BigT’s Roundup - Wednesday Ed. (10-24-07)

by BigT | October 25, 2007 at 01:11 am | 92 views | add comment

I’m not sure if anyone is taking my Save Red Eye petition
seriously because the last person to sign it has a first name of
McLovin. Hmm, I know the show is one joke after another so it attracts
a certain, um, crowd. But really, McLovin? I loathe the hours I spent
on that; well, OK it was only about twenty minutes, but it’s the
principle of it all that counts.

Back to some real news: Turkey has started attacking the PKK terrorists
with F-16s and Cobra gunships both within the Turkish border and in
select areas in Northern Iraq. The main objective of these terrorist is
to carve out their own independent Kurdish state; which, when you
consider the fact that they were haphazardly put into New Country A or
New Country B or New Country C after WW II seems reasonable. Wouldn’t
you want a country to call your own?

The question is whether to support the rights of the sovereign
nation of Turkey or the rights of a people to have self rule. I am
going to have to side with Turkey on this one as of right now because
if anything is to be learned from the decolonization efforts of the
20th century it is that they mostly embraced socialism and ushered in
an era of famine and death for their people. The PKK, their full name
is the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, would probably follow in the lines of
their leftist brethren to the West (both to the North and South) and
bring forth worse conditions then they currently live under.

It looks like some American defense officials agree with me on the siding with Turkey position. From Bloomberg:

Turkey’s military attacked Kurdish fighters in northern
Iraq today as a senior U.S. defense official asked Iraqi authorities to
ease the crisis by stopping the fighters from moving across the border
into Turkey.

The official, while declining to say what the U.S. would do if the
Iraqis failed to act, said there was growing sympathy among top
American leaders for the Turkish position that action must be taken to
curb the Kurdish guerrillas. The official briefed reporters in
Washington on condition of anonymity.

Their reason for siding with Turkey probably has more to do with
Turkey being an ally of America and a crucial point along our supply
route for Iraq. But that’s OK, it’s not the method that matters here
but the end.

Another area of our lives where the end matters more then the means is in investing and Jim Rogers knows this better then most.
He is taking his money out of American dollars and putting it into
Chinese yuan, Japanese yen, and Swiss francs. His reasoning for this
move is that he thinks the American economy is in a deep recession
(Bernanke is keeping it afloat with an ocean of dollars). Mr. Rogers is
also bullish on the Chinese stock market even though Warren Buffet has
made warnings about the bubble he thinks is forming in that market.

While I am seriously worried about the continued devaluation of the
dollar (and I am significantly worried) I don’t think this country is
headed for a catastrophe. The economy is still growing and inflation is
in check even though Bernanke has been harvesting the dollar tree. I
think the biggest threat to this country’s economy is the coming to
Jesus meeting we’re going to have with out of control welfare programs
like Social Security and the specter of universal health care. Just cut
taxes AND cut government and things will improve.

And we have a lot of improvement to make since under President Bush’s
stewardship the annual increase in the rate of discretionary spending
(including spending on defense) is higher then under any other president. Don’t believe me? Look at this chart, charts don’t lie.

Bush has spent a lot of our money.

Part of Bush’s brilliant “new tone” included giving away the farm to
every democrat who came a knocking at the White House door. Ted Kennedy
wanted a big education bill so he got it. A ton more for prescription
drugs? Sure, the more pills the better. A new department called
Homeland Security fit nicely over those other already bloated
bureaucracies. I’ve always said that Bush is not a conservative and he
proves it everyday by increasing the budget significantly and using his
veto very sparingly.

But I’m still extremely glad that he was elected as president over
Al Gore; he of the Nobel clan. The reason why is obvious - the war.
Bush, even after all the crap that has been thrown at him for the last
few years over the War on Terror, is still on the prowl protecting this
nation. I don’t think that anyone thought that there would not be
another terrorist attack six years after 9-11. But this is the world we
live in and, ironically, the reason why the War on Terror moniker has
hurt him politically: there is no terror at home so how could we be at
war with it? But that is beyond the point because even though Bush has
been successful at keeping the dogs at bay doesn’t mean they aren’t out
there.

And the biggest dog barking at our gate right now is Iran. They and
their buddies in Syria and North Korea have been working hard at
getting nukes for their triumvirate of destruction. Iran still persists
on playing their little masquerade of nuclear weapon non-ambition
ambition. In my mind it’s not a question of “if” but “when.” And, thank
God, President Bush has the helm at which he can guide us through these stormy waters.

Iran’s nuclear program and alleged backing of terrorism
represent “perhaps the single greatest challenge” to US national
security, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday.

“We are very concerned that the policies of Iran constitute perhaps
the single greatest challenge to American security interests in the
Middle East and around the world,” she said at a hearing in Congress.

After recent bellicose US remarks, including President George W.
Bush’s warning that a nuclear-armed Iran evoked the threat of “World
War III,” Rice said that Washington remained committed to talks to end
Iran’s atomic drive.

“We are, with our international partners, continuing to pursue a
two-track approach on the nuclear issue,” she told the House of
Representatives Foreign Relations Committee, giving testimony about US
policy on the Middle East.

Rice noted that along with talks steered by European Union foreign
policy chief Javier Solana, Washington and its EU partners were working
on tougher UN sanctions against Iran given its refusal to renounce
uranium enrichment.

Beyond the diplomacy, she said, Bush was determined to pursue
“Iranian actors that are harming our troops (in Iraq) and innocent
Iraqis.”

Even with all the bellicosity going around from the Bush
administration that doesn’t mean our Iranian counterparts are even
pretending to be peaceful. They have just placed an order for some jets.

Iran has signed a deal with China to purchase 24 J-10
fighter jets between 2008 and 2010, Russian news agency Novosti
reported. The jets were developed based on the technology of Israel’s
Lavi fighter jet, whose technology was sold to China against the wishes
of the US.

Novosti stated that the J-10 has a range of 2,940 kilometers,
bringing it within range of Israel. Iran’s current MiG-29 jets have a
range of 2,100 kilometers.

A Russian military expert, quoted by the agency, said that Iran
plans to use the new aircraft as part of its defense of the Bushehr
nuclear facility in the face of a possible attack.

The Israeli Lavi fighter jet was developed in the 1980s but the
project was canceled following pressure from America, which feared that
the new jet would compete with its F-16 in international markets. The
US subsequently sold F-16s to Israel at reduced costs.

China began developing the J-10 in 2004 and currently has 89 aircraft in active service.

Novosti added that no response was given by the Prime Minister’s office.

At least we could look to the future for a real conservative. No,
not among the current crop necessarily (Thompson being the only top
tier possible exception). But we have hope for 2016 to 2032 in a man
whose parents came from India. His name is Bobby Jindal, the straight
A’s whiz kid who is the new governor of left Louisiana. And he’s a conservative! For the love of God someone tap him to be their Vice President this go around. Please!

The next Reagan!