I see a bad moon risin' ...

"I see trouble on the way."

A little CCR to get your day started there, mi amigos.

Well, well, well. Demonstrations on the streets of Algeria, Tunisa (predating Egypt's even), Sudan, violent clashes now in the land of the Pyramids, and toss in Jordan, just for good measure. In fact, King Hussein dismissed his entire cabinet as a result of the Jordanian protests. And he has appointed new people with the directive of implementing "more" democratic reforms, immediately. The key word there obviously being more. The Muslim Brotherhood has been busy, they have a political wing in Jordan. And a spokesperson for the Giza based group says that Egypt "should prepare for war with Israel." It would seem there is a race afoot in the Near East - can the various monarchs, despots, and regimes implement Goldie Locks democracy - not too much, not too little - in order to satisfy the masses hungry for porridge before they are set upon and thrown off (if not out) completely? And will these "democratic" reforms lead to the election of autocratic regimes similar to those in Palestine and Iran? Hmmmm ...

According to a Freedom House Survey, of the 46 Muslim majority nations in the world only 3 were ranked as free prior to the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. Of the 16 nations in which Muslims form between 20% to 50% of the population only another 3 were ranked as free. And 5 of the 8 countries ranked with the lowest freedom were, you might of guessed, majority Muslim. And do we not do business with nearly all of them? Can we afford for one after another to topple into fundamentalist Khomeini style governments? Can Israel? My point being, if there is a prairie fire catching hold throughout the Muslim world, they have 46 hectors to burn through. If even half, hell 1/3rd, go the way of Iran, Israel is in for a serious multi front war. And as goes Israel, so goes the US. We're going to need to keep our head on a swivel ... less we find it atop a pike.

I should add here that the nation which has the highest percentage of Arabs freely elected to office within its central body of government, is Israel. And the largest concentration of free-living Muslims outside of the Middle East (and period in or out of the region prior to Iraq/Afghanistan), is in the state of Michigan, USA. Ya ... how's that great Satan argument work again?

And let me just note - many of us whom supported the Iraq invasion argued that the only long term vaccine to radical Islam was to inject democracy into the heart of the Middle East, and by its very nature, it would spread. This was the over arching Bush era policy founded on the belief that all peoples desired freedom, as it was "not America's gift to the world, but God's gift to mankind", as GW put it in one of his SoTU addresses. So, if one after another of these Muslim nations do turn into a Turkey style government (freely elected bodies while maintaining their Muslim identity), are we to thank George W. Bush for lighting this prairie fire of freedom? Shall history? Having taken up that argument myself, many times, are my ilk to be proven right starting with Egypt, Jordan, et al??? I wonder.

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1 year ago NASA brought online its most advanced telescope, the "Kepler." Thus far it has located 1,235 celestial bodies in which the atmosphere has the potential for supporting life. 6 of them are near enough the closest star to be labeled "hot zones", in which the support of life is "highly" possible.

I thought this of particular interest. I can't imagine anyone taking Al Gore seriously anymore, but even if there are those few out there still willing to argue in his favor we can now add, "so we'll move to another planet" among our retorts ... hehehe.

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And perhaps my favorite story of the day -

As you probably heard, a federal judge ruled in favor of the 26 state law suit seeking to get Obamacare declared unconstitutional via its "individual mandate" (the forced purchase of health insurance under penalty of law). That now makes 2 judges that have upheld it, 2 striking it down. However, that's overall. The 26-state suit in particular (the strongest in argument and support, I think) has not been defeated as of yet.

So with that in mind, the legislature of North Dakota has taken up the issue ... sorta. They have applied the reasoning used by the Left in arguing the legitimacy of an individual mandate on insurance as neccessary for the "public good", and have crafted a bill mandating that each and every law abiding citizen age 18 years and up, carry a firearm. After all, statistics show that regions with such populations have lower crime rates, making this a clear "public good" imperative.

Hehehe ... God bless em.'