Category: Current Events

“The Origins of the Great War of 2007”

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Niall Ferguson:

With every passing year after the turn of the century, the instability of the Gulf region grew. By the beginning of 2006, nearly all the combustible ingredients for a conflict – far bigger in its scale and scope than the wars of 1991 or 2003 – were in place.

The first underlying cause of the war was the increase in the region’s relative importance as a source of petroleum. On the one hand, the rest of the world’s oil reserves were being rapidly exhausted. On the other, the breakneck growth of the Asian economies had caused a huge surge in global demand for energy. It is hard to believe today, but for most of the 1990s the price of oil had averaged less than $20 a barrel.

Sort of a bolt of lightning as I’ve been reading Shirer’s the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I’m now entering 1939 in this amazing 1960 work. The look back with respect to opportunities missed is simply astonishing. I hope Ferguson is dead wrong, but one can see the seeds of war…

World Snowmobile Racing Championships – Eagle River

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Joe Drape:

But the wintertime blues disappeared Friday night, Day 2 of the 43rd annual World Championship Snowmobile Derby, which residents herald as the Indianapolis 500 of snowmobile racing.

Jimmy Blaze followed a fireworks display, which opened Friday Night Thunder, by defying physics and doing a back flip on a snowmobile to the whoops and mitten-muffled applause of the 10,000 people who crammed on a snow-covered hill at Eagle River Derby Track. The temperature had dropped to 25; the wind chill made it feel like 11 and a steady snow fell.

Hundreds of the young men and women in parkas bearing the logos of their favorite sled manufacturers, like Polaris and Arctic Cat, arrived by snowmobile. Families, too, planted camping chairs in the white bowl, but while mothers and fathers watched the racers hit 100 miles an hour on the track’s icy oval, their snowsuit-bundled children found a steeper hill for body-sledding.

Frontline on Katrina

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Frontline:

While much is still being investigated nearly three months after Katrina lashed through the Gulf Coast, government officials and experts on preparedness and national security say they’ve already learned some lessons from the catastrophe. They say it’s a wake-up call for other disasters ahead. Will we be ready?
Commenting here are: Warren Rudman, co-chair, National Security Commission; Tom Ridge, secretary, Department of Homeland Security (2002-2005); Michael Brown, FEMA director (2003-2005); Richard Clarke, National Security Council (1992-2003); Richard Falkenrath, Homeland Security adviser (2001-2005); and Leo Bosner, FEMA National Response and Coordination Center.

Civitas

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www.civitaswi.org:

CIVITAS will host 10 monthly luncheon forums focused on local finance, public education services and finances, and an analysis of local government services. (See Forum Calender for schedule of topics). Each luncheon will include presentations by past and current local officials, academic experts and representatives from community, business, professional and civic organizations. Presentations will be followed by questions from a panel of civitas members who have studied the monthly topic and audience questions.

All presentations will be recorded and posted on a civitas web site and media coverage of the information presented in the forums will be encouraged.

Civitas graduates will receive a certificate of attendance and a complete set of the presentations. Appointing authorities will receive an annual list of civitas graduates and will be encouraged to consider these individuals for appointments to boards, commissions and committees.

In addition, any civitas graduate who decides to become a candidate for local public office will be eligible to attend an annual civitas Candidate Training Program and an annual civitas Seminar on the Public Agenda which will examine the results of a county-wide public opinion survey of local issues.

Civitas is a joint undertaking of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce and Wood Communications, according to a letter sent to chamber members by chairman Gary Wolter.

Gingrich on WWII vs the Four Years since 9/11

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Newt Gingrich raises some useful points in comparing WWII’s four years vs. the four since 9/11 [pdf]:

I appreciate the opportunity to testify today about the nation’s intelligence system and the absolute imperative for effective ongoing reform.

It is now four years and one month since the 9/11 attack on America.

The comparable date for World War II would have been January 19, 1946. By that point the United States was largely demobilizing its forces after a victorious global war.
During the comparable length of time that we have been responding to the 9/11 attacks on America, the World War II generation of Americans had rebounded from the attack on Pearl Harbor and defeated Germany, Japan and Italy, built a worldwide military and intelligence capability, built the atomic bomb, massed and organized industrial power, and laid the foundation for the worldwide network of alliances that has stabilized the world for the last sixty years.

This difference in energy, intensity, and resolve should worry all of us.

This is a fascinating topic. One thing that strikes me is how different our national awareness of the globe must have been in 1946, given millions of Americans stationed overseas. This is much different, today, I think.