Jabber The Whut? - 3

In this series we are discussing the overactive amygdala of MOMCOM, which appears radically different from the outer appearance of the surface of MOMCOM.

The previous post was Jabber The Whut? - 2 which discussed how the lizard brain can cause behavior that seems to be a strange form of "cannibalism", self-defeating actions of other sorts, and in general behavior not in accord with the rest of the brain activity which one would expect from an intelligent source.

The thrust of the argument is that nations can behave like individuals, since nations are composed of individuals, and that behavior can be affected by the inner lizard brain as well as the larger cognitive portion of the brain.

Here are figures, sorted by dollar value, of m/p (military expenditures / divided by population).

That formula derives the general equivalent amount each citizen spends each year on the military (in several nations):

US ($661,000,000,000 / 330,000,000): $2,003
France ($63,900,000,000 / 65,400,000): $977
England ($58,300,000,000 / 61,800,000): $943
Germany ($45,700,000,000 / 81,500,000): $561
Japan ($51,000,000,000 / 127,400,000): $400
Russia ($53,300,000,000 / 141,900,000): $376
China ($100,000,000,000 / 1,341,000,000): $75

One must sum the amounts of military expenditures for about 14 other nations, to exceed the sum of known USA military expenditures, as shown by the following list in $US:

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1-US: $663,255,000,000

2-China: $98,800,000,000

3-England: $69,271,000,000

4-France: $67,316,000,000

5-Russia: $61,000,000,000

6-Germany: $48,022,000,000

7-Japan: $46,859,000,000

8-S.Arabia: $39,257,000,000

9-Italy: $37,427,000,000

10-India: $36,600,000,000

11-S.Korea: $27,130,000,000

12-Brazil: $27,124,000,000

13-Canada: $20,564,000,000

14-Australia: $20,109,000,000

15-Spain: $19,409,000,000

These numbers were compiled from Wikipedia here and here.

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These numbers are not completely comprehensive, in terms of the total the USA spends for all military efforts, at least in terms of the Dredd Blog definition of "the military": "the vast enterprise necessary to carry out militant events, from intimidation and unwelcome antagonistic intervention in the affairs of foreign nations, to outright war against them, as well as similar events domestically".

When the 25% loss factor ($661bn x .25 = $165bn) is added, the military spy system is added, and other factors are added, that somehow don't make it into the budget, it gets larger.

The list does, however, show that the lizard brain of MOMCOM is clearly overriding the intelligent, sensible, and cognitive portions of the nation's brain.

Notice that the USA spends 6.7 times more than the next largest nation, China, which has 4.1 times more people than the USA.

A lengthy discussion of the military endeavors of MOMCOM has been put together by Prof. Jules Dufour of Global Research, and another good source is SIPRI.

The bottom line is that it depends on what is included to derive the figures, so the Dredd Blog statement that the USA spends more on "the military" than the rest of the nations combined is not always accurate because that is not the way the amounts are always figured, or how "the military" is always defined.

For example, the cost of oil barons overthrowing governments around the world where oil is to be found is not considered a "military" operation, yet it is militant (they use armies in uniform and out of uniform) and is criminal as a matter of law.

Suffice it to say, the point of the overriding lizard brain of MOMCOM (discussed more in the next episode), which drives imperialist conquest, has been demonstrated IMO.

Open Thread

Gopher it ...

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Truthiness in the Truthosphere ...

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Cost of War website has some interesting embeds and links to government sources to back it up ...

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Jabber The Whut? - 2

In the first post of this series, we set the stage for a series of posts designed to use some metaphor to explain our concern about a great danger to our nation.

That danger is the use of power to redistribute wealth from the 99% middle class and poor into the coffers of the 1% wealthy.

Even though we see the danger clearly, it is a danger that is being glossed over by those who Jabber The Whut?, i.e. the main stream media.

The subtitle to this series is "The Ascent of The Reptilian / Lizard Brain".

At times the amygdala portion of our brain takes over our conscious deliberative portion, causing us to work against our own interests, which is what has happened on a broad scale in government / big business.

Each election cycle I constantly hear folks wonder out loud "how can voters vote against their own interests?"

That wonderment was very common when Bush II was elected, as it is now.

After nearly a decade of neoCon government we experience rough times for the middle class and poor, but boom times for those benefiting from war profiteering and the resultant sky rocketing of oil prices.

The "lizard brain" of the 1%, who have the great bulk of the money, has taken over, but they may be destroying the source of their long term sustenance.

A Dredd Blog blogger, who is knowledgeable in the realm of economics, commented yesterday:

Someone better tell them that parasites don't usually fare so well when they kill off their hosts, and Uncle Sugar's on life support and failing fast as we speak.

(Comment by Disaffected). It is a good point and is virtually akin to the issue of a dementia called "Kuru":

Kuru is an extremely rare form of dementia found in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. It is very like new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) , better known as mad cow disease, and BSE in cattle. Kuru, restricted to a small highland area of the island, affected a tribe called the Fore (pronounced for-ay). Kuru was the first transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (prion disease) discovered in humans.

Kuru devastated people of the Fore tribe in the mid 20th Century. It was caught during funeral rites of their dead when the body was ritually cooked and eaten. The cannibalistic ritual of primarily women and children, involved eating the brain of the dead to show respect in mourning. It was banned in the late 1950s by the New Guinea government and the practice ceased when it was found to cause kuru.

(Kuru, emphasis added). The only difference is that MOMCOM seems incapable of kicking the habit of the cannibalism of the middle class and poor, so the beat goes on.

In the next episode we get into the numbers to show the percentages that nations spend on war, weapons of mass destruction, armies, and support for the same.

The previous post in this series is here.

Is The Internet In Danger?

We hear a lot of stories about a "net neutrality" along with a lot of stories that governments are out to get "the tubes", the blogosphere, and the internet.

Clearly some regimes, that do not have the propaganda power to withstand internet truth, do lash out at their citizens who use the internet to inform others about what that despotic regime is doing.

We here at Dredd Blog consider the internet to be a part of the larger Twinkie system, and we consider the media to be the Jabber The Whut? portion of MOMCOM.

But what Dredd Blog is talking about in this post is a technical danger to the ongoing operation of the internet:

The internet could face years of instability as it moves to a new addressing system, one of the network's original architects has warned.

Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet, spoke as the UK was urged to begin using the new addressing system.

With current addresses due to run out in 2012, nations and businesses must get on with switching, said Mr Cerf.

During the switch internet links could become unreliable, making sites and services hard to reach, Mr Cerf said.

"This has to happen or the internet will stop growing or will not be growable," he said of the move to the addressing system.

(BBC News). Like climate change, peak oil, and other problems, government and corporate operatives can't look ahead because they do not have vision.

It is a myopia induced by an addiction to immediacy.

C'mon dudes and duddettes of the corporatocracy, lets Cerf the internet!

Jabber The Whut?

We now begin the new series Jabber The Whut?, or "The Ascent of The Reptilian / Lizard Brain".

With this post we begin a new series built upon the foundation of past series, yet a bit more focused on more imminent and specific dangers facing we the people.

Dredd Blog did some posts (some time back) which contained the statement that the U.S.A. spends more on "the military" than the other nations combined, and we have probably repeated it once or twice since then.

The definition of "the military", in this context, is "the vast enterprise necessary to carry out militant events, anywhere from intimidation to unwelcome antagonistic intervention in the affairs of foreign nations, then, all the way to outright war against them (including similar events within the home nation that supports such policies)."

I have made that statement in comments on major blogs around the blogosphere, where it has been challenged recently.

First, recall that Dredd Blog uses the metaphor "MOMCOM" to encapsulate the growing essence of that militant energy and its influence on domestic, as well as foreign, relations.

The acronym "MOMCOM" derives from the evolution of what President Dwight Eisenhower once called "the military industrial complex".

The age of outsourcing has devastated the industrial portion of that complex, such that the substance of what remains of it is now called the "rust belt".

So we have replaced that with "oil" and the "media", to produce Military Oil Media Complex, hence MOMCOM.

The visible persona of MOMCOM has been depicted by Dredd Blog as a beautiful, intelligent, witty, and entirely competent creature (think of how the 1% with the power and money think of themselves) who takes care of the citizenry with an attitude that the citizenry is a cute, helpless, and hapless primate (think of the 99% middle class and poor, and how the 1% think of them).

No one should doubt for a second the great influence and power big oil and big media have on domestic, as well as foreign relations via use of imperialism.

This is shown in part by the series A Closer Look At MOMCOM's DNA, which recalls that we are never out of touch with or out of the reach of MOMCOM, because MOMCOM is in and around us at all times.

We now go deeper into the psyche of MOMCOM in this first post of the new series, using Jabba The Hutt, to represent the interior persona of MOMCOM, because the "Reptilian / Lizard Brain" is just as real as the outside persona.

The subtitle to this series, "The Assent of The Reptilian / Lizard Brain", reveals our intent to dig deep into the prevalent ideology of MOMCOM, and where it really comes from, seeing as how we have already shown some of the fundamental external components and fundamental external commodities of the MOMCOM realm.

Those we touched upon in "A Closer Look At MOMCOM's DNA", since we were then talking about petroleum contents in Twinkies, ending that with a link to a chef talking about "My Lizard Brain".

Whew!

In closing this introduction, and to take it to the final step, so we don't have to deal metaphorically with who MOMCOM mates with, we consider a new discovery:

Researchers have identified a previously undocumented species of all-female lizard in the Mekong River delta that can reproduce itself by cloning, and the story of how it was discovered is almost as exotic as the animal itself.

(CNN, emphasis added). Please females, do not consider this to be anti-female so that I don't have to consider fight or flight with my lizard brain, instead, just rejoice in Dollo's Law that we can't go there now.

Lets go, instead, to the next episode.

On The Definition of An "Expert"

As to jury trials in the courts, my definition of an expert has always been "one who is paid more than an average person to give an opinion".

The reason for that definition can be seen during jury trials when typically one expert will give an opinion for the plaintiff or prosecution, yet another expert will give an opposite opinion for the defendant.

Both are experts, and they are using the same evidence.

But our false notion that if we call an expert to help us with a problem we will derive one and only one concluding reality, thereby invalidating the rest of the possibilities, is more often than not caused by a love affair with oversimplification.

Of course there is also the spectre of perjury or lesser forms of dishonesty, and even incompetence.

But the point is that this contrast or contradiction can arise even when both experts are honest and have a sincere belief in their opinion.

Thus the oft quoted statement by experts as to their own opinion: "get a second opinion", means "I think others will agree with what I just told you".

But when there is contrast or contradiction in expert positions, in our system of law a jury must decide which expert is correct on the facts, not because we think non-experts know more than experts know, but because of our ancient, well founded beliefs, based upon the experience of our ancestors, that "power corrupts".

Daily we are a jury when we hear conflicting reports from experts about global warming, global climate change, and the peak oil concerns.

There is constant chatter and bickering back and forth about these issues, and experts are by no means in solid accord when it comes to solutions, even though there is major, growing consensus among experts as to these two realities.

As an example a discussion ongoing at a blog which discusses peak oil problems from many perspectives, considers the weaknesses and strengths of other experts in the field:

Can the IEA really be expected to be objective? I tried to look at this issue two years ago, when the World Energy Outlook 2008 was released. The organization of the IEA, its close ties to the OECD, and the significant funding of the IEA by the US gave me real doubts about its ability to be objective at the time of my analysis. I doubt the situation has changed a great deal in the last two years.

(The Oil Drum). Meanwhile another group of experts came at the problem from a totally different part of the playing field:

At the current pace of research and development, global oil will run out 90 years before replacement technologies are ready, says a new University of California, Davis, study based on stock market expectations.

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Niemeier said the new study's findings are a warning that current renewable-fuel targets are not ambitious enough to prevent harm to society, economic development and natural ecosystems.

(Science Daily, Journal Article). This issue matters to all of us because our lives and the lives of 6 billion other people will be affected by the eventual outcome of the discussion or debate.

It is a life and death issue, your jury vote counts, so take time to make the best decision you can with what you have to make that decision.

The Keystone Complex To The Rescue - 5

A mysto missile fired close to Los Angeles, where millions of people were within range to see it, caused no elevation of alarm.

At least no official worry from the government "Department of Homeless Land Insecurity" (a.k.a. The Keystone Complex) that evidently considers a missile firing near a large population unworthy of serious mention.

But take the case where a kid does a drawing of a teacher, with ominous lead marks in the works, now that is a case where we really, really need to "touch the sign" and put up terrorist danger warnings.

The "Department of Homeless Land Insecurity" is an enigma wrapped up in a mystery, in other words, an earmark heaven.

Well, at least compared to what some in the know had to say about the mysto missile launch:

A mysterious missile launch off the southern California coast was caught by CBS affiliate KCBS's cameras Monday night, and officials are staying tight-lipped over the nature of the projectile.

KFMB showed video of the apparent missile to former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Robert Ellsworth, who is also a former Deputy Secretary of Defense, to get his thoughts.

"It's spectacular … It takes people's breath away," said Ellsworth, calling the projectile, "a big missile".

(Mystery Missile Launch). I imagine that if Al Qaeda or Al Gore had claimed responsibility, The Keystone Complex would have said "Our strong defenses repelled the missile, sent it far out to sea where it destroyed Osama bin Laden, and where it is no longer a threat to the American people".

Yeah, that's the ticket, move on, nothing to see here folks, we have big things to worry about ... where is Ted Kennedy anyway, he is on our "no-fly list" you know.

Expect the Department of Homeless Land Insecurity to become great and strong if the new Republican House has its way with our money.

The costs of The Department of Homeland Security have been over the top since day one, causing among other things, the Colorado Democratic Party to put a plank in their platform to call for a new grand-jury based investigation into the cause of 9/11:

Whereas many disturbing facts were consciously ignored by the 9/11 Commission; Be it resolved, therefore, that the CDP calls for the establishment of a truly independent Grand Jury and public investigation into these and other anomalies in order to find the truth of the September 11, 2001 attacks, so that we have a greater probability of preventing attacks of this nature in the future. [Eagle 16/3]

(9/11 Conspiracy Theorists Take A Hit). As many cases show, the DHS is a pork barrel earmark storm of waste and inefficiency selling fear as their main product.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post is here.

The Rehabilitation of High Priest Bush II

"Like, if you want my bro for preznit ..."

The warster corporation GE, which owns "the MSNBC Brand", has an oft repeated saying "lean forward".

This newby is an extrapolation of the term "going forward" or "looking forward", used often by the Obama regime.

This bumper sticker / sound bite has a specific purpose besides the obvious implication that accountability is "looking backwards".

That further purpose of this sound bite is to induce you to believe that all the bad stuff is behind us, but all the good stuff is before us.

The release of Bush II's book and his interview by Matt Lauer is part of the propaganda campaign to rehabilitate Bush II along with the neoCon warmongers who compose MOMCOM.

Some of you will remember that Dredd Blog saw this coming a while back:

Can you say "what Iraq war"?

The whole war episode may be played out after the fact as something that heroically saved the nation from a catastrophe caused by peak oil.

Especially "since all that pie in the sky lefty Al Gore green energy is a thousand years in the future".

The billboard sign of Bush II in Texas asking "Do you miss me yet" will take on a new meaning, and he may be seen as a hero who had the vision to save the nation.

(Iraq: World's Number One Oil Producer?). Jeb Bush can't run for president unless and until his Big Brother Bush II is seen in a better light.

MOMCOM is going to try to wash the brains of the people, yes, scrub them so hard that her favorite bushie will be loved by all once again.

Don't misunderestimate High Priest Bush II, or misunderinvestigate this seemingly impossible propaganda task, because they are deceit on steroids.

The next post in this series is here.

Will Rand Paul Stick To His Guns?

Dredd Blog has been pointing out the national Alzheimer's illness our economy suffers from, in the sense we don't realize that military & war spending is a prime factor in our current economic demise.

Not only that, it is a prime conduit the powerful wealthy use to redistribute the wealth away from the middle class and poor, who need it, to the wealthy 1-2% who don't need it.

A Dredd Blog post "The Graphs of Wrath" touches upon the issue, and has several links to other Dredd Blog posts that focus on this issue of the current runaway military deficit spending.

Senator-elect Rand Paul is of the opinion, as is his Father Ron Paul in the House, that these wildly excessive military expenditure binges are problematic:

Government spending is sure to be one of the biggest targets now that Republicans have won back the House, but there have been few details on exactly what programs will see their budgets slashed.

Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-KY) probably surprised some Republicans Sunday when he said he would be willing to cut military spending.

"Yes, yes," Paul responded when asked if he would vote for defense cuts. In doing so, he highlighted the libertarian streak among some of the candidates propelled to office by the tea party movement. Like his father, Ron Paul, Rand Paul is considered to be at the libertarian end of the GOP's political spectrum, and libertarians have long been calling for a scaling back of US military ambitions.

In that respect, the new Congress could see some infighting among traditional Republican war-hawks and those seeking to do battle with the deficit.

"You need ... compromise on where the spending cuts come from," Paul told ABC's Christiane Amanpour. "Republicans traditionally say, oh, we'll cut domestic spending, but we won't touch the military. The liberals -- the ones who are good -- will say, oh, we'll cut the military, but we won't cut domestic spending."

(Raw Story, emphasis added). We recently discussed, in the series "Mystery of Compromise vs. Capitulation", the actual meaning of "compromise", predicting that the media lackeys of MOMCOM will pervert the actual meaning during this upcoming debate on excessive military spending.

The Dredd Blog post "Your Health Is Their Number 1 Enemy?!" points out that some intellectual warmongers think that the single greatest enemy to the military is American health insurance.

The MOMCOM media will attempt to drown out voices like Ron & Rand Paul, who understand we are in serious danger economically from a MOMCOM gone very wild.

Mystery of Compromise vs. Capitulation - 2

In the first post of this series we focused on the media's false framing of issues.

In this post we will show an example of a true compromise, which is not a capitulation.

The issue is whether or not to allow tax cuts for the rich (which the Republican led congress of the Bush II years passed) expire and fade away.

The Republicans themselves allowed the law to include a "sunset provision" whereby those tax bonuses would cease to be law in December of this year, 2010.

Now, while talking about federal deficits out of one side of their mouths, Republicans want to extend the tax cuts for those upper 2% out of the other side of their mouths, but Obama has taken a stand:

First, the President underscored that middle-class families need permanent tax relief, so Congress should permanently extend tax cuts for all families making less than $250,000 a year – 98 percent of the American people. And second, he noted that, with the nation’s challenging fiscal situation, the country simply cannot afford to borrow another $700 billion on permanent tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.

(White House). That borrowed money ($700,000,000,000) would come from China then go to the upper 2% wealthy who do not need it, then, the taxpayers would pay it back to China on behalf of the rich upper 2%, with interest.

Not a good deal, it would be a capitulation to bad economic policy, as well as being contradictory to decreasing the federal budget deficit.

The compromise is to extend the cuts to Americans who make less than $250,000 annually, which is 98% of the populace, but not to the upper 2%.

Like Kristof said in the NY Times today, we are already a banana republic, so we need to lose the imbalance.

Stopping and changing direction by letting the bizarre tax cuts for the plutocracy cease is the way it should be done.

9/11 Conspiracy Theorists Take A Hit - 7

Dredd Blog has distanced itself from the MSM (main stream media) on the issue of whether or not we should fear to question the official 9/11 Commission Report.

Dredd Blog does not fear any search for the truth, so here you will find posts that set forth and discuss the questions about the official story, but we do not set forth the answer, since we don't have "the answers" to fundamental questions that still linger.

Since we do not know we do not conclude, but likewise since we do not know, we continue to explore in an effort to get closer to the full / true knowledge of 9/11.

In the series 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists Take A Hit, State Crimes Against Democracy, and The Empire Strikes Back, we examine certain questions that are raised, but if you do a blog search using the 9/11 keyword you will see the full panoply of various aspects of our coverage in many different posts that are not in the series mentioned.

Noam Chomsky has been a die hard supporter of the official conspiracy theory advanced by the neoCon administration of Bush II, in the sense he always publicly rejected "the 9/11 Truth" movement.

Now he appears to have changed direction in one sense, saying there is no proof Al Qaeda did 9/11, and he is through waiting for the evidence the bushies promised but did not deliver:

"The explicit and declared motive of the [Afghanistan] war was to compel the Taliban to turn over to the United States, the people who they accused of having been involved in World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist acts. The Taliban … they requested evidence … and the Bush administration refused to provide any," the 81-year-old senior academic made the remarks on Press TV's program a Simple Question.

"We later discovered one of the reasons why they did not bring evidence: they did not have any."

...

"All of this was totally illegal. It was more, criminal," Chomsky said.

(Press TV). The official story is that Al Qaeda cavemen took control of 4 airliners using only box cutters, then flew the aircraft better than actual pilots who fly those planes professionally every day could have flown them, to bring down three ironclad towers, damage the Pentagon fortress, and then finally destroy the fourth plane in a suicide dive.

More than that, the official story said those cavemen were operating from Afghanistan where they were protected by the Taliban who governed Afghanistan at that time.

Keep searching for the truth, because we have not heard the core truth if Noam Chomsky is correct.

UPDATE (11/10/10): The Democratic Party of Colorado has stepped up to be the first to add to their platform a plank that calls for a new 9/11 Investigation:

Whereas many disturbing facts were consciously ignored by the 9/11 Commission; Be it resolved, therefore, that the CDP calls for the establishment of a truly independent Grand Jury and public investigation into these and other anomalies in order to find the truth of the September 11, 2001 attacks, so that we have a greater probability of preventing attacks of this nature in the future. [Eagle 16/3]

(2010 Platform, PDF). One can't say the Colorado Democrats are spineless.