Today’s links to interesting news and analysis.
- “The Odds of Airborne Terror“, Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight, 27 December 2009 — America’s bed-wetting geopolitical analysts can sleep soundly. Driving to work is far more dangerous than flying.
- “The Cash Committee: How Wall Street Wins On The Hill“, Ryan Grim and Arthur Delaney, Huffington Post, 29 December 2009
- “Yemen: Opening A New ‘Front’ in the Long War Nicht Schwerpunkt as a Prescription for Defeat by a 1000 Cuts“, Donald Vandergriff (Major, US Army, retired), 30 December 2009 — Analysis from someone worth reading!
- “Is The Government Misrepresenting Unemployment By 32%?“, Zero Hedge, December 2009 — Worth reading, but don’t treat this as gospel. These things are complex.
Today’s feature article about the cowardness of our leaders…
… and their low opinion of us: “Barefoot and Panty-Scanned“, Fred Reed, 31 December 2009 — Excerpt:
What suckers we gringos are. How wonderfully amusing all of this must be for Al Quaeda. So little effort is needed to manipulate the decreasingly Great Satan into doing all manner of comic and expensive things.
For terrorists, the return on investment in phenomenal. They drop those office buildings in New York for not much money, and the US undertakes a war against Islam on which it spends a trillion dollars. Yes, Bush and Cheney and Israel wanted to invade Iraq anyway, but New York made it inevitable. Slick: Bush II couldn’t not invade some Moslem country. Leave your enemy with no choice but to do what you want him to do.
So little is necessary to terrorize the world’s hyperpower. A free-lance dingaling secretes a bomb of sorts in his shoe, whereupon the US goes into convulsions and long lines of Americans stand comically barefoot in airports. Dingaling Two popularizes liquid explosives, and so Washington frenziedly confiscates toothpaste. Yes, the world’s hyperpower is afraid of Colgate, with fluoride. Dinglaling Three hides the infernal machine in his skivvies, so Obama makes Firm Pronouncements, and we will now have to undergo examination by panty scanners. Always, over and over, the terrorists have the iniative. The country reacts hugely and predictably.
Afterword
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