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My conservative friends — and even a few media liberals — are agreed: The bloom is off the Obama rose. He’s not the Obamessiah, just another 50 percent president. He tried to do too much too fast, and his numbers are sinking. The Europeanization of health care is dead. Fuhgeddabouddit.

I wouldn’t be so sure. President Barack Obama has no choice but to move fast, in part because the image he presented during the campaign — a post-partisan, post-racial, post-anything-unpleasant-and-controversial pragmatic centrist — was a total crock. He has a vast transformative domestic agenda and, because most of its elements are not terribly popular, he has to accomplish it at speed or he won’t get it done at all.

Health care “reform”? As we’ve seen this past week in the House of Representatives, put not your trust in “Blue Dog Democrats.” And, as we’ll no doubt see in the weeks ahead in the Senate, put not your trust in “moderate Republicans” whose urge to “reach across the aisle” is so reflexive it ought to be covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The president needs to get something passed. Anything. The details don’t matter. Once it’s in place, health care “reform” can be re-reformed endlessly. Indeed, you’ll be surprised how little else we talk about. So, for example, public funding for abortions can be discarded now, and written in — as it surely will be by some judge — down the road. What matters is to ram it through, get it done, pass it now — in whatever form.

If this seems a perverse obsession for a nation with a weak economy, rising unemployment and a war on two fronts, it has a very sound strategic logic behind it. As I wrote in National Review a week or two back, health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. That’s its attraction for an ambitious president: It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in a way that hands all the advantages to statists — to those who believe government has a legitimate right to regulate human affairs in every particular.

That’s not why it’s tanking in the polls, of course. It’s floundering because Obama sold it initially on the basis of “controlling costs,” and then the Congressional Budget Office let the cat out of the bag and pointed out that, au contraire, it would cost $1.6 trillion, and therefore either add to an unsustainable deficit, or require massive tax increases, or (more likely) both.

All of which is true. But to object to the governmentalization of health care on that basis implicitly concedes the argument that, if we could figure out a way to bring the price down, it would be fine and dandy. Right now, there are a lot of wonkish and utilitarian objections to what the Democrats want to do, and they’re gaining traction. In The American Spectator, Brandon Crocker points out that this is exactly the way things went over Hillarycare in 1993: Americans took against the plan on practical grounds but not against the underlying principle. “Since we did not win that philosophical argument in 1993,” Mr. Crocker writes, “we now have to fight the same battle today.” And, if we win on utilitarian grounds today, we’ll have to fight it again in 10 years, five years, maybe less — until something passes, and then everything changes, forever: As the IRA famously taunted Margaret Thatcher, we only have to get lucky once; you have to be lucky every day.

On the price tag: It’s often argued that, as a proportion of GDP, America spends more on health care than countries with government medical systems. But, as a point of fact, “America” doesn’t spend anything on health care: Hundreds of millions of people make hundreds of millions of individual decisions about what they’re going to spend on health care. Whereas up north a handful of bureaucrats determine what Canada will spend on health care — and that’s that: Health care is a government budget item. If Joe Hoser in Moose Jaw wants to increase Canada’s health care spending by $500 drawn from his savings account, he can’t: The law prevents it. Unless, as many Canadians do, he drives south and spends it in a U.S. hospital for treatment he can’t get in a timely manner in his own country.

You can make the “controlling costs” argument about anything: After all, it’s no surprise that millions of free people freely choosing how they spend their own money will spend it in different ways than government bureaucrats would be willing to license on their behalf. America spends more per capita on food than Zimbabwe. America spends more on vacations than North Korea. America spends more on lap-dancing than Saudi Arabia (well, officially). Canada spends more per capita on doughnuts than America, and, given comparative girths, Canucks are clearly not getting as much bang for the buck. Why doesn’t Ottawa introduce a National Doughnut Licensing Agency? You’d still see your general dispenser for simple procedures like a lightly sugared cruller but he’d refer you to a specialist if you needed, say, a maple-frosted custard, and it would only be a six-month wait, at the end of which you’d receive a stale cinnamon roll. Under government regulation, eventually every doughnut would be all hole and no doughnut, and the problem would be solved. Even if the hole costs $1.6 trillion.

How did the health-care debate decay to the point where we think it entirely natural for the central government to fix a collective figure for what 300 million freeborn citizens ought to be spending on something as basic to individual liberty as their own bodies?

That’s the argument that needs to be won. And, if you think I’m being frivolous in positing bureaucratic regulation of doughnuts and vacations, consider that under the all-purpose umbrellas of “health” and “the environment,” governments of supposedly free nations are increasingly comfortable straying into areas of diet and leisure. Last year, a British bill attempted to ban Tony the Tiger, longtime pitchman for Frosties, from children’s TV because of his malign influence on young persons. Why not just ban Frosties? Or permit it by prescription only? Or make kids stand outside on the sidewalk to eat it? It was also proposed — by the Conservative Party, alas — that, in the interests of saving the planet, each citizen should be permitted to fly a certain number of miles a year, after which he would be subject to punitive eco-surtaxes. Isn’t restricting freedom of movement kind of, you know … totalitarian?

Freedom is messy. In free societies, people will fall through the cracks — drink too much, eat too much, buy unaffordable homes, fail to make prudent provision for health care and much else. But the price of being relieved of all those tiresome choices by a benign paternal government is far too high.

Government health care would be wrong even if it “controlled costs.” It’s a liberty issue. I’d rather be free to choose, even if I make the wrong choices.

http://jewishworldreview.com/0809/steyn080309.php3

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All too little attention has been paid to President Barack Obama’s shocking plan to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries.

For most of the media—and, consequently, the public—the plan briefly flashed like heat lightning in the summer sky and soundlessly disappeared. But the very existence of the plan, and the story of how it bit the dust, raises serious questions about the Obama administration’s political wisdom, its ability to govern and whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is running things.

The astonishing proposal raised an uproar among veterans’ groups who feared that Purple Heart veterans could end up holding the bag after taking a bullet for their country. Also astonishing was the way Pelosi squashed the plan, literally overruling the president only hours after Obama affirmed his commitment to it.

Further, the plan’s sudden appearance and its even quicker demise casts doubts on major media competence or fairness. As news stories go, its importance at least equals, if not exceeds, last year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning revelations about deplorable conditions for wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Certainly, if former President George W. Bush had hatched the idea, it would have been splashed all over the front page of the Washington Post and NBC news anchor Brian Williams would have declared it “alarming.”

The plan had been quietly simmering within the Obama administration without much, if any, media notice. Consequently, little is known about the plan’s details, other than responsibility for paying for combat or service-related disabilities and injuries would be shifted away from the Veterans Administration, where it has forever resided, to private insurers.

When veterans groups got wind of it, they—not the media—brought it to the public’s attention. In testimony the week of March 8, House and Senate veterans affairs committee and the House Budget Committee, the groups denounced it. Among their objections: The government, not private insurance companies, sends members of the armed forces into harm’s way; maximum insurance coverage limits could be reached through treatment of just service-related problems, leaving the rest of the family without coverage, and businesses might become reluctant to hire veterans. Still, the story did not raise much media interest.

On Monday, March 16, leaders of 11 prominent veterans organizations met personally with Obama in the White House to try to dissuade him from proceeding. He was unmoved. Said a statement from the group issued on PRNewswire immediately after the meeting: “It became apparent during our discussion today that the President intends to move forward with this unreasonable plan. He says he is looking to generate $540-million by this method, but refused to hear arguments about the moral and government-avowed obligations that would be compromised by it.”

Frustrated, the leaders marched to the other end of Pennsylvania Ave. to meet with Speaker Pelosi. Mere hours later, Pelosi—not the White House—announced that the Obama administration was killing the plan. Said she, quite disingenuously, “President Obama listened to the genuine concerns expressed by the veteran service organizations regarding the option of billing service-connected injuries to veterans’ insurance companies. Based on the respect President Obama has for veterans and the principle concerns of our veteran leaders, the president made the decision that combat wounds should not be billed through their insurance policies.” Requiscat in Pace

I would have loved to have heard the heated phone exchanges between Pelosi’s office and the president or his staff. Undoubtedly, she told them that any such plan would be dead upon arrival in the House, and that they were boneheads for even raising it.

Clearly, Obama stumbled politically by taking on one of the country’s most powerful lobbies. He also should have been shamed by Pelosi’s veto of an executive branch study before it even gets off the ground. A bigger issue now is: Has this episode set the stage for the Obama administration ceding executive powers to the legislative branch, or more precisely, Pelosi and Reid, and what are the traditional balance-of-powers consequences? Has the election of the inexperienced Obama signaled to congressional leaders that now is the time to reclaim the powers they believe President George W. Bush had usurped?

More important are the substantive implications: Who knows, maybe Obama’s idea has significant merit. Aside from the fact that it sounds like something that Bush might have proposed (quasi privatization of veterans benefits), it is worth a debate over whether the private sector can provide better service than the often-criticized VA. A $540-million savings should not be sniffed at, and that, in itself, is reason enough for a public debate. Is there another way to save that much money, without degrading veterans’ rights and benefits?

The way the issue was handled, however, has closed the debate, certainly for now and possibly years to come. Blame Pelosi for that; she gave cover to a powerful special interest (of which, as a veteran, I am a part) to control public policy-making. Not many politicians have the courage to remind organized veterans that they are receiving public monies; it is not theirs alone. Citizens and taxpayers have a right to participate in those decisions.

For Obama’s part, this fiasco is symptomatic of an administration hell-bent to change the world in a flash, with a blizzard of unfocused, unsharpened plans. Obama has been rushing impetuously, if not rashly, into major policy decisions that impact every phase of American life. For Obama, this speed is a virtue, allowing him to ignore the more lasting consequences, such as increasing the public debt to $11 trillion (excluding social security and Medicare) in record time. If Obama had not been so headstrong, perhaps the veterans’ issue could have been properly and publicly debated, on its merits. Thanks to Obama’s recklessness, it won’t.

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/2009/03/26/obama-prepares/

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Obama Veterans Health Care Plan » Blue Star Chronicles – 4 Responses to “Obama Veterans Health Care Plan”. 1. George Says: March 18th, 2009 at 1:45 pm. Great. So now Barry in Charge is going to screw up the military and the VA. What a joke this guy is. He and his followers have no idea how to …

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s the disposition of our defending forces – that is, the satellites that will shoot down the missiles – to find out which satellites are over the Soviet missile fields and in a good position to start shooting; which ones are on the fringe of the battle and just moving into position; and which satellites are too far away to play role in the battle at all.
After that, the battle management computers assign targets so each weapons-carrying satellites according to a prearranged battle plan. One way of doing this is to have a satellite pick out the missile closest to it and go after that first; and then to turn to the one that is next closest and take it out; and so on. But it may not be desirable for the weapons-carrying satellites to pick their own targets. This is one of the prime areas for the research. Should the weapons satellites act on their own, or take their orders from the battle management satellites? If the weapons satellites are autonomous, with their own tracking and aiming instruments, they can function even if contact is lost with the commanders – the battle management satellites – likes a machines-gunner cut off from his units.
On the other hand, the battle management satellites, looking down over the entire battle, can make more intelligent decisions about the deployment of our forces for maximum effect. For example, suppose the motions of our weapons-carrying satellites in their orbits just happen to bring several together over one area of the Soviet Union, while another area is bare of satellites. This means a hole has opened up in our defensive screen, through which many Soviet missiles can escape. The battle management computers, orbiting high over the battle, will take note of this situation and instruct some of the more distant weapons satellites to plug the hole by swinging their laser beams around and covering the undefended area. Or they can hurl into the fray other satellites just coming over the horizon, that are on the fringe of the battle.
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A Conservative’s view on climate change Spencer Fernando | Jan 11 Tagged with: climate change, Stephen Harper, Conservatives

On December 16, I had the chance to support Stephen Harper and our Conservative government’s reasonable and measured approach to climate change. Standing outside the office of Conservative MP Rod Bruinooge in the freezing cold, with my fellow Conservatives, we demonstrated our support for the approach taken by our government. Opposite to us were supporters of the Green Party. The respectful exchange of ideas is important and empowering, and for the first 15 minutes or so there was an atmosphere of respectful engagement. However, some supporters and supporters of the Green Party who were present began to move in a more extreme direction. The inevitable attacks and cries of “racism” were joined with clever new slogans such as “Oilberta,” and the wonderful chant of “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Conservatives have got to go.” This was standard for a protest of this sort. What was not standard was when supporters of the Greens started to kick the buckets we had brought for drumming. They picked them up and kicked them into the parking lot, so that only their message could be heard. These were somewhat surprising actions for “peaceful” people. One of the more classy Green Party supporters stole a bucket at the conclusion of the rally, and used it drum his message down the street. Despite the disrespect and anger shown toward myself and my fellow Conservatives, I am proud to say that we remained calm and respectful, responding to the Greens with class and moderation the entire event. As conservatives, we believe in the right of every individual to find their own path and reach their own conclusions, and we support vigorous debate. Many people mistakenly believe that the conservative position on the environment is to do nothing. This belief stems from thinking that the level of rhetoric and anger equals the level of commitment. Because conservatives are not running around screaming about the end of the world and doomsday scenarios, many feel that we are not concerned with this issue. Nothing could be further from the truth. Conservatives know that all of us, especially those of us who are young, will inherit the environment our parents’ generations have left for us and we know that we must work on shaping those decisions so we can all have the best future possible. To build that future and lay a solid foundation, we must look at the environment with clarity and realism — not panic and extremism. When I asked one of the leaders of the Green Party protest what his ideas are to build a strong environmental foundation, he responded by saying, “We need to stop being a carbon-based economy.” This statement may work well as a sound bite or on a press release, but it ignores the realities of our current situation. To simply “stop using carbon,” as one present said to me, would, in my opinion, devastate the Canadian economy. Perhaps some of these activists believe that this cost is worth it, but try telling that to the recent university graduates and young families that are forced to live in poverty because their jobs have been wiped out. As we have seen throughout history, humanity possesses both the ability and the will to find new and more efficient ways of growing our economies. These ways are not perfect by any means, but the trend is unmistakably positive. We must have faith in the ingenuity of the human spirit, and the potential of all of us to build a better world through technological advancement and increased efficiency, not draconian economic restrictions and job-killing carbon taxes. Conservatives approach the environmental question with the realism and level-headedness to advance real and positive change. Our position is clear. Our conservative government has invested considerable amounts of money to develop the green technology programs of the future, such as carbon capture. We seek a reasonable balance between the importance of protecting our beautiful planet, and ensuring that we protect Canadian jobs and keep our economy strong. Now is not the time for extreme and unproven experiments, now is not the time for quick decisions made out of fear and panic. Now is the time for us to carefully weigh all sides of the issue, take our time and take realistic steps to protect our environment and keep Canadians prosperous. This is what our Conservative government has done and this is what our Conservatives will continue to do. Spencer Fernando is a supporter of Stephen Harper and our Conservative government as they negotiate with the world to craft an agreement that works to protect our planet and ensure Canada’s economic prosperity for generations to

http://www.themanitoban.com/articles/24416

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Most Westerners know very little about the Middle East and the people that live there. This lack of knowledge hurts our ability to understand, and engage in intelligent discussion about, current events.

For example, frighteningly few know the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and most think the words “Arab” and “Muslim” are pretty much interchangeable. They aren’t. So here’s a very brief primer aimed at raising the level of knowledge about the region to an absolute minimum.

Basics

1. Arabs are part of an ethnic group, not a religion. Arabs were around long before Islam, and there have been (and still are) Arab Christians and Arab Jews. In general, you’re an Arab if you 1) are of Arab descent (blood), or 2) speak the main Arab language (Arabic).
2. Not all Arabs are Muslim. There are significant populations of Arab Christians throughout the world, including in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Northern Africa and Palestine/Israel.
3. Islam is a religion. A Muslim (roughly pronounced MOOSE-lihm) is someone who follows the religion. So you wouldn’t say someone follows Muslim or is an Islam, just as you wouldn’t say someone follows Christian or is a Christianity.
4. Shia Muslims are similar to Roman Catholics in Christianity. They have a strong clerical presence via Imams and promote the idea of going through them to practice the religion correctly. Sunni Muslims are more like Protestant Christians. They don’t really focus on Imams and believe in maintaining a more direct line to God than the Shia.
5. People from Iran are also known as Persians, and they are not Arabs.
6. Arabs are Semites. We’ve all heard the term anti-Semitism being used — often to describe Arabs. While antisemitism does specifically indicate hatred for Jews, the word “Semite” comes from the Bible and referred originally to anyone who spoke one of the Semitic Languages.
7. According to the Bible, Jews and Arabs are related [Genesis 25]. Jews descended from Abraham’s son Isaac, and Arabs descended from Abraham’s son Ishmael. So not only are both groups Semitic, but they’re also family.
8. Sunni Muslims make up most of the Muslim world (roughly 90%). ¹
9. The country with the world’s largest Muslim population is Indonesia. ²
10. The rift between the Shia and Sunni started right after Muhammad’s death and originally reduced to a power struggle regarding who was going to become the authoritative group for continuing the faith.

    The Shia believed Muhammad’s second cousin Ali should have taken over (the family/cleric model). The Sunni believed that the best person for the job should be chosen by the followers (the merit model) and that’s how the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, was appointed.

    Although the conflict began as a political struggle it now mostly considered a religious and class conflict, with political conflict emanating from those rifts.

Sunni vs. Shia | Arab vs. Non-Arab

Here’s how the various Middle Eastern countries break down in terms of Sunni vs. Shia and whether or not they are predominantly Arab. Keep in mind that these are generalizations; significant diversity exists in many of the countries listed.

• Iraq Mostly Shia (roughly 60%), but under Saddam the Shia were oppressed and the Sunni were in power despite being only 20% of the population. Arab.
• Iran Shia. NOT Arab.
• Palestine Sunni. Arab.
• Egypt Sunni. Arab.
• Saudi Arabia Sunni. Arab.
• Syria Sunni. Arab.
• Jordan Sunni. Arab.
• Russian Dimebolin

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It is a world in which there is one master, one sovereign— one center of authority, one center of force, one center of decision-making. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within. It has nothing in common with democracy, which is the power of the majority in respect to the interests and opinions of the minority. In Russia, we are constantly being lectured about democracy. But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves. (Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address to the Munich Conference on Security Policy 2-10-07)

The deployment of the US Missile Defense System in Eastern Europe is a de-facto declaration of war on the Russian Federation. As Russian President Putin said in a recent press conference, this missile system is put in place; it will work automatically with the entire nuclear capability of the United States. It will be an integral part of the US nuclear capability. This will disrupt the current configuration of international security and force Russia to begin work on a new regime of tactical nuclear weapons. This is a very serious development. Russia will now have to rethink its current policy vies a vies the United States and develop a long-range strategy for fending off further hostile encroachments into former-Soviet states by NATO. Welcome to the new Cold War. A Putin cannot ignore the gravity of the proposed system or the threat it poses to Russia national security. Bush’s Missile Defense is not defensive at all, but offensive. His plan would put American military bases–with nuclear infrastructure and sophisticated radar-systems– right on Russia’s doorstep giving the US a clear advantage in first-strike capability. That means that Washington will be able to intimidate Russia on issues that are of critical international importance. Putin cannot allow this. He must force Bush to remove this dagger held to Moscow’s throat.  Bush’s Pyrrhic victory at the G-8

The central issues on the agenda at the G-8 meetings were downplayed in the media. Instead, the press focused its attention on the anticipated clash between Bush and Putin. But, the brouhaha never materialized; both were respectful and gracious.

President Bush, however, was adamant that his plan for missile defense in Czechoslovakia and Poland would go ahead according to schedule. Putin, for the most part remained politely silent. His objections were censored in the media.

Less than 10 hours after the closing ceremonies of the G-8, Putin fired off the first salvo in what will a probably be remembered as war that brought down the Empire Putin addressed 200 corporate leaders at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg and his comments left little doubt that he had already settled on a plan for countering Bush’s missile shield in the Czech Republic . Paten’s speech articulated his vision of a Moscow-centered new world order which would create a “new balance of power” that was less dependent on Washington .Â

He said, “the new architecture of economic relations requires a completely new approach. Russia intends to become an alternative global financial center and to make the ruble a reserve currency for central banks

The world is changing before our eyes. Countries that yesterday seemed hopelessly behind are today the fastest growing economies of the world.” Institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the IMF are “archaic, undemocratic and inflexible”. They do not reflect the new balance of power.” A

Putin’s speech is a repudiation of the present system. He is announcing the beginning of an asymmetrical war that is designed to cripple the United States economically, weaken the institutions which have traditionally enhanced its wealth, and precipitate a shift of global power away from Washington .Â

Putin’s challenge to the US dollar is particularly worrisome. He emphasizes the inherent unfairness of “dollar hegemony” which has an extremely negative effect on the economies of smaller countries.

 “There can be only one answer to this challenge boomed. The creation of several world currencies and several financial centers.

Putin imagines a world where goods and resources are traded in rubles or baskets of currencies—not just greenbacks. This would create greater parity between the countries and a more even distribution of wealth. A

He intends to depose the dollar as the world’s only “international currency”. There are signs that this process may have already started. A In the last 6 months, Norway , Iran , Syria , UAE, Kuwait , and Venezuela have announced that they are either cutting back on their USD reserves or converting from the greenback to the euro or a basket of currencies. The slumping dollar is weakening on all fronts. If the greenback loses its place as the world’s reserve currency the US will have to pay-down its monstrous current account deficit and live within its means. America will lose the ability to simply print fiat money and use it in exchange for valuable resources and manufactured goods. Putin is now threatening to cut-off the flow of cheap credit which is the source of the Superpower’s strength.

Can he carry it off? What kind of damage can Russia inflict on the dollar or on the many lofty-sounding organizations (WTO, World Bank, IMF, NATO and Federal Reserve) which prop up the US Empire? Russia’s power is steadily growing. Its GDP is leaping ahead at 8% per annum and by 2020 Russia will be among the five biggest economies in the world. It now has the third largest Forex reserves in the world and it is gradually moving away from the anemic dollar to euros and rubles. Nearly 10% of its wealth is in gold. A

Russia has also overtaken Saudi Arabia as the worlds leading supplier of petroleum. It produces 13% of the worlds daily output and has the world’s largest reserves of natural gas. In fact, Putin is working energetically to create the world’s first natural gas an alliance between Russia, Qatar, Iran and Algeria. The group could potentially control 40% of the worlds remaining natural gas and set prices as it sees fit. A

Putin’s ambitions are not limited to the energy sector either—although he has strengthened the nation by turning away foreign investment and through nationalization of vital resources. As Pavel Korduban says in his article Putin Harvests Political Dividends from Russian Economic Dynamism; Putin is looking beyond energy to technological modernization. As Korduban says:

The shift in official discourse to innovations€ reflects an attempt to reorient economic policy from the goal of consolidating the status of energy superpower to the emphasis on industrial modernization and catching up with the technological revolution. The key role in formulating this new policy is given to Sergei Ivanov, who promised that by the year 2020 Russia would gain leadership (measured as 10% of the world market) in such high-technology sectors as nuclear energy, shipbuilding, aircraft, satellites and delivery systems, and computer software.

Putin has also strengthened ties with his Central Asian neighbors and engaged in cooperative military maneuvers with China.

Last month it signed deals with Turkmenistan , Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to revive the Soviet-era united system of gas pipelines, which will help Russia strengthen its role of the monopoly supplier from the regional€. (Reuters) He has transformed the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) into a formidable economic-military alliance capable of resisting foreign intervention in Central Asia by the United States and NATO.Â

The CIS is bound to play a major role in regional issues as the real motives behind the war on terror are exposed and America’s geopolitical objectives in Central Asia become clearer. So far, Washington has established its military bases and outposts throughout the region with impunity. But the mood in Moscow and Beijing has soured and there may be changes in the near future. We should also remember that Putin is surrounded by ex-KGB agents and Soviet-era hardliners. They have never trusted America’s motives and now they can point to the new US bases, the colored-coded revolutions, the broken treaties and the projected missile defense system—to prove that Uncle Sam is up to no good.

Putin sees himself as leading a global insurgency against the empire. He speaks for the emerging-market economies of Russia, China, India and Brazil. These 4 nations will progressively overtake the Cold order.Last year, 60% of the world’s output was produced outside the G-7 countries. According to Goldman Sachs, by 2050 Brazil, Russia, India and China will be the world’s leading economies.

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smoke and confusion of the battle swirl around him, he can not see the larger picture. The battle management satellite is the general, overseeing the operation and moving his forces about.
The attention of the battle management satellites and the weapons satellites is concentrated on the boosters as long as they are burning. When the boosters have burned out, the first stage of the battle is over. The boosters release their payloads — the buses carrying the warheads –and fall away. They are no longer of interest. The battle management satellites and the weapons satellites begin to examine the buses, with a view to destroying them. The second stage of the defense, called the post-boost-phase, defense begins.
The buses , each powered by its own small rocket, continue on through space after they separate from the boosters. The buses buses now go through a little dance in which they pirouette with the aid of their rockets and push off their warheads one by one, each in a different direction, so as to reach a different target in the United States. All this is part of the predetermined Soviet plan for the attack. The steps in the dance that release the warheads are programed into the bus’s computer. This is why an attack that damages or confuses the computer is just as good for our defense as blowing up the entire bus.
It takes the bus several minutes to get rid of all its warheads. During that time it is a very attractive target. If we can destroy the bus, or confuse its computers near the beginning of its dance, we neutralize all the warheads it has on board in one blow. This is as good as destroying the missile would have been. If we catch the bus later, while it is still in the middle of its task of dispensing warheads, we still in the middle of with one hit. All in all, the post-boost-phase defensive is almost as useful to us as the boost-phase defense was. It gives us another chance to catch the Soviet missile with all its eggs in one basket, so to speak. And it lengthens by several minutes

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The laser mounted on a satellite is a promising technology for destroying missiles. The neutral particle beam, which shoots a stream of fast-moving hydrogen atoms at the missiles, may turn out to be even better. A neutral particle beam, mounted on a satellite, can be lethal to the missile and its warheads in almost any phase of their fight.

The Neutral Practicing Beam. This beam of atoms is so effective because it is very penetrating. This laser beam is absorbed at a missile’s surface and does not get into the missile’s interior, but the atoms in a neutral particle beam pass right through the metal skin of the missile and enter to the brains of the missile — the electronic computer that guides it on its course. There the atoms create spurious pulses of electricity that cause the computer hallucinate , driving the missile off its proper path so that it begins to tumble and destroy itself. If the beams intense enough, it can even flip the bits inside the computer’s memory so that it remembers the wrong things; or it can cause the computer to lose its memory altogether. Anyone of this effects is deadly to the Soviet missile’s execution of its task.

with all its eggs in one basket, so to speak. And it lengthens by several minutes

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22 and 51 in rural sectors. In the 1950s Chinese mothers who had lost of children were awarded medals honoring them as heroes. Within a year or two, following declining per capita figures, evidence of much malnutrition in the hinterlands, and a desperately sagging industrial base, Mao’s thinking became slightly more “sophisticated”. He decided that China was heading toward economic disaster. No more medals were given out. Excess children were viewed as an impediment to efficient production. In fact, rampant pregnancy was considered criminal. In China you are not allowed to stead, to carry a gun, or to carry excessive fetuses (more than two) to term.

Communism was quick to embrace Deng’s free market exhortation. Within a decade of the country’s economic liberalization–throughout the 1980s–there were at least 225,000 privately run companies in the densely populated coastal provinces and the GNP bounded from 120 billion to 427 billion dollars. Today the acquisition of washers and dryers, refrigerators,television sets, and a host of other household goods is soaring and production is expected to double before the year 2000. In 1980 manufactured exports were worth 9 billion dollars to China; by 1989, 37 billion dollars. Deng intends to raise China’s gross domestic product (GDP) from its current $330 per person (a wildly fluctuating average, depending on the province) to $1,000 by 2000, thus tripling the size of the economy. But it’s moving faster than that.Just in 1992, the country’s real dollar value leapt to somewhere between 6 and 12.8 percent; no one knows for certain how much, But in 1993, economic indicators suggested a growth rate higher than 13 percent. Meanwhile, Deng’s economic proposals have been added to the Chinese constitution and the notion that communism was victorious in China is being deleted, according to the Xinhua Press Agency. According to the new policy, a dollar is worth a thousand communists.

Regardless of the economic data sheet or index used, 1992-93 saw China at the apex of world economic gain for those years. (The U.S., by contrast, has grown on average at 3 percent per year for the past twelve years, until the first quarter of 1994, when growth doubled.) Coupled with its current enormous foreign trade surplus, China promises to be the economic superpower of the twenty-first century, and the largest

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