Being a Texas resident I like Rick Perry so I will probably be posting a lot about him in the run up to next year’s election. I predict that Perry will win the Republican nomination and trounce Obama. The question is who will be his running mate? I think and hope it will be Herman Cain. Here is the first link: A commentary piece from Perry in USA Today
As the period of détente during the 1970’s continued, the rapprochement between the Soviet Union and the United States seemed to intensify and promised to lessen tensions between the rival countries. The invasion of Afghanistan and the imposition of a communist regime seemed to signal that the communists had not abandoned their dream of global conquest. This caused the United States to renew their efforts to halt the communist expansion by supporting the Afghan rebels in their efforts to expel the Russians. After the Soviet invasion, progress towards furthering friendly relations between the west and Soviets halted and even moved backwards. Ronald Reagan, the newly elected American … More after the Jump…
I ran across a piece in Bloomberg Businessweek that is very interesting. The God Clause and the Reinsurance Industry It is a fairly long story but the gist of it is that reinsurer’s, companies that essentially insure insurance companies, have some very sophisticated models for assessing risk but even they are not omniscient when it comes to natural events. The way these companies caegorize risk is interesting in the extreme. Lloyds of London has an entire section of their website devoted to analyzing risk and they annually put out a list of Realistic Disaster Scenarios. What I found most interesting were the examples in the story of the way … More after the Jump…
Jed Babbitt has an excellent piece on RCP today that talks about the potential threat China represents to the US and by implication, the rest of the Western world.China’s Economic Sword. People have been pointing to the potential threat China poses for at least the past twenty+years and are almost invariably poo-pooed as being unrealistic and that China does not pose a threat to the US they just want to modernize and bring the fruits of that modernization to their own people. I tend to think that China is indeed a threat and a threat we in the West ignore at our own peril. There are several developments … More after the Jump…
I have read several of Niall Ferguson’s books and while I may not always agree with him hi writing style and analysis are always interesting and thought provoking. Civilization: The West and the Rest is no different. I have the UK edition of the book, I doubt it is significantly different from the US edition except for the cover, but cannot guarantee it. In this book Dr. Ferguson attempts to analyze and explain why the West, which he defines as European and countries with a European heritage, has prospered so much over the past 500 years and how the West managed to control so much of the globe. … More after the Jump…
I wrote about the war/action/conflict/kinetic what have you in Libya when it kicked off in March, April, and again in June. With the rebels now storming Tripoli itself and being on the verge of success under the cover of NATO, the question now becomes what will the successor regime look like. I will guess here and say that it will be a notional democracy wit an oligarchy of strongmen in power. They will also make all the right noises to placate the soft-heads in the west and make them feel good about their policy of R2P. It will probably not be long before the new regime starts hunting down Qaddafis … More after the Jump…
Ace of Spades put up an excellent post a few weeks ago about the lack of Civics knowledge in this country.http://ace.mu.nu/archives/318322.php#318322 The best part of the post are the links to the old Schoolhouse Rock videos that just about everyone older than 30 should remember. I fondly remember them from Saturday morning’s when I was kid. Anyway, check out the post and watch the videos too. Here is a great site to go and test your civics knowledge: The BBHQ Great American Civics Quiz. There are 54 questions on the test. I got a 46, I guess I need to study some more. 🙁 Post your score in the comments.
Here is an excellent piece from the CATO Institute on why the US needs a Balanced Budget Amendment. It includes this awesome graphic illustrating the way our national debt has grown over the last thirty-years.  After looking at that can anyone doubt that America as a nation needs to quit borrowing money and spending it like a drunk sailor on Liberty? The issue with America, specifically our government, is that they have gotten addicted to spending money we don’t have. I have said for years that if I ran my personal accounts like the government does theirs I would be in jail for fraud. It is … More after the Jump…
The First Rule of Liberalism: Government failure always justifies more government. That is one of the best lines I have seen in a while. Thanks to the Best of the Web Team at the Wall Street Journal for coming up with it. It is just about as good as Reagan’s famous nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’
At the present time, Germany is in a strategic position unparalleled in its history. The German state shares no borders with any potential enemies in the near future. Historically Germany has had to contend with one or more enemies sharing contiguous borders with it and rarely has Germany been able to count on outside help in combating these enemies. As a continental as opposed to maritime power this situation is unprecedented for Germany with her short coastline and long land borders. Historically Germany has always shared a border with at least one enemy whether at peace with them or not. The list of historical enemies is … More after the Jump…
I have been pondering this one for a while now. Â What exactly, is the west trying to accomplish in Libya? Â I have posted on this before here and here, and I am still puzzled as to what we are trying to accomplish in Libya, protect so-called innocent civilians or topple Qaddafi’s regime? The stated goal of the administration is to protect civilians in line with the UN Security Council resolution # 1973, but the way in which the air campaign is being waged certainly makes it seem as if toppling Qaddafi is the goal of the bombing. Â Their were intense air attacks yesterday, and one of his son’s was killed … More after the Jump…
What happens if Iran develops the bomb? That is a question often asked in the press but never really answered. Â A new report from the RAND Corporation seems to suggest that Iran may be in possession of a nuclear warhead within the next eight weeks. Â Admittedly, that link is from an Israeli and thus not necessarily objective news source but the original question still stands. Â What would the response of the world be to an Iranian announcement that they are now in possession of a nuclear weapon? Â I don’t have any great confidence that it would be anything effective. Â I foresee much gnashing of teeth in Western capitals, the Chinese … More after the Jump…
Herman Cain is the one real person running for president, not a career politician. He is probably the best candidate out there and I am waiting for the left-wing Smear Machine to go into overdrive on him. Here s a pretty good piece in The American that talks about how can the Tea Party be racist since most of us love Herman Cain.
The Mexican-American war of 1846-1848 was not inevitable but both sides placed themselves on a collision course that seemingly made it so. A combination of Mexican unwillingness to recognize Texas independence and the desire of Texans for statehood with American desire for westward expansion set the stage for the first offensive war in the short History of the United States. Tensions between Mexico and the United States had been building for decades, ever since the Mexican government invited Anglo settlers into Texas in the 1820’s. The war with Mexico was the result of long-standing Anglo grievances that were mostly of the Mexican government’s own making. Perhaps … More after the Jump…
I dabble in the stock market and one of the stocks I owned until recently was 5 shares of Citigroup stock. I picked it up in late 2008 at $6 a share hoping to vulture-like profit share. In the interests of full disclosure, I bought it before they got any TARP money. It has since declined even further and sat in my stock portfolio like unwanted cheesecake consistently valued at less than I paid for it. I decided about a year ago that as soon as it broke even I would sell it and wash my hands of the company I dislike anyway. I dislike Citigroup … More after the Jump…
