard is more than 130 years old, and upgrades to just one of the suspended drydocks will cost an estimated $667 million.

(I think Russia is mocking our Navy)

https://www.rt.com/news/570726-us-nuclear-submarine-docks-seismic/

31 Jan, 2023 00:44

White House reveals Covid emergency plan

The US president responded to a push in Congress by offering an expiration date

The White House announced on Monday that it wants to end the Covid-19 national emergency by May 11, though that would entail extending it first. The plan comes after Republicans in the House of Representatives announced a vote on ending the emergency, and as the World Health Organization said the public health restrictions ought to continue in some form.

The current national emergency declaration is set to expire on March 1, while the public health emergency (PHE) runs out on April 11. President Joe Biden intends to “extend the emergency declarations to May 11, and then end both emergencies on that date,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement quoted by multiple outlets. The PHE was last extended on January 11.

“Too late! Republicans already announced we’re declaring Covid is over and passing it through the House this week,”Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, tweeted in response. “The GOP is leading on this issue and Biden is trying to take credit.”

Meanwhile, the WHO published the conclusions of its emergency committee, from a meeting held on Friday, which said the pandemic “continues to constitute a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).”

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus agreed with the committee that the pandemic “is probably at a transition point”and endorsed their recommendation for “alternative mechanisms to maintain the global and national focus” on the disease after the emergency ends.

The advisory body also urged the WHO and member states to “maintain multiple component surveillance systems” and continue pushing for vaccination, to the point of including it in “life-course immunization”schedules.

The Biden administration had tried to impose the shots, first to government employees and then to the private sector, but US courts have overruled most of the mandates as unconstitutional. Biden campaigned in 2020 on a promise to “shut down the virus.” As of Monday, the total number of US deaths attributed to Covid-19 stood at 1.11 million, up from 400,000 on the eve of his inauguration in January 2021.

https://www.rt.com/news/570727-biden-covid-emergency-declaration/

30 Jan, 2023 21:31

White supremacy blamed for beating of black man by black police

The alleged killing of Tyre Nichols in Memphis stems from systemic racism, a Sky News guest has argued

The five police officers accused in the fatal beating of a 29-year-old black man earlier this month in Memphis, Tennessee, are black, and they worked for a black police chief. Nevertheless, a British political activist has concluded that white supremacy was the root cause of Tyre Nichols’ death.

“The vicious, brutal, unjustified, extrajudicial killing of Tyre Nichols is as a result of a police system that’s built on white supremacy,”London-born lawyer Shola Mos-Shogbamimu told Sky News in an interview on Monday. “White supremacy underpins the policing and criminal justice system, both in the United States and the United Kingdom. It shapes the culture that sees black people as less, treats black lives as disposable, and ensures that black lives don’t matter.”

As host Kay Burley began to point out that the officers charged with Nichols’ murder were black, Mos-Shogbamimu said, “I’m about to educate some people right now.” She likened the Nichols incident to the May 2020 death of George Floyd, which sparked violent Black Lives Matters protests across the US and Europe.

After Burley noted that Nichols’ mother said she hoped her son’s death would lead to change, the activist said, “Between George Floyd and today, nothing has changed. I very much doubt that anything will change until we eradicate the source of this problem, which is white supremacy.”

Those who suggest that an incident involving only black people wasn’t related to white racism are simply uneducated, Mos-Shogbamimu said. “There is a systemic reality of white supremacy that produces racist white cops and racial-gate-keeping black and brown cops.” She added, “Black and brown racial gate-keepers exist in policing, exist in our health care system, in our politics. They exist everywhere. Their point is to represent white supremacy.”

Some US commentators, such as CNN’s Van Jones and US Representative Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat, have made similar claims. RowVaughn Wells, the mother of Tyre Nichols, said the officers involved in her son’s murder “shamed” their communities. “I hate the fact that it was five black men that actually did this to another black man,” she told MSNBC.

The Sky News interview was quickly panned by critics. UK media personality Piers Morgan called the claims “unbelievable,” adding, “Race-baiting liars like Dr. Shola do enormous damage to the cause of racial equality.”

(The title cracks me up)

https://www.rt.com/news/570723-activist-blames-black-police-beating-on-white-supremacy/

>>18258029

The cause of racism is everyone calling each other racists

PN>>18257320 General Flynn Radio Interview with Dan Bongino 15-minute interview discussion on the Deep State, Twitter Files

Video:

Dan explains why he thought Mike Flynn got targeted, and Flynn says mostly right but another thing wasBlack Budgets a very corrupt practice, he would have stopped them all.

He also saysthis story is not done, it’s not done.

Really interesting interview, it won’t post here

https://rumble.com/v27s9uy-general-flynn-radio-interview-with-dan-bongino.html

Man so many people in love with DeSantis, weird man, weird!

https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/1620183127888117766?s=20&t=ZP6So52jLhr92_DdYpILvQ

Is this payback for Putin taking Crimea (by the peoples own vote), when Obama was conducting a coup in Ukraine? So they want to steal Crimea back to a country the people don’t want to belong to?Or even worse, to deprive Russia of the only warm water port they have to launch from?

https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/1620181907303710725?s=20&t=ZP6So52jLhr92_DdYpILvQ