James R. Rummel

I am a self defense instructor who lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Straight Talk

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A new report was recently released that has very few surprises for people who read the blogs. According to a study conducted by a European Union small business organization named Eurochambres, the United States economy is about 20 years ahead of the EU in just about every category. (You can read the report yourself, in PDF format, here.)

The study is surprisingly frank in its assessment of the EU’s chances to catch up with the US. Even with the best possible conditions it will take decades or even more than a century for the EU to achieve parity. And this will only happen if hard decisions are made right now.

One thing I also found to be very refreshing is that the report makes no bones as to which country the EU is trying to best. Claims that Europe is merely trying to find a more efficient system of internal governing without looking to become a rival of the US are becoming less credible with every year.

It appears to me that the biggest problem the EU faces is the drain on the economy due to its cradle-to-grave Socialist-style welfare system. For some reason, I don’t see the report even mentioning this directly. This is probably because the retirement and government subsidized benefit system is a big sore point in the EU. Proposed cuts in these benefits, even changes that we in the US would have characterized as being mild to middling, have been met with a great deal of protest by the voters.

Right now the US has a greater degree of political influence, military power, cultural dominance and economic might than any other society in the history of the world. It’s obvious that this state of affairs can’t continue forever. But it’s also obvious that the EU isn’t going to move to the head of the line if they can’t get a handle on the situation created by their own internal policies.

(Big slobbery hat tip to Ace.)

The Call of the Wild

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If you grew up in the 1960’s or watched television in the 1970’s, then you’ve seen them. Nature documentaries that depicted wild creatures as benign, gentle, loving souls. Many times these docs would end with the narrator pointing out, voice quivering with barely repressed scorn, that the natural world was free of all of the ills that plagued the more “advanced” human societies that were destroying it. Rape, war, murder, greed. All of these were absent in the breast of our wild-yet-more-noble cousins.

Except, of course, for insects because they made war on one another. But that was ignored in order to avoid spoiling the point.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time wandering through the wild places, watching what was going on around me. It’s with great confidence I can say that those documentaries were trying to pull a fast one.

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Interesting Idea

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This news story talks about new theories behind the mass extinctions that have occurred in Earth’s past. Very interesting reading.

The mass extinction that most people are familiar with is the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, which is when the dinosaurs were wiped out. But there have been others, some of them much worse.

The new theories propose the idea that these extinctions could have been caused by vast clouds of interstellar matter. These clouds might have blocked some of the sunlight reaching the Earth, causing an ice age. Or they could have stripped some of the ozone from the upper atmosphere, increasing the amount of ultraviolet radiation that would reach the surface.

Up, Up, And Away!

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I discussed Chinese preparations to invade Taiwan in this post. Fellow Chicago Boy TMLutas of Flit fame left a comment.

“In other words, conventional invasion has an expiration date attached. I would guess it’s about 5 years after cheap launch becomes a reality.”

This prompted reader David Davenport to ask what was meant by “cheap launch”.

Generally speaking, the biggest expense for a satellite is getting it up there. Rockets are terribly inefficient and costly, but so far no one has built a viable alternative. But there have been some ideas proposed to get around this problem.

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I’m Not Convinced

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A fair number of my friends are in the military. Every time I discuss international affairs they’re quick to point out that China is the one to watch. This is particularly true in the US Navy, where they’re very concerned with generating ways to counter any threat from the Middle Kingdom.

There’s certainly reason enough to take a good, hard look at what the Chinese could do, and what it would take to stop them if they try. Ever since 1949, China has claimed sovereignty over the island of Taiwan. They make no bones about their implacable desire to gain control of what they claim is a group of Chinese citizens in open rebellion against the one legal government. This news item details an official statement from the mainland Chinese government, warning Taiwan about their efforts at “creeping independence”.

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