Middle East Futures

All men who can save are industrious, because all men are greedy for wealth…. It is only the guarantee of ownership and enjoyment of their gains which can put heart into them and make them diligent.--Quesnay

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We are the party of fiscal discipline, but the national debt rose nearly 40% during Mr. Trump’s presidency. We are the party of limited government, yet in the name of helping working people, populists support massive intervention in the marketplace through federal controls on prices and interest rates and, as in Disney’s case, using government to punish a corporation for expressing “woke” opinions. In their big-government activism, populists more resemble progressive Democrats than traditional Republicans.--danforth

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In America and Canada, a recent Lancet study found that 20,000 people die each year from heat, but 170,000 die from cold.
Globally, the study finds 4.5 million cold deaths, which is nine times more than global heat deaths.
The study also shows temperatures increasing 0.5 degrees Celsius in the first two decades of this century have caused an additional 116,000 heat deaths annually.
But warmer temperatures now also avoid 283,000 cold deaths every year.

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Middle East Futures

The Middle East is a laboratory of modern distortion of both the past and future.

From the past, nothing can be forgotten. Hatreds must linger and flare. The Civil War in America was not enough. The revolution in the West against slavery was not enough. Independence in the Land of Ire is not enough. The Ottoman invasion of Serbia must be paid for. 

The world is a patchwork of Hatfields and McCoys fueled by ignorance, ill will, and conflict entrepreneurs. And this is seen as the moral high ground. The way we should all be. College students in the U.S. are in the streets demanding Israeli blood. Iran and Hamas are promising the righteous destruction of Israel and the death of its people.

Endless hatred is the child of identity and factionalism. At one time it was uselessly painful and destructive. But times have changed, as the Middle East shows. What are the possible outcomes in Israel? Status quo is one. The rubbing of the wounds continuing forever. Ugly and painful but tolerable for the rest of the world. Two, Israel kills their enemies, solidifies their borders, and lives in a stable area forever. That would be fine for Israel and for the world. Three, Israel loses. This is the scenario that seems to be misunderstood. Israel will never lose. It will never ask for a standing eight count, never lay down their arms, never sue for a compromised peace. If they are falling, they will take all their enemies with them, destroying the Middle East as they fall, a nuclear Sampson. This is what makes the animosity of Israel's neighbors, the strange bloodlust on the campuses, so unreasonable, like a nuclear suicide bomber. The end of Israel will be the end of the Middle East, the end of radioactive oil, and maybe--if there are enough accidental interlocking treaties--the end of us all.