On a recent overseas flight I sat next to a guy who works as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. After creating and selling off a few successful internet companies he turned his efforts to investing in internet startups. He essentially now decides what the future...
As the Department of Defense faces looming budget cuts, the various branches of the military must be scrambling to assure the administration as to the efficacy of their various programs. The service provided during war time it is clear and higher military spending is easily...
If you are looking for some licentious and lascivious reading relating to shipping, look no further than the Paris MOU list of vessel registry rankings. The greatest obscenity of the rankings is the United States demotion from the white list to the gray list. At...
I had the privilege recently to visit the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England and see firsthand not only the demarcation of 0° longitude, known as the Prime Meridian or the Greenwich Meridian, but also John Harrison’ s revolutionary timepieces. This visit is a rite of...
If you peruse news outlets and the internet you may notice a growing number of articles and blog posts denouncing the Jones Act, concluding that it causes high gasoline prices. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) even recently introduced legislative amendments that would repeal the Jones Act...
The annual Great Lakes Waterways Conference, themed, “Recovery, Renewal & Reinvestment 2012,” was held during the last week of February in Cleveland, Ohio. Various industry experts from both Canada and the United States attended and participated in roundtable discussions on the current state of Great...
One of my first shipping assignments out of school was aboard a break bulk cargo vessel bound for Thule, Greenland. The neat thing about that run are the massive icebergs as you get closer to the Arctic Circle. But the bergs can also be the...
Has the concept of fatigue simply become a buzzword for criminalized mariners when they are forced to defend themselves against punitive Coast Guard investigations? Or is the idea of fatigue legitimate? In this modern age and with all the studies that have been conducted on...
Cynicism runs rampant through our federal government. It is contagious and spreads to those who have any regular interaction with government employees and personnel. It is almost a form of communication unto itself, a learned vernacular of the trade. Taking into account the cynical state...
