Gawd....

I'm lovin' me my Glenn Beck. Yeah...sometimes he's a little over-the-top, and he certainly has got a Howard Beale vibe going on, but the guy is making scary sense.

So, yeah...I admit it...there's a lot of video here to watch....but do watch it. We're headed into totally uncharted waters.







I owe my h/t to Karl Denninger at market-ticker.org for these three videos. I read him all the time because he scares me worse than Stephen King.

Now let me add my amateur-economist's analysis to a point Beck touches on at 8:15 or so of the last video.

With words to this effect, Beck asks if the other countries in the world aren't going to be in the same sinking boat that we find ourselves in. I think he's exactly right, and underestimates this point. Take a look at yet another video.....



Yes...its al Jazerra....and there is a point to be made there too. But discounting that for the moment, this story illustrates the problem that China faces too.

For the last 30 years, China has been trying to get their peasant Third-World country into the First-World. To do this, they have kept their currency artificially devalued, so as to facilitate the export of the products that they make. What they're most concerned with is jobs...not the products of those jobs. They're quite content to spend money on cities that no one will live in because they need to keep the construction jobs (read: "economic activity") going.

We're not seeing this reported on any of the American (or Western) media because we're beholden to the debt that China holds. al Jazerra, in essence, the media organ of the Arab OPEC states, has a different set of priorities. They can report the Chinese problems in a candor that Western media cannot. However, the OPEC states are not without their own problems. Absent their oil, they have almost no industry. Their people are not far removed from living in the desert, and many are illiterate. They have few skills, and have to import white-collar and blue-collar labor to give them what they now have. They can operate what are in effect, massive welfare states because they are able to poke holes into the ground and pump out the wealth that supports it.

And here's where my fears are headed.....

All wars are economic.

We're broke.

China can't keep inflating their "production bubble".

And since the world runs on oil, the OPEC states will grind to a halt. (Not to mention the crazy-mad religious motivations that they have.).

These three groups all want to keep things going when we can't keep things going. And something's gotta give. Who'll give first?

I engaged in a little activism tonight.....

So, anyway....today was yet another "medical day".

Background: I have been battling what I've been lead to believe was a bad salivary gland since late July. It usually begins with what I've been told is a cracked tooth on my lower left side. The pain develops to the point that it is indeterminate where I can't tell if it is on my upper jaw or lower, and then the pain radiates down my tongue. Finally, it settles into the glands.

My initial question regarding this was with my dentist, who pronounced it "pulpitis" or something. When it didn't go away, I went the medical route where the salivary gland thingi was both self- and medically-diagnosed...and they have had me taking steroids to the point that they don't want to give me any more, and have recommended that I have this gland removed.

So, anyway, today I finally was able to get into the ENT doctor...one very highly recommended. WifeofAzlib went with me, so as is my habit when I'm out with my family, I strapped on my CCW. The doctor didn't see the gland problem that I'd been lead to believe I had, and asked that I get a panoramic dental x-ray.

Back to the dentist.....

And guess what? I finally have a diagnosis: An abscessed tooth which will require a root canal on Wednesday. Yeah--me! [Seriously, I am very glad to have a diagnosis, which will hopefully lead to having this thing cleared up.]

In celebration (and because the both of us had wasted most of the day on these medical matters), we decided to go to our local Serrano's Mexican restaurant.

And guess what I found? An A.R.S. §4-229(C) sign prohibiting my carrying my concealed weapon inside their restaurant. One of our favorite restaurants, close to the house, reasonably priced....a family favorite.

Not wanting to ruin the night, I retreated back to the vehicle and put my gun away, but I told my wife that, while I would eat there tonight, I would not be returning.

Moreover, after remembering this post of Kevin's, I was determined to not just disappear from this restaurant's clientele. As we were leaving, I made a point of asking for the manager, and I very politely told him that I'd been in his restaurant at least once a month for the last 19 years, and that I wouldn't be back as long as that sign was in his window. He was polite too, and mentioned that he'd received a number of comment cards regarding their sign. We both made our points.

The family doesn't necessarily agree with me, but I'm not going back.

Jack Webb Schools Barack Obama....

Lifted whole from Allahpundit.

In yet another act of rank copying of some else's work.....

I present this, from Kevin over at The Smallest Minority. Can I say that I am rightly impressed that Kevin would remember and/or have a way of keeping track of a piece by Peggy Noonan from nearly 4 years ago, and be able bring it back into relevance today?

"...Do people fear the wheels are coming off the trolley? Is this fear widespread? A few weeks ago I was reading Christopher Lawford's lovely, candid and affectionate remembrance of growing up in a particular time and place with a particular family, the Kennedys, circa roughly 1950-2000. It's called "Symptoms of Withdrawal." At the end he quotes his Uncle Teddy. Christopher, Ted Kennedy and a few family members had gathered one night and were having a drink in Mr. Lawford's mother's apartment in Manhattan. Teddy was expansive. If he hadn't gone into politics he would have been an opera singer, he told them, and visited small Italian villages and had pasta every day for lunch. "Singing at la Scala in front of three thousand people throwing flowers at you. Then going out for dinner and having more pasta." Everyone was laughing. Then, writes Mr. Lawford, Teddy "took a long, slow gulp of his vodka and tonic, thought for a moment, and changed tack. 'I'm glad I'm not going to be around when you guys are my age.' I asked him why, and he said, 'Because when you guys are my age, the whole thing is going to fall apart.' "

Mr. Lawford continued, "The statement hung there, suspended in the realm of 'maybe we shouldn't go there.' Nobody wanted to touch it. After a few moments of heavy silence, my uncle moved on."

Lawford thought his uncle might be referring to their family--that it might "fall apart." But reading, one gets the strong impression Teddy Kennedy was not talking about his family but about . . . the whole ball of wax, the impossible nature of everything, the realities so daunting it seems the very system is off the tracks.

And--forgive me--I thought: If even Teddy knows . . ."

I'm guessing that...

...The Secretary of the Treasury will create a new
"Bureau of How-Much-You-Ought-to-be-Paid".

How long before this Bureau is not limiting itself to executive compensation? How long before companies find a way around their limitations? How long would it be before we'd see companies' talent pool go John Galt because of these limitiations? How would the Bureau be better than the Boards of Directors, the stockholders--the Market for executive talent--at determining how someone should be paid?

In short: What could possibly go wrong?

h/t OptionArmegeddon

O/T: The NYT link to the SecTreas plan to regulate executive compensation has on its sidebar this story from the "Moral of the Story" column entitled "Give Women Guns". The author, Randy Cohen, we're told has 5 Emmys, one of which he "received [...] as a result of a clerical error, and he kept it." We're also told his Moral of the Story column is one where "he will examine a news story from an ethical perspective." He is also--no kidding--a humorist.

One question: How is it ethical to keep an item gained through a clerical error? Or is that supposed to be humor?

And were I less busy this week, I might try to fisk this thing, but right now I'm overwhelmed.

A Couple o'²....

Notes that I should note.....

• Kevin over at The Smallest Minority has wisely called on Bill Whittle of EjectEjectEject to write a new version of Thomas Paine's Common Sense. I read Kevin's stuff fairly regularly, and you should too. I confess to having not been to Bill's site much in the recent past. He's a fine writer, and passionate about the same sorts of things that bring passion to me, and while I used to read him often, I've gotten out of the habit lately. EjectEjectEject is now on my blogroll, and I'll be sure to visit more regularly, both for the topics that Bill writes on and the wonder that someone can write so well.
• Relating to Bill, I noticed on his webpage, that the picture of him in that small plane doesn't much look like the Bill that I watched here. In doing a google search for a better (more recent?) picture of him, I came upon this quote.....

  "The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."
  -- Thomas Jefferson

  
  Why is it that I've never seen this before?

It was a light blogging week, but....

I just noticed that it has been a week since I put something up here. Its not that I haven't been active on the intertubes...I have. I'm on vacation now, which means I've been catching up on things around the house (a pool repair project, a new door, fixing the lawnmower [again--groan]), preparing for our 25th Anniversary Vacation (Yeah!), studying for recurrent (Boo!), and spending more time on That-Forum-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named than I should.

All that said, the topic of the week was, still, "torture". It came in many incarnations...from Zero's decision to not release the photos of the "torture", to Nancy Pelosi's continuing down the bizarre path that They-Only-Told-Me-They-Were-Gonna-"Torture"/I-Was-Only-Briefed-That-There-Was-A-Briefing/The-CIA-Lied-"Mislead"-Congress/No-Make-That-"The-Bush-Administration-Lied". Leon Panetta has now found himself involved.

The "Torturous" video here....

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

And on That-Forum-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named "torture" was still the topic. I posted the following over there (de-identified, of course) to one of my die-hard "torture-is-immoral" oppponents (is that an oxymoron?).

Posted By [Me] on 13 May 2009 07:38 PM

Posted By [A guy with similar views] on 13 May 2009 10:07 AM
...[My first name], help me here.

Maybe this is what you're looking for....

Regarding "torture", [My opponent] and his fellow travelers will say...

Posted By [My opponent] on 12 May 2009 10:05 PM

No, what we do to them defines us....

As they gaze at their navels in the search for every one of our imperfections, they fail to wonder:

If we are defined by what we do to them, is our enemy similarly defined by what they do to us?

While, just as in every religious sect, in Islam there are different interpretations of the meaning of religious texts, the Sura 9:29 says...

"You shall fight back against those who do not believe in GOD, nor in the Last Day, nor do they prohibit what GOD and His messenger have prohibited, nor do they abide by the religion of truth - among those who received the scripture - until they pay the due tax, willingly or unwillingly."

...and I have seen this alternative translation...

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day, nor acknowledge the religion of truth, even if they are people of the book (i.e. Christians or Jews) until they pay the Jiyza with willing submission and feel themselves subdued."

Also relevant is Sura 9:30...

"They have set up their religious leaders and scholars as lords, instead of GOD. Others deified the Messiah, son of Mary. They were all commanded to worship only one god. There is no god except He. Be He glorified, high above having any partners."

When a Christian or Jew listens to a preacher or a Pope, the Islamists believe that they are blaspheming God/Allah. They call us "polytheists" for employing these intermediaries between ourselves and God. Moreover, whenever we elect people to represent us in a democracy, they believe that we are elevating a man to a place that God ought to occupy.

Christians and Jews share the Old Testament, and therefore the Book of Genesis. In Genesis, we see the story that God created the Heavens and Earth in six days, and on the seventh day He rested. He created a day free of work so that He could stop and appreciate--love--all that He had created. And, of course, one of the things that He created was man. Moreover, man was created in His image. [This idea itself is enough for the Islamists to believe that we are heretics.] But given that we are in His image, one of the things we accept is that we too have a day free of work in which we set aside time to worship Him and appreciate the wider world. But, because God also gave us freedom....we are also free not to worship. That choice may generate some consequences in this life or the next, but the point being that we are free to make that choice in our religious life.

The Islamists don't believe in this freedom, either in the choice of whether to worship or to whom. They believe that Allah determines and controls everything. They believe that the reason that the very molecules in our bodies do not fly apart into a random oblivion is only due to Allah's will. To deny Allah's will, either directly or by maintaining another faith, is blasphemy.

The Islamists also believe that any lands which were ever Islamic are always to be Islamic. The "Israel Problem" is a combination of their quest to reclaim territory and a fight against freedom-loving non-believers.

And speaking of freedom-loving non-believers, the Islamists are almost as unhappy with democratic Muslim states and Muslim states who cooperate with the West as they are with the West itself. They believe that any Muslim who casts a vote is denigrating that which is due to Allah. They were especially incensed at Saudi Arabia for allowing the infidel West to defile their lands in Desert Storm. They remain unhappy that SA does business with the West.

What this all adds up to is that the Islamists believe they have a duty--a religious duty--to fight anyone who denies Allah or Muslims who cooperate with these infidels.

I imagine you're wondering: Why did I take you down this path?

Well, I did this to again make the case that we are in an existential fight against a measurable portion of Islam. Like it or not, we are in the worst sort of war: A religious war. Beyond the lands that the Islamists seek to retake and rule under Sharia, they are also after our religious hearts. They seek to take everything we have: Our lands; our freedoms; and our religions. It is a telling omen that when Steve Centani and Olaf Wiig were kidnapped by the Palistinians in Gaza, one of the conditions of their release was that they were made to convert to Islam at gunpoint. You can pooh-pooh this by reasoning that a forced conversion is not a valid conversion, but how can you be sure? Does not God have the power to recognize conversions? Moreover, this is entirely consistent with how the Islamists view the world. We believe we have the freedom to make our own religious choices; They believe in no such thing. They are completely intolerant.

And when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed sawed off the head of the Jewish Daniel Pearl, he too was being completely consistent. They believe they have the right, and the duty, to rid the world of those who do not believe as they do.

So after we captured Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, we found him to be resistant to all our efforts at getting what he knew. So then we gnashed our teeth and asked the OLC to give a legal opinion on just how enhanced our Enhanced Interrogation Techniques could be. So after we decided how and whether we could waterboard him, he gave up Abu Zubaydah after the EIT. When we captured Zubaydah and found him also resistant to our questioning, we waterboarded him and then Zubaydah gave up KSM. KSM also resisted until waterboarded, and through all these EITs, we learned information that saved American lives.

[My opponent] says: So what? We could have learned what they knew without resorting to these EITs--this "torture". He can't possibly know this. You can never know the conditions on the path that you chose not to take. Moreover, he cannot know the fourth dimension here--the time required to yield the same results if we chose to take some less "torturous" techniques. This is why Zero retains his Jack Bauer exception to the ticking time-bomb scenario. And this also makes those who decried the previous administration over "torture", yet continue to support Zero, hypocrites on this matter.

Christians are commanded to turn the other cheek. Yet we are also allowed to defend our beliefs.

FWIW, if you've reached this far and are interested in more of I've come across here, this post speaks to the Recent Statements of Islamic Ideology as heard through bin Laden and Zarqawi and this post speaks to Islam vs Free Democracy and Free Enterprise. I read all of the first and can recommend it, and the introduction of the second and can recommend it to that point.

Kevin's....

...Leviathon post. Well worth your time.