Dallas Morning News: Cruz begins Senate career pledging to hold conservative lines on spending, guns
As Vice-President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell figure out their next courses of action regarding the United States’ information transformation, new Texas Senator Ted Cruz is opening his term with a call to at least partially shut Washington, D.C., down in order to reduce the deficit. Senator John Cornyn, the other senator from my home state, greeted Cruz after the oath, and the latter’s family – including his father, one Pastor Rafael Cruz, “who fled Cuba in his teens” – was there to witness the event. According to Senator Cruz, the fiscal cliff deal called for a $620 billion tax increase, and I imagine that there’ll be more proposals like it depending on the number of programs the Democratic Party’s main factions demand.:
Daily Caller: Caroline May: Oregon to consider additional tax on gas efficient vehicles
World Affairs Journal: P.J. O’Rourke: Dear Mr. President: Zero-Sum Makes Zero Sense
Color me flummoxed, even given everything that’s been occurring about green energy’s slowdown. This legislation, which is intended to take effect in 2015, imposes a tax on vehicles with at least 55 miles per gallon, vehicles which have resulted in declining revenue from the gas taxes already in place up in Oregon. Any manufacturers producing these types of vehicles could either attempt to call for a decrease in these taxes to give Oregon’s market some additional value or relocate elsewhere, either Kansas or here, depending on the conditions. Then again, if any individuals or groups especially envious and fearful of these companies – or what they symbolize – start calling for increased attention against them, then it might only be a matter of time before someone starts thinking of “retribution through redistribution” as a concept to convince the rest of the peoples of the world that globalized capitalism will utterly wreck everything they believed. As more countries get the idea that they can succeed only at others’ expense, whether through ballots or bullets, missiles or money, instability can and will surface. Al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and others seek to “redistribute violence to places that didn’t have enough”, while Russia and China have each been working to redistribute the global balance of power… or, failing that, inflict as much damage on as many people with as much speed as possible. If anything, I’d place my bet on “negative-sum” as an even more applicable concept for this period of time, whether seriously or comically.:
Deutsche Welle: Suliman: ‘Al-Jazeera plays the piper, but Qatar calls the tune’
Week: Peter Weber: Why Al Gore sold Current TV to Al-Jazeera
Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani mobilized his resources to insert himself into the upheavals throughout the Islamic Community, and among Al-Jazeera’s first targets was Muammar Gaddafi. He and Bashar Assad evidently fell out of favor with the House of Thani, and even though some journalists at that network wanted to extend their coverage to Syria right away, nothing much progressed until Al-Jazeera’s higher-ranking executives decided to start instigating the latter’s downfall. We could call it “television for terrorists”, judging from everything it’s cheerled as the first decade of this century progressed, which, incredibly, could be why I actually pity it – and, by extension, the House of Thani – for accepting that offer from former Vice-President Al Gore earlier this week. Gore attempted to hasten the deal to stay ahead of that fiasco over the “fiscal cliff”, rejecting an offer to purchase from Glenn Beck, earning a supposed total payout of $100 million, if at most. Depending on the progress of the global energy revolution, Gore, Thani, and Al-Qaeda might not need much longer to see their fortunes decline, which would most likely be why Al-Qaeda’s massacring its way through certain parts of the world even as this year unfolds.:
Fox News Channel: Al-Qaeda Reportedly Carving Out Its Own ‘Country’ in Mali
If Abu Musab Abdel-Wadoud or Abdelhakim Belhadj wants to declare himself a sort of Caliph-in-training, then it looks like one or the other has an area in which he and his associates can unleash terror, submission, and purity by himself. After at least 11 years of attacking American and other targets, Al-Qaeda is entrenching itself in northern Mali, territory “almost exactly the size of Afghanistan”, and it’s initiating public amputations and destroying Timbuktu’s mausoleums. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb now operates in the Sahel, which runs from southern Mauritania through northern Mali all the way to Eritrea, and in a way, it’s perfect for their view of a Sharia paradise. The jihadists stole construction equipment to start digging tunnels and building roads, as well as weapons from Malian and Libyan military storage sites, started using solar panels for electricity, which could give green energy companies the idea to file lawsuits, and even set up connections to local clans, all without running out of gas or food. I might guess that as other Muslims across North Africa grow more dissatisfied with, say, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, they’ll turn to Abdel-Wadoud to fight against any outside adversaries, perceived or real, pushing the Islamic Community deeper into itself. Judging from the spirals in Egypt’s currency, they may be about to get a chance to make their opinions known.:
Ahram: Morsi’s Brotherhood may pay price for Egypt currency fall
The Egyptian pound is losing value against the (American) dollar, and since two-fifths of all Egyptians need state subsidies on such things as bread to get by a typical day, they’ll be first to immediately feel any price punches resulting from increases in costs of other imported goods. This currency slid to 6.39 to the dollar this week, and the Egyptian Central Bank wanted to use foreign reserves to defend it, even since Hosni Mubarak stepped down. Now, Muhammad Morsi wants to secure a loan from the International Monetary Fund, but some Muslim Brotherhood operatives are backing off, citing tax increases and mounting popular discontent. Nowadays, it’s the Muslim Brotherhood that’s stuck with redistribution, and President Barack Obama pushed it, thereby countering this global modernization. I might have concluded that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and current Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan would harmonize this trend and America’s prosperity more smoothly, but now, it appears we’re just inching along. Entrepreneurs throughout Africa and East Asia could bubble up to persuade this country to start strategizing with them in mind in the next few years.:
Forbes: Jerry Bowyer: The Next Big Thing from the Official Who Predicted Communism’s Demise
Herbert Meyer has the bigger preference for predictions here, but then, perhaps the Soviet Union was intended to herald not the ascendancy of a Marxian utopia, but the collective suicide of Russia. The Central Intelligence Agency believed that the Cold War was a permanent fixture of international politics, but it didn’t have any sight of Soviet weaknesses. According to Meyer, the rest of the planet is leaving poverty behind more quickly than anyone could suspect, whether it’s the Obama administration, the Tea Partiers… or even the House of Thani. The “emerging global middle class” will number about five billion, presumably without any bloodbath(s) along the way, and if we start reaching a point at which North Africans and Middle Easterners prefer a Costco or even a church – among other things promoting freedom, friendship, harmony, and life – over a “lunatic mosque”, then America and its allies can stand back and manage the information transformation worldwide, exposing Islam’s fourteen-century struggle – and I use that word intentionally – against modernization and also leaving Chinese and Russian nationalists in the dust.
