Dragon footprints

In my new role as news analyst, I'm struck by how much discipline will be needed, not to talk about people talking. Never realized before what a big part of the news cycle that's become. Mr. X says something, write a story about it. Go ask Mr. Y for reaction to the comments, write a story about it.

I'm gonna resist that as much as possible. But when a family pet poops in the floor, some comment is appropriate.

Now Mr. Limbaugh, I respect his achievements. Almost single handedly invented talk radio, at a time when AM bandwith was mostly local "swap & shop" programming. Quite an accomplishment really. His much reported remarks on Haiti this week? Calculated. His ratings will go up.

Danny Glover's remarks that Haiti earthquake has something to do with no binding agreement at Copenhagen global warming summit? Well, Mr. Glover is an idiot. Not meant as personal criticism. Most actors and rock stars are idiots. They're very gifted people, and use of that gift is brutally time consuming. Like George Clooney for example? Great actor, and probably has a higher IQ than me. I read about a book per week. You really think George has time to read a book every week?

Having dispensed with that odious business, guess I'll talk some real news. Harry Houdini is of course, one of my personal heroes and spirit guides. When watching a performance, keep an eye out for things that seem slightly out of place. Could be lots of information available.

Many Americans don't know that Nigeria is right now crawling with Russian petrochemical brainiacs. Now why would that be? Doesn't Russia have plenty of its own oil? Yep, they do. Is a long term strategy at work that even Danny Glover could sort out? I'll be sure to ask him, and then write an article about it.

So, why is there a Chinese search & rescue team in Haiti right now? It's for both foreign and domestic consumption. I might as well point out, no politician on the planet ever does anything without first calculating political effect. In Haiti, the Chinese are showing the world, and its own citizens, China is emerging as a world power, moving towards the dominant world power. Hey, that foreign minister lady, Jiang Yu, she's kind of cute!

China isn't a communist country. It's fascist really. Looks more like Franco's Spain than Mao's vision. But they're coming on, in ways that'll at times confuse western perceptions. Like President Obama at Copenhagen, showing up for a meeting, and there's no chair for him. Think that was an accident? Pish! Chinese imperial court was playing head games like that on visiting ambassadors before Columbus was born.

As the dragon emerges on the world stage, at times they'll follow US model. There's much they admire about us. They also think we're spoiled, lazy and a blip in human history. Absolutely nothing can be done to stop China from becoming the dominant world power in the next fifty years. What America needs to do is break the co-dependent relationship, where debt buys goods that finance debt.

This is the part where I type something shocking and controversial. China as a very strong world power will support world stability, but only if the United States is also a strong world power. Underwear bombers aren't the greatest threat to national security. It's debt owed to China.