The BBC reported that Nato takes over Libya no-fly zone

[NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh] Rasmussen said all Nato members had agreed to the move, including Turkey, which had expressed doubts over strikes on a fellow Muslim country.

“The fact is that in Nato we take all decisions by consensus and the decision we are taking today to enforce a no fly zone is also taken by a consensus which means that all 28 allies support that decision,” he told the BBC.
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The US initially agreed to lead enforcement of the UN resolution, but made clear it wanted only a limited role and would hand over responsibility as soon as possible.

The US will supply support functions, but those will be limited. The 17^th Air Force is a tanker/transport outfit. The 6^th Fleet is the USS Mount Whitney, a command and control vessel, and a destroyer squadron. The combat stuff is returning to normal duties. The only deployment is the USS Bataan, a landing assault ship, which has an outstanding record of providing humanitarian assistance after Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti. They were already scheduled to make a cruise in the Med and left a little early from Virginia.

Most of the cost will come out of the training budget, and this will probably be logged as a joint NATO exercise. The US runs joint exercises all the time, and they are already budgeted for, so we will skip the next one. As the normal exercises involve larger forces and usually an aircraft carrier, we probably came out money in pocket on this one.

Update: the new commander of the operation is Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard of the Canadian Defense Forces.

The CBC reports that Government’s defeat sets up election call

The opposition Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois came together Friday afternoon in a historic vote to say they no longer have confidence in the Conservative government.
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Only five other non-confidence votes have happened in Canada’s history, according to information on the Library of Parliament website. This is the first time it has occurred because a majority of MPs voted that they believed the government was in contempt of Parliament.

The opposition parties brought down the Harper government on their terms, not on the budget, so they scored some points there, but it was obvious that they were united only in this vote, as they began politicking for their individual parties as soon as Parliament had adjourned.

Because Canada is sane and reasonable about elections, it will probably occur during the first or second week of May, with a minimum of messing about and TV commercials.

Japan investigation into nuclear plant radiation leak

An investigation is under way in Japan to establish the source of a radiation leak at the quake-hit nuclear plant, which left two workers in hospital.

The plant’s operator says dangerously high radiation levels recorded in water at one reactor raise the possibility its core has been damaged.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the situation was “very unpredictable”.

If you look at the Wikipedia article on pressurized water reactors they have a nice graphic showing how the system is supposed to work.

In a bit of unintended irony, the third item under “Advantages” of this design explains what is happening. These are wonderfully safe and stable systems, as long as the coolant pumps work. If the pumps don’t work, well, you have nuked yourself.

Slumming

Nom, nom, nom …

[Editor: Since the weather turned nice, Ringo spends almost no time inside, even to eat, so she depends on the fare at the feral feeding stations. What looks like saw dust is actually the dropped dry flowers of the camphor tree. Everything gets covered with the flowers and the yellow pollen. It is an improvement over what happens to the tree’s purple berries after being processed by hordes of robins.]

Friday Ark