01/07/2013 Station Identification and Notice Board (2)

WELCOME TO AMERICAN ADMIRALTY BOOKS!

Barque:  ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLT II, Named for the Oceanographer
Photo by Hans Georg Schroder

MONDAY  JANUARY 07, 2013

NEW TO OUR SITE? WONDER WHAT WE ARE ALL ABOUT? CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR AN ENTERTAINING VIDEO EXPLANATION http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFw32RRJY98:
If you want more detail after the video click on the INTRODUCTION page in the right hand margin.
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THE NATIONAL ANTHEM IS PERFORMED  BY"MADISON RISING":
Click on the link below the flag to get your day off to the right start!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8C7i9kdEf8

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NEWS FLASH:

Oil Tanker Hits The Bay Bridge: Ship Strikes San Francisco Span

 Bridge remains open and no oil pollution reported. Full story:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/07/oil-tanker-bay-bridge_n_2426987.html

FROM THE NEWS TODAY:

Northern China Is Gripped By An Extreme Cold Spell, 1,000 Inland and Coastal Ships Are Trapped In Ice

-China's most brutal cold spell in 28 years
-More than 1,000 ships are trapped in ice in Shandong province
- Nation Wide travel by all modes has been affected 

Temperatures in China have plunged to a point cold enough to freeze coastal waters and trap 1,000 ships in ice, Chinese transportation officials said over the weekend.

Since late November the country has averaged  1.3 degrees colder than the previous average, and now has reached the coldest temperatures in 28 years according to the state news agency news agency Xinhua .citing the China Meteorological Administration.

The record cold has even frozen the salt waters of  Laizhou Bay on the coast of Shandong province in the east, stranding nearly 1,000 ships according to the China Daily newspaper reported.

 The northernmost arm of the sea relative to China is the Yellow Sea which runs between China,North and South  Korea and Southern Japan. The southern entrance of the Yellow Sea is off of Shanghai which is located at about  31 degrees north or about the same latitude as the Northern boundary of Florida while the best known place to typical Western readers for a northern landmark is near, but not on, the Yellow Sea , the capital Beijing. The capital city is located at about the same latitude as Philadelphia. So as you can well imagine, despite China's well known naval/coast guard expansion that we have been following in our series HOW FAR WILL THE DRAGON SWIM they don't have the stock of icebreakers or ice breaking tugs needed to free up the trapped commerce. 

 Back in the 1970s the United States south of Philadelphia experienced something similar, indeed most of usually balmy Chesapeake bay froze over. The U.S. Coast Guard was able to break out some of the Chesapeake bay commerce with their ice breaking tugs, the open ocean did not freeze over. Back in the 1970s there was a lot of talk about "climate change" and it was thought after a series of record cold winters that we were headed to a new ice age. But then the climate began to warm for about 16 years and we were told that we were experiencing "global warming" . Actually the climate has now been cooling very slowly for the last 8 years and the talk is changing to "climate change". Strangely we never hear about the "weather cycles". Weather comes within a given climate range in 5 , 10, 100, even 500 year cycles with the basic boundaries between arctic, subarctic, temperate, sub tropical, and tropical climates remaining about the same and sea level rarely fluctuating more than a few inches.

 Both our own Chesapeake Bay freeze over in the 1970s and today's frozen seas in parts of China are well within the recorded 100 year records. Ice breakers and ice breaking tugs cost a lot of money and have a service life of 20 years. It is more economic to simply endure these rare events than to build fleets of service vessel that may not be needed but once every 20 to 100 years. We're not saying the present climate change dogma is wrong, we're just saying that we haven't seen anything that would make an investment like a major ice breaking fleet south of 40 N a worthwhile investment. Our Namazu school of climate change says climate changes, with or without our activities and natural forces exist that can change it dramatically over night. Local, national ,and international governments and businesses need to be doing what they can to be prepared to mitigate the negative effects of sudden climate change because that can happen anytime. But if sudden climate change was to cause navigation crippling ice conditions below 40 N a spring and summer of emergency boat construction can launch quite a few ice breaking tugs. But the shifts in agriculture and the threat to the food supply would be life threatening for many. We should be working ion that at all times. A cold snap is no occasion to start spending money on ice breakers for normally temperate climes; not for us and not for the reptile on ice.

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POLAND COMES OF AGE AS NATO MEMBER:
 Poland , one of NATO's newest members reached a mile stone recently when a Polish Officer and his flag ship took the lead in the NATO mine countermeasures mission. Read all about it here:
http://www.acus.org/natosource/polish-naval-command-makes-nato-history

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IN THE BLOG SPACE TODAY: 

Thinking of a tropical cruise? Read and heed. What you don't know can hurt you.

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YEAR END REPORT TO READERS (CONTINUED):  

  ADMIRALTY LAW AND THE NEWS SERVICE: In both legal research and in following the news, legislation that is pending in Congress can affect outcomes. We have installed links to GovTrack a free federal legislative tracking service in the ADMIRALTY LAW SECTION and in the NEWS SERVICE SECTION. We thought about it when we learned that a bill was introduced and is in committee right now that proposes to amend the constitution to remove term limits for the office of President. Here is the link to GovTrack: http://www.govtrack.us/  and here is the direct link to the track for repeal of the 22nd amendment to the constitution that would allow Barrack Obama to run for an unprecedented third, fourth or even fifth term or beyond: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hjres15  We think this is a bad idea no matter who is in the White House and we are pleased to report that so far GovTrack rates the chances of getting out of committee at 0%. But things change and that's why a service like GovTrack is vital in a democracy, or what's left of one.

THE FISHING SECTION: In the fishing section for 2013 we will be expanding the number of entertaining fishing videos we link to, and increasing the number of book reviews. The biggest change in the fishing section has already started and will evolve through out 2013 that is the appearance of our on line tackle shop. Most fishermen like to see and handle much of their fishing gear before buying. We understand that but we also know that we often don't need to make the trip to the sporting goods store for our tried and true gear that we expend regularly and have a certain brand loyalty for. Please help us keep the fishing section afloat by occasionally making those types of purchases on line with us. You also help who only window shop. 

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We posted this link on Sunday January 6, 2012 and we will leave it on the Notice board for a few days. We highly recommend the linked Wall Street Journal article for all of our readers who have been following our series HOW FAR WILL THE DRAGON SWIM about the Chinese Navy and China's aggressive ocean policies. It is particularly a handy background article for those who have not been following HOW FAR WILL THE DRAGON SWIM since its start early in 2012.

Key Trends to Watch in the Year of the Snake

The Wall Street Journal published a highly interesting article yesterday for those of you who follow our continuing series How Far will The Dragon Swim.

In the article the writer describes ten trends to watch for in China during 2013. Interestingly, our own giant catfish maritime political guru NAMAZU described most of these trends over the past year. But most of you haven't really been following us but for a few months, so this Wall Street Journal article will bring you up to speed in just a couple of pages and nicely summarize some of our earlier maritime concerns and observations about China in a neat listing of ten trends. Number 8 of the Wall Street Journal feature; China Will Continue to be the number one builder of warships in the world.  The Journal also recognizes that China will take an even more aggressive stance against its coastal neighbors in it's drive to turn the East and South China and Yellow seas into Chinese lakes.

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/01/04/key-trends-to-watch-in-the-year-of-the-snake/tab/print/

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  LAST WEEK 'S IMPORTANT POSTS (Scroll down past the Sunday Station ID and Notice Board to start picking up these posts when you reach the first Ad click on the appropriate date in the right hand column to continue reading last weeks blog postings.

Take a tour of the HMS submarine AMBUSH, probably the highest tech submarine operational today.

Find out if the swimming dragon is finally become tired enough to curb his aggressive behavior or is the latest Chinese pronouncement smoke and mirrors

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 NAMAZU EXPLAINS THE MARITIME COMMONS

NAMAZU, Former Japanese Demigod, Rock Album Cover Model, Analyst

NAMAZU EXPLAINS THE MARITIME COMMONS:

  Namazu explains the vocabulary and legal theory of the maritime "commons" a concept hated by "Thug States" and under enforced by the international community of nations. The giant catfish gives a real tour de force of the issue in yesterday's blog space. The day before yesterday we carried the article below illustrative of the problem Namazu addresses today. This catfish has got it covered, he should be a key adviser to the President and Congress.

HOW FAR WILL TH E DRAGON SWIM? CHINA'S NAVAL EXPANSION AND AGGRESSIVE MOVES ON THE TERRITORIAL SEAS OF ITS NEIGHBORS, INCLUDING NATIONS LINKED TO THE UNITED STATES LIKE THE PHILIPPINES AND JAPAN CONTINUES AS OUR NUMBER ONE MARITIME WAR AND PEACE ISSUE TO MONITOR IN 2013. WE MAY WELL HAVE TO FIGHT IRAN IN THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ FIRST, BUT A FIGHT WITH CHINA PITS US AND OUR STRONGEST PACIFIC ALLIES AGAINST OUR LARGEST CREDITOR AND MAJOR SUPPLY SOURCE. SUCH A WAR CAN'T POSSIBLY DO ANYONE ANY GOOD WITH THE POSSIBLE EXCEPTION OF ALLOWING THE UNITED STATES TO REPUDIATE ITS DEBT TO CHINA WITHOUT REAL CONSEQUENCE TO ITS INTERNATIONAL CREDIT RATING. NO ONE EXPECTS A NATION AT WAR TO FUND ITS' ENEMY.  BUT THIS IS AN ESPECIALLY TROUBLESOME POTENTIAL CONTEST OF ARMS. BOTH SIDES ARE NUCLEAR POWERS, THE UNITED STATES HAS NEVER SIGNED THE NO FIRST USE AGREEMENT, AND THE WORD OF CHINA CAN NOT BE TRUSTED. THE DRAGON IS PLAYING A VERY DANGEROUS GAME. ONE FALSE STEP COULD SPELL RUIN FOR THREE OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST ECONOMIES, OR REDUCTION TO ASHES. THE NATIONAL MEDIA CONTINUES TO OFFER ONLY SPORADIC AND UN- ASTUTE COVERAGE OF THE RELATED INCIDENTS. WE WILL CONTINUE IN 2013 TO MAKE THIS A MAJOR FOCUS OF OUR NEWS SERVICE UNTIL THE MAJOR MEDIA WAKES UP. AS OF THE START OF 2013 THE DRAGON IS SWIMMING FROM THE HIGH ARCTIC SHORES OF ALASKA, ACROSS THE PACIFIC AND BEYOND. BUT TO ITS' NEARBY NEIGHBORS IT IS NOT A CURIOSITY BUT A REAL THREAT. WE ARE BOUND TO SOME OF THOSE NEIGHBORS BY FORMAL DEFENSE TREATY AND TO THE DRAGON BY VAST TRADE AND DEBT.

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ALSO IN THE BLOG SPACE THIS PAST WEEK:
RECORD LOW WATER IS DISRUPTING BARGE NAVIGATION ON THE MISSISSIPPI AGAIN. THERE IS MORE THAN WEATHER BEHIND THE EVENT. READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Has Environmentalism become so discredited that conservation advocates hesitate to identify with the term? What does the Environmental Movement have to do with low water on the Mississippi? Read this post and find out.
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