Sorry for dozing off....is it over?

No, I didn't actually doze off during the final presidential debate last night, but it was touch and go for a while.  The polls this morning all agree President Obama won, but I certainly saw no knock-out punch or anything even close.  What I saw was a surprising amount of agreement on the issue of foreign affairs.  On many occasions Romney said he agreed with Obama's handling of (xyz).  Where was the blood and broken, flying teeth?  I just thought it was a boring event.

I will have to say that Obama did successfully (in my mind) call out the discrepancy in Romney's claim of a plan to generally cut spending and move towards a balanced budget all while cutting taxes across the board and increasing defense spending.  That arithmetic just does not compute, and unless Romney can/will provide specifics on how he's going to do it, I'm a skeptic.

I will also agree with Obama that raw numbers of military hardware (ships, planes, etc) are no longer as important as weapons system capability and survivability.  I've met many military leaders over the past dozen or so years and they all seem to agree.  I sleep well.

What shocked me was the fact that Europe, Africa, South America, Australia, and most of Asia except China have just disappeared.  They are apparently no longer even discussed when it comes to foreign affairs.  Did you hear them mentioned last night at all?  (OK, Russia was mentioned very briefly, but that was it.)  They've just vanished!

No, the only part of the world that matters seems to be the Mideast and SW Asia.  We seem to spend ALL our time / money / effort trying to civilize those heathens, and all we ever really do is buy off a few despots and corrupt generals.  All because they have oil.  There isn't a damn thing there besides that.  As I've said before, we need to develop our own secure sources of energy so we can quit beating our heads against the wall trying to schmooze those bastards.

OK, now I'm worked up and awake....about 12 hours late.

S

The world's toughest job....

Q.  Do you know the profession that you would most likely starve to death pursuing?

Amman, Jordan

Baghdad, Iraq

Cairo, Egypt

Peshawar, Pakistan

Tehran, Iran

Tripoli, Libya

Damascus, Syria

Osama bin Laden's million-dollar estate in Pakistan.

A.  A paint salesman in the Mideast. *

No wonder they're always pissed off.  The heat, that awful music wailing from the loudspeakers, always having to lug around a grenade launcher, and those dirt-colored cities!  Maybe instead of sending them "democracy" we should try sending them some iTunes gift cards and some Sherwin Williams paint.  Couldn't hurt.  Might even cheer 'em up a little.

S

*Yes, I know....Pakistan is in SW Asia.  Picky, picky.

I'm beginning to see a pattern here...with EDIT

I've said for a long time, particularly after watching news clips showing rioting mobs in Muslim countries, "Those people just don't think right." A like comment yesterday on my blog from PT Dilloway, referring to the violence in Libya, said, "In what freaking universe does that make any freaking sense?"

This brought to mind an article I once read that pointed out that in the Muslim world marriage between cousins (known as "consanguinity"), and even brothers and sisters, is common.  A little online research found many credible sources confirming this and offering these statistics:  

Thirty-three percent of all marriages in Egypt are consanguine, as are 48 percent in Libya, 60 percent in Iraq, 70 percent in Pakistan, 67 percent in Saudi Arabia, 40 percent in Syria, 34 percent in Algeria, 63 percent in Sudan, 46 percent in Bahrain, 64 percent in Jordan, 42 percent in Lebanon, 54 percent in Qatar, 45 percent in Yemen, and 54 percent in the UAE.

This has been going on for 1,400 years in the Mideast, and is done in order to keep wealth (?) and power "within the family".   This is why it's so hard for sovereign countries to command the loyalty of their citizens.  People's loyalty goes to their "clan", not their arbitrarily cobbled together "country".

Not surprisingly, research has shown that children of consanguineous marriages have 10-16% lower IQ's.  Can you imagine the consequences of this generation after generation after generation?  Well, they might be able to keep all the camels in the family, but they also have a mighty polluted gene pool!

We (the West) keep trying to lead the Mideast towards our version of how things should be....democratic, governed by rule of law, peaceful, respectful to all, including women, etc.  I'm wondering if their average citizen can even comprehend those concepts?  

Thousands of years of tradition and ignorance and inbreeding are hard to overcome.  IMO we're beating our heads against a brick (or in their case mud) wall.  

S

EDIT:  Oh, the insanity....now they're burning the KFC in Cairo!  Is nothing sacred?