Headlines

Dr. Jill Biden: Lindsey Graham’s Trump-era transformation ‘a little hurtful’

US manufacturing activity rebounds in January

Trump congratulates ‘great state of Kansas’ ...

Le Pen: Brexit is a ‘terrifying failure’ for the European Union

Coronavirus: China says U.S. action ‘spreading fear’ as mainland death toll hits 361

Jeff Bezos sued for defamation by girlfriend’s brother

Hispanics largest minority voting block for first time ...

Ted Cruz: Fauxcahontas delivered last 2 GOP votes against witnesses

Kerry unloads on NBC after report he was overheard talking about 2020 bid

Coronavirus is going to ‘paralyze China’ — El-Erian warns against buying dips

Britain’s productivity decline worst in 250 years!

Boris admits ‘relatively few’ Islamist can be rehabilitated

Headlines

McConnell makes strategic retreat to keep firm grip on Trump trial

Trump says GDP would be near 4% and the Dow would be soaring if it weren’t for the Fed

Witness swap: Biden for Bolton?

Trump: Northam putting VIrginia ‘in play’ with gun control push

Bloomberg rises to 4th place in new national poll

China says coronavirus deaths rise to 17, heightening global alarm

Paper: Saudi prince hacked Bezos’ phone?

POTUS at Davos: E.U more difficult to do business with than China ...

Poll: Voters still support Trump removal, but support has slipped

Jamie Dimon says his one big worry is negative interest rates

Standoff: American troops block Russian forces from capturing Syrian oil field ...

Leaked intelligence report: 150 French areas ‘held’ by Islamists

Tulsi Gabbard sues Hillary Clinton for defamation

Discrimination

Discrimination has become a dirty word. Once, if one had discriminating tastes, it was a good thing. Now, no more. If one favors something over another ... no matter what ... one is ironically discriminated against. Our founding fathers recognized religion and creed as discrimination no-nos. (Add race, color and gender later by Constitutional amendment.) Now, these taboo categories are inflated and virtually endless. If I paid attention to all these strictures, I could not shun convicted felons, lewd-lyric rappers, new Black Panthers, Scientologists, pedophiles, radical Islamists, Communists, those with "fluid genders," satanists, and Lena Dunham (whatever she is).

Hellery Clinton recently twisted things with a short list of those whom I am now allowed to hate ... the deplorables ... sexists, racists, homophobes, xenophobes and Islamophobes. And all of the myriad of the discriminated-against groups I was required not just to tolerate, but to embrace.

But now that Hellery is relegated to walking the woods, can I go back to not discriminating against just race, color, religion, gender and creed? No?

Grown-up Children

Bill Maher is now preaching to Charlie Rose about the dangers of Islam ... see: Breitbart Story. Is this the same Bill Maher who once said that the Islamists who flew the planes into the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 were the brave ones ... not the United States? (See: SnowSpot Media Story.)

In thirteen years, maybe even grown-up children can grow up.

Afterthought: I may have spoken too soon ... Maher has regressed again ... see: Breitbart Story.

He Ain’t Heavy …

He’s my Brotherhood.  The Obama administration, with Hillary Clinton’s, John Kerry’s, and Chuck Hagel’s assent, has been a much too ardent supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, that extremist group that almost sunk Egyptian “democracy” in the name of democracy… and has been behind much of the bloody fulmination of the Arab Spring.  From the day Obama was first inaugurated he has shown a tilt toward this dangerous sharia-law, caliphate-driven Islamist organization. 

Now that the Egyptian military has realized the danger of Morsi and the Brotherhood running things and managed to reverse the tide … yes, unfortunately, at the cost of much blood … our Islamist-sympathizing President has chosen, in the slimy-secret way that is his wont, to cut off aid to the Egyptian military (see: The Daily Beast Story).  This fortunately will be of little consequence because Saudi Arabia, UAE, and other Gulf States have stepped up with monetary offers that dwarf our puny leverage … see: NY Times Story.

It is clear why the twenty-two million Egyptian rioters, who presaged this military takeover, felt that the U.S. and the Obama administration had betrayed them … we had.  Now we are trying to twist the knife.  Rather than standing on that phony shibboleth of “democracy” which meant nothing to the Muslim Brotherhood, the U.S. foreign policy should propound modernity and freedom from the chains of a theocracy.  We certainly support the notion of separation of church and state here at home … why not for the Arab world?  And it seems that even some mush-brained Republicans such as John McCain and Lindsey Graham are supporting Obama’s wrong-headedness.  This is unfortunate ... for it gives Obama cover for his perfidy.

The U.S. foreign policy is on the wrong track in many ways, but especially because of our support for the Muslim Brotherhood and, by proxy, for the Islamists.  The irony of this posture is that, even though we may be alienating much of the more moderate Middle East, the consequences of this bull-headed support of Islamists might be the continued undermining of Muslim theocracies and wanna-bes around the region (Iran, Turkey, etc.).  Egypt’s near-death experience has been an object lesson for these countries and I pray they may take it to heart.

Hair on Fire

I know that I have gotten cynical in my dotage ... possibly too cynical ... but there is something manically weird about the United States's closing of 19 embassies in the Middle East and Africa ... see: CBS Story. Apparently our government has received credible and specific threats that there are massive Islamist attacks planned against one or more of our diplomatic facilities throughout the Muslim world.  And so all these embassies will be shuttered until at least the end of this week.  Numerous congress-persons have asserted that this terrorist chatter is even higher than it was before 9/11/2001 ... this time centered in Yemen.

The reasons I am somewhat cynical center around the following thoughts:

- This over-the-top drama certainly takes the media spotlight off of the many scandals that are plaguing the Obama administration. The embarrassing admission that al-Qaeda is capable of such a large-scale effort clearly refutes Obama's campaign assertion that al-Qaeda is on the run.  Therefore, the downside of this policy reversal must, to them, be smaller than the risks emanating out of these numerous scandals.

- Will these supposed locked-and-loaded terrorists conclude that, since these embassies have be briefly closed, they will pack up and slink back to their hideouts ... foregoing any planned attacks?  I sincerely doubt that timing is of the essence in any such planned assaults.

- If these supposed threats are "specific," why would we close all these embassies pell mell?  Would we not have some reasonable idea about exactly where and when these attacks might take place?

- Since, thanks to Fast-Eddie Snowden, the terrorists know a lot more about the process that the United States uses in tracking terrorist communications, perhaps al-Qaeda is pulling our chain with this recent staged chatter ... and using it to verify what they have learned.

- The Obama administration seldom does anything that is not driven by political considerations.  Why should this hair-on-fire stage performance be any different.

But, then again, I don't want to be proven wrong as a result of more spilled American blood.

Afterward: For some comments along this same line of thought see: The Powerline Blog.

20-20

I found this very interesting posting on “reddit” by a Yokocrono, “What can we reasonably expect to see by the year 2020?” and with the following predictions (mostly scientific):

- Personalised DNA sequencing for under $100

- 3D printing is a mainstream consumer product

- 10 nanometre chips enter mass production

- Scientists resurrect the woolly mammoth

- New drug delivery methods for brain-related conditions

- Total solar eclipse in the USA

- The world's first HIV vaccine is commercially available

- Teleportation of simple molecules

- The James Webb telescope is launched

- Polio has been eradicated

- Consumer devices with 100 Gbit/s transfer speeds

- Scientists drill into Earth's mantle

- Computers break the exaflop barrier

- Bionic eyes with high resolution are commercially available

- The Aral Sea disappears from the map

He/she has supplied the appropriate links in case you want to investigate further.  My suspicions is that this sage is a "he" (HIV prediction), a Brit (spelling of "personalised"), of Japanese ethnicity or a Beatles fan (his moniker), a computer geek (all the predictions about cyber-stats), an environmentalist (Aral Sea prediction), and an admirer of Bill Gates (polio eradication prediction).

Now if I may, I would like to add the following predictions to this list (sans links):

- Replacement human organs will be manufactured on a massive scale
- Global -warming mania will have disappeared
- The world will have experienced an extended period of double-digit inflation
- China will have annexed Mongolia
- A barrel of oil will be below $50; gold below $1000 per oz.
- Because of changing oil geo-economics, Islamist terrorism will abate
- Google Inc. will be broken up
- Obamacare will not bend down the rising cost of heathcare in the U.S.
- Putin will still run the Russian Federation
- Hillary Clinton will not be President of the United States

I hope I am around in 2020 to see if I'm right.