Four Questions

Will there ever be Peace in the Middle East? To focus the issue, I ask four questions:

1) Will the Jews ever surrender Israel?
2) Will the Jews ever outnumber the Islamists/Arabs in the Middle East?
3) Will the Islamists/Arabs ever accept the Jewish State of Israel as occupiers of the Holy City of Al Quds al Sharif (Jerusalem)?

(Hint: The correct answers to the first three questions are No, No, and No.)

So, (IMHO) there will be peace in the Middle East when the Islamists/Arabs exterminate the Jews and drive them out of the Holy Land. Then as victors, they will write the History books and there will be peace in the Middle East.

My last question:

4) What are you going to do about it?

Sun Tzu in the 21st Century

Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world. States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

- President George W. Bush, in his “State of the Union” speech, January 29, 2002

Create an uproar in the East and attack in the West.

- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"

North Korea shakes its mighty fist at the sky. “Curse you Red Baron!” it says and lobs half a dozen missles into the sea, frightening the Antique Media. “Why did they do this!?” we ask plaintively. Well, to answer a rhetorical question, we were told it was to draw attention to themselves. As in, “Hey! HEY! Over here, in the East! Look at me! LOOK AT ME!”

Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Hamas and Hizbolla miraculously adopt the same strategy and invade Israel and kidnap Israeli soldiers. For those of you keeping score at home, Hamas and Hizbollah are late inning substitutions setting up Iran for the close.

Syria? Well, remember when you grew up and there were two brothers, the smart one and the dumb one? The smart one always started trouble and the dumb one always got caught for it. That’s Syria and Iran. Syria: dumb. Iran: smart. Syria is going to get the snot beat out of it, while Iran buys time to make nukes.

Remember the “Axis of Evil” speech? The Axis powers were Iraq, Iran and North Korea. He kind of called that one didn’t he. Here we are four years later and the remaining Axis partners are acting in concert, almost like they talk to each other or something, like they had an Axis summit and planned it all out. North Korea makes the strategic plans, Iran creates chaos for the Twelvers, the Great Satan looks right, looks left, then right again and can’t decide what to do.

Meanwhile, six months after Kim’s strange train ride through China into Siberia, the Ruskies and China won’t support actions against either player.

I think it’s about time Taiwan trades nukes to Japan in exchange for missles and test fires and ICBM over Peking and Moscow on its way to splashdown off the coast of Venezuela.

So, how's married life treating you?

From the "It sucks to be you" Department:

"Wife Of LAPD Officer Charged With Attempted Murder"
KNBC-TV
12:56 p.m. PDT July 5, 2006

LOS ANGELES - The wife of a Los Angeles Police Department officer was charged Wednesday with attempted murder for allegedly shooting him twice and trying to run him over with a car. Police said the alleged attack occurred Saturday at the newlyweds' Reseda apartment.

Yolanda Yvette Cade, 38, was scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon in Van Nuys Superior Court. The officer was treated at a hospital and released.

Is America Too Rich to Lead?

Several day ago, a link to a link to a link led me to this website about IQ, a definition and what amounts to a differential diagnosis between Gifted (130-144), Very Gifted (145-159) and Profoundly Gifted (160+) in terms of social characteristics. People on the plus side of the curve are more introverted than the people on the minus side. At least that’s what lured me in the first place.

Buried way down on the page is this little tidbit:

“[T]here is a direct ratio between the intelligence of the leader and that of the led. A leadership pattern will not form, or it will break up, when a discrepancy of more than approximately 30 points of IQ comes to exist between the leader and the led.”

That’s interesting, and sort of explains a lot. This info was unattributed, and there are no details that explain why, but I suspect that goals change with IQ and what is wanted by someone with a higher IQ is not interesting to the lower IQ side. My guess, you understand, I’d be curious to see more research on the study, but you have to remember that I’m below gifted -- just Bright (115-129) -- and compensate by being a smart-ass. (It’s a bad habit, but unfortunately, it seems to work. – Ed.) This works out to two standards of deviation on the chart shown at the above site.

What if there is a similar principle in economics and how do you measure it? Consider this: In the U.S. during the 19th Century, people admired the wealthy, but hated being at their mercy. It’s pretty close to the same as earlier centuries being ruled by an aristocracy. Love/resentment, loyalty/jealousy, “It’s my country, my King – but he’s really making me mad!”

Today the U.S. is resented by “the rest of the world,” if you believe the NY Times (I don’t). But if Americans go overseas, they are generally very well accepted by the people of the host country, foreigners still want to emigrate to the U.S. and enjoy the benefits of a successful capitalistic democracy – but they HATE being told what to do by the U.S.

What I’ve been worried about lately is the shrinking middle-class and how it will effect the political process. I think™ that the U.S. will end up being ruled by a wealthy aristocracy, beloved and the rest of the country will remain loyal, but jealous and the rule will be resented.

Globally, how do you compensate for this? Well, you have to bring the whole world up a couple standards of deviation and somehow keep so many of the super rich from running away from the pack.

Thomas Barnett in his Rumsfeld-touted book “The Pentagon’s New Map” touches on this a little, referring to the Core and the Gap countries as to where a military presence will be needed. He points out that once you get the average annual wage above $3,000 in a country, trouble stops and prosperity starts to take hold. People basically quit fighting because they have something to lose.

Anyway, that just an interesting thought that popped into my head. Not very capitalistic, I should say that even though I enjoyed Barnett’s book tremendously, overall it lean’s a little too Divine-Rights Absolutist for my Libertarian tastes. I don’t think I like the idea of ‘exporting security’ without developing prosperity also.