"The return of ousted former President Manuel Zelaya from exile Saturday brings Honduras' nearly two-year political crisis to an end and hope to one of the poorest nations in the Americas."
Why would you not accept that and continue reading the 'news'?
Why, yes, that issarcasm.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/02/2011 7:26 Comments ||
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Like the vanishing point in a perspective painting, long-term projections help us order our perceptions of what we see in front of us today. Here's one to think about, fresh from the just-released update of the United Nations' population forecasts: At constant fertility, Israel will have more young people by the end of this century than either Turkey or Iran, and more than German, Italy or Spain.
[I]f present trends continue, Israel will be able to field the largest land army in the Middle East. That startling data point, though, should alert analysts to a more relevant problem: among the military powers in the Middle East, Israel will be the only one with a viable population structure by the middle of this century.
With a total fertility rate of three children per woman, Israel's total population will rise to 24 million by the end of the present century. Iran's fertility is around 1.7 and falling, while the fertility for ethnic Turks is only 1.5 (the Kurdish minority has a fertility rate of around 4.5).
Not that the size of land armies matters much in an era of high-tech warfare, but if present trends continue, Israel will be able to field the largest land army in the Middle East. That startling data point, though, should alert analysts to a more relevant problem: among the military powers in the Middle East, Israel will be the only one with a viable population structure by the middle of this century.
That is why it is in America's interest to keep Israel as an ally. Israel is not only the strongest power in the region; in a generation or two it will be the only power in the region, the last man standing among ruined neighbors. The demographic time bomb in the region is not the Palestinian Arabs on the West Bank, as the Israeli peace party wrongly believed, but rather Israel itself.
Palestinian birthrates have indeed fallen drastically, and emigration has been a constant factor since 1948. The P.A. over-counted the population in the last census by at least one million, so actual population statistics are a bit unclear.
The right way to read this projection is backwards: Israelis love children and have lots of them because they are happy, optimistic and prosperous. Most of Israel's population increase comes from so-called "secular" Israelis, who have 2.6 children on average, more than any other people in the industrial world. The ultra-Orthodox have seven or eight, bringing total fertility to three children.
Paradoxically, this makes Israel's present position dangerous, for its enemies understand that they have a very brief window in which to encircle the Jewish superpower.
Europeans, Turks and Iranians, by contrast, have very few children because they are grumpy, alienated and pessimistic. It's not so much the projection of the demographic future cranked out by the United Nations computers that counts, but rather the implicit vision of the future in the minds of today's prospective parents.
People who can't be bothered to have children presumably have a very dim view of days to come. Reams have been written, to be sure, about Europe's demographic tailspin. Less has been said about Persian pessimism and Anatolian anomie.
Paradoxically, this makes Israel's present position dangerous, for its enemies understand that they have a very brief window in which to encircle the Jewish superpower. The collapse of Egypt and possibly that of Syria shortens this window. Nothing short of American support for a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state on the 1949 armistice lines followed by economic sanctions against Israel, though, is likely to make a difference, and this seems unlikely.
Because the Democratic Party really doesn't want the president to completely destroy their chance to be re-elected.
This, I believe, explains the implacable hostility of Israel's neighbors, as well as the Europeans. It is the unquenchable envy of the dying towards the living. Having failed at Christianity, and afterward failed at neo-pagan nationalism, Europe has reconciled itself to a quiet passage into oblivion.
In the constant fertility scenario, Israel will end the century at a median age of 32, while Poland will have a median age of 57. The Muslim world, meanwhile, is turning grey at an unprecedented rate. Turkey's and Iran's median age will surpass the 40-year mark by mid-century, assuming constant fertility, while Israel's will stabilize in the mid-30s. Europe will become an impoverished geriatric ward.
The implications of these trends have not escaped the leaders of the affected countries. "If we continue the existing trend, 2038 will mark disaster for us," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned in May 2010. Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, has warned repeatedly of "national extinction" if the country's low birth rate persists.
What happens to Egypt and Syria in this scenario is of small importance. Neither country will come out of the present crisis in any condition to fight, if they come out of it at all. Egypt's social structure - with two-fifths of the country immured in extreme rural poverty, and another quarter starving on thin subsidies in Cairo and Alexandria - simply is not viable.
Development economists have known for years that a disaster was in the works. A 2009 World Bank report on Arab food security warned, "Arab countries are very vulnerable to fluctuations in international commodity markets because they are heavily dependent on imported food. Arab countries are the largest importers of cereal in the world. Most import at least 50 percent of the food calories they consume."
Except Saudia Arabia, which grows its own grain as a matter of national security, using desalinized sea water. They're good as long as they have oil to sell...
The trouble is that the Arab regimes made things worse rather than better.
Egypt's rulers of the past 60 years intentionally transformed what once was the breadbasket of the Mediterranean into a starvation trap. Keeping a large part of one's people illiterate on subsistence farms is the surest method of social control Egypt is governable only by military rule, de facto or de jure, because the military is the only institution that can take peasants straight from the farm and assimilate them into a disciplined social structure. But the collapse of military rule and the flight of the army-linked oligarchy that milked the Egyptian economy for 60 years is a near-term disaster. Civic violence likely will claim more lives than hunger.
Events are most likely to overtake diplomacy. The sort of economic and demographic imbalances implied by the projections shown above reflect back into the present. Chaos in Egypt, Syria and other Arab countries probably will pre-empt the present focus on Israel and the Palestinians. It would not be surprising if the Palestinians were to mount another Intifada, or Egypt and Syria were to initiate one last war against Israel. It might be their last opportunity.
But I rate the probably of another war at well under 50%. The internal problems of Egypt and Syria are more likely to make war too difficult to wage.
Continued on Page 49
#2
Um. Yeah. And? An illegal act is, by definition, a crime. I bet Republicans also believe that water is wet, the sun rises in the east, and 2 + 2 = 4. How exactly does accusing Republicans of not being insane advance her cause?
#3
"the Republican solution that Ive seen in the last three years is that we should just pack them all up and ship them back to their own countries and that in fact it should be a crime and we should arrested them all.
Nah. Wise us, Honey. Too big a chore to round them all up. Build a fence. prosecute and deport those who are caught. Stifle Sanctuary Cities. Ban government funding for college and medicine. Et cetera.
By the way, our safety guys tell us (at the construction project) if a guy is injured, the doctors will not treat him without an ID. Why isn't that universal? Unless he's fixin' ta die.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/02/2011 6:11 Comments ||
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#4
Crud. Wise UP, honey.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/02/2011 6:15 Comments ||
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#5
Either she's a complete idiot, or a uberliberal.
#6
someone at AOSHQ made a great comment about Debbie (paraphrasing cuz I can't find it):
She's not that sharp, but at least she's prett....er, got nice hai...er, speaks wel....
bless her heart
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/02/2011 20:38 Comments ||
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#7
Well, technically, it isn't a crime (in a criminal sense, no criminal charges would be filed) if you enter the country without going through proper procedure. If you come to the attention of the authorities you would get a hearing (if you didn't waive it) and a judge would decide if you can stay or if you have to go.
If you are deported and return without permission, THEN you have committed a crime, but if you have never been kicked out of the US, it is not a crime to be here without following proper procedure.
#8
Republicans need to own this argument. Those for illegal immigration are proposing a race based underclass. They are support oligarchs in Mexico and big business in the US as well as sexual trafficing across the border. All in support of those who won't follow the rules millions of immigrants before them followed.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
By Spengler 
