Month: November 2006

Saudi Arabia antes in

Saudi Arabia says it’ll intervene in Iraq[*1] if the U.S. pulls out:

(Saudi security advisor) Nawaf Obaid, writing in The Washington Post, said the Saudi leadership was preparing to revise its Iraq policy to deal with the aftermath of a possible U.S. pullout, and is considering options including flooding the oil market to crash prices and thus limit Iran’s ability to finance Shi’ite militias in Iraq.

“To be sure, Saudi engagement in Iraq carries great risks — it could spark a regional war. So be it: The consequences of inaction are far worse,” Obaid said.

Too bad the majority of Americans didn’t think through the results of your actions when we voted in the Surrender Party.

Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving is almost here, and that means that Christmas is right around the corner.

So what if the Democrats are in power (and, predictably, melting down almost instantly–thank you, Nancy Pelosi!).  So what if the Syrians keep assassinating Lebanese leaders?  So what if Iraq still isn’t a civil war.

Hey, college basketball has started, which means the fall/winter college basketball travel season is in full force.

Life is good.

RIP Milton Friedman

One of history’s great voices for individual freedom and liberty is silenced.  Economist Milton Friedman just passed away.

OpinionJournal remembers[*1] :

For all of his academic accomplishments, Professor Friedman’s role as a popularizer of free-market principles was arguably more important. He wrote a column in Newsweek for 18 years starting in 1966, preaching the importance of economic freedom to a generation that had never heard such things in school. His 1980 book, “Free to Choose,” was a best seller, and the videos that accompanied it were smuggled behind the Iron Curtain like seeds of revolution.

He was among the first to point to Hong Kong as a model of free-market success, a lesson that even today is remaking Communist China. And he first suggested educational vouchers to rescue failing public schools as long ago as 1955; in recent years, he established a foundation to support this idea that continues to advance despite ferocious opposition from unions and other entrenched interests.

Got heal pain? Try this stretch exercise

I, along with a number of my siblings, have plantar fascitis, which is basically heal pain.

From Science Daily comes this report of a new stretch exercise which is reported to help[*1] :

The stretch requires patients to sit with one leg crossed over theother, and stretch the arch of the foot by taking one hand and pullingthe toes back toward the shin for a count of 10. The exercise must berepeated 10 times, and performed at least three times a day, includingbefore taking the first step in the morning and before standing after aprolonged period of sitting. More than 90 percent of the patients weretotally satisfied or satisfied with minor reservations, and noteddistinct decrease in pain and activity limitations. The most commoncause of heel pain, plantar fasciitis occurs when the plantar fascia,the flat band of tissue that connects your heel bone to your toes, isstrained, causing weakness, inflammation and irritation. Common inmiddle-aged people as well as younger people who are on their feet alot, like athletes or soldiers, people with plantar fasciitisexperience extreme pain when they stand or walk. Plantar fasciitis canbe a frustrating experience, as the chronic cycle of reinjury and paincan last for up to one year. DiGiovanni likens it to pulling ahamstring, and continuing to run without proper stretching. “Walkingwithout stretching those foot tissues is just re-injuring yourself,” hesaid.

The Democrats start in a hole

Yahoo News:
Poll:  Most doubt Dems have plan for Iraq[*1]

Though voters apparently embraced the Democratic mantra of changingcourse in Iraq, a majority of the public did not detect a clearDemocratic blueprint for ending the war. Fifty-seven percent of alladults in the AP-Ipsos poll said Democrats do not have a plan for Iraq;29 percent said they do. The poll of 1,002 adults has a margin of errorof 3 percentage points.

That finding strikes at the heart of a Democratic dilemma. The partyhas been of one voice in criticizing President Bush’s strategy for thewar but has been more equivocal on how to move in a different direction.

Welcome to reality, Democrats.  It’s always easier to complain from the outside than it is to execute from the inside.

For the sake of our country, I hope you do the right thing.  History will be the final judge.

The election is over, the war continues

So indicates the head of the UK’s MI5 intelligence service, according to Yahoo News[*1] :

LONDON – British authorities are tracking almost 30 terrorist plots involving 1,600 people, the country’s domestic spy chief said in remarks released Friday, warning that young British Muslims are at risk of being radicalized by extremists.

It was the first public estimate of the threat by the head of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, who said her agency and police are monitoring 200 cells actively engaged in plotting or aiding attacks in Britain and abroad.

More than a year after the suicide attacks on London’s transit system, Manningham-Buller predicted the fight against terrorism would last a generation.

“It is a sustained campaign, not a series of isolated incidents,” she said in a speech to a small audience of academics Thursday, according to a transcript released by the spy agency on Friday. “Radicalizing elements within communities are trying to exploit grievances for terrorist purposes.”

This war won’t go away if we just talk to the terrorists.  They have made their demands perfectly clear.

Submit.

Or die.

Beer…In…Spaaaaaace!!!!!

Well, not quite. But the headline in this Space.com story reads:
Heineken to track beer by satellite[*1]

Do you know where your beer is? Dutch beer maker Heineken wants to make sure – so it has put together a team that includes IBM and the University of Amsterdam to track beer by satellite.

Beer Living Lab is a pilot project that will track 20 beer containers shipped from the Netherlands to Heineken’s UK distribution centre. Each container will be outfitted with GSM, GPRS and global positioning systems. Satellite uplinks will be provided due to particular technical problems with RFID, which can only be read when the tag is close to a RFID reader.

Hope for the future

I hope the Democrats, now back in power in Congress, will grow up, sober up and start seriously engaging issues from Iraq to Social Security.  I hope they do not squander the next two years with a crippling anal examination of every aspect of the Bush Administration, but instead will want to move forward, keep this country safe, and fix the entitlements mess for which they are largely responsible.

I hope the Republicans ponder the fruits of abandoning the small-L libertarian smaller-government, lower-taxes, individual-empowerment philosophy which was central to their taking over Congress in 1994, and rededicate themselves to being the reformist party that brought them to power in the first place.