A device that can play a role in preventing derailments is the
wayside hot-box detector. It uses infrared sensors to detect bearings,
axles or other components of a rail car that are overheating, then uses
radio signals to flag rail crews of any overheated components.
Wayside hot-box detectors are typically placed every 25 miles along a railroad, according to a Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) report.
Their use has contributed to a 59% decrease in train accidents caused
by axle- and bearing-related factors since 1990, according to a 2017
Association of American Railroads study.
Declining head counts
have led to these mechanisms receiving less preventative maintenance,
according to an official from the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen
union.
The FRA has no regulations requiring the use or maintenance of hot-box detectors.
A hot-box detector in East Palestine notified the crew moments before the train derailed, according to the NTSB’s report.
It’s unclear if any hot-box detector prior to East Palestine notified
crews. A surveillance video shared on Facebook from an industrial
facility in Salem, Ohio, about 20 miles from East Palestine, suggests the train’s axle was already on fire.
Norfolk Southern did not respond to a request for comment, and the FRA declined to comment on the record.
From 5 ‘electronic leaders’ to zero in derailment region
Specialized signalmen called “electronic leaders” specialize in maintaining devices like hot-box detectors.
As recently as three years ago, Norfolk Southern employed five
electronic leaders in the area of its rail network that includes East
Palestine. Today, it employs zero, according to Christopher Hand,
director of research at the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen.
The area in question is Eastern Region North – Division B, shown in
red on the map. It runs east to west from Mansfield, Ohio, to
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and north to south from Morgantown, West
Virginia, to Astabula, Ohio. It also includes rail track in Pittsburgh,
as well as Youngstown, Ohio.
levernews | A looming Supreme Court decision could end up making it easier for
the railroad giant whose train derailed in Ohio this month to block
lawsuits, including from victims of the disaster.
In the case
against Norfolk Southern, the Biden administration is siding with the
railroad in its conflict with a cancer-stricken former rail worker. A
high court ruling for Norfolk Southern could create a national precedent
limiting where workers and consumers can bring cases against
corporations.
The lawsuit in question, filed initially in a
Pennsylvania county court in 2017, deals with a state law that permits
plaintiffs to file suit against any corporation registered to do
business there, even if the actions that gave rise to the case occurred
elsewhere.
In its fight against the lawsuit, Norfolk Southern is
asking the Supreme Court to uphold the lower court ruling, overturn
Pennsylvania’s law, and restrict where corporations can be sued,
upending centuries of precedent.
Oral arguments in the case were held last fall, and a ruling is expected from the Supreme Court in the coming months.
If
the court rules in favor of Norfolk Southern, it could overturn
plaintiff-friendly laws on the books in states including Pennsylvania,
New York, and Georgia that give workers and consumers more leeway to
choose where they take corporations to court — an advantage national
corporations already enjoy, as they often require customers and
employees to agree to file litigation in specific locales whose laws
make it harder to hold companies accountable.
Limiting lawsuits is exactly what the American Association of
Railroads (AAR), the industry’s primary lobbying group, wants. The
organization filed a brief on the side of Norfolk Southern in the case,
arguing that a ruling in favor of the plaintiff would open up railroads
to more litigation.
It is also apparently what the Biden administration wants — the Justice Department filed its own brief in favor of Norfolk Southern.
Should
Norfolk Southern prevail, the company could use the ruling to challenge
other lawsuits on the grounds that they’re filed in the wrong venue,
said Scott Nelson, an attorney with the Public Citizen Litigation Group,
which filed a brief backing the plaintiff in the Pennsylvania case.
Such
a decision could affect lawsuits filed by residents exposed to
hazardous chemicals as the result of accidents in other states — such as
the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment disaster, which occurred five
miles west of the Pennsylvania state line.
rattibha | I’ve been talking to a number of acquaintances in Russia.
These are well-educated professionals who speak English fluently, many of whom have lived/worked in the US/Europe. Some are highly critical of Putin, and many were very much opposed to the SMO.
Some observations.
1/12 They are universally shocked at the racist Russophobia, from Europe especially. “I thought they were our friends/partners!” is a common complaint.
They don’t understand why Europe destroyed its own economy with the sanctions. (There’s quite a bit of schadenfreude over that.)
2/ They don’t understand why the Germans are not reacting to the Nord Stream terrorist attack. They see it as self-evident that the Americans did it—an act of war by one of Germany’s closest ally.
They have zero trust in the Europeans—because of the Russophobia and revelations.
3/ Hollande and Merkel have publicly bragged about how the Minsk agreements were entered into to buy time to arm Kiev.
This has had a huge impact on them.
So they won’t accept any negotiations or ceasefire. They all think Russia would be played for fools again by the West.
4/ Even the “doves” believe that the conflict can only end in total victory, i.e. complete military occupation of Ukraine.
They don’t look forward to this—but they believe it is the only solution to guarantee Russian safety.
5/ They all view this conflict as a Russia vs. NATO war. And they all believe this war will last for years.
There is a palpable sense of determination and *relief* that they too—like their grandfathers before—are involved in an existential war for the survival of their nation.
6/ They one and all despise the Russians who fled to Europe, Israel and Georgia.
They view them as fair-weather friends at best—traitors at worst. They all made it clear that they would not be welcomed back at the end of this conflict.
7/ Even the “doves” respect Putin, and they laugh at the idea of “regime change in Russia”.
The principal criticism of Putin is that he’s been too gentle, too patient. Many (not all) would prefer a scorched earth, total war campaign, specifically targeting the Kiev leadership.
8/ All in all, they are satisfied with their leadership. Lavrov was universally praised, Peskov the one least respected. Shoigu, Gerasimov and Surovikin were all endorsed, though they all took some criticism, mostly because they think the war is going too slowly.
9/ Interestingly, I sensed a gnawing anxiety over Russia’s economy, which seems to be going so well—as if it’s too good to be true.
The 2015 sanctions nearly broke their economy—but now, with even worse sanctions, none are experiencing a loss of standard of living.
10/ They seem to have lost their respect, admiration—and fear—of the West. Certainly their trust. They all believe that “human rights”, “democracy”, etc. are empty platitudes the West uses to get its way.
They see the West as a paper tiger, run by fools and degenerates.
11/ This is inevitably a very biased selection of opinions: Highly educated, well traveled, Western-oriented, fairly well-to-do people aged 27–60.
So imagine how much more conservative Russian working class people’s opinions would be.
Food for thought.
12/12 Addendum: Yes, I forgot to include this point, which is true of popular sentiment in Russia. twitter.com/status...
In a joint statement released Friday night, DeWine and FEMA Regional
Administrator Thomas C. Sivak said the agency would deploy a Regional
Incident Management Assistance Team (IMAT) to Columbiana County starting
Saturday, along with a senior response official. The workers will
"support ongoing operations, including incident coordination and ongoing
assessments of potential long-term recovery needs."
"The Biden-Harris Administration has mobilized a robust, multi-agency
effort to support the people of East Palestine, Ohio," the White House
said in a statement of its own earlier this afternoon. "As President
Biden told Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Pennsylvania Governor Josh
Shapiro soon after the derailment, the Federal Government stands ready
to provide any additional federal assistance the states may need."
DeWine had previously requested federal help, and today the
Department of Health and Human Services announced toxicologists from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be journeying to East Palestine to assist with public health testing. However, the governor's request for FEMA assistance was initially denied, with the agency apparently telling his office the current situation "[did] not quality for assistance."
"Although FEMA is synonymous with disaster support, they're most
typically involved with disasters where there is tremendous home or
property damage," DeWine told reporters in a Friday press conference,
adding this would include situations like tornadoes, flooding, or
hurricanes."
It is unknown what changed in the time since those remarks, but the
governor did confirm he would "preemptively file a document with FEMA to
preserve our rights in case we need their assistance in the future."
DeWine has not declared the crash aftermath to be a federal disaster,
perhaps because of concerns doing that could shield the Norfolk Southern Railway from liability.
doomberg | For the rest of the country, let’s take a step back and dig
into what has transpired. For this exercise, we will rely heavily on the
extraordinarily detailed resource page
put up by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shortly after the
event began. The site represents the agency’s best efforts to be as
transparent and timely as possible in releasing information to the
public.
Before proceeding, we need to address the
fact that there are many on social media who are convinced the
government is somehow covering up the severity of this event – hence the
hyperbolic and totally irresponsible references to Chernobyl. In our
experience, the EPA would not
look to minimize the severity of an industrial accident of this type.
Quite the opposite. For the rest of this piece, we will take their
reports, measurements, and commentary at face value. To do otherwise is
to assume the EPA would fabricate complex technical data on the fly to
deceive the public and protect the very corporate interests they
otherwise infuriate with their harsh oversight on a daily basis.
The most important document on the EPA’s website is the full accounting of each of the 52 derailed cars. The two-page PDF file
details what was in each car and what happened to them during the
accident. Twenty-seven cars suffered no major damage or significant
leaks, and one is listed as having an unknown status. Let’s
systematically walk through the other 24:
Two
hoppers of solid polyethylene were consumed in the initial fire shortly
after the derailment. Polyethylene is the major component of trash bags
and plastic buckets. Nobody would recommend getting too close to such a
fire, but the environmental damage here is minimal.
Four
hoppers of solid polyvinyl were consumed in the initial fire. Polyvinyl
is the major component in PVC plumbing pipes available for purchase at
your local hardware store. While its combustion fumes are certainly more
toxic than those observed with polyethylene, essentially every major
home fire in the US results in significant burning of PVC pipes.
Unfortunate for sure, but not a catastrophe.
One hopper
of semolina, a coarsely milled durum wheat, was consumed by the initial
fire. This is the functional equivalent of burning wood.
One box car of medical-grade cotton balls was consumed by the initial fire.
One
box car of sheet steel is listed as being consumed by the initial fire,
although it is unclear to us how sheet steel burns. We suspect this
material was damaged by the surrounding fire to the point where it could
not be commercially salvaged.
One box car of frozen vegetables was consumed by the initial fire.
One hopper of something called “powder flakes” was partially burned, and the fire is noted as having been extinguished.
One
tank car of propylene glycol was breached, and most of the load was
spilled into the local environment. Propylene glycol is the dominant
ingredient in aircraft deicing fluids, a substance routinely and openly
sprayed onto aircraft packed with passengers at major airports across
the country. It is also a common ingredient in many processed foods.
One
tank car spilled an unknown amount of ethylhexyl acrylate. This highly
reactive monomer is used in the production of many household adhesives.
The material is considered moderately hazardous and is readily biodegradable.
Two
tank cars of petroleum lube oil were spilled. As the name suggests,
this product is derived from the refining of oil. As far as oil spills
go in the US, two tank cars worth is relatively inconsequential.
One
tank car of diethylene glycol was fully breached and a second lost at
least part of its load to the local environment. Although the compound
has historically been used in criminal poisoning, according to this study: “Diethylene
glycol is readily biodegradable and unlikely to bioaccumulate.
Diethylene glycol has low potential to adsorb to soil and sediment.
Diethylene glycol is of low toxicity concern to aquatic organisms.”
One tank car of butyl acrylate was either lost to the local environment or consumed in the initial fire. This compound has low acute toxicity.
One
tank car of polypropylene glycol was breached and spilled into the
local environment. This material is considered to be relatively benign.
If
you are keeping track, we have accounted for all rail cars involved in
this derailment except for the five that contained vinyl chloride. Given
their prominent role in the media narrative observed in the past few
days, these five deserve special treatment. Although none of the five
rail cars containing the now infamous substance were damaged by the
initial derailment and fire, in the days after the accident, local
officials became increasingly concerned that the material could explode
in an uncontrolled fashion. Given the circumstances, the decision was
made to isolate the cars and implement a controlled burn. Here’s a quote
from Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s office announcing the decision ahead of time:
“Following new modeling information
conducted this morning by the Ohio National Guard and U.S. Department
of Defense, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Pennsylvania Governor Josh
Shapiro are ordering an immediate evacuation in a one-mile by two-mile area surrounding East Palestine which includes parts of both Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The vinyl chloride contents of fiveon.
Even though this, and all information quoted in this
piece, is readily available to any reporter with access to Google,
countless references to the dangers presented by phosgene are giving the
public anxiety over the decision to execute the controlled burn. To
pick one example from many dozens, a Newsweekstory, titled Did Control Burn of Toxic Chemicals Make Ohio Train Derailment Worse?, includes the following sentence: “Phosgene is a deadly gas that was used in chemical warfare during World War I.” The report goes on to quote – and we kid you not – a TikTok video from an “entrepreneur” for more insight.
Sigh.
Where
do things stand now? For the answer, we return to the EPA’s incident
response website and quote from a statement that was widely available
the same day Newsweek published its report:
“On the evening of Feb. 13, U.S. EPA discontinued air monitoring for phosgene and hydrogen chloride community air monitoring. After the fire was extinguished on Feb. 8,the threat of vinyl chloride fire producing phosgene and hydrogen chloride no longer exists. U.S. EPA will continue 24-hour community air monitoring for other chemicals of concern.
As
of end of the day February 13th, U.S. EPA has screened indoor air at
396 homes, with 100 homes remaining, and 65 homes on the schedule for
today.”
There are many
well-documented reasons to question communications issued from
government agencies these days – and the widespread alarm over the
incident lays bare the chronic stress such distrust lets simmer under
the surface for much of the population. If we have earned any
credibility with our readership over these last two years of
publication, please take this to heart: residents of Mississippi need
not stock up on bottled water, at least not because of this.
That is not to say there isn’t a cause for nationwide upset here. As we will detail in a future piece, this incident demands a much-needed light be shined on the scandalous state of the US rail industry. That we even allow vinyl chloride to be shipped in this fashion is unnecessary and unacceptable.
As few are aware, there are other, even more, dangerous materials on
trains passing by residential neighborhoods every single day. It would
take but a few simple rule changes to chemical industry regulation to
alleviate much of this risk.
thenation |As public outrage has grown over the
toxic fallout from last week’s fiery derailment of a Norfolk Southern
freight train in East Palestine, Ohio, the urgent questions behind this
disaster echo the past year’s confrontations over working conditions in
the lightly regulated rail industry. Indeed, the catastrophe in
Ohio—together with another hazardous derailment
in Houston, Tex., just a week later—drives home the steep costs in
health and well-being that we all incur when we fail to heed rail
workers’ calls for more regulation and adequate staffing mandates.
As rail workers sought to win basic guarantees of staffing support
and sick leave from rail carriers long accustomed to selling labor short
and winning major regulatory concessions from federal agencies, they
stressed how the unsustainable demands placed on their working lives
would result in disasters just like the one in East Palestine. The
northeast Ohio village of about 5,000 people is 40 miles northwest of
Pittsburgh and 20 miles south of Youngstown; already those metropolitan
areas are under alert for the air and water contamination originating
from the Palestine derailment. And in Palestine proper, many residents
are already reporting troubling health symptoms and dying area wildlife
as they weigh the risks of remaining exposed to the toxic fumes and
chemical leaks from the derailed tanker cars carrying hazardous
materials.
In the immediate aftermath of the derailment, rail officials ordered
that the vinyl chloride hauled by five of the Norfolk Southern cars in
the 150-car train be burned off to prevent a still greater explosion—but
that action sent hydrogen chloride and phosgene, two dangerous gasses,
spuming into the air. EPA investigators have since identified other
hazardous chemicals the train had been hauling, including ethylene
glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate, isobutylene, and butyl
acrylate. And the EPA has released a report saying that chemicals from the derailment have leached into the soil and water in the aftermath of the accident.
“We’ve been trying to share our concerns around this for a while
now,” Ross Grooters, current rail employee and cochair of Railroad
Workers United said. “It wasn’t a matter of if this was going to happen.
It was a ‘when and where,’ and unfortunately, there’s a high likelihood
that this will happen again, somewhere, if the root causes of the
issues aren’t addressed.”
Rank-and-file workers organizing with Railroad Workers United
(RWU) have waged high-profile pressure campaigns to improve rail safety
and retain staffing. Jason Doering, an RWU organizer and a legislative
representative of SMART Nevada, says that focusing industry and
regulatory attention on the threat of derailments has been a continual
challenge. Rail workers with Fight for Two Person Crews
have been waging an allied campaign to lobby state and federal
lawmakers to create and enforce standards for safer train staffing: a
mandatory minimum of two person crews on freight trains. Last year, the
Federal Railroad Administration proposed to reinstate a two-person crew rule
and opened a public hearing in December 2022. During the public comment
period for the rule change, more than 13,000 comments were logged in
favor of it.
With the country’s attention now fixed on the disaster in East
Palestine, reformers say that the time to act is now. “This is an
opportunity for us to really identify safety risks in the industry,”
said Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department of
the AFL-CIO (TTD). He noted that the TTD has been working on improving
rail safety for workers and the communities in the path of freight
traffic. “I think it’s something that you’ll hear from a lot of rail
workers and people who’ve been seeing sort of the changes in the
industry, the deterioration of the drastic reductions in workforce and
the focus on speed over safety.”
bloomberg | Amid criticism of the response to a train derailment that spilled hazardous chemicals in a small Ohio town, Norfolk Southern Corp.’s chief executive officer pledged to ensure the safety of local residents, and the state’s governor asked for federal help.
“We
are here and will stay here for as long as it takes to ensure your
safety and to help East Palestine recover and thrive,” CEO Alan Shaw
said in a letter
released Thursday. The statement came after a town hall Wednesday in
East Palestine, Ohio, which the company did not attend because of
concerns about “the growing physical threat to our employees,” according
to a report from a local ABC News station.
Crews
are cleaning up the site, and the railroad implemented a testing
program for the water, air and soil, Shaw said. The company created a $1
million fund as a “down payment” to help rebuild the community of about
4,800.
On Thursday, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said he asked
three federal agencies for assistance, according to the Associated
Press. The White House said that President Joe Biden had offered DeWine help.
“We’re
going to hold Norfolk Southern accountable,” White House Press
Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Thursday during a daily press
briefing.
Norfolk
Southern could rack up tens of millions of dollars in costs from the
derailment, according to one analyst’s estimate. The Environmental
Protection Agency has urged the company to reimburse for costs related to the crash as soon as possible, citing “potential liability” in a Feb. 10 letter.
Norfolk Southern is likely to take a special
charge in the first quarter to cover costs, Cowen Inc. analyst Jason
Seidl wrote in a Tuesday report.
The company’s shares have declined more than 8% since
the derailment on Feb. 3. Rail operations resumed last week, although
delays continue.
Residents have raised concerns about whether it’s safe to return home after the 150-car train derailed, caught fire and spilled chemicals, including vinyl chloride. There were 20 chemical cars on the train.
Three
days after the accident, authorities intentionally vented and burned
five tank cars containing vinyl chloride, in a safety measure designed
to relieve pressure and prevent an explosion that would eject chemicals
and metal shards in all directions. The dramatic cloud of black smoke
and fire that resulted sparked even more concerns.
“I know there are still a lot of questions
without answers. I know you’re tired. I know you’re worried,” said Shaw,
who visited the disaster site last week. “We will not let you down.”
BAR | Hersh’s article was a sensation online when it was published on
February 8, 2023 but it has been ignored by major corporate media ever
since. One has to ask if it really happened when the New York Times,
Washington Post and television networks ignore what ought to be a huge
news story.
It isn’t hard to understand why the same individuals and institutions
who act as state mouthpieces would want to sweep Hersh’s reporting
under the rug. For months they have acted as scribes instead of as
journalists. The days when they would compete to break a scoop that a
president wanted covered up are long gone. They now go along with
establishment narratives, and promote imperialism as much as the people
they are tasked with covering and confronting. Not one person asked
about Hersh’s revelations at the daily white house press briefing the
day after it was published.
Not only have the media ignored what Hersh reported but Republicans
who claim to oppose Biden and the Democrats have also been silent. There
are impeachable offenses committed in Hersh’s account but the people
who should be asking questions have demurred. Republicans were as eager as Democrats
to end Nord Stream’s existence. The word collusion which was bandied
about so much in recent years is apropos here and that means the Hersh
story is now at the bottom of the sea politically.
Biden is the fox in charge of the hen house, preparing to ask
congress for the biggest defense budget in history, in large part to
replenish the weapons used in Ukraine. The people who are asked to
accept austerity for themselves are largely ignorant of how the conflict
started and why their money is used for every purpose except for those
that benefit them.
The Nord Stream sabotage is not the only news story which has been
deep sized. The decision to sabotage Nord Stream was very reckless, and a
sign that Biden and his team are willing to risk a wider war in order
to do what they cannot, weaken Russia or get Vladimir Putin out of
office, or destroy Russia economically. At the very moment that people
in this country need to know the hard truth, it is being kept from them.
So complete is the indoctrination that Biden’s obvious instability is
never discussed, even when the public see it for themselves unfiltered.
At the State of the Union address he made this odd remark,
“Name me a world leader who'd change places with Xi Jinping! Name me
one! Name me one!" The strange outburst was never given the attention
that it deserved.
The media are behaving in a manner that violates their own ethics and
that may in fact be criminal. Lest anyone forget, the post-World War II
Nuremberg trials charged the German press with committing “propaganda
as an instrument of war.” Now in the nuclear age the media in what is
known as the “collective west” are acting in a similar fashion, covering
up crimes and repeating lies as truth in the name of making and
continuing war.
The Biden administration did sabotage Nord Stream whether the media
say so or not. Their lack of attention doesn’t change facts, but it does
disappear them and that is incredibly dangerous to the entire world.
democracynow | When the Nord Stream pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia to
Germany were damaged last September, U.S. officials were quick to
suggest Russia had bombed its own pipelines. But according to a new
report by the legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, it was
the U.S. Navy that carried out the sabotage, with help from Norway.
Citing a source “with direct knowledge of the operational planning,”
Hersh writes on his Substack blog that planning for the mission began in
December of 2021. The White House and the Norwegian government have
since denied the claims. Hersh joins us for an in-depth interview to
discuss his report and says the U.S. decision to bomb the pipelines was
meant to lock allies into support for Ukraine at a time when some were
wavering. “The fear was Europe would walk away from the war,” he says.
Hersh won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his reporting on the My Lai
massacre. His reporting on CIA spying on
antiwar activists during the Vietnam War era helped lead to the
formation of the Church Committee, which led to major reforms of the
intelligence community, and in 2004, he exposed the Abu Ghraib prisoner
abuse scandal in Iraq.
berliner-zeitung | In
your article, you wrote that in early 2022, the CIA working group
reported to Sullivan's "Interagency Group" and said, quote, "We have a
way of blowing up the pipelines."
They had a way. There were people there who knew what we in America call "mine warfare." In the United States Navy there are units that deal with submarines, there is also a nuclear engineering command. And there is a mine squad. The area of underwater mines is very important and we have trained specialists in it. A central location for their education is a small vacation town called Panama City in the middle of nowhere in Florida. We train very good people there and employ them. Underwater
miners are of great importance, for example to clear blocked entrances
to harbors and blow up things that stand in the way. You can also blow up a specific country's underwater petroleum pipelines. It's not always good things they do
It was clear to the group in the White House that they could blow up the pipelines. There's an explosive called C4 that's incredibly powerful, especially at the level they use. You can control it remotely with underwater sonar devices. These sonars emit signals at low frequencies. So
it was possible, and that was communicated to the White House in early
January, because two or three weeks later, Undersecretary of State
Victoria Nuland said we could do it. I think that was January 20th. And then the President, when he held the press conference together with the German Chancellor on February 7, 2022 , also said that we could do it.
The German chancellor didn't say anything concrete at the time, he was very vague. One question I'd like to ask Scholz if I was chairing a parliamentary hearing is this: Has Joe Biden told you about this? Did he tell you then why he was so confident that he could destroy the pipeline? As Americans, we didn't have a plan in place then, but we knew we had the ability to do it.
You write that Norway played a role. To what extent was the country involved - and why should Norwegians do something like that?
Norway is a great seafaring nation and they have deep sources of energy. They are also very keen to increase their natural gas supplies to Western Europe and Germany. And that's what they did, they increased their exports. So why not join forces with the US for economic reasons? In addition, in Norway there is a pronounced hostility towards Russia.
In your article you write that the Norwegian secret service and the Navy were involved. They also say that Sweden and Denmark were informed to some extent, but did not know everything.
I
was told: They did what they did and they knew what they were doing and
they understood what was going on, but maybe no one ever said yes. I've done a lot of work on this subject with the people I've spoken to. Anyway, for this mission to go ahead, the Norwegians had to find the right place. The divers, who were trained in Panama City, could dive up to 100 meters deep without heavy equipment. The Norwegians found us a spot off the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea that was only 260 feet deep to operate there.
The divers had to return to the top slowly, there was a decompression chamber, and we used a Norwegian submarine hunter. Only two divers were used for the four pipelines. One problem was how to deal with the people monitoring the Baltic Sea. The
Baltic Sea is monitored very closely, there is a lot of data freely
available, so we took care of it, there were three or four different
people on it. And what was then done is very simple. For 21 years, our Sixth Fleet, which controls the Mediterranean Sea and also the Baltic Sea, has been conducting an exercise for the NATO navies in the Baltic Sea every summer (BALTOPS, ed.). We're sending an aircraft carrier and other large ships to these exercises. And for the first time in history, the NATO operation in the Baltics had a new program. A 12-day mine dumping and mine detection exercise was to be conducted. A number of nations sent out mine teams, one group dropped a mine, and another mine group went in search and blew it up.
So
there was a time when things blew up, and that was when the deep sea
divers who put the mines on the pipelines were able to operate. The
two pipelines are about a mile apart, they're a little under the seabed
silt, but they're not difficult to get to and the divers had practiced.
It only took a few hours to plant the bombs.
So that was in June 2022?
Yes, they did towards the end of the exercise. But at the last minute, the White House got nervous. The President said he was afraid to do it. He changed his mind and issued new orders, giving the ability to remotely detonate the bombs at any time. You do that with a regular sonar, a Raytheon product by the way, you fly over the spot and drop a cylinder. It sends a low-frequency signal, you can describe it as a flute sound, you can set different frequencies.
However,
the fear was that the bombs would not work if they stayed in the water
for too long, which in fact should be the case with two bombs. So
there was concern within the group to find the right remedy, and we
actually had to reach out to other intelligence agencies, which I
intentionally didn't write about.
And then what happened? The explosives were in place and a way was found to control them remotely.
Joe Biden decided not to blow them up back in June, it was five months into the war. But in September he ordered it to be done . The
operational staff, the people who do "kinetic" things for the United
States, they do what the President says, and at first they thought that
was a useful weapon that he could use in negotiations. But
sometime after the Russians invaded and then when the operation was
complete, the whole thing became increasingly repulsive to the people
running it. These are people who work in top positions in the secret services and are well trained. They opposed the project, they thought it was crazy.
Shortly
after the attack, after they did as they were told, there was a lot of
anger at the operation and rejection from those involved. That's one of the reasons I learned so much. And I'll tell you one more thing. The people of America and Europe who are building pipelines know what happened. I'm telling you something important. The people who own companies that build pipelines know the story. I didn't hear the story from them, but I quickly learned that they knew.
Let's return to this situation in June of last year. President Joe Biden decided not to do it directly and postponed it.
Foreign Minister Antony Blinken
said at a press conference a few days after the pipelines were blown up
that an important factor in his power had been taken away from Putin. He
said destroying the pipelines is a tremendous opportunity -- an
opportunity to deprive Russia of the ability to use the pipelines as a
weapon. The point was that Russia could no longer pressure Western Europe to end US support in the Ukraine war. The fear was that Western Europe would no longer participate.
I
think the reason for this decision was that the war was not going well
for the west and they were afraid of the approaching winter. Nord
Stream 2 was put on hold by Germany itself, not international
sanctions, and the US was afraid Germany would lift sanctions because of
a cold winter.
Rather, I shall begin from the very concrete (“for want of a nail…”)
and move to the very abstract: From the wheel, to the truck, the cars,
the firm (Norfolk Southern), and the owners.
Compared to truck – its main competitor – train is cheaper (in the US it’s 4 cents vs 20 cents
per ton-mile), more efficient (the record-breaking train was 682 cars
and 4.5 miles long carrying 82,000 metric tons of ore), and more
sustainable (one ton of freight can be moved over 470 miles on just a
single gallon of diesel fuel).
However, if you want that advantage to be real and not just
theoretical, you’ve got to maintain all that steel in good working
order; after all, when things go wrong with a train that’s 4.5 miles
long, they can go very, very wrong. Norfolk Southern adopted Precision
Scheduled Railroading (see NC here, and alert reader Upstater, here) in 2019 (“average train speed increasing by 10%”), achieving a record operating ratio of 60.4%
in 2022[3]. In so doing, it threw away the inherent advantage of rail.
Specifically, in the East Palestine disaster, it did not maintain its
steel wheels.
Due to NS intimidating (or corrupting) the regulators, train 32N was
not classified as a “high-hazard flammable train,” despite its obviously
hazardous and flammable cargo. Such a classification would have
affected both its speed and its route (possibly not through East
Palestine). From Lever News:
Though the company’s 150-car train in Ohio reportedly burst into
100-foot flames upon derailing — and was transporting materials that
triggered a fireball when they were released and incinerated — it was
not being regulated as a “high-hazard flammable train,” federal
officials told The Lever.
Documents show that when current transportation safety rules were
first created, a federal agency sided with industry lobbyists and
limited regulations governing the transport of hazardous compounds. The
decision effectively exempted many trains hauling dangerous materials —
including the one in Ohio — from the “high-hazard” classification and
its more stringent safety requirements.
(2) Speed restrictions. All trains are limited to a
maximum speed of 50 mph. The train is further limited to a maximum speed
of 40 mph while that train travels within the limits of high-threat
urban areas (HTUAs) as defined in § 1580.3 of this title, unless all
tank cars containing a Class 3 flammable liquid meet or exceed the DOT
Specification 117 standards, the DOT Specification 117P performance
standards, or the DOT Specification 117R retrofit standards provided in
part 179, subpart D of this subchapter.
No railroad company dedicated to increasing average train speed by
10% through PSR would ever want to comply with that statute (which also
imposes restrictions on the routes to be followed and allowable cars).
Railroad Owners
Here are the owners of the NS:
No doubt they are very happy with the Operating Ratio that NSR achieved through NSR.
rmx | A number of high-ranking military officials have joined some
politicians in calling for Germany to bring back compulsory military
service, and the AfD parliamentary group has now tabled a motion to
discuss the possibility in Germany’s parliament next month.
The motion entitled “Reactivation of conscription” will be debated in
the Bundestag on March 3, after which the proposal will be referred to
the parliament’s defense committee for further deliberation.
Military personnel have called for a return to military service,
which was phased out under former chancellor Angela Merkel in 2011, in
order to replenish the German army’s depleting numbers. The Bundeswehr
currently has 183,500 active personnel, ranking it the 28th largest army
in the world.
Proposals to bring back military service were initiated by newly
appointed Defense Minister Boris Pistorius who suggested such a move
would restore a “connection to civic society at large” for a German
youth that has lost its sense of civic duty.
In condemning recent attacks on emergency responders and police
officers, Pistorius told Bavarian newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, “It
appears that the people have lost the awareness that they themselves are
part of the state and of society. Taking responsibility for a set
period could open eyes and ears to that.”
Calls were swiftly rejected by other members of the German federal
government. Finance Minister Christian Lindner told the same newspaper
the debate was a “phantom dispute” and insisted the government’s efforts
“have to be concentrated on strengthening the Bundeswehr as a highly
professional army.”
Government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit dismissed the proposal as “nonsensical.”
However, military leaders appear to be on the side of some form of conscription.
“I believe that a nation that needs to become more resilient in times
like these will have a higher level of awareness if it is mixed through
with soldiers,” said Jan Christian Kaack, the chief of the German navy.
Following the announcement of the parliamentary debate, AfD MP
Rüdiger Lucassen told German news outlet Junge Freiheit: “The arguments
against conscription were always bogus arguments,” and insisted the
Bundeswehr in its current capacity “is not capable of national defense
because of its lack of personnel.”
thehill | In November 2020, Miller was appointed by Trump to be the acting secretary of Defense, just two months before the Capitol riot.
In the leadup to what became an attempted insurrection, Miller helped
organize the D.C. National Guard, which eventually helped quell the
thousands of pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol in a bid to stop
the certification of the 2020 election.
Miller says Jan. 6 was “embarrassing” and concedes that Trump’s
actions on that day were not helpful, but pulls up short of condemning
his former boss’s behavior.
“It’s beyond comprehension to me the way they created this
narrative,” Miller says of the claims that Trump was responsible for the
violence that day. “I’ll totally let the courts figure this one out. If
there’s new information I would change my mind. I stand by my comments
that he was absolutely not helpful … [but] the politics of this has spun
out of control.”
The career military man takes a notably both-sides view of the
growing partisanship that defines American politics. He writes that
culture wars are “splitting Americans into warring factions” and
empowering China and Russia, but doesn’t place particular blame on
either party.
How does Miller propose to overcome this?
For one, require every American to serve with the AmeriCorps program
to bring citizens together, with the option to serve through the
military or an agency like the National Park Service. Two, secure the
border with military force to stop cartels from flooding American
streets with illicit drugs. And three, upgrade the nation’s nuclear
arsenal to serve as a deterrence.
Miller also offers a series of reforms to the military, from holding
military leaders accountable to creating a leaner and more nimble
fighting force to slashing the Pentagon’s nearly trillion-dollar budget
in half.
House Republicans have tabled defense cuts as part of negotiations
over the debt ceiling, but largely focused on “woke” programs like
diversity training that make up a tiny fraction of overall spending.
Progressive lawmakers have long been critical of bloated defense
spending, but Miller doesn’t think Congress is quite ready to meet in
the middle anytime soon.
“There’s no incentive to reduce military spending,” he says. “I think
there’s whispers, but [we need] someone with the courage and experience
to get in there and force it.”
WaPo | Fifty years ago, in early 1973, with U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War coming to a close, the Nixon administration announced the end
of draft call-ups. The armed forces, which had been dependent on
conscripts since 1940, had to become an all-volunteer force (AVF)
overnight.
America
gained — and lost — a great deal in that wrenching transition: We
gained a more effective military but opened up a new divide between
service personnel and civilians.
Admittedly,
it was hard to predict either consequence when the draft ended. By
1973, conscription had caused enormous discontent in U.S. society
because so many of the well-off had been able to escape the Vietnam War
with occupational or student deferments or bogus medical excuses.
Military
leaders feared that few high-quality recruits would join voluntarily —
and initially they were right. As recounted by James Kitfield in his
book “Prodigal Soldiers: How the Generation of Officers Born of Vietnam Revolutionized the American Style of War,”
“On standard military aptitude tests between 1977 and 1980, close to
half of all the Army’s male recruits scored in the lowest mental
category the service allowed. Thirty-eight percent were high school
dropouts.” Drug abuse and racial tensions were rife. The all-volunteer
force, combined with defense budget cuts, was producing a “hollow Army,” the Army chief of staff warned in 1980.
That
changed in the 1980s when patriotism surged and popular culture began
to depict the military in a more positive light — we went from “The Deer Hunter” (1978) to “Top Gun”
(1986). Congress raised pay and benefits, and the services figured out
how to attract recruits with slogans such as “Be All You Can Be.” By
1990, 97 percent of Army recruits were high school graduates and, thanks
to mandatory drug testing, the number using illicit drugs plummeted.
The
AVF went on to win the 1991 Gulf War and perform capably in a long
series of conflicts that followed. The United States often did not
achieve its political objectives (as in Afghanistan), but it wasn’t the
fault of those doing the fighting. They turned the military into the
most admired institution in U.S. society.
Now,
however, one retired general told me, “The AVF is facing its most
serious crisis since Nixon created it.” All of the services are
struggling with recruiting. The crisis has been especially acute in the
Army. Last year, it missed its recruiting goals by 15,000 soldiers
— an entire division’s worth. That is a particularly ominous
development given the growing threats from China, Russia, Iran and North
Korea.
Military analysts point to numerous factors to account for the recruiting shortfall, the biggest being that the unemployment rate is at its lowest level since 1969. There is also widespread obesity and drug use among young people. Only 23 percent
of Americans are eligible to serve, and even fewer are interested in
serving. More than two decades after Sept. 11, 2001, and nearly two
years after the U.S. defeat in Afghanistan, war weariness has set in.
Perceived politicization is another issue: While many right-wingers view the armed forces as too “woke,” many progressive Gen Zers view them as too conservative. The Ronald Reagan Institute
found that the number of people expressing a great deal of trust and
confidence in the military declined from 70 percent in 2017 to 48
percent in 2022.
Those
poll numbers reflect a concern among many in the military that the AVF
has created a dangerous chasm between the few who serve and the vast
majority who don’t. The number of veterans in the population
declined from 18 percent in 1980 to about 7 percent in 2018 — and it
keeps falling, as the older generation of draftees dies off.
“The
AVF has led us to become the best trained, equipped and organized
fighting force in global history,” retired Adm. James Stavridis, a
former NATO commander, told me. “But we have drifted away from the
citizen-soldier model that was such a part of our nation’s history. The
AVF has helped to create an essentially professional cadre of warriors.
We need to work to ensure that our military remains fully connected to
the civilian world, and to educate civilians about the military.”
The
easiest way to bridge the civil-military divide would be to reinstate
the draft, but there is no support for such a radical step in either the
military or the country at large. David S.C. Chu,
a former undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, points
out that relying on draftees “creates morale and discipline problems”
and is “increasingly inconsistent with a highly technological approach
to warfare.” In most countries, conscripts serve only a year or two at
most — barely long enough to master complex weapons systems. That’s why
most nations, including Russia and China, have been relying more on
professional soldiers like the United States does.
Yet,
while we gained a more capable military with the advent of the AVF, we
have to recognize that we also lost something important when the draft
ended. Mass mobilization during World War II broke down religious,
regional and ethnic barriers and paved the way for postwar progress on
civil rights and an expansion of the federal government to address
problems such as poverty. In the post-draft era, America has become
increasingly polarized between “red” and “blue” communities.
That has led to renewed interest in expanding national service programs such as AmeriCorps; President Biden, for example, recently proposed creating a new Civilian Climate Corps.
Congress should support such initiatives, but we shouldn’t have
extravagant expectations for what they can accomplish. The young people
who sign up for voluntary service are so civic-minded already that they
are the ones in least need of what these programs teach.
To
make a real difference, national service would have to be obligatory.
Retired Gen. Charles C. Krulak, a former Marine commandant, told me he
favors requiring every high school graduate to put in two years of
community service out of state while living on current or former
military bases.
He
is undoubtedly right that such a program would produce young adults
“better prepared to become useful citizens.” But there is no national
emergency that would justify such a mobilization and no agreement on how
we could usefully employ 12 million people (the
number of Americans aged 18 to 20). Public employee unions would be
sure to object, the cost would be prohibitive, and many would try to
evade the service requirement. Obligatory national service is no more
likely, in today’s climate, than a renewal of military conscription.
The likelihood is that the AVF can overcome its current problems with some tweaks such as a new Army program for pre-basic training
to condition out-of-shape recruits. Presumably, once the unemployment
rate rises, the military’s recruitment woes will ease. Bridging the
fissures that divide our society will be much harder to achieve. I wish a
national-service mandate were practical and possible, but it’s not. We
will have to look elsewhere — for example, to expanded civics education — for solutions.
Vox | In an economic race with enormous winner-takes-all
stakes, a company is primarily thinking about whether to deploy their
system before a competitor. Slowing down for safety checks risks that
someone else will get there first. In geopolitical AI arms race
scenarios, the fear is that China will get to AI before the US and have
an incredibly powerful weapon — and that, in anticipation of that, the
US may push its own unready systems into widespread deployment.
Even if alignment is a very solvable problem, trying to
do complex technical work on incredibly powerful systems while everyone
is in a rush to beat a competitor is a recipe for failure.
Some actors working on artificial general intelligence,
or AGI, have planned significantly to avoid this dangerous trap: OpenAI,
for instance, has terms in its charter specifically aimed at preventing an AI race once systems are powerful enough:
“We are concerned about late-stage AGI development becoming a
competitive race without time for adequate safety precautions.
Therefore, if a value-aligned, safety-conscious project comes close to
building AGI before we do, we commit to stop competing with and start
assisting this project. We will work out specifics in case-by-case
agreements, but a typical triggering condition might be “a
better-than-even chance of success in the next two years.”
I am generally optimistic about human nature. No one actively wants
to deploy a system that will kill us all, so if we can get good enough
visibility into the problem of alignment, then it’ll be clear to
engineers why they need a solution. But eager declarations that the race
is on make me nervous.
Another great part of human nature is that we are often
incredibly competitive — and while that competition can lead to great
advancements, it can also lead to great destruction. It’s the Cold War
that drove the space race, but it was also WWII that drove the creation
of the atomic bomb. If winner-takes-all competition is the attitude we
bring to one of the most powerful technologies in human history, I don’t
think humanity is going to win out.
A Foundation of Joy
-
Two years and I've lost count of how many times my eye has been operated
on, either beating the fuck out of the tumor, or reattaching that slippery
eel ...
April Three
-
4/3
43
When 1 = A and 26 = Z
March = 43
What day?
4 to the power of 3 is 64
64th day is March 5
My birthday
March also has 5 letters.
4 x 3 = 12
...
Return of the Magi
-
Lately, the Holy Spirit is in the air. Emotional energy is swirling out of
the earth.I can feel it bubbling up, effervescing and evaporating around
us, s...
New Travels
-
Haven’t published on the Blog in quite a while. I at least part have been
immersed in the area of writing books. My focus is on Science Fiction an
Historic...
Covid-19 Preys Upon The Elderly And The Obese
-
sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
He ...
