Clash of the Titans of Export - 3

"What economic problems?"

In this series we have been talking about American decline in the sense of international economics.

The photo of the book to the left is a propaganda attempt to cover-up the activities of the plutocracy that is plundering America which Dredd Blog has been discussing in several related series (cf. e.g. A Decline Of The American Republic - 3, Phase Five Of The Currency Wars? - 3, and She's Come Undone).

This is not a partisan political issue at its core, rather it is the result of the evaporation of American thinking of the type that is good for all Americans, and replacing it with the wounds that greed brings to a nation once it gets a foothold (see The Common Good series).

The fundamental problem in American thinking is the dementia of exceptionalism, which is the game kids play when they play pretend, but which game adults should lose when they step into the adult world (Exceptionalism In A Nutshell).

In the first post of this series we pointed out some indicators:

I pointed out a while back that just one state of The United States of Europe was a larger exporter than the U.S. or China.

Also I pointed out that the pacific was the place to watch in terms of economic power.

There is a report today which indicates that China overtook Germany as the number one exporter, but, lest the record become too contorted, let us not forget that The United States of Europe is composed of 26 nations; Germany being only one of them.

Nevertheless, this shows that Europe was hurt more by the U.S. financial debacle than China was. Nevertheless, the story here today for us is that the U.S. remains third.

(Clash of the Titans of Export). The U.S.eh? dropped to third place in exports, but still maintained first place in total trade at that time.

The dementia of exceptionalism puts us to sleep as the rest of the world scene moves forward in reality, and thus, now we are no longer first in overall trade:

China became the world's largest trading nation in 2013, overtaking the US in what Beijing described as "a landmark milestone" for the country.

China's annual trade in goods passed the $4tn (£2.4tn) mark for the first time last year according to official data, after exports from the world's second largest economy rose 7.9% to $2.21tn and imports rose 7.3% to $1.95tn.

As a result total trade rose 7.6% over the year to $4.16tn. The US is yet to publish its 2013 trade figures, but with trade totalling $3.5tn in the first 11 months of the year, it is unlikely to beat China.

The shift in the trading pecking order reflected China's rising global dominance, despite a slowdown in economic growth last year.

(Guardian, "China Surpasses US"). This is happening as the U.S.eh? suffers from its own self-induced American Feudalism, one of the self-induced punishments for worshiping war religiously (American Feudalism - 6, The Virgin MOMCOM - 8).

The previous post in this series is here.

Dredd Blog's Fifth Anniversary

Don't Taser me Dawg

Wow that was fast.

Thanks to all the readers of Dredd Blog who have made it another interesting year.

Hope you found something here that helped you in some way, made your day once in awhile, and challenged you always.

If not, there is always a chance it will happen in 2014 because the sad, the funny, the profane, the criminal, the wrong, the good, and the next are all happening. Everything is happening so it is difficult sometimes to catch what will help or inform most.

Regular readers know that two other blogs, Toxins of Power and Ecocosmology, have been initiated in the Dredd Blog System to add more variety to your reading experience.

The look of the blog has changed over the years in order to help you find a subject you are interested in (tabs at top, other information on the side of every page).

ACLU vs. Clapper, Alexander, Hagel, Holder, and Mueller - 9

NSA has "Balls Disease"

The case is going to the appellate courts now, so in the mean time let's take a look at what the world is saying about the military NSA.

You know, the military outfit that is spying on Americans, and on most other countries around the world.

Der Spiegel of Germany has published military NSA information that points out that the military NSA is dangerously bad to the bone (Inside TAO, NSA Spy Catalog).

For example they have technology that can and does monitor conversations taking place inside a room without any wiring or "bug" devices inside the room.

They do it with an energy beam (Equipment Info, cf. NSA Spy Catalog link above @ "Room Surveillance" red dot).

Here are more random links (maybe some repetition) to Der Spiegel pages about NSA spying capabilities:

Top NSA Hacking Unit ... Targeting Mexico ... NSA's Shadow Network ... Spy Gadgets for Every Need ... NSA Toolbox ... Tasking Techniques for the R&T Analyst ... QUANTUMTHEORY and related QUANTUM programs ... Details about the Man-On-The-Side with QUANTUM ... capabilities list ... GCHQ QUANTUMTHEORY capabilities list ... OLYMPUSFIRE ... An example of a vulnerable Apple user is shown ... 

See Wikipedia, Der Speigel for more information on Germany's "The Mirror" newspaper.

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

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A comment concerning the following video:

You must watch this talk, even if some parts are a bit technical for mere mortals. No matter how bad you think the NSA’s information surveillance and capture is, I can just about guarantee that this will show you that it’s an order of magnitude worse than you imagined.

(Transcript of Video). Here is the aforementioned video presentation by Jacob Appelbaum about your computer's vulnerability, and the military NSA's use of those vulnerabilities to spy on you:

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Whistleblowers According To The Early Americans - 2

The Founders Loved Whistleblowers

In this series, and others, we have been contemplating why good government eventually turns into bad government.

This viewpoint is engendered by our founders who informed us: “Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” – Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson was telling us that "those entrusted with power", e.g. politicians, military NSA officials, and other government officials,  would slowly but surely convert good government into bad government.

The Dredd Blog System has developed one blog to specifically focus on that issue and the source of the corrupting influence that power has on people (About Toxins Of Power).

Some of the forefathers, way before the germ theory of physical disease became a fundamental medical understanding, had a germ theory of government:

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

(The Germ Theory - of Government - 6). There was also, in the minds of early Americans, the notion of "nip it in the bud" concerning officials of government going bad:

On July 30, 1778, the Continental Congress created the first whistleblower protection law, stating “that it is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States to give the earliest information to Congress or other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds, or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these states.”

(Whistleblowers According To The Early Americans, cf. legislation of July 30, 1778, reprinted in Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, ed. Government Printing Office (Washington, D.C., 1908), 11:732). We know that founding spirit is alive in patriotic Americans today too.

Especially when we remember or read about Ellsberg, Snowden, Drake, Benning, Tice, Kroft, or Manning for examples (ACLU vs. Clapper).

But there were five patriots in 1971 who are less well known, even though they did a great service to the nation:

More than 40 years ago, on the evening of March 8, 1971, a group of burglars carried out an audacious plan. They pried open the door of an FBI office in

The Golden Whistle

Pennsylvania and stole files about the bureau's surveillance of anti-war groups and civil rights organizations.

Hundreds of agents tried to identify the culprits, but the crime went unsolved. Until now.

For the first time, a new book reveals that the burglars were peace demonstrators who wanted to start a debate about the FBI's unchecked power to spy on Americans. And it's coming out at a time when the country is weighing the merits of surveillance all over again.

(NPR, "The Secret Burglary That Exposed J. Edgar Hoover's FBI"). That is a story about John Raines, Bonnie Raines, Keith Forsyth, and two others.

Government festers rather than healing itself, and the murderous, traitorous, criminal gangrene continues to get worse and worse, until it breaks out in full tyranny against the citizens of the nation.

Some in government, like antibodies that work against an infection, try to deal with the issue:

Washington, D.C. July 31, 2013. By a unanimous resolution the U.S. Senate declared July 30, 2013 as "National Whistleblower Appreciation Day." The National Whistleblowers Center strongly supports the Senate's historic action and calls on every American reflect upon the tremendous contributions whistleblowers have made to American democracy, as well as the struggles and sacrifices they have endured.

(Senate Establishes "National Whistleblower Appreciation Day"). But unless we have whistleblowers and appreciation for them, then we are animating the personality of organized crime:

A mafia informant who disappeared nearly a year ago was tortured and her body dissolved in acid by her former partner and other family members angry that she had cooperated with authorities, Italian police said Monday.

The woman, 35-year old Lea Garofalo, was forced onto a truck carrying 50 liters of acid, interrogated by her abductors and later killed in a field near Milan in the night between November 24 and November 25, 2009, investigators told reporters.

Four people were arrested and another two, including Garofalo's former partner, Carlo Cosco, were served arrest warrants while already in jail.

Investigators said Cosco, who fathered Garofalo's daughter, was behind the murder and that this was meant as revenge for the woman having provided information to anti-mafia prosecutors between 2002 and 2009.

(Reuters, "Mafia Informant Dissolved in Acid"). Unfortunately, we now have an administration that in attitude, upon closer analysis as to whistleblowers, is more like the Mafia than it is like the Americans who founded our nation.

Do everything you can to support The National Whistleblower Center.

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

The Damaged Global Climate System

A blogger in the East (NC) posted:

"Good grief, it's like talking to a freaking wall!

...Global warming is actually expected to increase “heavy precipitation in winter storms,” and for the northern hemisphere, there is evidence that these storms are already more frequent and intense, according to the draft U.S. National Climate Assessment....

When it’s winter on Earth, it’s also summer on Earth … somewhere else. Thus, allow us to counter anecdotal evidence about cold weather with more anecdotal evidence: It’s blazing hot in Australia, with temperatures, in some regions, set to possibly soar above 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the coming days....

Also see this."

(The Mills River Progressive, "Earth to Scientific Illiterates: Winter Does NOT Mean No Global Warming!"). That is a very timely and very astute observation.

It is a subject Dredd Blog has also alluded to (Snowpocalypse Goes Up & Comes Down) at similar times and/or events.

The reality of the arctic cold incursion is that we have yet another indicator of a damaged global climate system:

The strife caused by the extreme weather is being blamed on a “polar vortex", a spinning wind that in normal years has a beneficial effect in that it keeps sub-zero air trapped above the North Pole. A weakened polar vortex has allowed the trapped air to spill out of the Arctic and hurtle south in an anti-clockwise movement across the face of the US.

Just why the polar vortex has proved to be too weak to contain the cold air this winter will be a matter for intense scientific study and debate for some time to come. The phenomenon might in large part be explained by the natural changes in climate that occur in the Arctic in winter, including the North Atlantic Oscillation that has a dominant impact on wind patterns and storm tracks in the region.

But Noaa, a federal agency, has also floated the possibility that a reduction in summer sea ice cover caused by climate change could be a factor behind the weakening of the polar vortex. That would have the paradoxical effect that while Arctic waters are getting warmer, North America experiences much colder snaps such as the present severe weather as a result of Arctic air spilling out from the North Pole and moving south.

(Guardian, emphasis added; cf. NOAA). We have discussed the issue in the sense of systems science in previous posts, pointing out that a system has characteristics:

All single weather events are systemic indicators of the global climate system which any single weather event is an integral part of.

That global climate system which has been damaged by global warming creates our local weather, including every single weather event, therefore all single weather events are part of the global climate system that has been damaged by global warming pollution.

We can only have an impact on our local weather, or on any single weather event, by fixing the global climate system that has been damaged by pollution.

(False Climate Change Meme Infects The President). Reductionist arguments are not the way to deal with systemic problems of a damaged system (Government Climate Change Report - 3).

A competent, world-wide, concerted effort ... in other words a macro response, is what we need to accomplish.

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On the lighter side:

Once upon a time the Earth was flat, causing the stars and planets to orbit around it, because it was also the center of the universe.

Weather on the flat Earth was stable, in that, it was always either winter, summer, fall, or spring at the same time on the vast flatness.

Then the Earth was changed into a globe by librul scientists.

So, all those planets went into orbit around stars like our Sun, and now even the stars are no longer orbiting the Earth.

Additionally, ever since the Earth became no longer flat, instead becoming a globe orbiting the Sun, there has been both summer and winter at the same time on Earth.

For example, now as we speak “it” has been threating to become 122 deg. F. (50 deg. C) in Australia, while “it” is super cold at the very same time in the flat lands in the U.S. Midwest.

Libruls have made it difficult for some to “get it” now, because “it” is summer near Antarctica and “it” is winter in Kansas at the same time.

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Now, let's get back to the science of the Damaged Global Climate System.

The polar vortex is part of that damaged global system.

The damage at some point is likely to affect all parts of the system in one degree or another.

I am working on a hypothesis that the vortex is becoming unbalanced by the damage to the global system.

That damage causes it to malfunction like a washer or dryer that has all the clothes on one side, so it begins to wobble.

At some point the wobbling can become violent, and at some point even throw off parts of itself.

In this polar vortex case the part of that cold vortex which is thrown off is a spinning cold arctic air mass.

That cold arctic air mass then goes wherever the jet streams guide it.

The absence of an adequate amount of cold arctic air mass may eventually develop, because the cold air mass is being thrown out of the arctic vortex part by part, to end up south of there, then morph into warmer winds.

This is likely to eventually allow more arctic warming due to an insufficient amount of cold arctic air mass to keep the ice caps frozen, which in turn throws off more cold.

Eventually, the ice will be gone and so will the traditional extreme arctic cold.

The next post in this series is here.

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Polar vortex:

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