CHINESE ISRAELIS
In addition to two religious nutcases – senile Pat Robertson and terrorist Ahmadinejad – there are large numbers of ordinary Israelis who are pleased about Ariel Sharon’s incapacitating stroke. Robertson announced that Sharon’s stroke was “God’s punishment” for withdrawing from Gaza, while Iran’s Ahmadinejad announced he was “praying to Allah” for Sharon’s death. While most all Israeli citizens aren’t this crazy or ghoulish, a lot of them think that Sharon’s passing will be, in the words of one Israeli friend of mine, “better for the future of Israel.” Let’s call these folks Chinese Israelis. The Chinese have an ancient proverb: Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. The reality is that Sharon’s passing is a disaster for the state of Israel.
GETTING SERIOUS ON IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
Just before Congress adjourned for Christmas break, the House voted to pass the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (HR 4437) by a vote of 239 to 182. Introduced by James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), I am proud to be one of its co-sponsors. Pro-illegal immigration forces are outraged. The Wall Street Journal, for example, in an editorial on December 29, is particularly incensed that the bill makes being in America illegally a crime. How unfair that something illegal should be a crime! Now it is the Senate’s turn to vote on its version of HR 4437. We in the House hope that our Senatorial colleagues will have the courage to withstand the deluge of demagoguery coming their way, and support our efforts to preserve our national borders and economy.
“KYOTO” IS JAPANESE FOR HYPOCRISY
It isn't absolutely necessary to be a hypocrite in order to be a liberal, but it sure helps. During the first week in December, ten thousand people gathered in Montreal for a UN-sponsored conference on global warming. Rex Murphy of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. thought the size of the gathering inappropriate: "Just think of the Montreal summit's ecological footprint," he said. "Is there really a need to fly ten thousand people from 189 countries to a cold city to exchange ideas? Is there no email? Are the phone lines down?" Then Mr. Murphy answered his own question: "I suppose...ecology is not really different from politics. High on sermons, low on example."
THE CHRISTIAN KORAN
Can you name the book which has the Islamic world in an uproar, and caused the United States government to deny any involvement with it? The book banned in the world’s most populous democracy? There has never been an adequate translation of the Bible into classical Arabic. Such translations as exist are subject to ridicule by those trained in the poetry of the Koran, which is the standard used to define classical Arabic. Nevertheless, there are Christian evangelists who wish to bring their religion and the teachings of Christ to Moslems. In 1999, two pseudonymous Arab Christian authors produced a book, The True Furqan (Furqan is another word for Koran), written in classical Arabic, intended as a tool to evangelize Arabs in particular, and Moslems in general.
CRYSTAL BALL 2006
The title is a tease – because contrary to what some think, I really don’t have a crystal ball. That’s because there’s no such thing as the future. How could there be – it hasn’t happened yet! What there are in reality is a large number of possible futures – some of which are more possible than others. The trick is to not confuse what you want to happen with what’s likely to happen to best handicap the possibilities. That’s not easy. I have to admit that 2005 has left a bad taste in my mouth. The dominant story of the year has to be the treasonously vicious and pathologically dishonest war of the liberal “mainstream” media and the Democrat Party waged relentlessly against the Presidency of George W. Bush. Yet I see 2006 as a far better year than 2005. Here’s why…
THE BEIJING EPIPHANY
When I began giving lectures on “The Coming Collapse of the Soviet Empire” in the early 1980s, I would put up a large world map on the wall and point to the enormous monochrome blob of the Soviet Union dwarfing and hulking over Europe and Asia. “I want you all to imagine what the world would be like if the Soviet Union ceased to exist, that it went the way of other empires of the past and vanished into history,” was my request of the audience. What I would always get was MEGO: my eyes glaze over, in response. The Soviet Union seemed such a permanent fixture of the world in the audience’s mind that they couldn’t imagine it going away. I remember when the CEO of a large corporation based in Los Angeles started to get it. He stared at the map in wide-eyed wonder and exclaimed, “Everything would be different!” He suddenly was looking at the world differently, and this new perception was exploding with new possibilities. He had had an epiphany. Not The Epiphany, the “revelatory manifestation of a divine being” as experienced by the Magi upon visiting the infant Jesus in the manger, traditionally celebrated January 6th. An epiphany is an insight into the nature of something that transforms the way you look at it. And that is what I want you to have regarding China.
Chapter Eighteen: THE TALE OF TACLAELEL
The Jade Steps Chapter Eighteen: The Tale of Taclaelel They arose the next morning at dawn. Cortez ordered a small altar be put up in the plaza, where the padres performed a Mass for the Spaniards. He returned to his quarters to find King Xicotencatl and a very dignified elderly man, at least as old as the king. “Malinche,” the king said through Malinali, “this is Chief Maxixcatzin (max-eeks-cot-zin, Ring of Cotton), lord of our region of Ocotelolco, and the military leader of all Tlaxcala who has protected us from the Mesheeka for many years.” Malinali’s eyes widened at the introduction, and took it upon herself to expand Cortez’s brief greeting of welcome.
THE NEXT WAR IN EUROPE
Andrei Illarionov resigned just in time. As an admirer of the capitalist philosophy of Ayn Rand and the laissez faire economics of Ludwig Von Mises, his resignation this week as Vladimir Putin’s chief economic advisor is a disaster for Russia. But his announcing that “Russia is no longer a democracy,” serves to keep intact the record of there never being a war between two democracies should war break out between Russia and Ukraine. For the day of Illarionov’s resignation (Tuesday, December 27), the Russian Defense Minister threatened to invade Ukraine.
HOW DANGEROUS IS WIKIPEDIA?
I have an admission to make: I have used Wikipedia for serious research. And in all the years I've been doing it, I've never really felt as if I've been led astray. But – a large but – I only use it for research in science or computing. Using the popular online encyclopedia for social, economic or political research calls for caution.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BELONGS IN JAIL
Finally, some good may come from the Valerie Plame kerfuffle -- if President Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez have the stones to do what's right. A grave crime was exposed Dec. 16th when New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau published a story revealing President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to listen in on conversations between al Qaeda suspects abroad and people in the United States without first obtaining a warrant. "We're seeing clearly now that (President) Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator," wrote Newsweek's Jonathan Alter. But the scandal was not the program Risen and Lichtblau wrote about. The scandal is that they wrote about it.