podpolia

This is not an encouraging sign in the least. With increased Chinese military ability, and an increased need and willingness to take foreign oil resources, China is likely to be a major threat to the US and many other countries. Are we looking at the run-up to world war three? It’s not impossible. The one good thing that would occur in that case would be the closer work that we would undoubtedly be doing with Russia. This would be setting us up for a rerun of the second world war, in that we would be working with a previous rival against a common enemy. The article predicts Chinese interest in Russia’s Siberian oil fields, but it is unlikely that China would want to invade the most populous section of western Russia, following the mistakes of Napoleon and Hitler, though in the other direction. In the case of an American/Russian victory in a theoretical war with China (I believe such a war would be hard-fought, but ultimately successful, largely due to internal dissent in China and technical superiority on the side of Russia and the US), Russia would not be nearly as devastated as it was after the second world war, and would likely make for stiffer competition in a likely resultant cold war mimicking the one after WWII.
All this is speculative, of course, but it’s interesting to see the similarities between the current situation and the 1930s in Europe. One thing that should also not be forgotten is the suffering of the Chinese at the hands of the Japanese during the war, and the likely retribution that would be exacted in the case of Chinese expansion in the region.

As I suggested yesterday, public opinion turns out to be strongly against the rabid opinion of major Democratic figures like Senator Durbin and Howard Dean.
The interesting thing about the whole thing is that with the public opinion so strongly against what Sen. Durbin has been saying, it still took him an entire week to ‘apologize’ (he obviously belongs to the Bill Clinton school of apology). Is this because of media slant that won’t report his comments with as much fervor as they report negative rumors about Guantanamo? Because there is not as much short-term feedback between the opinions of the people of the state of Illinois and Senator Durbin as there is during an election year (he’s not up for reelection until 2008 with the rest of his Senate class)? Or is it just that the majority of the people who reject his statements have, like me, given up caring what the frothing-at-the-mouth opponents of every proactive American action say about stuff like this?
All who are apathetic, raise your hands.

I don’t have much to say on this article, but it is very interesting.
If you don’t feel like registering with the New York Times to read it though, I’ll understand.

After saying some stuff that could be interpreted as comparing American soldiers to Nazis, Senator Durbin has finally apologized. I find it interesting that it took him a week to do so. The article suggests that he was receiving flak mostly from the blogosphere and “conservative talk radio hosts.” Is this another example of a Democrat on the national stage figuring the media will cover for them and then getting a nasty suprise from the newer, nontraditional media? There may be an element of this, but I rather suspect that it’s more of a case of elements of the mainstream of Democratic political thought hitting the actual political atmosphere in the country, and simply bursting into flame.

It seems that a U-2 spy plane has crashed in the Middle East. It’s interesting to speculate on which country this is, as the only two countries between the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan are Pakistan and Iran. I rather suspect it is Pakistan, as there are American security forces on the ground, but the military doesn’t want to release the country name because of “host nation sensitivities.” That matches the situation in Pakistan right now, and I rather doubt that Iran would allow a security team in to gather the wreckage. It’s always possible to speculate that it was Iran and that they’re under suspicion for shooting it down, and allowed investigators in to prove their innocence, but until more information is released, we can probably discount that story as being too unlikely.

Senator Byrd of West Virginia is releasing his memoirs, in which he tries to excuse his membership in the KKK. This is the only member of the Senate who voted against BOTH black men nominated for the Supreme Court, and he’s trying to excuse his membership in the Klan (which he has repeatedly lied about). I don’t understand how anyone could vote for someone like this.

Via Power Line, we have a discussion of the worst song in the world, proposed as music to torture terrorists to.
Needless to say, the Party Lacking A Sense Of Humor (aka, the Democrats) has jumped all over the author for not being pointlessly outraged and spewing boring PC drivel everywhere like Linda Blair on a merry-go-round. So unlike many major figures today do when caught saying something dumb (Ralph Nader excluded), the author actually hit back. It wasn’t as funny as the first one, and I have no doubt that the most egregiously humorless among us will ignore it, but he makes a good point nonetheless.