BigT’s Roundup - Monday Ed. (11-19-07)

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BigT’s Roundup - Monday Ed. (11-19-07)

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15,000+ have died in Bangladesh from a cyclone.
This is a huge disaster. What it shows is that there is no way on God’s
green earth we can do anything to prevent or even predict something
that comes from nature. The forces of weather and climate change are
well beyond our control and no matter what we do we can only nudge it a
minuscule amount.

“Milk your rat.”
Heather Mills is one leg short of a, sorry, too easy I guess. Also
below the belt. But when someone comes out saying that in order to go
green you have to get down on all fours and milk rodents and pets, a la
Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents, then not much is “below the belt.”

I have this sneaky feeling that a couple hundred years from now they
are going to look back at this time in history and think we’re nuts
just like we look back on others in history and think the same things.
We’re responsible for the most dynamic world economy ever, the standard
of living for the poor in America is better then the standard of living
for 99% of people throughout history, and basically nothing is out of
the realm of possibility in America and yet we have stories about
milking rats to save the world. The last thing I have to say is that
Ms. Mills is milking her previous marriage and environmentalism as much
as she can.

France’s economy sucks:

France is ranked as only the 18th most competitive
nation in the world; the country’s public debt has grown faster than
anywhere else in Europe. Unemployment sits at 8.4 percent, but is 22
percent among people under age 25 and up to 50 percent in some troubled
suburbs.

And to top all of that off there are a multitude of strikes already
in place or being threatened. President Sarkozy should seize this as an
opportunity and get rid of as many of these unions as possible. The
problem with France’s economy is that it is paralyzed because there are
draconian regulations put in place that makes it nearly impossible to
fire anyone and extremely costly to hire any new employees. It is
imperative that this stranglehold is broken if France wants to have a
chance at being competitive once again. Maybe Sarkozy should take a
page out of Reagan’s book and fire a bunch of these strikers. But,
seeing as this is France after all, that would probably be illegal.

Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule
a couple weeks ago to, some cynically say, make sure that he became the
president. One of the bonuses that comes along with declaring emergency
rule is that he got to unilaterally reappoint the Supreme Court and
that very Supreme Court has dismissed the important challenges against another Musharraf term as president. After this “surprising” development Musharraf has said he will step down as general by the end of this week.

All of this leads to a couple of interesting questions. First, was
martial law necessary? I think that it is because Pakistan is being
overran by insurgent forces from al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other
assorted bellicose groups. About a month ago the left’s leading light
for “democracy,” Benazir Bhutto, almost got blown up into 1,000 little
pieces. Waziristan makes “Indian territory” seem like a week at
Disneyland. The place is falling to the wrong people.

The second major question should be was there an ulterior motive to
declaring martial law? Short answer, yes. It’s no secret that Musharraf
has political enemies, enemies that may not specifically want to be
overran by seventh century Islamic retreads, but enemies nonetheless.
These political enemies seem to be blinded by the fact that Musharraf
isn’t a ray of sunshine in a troubled land and would back anyone but
him for democracy.

Musharraf recognizes this and acted to make sure that he remained
president because he thinks (and I think) he’s what is best for
Pakistan right now. I hope that his line of reasoning is that any
political disintegration in Pakistan will lead to radical Islam taking
over Pakistan and not that he just wants to keep his position of power.
We’ll find out soon enough.

BigT’s Linkapalooza:

NY Times not completely right on subprime woes.

Which baseball bat would you get?

Chavez & OPEC.

Chavez & Ahmadinejad.

Chavez & Ahmadinejad v America.

“Shut up!” Get the ringtone that tells the Venezuelan dictator what to do.

Powell says Iran isn’t close to going nuclear.

Shepard Smith worth 7+ million dollars per year.

Christopher Hitchens tells us what is going on in Iraq.

BigT