Christmas Eve Random Links
By For the angry loners, the solitary hermits, the alcoholics, the unemployable…
France’s sale of Mistral class amphibs is now a done deal. Two will be built in France, potentially two more in Russia. Hopes in Russia are that this will help put its shipbuilding industry back on solid footing, and slow the increasing obsolescence of its navy.
It looks as if work on Varyag is proceeding at a fairly robust pace, with the possibility that she will enter service as (presumably) a training carrier in 2012. It also looks as if domestic construction is finally proceeding.
Iran and the US appear to have met in order to coordinate anti-piracy activities in the Indian Ocean. Iran had been conducting its own operations separate from the rest of the international flotilla, but may now work more closely with the rest of the navies involved.
China is having some substantial reliability problems with technology that it stole borrowed from Russia. Key indication: A Chinese jet engine has a life of 30 hours without refurbishment, while a Russian engine of the same design has a life of 400 hours. This is particularly troubling because Russian defense industry workmanship ain’t all that. Consequently, the Chinese are considering renewing major purchases of Russian equipment, but the Russians remain wary. In a related issue, NY Times decries China’s lax IP enforcement.
Awful bus crash in Ecuador. Surprising not that 34 people died in the 1100′ plunge, but that 23 survived.
Love this story; drunk Miami of Ohio student tries to cut down a 30′ pine tree, claiming that he then wanted to cut off the top to use as a Christmas tree. Funny part is that the police apparently didn’t bother trying to chase down his drunken axe wielding friend.
Grover Cleveland (the blogger, not the President) wants input as to why people shouldn’t be allowed to buy health insurance across state lines. Check out the post, and the comment thread; I think that several of the comments are spot on.
Although we’re now done with all that, this post from Jeffrey Lewis on New START is still worth reading.
I usually tell my students that French is a more useful foreign policy language than German, especially if they’re interested in development work. In some ways Spanish is the most useful of all the more common second languages, but in part because of this Spanish fluency doesn’t really set you apart as a job candidate.
I would like to remind everyone that Kentucky DID NOT join the Confederacy, although for some reasons the wise city fathers of Lexington decided to remove the statue of John C. Breckinridge from beside the old courthouse… and move it in FRONT of the old courthouse, where you can’t avoid noticing it while driving on Main Street. Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that it’s been a bad year for neo-confederates.