Global News: November 2007 Archives
National Review: Louis R. Woodhill: An Engineer Measures the Falling Dollar
"That is, the Fed creates money in response to demand for short-term capital. Given that one use for short-term capital is commodity speculation, and given that commodity speculation is one way to profit from inflation, the Fed is operating a system that is designed to respond to inflation by creating more money.
"Such a system exhibits 'positive feedback' (like a nuclear reactor) and is dangerous."
Fred '08: Fred Thompson speaks at The Citadel
Via JunkYardBlog, where See-Dubya writes, "Look, as I've said several times now, the guy gets it. He understands the central problem of defending a democratic country -- credibility and resolve."
"If we know anything from modern history, it is that when fanatical tyrants pledge to "wipe out" an entire nation, we should listen.
"This radical threat we face today is committed to a hundred year war, and has been waging one against us for decades ... in Beirut, Somalia, embassies in Africa, Saudi Arabia, on the USS Cole. Each time Americans were killed. Yet each time our response sent the wrong signals. This is an enemy that understands only the language of power. Today, the focus of this war is Afghanistan and Iraq, but it is clear that this struggle and our enemies extend far beyond those borders. To defend ourselves, we in the democratic world must assert our intentions in the clearest possible terms.
"Diplomacy, economic influence, and other means of persuasion are always to be preferred in our dealings with dangerous regimes and rival states. But the words of our leaders command much closer attention from adversaries when it is understood that we are prepared to use force when force is necessary. And for that deterrent to exist, the will of our people and the strength of our military must be unquestionable."
Townhall.com: Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Staticidal Zealotry
What is it about the U. S. State Department that sucks all sense of perspective out of previously sensisble people? "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is behaving like a zealot. In her ever-more-rash pursuit of a Palestinian state, she is exhibiting the syndrome defined by the philosopher George Santayana, as one who redoubles her efforts upon losing sight of the objective.... For success will result in a new safe-haven for terror that is a mortal threat not only for Israel, but for the United States, as well."
Washington Post: U.N. to Cut Estimate Of AIDS Epidemic
"The United Nations' top AIDS scientists plan to acknowledge this week that they have long overestimated both the size and the course of the epidemic, which they now believe has been slowing for nearly a decade, according to U.N. documents prepared for the announcement.... The latest estimates, due to be released publicly Tuesday, put the number of annual new HIV infections at 2.5 million, a cut of more than 40 percent from last year's estimate, documents show. The worldwide total of people infected with HIV -- estimated a year ago at nearly 40 million and rising -- now will be reported as 33 million."
snapped shot · exposing photojournalism one frame at a time
Like the slogan says, this blog is about photojournalism, with a special emphasis on the way images are used to affect the West's view of the situation in the Middle East.
OpinionJournal: Evangelicals and Evil Empires
Why are evangelical social conservatives open to a Giuliani presidency? Because they care about foreign policy, too, for the sake of their persecuted Christian brethren in Muslim-ruled countries, just as they cared about their brethren behind the Iron Curtain:
"John Wilson, editor of Books and Culture, the literary journal associated with Christianity Today, recalls going to Sunday evening church services in the 1950s: 'Every year, we heard a speaker or two who had come from "behind the Iron Curtain." They had harrowing tales to tell, sometimes first-person, sometimes not. There was a palpable sense of a world-scale conflict with godless communism.'...
"The tales of missionaries from Islamic countries may even be more harrowing than those Mr. Wilson heard as a youngster: 'In the past you had missionaries come back and talk about being imprisoned. Now you have reports from people about beheadings and bombings.' [Timothy Shaw] also cites Voice of the Martyrs, a publication widely circulated among evangelical churches, 'which contains lurid accounts of Christian missionaries being killed and attacked in mostly Islamic countries.'"
