Media irresponsibility strikes again

Just a quick note:

As some of you might be aware, there was some "rioting" in the streets of Montreal after the NHL team beat their rival in the first round of the playoffs, and several police cars were torched, with several more all but destroyed. All of the TV stations around sent teams (some stations had several teams assigned) to cover the events and take images.

The SPVM (Montreal police) has been asking people--through the media--for their images of the rioting so they can identify the culprits and, hopefully, arrest them. Today, the SPVM showed up at the TV stations to ask, without a warrant, to obtain the images of the rioting so they could be used to identify the rioters. The TV stations refused.

So the SPVM showed up with a warrant and took the images "by force."

Why not just release them? A lot of the images were shown--in a loop on some stations--so anyone could have tivo'd live TV. It's broadcast! The only difference is, I assume, that the stations' copies are slightly higher-quality and aren't partially blocked by computer graphics.

Still, it makes no sense that when the cops showed up to ask, not demand, the tapes, the stations refused. It's not like they were guilty of any wrongdoing!

Ah well, everyone knows the media will go as far as possible to hamper and question the lawful activity of the authorities (police, military, etc) without illegality.

Petraeus picked to lead Central Command

(Source: CNN.com)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has been tapped to become chief of U.S. Central Command, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.

Petraeus replaces Adm. William Fallon, who said last month he was resigning. Fallon said widespread, but false, reports that he was at odds with the Bush administration over Iran had made his job impossible.

Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno will take over for Petraeus as commander in Iraq, Gates said.

Petraeus was picked in January 2007 to replace Gen. George Casey as the chief commander in Iraq, and won Senate confirmation that same month. He previously served as head of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and as a commander in Iraq and was one of the main writers of an Army manual on counterinsurgency efforts.

When your rack of medals look like a Soviet General's, you know you kick serious bootay.

The vanquishing of finals.

Well, exams and essays and everything naughty is over with.

I can now take a full week off. I'm headed home in a few hours, staying until Thursday or Friday, and spending next weekend in Toronto attending the fantabulistic Frankie Manning workshop. It should be most awesome. (If you don't know who Frankie Manning is, shame on you! That being said, look him up.)

It'll definitely be good to not only be able to sleep as much as I need to (several weeks of mild-to-severe sleep deprivation have made me... different) but to be home, away from all the craziness that grips RMC this time of year.

Anyway, I have yet to pack all my stuff, so it would probably be a good idea to get off the intertubes, yes?

I'll post some more tonight or tomorrow.

Anti-sealing vessel seized by Coast Guard

Source: CBC

Fisheries officers seized a ship used in a protest against the seal hunt off the west coast of Newfoundland on Saturday to have its captain and first officer arrested

Watson said he was on the phone to one of the crew members of the Farley Mowat as officers took command of the vessel. He said they were "screaming at people to lie down on the deck.

"They stormed the vessel. They forced everyone down on to the deck at gunpoint. I could hear the yelling in the background, and then the phone went dead. It's obvious that they seized the vessel, and they did so illegally.

"The Dutch-registered Farley Mowat never entered Canadian waters," Watson maintained. "It was always in international waters, and it’s technically an act of war to board a vessel outside the 12-mile [19 kilometres] limit without the permission of the captain."

However, Hearn said the Farley Mowat was within Canadian territorial waters.

"Canada was well within its rights to board the ship and prevent future harm to sealers, fisheries officer and permanent observers," he said. "We did the right thing."

BZ to the Coast Guard and the ERT guys for doing their job right and reaffirming that our waters are ours and that anyone not following our laws will have to pay the price.

On a "legal" note: in one of my courses (that dealt with international law) I studied the case of the ACHILLE LAURO, which, though the situation was different, highlighted the possibility of a ship that had conducted illegal activities in one country's jurisdiction being pursued outside that jurisdiction (and into international waters) for prosecution. Even if FARLEY MOWAT was outside the 12NM zone, it had been violating Canadian law and, quite possibly (from reading other, non-CBC articles) generally endangering other vessels in contradiction to the International Regulations for Avoiding Collisions at Sea (COLREGS). Either way, it was performing illegal activities and, as such, police action was required and justified.

As far as the comments of it being an act of war... wouldn't endangering vessels in another country's territorial waters be an act of war, too? Hmmmm, I bet someone didn't think of that one!

MARS III: AAAAAAARGH!

Well, this summer is going to be something else.

I got a little heads-up today of what to expect from MARS III (which has a 30% failure rate)... and it's going to be brutal. Academic phase should be fairly decent--7 weeks of classes and self-study, with some free time--but the sea phase will be insane... do three shifts a day (FixO, NavO, OOW), plus chart work, plus other random stuff, then pull into port (or just anchor somewhere) and do chartwork until the week hours. Fun. And then there'll be the simulator phase which culminate with assessed runs. Kinda like sea phase, but not as bad.

There's a lot of stuff I'll have to learn, and a lot of things to just get used to (not the least being the uber-stress of bridgework, or so I'm told). I did love that little bit of 2/3OOW work we did on NETPO, but I have no illusions as to how much it's like the real thing.

Long-term, I'm WAY more scared of the basic submarine officer course, because even us MARS types have to know all the engineering stuff, on top of being top-notch at EVERYTHING. Still, I keep being told that if MARS is what you actually want to do, it's a breeze (relatively speaking) to pass MARS III/IV and that the submarine stuff isn't all that hard after you've passed the Lt(N) boards.

I guess I'll just have to take it one day at a time... starting with the rest of this semester.