Marc and I made a bet today: I say that Saddam will be out of power by April 31st. He disagrees. Marc is convinced that Bush is tied to the U.N. and is too afraid to go it alone. Bah! Here's some evidence for my side.
Update:
I collected my winnings. Marc was happy to pay.
Jaques Chirac must have a lot on his mind.
The punditry has already exposed and discussed many of the problems facing Mr. Chirac: the reduced efficacy of NATO thanks to his interference, the fracturing of the EU thanks to his angry comments, the growing irrelevance of the United Nations thanks to his intransigence, the imminent collapse of his own ruling coalition thanks to his arrogance, and not to mention a potential boycott of all things French by the U.S. consumer, which could plunge an already weak French economy into further disarray.
For Mr. Chirac, destroying the good will between the United States and France seems to be a greater priority than the disarming of Iraq. And when the leadership of France decides that their relationship with a tyranical oil despot is worth more than their relationship with the nation that freed France itself from tyranny, then it's a bad day for all of Europe.
So if you ask me, things don't look good for the future of France. In 1930, no one predicted the complete defeat of the French only a decade later. Likewise, no one today is predicting the complete defeat of the French between now and 2020. That is, no one-- except for me.
I don't know whether it will be five years or fifteen, but I do know that it's going to happen. History repeats, especially French history.
And that's what makes this such a very dangerous game that the French are playing. Who will save France the next time they are overrun by the barbarian hordes? (And they will be overrun- this is the French we are talking about.) Twice the United States came to the rescue. But would the people of the United States say yes for a third time?
Even now, only 18 months since the most devastating attack ever made on our nation, the United States seems reluctant about going to war; even war against a ruler whose cruelty and ill intent are beyond denial.
Beware, France, lest we be even more reluctant to save you (yet again), at some not-so-distant point in the future.
The other day I read through a long rant by a liberal about how President Bush's tort reform proposal is wrong-headed. At the end of laborious cant that will not be reproduced here, he concluded with the following suggestions for enacting "real reform."
. Hospitals and other health care providers must institute meaningful risk prevention programs and report all errors to a central databank... This information must be made public if errors and costs are to be reduced. Patients will have the information to avoid selecting bad doctors and other doctors will have it to avoid referring patients to those who are guilty of malpractice.
. Computerize records, especially those concerning doctor's orders and medications, to track and reduce human errors.
. Require state medical boards to establish and maintain effective peer review committees to investigate all complaints and discipline doctors as needed. Data from the NPDB reveals that 5.1 percent of doctors in the United States account for 54.2 percent of the number of malpractice payouts - physicians that have accumulated two or more malpractice payouts. It also points out that only 7.6 percent of those doctors with two or more payouts have been disciplined. Of those with five or more payouts, only13.3 percent have been disciplined and of those with 10 or more payouts, only 32.1 percent have received any disciplinary action. This is outrageous. Most of these doctors are still practicing on an unsuspecting public.
. Require that doctors obtain mandatory continuous education in their fields of practice and that they be recertified periodically based on independent written, clinical, and oral examinations.
. Demand that insurers rate doctors on performance when establishing malpractice premiums, charging more for those disciplined and decertifying those with numerous malpractice payouts.
. Direct insurers to create larger risk pools by reducing the number of classifications of specialties; thereby, spreading the risk over a larger number of participants.
Ironically, there used to be a private sector corporation that supplied information to the public about which doctors were good and which should be avoided. It was a annual report labeled "Best Doctors" or something like that. I believe the company responsible decided to shutdown publication after getting paid off (or perhaps threatened) by the AMA.
(P.S. Credit should go to the liberal author, but I somehow have misplaced his name!)
The Los Angeles City Council has shown a lot more good sense than what Cleveland's could muster.
The testimony was largely orderly, although two police officers escorted a
white-haired woman in a "Green Power" T-shirt out of the packed council chambers after she was declared out of order.
Credit goes to Instapundit for the link and also this tasty postscript:
Yes!
Where were Amnesty International and the International Red Cross when
this guy needed them?
Oh, and did the Guardian or the UK Observer see fit to run 96-point
headlines proclaiming "TORTURE" back in 1990?
I think not.
Just some idle speculation... I love the Federal Holidays, it's so nice to get extra days off from work; but it always annoys me when I absent-mindedly drop by the bank and discover that it's closed. I seem to remember reading somewhere that it's against the law for the banks to be open if the Federal Reserve is closed. So, I'm curious. According to the newspapers, all of the Federal Offices in Washington DC are closed today because of the blizzard that dumped 19" of snow all across the east. So, is Charter One Bank going to be open or closed today?
Hmmm. Another thought. Cleveland is lucky enough to be home to one of the "branch offices" of the Federal Reserve Bank. Our local banks will probably be open.
Fitness Freddie, who has been known to claim immunity from the effects of nature, was witnessed to be sniffling and sounding rather congested early last week. Although denials were strongly issued, nevertheless Fred was observed to be absent from work the following two days. Upon his return, the sniffling and congestion were still visible.
Conclusion by Monsieur M.M. : "When you've gone horizontal, that means you've lost."
Common Cold: 1
Fitness Freddie: 0
I'll keep you posted...
{corrections added}
Amongst the hopelessly naive (Read: Caloweeny), a profoundly false idea has taken root and thrived over the years: the idea that all of the problems in the Middle East would be resolved if the United States would just stop giving military aid to Israel. Well, I've done a bit of research and this is what I've discovered.
Israeli Spending:
Government revenues: $40 billion (FY 2002)
Goverment expenditures: $42.4 billion (FY 2002)
Military Expenditures - cash: $8.87 billion (FY 2001)
Military Expenditures - percent of GDP: 8% (FY 2001)
Military Expenditures - percent of budget: 21% (FY 2001)
Of the $8.87 billion in annual military spending, roughly $1.9 billion comes from the United States. So lets work the numbers. What would happen to Israel if the United States decided to suspend all military aid?
Scenario #1: Israel cuts military spending to make up the difference.
Result: The military budget drops from $8.87 billion to $6.97 billion, a 21% reduction. Israel responds by cutting its planned purchase of 102 new F-16 Fighting Falcons from Lockheed Martin, thus saving $3.5 billion. Lockheed Martin lays off 500 workers. The situation in the Middle East continues as is.
Scenario #2: Israel increases military spending to compensate for the loss.
Result: Israeli government spending rises from $42.4 billion to $44.3 billion, a 4.4% increase. (Coincidentally, about the same increase in federal spending proposed by President Bush.) Military spending as a percentage of Israeli GDP increases by perhaps a point. The situation in the Middle East continues as is.
Scenario #3: The Devil is seen shopping for snow shovels.
Result: Israel, suddenly bereft of American military aid, decides to dissolve itself and Yassar Arafat declares himself the President-for-Life of the new People's Republic of Palestine. (A.K.A. the PRP, pronounced "perp".) The situation in the Middle East changes... the Jews are pushed into the Sea.
I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine the most likely outcome.
Finally, if all that weren't enough, there is also this unfortunate fact: The United States did not begin military aid to Israel until after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. I wasn't alive back then, but it sures seems to me that there was conflict in the Middle East before 1973. In fact, I even seem to remember something about Israel buying jets from the French, when they couldn't get any from the Americans.
Sources: CIA World Fact Book, The Palestine Monitor, The World Policy Institute
Additional: For those that think the that the CIA World Fact Book is just a tool, I offer this... Check out the sources on the apologist Palestinian Monitor website. If it's good enough for the apologists, then it should be good enough for the rest of us, too.