The Coming War With China, Part Two
As antithetical as it is to the Christmas spirit of peace on Earth and good will toward all men, the unfortunate reality is that the grossly cynical view of peace as merely a temporary interruption of war is as true today as it ever was.
As Americans finish up their Christmas shopping and read encouraging, heart-warming stories of troops returning home following the “end” of the Iraqi War, more realistic observers are aware the conflict is far from over and that many of those same soldiers will soon be re-engaging in that and other wars.
Even more ominous in our unstable world are the activities of America’s primary trading partner, lender of hundreds of billions to our treasury, and our unacknowledged adversary, the Peoples Republic of China, the PRC.
Almost two years ago, I posted an opinion piece, “The Coming War With China,” which offered the unoriginal theory that the inscrutable Chinese were preparing for an inevitable clash with the only power that stands in the way of their world dominance, the United States.
Russia continues to make noises and threats asserting its pretensions but, despite Putin’s blustering and new missile development, the time of the Russian Bear passed with the passing of the U.S.S.R. and the best hope the new Russia now has is a military alliance with the PRC when the appropriate time comes for alliances.
And it will.
For years, most military analysts felt China did not pose a realistic threat to America and little chance to re-claim what it considers Chinese territory in Taiwan because of a weak, under-equipped navy, particularly a dearth of aircraft carriers.
That assessment has been changing as rapidly as China’s economic boom has boomed and was recently updated after a commercial American satellite–not the CIA–discovered a Chinese aircraft carrier under way in the Yellow Sea. Almost as secretive as its ally, North Korea, China originally contended the Varyag, purchased from Ukraine ten years ago, would be converted into a floating casino.
Something changed and now the PRC is saying the Varyag ”is intended for research and training, which has led to speculation that it plans to build future copies,” according to a Huffington Post report.
Attempting to save face in the wake of the private satellite photo, our Defense Department expressed no surprise amd suggested the carrier wouldn’t be fully operational for years.
One re-furbished Soviet carrier does not an attack force make . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=11496.)
Showing posts with label china. Show all posts
Showing posts with label china. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
The Impending Debt Star
The Impending Debt Star
Thomas Carlyle characterized economics as “the dismal science” in the eighteenth century. It hasn’t changed much in the twentieth, particularly as it relates to our federal government’s handling of the economy and most particularly as it concerns the current debt crisis.
That “handling” has, in fact, gone beyond dismal and has breached the realm of the hopelessly bleak as a result the ongoing, contentious debate over the so-called “debt ceiling,” that is, to raise it for the umpteenth time and burden our children and grandchildren with even more debt or to stop the fiscal insanity of borrowing even more money from people like the Chinese to pay our bills.
Running our households like government runs our government would eventually bankrupt individuals just as the feds and local politicians are bankrupting the country and any number of states.
Washington, of course, has a unique advantage over places such as New Jersey and Wisconsin in that in D.C. they have an alternative to all that borrowing: They can simply print more dollars when they exhaust the national treasury or when China indicates it holds too much of our insecure notes.
If Joe Blow or Joe the Plumber had access to dollar printing presses, both Joes would be accused of counterfeiting yet politicians get away with it.
The issues most Americans understandably refuse to confront are unpalatable and painful.
After all, this is America, exceptional, invincible, wealthy, and wise. We can’t, we refuse to believe we can go bankrupt! We can’t undergo anything akin to post-World War I Germany when it took a wheelbarrow full of virtually worthless papiermarks to buy a loaf of bread! We refuse to accept that our paper bucks, the value of which is based not on anything with intrinsic value such as gold but on the full faith and credit of the United States of America, will succumb to hyper-inflation!
It simply can’t happen here!
To paraphrase the chief architect of our fiscal plight: Yes, it can.
Daniel J. Flynn in “Five Falsehoods of the Debt Debate” lists only the most recent “falsehoods,” a euphemism for lies, perpetrated by that architect.
They include . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5037)
Thomas Carlyle characterized economics as “the dismal science” in the eighteenth century. It hasn’t changed much in the twentieth, particularly as it relates to our federal government’s handling of the economy and most particularly as it concerns the current debt crisis.
That “handling” has, in fact, gone beyond dismal and has breached the realm of the hopelessly bleak as a result the ongoing, contentious debate over the so-called “debt ceiling,” that is, to raise it for the umpteenth time and burden our children and grandchildren with even more debt or to stop the fiscal insanity of borrowing even more money from people like the Chinese to pay our bills.
Running our households like government runs our government would eventually bankrupt individuals just as the feds and local politicians are bankrupting the country and any number of states.
Washington, of course, has a unique advantage over places such as New Jersey and Wisconsin in that in D.C. they have an alternative to all that borrowing: They can simply print more dollars when they exhaust the national treasury or when China indicates it holds too much of our insecure notes.
If Joe Blow or Joe the Plumber had access to dollar printing presses, both Joes would be accused of counterfeiting yet politicians get away with it.
The issues most Americans understandably refuse to confront are unpalatable and painful.
After all, this is America, exceptional, invincible, wealthy, and wise. We can’t, we refuse to believe we can go bankrupt! We can’t undergo anything akin to post-World War I Germany when it took a wheelbarrow full of virtually worthless papiermarks to buy a loaf of bread! We refuse to accept that our paper bucks, the value of which is based not on anything with intrinsic value such as gold but on the full faith and credit of the United States of America, will succumb to hyper-inflation!
It simply can’t happen here!
To paraphrase the chief architect of our fiscal plight: Yes, it can.
Daniel J. Flynn in “Five Falsehoods of the Debt Debate” lists only the most recent “falsehoods,” a euphemism for lies, perpetrated by that architect.
They include . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5037)
Thursday, April 28, 2011
The End of "The Age of America"
The End of "The Age of America"
We may, or may not, be living through The Age of Aquarius but since astrological ages last on average about 2,150 years it doesn’t matter very much.
More relevant to Americans is the duration of The Age of America which doesn’t refer to our nation’s chronological age but to that period of world history when the United States dominated the world stage. Past tense is apropos since the Age of America is coming to a close.
Liberal commentators, who philosophically if not in actuality resent that dominance, may be applauding the recent forecast issued by the International Monetary Fund that China’s economy will reach and surpass that of the U.S. within five years but most Americans will experience a sense of loss, a feeling of defeat and even grief for the end of greatness at the IMF announcement.
On the other hand, conservative observers, ever-confident in that greatness, are disputing the IMF’s opinion on various bases, most often pointing to the inherent illusory quality of the explosive growth of the Chinese economic model.
For example, Stephen Green in, “Is the ‘Age of America’ Really at an End?” highlights China’s fundamental flaws, its weak yuan and GDP, the continuing poverty of its people, its dearth of close friends in the international community, and its ecological disaster caused in large part by China’s inexorable pursuit of prosperity.
Green concedes significant Chinese strengths, notably its $3 trillion foreign currency reserves, (much of which represents ownership of America), and President Deng Xiaoping’s capitalistic invocation to China’s masses to get out there and get rich! http://bit.ly/eQdgBo
Juxtapose those reserves and that mandate against China’s unprecedented military build-up, against our out-of-control budget . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4249)
We may, or may not, be living through The Age of Aquarius but since astrological ages last on average about 2,150 years it doesn’t matter very much.
More relevant to Americans is the duration of The Age of America which doesn’t refer to our nation’s chronological age but to that period of world history when the United States dominated the world stage. Past tense is apropos since the Age of America is coming to a close.
Liberal commentators, who philosophically if not in actuality resent that dominance, may be applauding the recent forecast issued by the International Monetary Fund that China’s economy will reach and surpass that of the U.S. within five years but most Americans will experience a sense of loss, a feeling of defeat and even grief for the end of greatness at the IMF announcement.
On the other hand, conservative observers, ever-confident in that greatness, are disputing the IMF’s opinion on various bases, most often pointing to the inherent illusory quality of the explosive growth of the Chinese economic model.
For example, Stephen Green in, “Is the ‘Age of America’ Really at an End?” highlights China’s fundamental flaws, its weak yuan and GDP, the continuing poverty of its people, its dearth of close friends in the international community, and its ecological disaster caused in large part by China’s inexorable pursuit of prosperity.
Green concedes significant Chinese strengths, notably its $3 trillion foreign currency reserves, (much of which represents ownership of America), and President Deng Xiaoping’s capitalistic invocation to China’s masses to get out there and get rich! http://bit.ly/eQdgBo
Juxtapose those reserves and that mandate against China’s unprecedented military build-up, against our out-of-control budget . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4249)
Monday, April 11, 2011
Of Snooki, Rape, and Human Rights
Of Snooki, Rape, and Human Rights
Just when you think you’ve heard it all, that nothing can surprise you anymore, that any news the world throws at you can handle, a reality check: You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!
RUTGERS AND SNOOKI: First, from the “entertainment” front, taxpayers are footing a $32,000 bill in order that students at the State University of New Jersey, Rutgers, to hear the words of wisdom of Nicole Polizzi, aka Snooki, on MTV’s contribution to the enhancement of television, Jersey Shore.
Rutgers, which “is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to turning knowledge into solutions for local, national, and global communities,” apparently makes exceptions to those lofty goals.
Snooki was paid two grand more than Rutgers’ May commencement speaker, poetess Toni Morrison, which in itself is an absurdity, to talk on such momentous topics as her hair, (“The pouf is its own living form”), the reality of Jersey Shore, (“You can’t make this sh– up”), and her biggest inspiration, (“being tan”). (http://bit.ly/hDHHJh)
Whatever “solutions” Rutgers derived from Snooki should come out in the wash.
RACISM AND SEXISM: Next is a media revelation: America’s, if not the world’s, so-called “Paper of Record,” “The Gray Lady,” the revered, liberal, overrated and soon-to-be-defunct New York Times can be a misogynistic, sexist, racist rag. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4054)
Just when you think you’ve heard it all, that nothing can surprise you anymore, that any news the world throws at you can handle, a reality check: You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!
RUTGERS AND SNOOKI: First, from the “entertainment” front, taxpayers are footing a $32,000 bill in order that students at the State University of New Jersey, Rutgers, to hear the words of wisdom of Nicole Polizzi, aka Snooki, on MTV’s contribution to the enhancement of television, Jersey Shore.
Rutgers, which “is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to turning knowledge into solutions for local, national, and global communities,” apparently makes exceptions to those lofty goals.
Snooki was paid two grand more than Rutgers’ May commencement speaker, poetess Toni Morrison, which in itself is an absurdity, to talk on such momentous topics as her hair, (“The pouf is its own living form”), the reality of Jersey Shore, (“You can’t make this sh– up”), and her biggest inspiration, (“being tan”). (http://bit.ly/hDHHJh)
Whatever “solutions” Rutgers derived from Snooki should come out in the wash.
RACISM AND SEXISM: Next is a media revelation: America’s, if not the world’s, so-called “Paper of Record,” “The Gray Lady,” the revered, liberal, overrated and soon-to-be-defunct New York Times can be a misogynistic, sexist, racist rag. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4054)
Friday, January 28, 2011
"My Motherland" or, How America Was Shafted
"My Motherland" or, How America Was Shafted
“Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.” Sometimes.
Chinese concert pianist Lang Lang didn’t do much in the way of soothing or softening or bending a few weeks ago. In fact, he raised a firestorm. Lang Lang is either a fool or an inscrutably devious propagandist for the People’s Republic of China.
Lang Lang, 郎朗, you may recall, was the 28 year old Chinese piano player who wowed the crowd at the White House State Dinner for China’s Paramount Leader, Hu Jintao, on January 19th by tickling the keyboard with ”My Motherland,” 我的祖國, the theme song from the Battle on Shangganling Mountain which coincidentally was an anti-American Chinese war film lauding ChiCom efforts to kill American soldiers, “jackals,” during the Korean War.
Lang Lang, a highly-acclaimed artist, doesn’t seem to be a stupid man but, when the source of his selection became known, he said he chose the piece “because it has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. It was selected for no other reason but for the beauty of its melody” and he was totally ignorant of the origins of the music. The White House readily lapped up his explanation.
So, too, did Raymond Zhou, a writer for China Daily, dismiss the “hoopla” created by a Chinese citizen playing an anti-American song of war in America’s White House. As Zhou said, “It is quite possible Lang Lang was attracted to the melody and oblivious to the hidden meaning of the lyrics.” It is also quite possible that either Lang Lang is an absolute ignoramus since the song and melody have long topped the Chinese hit list or Mr. Zhou is an absolute liar. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3513)
“Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.” Sometimes.
Chinese concert pianist Lang Lang didn’t do much in the way of soothing or softening or bending a few weeks ago. In fact, he raised a firestorm. Lang Lang is either a fool or an inscrutably devious propagandist for the People’s Republic of China.
Lang Lang, 郎朗, you may recall, was the 28 year old Chinese piano player who wowed the crowd at the White House State Dinner for China’s Paramount Leader, Hu Jintao, on January 19th by tickling the keyboard with ”My Motherland,” 我的祖國, the theme song from the Battle on Shangganling Mountain which coincidentally was an anti-American Chinese war film lauding ChiCom efforts to kill American soldiers, “jackals,” during the Korean War.
Lang Lang, a highly-acclaimed artist, doesn’t seem to be a stupid man but, when the source of his selection became known, he said he chose the piece “because it has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. It was selected for no other reason but for the beauty of its melody” and he was totally ignorant of the origins of the music. The White House readily lapped up his explanation.
So, too, did Raymond Zhou, a writer for China Daily, dismiss the “hoopla” created by a Chinese citizen playing an anti-American song of war in America’s White House. As Zhou said, “It is quite possible Lang Lang was attracted to the melody and oblivious to the hidden meaning of the lyrics.” It is also quite possible that either Lang Lang is an absolute ignoramus since the song and melody have long topped the Chinese hit list or Mr. Zhou is an absolute liar. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3513)
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Manipulated News from China and Al Sharpton
Manipulated News from China and Al Sharpton
When we used to think of “news,” we thought of contemporary developments that somehow could affect us, the country, our neighborhoods, etc. Lately, news has become far more manipulated, serving, as with the MSM, more as a vehicle for propagandizing than for the dissemination of actual information.
International “news” has long been that way, propagandistic, especially if it emanated from behind the late, unlamented Iron Curtain, Cuba, the People’s Republic of China, et al. None of that group have really changed much in presenting real news, they’ve just gotten a tad more subtle and they lie better than in the past.
Case in point is China which has just announced, via a “top diplomat,” that it ”does not want to ‘replace’ [sic] the United States from its dominant role in the world, and the world should not fear China’s rise.”
Said diplomat, Dai Bingguo, wrote in an essay carried on the Foreign Ministry’s website, which gave it an official imprimatur and which was lapped up by Reuters, “The notion that China wants to replace the United States and dominate the world is a myth. Politically, we . . . respect the social systems and development path of the different peoples of the world [and] economically, we wholeheartedly want to continue to develop. Militarily, we are not engaged in an arms race:” http://tiny.cc/k9rp8
Those statements are commendable, not for their truth and sincerity, but for the achievement of perpetrating four monumental, blatant lies within the span of three sentences!
No interest in supplanting the U.S. which China now virtually owns? No need for the world to fear China’s meteoric rise and its economic incursions into Africa and Latin America? Respect for the different peoples of the world even as China fails to show respect for its own people by forced abortions? No arms race while China engages in an unprecedented build-up of its land and air power while establishing the first modern navy in its history?
That was indeed a marvel of attempted news manipulation, Mr. Bingguo, who also threw in a veiled warning: “The international community should welcome and not fear China’s peaceful development, help it and not hinder it, support it and not hold it back.” But the world also needed to “understand and respect China’s reasonable interests and concerns.”
The next thing we may expect could be a demand that all peoples of the planet begin eating with chopsticks.
I don’t know if the Reverend Al Sharpton is adept at using chopsticks but he’s certainly marvellously skilled in distorting news events. IOwntheWorld.com featured a brief story and video clip of the Reverend Al in action.
Sharpton grants no quarter to the Chinese when it comes to news manipulation. . .
Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2973)
When we used to think of “news,” we thought of contemporary developments that somehow could affect us, the country, our neighborhoods, etc. Lately, news has become far more manipulated, serving, as with the MSM, more as a vehicle for propagandizing than for the dissemination of actual information.
International “news” has long been that way, propagandistic, especially if it emanated from behind the late, unlamented Iron Curtain, Cuba, the People’s Republic of China, et al. None of that group have really changed much in presenting real news, they’ve just gotten a tad more subtle and they lie better than in the past.
Case in point is China which has just announced, via a “top diplomat,” that it ”does not want to ‘replace’ [sic] the United States from its dominant role in the world, and the world should not fear China’s rise.”
Said diplomat, Dai Bingguo, wrote in an essay carried on the Foreign Ministry’s website, which gave it an official imprimatur and which was lapped up by Reuters, “The notion that China wants to replace the United States and dominate the world is a myth. Politically, we . . . respect the social systems and development path of the different peoples of the world [and] economically, we wholeheartedly want to continue to develop. Militarily, we are not engaged in an arms race:” http://tiny.cc/k9rp8
Those statements are commendable, not for their truth and sincerity, but for the achievement of perpetrating four monumental, blatant lies within the span of three sentences!
No interest in supplanting the U.S. which China now virtually owns? No need for the world to fear China’s meteoric rise and its economic incursions into Africa and Latin America? Respect for the different peoples of the world even as China fails to show respect for its own people by forced abortions? No arms race while China engages in an unprecedented build-up of its land and air power while establishing the first modern navy in its history?
That was indeed a marvel of attempted news manipulation, Mr. Bingguo, who also threw in a veiled warning: “The international community should welcome and not fear China’s peaceful development, help it and not hinder it, support it and not hold it back.” But the world also needed to “understand and respect China’s reasonable interests and concerns.”
The next thing we may expect could be a demand that all peoples of the planet begin eating with chopsticks.
I don’t know if the Reverend Al Sharpton is adept at using chopsticks but he’s certainly marvellously skilled in distorting news events. IOwntheWorld.com featured a brief story and video clip of the Reverend Al in action.
Sharpton grants no quarter to the Chinese when it comes to news manipulation. . .
Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2973)
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Observations: China and Face, Climate and Truth
Observations: China and Face, Climate and Truth
China Loses Face: We’ve all heard the old saw that booze is a truth serum meaning that if you really want to know what someone is thinking, get him drunk and he’ll tell you probably more than you want to know.
Top Chinese United Nations diplomat Sha Zukang got pie-eyed, tanked, snookered, drunk as a skunk while retreating with other U.N. big shots at their retreat at Alpbach, an Austrian ski resort, this week and spilled his guts.
Whether it was during some après-ski or pre-ski or non-ski festivities, Zukang let his hair down and brought to mind another old saw or maxim, to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Even as the Chinese continue to ramp up their military, (purely for self-defense, mind you, with nary a thought of war), and fill Walmart shelves with their cheap, semi-slave-labor-produced consumer goodies that Americans lap up, they smile at us in their enigmatic way that makes you wonder what they’re really smiling at.
Sha Zukang, U.N. Under-secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs, however, probably wasn’t smiling when he let loose a 15-minute tirade against his boss, Ban Ki-moon, and the United States. And this was during a toast, not a roast!
Sha wasn’t being very social or diplomatic when he said to the Secretary-General, “You’ve been trying to get rid of me. You can fire me anytime, you can fire me today,” turning later to an American present and adding, “I really don’t like him: he’s an American and I really don’t like Americans.”
Hmmm, vedy interesting.
It wasn’t the first time the loose-lipped Sha had spilled on Americans: “In a BBC interview in 2006 he was goaded into a furious, shrieking attack on American criticisms of China’s rapidly growing defence budget.”
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1892)
China Loses Face: We’ve all heard the old saw that booze is a truth serum meaning that if you really want to know what someone is thinking, get him drunk and he’ll tell you probably more than you want to know.
Top Chinese United Nations diplomat Sha Zukang got pie-eyed, tanked, snookered, drunk as a skunk while retreating with other U.N. big shots at their retreat at Alpbach, an Austrian ski resort, this week and spilled his guts.
Whether it was during some après-ski or pre-ski or non-ski festivities, Zukang let his hair down and brought to mind another old saw or maxim, to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Even as the Chinese continue to ramp up their military, (purely for self-defense, mind you, with nary a thought of war), and fill Walmart shelves with their cheap, semi-slave-labor-produced consumer goodies that Americans lap up, they smile at us in their enigmatic way that makes you wonder what they’re really smiling at.
Sha Zukang, U.N. Under-secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs, however, probably wasn’t smiling when he let loose a 15-minute tirade against his boss, Ban Ki-moon, and the United States. And this was during a toast, not a roast!
Sha wasn’t being very social or diplomatic when he said to the Secretary-General, “You’ve been trying to get rid of me. You can fire me anytime, you can fire me today,” turning later to an American present and adding, “I really don’t like him: he’s an American and I really don’t like Americans.”
Hmmm, vedy interesting.
It wasn’t the first time the loose-lipped Sha had spilled on Americans: “In a BBC interview in 2006 he was goaded into a furious, shrieking attack on American criticisms of China’s rapidly growing defence budget.”
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1892)
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
What's a Mother to Do? Part One: Dealing with International Green Hypocrites
What's a Mother to Do? Part One: Dealing with International Green Hypocrites
Perhaps I shoudn’t ask the question, “What’s a mother to do?” since I’m a father not a mother. However, a male colleague used to ask that question not as a query but as an expression of frustration as to what anyone can do in response to the conditions and state of the world today.
The short answer is that a mother, or father, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin, can’t do very much if anything but it’s nevertheless fulfilling to speculate on what we should do under certain sets of circumstances.
Would that we average joes and josies could do things, change things, or reverse things that, in our inexpert and humble opinions, called for doing, changing, or reversing based on a long-lost American skill and capacity, the application of common sense.
“Mother’s Commonsensical Solutions” will no doubt be attacked as everything from nonsensical and simplistic to naive and stupid but asi es la vida, tough apples. Readers are invited to offer better ideas.
Mother’s Problem Number One: Dealing With International Green Hypocrites
. “China, India, Indonesia, Brazil Can’t Estimate Their Greenhouse Gas Emissions–Latest Figures Are from 1994:” http://tiny.cc/81heh
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1863)
Perhaps I shoudn’t ask the question, “What’s a mother to do?” since I’m a father not a mother. However, a male colleague used to ask that question not as a query but as an expression of frustration as to what anyone can do in response to the conditions and state of the world today.
The short answer is that a mother, or father, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin, can’t do very much if anything but it’s nevertheless fulfilling to speculate on what we should do under certain sets of circumstances.
Would that we average joes and josies could do things, change things, or reverse things that, in our inexpert and humble opinions, called for doing, changing, or reversing based on a long-lost American skill and capacity, the application of common sense.
“Mother’s Commonsensical Solutions” will no doubt be attacked as everything from nonsensical and simplistic to naive and stupid but asi es la vida, tough apples. Readers are invited to offer better ideas.
Mother’s Problem Number One: Dealing With International Green Hypocrites
. “China, India, Indonesia, Brazil Can’t Estimate Their Greenhouse Gas Emissions–Latest Figures Are from 1994:” http://tiny.cc/81heh
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1863)
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The Coming War with China
The Coming War with China
If it looks like a fish, swims like a fish, and smells like a fish, chances are that thing in front of you isn’t a giraffe or an orangutan.
Likewise, when a nation looks like it’s preparing for war, acts like it’s preparing for war, and speaks like it’s preparing for war, it’s very likely that nation is anticipating a war in the very foreseeable future.
The People’s Republic of China, the PRC, that ancient land of 1.3 billion inscrutable people, hasn’t quite been speaking in warlike terms but every other indication is that it is readying itself for a cataclysmic conflict from which it alone will emerge still standing.
Realistically, the only opponent capable of taking China on is the only superpower left on the planet, the United States of America.
Am I predicting a coming thermonuclear war between the PRC and the USA? Yes. And I further believe our country is well aware of that future and is doing nothing substantive to prevent it from happening despite its probability.
Will China initiate that conflict, as in a Japanese-style sneak attack? I highly doubt that mainly because there’s no need.
China is now in a position to wait until we collapse economically and then gradually infiltrate itself into our affairs even more so than it already has.
If and when push comes to shove and the conflict evolves into a military face-off, the Chinese know they have two strategic advantages, their population which is quadruple ours and their land mass of 3.7 million square miles, a 700,000 greater square mile area than our lower 48 states.
Aside from what’s been in the news for the last few years,. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1596)
If it looks like a fish, swims like a fish, and smells like a fish, chances are that thing in front of you isn’t a giraffe or an orangutan.
Likewise, when a nation looks like it’s preparing for war, acts like it’s preparing for war, and speaks like it’s preparing for war, it’s very likely that nation is anticipating a war in the very foreseeable future.
The People’s Republic of China, the PRC, that ancient land of 1.3 billion inscrutable people, hasn’t quite been speaking in warlike terms but every other indication is that it is readying itself for a cataclysmic conflict from which it alone will emerge still standing.
Realistically, the only opponent capable of taking China on is the only superpower left on the planet, the United States of America.
Am I predicting a coming thermonuclear war between the PRC and the USA? Yes. And I further believe our country is well aware of that future and is doing nothing substantive to prevent it from happening despite its probability.
Will China initiate that conflict, as in a Japanese-style sneak attack? I highly doubt that mainly because there’s no need.
China is now in a position to wait until we collapse economically and then gradually infiltrate itself into our affairs even more so than it already has.
If and when push comes to shove and the conflict evolves into a military face-off, the Chinese know they have two strategic advantages, their population which is quadruple ours and their land mass of 3.7 million square miles, a 700,000 greater square mile area than our lower 48 states.
Aside from what’s been in the news for the last few years,. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1596)
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Crouching America, Hidden Chinese Dragon, Part Two
Crouching America, Hidden Chinese Dragon, Part Two
Merriam-webster.com defines “crouch” as follows: intransitive verb 1 a : to lower the body stance especially by bending the legs b : to lie close to the ground with the legs bent 2 : to bend or bow servilely : cringe 3 : to stand at a low height transitive verb : to bow especially in humility or fear; bend
I posed a question at the end of Part One: “Is Obama’s crouching, bowing, and scraping to foreign leaders all part of our socialistic leader’s stated intent of wealth distribution not just to America’s needy but to the planet?”
Obviously, I don’t know the answer to that query. I can’t read the man’s mind, I can only judge him by his actions and words.
We do know, the world knows because we have witnessed it, that our president has an affinity for bowing to foreign leaders and potentates. Whether those actions merely reflect an innate humility–which is counterintuitive–or an abject sense of subservience–which is repugnant and unprecedented for an American president–is as yet unclear.
What we also know is that, despite his naïveté about the nuances of foreign relations, that Obama is a committed internationalist who implicitly trusts in the gentle graces of the most corrupt institution in the history of international bodies, the United Nations.
We know, too, that he inclines toward socialism and “sharing the wealth,” that wealth being the hard-earned wealth of Americans and America.
So, where do we go from here? . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1488)
Merriam-webster.com defines “crouch” as follows: intransitive verb 1 a : to lower the body stance especially by bending the legs b : to lie close to the ground with the legs bent 2 : to bend or bow servilely : cringe 3 : to stand at a low height transitive verb : to bow especially in humility or fear; bend
I posed a question at the end of Part One: “Is Obama’s crouching, bowing, and scraping to foreign leaders all part of our socialistic leader’s stated intent of wealth distribution not just to America’s needy but to the planet?”
Obviously, I don’t know the answer to that query. I can’t read the man’s mind, I can only judge him by his actions and words.
We do know, the world knows because we have witnessed it, that our president has an affinity for bowing to foreign leaders and potentates. Whether those actions merely reflect an innate humility–which is counterintuitive–or an abject sense of subservience–which is repugnant and unprecedented for an American president–is as yet unclear.
What we also know is that, despite his naïveté about the nuances of foreign relations, that Obama is a committed internationalist who implicitly trusts in the gentle graces of the most corrupt institution in the history of international bodies, the United Nations.
We know, too, that he inclines toward socialism and “sharing the wealth,” that wealth being the hard-earned wealth of Americans and America.
So, where do we go from here? . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1488)
Monday, February 8, 2010
Crouching America, Hidden Chinese Dragon, Part One
Crouching America, Hidden Chinese Dragon, Part One
Anyone else get the feeling that the Obamian foreign policy–whatever it was–is coming apart at the seams–wherever those seams were?
Even most of those who voted for him in 2008 were aware that Obama knew as much about international relations and foreign policy as Homer Simpson but their thinking was that all would be fine with a top foreign policy expert like senate veteran Joe Biden in the VP slot and a savvy Hillary heading the State Department.
Barack would be an outstanding domestic president, tending to such things as health care for all, legal or not, sick and healthy, poor and wealthy, aged or young while Jolly Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton, would take care of all things extra-national.
Jolly Joe is no Dick Cheney and Hillary is no Condi Rice. They’re more akin to Soupy Sales and Mme. LaFarge.
What wasn’t factored in was Biden’s innate boobery and Hillary’s main interest, beating her boss in the primaries in 2012, so it’s no wonder the pickle we’re in as a nation, both domestically and internationally.
We’re told that much of the international community came to despise us when GWB was in charge, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1481)
Monday, November 23, 2009
Obama's Honeymoon Interruptus
Obama’s Honeymoon Interruptus
After 34 years on NBC, the people at “Saturday Night Live” have come to believe their political skits carry a significant amount of weight. And they’re absolutely correct.
Whether it should be so or not, whether comedians should have the power to mold and sway political opinion, SNL has had millions of faithful viewers since 1974 who take its jokes very seriously.
Presidents Nixon and Ford took their satiric lumps before they left the stage and President Carter can attest to the fact that being skewered on SNL can be politically painful. That was during the early days, the time when the show’s “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” were, usually, more funny than caustic.
Presidents Reagan and Bush I also weren’t manhandled too badly and Bill “Teflon-Man” Clinton was virtually impervious.
See here for brief clips of those presidents being SNL-ed: http://bit.ly/4lRYvp
The gloves were off during GWB’s 8 years and he was regularly pilloried and abused on “SNL,” though not suffering any great harm since he was so regularly pilloried and abused by the mainstream media that it didn’t make much difference.
Barack Obama is a whole other story. (I’d say a horse of a different color but that could be misinterpreted.) Candidate Obama fit perfectly with “SNL’s” demographic–young, liberal, and impertinent, and he wasn’t very caricature-able.
That was then, this is now.
The first now moment struck in October . . .
(Read the rest at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1341)
After 34 years on NBC, the people at “Saturday Night Live” have come to believe their political skits carry a significant amount of weight. And they’re absolutely correct.
Whether it should be so or not, whether comedians should have the power to mold and sway political opinion, SNL has had millions of faithful viewers since 1974 who take its jokes very seriously.
Presidents Nixon and Ford took their satiric lumps before they left the stage and President Carter can attest to the fact that being skewered on SNL can be politically painful. That was during the early days, the time when the show’s “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” were, usually, more funny than caustic.
Presidents Reagan and Bush I also weren’t manhandled too badly and Bill “Teflon-Man” Clinton was virtually impervious.
See here for brief clips of those presidents being SNL-ed: http://bit.ly/4lRYvp
The gloves were off during GWB’s 8 years and he was regularly pilloried and abused on “SNL,” though not suffering any great harm since he was so regularly pilloried and abused by the mainstream media that it didn’t make much difference.
Barack Obama is a whole other story. (I’d say a horse of a different color but that could be misinterpreted.) Candidate Obama fit perfectly with “SNL’s” demographic–young, liberal, and impertinent, and he wasn’t very caricature-able.
That was then, this is now.
The first now moment struck in October . . .
(Read the rest at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1341)
Friday, October 23, 2009
Climate Change Foolery
Climate Change Foolery
The End Is Near! If you’re not too busy on or about December 8th, make a note that on that fateful day climate change will wreak its final vengeance on the world’s polluters–and on everyone else.
At least that’s the view of the increasingly-odd British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Well, not exactly.
According to the BBC, Brown did say on October 19th in London that “negotiators had 50 days to save the world from global warming and break the ‘impasse’ ” or face “catastrophic” floods, heat waves, and droughts for which there is “no Plan B:” http://bit.ly/13Os3h
So, that’s all, folks! Either the world gets its act together when nations gather in December in Copenhagen to try to scrap the Kyoto Protocol, or there is no hope, no future, no planet to speak of as of December 8th.
Sort of.
He did temper his remarks by adding that, ”within the lifetime of our children and grandchildren the intense temperatures of 2003 could become the average temperature experienced throughout much of Europe.”
By the time our grandchildren are affected, much of Europe will be Islamic so maybe we should seek answers in the Qu’ran?
Absent from Brown’s hot, bleak forecast was any allusion to looking behind that curtain and discovering the charlatan who cites one miserable European summer and ignores all the true science that points to global cooling over the past decade.
Mr. Brown, faithfully carrying on Obama’s Panic Philosophy despite being repeatedly rebuffed and insulted by the American president and with his Labour Party headed for a jolly good trouncing in the next election, seems a desparate bloke who would admit to Brit atrocities in Ireland if it would garner a few votes.
The man needs a feather in his tweed cap even if it means scaring the living bejesus out of Britons.
Also on the climate change front, New York Times’ environmental reporter, Andrew Rivkin, has come up with yet another muddled, liberal idea.
Why not, Rivkind suggests, make children the equivalent of smokestacks . . .
(read the rest at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1280)
The End Is Near! If you’re not too busy on or about December 8th, make a note that on that fateful day climate change will wreak its final vengeance on the world’s polluters–and on everyone else.
At least that’s the view of the increasingly-odd British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Well, not exactly.
According to the BBC, Brown did say on October 19th in London that “negotiators had 50 days to save the world from global warming and break the ‘impasse’ ” or face “catastrophic” floods, heat waves, and droughts for which there is “no Plan B:” http://bit.ly/13Os3h
So, that’s all, folks! Either the world gets its act together when nations gather in December in Copenhagen to try to scrap the Kyoto Protocol, or there is no hope, no future, no planet to speak of as of December 8th.
Sort of.
He did temper his remarks by adding that, ”within the lifetime of our children and grandchildren the intense temperatures of 2003 could become the average temperature experienced throughout much of Europe.”
By the time our grandchildren are affected, much of Europe will be Islamic so maybe we should seek answers in the Qu’ran?
Absent from Brown’s hot, bleak forecast was any allusion to looking behind that curtain and discovering the charlatan who cites one miserable European summer and ignores all the true science that points to global cooling over the past decade.
Mr. Brown, faithfully carrying on Obama’s Panic Philosophy despite being repeatedly rebuffed and insulted by the American president and with his Labour Party headed for a jolly good trouncing in the next election, seems a desparate bloke who would admit to Brit atrocities in Ireland if it would garner a few votes.
The man needs a feather in his tweed cap even if it means scaring the living bejesus out of Britons.
Also on the climate change front, New York Times’ environmental reporter, Andrew Rivkin, has come up with yet another muddled, liberal idea.
Why not, Rivkind suggests, make children the equivalent of smokestacks . . .
(read the rest at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1280)
Friday, September 11, 2009
9/11 Footnotes: Paranoiacs Have Enemies Too!
Lest anyone be misled by my previous column on 9/11, let’s be clear about the threats and dangers faced by the United States today: The perpetrators of the attacks on September 11th, 2001, the Islamic crazies, are only the most obvious of our enemies.
We have a slew of others.
Always reliable entrants on our enemies list is the former U.S.S.R. under the semi-detached leadership of Vlad Putin, former head of the KGB. Still chafing after the dissolution of its empire–thanks to Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II–and infused with oil revenues, Russia is doing its damnedest to regain a semblance of international power.
Its latest gambits include a secret meeting with Israel’s PM Netanyahu, http://bit.ly/xLR0f. Israel knows it no longer has a friend in the White House. What transpired at that meeting or meetings is unknown but we can be certain the subject was not America’s national security.
Practicing Bill Clinton’s triangulating, Putin also held a kissy-fest with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, http://bit.ly/WFWCz, and Russia announced it wants to make nicer to a potentially-nuclear Iran: http://bit.ly/NadTC.
Then there’s the inscrutable Chinese. With our nation in hock to China up to and beyond our elbows, Washington knows China is in the catbird seat and is just waiting to pounce. It won’t necessarily pounce literally. China need only bide its time, wait for our economy to collapse under our debt burden, and call in its chits.
Meanwhile, China agitates “for the creation of a new currency to eventually replace the dollar as the world’s standard, proposing a sweeping overhaul of global finance that reflects developing nations’ growing unhappiness with the U.S. role in the world economy:” http://bit.ly/6dNmB.
Put more simply, China wants to bail on the dying corpse that is the U.S. dollar.
Out on the periphery of America’s enemies are Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela, all of whom would salivate at the thought of the end of the United States as a world power, an end achieved via violence or national or economic implosion.
Whatever works.
Further out on the periphery are too many nations and semi-nations to count, . . .
(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com)
We have a slew of others.
Always reliable entrants on our enemies list is the former U.S.S.R. under the semi-detached leadership of Vlad Putin, former head of the KGB. Still chafing after the dissolution of its empire–thanks to Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II–and infused with oil revenues, Russia is doing its damnedest to regain a semblance of international power.
Its latest gambits include a secret meeting with Israel’s PM Netanyahu, http://bit.ly/xLR0f. Israel knows it no longer has a friend in the White House. What transpired at that meeting or meetings is unknown but we can be certain the subject was not America’s national security.
Practicing Bill Clinton’s triangulating, Putin also held a kissy-fest with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, http://bit.ly/WFWCz, and Russia announced it wants to make nicer to a potentially-nuclear Iran: http://bit.ly/NadTC.
Then there’s the inscrutable Chinese. With our nation in hock to China up to and beyond our elbows, Washington knows China is in the catbird seat and is just waiting to pounce. It won’t necessarily pounce literally. China need only bide its time, wait for our economy to collapse under our debt burden, and call in its chits.
Meanwhile, China agitates “for the creation of a new currency to eventually replace the dollar as the world’s standard, proposing a sweeping overhaul of global finance that reflects developing nations’ growing unhappiness with the U.S. role in the world economy:” http://bit.ly/6dNmB.
Put more simply, China wants to bail on the dying corpse that is the U.S. dollar.
Out on the periphery of America’s enemies are Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela, all of whom would salivate at the thought of the end of the United States as a world power, an end achieved via violence or national or economic implosion.
Whatever works.
Further out on the periphery are too many nations and semi-nations to count, . . .
(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com)
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Part One: The Paper Tiger Surrenders in Pieces
Intimations of Destiny Part One: The Paper Tiger Surrenders in Pieces
I had the pleasure of visiting with a member of the newest generation last weekend, not with teenagers who, whether they like it or not, are really part of the present generation, but with my 2 year old grandson.
With all the upheaval going on in Washington where Obama is so obsessed with radical change for its own sake and throughout the planet where revolutionary and terrorist forces are in play to complement Obama’s radicalism in their own land and in their own ways, his future isn’t promising.
Other movements are also disquieting for him and his generation.
In a number of quarters we are witnessing efforts to unseat the formerly almighty dollar as the world’s preeminent currency of exchange. If successful as they very well may be, those efforts may not alter Americans’ day-to-day life at first but would be a clear signal that the “American Era,” our dominance over world affairs, is over.
The long-term effects of what lay ahead, perhaps the China Era, as many believe, may be conjectural but in no way suggest good tidings for the United States and its approximately 305 million citizens, or for my kids and grandkids.
More imminent than Sino supremacy over the planet and its peoples and the resultant effects on our country is the matter of wars we are about to lose, lose for the same reasons we lost the last two–the lack of a resolve to win.
One of those current wars, the most consequential by far, is the War on Terror which has unilterally been suspended by the Obama administration due to a lack of interest in favor of his naive hands across the seas policies.
As with any war, if the opponent concurred in the suspension of hostilities, we would be in a state of truce. If not, as is the case with Islamic terrorists, we would be, and are, in a seriously disadvantaged and dangerous position.
Our president is so enamored of himself that he seems to believe that if he extends his, America’s, open hand in friendship and conciliation, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will unclench his smarmy fist. Mahmoud has already and repeatedly shown that Iran’s fist is still very much clenched, save that one middle finger salute in our direction.
I have no idea what Obama really expects from his make-nice policies toward America’s unrepentant enemies. However, you could sooner anticipate the lamb lying down with the lion at night and believing it will be grazing when the sun rises than expect Iran in 2009 to extend an unclenched fist.
It matters not that the American hand has been rebuffed and bitten by the Persian lion. Hope springs eternal for this ass of a president with whom we are burdened and who almost makes one yearn for a return of the most incompetent leader in our history, bumbling Jimmy Carter.
Barack Obama is a man-in-waiting for that mantle of most grossly, naively incompetent commander-in-chief to be conferred on him. Based on his first six months, he is clearly on target.
It won’t be conferred as a result of China’s machinations and its economic boom which will take a while. It will be rightfully awarded when Obama retreats under fire and loses the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, probably within the next two years or less but definitely after the 2010 congressional elections.
Obama will slog through at least until December, 2010 after which he can with relative safety run, hide, and surrender and keep the baying hounds of the Left at bay and stop their sniping at his heels, all the while pretending he wanted to win in the first place.
The irony is that he, we, will lose those wars not because of Obamian initiatives and lack thereof but because he will mindlessly pursue the same initiatives and lack thereof which led to our defeats in Korea and Viet Nam.
One of America’s greatest generals, Douglas MacArthur,
was eerily prescient of America’s decline and fall as a great power half a century ago when spoke the memorable line that was disregarded and forgotten by our leaders the moment it was uttered.
“In war there is no substitute for victory,” said MacArthur, a truism that speaks for itself yet has been ignored since it was spoken.
Removed from command as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers by President Truman in 1951 for insubordination, MacArthur technically was fired for refusing to heed the president’s orders. In fact he was dismissed for failure to cease and desist in his attempts to achieve victory in Korea.
(For a concise and scholarly account of the Truman-MacArthur Korean conflict, see http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-17-3-b.html.)
Harry Truman was absolutely correct in overruling MacArthur’s impertinence. It was his right and duty as America’s civilian commander to exert his authority under the Constitution. He was absolutely wrong, however, in disregarding MacArthur’s insights and premonitions.
The consequences: . . .
(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com)
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