A Quick and Unpleasant World Tour

Defending the Empire

Rattlesnakes Are Smarter Than 16% Of U.S. High-School Biology Teachers

It turns out that rattlesnakes in Arizona are starting to lose their rattles, apparently in reaction to human encroachment of their habitats. As people build houses in the desert, trample the earth to build golf courses, and roll their RVs into previously virgin territory, banging smack into wildlife, they – we - have a tendency to react badly to nature, which results in a lot of dead rattlesnakes. A handful of the rattlesnakes that haven’t ended up deceased are those that manage to keep quiet and slide on by – in other words, the rattlers that can’t rattle.

Spanish Spoken Here

The U.S. Census Bureau recently coughed up a bunch of fascinating statistics, and not only fascinating, but also depending on how your mind words, frightening, depressing, and/or mind-boggling.

And we’ll start with one little fact: Nearly three quarters of the 727,070 residents of El Paso, Texas speak Spanish at home, even if they are fluent in English. The numbers also show that 1 of every 5 living in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and California, use Spanish, not English, at home.

Think about that.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Sarah

John McCain will lose come November, and he will lose by a lot. That’s the way it has been for a long time now, and nothing’s going to change it. And when John McCain loses, he will fade from the national scene, and not long after, disappear from the Arizona political landscape as well. And that will be that.

And then we will be left with Sarah.

Dear God, Not Sarah Palin

Let us bow our heads, my friends, and make short work of Sarah Palin: I won’t bother to repeat the details of her “unusual” family history, which promises to dip into the truly bizarre and probably unpleasant before long. Nor will I raise her dubious political story, from her duplicitous tale about the Bridge to Nowhere, and her attempted banning of books, on and on; rest assured all that will be thoroughly vacuumed in short order.

No, my issue is simple enough, and it is this: The United States of America cannot have a vice president who believes in creationism, intelligent design, or anything other than basic science.

Hilary Clinton gave her speech at the convention and she said everybody should vote for Barack Obama. Okay, she said a little more than that, she said, I did this, I stand for that, I’m really terrific…and the other guy is okay, too – but that just about summed it up.

The reaction from the media was predictable. CNN loved it, MSNBC practically swooned, and Fox thought otherwise. (Actually, if Abraham Lincoln himself had been reanimated to say something nice, a Fox host would have dismissed him, claiming the Great Emancipator maybe wasn’t a real Republican, as he hadn’t been around to vote for Reagan.)

Syndicate

A Quick and Unpleasant World Tour

Written by Len Sherman
Thursday, 08 May 2008
Let’s say you want to explain the world to your children. Kids have limited attention spans, so you want to bundle a lot of idea together at once, get the overall feel for the way things are linked. So you take out the old globe, give it a spin, pick up your pointer, and start in Canada. It makes sense –start off slow and easy, with nice, friendly, harmless Canada. I mean, what mischief could Canada get into? We used to boast about having the longest undefended border in the world; now we say we have the longest, most porous, most terrorist accessible border in the world. Still, Canada’s our friend, at least some of the time, and at least it’s not our enemy, except our friend Canada made a deal to provide China with oil. That’s oil we could use, oil we need. In fact, to take a month at random – say, November 2007 - out of 9.9 million barrels a day in total crude imports to the United States, 1.9 million came from Canada. Saudi Arabia, which U.S. administration after administration likes to pretend is also our friend, ranked second at 1.5 million barrels. But back to Canada, which is not only selling China oil, but has also sold chunks of its oil industry to China, which of course has to give China some say in Canada’s oil future. And so Canada is feeding China’s giant maw, its insatiable desire to grow. Canada isn’t the only supplier on China’s payroll. China has made deals in a dozen countries since 2003, often above market prices, in order to secure energy sources for the future. Among its most prominent suppliers and best friends forever are Venezuela, Iran, and the Sudan. What do those three have in common? Each seeks to harm American interests, the first two directly, through government action, and the third via the al Qaeda organization in its midst. China’s oil policy is a direct result of the Iraq war. China was preparing to develop large oil fields in Iraq, which would have supplied the country with a considerable amount of its total energy needs, when the war put an end to that. Along with the explosion in terrorism inside Iraq, which will surely have a rebounding impact on the growth of terrorism worldwide, here is yet another unintended consequence of the war. So let’s follow where this leads: We can traipse along with Canada to China to Venezuela, which is only strengthened by its Asian bond, which will help it support Cuba and other anti-American, anti-democratic, anti-capitalist movements in the region. Or perhaps we’d rather follow Canada to China to the Sudan, where al Qaeda is gathering strength, which leads back to Afghanistan, where the Taliban are not only gaining numbers but ratcheting up the heroin trade. The Taliban drug trade is estimated to be worth $3 billion a year, as smugglers trek the so-called “golden route”: from Afghanistan to Pakistan to eastern Iran to Turkey, then out west, to Europe or the U.S. Another route, less golden, for less desirable opium, leads north from Afghanistan through Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, where Afghan drug lords hand their consignments over to the international underworld for distribution in the local market and the former Soviet Union. But let’s put those links aside for now, and follow this thread instead: Canada to China to Iran, which of course is tied into Syria as co-sponsors of terrorism, through their mutual bastard invention, the terror group Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s firmly implanted in a Lebanon it helped ruin, and rules about half the country, partly on behalf of Syria, partly to further its own ends, which include the destruction of Israel and murdering as many Americans as possible. That puts Hezbollah in league with Hamas, the terror group located on the West Bank and Gaza, sharing resources, sometimes cooperating on the operational level, so on. And two terror groups working in concert, or at least in parallel direction, isn’t enough – al Qaeda, founded to overthrow corrupt or “westernized” Moslem governments and replace them with radical regimes, realized that if it really wanted to build its fan base, it had better get in on the Israeli gig, and blow something up. So even though each of these three groups (and there are others, oh yes, many others) has a different agenda and foundation: Hezbollah is a Iran-Syrian creation, seeking to establish its own state in Lebanon, while Hamas wants to do the same in Israel, while getting rid of the Jews in the process. Hezbollah is Lebanese, Hamas is Palestinian. Hezbollah is Shia, Hamas is Sunni – and don’t think that hasn’t often proved a bloody distinction – look how the Shia and Sunnis are killing each other in Iraq. And al- Qaeda… al Qaeda is a whole other kettle of fish, dedicated to establishing an Islamic caliphate. Still, they all cooperate, and work together, to further their separate aims. Al Qaeda’s involvement takes up back again to Afghanistan, and its partner in crime and terror, the Taliban. The modern terrorism plague began in Afghanistan, and that is where we dispatched American and allied troops to destroy the Taliban and al Qaeda. This battle, so quickly relegated to secondary status by the Iraq war, is returning with a vengeance. The Taliban are gaining strength every day, and intertwined more closely than ever with al Qaeda. Afghanistan offers so many choices: We can focus on theological terrorism, or warlord totalitarianism, or drug production and distribution. We also show how the courage and competence of our military is being misused in yet another war it cannot win, because Afghanistan will never be a functioning, stable state. This will detour us to Europe and a discussion of how, beyond the quagmire of Iraq and Afghanistan, our military has been ill-served by the administration, how we are still preparing to fight a Cold War-type giant land campaign against a nonexistent Soviet Union. But that’s not what we’re going to concentrate on here, we’re going to go north, north of Afghanistan that is, and see how this war pushed us into alliances with one of the most unsavory regimes this side of – well, anywhere – Uzbekistan. Apart from its geographic military value, Uzbekistan and other Central Asian nations are home to torture, mass murder, political oppression, and, to the point, huge natural resources of oil and gas. The West, meaning Europe and America, was about to get its hands on those resources when Russia decided that wasn’t in its best interests. So Russia put the screws to Uzbekistan, which kicked us out of our large, modern base, and Uzbekistan in turn put the screws to Kyrgyzstan to evict the U.S. from our last base in Central Asia. Kyrgzstan, not incidentally, is supplied by its Uzbek neighbors with most of its electricity and natural gas. Oh, and to show yet once again how enemies work together, Iran, the former and current up-and-coming regional power, also put pressure on Kyrgzstan and other countries to deny America access to the bases we had built and depended upon. So to review: We invaded Afghanistan to rid the country of al Qaeda and the Taliban, and make ourselves safer. Instead, al Qaeda and the Taliban are still entrenched in Afghanistan, the drug trade has expanded to include a variety of nations, the Uzbeks and Kyrgs have turned on us and we are being erased from Central Asia, Iran is more influential than ever, and Russia is reasserting its control over its former satellites. For a second, we had this idea we were going to be friends with Russia. Well, that hasn’t really worked out. Maybe it’s not straightforward politics or ideology; maybe it’s something more organic than that, more akin to what Tocqueville said in 1838 in his classic Democracy in America, about America and Russia being fundamentally different in so many critical ways, differences that would determine the fate of each. Still, Tocqueville wrote, Their point of departure is different and their paths diverse; nevertheless, each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world. Maybe that’s the ticket. Maybe not. In any event, take a look at another way Russia is clamping down on the independence of its former satellites, and it’s the latest and greatest in aggression and destruction: cyber war. Estonia decided to give Russia a hard time, at least in Russia’s eyes, by not rolling over and taking whatever outrageous fees Russia wanted to tack onto its energy. Russia responded by bombarding Estonia with emails and paralyzing the country. You think Russia’s a cyber problem, watch out for China. China’s army, the PLA, along with other elements of the Chinese government, is already engaged in cyberwar, regularly attacking US government and corporate targets. Say what you will about the quality of their knockoff handbags, China is perhaps the world leader in nasty cyber warfare abilities. And now we’re back with China, which leads us back to Canada, which is where we began. Not that we hit on everything. Oh no. Not by a long shot. Regardless, we’ll pause here, because now that I think about it, maybe this isn’t the right topic for children, after all. Then we'll return to Canada, because when you complete the circle, you start where you finish. Or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, on to Canada...
Last Updated ( Sunday, 06 July 2008 )

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Border/Immigration

Mexico Finally Seals Border, Stops Americans From Buying Cheap Gas, Keeps Lanes Open For Drugs

Whoever said Mexicans couldn’t or wouldn’t control their border has just been proved wrong. Yes, our friends and allies to the south have finally stepped up and shut down traffic…traffic, that is, bearing U.S. plates and carrying containers fuel, looking to save a few bucks with cheap Mexican gas.
Read more...

Mexico Invades America – Again

Mexican soldiers on Arizona soil held a U.S. Border Patrol agent at gunpoint Sunday night. The Mexicans retreated after backup agents responded.

This is far from the first time the Mexican military, and/or those wearing Mexican uniforms, most likely members of Los Zetas, have crossed over the border, in support of drug and illegal immigration operations. Though both governments have sought to downplay such incidents, the increasing number of these sometimes violent incursions – over 200 confirmed incursions since 1996 - makes the situation difficult to sweep under the rug.

Mexico is finding that dealing with the devil is not a deal without consequences. And those consequences are coming home to roost in a most horrific way.

Not long ago, the Mexican government maintained an “understanding” with the drug traffickers: Don’t cause problems in Mexico, and roll your drugs into the United States without too many hassles. Oh, and don’t forget the payoffs.

Whichever side you’re on in the immigration debate, the landmark raid at the Iowa meatpacking plant back in May, which rounded up 389 illegals, proves that this is an issue that demands action and resolution. The political void has resulted in a situation that is simply intolerable in a nation of laws and liberty.

To begin the abuses: More than 20 of those arrested were underage workers, some as young as 13, forced to work shifts of 12 hours or more in dangerous conditions, sometimes through the night, six nights a week, using razor-edged knives and saws to divide up freshly slaughtered beef.

The Fence Cuts Both Ways

The fence, any fence, hasa certain basic appeal: separate Us from Them, the latter consisting of the bogeymen of your choice. With the immigration crisis in full bloom, the idea ofa fence sounded as simple and as direct as a solution could be. Stop them from coming by stopping them from coming.

Ah, if reality was so black and white. Or, in the case, so American and Mexican.