The Template of Time

Will the Real Islam Please Stand Up?

2012-02-24T11:12:00.002-06:00

I keep waiting for the face of the real Islam to show itself to the world. There was a time, shortly after Mohammed's death, when Muslim armies marched out and established a vast empire. In those days Islam was a religion of tolerance, a bulwark of civilization while the Dark Ages held Europe captive. Those Christians living in the North African part of their empire found they were freer to practice their faith according to their conscience than they were under the reign of the Christian Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines were fanatical in their persecution of Christians who drifted ever so slightly from their vision of orthodox Christianity, while the new Muslim rulers said, "Practice your faith according to your desire, just pay your taxes on time." How times have changed.

Afghans protest Koran burning.

Today Islam is presenting a far different face. In Afghanistan military bases and embassies are under siege for the unintentional desecration of the Quran, the holy book of Muslims that is believed to contain the words of God. I am a Christian and also believe my Bible is the Word of God. But would the burning of it provoke in me a murderous rage? No. Life is sacred. I might peacefully protest such an act, but the response of Muslims in Afghanistan for the accidental incineration of their holy book, followed by apologies from all, including the President of the United States, is one of insatiable rage. Violent protests are now in their fourth and deadliest day. Two soldiers, who took no part in the burning of these books were murdered by an Afghan soldier in retaliation. (This violent response reminds one of the time Afghans stormed a UN compound in 2011 and killed 11 people after a Florida pastor burned a Quran in public.)

I have yet to hear a Muslim religious leader say, "We are a religion of peace and we condemn both the desecration of our holy book and the violence it has inspired. Return to your homes. God will punish the desecrators. " I see no one from the Muslim community characterizing this protest as an excessive reaction. Is it because it is not excessive? A countenance contorted by hatred and bloodlust is the face of Islam I see today. I do not believe this is an accurate expression of Islam, but I fail to see an alternative one emerging against this dark backdrop. Will the real Islam please stand up, and please speak up so that we can hear you?

Is a disproportionately violent response the rule
and not the exception in today's expression of Islam?

Afghanistan, except for educated pockets in a few cities, is a fairly primitive nation. No one accuses Iran of being largely illiterate, uneducated and primitive. Plus it has the added "benefit" of being governed by Islamic clergymen--e.g., the Ayatollah Khamenei is their Supreme Leader. Surely this nation will provide us with a better picture of what Islam really looks like. Unfortunately, this former home of great Persian states has become a cartoon-noir, a dark caricature of a state. They pronounce death sentences on other nations, like Israel, and their language is that of a frothing, spit-bespattered lunatic. To call the United States the Great Satan, even if you believe it, is to reveal a crippled intellect incapable of diplomacy. However, they would not use this language if it diminished their political standing in the eyes of their people. They use it because their people embrace this language and the ideas it represents. This is also a part of the face of today's Islam that I see.

Some might argue that Iran, and also Syria, are easy targets. I would agree. But here is the problem: when I survey the Muslim world I find too many easy targets. And they all seem to follow this progression: the more radically Islamic, the less tolerant. For example, under the secular rule of Sadat, and then Mubarak, Egypt was capable of maintaining peace with Israel. It was a cold peace, but that is better than a hot war. Now the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, which they are paid over $1.5 billion to maintain(!), is under assault mere days after two Islamic political parties came to power in this state. Given the consistently contentious, intolerant expression of Islam I would have to conclude it was a religion of hate, were it not for the fact that it once was anything like what we are currently seeing. My request is also my prayer, "Will the real Islam please stand up?"

Prediction: The Countdown Has Begun For the Bombing of Iran

2012-02-23T10:11:00.003-06:00

No one, other than the Israeli government, can officially say Israel has initiated plans for a strike against Iran, but it appears the countdown has begun for the following reasons.

Diplomacy is failing. The Ayatollah Khamenei continues to show his contempt for those seeking a diplomatic solution. The IAEA--the atomic watchdog agency--continues to try and visit Iran's nuclear facilities and continues to be rebuffed. Just yesterday came news that they were not allowed to visit the Parchin facility. Until the IAEA can monitor what Iran is doing at these nuclear sites the world will be forced to trust Iran that its nuclear intentions are peaceful. Like I noted earlier, diplomacy is failing.
Iran will soon enter a zone of immunity. The Fordow facility, near the Shiite holy city of Qom, is housed in a mountain and is estimated to be protected by 265 feet (80 meters) of rock and soil. The U.S. announced it is building a new, more powerful bunker buster bomb to take on just such a site, so presumably Israel will have a very tough time stopping work at Fordow. According to diplomats, Iran doubled the number of nuclear centrifuges at the Fordow plant shortly after announcing it had enriched uranium to 20%. This surge in enrichment capability at Fordow brings Iran much closer to the point where their nuclear gains are irreversible. In the parlance of the Defense Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, Iran is about to enter a zone of immunity, a place wherein a military strike will fail to halt or reverse their nuclear progress. Increasing the anxiety over their approaching this immunity zone is the report that Iran is planning to add to its 600 centrifuges at Fordow so that it can enrich uranium at an even faster clip. (This link is to an article published by the Jerusalem Post detailing these developments: http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=259068).
Time is running out: According to a February 22nd report by the DebkaFile, a Jerusalem-based news agency, the transfer of enrichment capacity to Fordow has shortened the time it will take Iran to weaponize their uranium to six weeks.
Iran has publicly stated its intent to strike first. On February 21, the Deputy Chief of Iran's Armed Forces, Mohammed Hejazi, recently warned the world that Iran would not sit idly by and wait to be attacked. In his words, "Our strategy now is that if...our enemies want to endanger Iran's national interests...we will act without waiting for their actions." With Israel faced with the possibility of a multi-front war against radical Islam's Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and even Iran-ally Syria, Israel is at a strategic disadvantage if it is attacked without warning. One can be certain that Iran's warships that recently cruised through the Suez Canal and docked in Syria, delivered even more missiles to Syria and Hezbollah. It is uncertain how badly an offensive against Israel from Iran, and possibly combined with attacks from radical Islam allies in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, involving tens of thousands of missiles, would disable their military capability, but it is certain that Israel would not want to give this advantage to their enemies.

The arguments against Israel striking Iran:

It would buy them only a few years of time before Iran achieves this capability: says who? Based on the the two previous strikes (Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007) history would seem to argue otherwise. Iraq has been non-nuclear for over thirty years since it was hit by Israeli jets. Also, what is to prevent them from striking Iran again in a few years should they continue to pursue this program.
The U.S. is vehemently opposed to a strike at this time. Therefore, a strike would damage their relationship with their strongest, most important ally: True, but this argues for a strike sooner than later. First, if Israel strikes now, would a democrat running for the presidency abandon Israel prior to being possibly reelected in November, particularly if Israel is being threatened and attacked from all sides? To do so might alienate the Jewish bloc vote that tends to vote democratic, and might hurt fund raising as well. Second, Obama has not been the most Israel-friendly president and a strike prior to the election will hurt the global economy and his reelection chances. After he is elected, should that occur, can Israel count on the support of the president who extends an open hand to the Iranian Ayatollah and delights in giving the cold shoulder to PM Netanyahu? Therefore, should Israel act in a manner that helps his reelection and endangers their state, or in a way that protects their state and opens the door to a better relationship with the USA? Striking before the election is their only option, if they are planning on striking at all.

Finally, history predicts an Israeli strike. Based on a model of time the following prediction was made long before the Arab Spring and the current crisis. I quote from The Template of Time, published in June 2010: "These two sequences [sequences are defined below] involving Israel destroying a Muslim nation's nuclear capability converge on the year 2010...and if Israel has a hope of slowing down Iran's nuclear development before it achieves its aims, then it must act in either 2010 or shortly thereafter. Should this happen, as the template suggests it will, it would likely trigger a tsunami of tumult whose waves will be felt on European, American and Asian shores." (See pp. 191-192.)

In the template a sequence is a series of three dates that historical movements follow. Two sequences of dates generated by the template are 1974-2006-2010 and 1978-2010-2014. These two sequences of dates converge on the year 2010. Since Israel destroyed Iraq's nuclear facilities in 1981 (within the three-year window of the 1978 date) and Syria's in 2007 (near the 2006 date), and these sequences converge in 2010, this strongly suggests Israel will strike Iran within the three-year window of 2010, with 2012 being the likeliest date.

Finally, this suggestion is strongly reinforced by a predicted oil shock. When you consider the Arab Oil Embargo occurred in 1973 (near the 1974 date) and quadrupled the price of oil from $3/barrel to $12, and the Iranian Revolution in 1979 (near the 1978 date) sent oil from around $15/barrel to close to $40, and these dates converge in 2010, then the likelihood of a catastrophic oil-price spike in 2012 is high.

Of the many predictions generated by this Template of Time, these two involving an Israeli strike and a skyrocketing oil price are among the most certain. No model, be it economic, meteorological, or historical, can be 100% certain, because certainty, or knowledge of the future, requires omniscience, a quality reserved for God alone. But patterns suggest future outcomes, and the suggestions for these outcomes are quite strong.

Egypt and the Rising Tide of Islam

2012-02-21T11:06:00.003-06:00

The recent elections in Egypt delivered a solid majority to two Islamic-political parties. The Muslim Brotherhood won 47.2% of the Parliament's seats and the even more radically-Islamist Salafist party won around 25%. But then Egypt's politicians went to Davos, Switzerland, hat in hand, to beg for financial support. They claimed they were less interested in banning bikinis from beaches and more interested in finding jobs for their restless, unemployed youth.

President Sadat and PM Begin embrace

Some breathed sighs of relief. These political leaders sounded like they were more interested in practical solutions than in ideology. "Long live bikinis!" But not so fast. The once secular state of Egypt may be saying comforting words, but its actions reveal the emergence of yet another Islamist regime.

Let's set the stage: since 1979 Egypt has received over $35 billion from the U.S. for its signing and upholding the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. Among this treaty's notable provisions were: Egypt became the first Muslim nation to recognize Israel. It ended Egypt's state of war with Israel that went into effect in 1948, the year Israel was founded. It opened up the Suez Canal to Israeli ships, and made other contested waters international water ways. Israel, occupier of the Sinai Peninsula since the Six-Day War in 1967, would now leave this area and it would be demilitarized. Boycotts between the two nations were ended and trade began.

Rashad al-Bayoumi

Now would a non-ideological nation, desperately seeking funds, walk away from $1.5 billion in annual aid to its military because of these treaty obligations? Does this action sound practical?

According to the Muslim Brotherhood this treaty could be subjected to a referendum since it was imposed on the Egyptian people without their consent. This sounds like democracy in action, but where the Brotherhood lifts its burkha are in comments regarding its future dealings with Israel. The Deputy Chief of the Muslim Brotherhood, Rashad al-Bayoumi, said, Israel was an "occupying entity and we will not allow any of our members to meet with an Israeli." As for himself, Bayoumi said, "I won't allow myself to meet with a criminal and there's no chance we will cooperate with Israel." Due to the nuance and subtlety of Mr. al-Bayoumi's opinions I must point out that when he referred to a "criminal" he meant an Israeli. Finally, in case one might dismiss al-Bayoumi's remarks as his own and not representative of the Brotherhood, a week ago senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood threatened that they might review the treaty. Apparently it might be in need of some modifications which, of course, would nullify the existing agreement.

This is a multiple choice question. Will the treaty with Israel be scrapped by: a) a referendum, b) a refusal to work with criminals, c) nullification through modification, or d) it doesn't matter; the treaty exists in letter only; in spirit it is already null and void. The answer appears to be "d."

Egypt's relationship with the U.S. is, if anything, even more strained at the moment. After all, Israel does not have nineteen of its citizens being held for trial in Egypt, and the U.S. does. Their crime? They were non-governmental operation's (NGO) workers focused on promoting democratic ideas in Egypt. At first the charge against the International Republican Institute, one of the American NGOs under attack, was they failed to file papers to receive the authority to conduct their work in Egypt. When it was pointed out that the papers were filed 5 1/2 years ago the charge became "the papers filed are incomplete." Senator John McCain is the Chairman of the Board of the International Republican Institute and was in Egypt the other day to press for a resolution to this issue. Failure to resolve this issue to the U.S.'s liking could result in the suspension of aid to Egypt's military and economy. This would then remove any incentive on the part of an Islamic Egypt to keep its treaty with Israel.

"Ready to hit the beach girls?"
"Yes, but does my burkha make me look fat?"

We are now witnessing the Islamization of Egypt, and actions that betray this change. Israel is now an illegitimate state, in Egypt's eyes, so how can they have a formal treaty with an entity that should not even exist? And the Great Satan, the USA, is the source of corrupting western ideals that promote (the horror of it all!) freedoms for women, and other toxic notions. This western disease must be eradicated if an Islamic Egypt is to thrive; ergo, the NGOs must go. For the moment, bikinis and other insignificant freedoms may be allowed in Egypt, but this is a poor attempt to camouflage the radical change occurring in this country.

As was predicted prior to the Arab Spring, Egypt will once again be at war with Israel. The barely suppressed hatred of the current regime toward Israel virtually assures this prediction will be fulfilled.

Tiny Cabbages With Attitude

2012-02-20T13:58:00.002-06:00

The brussels sprout, that tiny cabbage with a surplus of attitude, is a proud member of the love-hate food category. Most people either love them or hate them. So serving them to someone whose tastes are unknown to you is taking a big chance. I occasionally like to take a chance, especially with these sprouts.

We had a party over the Christmas season and one of the guests tried a dish I made with sprouts and she said, “Somebody recently told me I’d love Brussels sprouts the way she had prepared them. I tried them once again and still didn’t like them. Your dish, however, is really good. What’s in it?”

As I described the ingredients and preparation her jaw dropped progressively lower. “First, this salad has Brussels sprouts, as you know, but what you might not realize is they are uncooked. That’s right, you are eating raw sprouts. Now the second ingredient is also high on most people’s disliked-foods list. Kale.”

“I hate kale!” she cried.

“But yet you like this dish. And once again, the kale is uncooked. You are now enjoying two foods you love to hate and they are both raw.”

“How did you pull this off?”

“I just followed this recipe from Epicurious.”

Kale and Brussels Sprout Salad

For many of those who like to cook Epicurious is a well-known website. I use it more often than any of the other sites because the reviews from other cooks are typically on the money and they give you good advice about what to do and what to avoid. What follows are two of my favorite recipes using brussels sprouts. In both cases there is a fair amount of prep work involved (a mandoline slicer can speed this up). The key to both of them is to slice the sprouts into shavings that are an 1/8^th of an inch or less.

Bon Apétit, November 2011, by Susan Spungen

Ingredients

 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

 1 tablespoon minced shallot

 1 small garlic clove, finely grated

 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt plus more for seasoning

 Freshly ground black pepper

 2 large bunches of Tuscan kale (about 1 1/2 pounds total), center stem discarded, leaves thinly sliced

 12 ounces brussels sprouts, trimmed, finely grated or shredded with a knife

 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided

 1/3 cup almonds with skins, coarsely chopped

 1 cup finely grated Pecorino

Preparation

Combine lemon juice, Dijon mustard, shallot, garlic, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and a pinch of pepper in a small bowl. Stir to blend; set aside to let flavors meld. Mix thinly sliced kale and shredded brussels sprouts in a large bowl.

Measure 1/2 cup oil into a cup. Spoon 1 tablespoon oil from cup into a small skillet; heat oil over medium-high heat. Add almonds to skillet and stir frequently until golden brown in spots, about 2 minutes. Transfer nuts to a paper towel–lined plate. Sprinkle almonds lightly with salt.

Slowly whisk remaining olive oil in cup into lemon-juice mixture. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper. DO AHEAD: Dressing, kale mixture, and toasted almonds can be prepared 8 hours ahead. Cover dressing and kale mixture separately and chill. Cover almonds and let stand at room temperature.

Add dressing and cheese to kale mixture; toss to coat. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Garnish with almonds.

This recipe will make a lot of salad. Leftovers are highly likely. But here is the beauty of this salad. The longer it sits with the dressing the better it gets. The sprouts and kale are hardy enough to stand up to the dressing for days, and yet, even if you serve it immediately, the flavors are so delicious that the most brussels/kale-intolerant guest are likely to love what you are serving.

Notes: the dressing amount prescribed is as close to perfect as can be imagined. My wife hates too much dressing and always gets her dressing on the side. I like more dressing than my wife. Both of us thought the dressing was just the right amount. However, if you are at a store that sells sprouts and kale in predetermined amounts and they are more or less than what is called for, adjust the dressing amount accordingly. The dressing is what makes this strange combo work so well and if it is too light it will still be good, but just not as good.

Also, kale seems to chemically bond with water, so make sure you use a salad spinner after rinsing, or this dish will be more watery than other salads you may have made.

Brussels Sprout Hash With Carmelized Shallots

The next dish is one that I go back to again and again because it is so delicious. Epicurious, and other food-oriented websites, have many recipes for a brussels sprouts side dish. I’ve sampled a wide variety of them, but they just don’t seem to compare with this one. It always gets ooohs and ahhhs from guests. The reason is twofold. First, shallots and sprouts are a match made in heaven. Second, when you carmelize the shallots the match becomes even more heavenly.

Bon Apétit, November 2011, by Molly Stevens

Brussels Sprout Hash With Carmelized Shallots

 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter, divided

 1/2 pound shallots, thinly sliced

 Coarse kosher salt

 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

 4 teaspoons sugar

 1 1/2 pounds brussels sprouts, trimmed

 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

 1 cup water

Preparation

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in medium skillet over medium heat. Add shallots; sprinkle with coarse kosher salt and pepper. Sauté until soft and golden, about 10 minutes. Add vinegar and sugar. Stir until brown and glazed, about 3 minutes.

Halve brussels sprouts lengthwise. Cut lengthwise into thin (1/8-inch) slices. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add sprouts; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Sauté until brown at edges, 6 minutes. Add 1 cup water and 3 tablespoons butter. Sauté until most of water evaporates and sprouts are tender but still bright green, 3 minutes. Add shallots; season with salt and pepper.

Note: The carmelized shallots are easy to make, but if you use one skillet and set them aside, then you need to make sure you smooth them out into one thin layer on a large plate. If you let them stand in a heap they will solidify into a carmelized ball and will be much more difficult to spread throughout the dish.

Other than the prep work, these dishes are very easy to make. And the response you get from the dinner table will be very gratifying.

"The Iranian Regime Is a Rational Actor"?

2012-02-19T14:28:00.004-06:00

General Martin E. Dempsey

The United States' top-ranking military officer, General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked if he thought the behavior of the Iranian regime was irrational, unpredictable, or were they pursuing their national interests in a fairly calculating way? He replied, "I've been confronting that question since I came into Central Command in 2008. And we are of the opinion that the Iranian regime is a rational actor."
I suppose it all depends upon how you define rationality. After all, a mad man has his reasons. He did not kill an innocent person for no reason at all. The voices in his head made it very clear that this person was a threat to the existence of the world. But once we go down this path of making irrationality rational, then a word can mean anything and, therefore, means nothing. So, before dismissing Gen. Dempsey's statement as being, well, irrational, let's look at a few of the statements of the Iranian leaders to see if they fit a standard definition of rationality which is, "Endowed with reason, reasoning; sensible, sane, moderate, not foolish or absurd or extreme" [The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976) p. 925].

Ayatollah Khamenei

In Iran their Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei said, "The Zionist regime is a true cancer tumor on this region that should be cut off. And it definitely will be cut off."
Sensible? Sane? Moderate? Not foolish or absurd or extreme? Rational? As they say on a sports program, "C'mon man!" First, the Iranian leadership cannot even refer to the Israeli state as Israel, because to these rational actors Israel has no right to exist as a state. Therefore, it is always the "Zionist regime" and never Israel. Second, when you equate a people to a deadly disease then, in your demented stewpot of a brain, it is not only rational to destroy every last man, woman and child within Israel, to do so is performing a service to the world. Who would have thought the sensible, sane, moderate Iranian regime would have discovered the cure for cancer?
Compare the Ayatollah's words to those of Adolph Hitler:
"Don't be misled into thinking you can fight a disease without killing the carrier, without destroying the bacillus. Don't think you can fight racial tuberculosis without taking care to rid the nation of the carrier of that racial tuberculosis. This Jewish contamination will not subside, this poisoning of the nation will not end, until the carrier himself, the Jew, has been banished from our midst." From a speech delivered by Hitler in Salzburg in 1920.
People refer to Hitler so casually that it is always risky to invoke his name, but I see little difference in thought, sentiment, intent or ideology between this quote and Khamenei's. The Jews are not people created, like all people, in the image of God; they are a subhuman category, a pest carrying a virulent disease.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Khamenei's alter ego and second banana, President Ahmadinejad, called Israel a "fake regime" that "must be wiped off the map."
Rational words? "Not foolish or absurd or extreme"?
Their words are those of a raving madman, but are their actions insane? For example, is their pursuit of a nuclear program the action of "a rational actor"?
It is if they need energy and believe nuclear fulfills this need best. But Iran has enough oil and gas to export billions of dollars of fuel so it is clear they have no pressing energy needs to justify the program. Yet they pursue it even though it is costing them billions in declining exports of oil (many tankers are now refusing to transport their oil). They pursue this nuclear program even though it is causing their people enormous economic hardship. Their currency is quickly becoming worthless as the world's valuation of all things Iranian keeps heading south. Their food supply is iffy because they cannot get the letters of credit to pay for grain imports. The list of things spiraling downward for the people of Iran is long.
To go after a nuclear program when you don't need it, and it is causing such hardship, is insane. In word and deed Iran is hardly a rational actor. So why would an intelligent person, who has vaulted to the summit of his profession, say such a transparently stupid thing? Because he is a soldier, and soldiers follow the orders of those above them.
Right now President Obama is moving up in the polls. The economy is healing. The jobless rate is finally falling. He can taste four more years, particularly as he observes the Republican cage match continue with its eye gouging, knee capping and trash talking. Based on the huge advantages of being an incumbent president, at this moment there is only one thing that stands in his way. If Israel strikes Iran and the economy tanks he could see his rising popularity plummet. His opponents will cast this outcome as the result of his naivete about Iran. Obama, they will likely say, should have shown Iran a fist of iron, long ago, instead of extending an open hand to a nation of fanatics. Why did he wait to finally make the sanctions tough and unbearable? Criticism amplified by gas prices at $10 a gallon would have a dampening effect on his reelection bid. So he continues to make the argument to Israel to wait. Iran is a rational actor. Give the sanctions time. Not to put to fine a point on it, but how about waiting until November 7?

You know this guy by now.

Israel's PM Netanyahu

The pressure is building between two conflicting world views. Obama's worldview is conditioned by an intense desire for four more years. Israel's is conditioned by a desire to avoid a second holocaust. The will-to-power is colliding with the will-to-live. The lust for power confronts the lust for life. In the end, which desire will win out? Obama's hopes, and Israel's, may rest in the answer to this question.

So You Want to Run a Marathon? Great!

2012-02-17T10:37:00.002-06:00

My first marathon was in Chicago in 2007. The temperature soared on that October day to 88 degrees and the humidity was stifling. These were dangerous conditions. Fortunately for me I was wearing a heart rate monitor.

Like everyone else I started the run with high hopes but at the three-mile mark, when I checked my heart rate, it was 180 beats per minute! I couldn’t believe it. During my 20-mile training runs it never went above 170 and with 23.2 miles to go I was already entering uncharted territory. I did what any person who was afraid their chest might explode would do: I slowed down. Others didn’t and when the city of Chicago ran out of ambulances, and the neighboring suburbs ran out as well, they canceled the marathon for the first and only time.

Only one-third of the people who signed up for the race were able to finish. I was one of them. My time was 5 hours and one second. My last one was 4 hours and eleven minutes. So I am no speed demon, but I have developed a love of running and I’ve learned some valuable lessons about training for a marathon. If you are thinking about running one, then please learn from my mistakes and follow these three rules.

Rule # 1: Stay healthy. Nothing will ruin your training and your time like an injury. Therefore, when your body starts barking at you then take a moment and listen to your inner junkyard dog. Yes, you can probably grit your teeth and run for several more weeks or months with your pain persisting, but I bet you can’t finish your marathon with an injury.

What is worse is the way the injury becomes more and more debilitating the longer you ignore it and try to train through it. I speak from experience. I sprained my ankle and showed how tough (and stupid) I was by running through it. Little did I know my body was making accommodations for the injury by changing my stride, etc. This led to the development of calcium deposits between my heel and the Achilles tendon. Over time it became painful to walk, much less run and it required extensive rehab to fix the problem.

How do you stay healthy? Here are a few of the most important guidelines.

1. Start slow. Don’t try to do too much in the first few weeks. Get a feel for what your body can handle.

2. Warm up by running at a slow pace for ten minutes before exerting yourself. This is more important than stretching since stretching, according to studies, tends to cause runner injuries.

3. When you’ve finished your training run cool down with another ten minutes of slow running. This prepares the body for future runs and helps prevent injuries.

4. Increase mileage slowly. Stress fractures are not your friend and they can hit you when you fail to give your body a chance to adapt to the stress of running long distances. If your longest run is 5 miles and you want to build up your mileage, then run for 6 the next week, a week later take it to 7, and so on. In this stack are some training schedules for newbies that can safely guide you through the process of increasing your distance.

5. Run less often. I run three times a week. That’s it. But each run is specifically designed to accomplish an important task. So is the rest period in between. Rest is essential. Training breaks down muscle and rest periods are when the muscle is built back stronger.

6. If you have medical issues, or any concerns about running, then consult with a physician.

Rule # 2: To run faster, run faster. Most people who run a marathon, myself included, believed that the key to running faster was running longer. So they built up their training runs to 26 miles and then chugged along through the actual race at a disappointing pace. Don’t get me wrong; long runs are necessary, because they build up endurance and confidence. One of my three runs is a long run. But to run faster you must run faster.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but the best way to improve your marathon times is to run short distances faster. This is called speed work and it involves running short distances—¼ mile, ½ mile, 1 mile—at a faster pace, then walking, or lightly jogging, then running that shorter distance at a faster pace…lather, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat. In fact, this training exercise is called running repeats. If your goal is a 9-minute pace for an entire marathon then you need to run ¼ mile repeats at 7 minutes, and the longer repeats at a slightly slower pace, but much faster than your 26.2 mile pace.

The main reason why this helps marathon runners is it builds up what is known as max VO₂. The higher your max VO₂ the bigger your engine, so to speak. “A high maximal capacity to deliver oxygenated blood means there is the potential for more muscles to be active simultaneously during exercise.” [Bill Pierce, EdD; Scott Murr, EdD; Ray Moss, PhD; Runner’s World: Run Less Run Faster (New York: Rodale Inc., 2007), p. 58.] Translation? You can run faster for longer distances when your max VO₂is increased.

I proved to myself the importance of track repeats when I adopted a training program that didn’t incorporate them. This program said, “Run a magic mile—a mile as fast as you are able—and it will predict how fast you will be able to run a marathon.” I ran one in seven minutes. Not bad. Based on their formula I would be able to run a marathon under 4 hours. But note, this mile was run after training throughout the winter on speed work. By the time I finished this new training program, which stopped the speed work, my mile time was a lot less magical. I struggled to run it in 7 minutes and 30 seconds. Without speed work my marathon time was heading in the wrong direction, so make sure you run faster if you want to run faster.

Author finishing 2007 Chicago Marathon

Rule # 3: Confront the wall. Marathoners face a challenge that cannot be sidestepped. It is a merciless wall that hits them around the 20-mile mark. The first twenty miles—I kid you not—are pretty easy, but those last six are supreme butt kickers. The only way to train for the final grind is to get used to running in discomfort. This part of the training is called tempo running. It involves running a long distance (up to 10 miles) at an uncomfortably fast pace. You will not be breathing hard throughout the run, but your muscles will build up lactate and will begin to shout, “What are you doing to me?!” These runs are called lactate-threshold-endurance runs. If you want to run through the wall, instead of bounce off of it, then these runs are necessary.

Why run a marathon? Is it to give an endorphin boost to a sagging ego, or give you one more thing to brag about and annoy everyone who hasn’t run one yet? There are plenty of bad reasons to run one, but the good reasons outweigh the bad. To run a marathon requires adopting a disciplined approach to one’s health. This alone can be life transforming. It requires regular, strenuous exercise. You can’t cheat and expect to run one. Marathoners typically lose weight—which helps joints—and dramatically improve their heart health. My resting pulse rate is around 50-55 and my blood pressure is normal. Improvements like these are typical for runners.

Finally, for those who tell me it will damage my joints, I say, “Show me the studies.” Most of the studies show a lower incidence of osteo-arthritis and other joint related issues for runners, even those who are running late in life. My goal is not to be a twenty-year old in a fifty-year old body. Those days are done and to try to recapture them would lead to over training and ultimately hurt my health. No, my goal is a reasonable one. I see people in their eighties who are sharp, vigorous and enjoying life, and one day I hope to be numbered among them.

The World Watched

2012-02-15T13:15:00.000-06:00

It started in 1933 with Germany's withdrawal from the Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations. Hitler would argue that Germany had the right to achieve military parity with France, and as he violated the Treaty of Versailles' clauses against rearming the world watched. This was the critical moment. Germany was weak and could be forced to back away from its militaristic ambitions with relatively little cost. It had no Air Force, or Navy, or armored divisions. But once Germany rearmed the ability to dictate terms to this nation became far more costly.

Nazi Germany's Army, after rearmament

In 1935 their expansion began with the reintegration of the Saar into the Reich, and the world watched. It instituted universal conscription in that year and began to build armored divisions, an Air Force and a Navy. The world continued to watch as Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936, annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia's Sudeten region in 1938, and then occupied all of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Finally, when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, a red line was crossed. The world stopped watching and declared war. This declaration became the costliest decision, in terms of blood and treasure, in the history of the world.

It is too easy to invoke the Nazi horror story and trivialize it. Make no mistake, I do not believe Iran is in the same league as the Nazi menace. But it does have these similarities. It believes the Jews are a cancer that must be destroyed and, according to Iran's Supreme Leader, will be destroyed. It has yet to take over the land governed by another state, but its expansion, should it plan on taking this course, would logically come after rearming, not before. And that brings us to the most important similarity; Iran is pursuing a dangerous, destabilizing rearmament program involving the acquisition of a nuclear weapon. As was the case with Nazi Germany, Iran seeks a type of armament-parity with the nations who oppose them. It wants to become a nuclear power while the world watches.

Iran's Naval Revolutionary Guard on parade

We may have already passed the point where we can stop this program without suffering an enormous expenditure of precious blood and treasure. Or this point may still be in the future. Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defense Minister, defined this point as being a Zone of Immunity. Once Iran enters this zone, he believes, the world will be unable to penetrate Iran's defenses and prevent it from becoming a nuclear power. With today's public unveiling of Iran's expanded nuclear capabilities, one wonders how close Iran may be to this zone.

However, there is a critical difference between the past Nazi threat and the present Iranian one. When Hitler was rearming and systematically increasing his persecution of the Jews prior to WWII, there was no Jewish state to fight them and try to prevent a holocaust. But there is now and Iran is facing it. When Israel attacks Iran, as I believe they will, and the global economy suffers because of the skyrocketing price of oil, we should remember that continuing to watch a regime of this stripe, and do nothing, would likely cost much more.

Attempted Assassinations: Has the Death Spiral Begun?

2012-02-14T08:51:00.001-06:00

Two acquaintances are talking politics. One punches the other in the arm. The other responds by kicking his shin. The kicked person finds a stick and hits his adversary over the head. The person hit with the stick finds a knife and stabs the other. The stabbed person goes home to find a gun, returns, finds his opponent also armed, and they shoot each other to death. This spiral of escalating violence is slow when compared to the way it can explode in the Middle East.

Terror Attack in India

Israel, it is widely assumed, was behind the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist. Iran certainly thought so for its leaders vowed revenge. The other day a sticky bomb planted on an SUV exploded and injured the wife of an Israeli defense minister in New Delhi. Another sticky bomb planted on a car in Tbilisi Georgia was safely defused.

Today we read about a hapless Iranian bomber in Thailand who left his apartment after an explosion and attempted to get a ride from a taxi. The driver thought it was a bad idea and refused. People who are covered with blood can look menacing. This refusal, however, did not sit well with the bomber. He did what any reasonable person armed with grenades might do. He filed a customer complaint by throwing one. The cabbie survived, but now the bomber's bad day was about to get much worse. He was now being chased. In an attempt to place an exclamation point on his stupidity, he threw another bomb at the pursuing police--it bounced off a tree--and managed to blow his legs off. He became a living illustration of the famous Shakespeare line: "hoist with his own petard." (Modern English trans. "blown up in the air by his own bomb.) He was a few blocks away from Israel's Embassy.

Though lacking in style points it appears murderous agents from Iran are doing their best to kill Israeli citizens abroad, and this has led Israel to impose special security measures on its embassies around the world and, in some cases, to shut them down except for a few departments.

Image From the Second Lebanon War

This may sound like background noise in the ongoing conflict, nothing too serious, but we have recent history to argue otherwise. In 1982, after four terrorists killed Israel's ambassador in England, Israel invaded Lebanon to fight Palestinian and Syrian forces in the First Lebanon War. Hezbollah was formed to fight against the Israeli occupation which lasted eighteen years. The last troops were withdrawn in 2000. In this instance Israel went to war over the assassination of just one diplomat. Therefore, the potential for the current wave of violence against Israelis abroad to spiral out of control is high.

The Second Lebanon War also required just one incident to ignite it. In 2006 a Hezbollah group entered Israel and attacked two vehicles, killing three and capturing two soldiers. In the heavy exchange of fire and war that followed over one million Lebanese were displaced from their homes as were half a million Israelis.

The point is simple. These terror strikes against Israeli targets are likely, one day, to be lethal, and when they are they could trigger a chain of events that plunges the Middle East into the largest, deadliest conflagration it has seen in many years.

N. Korea: Where's Kim Jong-un?

2012-02-13T12:41:00.002-06:00

The Great, Beloved, etc. Leader's son: Kim Jong-un

When you write about the Hermit Kingdom, aka North Korea, it helps to remember that one is required to enter the Twilight Zone. As Rod Serling might intone, "It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge."

With that caveat in place, let's explore a rumor that got some attention a few days ago. In short, the new leader of N. Korea, pictured to the left in a photo taken just prior to his going into hibernation, is rumored to have been killed. The location of this assassination, according to the rumor, was Beijing, no Pyongyang. Like I said, the Twilight Zone.

The Hermit Kingdom is steadfastly maintaining its policy to not comment on rumors of any sort, particularly those that suggest this dictatorship is getting a little wobbly, but this prohibition doesn't apply to me. What it brought to mind was a blog post I wrote some time ago (Nov 29, 2010; this post, and many other old posts, are archived on the website www.thetemplateoftime.com). In it I made the following prediction:

"Based on this, I believe the Template of Time points to the attempted or actual assassination of either the North or South Korean head of state around the year 2010 (2010-2012) with the likelihood being it will be an attempt, successful or not, on the life of Kim Jong-il."

Little did I know that Kim Jong-il would do me the disservice of dying before this prediction was realized, but perhaps it will be his son, Kim Jong-un, the current N. Korean head of state, who will fulfill it. Or perhaps not. I do not wish ill on anyone, even the maddest of dictators, because everyone is capable of changing for the better. And certainly one hopes this moral improvement will occur in the executive ranks governing the penal colony named N. Korea.''

This prediction was based on the way events unfold on a simple time pattern (see www.thetemplateoftime.com for a more complete picture, but what follows will suffice to advance the story). This time pattern produces three dates. Around the first date, plus or minus three years, a movement in history is initiated. Around the second this movement is redirected, and around the third date this new direction grows and achieves its culmination. There are two important sets of dates that converge on the year 2010. The first one is 1974-2006-2010, and the second is 1978-2010-2014. Around the initiating date of 1974 we have the following historical movement:

1974: South Korea’s President Park Chung Hee was giving a speech when a N. Korean sympathizer sitting in the front row began firing at him. His shots missed the president but killed his wife.

Around the initiating date of 1978 we have the following historical movement:

1979: South Korea’s President Park Chung Hee was assassinated by a man who had been one of his best friends and had served as Korea’s CIA director.

When you have the initiation of two historical movements related to the assassination of a Korean head of state converging on the year 2010 it becomes highly likely that an assassination attempt will occur once again. But remember, I said there was the initiation of a movement (in 1974) and its redirection around the year 2006. It is this new direction phase that points to a culmination. And when I looked for something suggesting a S. Korean President was in danger I could find nothing. But what I did find was an attempt on one of Kim Jong-il's family members.

[Quoted from the original blgpost in 11-29-2010] In 2004 Kim Jong-il's eldest son was supposedly the victim of an assassination attempt while traveling in China (Yonhap New Agency of Korea, article dated March 14, 2005; the link is http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-130251382.html). Therefore, in this new direction phase we see a movement of assassination directed away from the S. Korean presidential suite and at the ruling house of Kim in N. Korea. Will this culminate in a friend (China?) facilitating the assassination of Kim Jong-il, N. Korea's Supreme Leader? Since China's support of Kim Jong-il is leading to their isolation from the rest of the world it would appear that such an action would be in their national interests providing they are unable to control this strange man.

[Quoted previously above.] Based on this, I believe the Template of Time points to the attempted or actual assassination of either the North or South Korean head of state around the year 2010 (2010-2012) with the likelihood being it will be an attempt, successful or not, on the life of Kim Jong-il. It goes without saying that many of the unsavory events suggested by the Template of Time are not ones that I hope will occur.

Has this attempt on the second of Kim Jong-il's sons taken place? Perhaps. Anything is possible in N. Korea including the hiding of this information until a new leader is chosen. Then again, I will not be surprised if the chubby Jong-un emerges from his winter hibernation to share his cheeky half-smile with the world. Whatever the case, alive or dead, the prediction still stands and I still believe it will be fulfilled.

In the appearance department, I will give the kid credit: he looks like a prince among men compared to his too-old-to-still-be-an-Elvis-impersonator father, Kim Jong-il.

That Hideous Strength

2012-02-11T10:57:00.008-06:00

Bashar al-Assad

That Hideous Strength is the third and final novel of C.S. Lewis's space trilogy. It is like a parable on the corrupting effects of power. In it the powerful want to remake the world in their image. This may require killing whoever tries to stand in their way, but what does that matter? The end justifies the means.

Today we are spectators to another incarnation of appalling power. The Alawite regime in Syria, led by the odd-looking war criminal Bashar al-Assad, is indiscriminately killing its people, shelling apartments, shooting innocents in the street. Syrian cities are killing fields, its hospitals mere holding facilities lacking basic care like antibiotics. Humanitarian aid is not allowed. All that is human is currently on hold.

Assad is not without his allies. Two powerful ones are Russia and China. Somehow it is fitting that these two nations are supporting a homicidal dictator since they also hosted the two most murderous regimes in history. Russia, during its Soviet Union phase, killed somewhere between 20 and 40 million of its own people, by many scholarly reckonings. And the overachieving Chinese communists, under Chairman Mao, handily exceeded their body count. It makes one wonder if the crimes of a nation corrupt a nation's soul and disable the consciences of its ruling class. Are the sins of the fathers visited unto the third and fourth generation, as the Bible claims?

How can we account for such savagery? How do we explain the Maos, Stalins, Hitlers and Assads?

C. S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis tried. His book, That Hideous Strength, was based on the ideas found in his essay, The Abolition of Man. This essay offers insights into the way people wielding power, without any internal moral restraints, can become monsters. In short, in their paranoid attempt to secure power and advance their agenda they have to reshape how their subjects think, what they believe, who they are. And during this exercise they begin to look down on those who are so "malformed," and who are so resistant to being remade in their image. The following reveals how hatred toward one's people can grow in the black heart of a dictator:

"I am very doubtful whether history shows us one example of a man who, having stepped outside traditional morality and attained power, has used that power benevolently. I am inclined to think that the Conditioners will hate the conditioned. Though regarding as an illusion the artificial conscience which they produce in us their subjects, they will yet perceive that it creates in us an illusion of meaning for our lives which compares favourably with the futility of their own: and they will envy us as eunuchs envy men. " (C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man; emphasis mine).

China and Vietnam: Armed Conflict On the Horizon

2012-02-10T15:43:00.003-06:00

When someone claims they have discovered a time pattern in history that is so consistent that it generates accurate predictions of future outcomes, the only reasonable response is skepticism. However, once this “absurd” claim is backed by predictions of future events that have since come true (e.g., the approximate timing of Mubarak’s ouster from Egypt, Saleh’s ouster from Yemen, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, etc.), then the skepticism should at least become open-minded.

In this article we will look at how a conflict over islands is unfolding on the Template of Time, and what the template predicts will occur next. But first, let me explain how this template works. It is a simple design and will take only a paragraph.

The template generates a series of three dates—for example, 1974-2006-2010—and history conforms to these dates in the following way. Around the first date (plus or minus three years) a historical movement begins, or an important person is born. The second date always appears thirty-two years after the first one, and around this date the historical movement, or the individual’s life, is transformed. It moves in a new direction. Around the third and final date, which is always four years after the second date, this transformed historical movement grows and achieves its culmination. (If you are interested in knowing how the template generates these dates please visit www.thetemplateoftime.com.)

Slide taken from website, www.thetemplateoftime.com. Originally posted in 2011.

Islands of Conflict

Now we will look at the Paracel and Spratly Islands that are at the center of a potential conflict between China and Vietnam and how this conflict is unfolding on the following sequence of dates: 1974-2006-2010.

In 1974 China’s navy fought ships from S. Vietnam over the control of the Paracel Islands and, following their victory, claimed it as their sovereign territory. It was China’s first naval victory over a foreign power since 1633! The Paracel Islands, though uninhabited, are believed to be sitting over substantial oil deposits. Thus, we have a historical movement of aggression by China against Vietnam beginning on or around 1974. In 2003, near the 2006 date, Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry issued a sovereignty declaration in response to China’s South Sea fishing ban, asserting their undisputed sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly Islands. Then, in 2007, Vietnamese protested in front of China’s embassy in Hanoi that the Paracel and Spratly Islands belonged to Vietnam. China’s response was, “China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands,” and these developments are unfavorable to friendly ties between the two nations. From this we see how this movement that began with a battle to seize the Paracel Islands is being redirected by China to include all of the islands in the South China Sea. This movement has yet to achieve its culmination, but the aggressive posture China has recently taken toward the South China Sea suggests a culmination is near.

This movement of conflict between China and Vietnam is reinforced by another sequence of dates—1978-2010-2014. In 1979, around the 1978 date, China invaded Vietnam. The Sino-Vietnamese Border War lasted only 28 days but some estimates place Vietnamese losses at more than 100,000 deaths. This movement of war against Vietnam should move in a new direction around the 2010 date.

Since we have two historical movements involving Vietnam and China at war, and they both converge on the year 2010, and a serious outbreak of conflict has yet to occur, the template generates the following forecast: a new round in the China-Vietnam conflict will begin in 2012 and will likely center on resolving the dispute over who is sovereign over the Spratly Islands. Both sides claim them as their sovereign territory.

There are other islands that will be the center of conflict in the coming years. The 1984-2016-2010 sequence is one of the most important sequence’s in the entire template and around the year 1984 we saw:

1982: The Falkland Islands were the site of a war between Argentina and Great Britain. The next date in this sequence is 2016 (plus or minus three years brings us to 2013). We can expect this movement to receive a transformational shift in 2013-2018, with 2014-2018 being the likeliest dates. Isn’t it interesting that after so many years of being a forgotten subject the leader of Argentina has just made it an international issue once again? It’s almost as if history is following a Template of Time.

Romney Should Learn From Santorum

2012-02-09T07:35:00.003-06:00

On January 3rd, 2012, according to the USA Today Presidential Poll Tracker, Rick Santorum was at a dismal 4.2%. Jon Huntsman, who impressed all of us by speaking in Mandarin during a debate, was the only remaining candidate who managed to do worse. This past Tuesday, in a reversal of fortune, Santorum won in all three state contests and his ranking in this same poll soared to 17.5%. Why is he, all of the sudden, such an attractive candidate?

First, let's look at the incarnation of a yo-yo, Mitt Romney. (He's up! He's Down! Up! Down! Up! Down!) He travels up his string because people believe he is the most electable of the candidates. Then he descends just as rapidly because he seems oddly disconnected with people. For example, he said, "I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there." Okay, I will be charitable and allow that he misspoke, but can you imagine someone who genuinely wants to improve the lot of the poor saying this? With so many people out of work you do not tell potential voters how you like to be able to fire people, as Romney has, unless you want to remain disconnected from people and out of office.

I do not know if Rick Santorum can beat Obama in an election, but I do know this, he can teach Romney a lot about being a candidate for the office of president. Santorum has a philosophy and a vision. It may not square with the all-important independent voter, but he nonetheless possesses a compass that let's us know where he is likely to go. Moreover, he seems real. When he speaks you believe he is saying what he means, not what he has rehearsed. He exhibits human emotion like caring for his daughter who he calls Bella. She was born with such a severe disability that she shouldn't have lived this long. But she has, and he is clearly smitten with his little girl. That's normal. People connect with that.

Mitt, if you are capable of expressing any emotions that are satisfyingly human, then please let your rigid guard down and be human for a moment. It takes more than wearing blue jeans and rolling up your shirt sleeves, and doing all of the things consultants script for you to do, to connect with the American people. Once you do that, maybe that string you seem to be attached to will stop controlling your political destiny.

Iran: What Would You Do?

2012-02-08T08:04:00.000-06:00

If you were President of the United States what would you do about Iran? What would your strategy be? Would it be as clever as President Obama's appears to be?

Let's begin with our assumptions:

Iran will have a nuclear weapon in a year or less.
Iran will pursue the development of a nuke no matter how crippling the sanctions. They just look at the negotiating power it gives to the piddling, thug-state of North Korea and say, "I want that!" The ability to destroy Israel is an added benefit.
Israel will not allow Iran to develop a nuke; therefore, Israel will strike Iran in less than twelve months.
If Israel, or the U.S., or an allied air force of several nations, strikes Iran, then the following outcomes are likely:

First, Iran will attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, or dramatically limit the traffic that can get through.
Second, Iran will attempt to destroy the oil producing capacity of its Sunni foe Saudi Arabia.
Third, the oil prices will spike insanely higher, and the global economy will tank.
Fourth, Iran will launch terrorist attacks against U.S., European and Israeli targets around the world.
Fifth, Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria will engage Israel militarily, supported by fanatics and/or military units from Iran, Iraq, and Egypt. Israel knows what it is facing. A decision to attack will not be made lightly.

These are just a few of the anticipated outcomes. But you are now the president, the hope of your party for retaining power in the upcoming election, so what do you do?

I focus on what I can control. I cannot control Israel. They will likely attack Iran before the November election, and this will dramatically diminish my chances for reelection because people vote their wallets and the economy will be in horrible shape after the attack. Worse still, an Israeli attack will lead to U.S. involvement anyway, because Iran will respond to an attack by shutting the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. Navy will have to engage Iran militarily.

If war with Iran is inevitable, as is our involvement, then what are my options?

Worst option: The U.S. starts the war by attacking Iran. If the U.S. attacks, then the economic calamity that follows is due to my foolish decision.

Bad Option: Wait for Israel to attack. If Israel attacks, then the American people may believe it was a result of my poor relations with Israel--were our relationship better they would have followed the lead of the U.S. instead of acting independently--so that is a bad outcome.

Best option: Iran attacks first. If Iran attacks first, then few would blame me for the economic downturn. To provoke an attack on their part I would besiege Iran, using weapons not associated with combat. In days gone by, a military power would invade a country, besiege or encircle its fortresses, and demand those within surrender. If they refused, the siege continued. Eventually food and water supplies would run out and the fortress would either surrender, or launch out against its foe for one last battle. This is exactly what is happening to Iran right now, but the siege is being conducted with economic tools.

By attempting to take away 80% of their income through an international oil embargo, and by preventing its central bank from dealing with other businesses and nations, war is being waged economically. Iran is besieged. It is already suffering, and soon it will not be able to feed its people. It will then have three choices: starve, surrender, or launch out from its fortress and attack those who are besieging them. Since there is little quit in the heart of a fanatic, my guess is the Obama plan may well work. Iran will strike first. But what is far less certain is whether or not the American people will give Obama a pass on the economic travail that follows. They may just remember his mismanagement of the economy during his first three years, and where his leadership in healthcare and other areas will eventually take us.

The Lockstep: Obama Busts a Move

2012-02-07T07:48:00.005-06:00

Few things are as cringe-worthy as popular dance moves. They follow a formula: bad choreography + worse music = the Hustle, or the Macarena. Like "leisure suits," "bell bottomed pants" and other questionable trends, the only mystery is how they hang on for so long.

Now the President of the United States of America is introducing a dance step for the nations of the world named "The Lockstep." The nation who he has "asked" to join him as his dance partner is Israel. Obama unveiled this dancing strategy recently during an interview. He prefaced its unveiling by saying, "I will say that we have closer military and intelligence consultation between our two countries than we've ever had." This was a reference to the blissful relationship he has enjoyed with Prime Minister Netanyahu and the nation of Israel.

Harry Houdini

Warming to the topic he continued, "We are going to be sure that we work in lockstep as we proceed to try to solve this — hopefully diplomatically." With this he attempted to introduce his new dance step that basically works as follows: you put more chains around your partner than were ever used on Houdini and while you pirouette around the dance floor you keep brandishing your key and promising to unlock them.

One of the virtues of this dance step is there is never a question of who is leading and who is following. It appears Obama has gone from "leading from behind" to "leading in his own mind." Obama then went into why this dance move is central to our national security. He said, "Any kind of additional military activity inside the Gulf is disruptive and has a big effect on us. It could have a big effect on oil prices. We've still got troops in Afghanistan, which borders Iran." Yes, yes and yes. Attacking Iran will upset the international apple cart in ways that are predictable, and worse, in ways that are unforeseen. However, if it is such a self-damning move, then why is this option of attacking Iran still on the table?

I think the president needs to get the rest of his staff coached on any new dance moves before he tries to roll them out. Leon Panetta, for example, seems to be a boot-stomping hillbilly in this number. Didn't he say he believed the Israelis were going to attack Iran in the spring because they feared Iran was entering a zone of immunity, a position wherein an attack would fail to halt their nuclear program. Unless the "Lockstep" is an allied invasion of Iran, then I think Israel will soon grow tired of this tune. Perhaps someone should tell the president that Harry Houdini was Jewish and there wasn't a lock he couldn't pick.

The Ballad of Putin and Assad

2012-02-06T09:39:00.004-06:00

I find Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, to be fascinating. He is a man made up of disparate parts. There is the steely, ruthless, former KGB operative. There is the political pragmatist who seized the assets of others, imprisoned them, and helped steer a Russian economy that was falling to pieces back to a safe harbor where it is, at least for the moment, safe from shipwreck. Finally, there is the macho-buffoon who has himself videotaped riding a horse without his shirt on (be still my heart!), looking tough throwing people around during a judo match, and trying his best to look cool as he rides off on a Harley.

Now this brings me to a surprising point. I wrote a limerick about Putin and Assad, posted it on my blog, and then thought, "This just doesn't fit the spirit of what this blog is about." So I deleted the post. Later on, I saw how traffic was being driven to my site from the search query, "Putin and Assad." What? So I googled "Putin and Assad" and discovered this query delivered over ten million items and the top item was my canceled blog post. It has since remained in the top three even though clicking on it tells the searcher the page they are looking for does not exist.

Limericks are typically the versification of tastlessness, and this limerick is no different. However, since there seems to be some demand for it I will bow to the will of the people and share the original limerick. :)

The Ballad of Putin and Assad

A wannabe Czar named Vlad Putin

Armed the Shiites for months of shootin’

But he failed to tally

How the millions who rallied

Would be tougher to kill than Rasputin.

The way the rising was going

Kept Assad from ever knowing

If his end was in sight—

His future wasn’t bright—

And the opposition kept on growing.

Then Putin arrived on his Harley,

Bare chested and looking gnarly,

He said, “Assad, hop on,

It’s past time to be gone.

Bring your gold and join our party.”

But Assad had his father’s legacy

Of brutal, blood-soaked tyranny

To live up to that day

So he decided to stay

To burnish his own criminality.

Putin mused, “Can all this hate

More arms deals generate?”

Then he road out of town,

With Assad falling down,

And wondered if he would share his fate.

Who Will Strike First in the Persian Gulf?

2012-02-04T09:09:00.004-06:00

Before a sprint the runners all line up, do some last minute stretches, place their feet in the blocks and prepare to launch from them. If someone launches first, then the other runners respond as quickly as possible and struggle to gain the lead. In the current race to war we see the usual suspects lining up around the Persian Gulf and wonder who will be the first one out of the blocks.

Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khameini, described Israel as a cancer that must be, and will be, excised. Then he told all of those who opposed the Zionist regime (aka Israel) that they will be helped by Iran. That was a not-so-subtle message to his proxy armies--Hezbollah, Hamas, and other anti-Israel factions in the region. It resembled a signal to attack and may have started preparations for them to do so. Occurring at about the same time was an announcement that Iran will begin a three-week training exercise in the Gulf. Training exercises are excellent ways of deploying assets for battle. More on Iran in a moment.

The least likely to go first is the United States. Its economy is showing signs of life; the Friday jobs report showed unemployment was down by a margin few anticipated. Oh, and there is this little thing called an election in November. Obama will happily leave the blocks first if the start date is the first Wednesday in November, or later. According to the DebkaFile, a Jerusalem-based news agency, the U.S. is massing troops on two islands near Iran and the Strait of Hormuz: Oman's Masirah and Yemen's Socotra. Additionally, American, British and French fighter bombers have deployed to air bases in Saudi Arabia to protect the capital city of Riyadh. However, Israel and Iran are on an accelerated time table and are unlikely to accommodate Obama's election schedule.

There is one thing that might make the U.S. move first and it is the appalling bloodbath in Syria. It was the possibility of such a bloodbath in Libya that got Europe and the U.S. to intervene. Now this frenzied slaughter is actually occurring in Syria. The bombardment of Homs began early February 4, and over 200 people are dead with over 1,000 wounded from this bloodiest engagement to date in the Syrian rising. If this savagery continues, the pressure to intervene will be enormous.

Israel is also preparing for war. It is war gaming scenarios of inducting reservists to active duty while being barraged by missiles. Paratrooper exercises are also part of the preparation. Though it may not make the first move, Israel will nonetheless make sure this conflict begins sooner than later.

What seems likely to occur is this: a move will be made by one of the above countries within weeks or days. Why? One powerful reason is Iran has an election coming in four weeks. The last one unleashed a wave of unrest that was difficult to suppress. They don't want to risk a repeat performance, and war has a way of uniting a people even when they hate their own government. Also, Iran has suffered any number of humiliating attacks of late, from the Stuxnet worm, to the murdering of their nuclear scientists, to the desertion of customers buying their oil (China, a major customer, has scaled back their purchases by half), to their banks being quarantined because all who come in contact with them become infected by U.S. sanctions. The rage in the Ayatollah Khameini's speech, and his signal to proxies to engage, suggests Iran is ready to strike back.

The Madman and the Gun

When you consider all that Israel will suffer should they strike Iran have you ever wondered if this embattled nation is nuts to even contemplate such a course of action? Perhaps, but I think the following illustrates their predicament.

When you are facing a homicidal maniac your odds improve if you have a gun and he just has a knife. Though mad, and still dangerous, this cunning adversary knows the difference between a knife and a gun. However, once the madman has a gun the odds favor the madman. Why? Because he will not hesitate to use his weapon. He's mad. He enjoys killing people.

This is the situation confronting Israel. They face a state, Iran, that considers them a cancer. Sociopathic states do this. They remove the human face from the people they want to exterminate. The Nazis used similar language toward the Jews calling them parasites, a problem requiring a final solution.

Is there any doubt Iran will hesitate to use their nuclear gun once they possess one? If there was a doubt, then Khameini's recent tirade should remove it. Calling Israel a cancer that must and will be removed is a candid declaration of war until the bitter end. Though it may seem insane for Israel to strike Iran since it will likely plunge them into a multi-front war, and a bombardment massive in scale, do they have a choice? Or do they let the madman grab a gun?

The Zone of Immunity

2012-02-03T07:11:00.004-06:00

Every conflict seems to increase the vocabulary of war with new words, phrases, technologies or military strategies. Mutually Assured Destruction was a phrase and a strategic concept from the Cold War era. Mother of all wars was penned by Saddam Hussein during the First Gulf War and became the catchphrase of comics. Now we have a new phrase from the current crisis in the Middle East: zone of immunity.

According to Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, Israel will likely strike Iran in the April-June time frame of our current year. The reason why is they fear Iran's nuclear facilities will enter a "zone of immunity," or will become so well protected that a military strike cannot possibly succeed.

Here is what Israel faces should they launch a strike. First, it will be a fight on several fronts. Their Lebanese nemesis Hezbollah has, according to some estimates, turned one in ten houses into missile launching sites. When the signal is given by their Iranian or Syrian masters they will begin launching these thousands of missiles at Israel. To destroy these sites Israel will have to bomb residential areas. This is taking the human shield idea to a new level, one virtually guaranteed to maximize the deaths of innocent civilians who happen to have the misfortune of unwanted new neighbors. The same endless stream of missiles will be coming at Israel from Gaza.

Iran has missiles that can reach Israel and one can bet they will be firing swarms of them daily at the outbreak of a conflict. To combat this downpour of missiles Israel has built an Iron Dome missile defense system, and with this description the vocabulary of war has once again been enlarged. Whether or not this dome is as impenetrable as iron remains to be seen. One indication that it isn't was the recent deployment of U.S. anti-missile teams to Israel. If they had an "iron dome" they wouldn't need additional anti-missile assistance.

Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Major General Aviv Kochavi depicted the enormity of the threat facing Israel: 200,000 missiles from the region are now targeting his country. He further revealed that Iran has a missile capable of reaching the United States. And he added that Iran would be able to produce one nuclear bomb by the end of this year and have four by 2015. An American think-tank, the Enterprise Institute, claims Iran will have a nuke by August.

Some phrases from the vocabulary of war are long established, and are fitting for the Middle Eastern crisis facing the world: a line in the sand has been drawn and when it will be crossed, by either party, is being debated right now.

Leaving the Sink Hole of Afghanistan

2012-02-02T08:38:00.002-06:00

I need to circle this date on my calendar. It marks one of the rare moments during the Obama presidency when I have agreed with him. The president has decided to accelerate the removal of troops from Afghanistan, moving the date up to 2013, and I could not be happier. After all, what compelling reason is there to stay? Let's look at some of them:

The Afghan Army: Now this is an army a nation can be proud of.

Number One: Prevent terrorists from returning to Afghanistan and using it as a safe haven.

That line of argumentation has more holes in it than the Gadaffi convoy that tried to make it to Misrata. Yes, terrorists are likely to return to Afghanistan. But guess what? Terrorist training bases have sprung up throughout Africa, in Somalia and elsewhere. They can be found in Yemen. And as the aftershocks of the destabilizing Arab Spring continue to roll through these land we can expect more terror operations to be established far closer to our shores than the remote mountains of Afghanistan. Who else will offer employment to the despairing youth who live in countries without functioning economies?

Number Two: We need to give Afghan President Hamid Karzai time to develop a police force and military capable of standing on its own.

Don't make me laugh. One of the only reasons why we don't ever see film of the emergence of an Afghan army is because their soldiers are either high on opium, or taking aim at our brave soldiers. Since our troops are far more likely to be killed by an Afghan Army soldier than by the Taliban it is high time we abandoned them to the fate they have earned for themselves.

Number Three: If we leave now we will only have to return later.

Who says? Afghanistan is a sink hole of warring tribes who embrace their primitive way of life. Afghan leaders have tried to lead their people out of their stone age culture and have been assassinated for their efforts. We can look down on them for their exaltation of illiteracy and war, or we can simply accept the fact that this is what they choose. Will Afghanistan devolve into a battlefield of tribes fighting one another. Probably, but since this pattern has been the nature of things for hundreds of years, then how can America arrogantly assume it has the power to reverse this process? If they are foolish enough to launch another terror attack on the U.S., then it needs to be answered by punishing and disabling air power and not by ground forces.

Number Four: You don't pre-announce your decision to leave.

This last point belongs to Governor Romney who calls the Obama administration misguided and naive for telling our foes in advance that we are going to leave. He may be right on this point, but he appears to be avoiding the criticism that Obama is wrong to pull the troops out. This is probably because he realizes Obama is right to pull our troops out of Afghanistan.

The definition of a sink hole is a cavity in the ground caused by erosion. They typically grow wider and deeper than anyone ever would have imagined. Structures standing nearby are often threatened by the growth of these pits. With some sink holes the extent of the collateral damage is always growing. Afghanistan is an ever-widening pit that threatens to take the lives of U.S. soldiers and citizens into its ever-accommodating maw. It is time to leave this country and allow Afghan soldiers to shoot Afghan soldiers, instead of the American soldiers who are trying to help them.

National Interests Make Strange Bedfellows

2012-01-31T19:24:00.002-06:00

As Charles DeGaulle once said, "No nation has friends, only interests." And when these interests are shared they can bring together the strangest of bedfellows. Take, for example, Russia, Iran and Syria. Russia stood in the way of leveling new UN sanctions against Iran. Other than to take a contrarian position to the U.S., why would Russia support Iran's pursuit of its nuclear program?

Russia and Iran have shared interests and they converge in Syria. For Iran, Syria is one of its few fellow-Shiite-led nations in existence and, therefore, one of its most important allies. Syria is Iran's supply line to Hezbollah, their Shiite proxy army in Lebanon. If Syria falls to the Sunni majority will the Shiite army of Hezbollah be able to survive? Perhaps, but it would be weakened and Iran wants a strong Hezbollah to be able to punish Israel should Israel invade Iran and bomb their nuclear facilities.

Syria is also vital to Russia. Russia has always suffered from an ice-complex. They feel inferior because virtually all of their naval ports are iced in during their interminable winters and this has resulted in Russia having an unrequited lust for warm water ports. The best thing it had going for it was Vladivostok to the east, not far from the borders of China and North Korea. But their access to the sea was hampered for many years by the Japanese navy, which virtually destroyed their fleet in 1904. After the Japanese defeat in 1945, and the rise of Soviet power, this ocean became open to Soviet ships, but this was 4,000 miles away from Moscow, the capital.

What Syria offered the Soviet Union, and now Russia, was a warm water port with unfettered access to the Mediterranean Sea. This port named Tartus is where Russia's only aircraft carrier is now located. It is the only Russian military base outside of the former Soviet Union. This signals its strategic importance to Russia, as do recent projects. In 2009 Russia began renovating the port and dredging it so that it could allow larger vessels to dock there. Oh, and there is the small subject of arms sales. Tiny Syria is one of the top five buyers of Russian arms. They will soon be receiving $550 million worth of Russian jets that can be used to attack ground targets.

Brezhnev and Honecker, totalitarian liplockers

Were it not for Russia's warm bear hug of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad it is likely Turkey would have intervened by now to support its fellow Sunni Muslim majority in Syria, and end the chaos at its border. But Russia objected to even the possibility of such a move.

These are times when strange bedfellows are the norm. Will some graffiti artist soon be painting a picture of Syria's President Assad and Russia's Vladimir Putin smooching, just as one did of East Germany's Erich Honecker and the Soviet Union's Leonid Brezhnev? The time calls for such a painting.

Fort Apache on the Tigris: The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad

2012-01-30T09:09:00.004-06:00

If I was to chart a course to disaster I would build a house on an active fault line, or on the slopes of an active volcano. Absent those options, and knowing how the Iraqi people despise U.S. security contractors and oppose our drone operations, I would recommend housing an army of contractors in a large embassy in Iraq supported by unauthorized drone surveillance. I know that sounds crazy, but that is what our State Department is doing.

Fort Apache on the Tigris: The U.S. Embassy in Iraq.

We now have around 16,000 people working for the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, most of them contractors providing security. The embassy in Baghdad is 104 acres, twice the size of the White House compound, and cost over a half billion dollars to build. The building costs are peanuts compared to the $3.8 billion cost of funding just the first year of operation.

Though Fort Apache on the Tigris River is impressive, our presence in Iraq is this tenuous: when embassy staff are required to move to some objective outside the protection of the mother ship they have drones flying over their motorcade to see if trouble awaits them. The U.S. Army has only been away for a few weeks and the siege mentality at Fort Apache has taken hold.

Drone flights, by themselves, would be enough to incite anti-American feelings, but the State Department found a way to make them more so. The Iraqi government did not know about the U.S. use of drones to support its movements through their country. When news of this drone use became public knowledge Iraqi officials were incensed. Perhaps our diplomats need more diplomatic training to learn that sovereign territory includes the airspace above this territory.

The question to be answered is, "What does the U.S. hope to accomplish by maintaining a small army of contractors in Baghdad?" The U.S. would probably say, "They provide the security that allows us to offer programs to Iraq that strengthen our position in the country." The U.S. might then point to its police training program. We bring in top-notch police professionals from the U.S. to teach their Iraqi counterparts how to collect DNA samples, conduct investigations, arrests and other important police operations. As one embassy official put it, "we believe that we will be able to show that we are contributing substantially to the bilateral relationship."

There is one major problem with this contribution. Contributions don't matter when they come from an infidel who embraces the obscene, secular values of the West and, worst of all sins, is a friend of Israel. We could give Iraq all of the gold in Fort Knox and they would still hate us. No, they would hate us with an even greater intensity as we handed them the gold bars, because it would be proof of how we are attempting to bribe them and corrupt them. When you are hated, then all of your actions, good or bad, are passed through a filter that paints them black. Until the U.S. becomes a Shiite Muslim nation like Iran, it will exert little lasting influence over Iraq or this region.

The embassy is not without its uses to the Shiite majority of Iraq. It does provide them a large American target much closer to home. Recently members of the embassy were found wandering the streets of Iraq, heavily armed, and were arrested. Though safeguarded by diplomatic immunity, the Baghdad Governor Salah Abdul believes they should face trial in Iraq and, big surprise here, anti-American firebrand, Moqtada al-Sadr, seconds the motion. He ominously added, "Wait for our signal, dear resistance." (see Alsumaria TV, Iraq News, Jan 24, 2012)

Don't get me wrong. I am an American who embraces western values, believes Israel is an ally, and wants our citizens overseas to be protected at all costs. If this goal of safety is shared by the White House, then we need to downsize the diplomatic presence in Iraq immediately, and maintain as small of a footprint as possible. It will generate less animosity and provide a much less desirable target for a nation that now orbits Iran.

A Response to the North African Appeal at Davos

2012-01-28T15:33:00.003-06:00

Davos Switzerland, site of the annual confab of the uber-rich and power brokers from the world's most powerful nations, recently hosted political leaders from Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, countries recently transformed by the Arab Spring. They made a plea for help in creating jobs in their countries, and told the West not to worry about their recently installed Islamist governments being a threat to democracy. The Moroccan Prime Minister asked the businessmen in the audience if they had suffered from the rise of political Islam, and declared that the new Islamist leaders were better able to protect their interests than the recently ousted dictators could or did.

An Islamic scholar and preacher in Egypt said the vote of the people was not about bikinis or no bikinis, it wasn't about instituting sharia law, but was about voting for the most organized group who could deliver on the economic front. These groups were Islamist. And then he added we need to stop trying to impose secularism from afar on the Arab world. Finally, Shadi Hamid of the Washington-based think tank, the Brookings Institute, said a priority of President Obama should be to accept the political reality of Islamist power and find a way to live with it.

Why? Why accept regimes that have only anti-western genes in their DNA? What we represent they despise with a depth of passion we cannot comprehend and, as we will see, they have difficulty concealing this hatred. Why strengthen the regimes that could be opposing you in every venue from the UN, to a foreign battlefield, to terrorist attacks on innocent civilians?

I am not opposed to helping our friends, and if they want to be our friends then I am delighted by this new face of the Islamist movement. But to be a friend requires them to act, speak, and govern like one. In the West we do not require anyone to embrace our secular mores. We have our way of life and you have yours. But when your way of life is abusive to 1/2 of your population, women, then why would we want to help you? In the most primitive Islamist circle, occupied by the Taliban and their ilk, women are not even allowed to learn how to read. This barbarian code valuing ignorance may be far from anything found in North Africa, but if so, then prove how alien it is to your values. Enshrine political and economic equality for women in your constitutions, or fend for yourselves.

If Islamists are not a threat to democracy, then what kind of democracy allows for ten percent of its population, the Coptic Christians of Egypt, to be savaged. They were safer under Mubarak. Then, after allowing this persecution to flourish, you ask for our tax dollars to help you and I have to ask, "Help you do what? More of the same?"

When you beg for money you have to present a pleasant face. Panhandlers on the street go hungry when they scowl at the people they are asking for help. But when this gentle face is a mask that hides a countenance contorted with hatred, then it is time to strip off the mask and refuse to offer a penny to such a person. You say we need not worry about Islamist governance, that you can protect our interests, and then you raid U.S. and European non-governmental organization (NGO) offices in December 2011, haul them before a judge, and now refuse to allow our NGOs to leave Egyptian soil? Following these dictatorial actions you want us to support you, and make your regime stronger?

Finally, we want peace. We do not want to see your people, or ours, or your neighbors, die in stupid and unnecessary wars. One of the greatest contributors to peace and stability in the Middle East was, and is, the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Put your mouth to the megaphone and shout out your support of this agreement, or go somewhere else for help. For why would we strengthen a party that desires to destabilize one of the most economically important regions in the world?

I have nothing against Islamist regimes per se, but if they cannot show an ability to change, to embrace human rights, and support our allies and the goal of peace, then I cannot see why it would ever make sense to support someone who is destined to be opposed to both our values and our interests. Contrary to the think-tank's suggestion, President Obama's priority is to represent the interests of the USA, and that's it. Strengthening a potential enemy is not in our interests. But once the Islamist nations of North Africa demonstrate good faith, in ways that are irrevocable, then it is in our interest to assist our new found friends.

Mitt Romney: The Search For a Message

2012-01-27T08:24:00.007-06:00

Mitt Romney's candidacy poses a question: has there ever been a nominee with so many advantages--funding, bearing, organization, endorsements, looks--who seems so incapable of capitalizing on them?

What 100% of the Republican party, and a large percentage of Independent voters, desperately want is a candidate who can beat Obama, and in the process articulate their passionately held beliefs in smaller government and the innovation/growth engine that is capitalism. Right now Gingrich is able to deliver the latter half of the equation. He can passionately argue for the beliefs of the crowd and win them over. Unfortunately, his message changes depending upon which crowd he is standing in front of. When he proposed building moon colonies--moon colonies!?--he was speaking to a crowd in Cape Canaveral. At the Florida debates Senator Marco Rubio of Florida became Newt's unofficial VP choice. If he campaigns in Texas he will likely promise the right of the oil industry to drill in San Francisco in Nancy Pelosi's district.

But this isn't about the capricious force of nature named Newt. It's about the inability of Mitt Romney, an intelligent, articulate candidate, to speak in a way that connects with the electorate. Why can't he?

He mistakenly believes that people make decisions based on logic and not emotion. The 20 point swing against Romney in South Carolina was not due to a logically arrived at epiphany, but was a visceral response to Newt's pummeling of the much-hated media which is widely perceived as being unfair to Republican candidates. How's that for logic?

This faith in logic leads Romney to conclude that he who has the most facts wins. This has saddled him with a 59-point economic plan that is anything but a winning, political message. It's more of a dissertation, or a business plan, that people don't have the time or inclination to read. People aren't interested in being schooled by a leader, they want to be led, and good leaders stir the blood of their troops for battle.

As far as being an effective political message, his 59-point plan has about 56 points too many. As the preacher, Ecclesiastes, once noted, "The more the words, the less the meaning. And how does that profit anyone?" (Ecc 6:11) Therefore, boil your economic message down to three points that are passionately delivered. For example, "Capitalism works and I will not allow it to be suffocated by an insane tax code, stifling regulations, and an expansion of government that will bankrupt our great nation." Tax reform and regulatory reform will liberate entrepreneurial energies. This leads to job creation. Governments don't create jobs; they create job-friendly, or job-averse, environments. The third point, shrinking government, tackles the one item that will bankrupt our nation if it is not dealt with.

Next, illustrate the points with stories not wonkish facts and figures. Stories are entertaining and, more importantly, memorable. And stop acting like you are sorry for your capitalistic past. Bain Capital, where you worked, probably made some mistakes that are regrettable, but didn't it do a few things right? Focus on them:

"When I worked for Bain Capital we would buy out companies that were struggling to survive. They were not generating enough revenue to cover their costs. Their market shares were shrinking. We could have allowed them to continue down this path, but if we did then everyone would have lost their jobs once the company went bankrupt. Instead of allowing a bad situation to get worse we made some hard and tough decisions. Jobs were cut. The company was reorganized. We refocused it on what it was good at doing and the company survived. In many cases the companies thrived. When I get to Washington I am going to do the same thing. We are not generating enough money to sustain our bloated government. We need to make cuts that will ultimately make our government better, more focused on what it is supposed to do, while allowing the entrepreneurs to focus on what they do best."

Stories depict a situation (an organization is headed toward disaster), illustrates actions taken (we cut the fat and changed its focus), and delivers results (organization begins to thrive as it focuses on what it does well). It's a simple formula and it communicates a message quite well.

Romney suffers from the same disease that afflicted former candidate Jon Huntsman. During one debate, when Huntsman began to speak in Mandarin Chinese, he proved what we already knew: he didn't speak our language. Right now, neither does Mitt. If he hopes to energize the electorate, win the nomination, and beat Obama, then he'd better discover his voice, his message, before time runs out.

The Implications of Dogs Being Smarter Than Cats

2012-01-26T09:36:00.004-06:00

You think cats are smarter than dogs? Really?!

Okay cat lovers, let's face it, dogs are just a lot smarter than cats. This isn't what I think; it's what research shows. And the insight offered by this research reveals a path that we should also walk.

Researchers at Oxford University say dogs are much more intelligent than cats, and the reason why they have become so is their social nature. Intra-species evolution is not a controversial topic (one species evolving into another is where the controversy lies.) And according to these Oxford researchers the fossil record shows unmistakable signs of a greater degree of brain-size growth for social creatures than for non-social creatures. According to their study the brains of monkeys, dolphins and dogs have grown the most and they are categorized as social creatures. Cats are categorized--surprise!--as non-social creatures, and guess where they rank? They keep company with other dimwitted, anti-social species like rhinos.

Cats aren't social, and that is why dog-people can't understand cat-people. Most cats are smug creatures who would rather develop a crop of fur-balls by licking themselves than spend time with a human. Dogs are the exact opposite. They enjoy interacting with humans and have developed the ability to be trained to conduct all sorts of activities. Have you ever seen a seeing-eye cat? Pity the blind person who follows this creature. How about a drug-sniffing calico? Based on the odor of the homes of reclusive cat ladies I must conclude that cats have no sense of smell. As for understanding words, fuhgettaboutit. A paper published in "Science" described how a Border Collie named Rico had a vocabulary of over 200 words. Cats, on the other hand, suffer from logophobia, an intense fear of words, because if they knew them they might inadvertently respond to them and become useful.

We can learn a great lesson from dogs. Socialize with a greater intelligence and your intelligence will be radically improved. This is one of the purposes behind going to a University. It is also one of the great truths concealed in the words of Jesus, "A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher" (Lk 6:40). By socializing with the teacher and submitting to their training we are improved to the point where we resemble the teacher.

The intelligence of God is infinitely greater than ours, and yet He enjoys our company and seeks it. If we would better ourselves, become wiser, develop a deeper understanding of this world and all that's in it, then we need to socialize more with God through prayer and meditating on His words that are found in the Bible. The Apostle Paul advised us to pray without ceasing. If he were alive today, and living in the Old Town neighborhood of Chicago, then I am certain Paul would have been a dog person.

History Follows a Biblical Pattern of Time

2012-01-25T09:11:00.000-06:00

1: The Bible’s Fractal Time Puzzle

In this series we will look at the puzzle pieces of time that are scattered throughout the Bible. We will then put these puzzle pieces together and apply them to history. As you will see, history follows this puzzle so consistently it suggests future outcomes, much like a consistent economic pattern might suggest the next quarter’s Gross Domestic Product.

Proof of this is the way it has generated forecasts of future events that have since come true. Because this claim sounds so incredible, I will recount a few of the predictions made by using this model of time, and will then introduce the first puzzle pieces.

Prediction one, made before the Arab Spring had sprung: Mubarak will be ousted from power around the year 2010. He was ousted from power in February 2011.

Prediction two, made before NATO published their timetable for withdrawal: U.S. forces will withdraw from Afghanistan around the year 2014. NATO has since adopted this target date.

Prediction three, made shortly after the Arab Spring erupted: President Saleh of Yemen will be forced from power in 2011-2012. He was finally removed from power in November of 2011. (To see more of the predictions this Template of Time has generated please visit www.thetemplateoftime.com.)

Puzzle Piece #1: The Bible’s Fractal Vision of Time

What’s a fractal? In a fractal different structures are similar at all measurements of scale. In fractal time a day is like a year, or like a thousand years. We see this illustrated repeatedly in the Bible:

There is a Sabbath day, or seventh day of rest. No one was to work on the Sabbath. There is also a Sabbath year, or seventh year of rest. No fields were to be planted on the Sabbath year. (See Exodus 23:10-12).

This relationship between days and years is clearly seen in the Israelites’ being condemned to spend forty years in the wilderness: “According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely forty years, and you shall know My rejection” (Num 14:34; all quotations are from the New King James Version).

If ever there was a fractal relationship between two measures of time that are vastly dissimilar in scale it is this: “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pt 3:8).

Finally, there are more complex time patterns that are also fractal in nature. The celebration of Pentecost (meaning fifty or fiftieth) and the celebration of Jubilee mirror one another. Pentecost is a 50-day time pattern, and Jubilee is 50 years.

The Bible’s instructions regarding these festivals have the quality of a mathematical formula. Pentecost, also known as the Feast of Weeks, was celebrated fifty days after the celebration of Firstfruits. We read, “from the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering [Firstfruits—my note]: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath…” (Lev 23:15-16).

Jubilee sounds even more formulaic: “And you shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. …And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. …That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you…” (Lev 25:8, 10, 11).

We have now covered the first puzzle piece of time in the Bible. It is more of a concept, a fractal way of looking at time, than it is a piece, but it is the key to completing the puzzle.

In the next article we will look at the time pattern concealed in the creation week.

2: The Puzzle Piece Known As the Creation Week

I never thought the Creation Week concealed a time pattern until I read a footnote in the NIV Study Bible that showed how days one through three were primarily concerned with forming the earth and days four through six with filling the earth.

This is a fairly accurate way of putting it, but I think the following is closer to the truth. Days one through three set the stage for inhabiting the earth with creatures. Days four through six filled the earth with creatures of the air, sea and land.

Creation then achieves its culmination in the seventh day of rest.

The Creation Week reveals the way history unfolds. We will see this toward the end of the study, but essentially it goes as follows:

There is the start of a movement in history (day one, “Let there be light”). This movement is then transformed, or sent in a new direction (day four, “Let there be lights”). And this movement achieves its culmination, or the end to which it was tending.

This may seem like a small insight, but without it I would not have been able to develop a model of time that made sense of the larger picture of history.

There is no need to tarry. Let’s move on to the next puzzle piece which is closely related to the Creation Week.

3: The Creation Week’s Fractal Time Cycles

Fractals, in the sphere of time, reveal how 1 day can be likened to 1,000 years. In other words, there is a similarity between 1 and 1,000 and all measurements of scale that fall in between these numbers, or that are even larger than 1,000. When we apply this to the Creation Week we come upon the following fractal time cycles.

If you recall day four involved the transformation of the movement, sending it in a new direction. One of the first fractals of the number four that we find is the number forty. The 40-day and 40-year time cycles, like day four, involve the transformation of a person or a movement in history, the fundamental redirecting of this individual’s life or this movement’s trajectory. Let’s take a look at some of these time cycles.

1. It rained 40 days and nights and the world, and all in it, was destroyed (Ge 7:17). We cannot get much more transformative than this.

2. Moses was on the mountain for 40 days and nights (Ex 24:18) and was given the Ten Commandments. This set the Israelite nation on a new course.

3. Moses sent out spies to conduct reconnaissance of the Promised Land. After 40 days they returned and their report sentenced them to 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. This was a painful new direction to their journey. Caleb, a spy from the tribe of Judah, who brought back a good report, and who was allowed to enter the Promised Land as a result, was 40 years old when he went on his spying mission (Jos 14:7).

4. Things were going badly for Israel. For forty days the Philistines, and their champion Goliath, taunted them. On the fortieth day David volunteered to fight Goliath and his victory changed the course of his life and of the nation of Israel.

5. Elijah traveled forty days and nights to arrive at a cave where he heard the still small voice of God, and was directed to anoint Elisha as the prophet who would replace him.

6. Jesus fasted for forty days and nights and was then tempted by the devil. Following this He launched His ministry as the Messiah.

7. After the resurrection, Jesus was with His disciples for forty days and then ascended into the heavens.

Both individuals and nations saw their life and mission transformed at the end of a forty-day time cycle. The same is true of the forty-year period.

Moses lived for forty years in Pharaoh’s house, then fled into the wilderness after he killed an Egyptian. He lived as a shepherd for forty years in the wilderness, then spoke with God through a burning bush and was sent to free the enslaved Israelites. He then was with the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years and died at the age of 120. The three forty year sections of his life marked fundamental transformations.

Saul was forty when he became King of Israel. The direction of his life was transformed by his anointing. David was king for forty years. At his death Solomon became king and soon began building the temple. Solomon was a new direction for the nation of Israel. He also was king for forty years and when he died Israel divided into two kingdoms. Another transformation.

Forgive me for the repetition, but this repeated use of the number forty, in both days and years, throughout Scripture, cannot be an accident serving no purpose. It is more like a coded message pointing to a puzzle of time.

Two more examples follow involving larger fractals of day four. The captivity of the Israelites in Egypt was 400 years (Ge 15:13, Acts 7:6; elsewhere it is declared to be 430 years). At the end of 400 years their life as a people was transformed from enslavement to freedom. The number 400 is a fractal of 40 and 4.

Lastly, according to Archbishop Ussher the world was created in 4004 BC. I do not believe in this literal date, or any date close to it, but if the Bible led him to this conclusion, then it would have a symbolic significance at a minimum. Jesus was born around the year 4 BC and that would mean the Word became flesh at the 4,000 year mark. If there was ever a transformative event in the life of the world, then this was it. And 4,000 is a fractal of 400, and 40, and 4.

[King Herod the Great died in 4 BC, and he ordered the slaughter of the innocents recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. For Jesus to have been the target of this slaughter he had to have been born by 4 BC if not before. A monk during the Dark Ages miscalculated his birth year and we have been stuck with that mistake ever since.]

In the next article we will look at the way the lifespans of the people who appear in Genesis are also time cycles in the Template of Time.

4: Time Cycles: The Lifespans of Genesis

Did the people in Genesis really live that long? If you believe in God, then you can conceive how an infinitely powerful Being could make a fish live out of water for 1,000 years if He was inclined to do so. Therefore, it is certainly possible people lived as long as Methusaleh’s 969 years. Whether they lived that long or not is of little concern to me. What I want to know is whether or not these numbers serve a symbolic purpose as time cycles.

When I looked at the ages of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I was surprised to find an obviously symbolic pattern. It goes as follows:

Patriarch Lifespan Squared Number X ____

Abraham 175 years 5² X 7 = 175

Isaac 180 years 6² X 5 = 180

Jacob 147 years 7² X 3 = 147

Note how their ages are all based on an orderly pattern of squared numbers. They begin with Abraham and the squaring of the number five, and then go to six with Isaac and seven with Jacob. The number they are multiplied by also follows an orderly pattern moving from seven to five to three. Sorry folks, but I do not believe this is accidental.

Squared numbers are important to the Template of Time and to the Bible’s vision of time. We saw the squaring of the number seven in the Pentecost and Jubilee celebrations (seven Sabbaths of days and years plus one). We see it again in the Daniel’s fractal of this time pattern, his seventy sevens, or 490 years. We see this in the millennium, which is 10 X 10 X 10, or 10³.

Finally, I will be showing how the 180-year time cycle of Isaac’s lifespan applies to history in a few sessions. But in the next session we will look at the 500-year fractal time pattern. It is an essential key to understanding how history unfolds on a time pattern made up of the Bible’s puzzle pieces of time.

5: The Key to Cracking the Time Code

Once I saw how Pentecost (7 X 7 days + 1 day = 50 days) and Jubilee (7 X 7 years + 1 year = 50 years) were related, I thought, “If time is fractal, then what would happen if I turned Jubilee into 7 X 70-years + 10 years = 500 years?” After all, I believed there was strong evidence for the existence of a seventy-year time cycle, so why not string seven of them together to see what happened?

To see if this Jubilee Fractal, as I called it, had any significance I needed to extend it from a date, because all systems of time cycles require a starting point, a hub of time from which they extend. I thought a logical starting point would be the birth year of Jesus, since most calendars around the world use this date. Since I knew His birth year was 4 BC or earlier I looked at 4, 5 and 6 BC and eventually settled on 6 BC.

When I extended the Jubilee Fractal (seven 70-year cycles plus a 10-year cycle) from this year I came upon a few things that were interesting. Important people were often born on or around the time cycles that extended from His birth year. I was intrigued by this but hardly awed by this association.

For example, the historically important Emperor Constantine the Great—he transformed Rome into a Christian empire—was born c. 274 AD, or four 70-year cycles from 6 BC. (Here is the math: 4 X 70 = 280 years; 280 years - 6 BC = 274 AD: note how you must subtract six years from the time cycles extending from 6 BC because it is on the other side of the BC/AD timeline.)

What I discovered was a time pattern that fit history rather well, but failed to tell me anything coherent. There was a missing piece to the puzzle. Once I stumbled upon it I slowly began to realize that I’d found the key that all other time models seemed to be missing. The key to cracking the code was to realize the time cycles did not some extend from just one hub of time.

I slowly began to see this after I extended these same time cycles from the time of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, 30 AD. I noticed how a time cycle (e.g., 280 years) would mark the beginning of a movement, or the birth of a person when it was extended from 6 BC. This same time cycle (280 years), when extended from 30 AD, would mark the culmination of this historical movement, or the achievement of a significant milestone in this individual’s life.

For example, Constantine the Great, who was born c. 274 AD (280 years – 6 BC = 274 AD), was crowned Augustus, the highest rank in the Roman Empire in 310 AD (280 + 30 AD = 310 AD). Additionally, he had his vision of conquering in the sign of the cross, and did so in 312 AD, when his victory at the Milvian Bridge resulted in his becoming master of half the Roman Empire. The year 312 AD is not the same as 310 AD and I soon noticed how these time cycles could mark out the exact year of something, or come within one to two years of the actual event.

I was on the verge of understanding how history fit this time pattern. Instead of extending the time cycles from one hub of time they needed to be extended from two. This was a major leap forward, but the model had to be missing something, because it could not account for a monumentally significant event in European history: the 1517 beginning of the Reformation.

This bugged me. It was the Reformation that shook Europe to its foundations, eventually leading to the Wars of Religion and Europe’s virtual abandonment of the faith. How could a model of time not account for this?

After a long time I began to see how an interim step occurred about four years prior to the culmination of a sequence of events. And then I got it. When you extend the same time cycle from the year Jesus began His ministry as the Messiah, 26 AD, you had what was akin to day four, a transformative moment that changed the life of an individual by setting his course in a new direction.

Let’s return to Constantine the Great. His life was transformed by the death of his father, who had the rank of Caesar, in 306 AD (280 + 26 AD = 306 AD). Constantine was crowned Caesar by his men, and his life of imperial rule began. It was a new direction for him that culminated in his achieving the highest rank in 310 AD, and rule over half of the Roman Empire in 312 AD.

To conclude this section let’s show how this 500-year fractal produces a time cycle that accounts for the historically significant event called the Reformation. It appears in the third iteration of this fractal. The first iteration of the Jubilee Fractal (seven 70-year cycles + 10 years) goes as follows: 70 – 140 – 210 – 280 – 350 – 420 – 490 – 500. The second one simply adds 500 years to each of the previous time cycles and goes as follows: 570 – 640 – 710 – 780 – 850 – 920 – 990 – 1000. The third iteration adds 1000 years to the first and will take us to Martin Luther: 1070 – 1140 – 1210 – 1280 – 1350 – 1420 – 1490 – 1500.

When we extend 1490, the seventh appearance of the seventy-year time cycle, from 6 BC we arrive at 1484 AD. Martin Luther was born in November 1483. When we extend 1490 from 26 AD we arrive at 1516 AD. The year 1517 when the Reformation began was the year of transformation. It changed Luther’s life and the life of Europe. It culminated in the showdown known as the Diet of Worms in 1521 (1490 from 30 AD = 1520 AD). Luther refused to recant and the battle was on between the fledgling Protestant forces and the Catholic Church backed by the Habsburgs’ Holy Roman Empire.

In the next section we will look at some modern day examples of fulfilled sequences. Two of the ones we will look at were the realization of predictions made well in advance. A few others will cover predictions that appear to be on the verge of fulfillment.

6: Predictions Realized and Soon to Be Realized

Before we look at a few predictions that were realized let us look at how the INC sequence works and its appearance in our time. INC stands for initiation, new direction and culmination. It describes the three phases of a historical movement that conforms to a time cycle extending from the three hubs of time. Let’s illustrate this with a sequence appearing in our day.

There is the 180-year time cycle that comes from Isaac’s lifespan. When it extends from 6 BC (the approximate birth year of Jesus) it produces the initiating cycle date of 174 AD (180 years – 6 BC = 174 AD). When it is extended ten more times, or 1800 years, we arrive at 1974 AD (11 X 180 = 1980. 1980 – 6 BC = 1974 AD).

According to the Template of Time several historical movements should have begun around and on this date. One of them was the birth of Apple Computer, Inc. in 1976, or within two years of the initiating cycle date. The second step in the sequence occurs around the 2006 cycle date. We arrive at this date by extending 1980 from 26 AD, the approximate year He launched His ministry as the Messiah. It should involve a transformative change that requires about four years to develop and bear fruit. One year from the 2006 cycle date, in 2007, Apple changed its name to Apple, Inc. and it launched the iPhone. It was a transformative new direction.

The 2010 culmination cycle date comes from extending the 1980-year time cycle from 30 AD, the approximate year of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Around this year we can expect the new direction to achieve its culmination, and we see this. Not only is the iPhone over 40% of Apple’s revenue in 2011, they have also produced what is essentially a larger iPhone called the iPad. It was launched in 2010. Thus the culmination of this sequence produces that which may one day make PCs (the start of this sequence) irrelevant.

We will now look at a few predictions that were realized by using the following sequences of dates that intersect in 2010. They are: 1974-2006-2010 and 1978-2010-2014.

First, let’s look at the prediction that Mubarak would be ousted from power around the year 2010. I thought this because his political career began around the 1974 cycle date (he became Vice President to President Anwar Sadat in 1975). Thus it seemed a possibility that his political career would achieve its fulfillment around the 2010 year of culmination. With respect to the other date 1978, a much more violent end was suggested. Most of the events on the template are within 1-2 years. A few of them are 3 years. In 1981 Anwar Sadat was assassinated. This pointed to a potentially violent end of Mubarak’s career around the year 2010. Why not 2014? It could have been that year but new leaders are often anointed on the new direction date. These dates extend from 26 AD when Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit. Also, there were other historical sequences pointing to a change around the year 2010. We’ll look at one of them and the prediction it is generating.

In 1973 Israel was invaded by Egypt and Syria. This was near the powerful 1974 cycle date of initiation so I looked for new directions in this conflict around the 2006 cycle date. They were easy to find. Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006 to take on Hezbollah, a proxy army of Syria. In 2007 they invaded Syrian air space to bomb their nuclear facility. Then in 2008 they invaded Gaza to keep Hamas from firing missiles into their country.

Based on the template, these new directions need to grow and bear fruit. We have yet to see a larger conflict emerge from this sequence’s new directions. Therefore, the template generates the following forecast: Israel will be at war with Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas in 2012 (2013 at the latest, but 2012 is the likeliest date). This would be within two years of the 2010 cycle date of culmination. It appears like this event may be days or weeks away instead of months or years. The rhetoric cannot escalate much further and this means the actions typically follow.

The template also projected the ouster of President Saleh of Yemen. This seemed particularly certain based on the way the two sequences of dates (1974-2006-2010 and 1978-2010-2014) produced events that pointed to a c. 2010 removal from power. They are as follows:

1974: N. Yemen a military coup.

1978: In 1978 S. Yemen had a military coup. In N. Yemen their leader was killed in 1977, and this leadership position was ultimately filled by President Saleh in 1978.

Okay, so you have two sequences of history involving the violent overthrow of Yemeni governments converging on the year 2010. What does that suggest to you? I thought, “Sorry Saleh. It’s tough being a Middle East dictator. Always sleeping with one eye open. Oh well, you chose the life and have earned the consequences.” In other words, I predicted he would be ousted in 2011-2012, and it occurred at the end of 2011.

There is another prediction that seems to be nearing fulfillment and that is that Israel will bomb Iran, with or without overt or covert U.S. assistance. Here is what the prediction was based on:

1974-2006-2010: In 2007 Israel bombs a Muslim nation’s nuclear facility (Syria).

1978-2010-2014: In 1981 Israel bombs a Muslim nation’s nuclear facility (Osirak, Iraq).

These two sequences of history, involving Israel bombing a Muslim nation’s nuclear facilities, converge on the year 2010. Therefore, in the 2010-2012 time frame Israel will bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Finally, and unfortunately, this will lead to a massive spike in the price of gasoline and another recession. This prediction was the result of events occurring on the following two sequences.

1974- 2006-2010: In 1973 the U.S. suffered the Arab Oil Embargo. It led to a massive spike in the price of gasoline and a recession. In 2008 the price of gasoline spiked as oil went to over $150 a barrel. The 2010 culmination of this sequence suggests an oil price much higher than $150/barrel because the new direction phases are often weak in their appearance when compared to the culmination phase.

1978-2010-2014: In 1979 the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Iran. This led to another oil shock, another price increase in gasoline, and another recession. Both of these sequences converge on the year 2010. Therefore, in the 2010-2012 timeframe, the template suggests there will be a massive spike in the price of oil, leading to a huge price increase in the cost of gasoline.

Okay, now you say, “I am depressed.”

I say, “Don’t be. Be anything other than that. The template’s message is one that keeps the chaos of this world from becoming depressing. If this apparent chaos was the result of an out-of-control historical process, then we should be depressed. After all, what’s going to happen next? But since it is the orderly outworking of God’s plan, then we have reason to be hopeful and at peace. Only a firm belief in the sovereignty of God over human history can make one perfectly at peace with the awful things occurring in this world. For though we cannot always make sense of the suffering people experience, if we are Christian we know our God is love. He proved that on the cross, and so all will ultimately work out for the good of those who love God.”

But even if you do not share my faith, you have to admit, the Bible contains an impressive puzzle of time. Proof of this puzzle’s existence is the way 2,000 years of history conform to it. And unassailable proof comes from the way it is generating predictions of future outcomes that then come true. I know of no other model of time that is doing this.

Thanks for checking this out and be sure to follow my blog for updates and check out my website for more predictions.

Part 6: Predictions Realized and Soon to Be Realized

2012-01-24T15:59:00.003-06:00

We will now look at a few predictions that were realized by using the following sequences of dates that intersect in 2010. They are: 1974-2006-2010 and 1978-2010-2014.

1974: N. Yemen a military coup.

1978: In 1978 S. Yemen had a military coup. In N. Yemen their leader was killed in 1977, and this leadership position was ultimately filled by President Saleh in 1978.

There is another prediction that seems to be nearing fulfillment and that is that Israel will bomb Iran, with or without overt or covert U.S. assistance. Here is what the prediction was based on:

1974-2006-2010: In 2007 Israel bombs a Muslim nation’s nuclear facility (Syria).

1978-2010-2014: In 1981 Israel bombs a Muslim nation’s nuclear facility (Osirak, Iraq).

Finally, and unfortunately, this will lead to a massive spike in the price of gasoline and another recession. This prediction was the result of events occurring on the following two sequences.

Okay, now you say, “I am depressed.”

Thanks for checking this out and be sure to follow my blog for updates and check out my website for more predictions.

Part 5: The Key to Cracking the Time Code

2012-01-24T15:59:00.000-06:00

Part 4: Time Cycles: The Lifespans of Genesis

2012-01-24T15:58:00.000-06:00

When I looked at the ages of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I was surprised to find an obviously symbolic pattern. It goes as follows:

Patriarch Lifespan Squared Number X ____

Abraham 175 years 5² X 7 = 175

Isaac 180 years 6² X 5 = 180

Jacob 147 years 7² X 3 = 147

Part 3: The Creation Week’s Fractal Time Cycles

2012-01-24T15:57:00.000-06:00

1. It rained 40 days and nights and the world, and all in it, was destroyed (Ge 7:17). We cannot get much more transformative than this.

2. Moses was on the mountain for 40 days and nights (Ex 24:18) and was given the Ten Commandments. This set the Israelite nation on a new course.

5. Elijah traveled forty days and nights to arrive at a cave where he heard the still small voice of God, and was directed to anoint Elisha as the prophet who would replace him.

6. Jesus fasted for forty days and nights and was then tempted by the devil. Following this He launched His ministry as the Messiah.

7. After the resurrection, Jesus was with His disciples for forty days and then ascended into the heavens.

Both individuals and nations saw their life and mission transformed at the end of a forty-day time cycle. The same is true of the forty-year period.

In the next article we will look at the way the lifespans of the people who appear in Genesis are also time cycles in the Template of Time.

Part 2: The Puzzle Piece Known As the Creation Week

2012-01-24T15:55:00.003-06:00

Creation then achieves its culmination in the seventh day of rest.

The Creation Week reveals the way history unfolds. We will see this toward the end of the study, but essentially it goes as follows:

This may seem like a small insight, but without it I would not have been able to develop a model of time that made sense of the larger picture of history.

There is no need to tarry. Let’s move on to the next puzzle piece which is closely related to the Creation Week.

Part One: The Bible's Fractal Time Puzzle

2012-01-24T15:55:00.000-06:00

Prediction one, made before the Arab Spring had sprung: Mubarak will be ousted from power around the year 2010. He was ousted from power in February 2011.

Prediction two, made before NATO published their timetable for withdrawal: U.S. forces will withdraw from Afghanistan around the year 2014. NATO has since adopted this target date.

Puzzle Piece #1: The Bible’s Fractal Vision of Time

We have now covered the first puzzle piece of time in the Bible. It is more of a concept, a fractal way of looking at time, than it is a piece, but it is the key to completing the puzzle.

In the next article we will look at the time pattern concealed in the creation week.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

2012-01-24T06:27:00.000-06:00

In Aesop's Fables there is a shepherd boy who delights in stirring the pot. He cries "Wolf!" And the townspeople rush to help him protect his flock, but it is a lie. There was and is no wolf. After a while the townspeople tire of the game and when he cries wolf next, because there actually is a wolf, no one responds. His flock is destroyed.

With Iran we have a nation that issues idle threat after idle threat. "We will not warn you twice about entering the Persian Gulf," an Iranian military official told the U.S. as the aircraft carrier the USS Stennis left the gulf. Recently the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier joined by British and French ships, entered the Persian Gulf without incident. Perhaps hindering the passage of aircraft carriers require three warnings.

"If you pass sanctions against our oil exports we will close off the Strait of Hormuz." Sanctions were passed by the U.S., and now the EU, and the Strait is open for passage.

An Iranian nuclear scientist is killed and reprisals against Israel and U.S. interests are promised by Iran. No known reprisals have occurred, or if they have, have been made public.

What are to we make of this? Is Iran only capable of spewing from its maw threats that seem increasingly hollow? For the moment, yes. However, with each unfulfilled threat Iran is building up internal pressure to act. So much of the Muslim anger is caused by the way they are no longer a leading force in world affairs. At the G-8 Summits there are no Muslim nations. At the G-8 plus five there are no Muslim nations. Not being at the center of world affairs, when they once were, is a tremendous blow to Muslim pride. They do not like the sense that they are a group of disrespected outcasts.

Therefore, the making of a threat and the inability to back it up adds to the pressure to act, to do something, to show someone they matter because they are stronger than anyone realizes. This ancient nation looks like a self-conscious boy going through puberty.

Its refusal to act and back up its threats shows us that Iran is buying time. They want to complete the nuclear program that will give them the teeth the surrounding nations will fear and respect, the claws that will eviscerate Israel. But they may be forced to act before this goal is attained, and if they do not, their archenemy, Israel, will act for them.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

2012-01-23T09:15:00.001-06:00

To paraphrase Robert Burns, "the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray." Why is that, particularly when the success of some of these plans are backed by million-to-one odds? As history shows, favorable odds do not guarantee outcomes. Consider the little known Siege of Guns. In 1532 a massive army of 120,000 marched out of the Ottoman Empire to besiege Vienna. In their path was a tiny fort in Guns, Hungary. It was garrisoned by 800 men who had few arms and no cannons. For twenty-five days they held out against nineteen full-scale assaults and constant bombardment. This delay caused the Ottomans to abandon their plans. What was impossible became historical.

Now we see the U.S. planning on a diplomatic solution for the nuclear problem of Iran. Diplomacy is certainly preferable to war. Backing this diplomatic effort are several carrier groups. The message is clear: submit to a diplomatic solution or be crippled. Any sane person would come to the bargaining table, and Iran may, but it won't be to give up on their nuclear ambitions. It will only be to delay, because their agenda is to get a nuclear capability at all costs. They are obstinate. Why?

Perhaps it is because "A man's heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps" (Pr. 16:9). As Moses told the Israelites about Sihon, King of Heshbon, the "LORD your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that He might deliver him into your hand, as it is this day" (Dt 2:30). Sihon planned one thing and God another. All plans at variance with God's are predestined to fail.

If there is one thing The Template of Time should impart to its readers it is this comforting knowledge: God is in control of history. Those who belong to God have no reason to fear, because for His children all outcomes are good. Even our difficult hours in the wilderness are rich in blessing. This confidence in the sovereignty of a loving God is reinforced by the way over 2,000 years of history conform to a time pattern derived from the many time patterns scattered throughout the Bible. History conforming to a time pattern cannot be the result of an accident; it can only be the result of a plan, and there is only One capable of developing such a well-ordered plan and executing it.

A U.S. Paper Recommends Assassinating the President As An Option For Protecting Israel

2012-01-21T16:00:00.001-06:00

The Atlanta Jewish News owner and publisher, Andrew Adler, has come up with a novel and sick way to juice his readership (or be shut down completely). Namely, propose the assassination of President Barack Obama as a way of solving the current crisis facing Israel. Since antisemitism needs little prodding in this world to find fresh expression, let me state that I believe the vast majority of Jews in America are as sickened as I am by this addled Adler's article. My issue is not that he is Jewish and wants to protect Israel--that is understandable--my beef is with what he wrote, and his ethnicity has nothing to do with it. With that said, let's look at what he suggested.

First he proposed two other options: a preemptive strike on Hamas and Hezbollah (something I do believe will occur this year), and attacking Iran's nuclear facility (another thing I will believe will occur in 2012), but then he stopped taking his meds and recommended a third possibility: order U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out Obama so that a V.P. could implement a U.S. policy of helping Israel "obliterate its enemies."

The man is clearly deranged and unhinged. Many have come forth to denounce his lunacy in the strongest possible terms and this pathetic weasel has offered his sincerest apologies. Maybe after twenty years of responsible journalistic behavior we'll consider it. But here is the truly sad part, this third proposal, an assassination attempt against the President of the United States, may also occur in 2012.

This horrid possibility was suggested by the template some time ago and it was, and is, hoped that the recent attempt on the president (shots fired at the White House from a distance in 2011) satisfies this sequence completely. But I have my doubts.

The template generates a sequence of dates like 1974-2006-2010. And historical movement follow these dates accordingly: around 1974 a historical movement is initiated. This movement receives a new impulse of historical energy that sends it in a new direction. And this new direction is like a small seed that grows and achieves its culmination about four years later, around the year 2010. With respect to assassination attempts we see the following. Around the 1974 date, in 1975, President Ford was the victim of two assassination attempts. Around the the 2006 date, in 2005 President Bush was the victim of an assassination attempt in Tbilisi, Georgia. A live grenade was tossed at him while he stood at a podium and, because it was wrapped too tightly with a kerchief, it failed to go off. This pointed to another attempt around the 2010 date. Therefore, the 2011 attempt may satisfy the sequence.

Let's hope so, but I fear it does not. Why? Because the 2006 phase of new directions are typically small and weak-seeming in their appearance when compared to the 2010 culmination phase. A live grenade within spitting distance of a president is far more powerful in its appearance than a person firing seven shots at the White House when the president was in Hawaii.

Other sequences reinforce this suggestion of the template. The year 2010 is also related to the 144-year time cycle. If you go back to the last time this time cycle appeared you would arrive at the year 1866. President Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. When this sequence achieved its culmination in 1902 we have the assassination of President McKinley in 1901.

Finally, there is a sequence of dates that is very powerful and they are 1978-2010-2014. Around the 1978 date (within the three-year window) we have an almost successful assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan (1981). The new impulse phase of this sequence arrives around 2010 (or in the year 2012).

In other words, the template strongly suggests the president is in danger. With his successful termination of Osama Bin Laden, his increased use of drone strikes in Afghanistan and the border of Pakistan, his push for sanctions against Iran, and his call for Assad to step down from power in Syria, he has developed quite a rabid following in the fetid circles of radical Islam. So he is definitely a much sought after target.

Therefore, whatever your feelings about Obama (and believe me, I am no fan), please pray for the President of the United States. An assassination of any president, competent or incompetent, good or bad, is a national disaster.

Iran Has Yet to Decide; Iran Has Decided

2012-01-20T08:31:00.000-06:00

If my neck were a Lazy Susan my head would spin better. As it is, whiplash is what I can expect from following the sharp changes of direction in the Middle East. Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak said a decision to strike Iran's nuclear facilities was "very far off." Also, he claimed Iran had yet to decide to build a bomb.

A mere 48 hours later Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the exact opposite: Iran has decided to build a nuclear weapon and they must be stopped. The strong sanctions President Obama has authorized to strike at their central bank and their oil-export-driven economy need to be put in place now. We can't wait until July.

From a lack of urgency and Iran noodling over whether or not to pursue the building of a bomb, to dire urgency and the decision has been made. Quite an about face in a two day period. What happened? Only the top levels of the Israeli government know for sure, and whatever they are telling their allies may or may not be the whole story, but we do know this. Barak's comments were at odds with everything Israel has been saying recently. His position as Defense Minister surely gives him access to the same intelligence that Netanyahu has. If there is a sharp divide within the Israeli government over the Iranian question, then they might want to take care of that problem before embarking on a dangerous and costly campaign against Iran.

As for Netanyahu, his path is clear. Sanctions will not stop Iran. However, the sanctions Obama could level against Iran would be crushing, and would likely be interpreted by Iran as an act of war. Netanyahu supports these sanctions because he believes they will force Iran to respond militarily. This would allow Israel to do the only thing that will slow down or stop Iran's nuclear ambitions: bomb their nuclear facilities. But even if Iran fails to respond by shutting the Strait of Hormuz, Israel will strike Iran.

Does this make sense? Does this serve the interests of Iran to retaliate or Israel to launch a strike?

Iran's wooly thought process probably goes something like this, "If you destroy our economy with your sanctions, then we will destroy yours. Disrupting the global oil supply should do the trick. And we love the fact that your embassy in Iraq has 3,500 potential hostages. We have a fondness for your embassies and have many servants in Iraq. Oh, and by the way President Obama, we were the ones who sent President Carter packing, so enjoy your one-term presidency."

Israel's thought process is more like this: "Iran's possession of a nuke is an existential threat. Therefore, our existence, our every waking hour, is focused on removing this threat. Our cold war with Iran is not like the United States' cold war with the Soviet Union. Ours is with an unstable, irrational, hate-filled jihadist regime. The threat of action means nothing to a people who embrace death as a way of life, who glorify suicide bombers and martyrdom. The only language such a regime understands is force. We will speak this language with deafening force."

"What Does Not Destroy Me Makes Me Stronger." Friedrich Nietzsche

2012-01-19T10:01:00.001-06:00

Friedrich Nietzsche

The quotation, "What does not destroy me makes me stronger," comes from the author of "The Antichrist," and other "edifying" works. What stuns me about this quotation is not its profundity, or truth--because I don't believe it's profound or true--but the way it is often found on the lips of Christians. Evidently these Christians are unaware of the way this philosophy is the exact opposite of the faith they profess to follow.

Since we are on the threshold of difficult and frightening times, Christians will have ample opportunity to live according to this antichristian philosophy. However, if you do live according to this credo, then you have abandoned the Way and eventually you will be taught "What does not destroy me makes me weaker, and therein lies my strength."

The following is an excerpt from Through the Wilderness: A Spiritual Map For An Age of Upheaval. It attempts to show how flawed Nietzsche's thinking on this subject was and is from a Christian perspective.

Chapter Four:

Strength in Weakness

Superman Is a Wimp

Friedrich Nietzsche, author of Thus Spake Zarathustra and The Antichrist, was a brilliant man by this world’s standards. His mind crackled with philosophical insights that captured the imaginations of his countrymen and thousands of others as well. Even Christians are fond of quoting his maxim, “What does not destroy me, makes me stronger,” not realizing that Christ’s philosophy, His truth, is the exact opposite of this.

Instead of a Christian saint, Nietzsche’s ideal was the superman, the man who was the next step in the evolutionary chain. Or, as he passionately wrote, “Man is something to be surpassed. …Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman—a rope over an abyss.”[i]

Christianity, to Nietzsche, was abhorrent, and how could it not be? Nietzsche, with his man-exalting superman, goes in the opposite direction of the Christian faith.

We tend to view Nietzsche’s superman as some awesomely powerful warrior, but compared to the saint, superman is a wimp. His power comes from his own might while the saint’s power comes from God. Also, Nietzsche’s superman was a product of his imagination, an image of his yearning. Against Nietzsche’s phantasm I offer an actual life lived that ran contrary to his delusions. It is the life of one, who like Jacob, was weakened that he might be used by God in a powerful way. Among mortal men few have had an impact on the world as great as the Apostle Paul. His life reveals how Christian weakness can be far mightier than man’s strength.

The Apostle Paul’s Pride Problem

Before his conversion the Apostle Paul had developed quite a resume to boast about. In his Epistle to the Philippians he wrote: “If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.”[ii]

As this and other autobiographical notes of his attest, prior to his conversion he had an inflated ego that could enumerate the reasons for his pride. Paul was lost before he came to a saving faith. The prideful lack a navigation system, because they are their own North Star. Their compass needle only points backward to them. In Paul’s case he went so far off course he began to persecute Christians, the children of the King’s household.

His lost condition required radical surgery if he was ever to become useful to the kingdom of God, and operations of this degree are painful. As Jesus said shortly after Paul’s dramatic conversion, “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”[iii] Paul’s suffering was not punishment—his sins were forgiven—but was a necessary step on his path to spiritual health.

Paul also faced the problem of his future. Jesus would pour extraordinary blessings into his life. He would be allowed to see visions that no one else would be allowed to see, and be given the gift of healing. Paul was exalted by God to heights few people have ever seen and a potential downside of this was becoming conceited, the very thing the Way attempts to eradicate. So how could Jesus bless Paul as bountifully as He did and keep this natural, self-exalting tendency in check?

Paul records for us the divine solution. He relates how he was caught up to heaven, either in the body or out of the body—he could not tell—and he heard revelations so great he was not permitted to share them. He continued:

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor 12: 7-10, emphasis added).

There is a great mystery in these verses, truths we can both immediately see and scarcely understand. The path to Christian power is through weakness. The path to exaltation is through being humbled, for God is the enemy of pride and reserves His grace for the humble.

As to what the “thorn in his flesh” was we can only speculate, but its exact identity is not as important as its mission. Paul called it a “messenger of Satan,” and that is like calling it an evil angel. And just as the angel of death had a mission of affliction, so did this “thorn.” Its purpose was to humble and weaken him, and force him to turn to Jesus for the grace to deal with this powerful source of discomfort. When you are suffering from months or years in the wilderness it may help to remember this: Paul would always have one foot in the wilderness. It is doubtful this is the case for you. But if it is, then also remember it was the source of his great strength.

So often we look at afflicted Christians, those undergoing one harrowing test after another, and think of them like Job’s friends thought of Job: “That person must have really done something wrong. Look at God’s heavy hand of judgment,” and simultaneously give thanks that we aren’t in that person’s shoes. We need to change our thinking. God’s children who are in the wilderness are likely far closer to God than those who are not, and are being prepared for far more important roles of service than those whose lives have never been shaken.

Paul was an apostle, a spiritual giant among men. Yet even he was not spiritually advanced enough to avoid becoming arrogant after being richly blessed. He had a fallen nature just like everyone else, and it needed to be weakened lest he start to depend on it instead of on God. When the humbled are exalted by God, even the most spiritually advanced can become conceited as a result. And so we find God’s love sends us back into the wilderness as often as necessary, to destroy this sinful tendency that separates us from Him. If anything shows how terminally misshapen our souls are, then this is it.

The world may think Nietzsche was brilliant, but Paul truly was. He was granted unique insights into the Way and they are the exact opposite of, “What does not destroy me makes me stronger.” On the Way that is Christ “What does not destroy me makes me weaker, and, once weakened, the power of Almighty God can be expressed through me.”

[i] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Philosophy of Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common (New York: Modern Library, no date), pp. 6, 8.

[ii] Ph 3:4-6

[iii] Acts 9:16

The Coming Conflict: Turkey's War With Iran Over the Control of Iraq

2012-01-18T07:12:00.000-06:00

The Template of Time generates the following surprising forecast: Turkey will invade Iraq and fight with Iran over the control of this country. They've already invaded Iraq as recently as October 2011, to take on Kurdish separatists who live across the Iraqi border. But that invasion was to take care of a Kurdish threat, and not an attempt to assert authority over Baghdad. This drive to conquer Iraq, and govern it, is a movement that unfolds over 500 years of history.

In our day we see Turkey wanting to assert itself as a regional power. One way to do this is to become the guardian of Sunni Muslims. They are starting to assume this role by interjecting themselves into Iraqi politics to promote Sunni Arab interests. Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, was quoted in the Jan 17, 2012 Wall Street Journal as saying, "Turkey interferes by backing certain political figures and blocs" (p. A8). These "figures" are Sunni as is this "bloc." He went on to say in another interview, "Unfortunately Turkey is playing a role that could lead to a catastrophe or civil war in the region" (pg. A8). Sadly, this is where Iraq is headed as has previously been predicted.

Additionally, it is now being reported that within the last 48 hours Saudi, Kuwaiti and Turkish intelligence have alerted the U.S. to Iran's plan to send Al Qods operatives into Turkey to attack U.S. targets like their embassy. Also, as the template previously suggested, Iran is also targeting Saudi and Kuwaiti oil assets.

The 500/504-Year Time Pattern

We now have recent information suggesting Turkey is interfering with Iraq's political situation, and a high level of tension between Turkey and Iran. What is remarkable is the way this forecast is supported by the 500/504 year time pattern in the template. In this pattern the familiar sequence takes on a special role. It launches a historical movement, redirects it about 200 years later and sees it culminate about 200 years after that.

The first stage that initiates a major movement in history produces the following sequence of dates: 1594 (initiation) - 1626 (new direction) and 1630 (culmination).

The first stage of initiation witnessed the Turkish Ottoman Empire invading Baghdad in 1625 (1626: new direction) and 1630 (1630: culmination) and failing to take the city. It was a war between Turkey and Safavid Persia (now Iran) over the control of what is now the capital of Iraq. We should see this movement redirected when it receives a new infusion of historical energy in the second stage.

The second stage that redirects this movement produces the following sequence of dates: 1794 (initiation) - 1826 (new direction) and 1830 (culmination).

In September 1831 (1830: culmination) the Ottoman Empire successfully ended its 90-day siege of Baghdad and assumed control over the province that had formerly been governed by the Mamluks since 1747. Therefore, in the second stage we see Turkey (the Ottoman Empire) succeeding in taking Baghdad, something it attempted and failed to do in the first.

Since a Sunni-Shiite war is predicted to break out in 2012 it is likely that Turkey will begin its covert or overt military support of Iraqi Sunnis this year. And this this will become a much more significant movement around 2014 when this movement of Sunni-Shiite war achieves its culmination.

Will Turkey achieve control of Iraq around 2014? Possibly, but I doubt it. Since the previous two stages culminated around 1630 and 1830, this suggests a final culmination of this process around 2030.

We live in interesting times.

Israel Canceled the Joint Military Exercises; IDF Prepares For Major Gaza Operation

2012-01-17T06:34:00.000-06:00

The drum beat of war gets louder with each passing day. The Debka File, a Jerusalem-based news agency, reports that it was Israel that canceled the U.S./Israel joint military exercises. Wow! This is a significant development, because it suggests Israel did not want to tie up its forces in an exercise when they will likely be needed for war.

Additionally, the Jerusalem Post's website (www.jpost.com) published an article late yesterday (11:54 PM!) about how the Israeli Defense Force is gearing up for a major operation in Gaza to occur within months. This would fulfill yet another prediction of the template which predicted Israel would be in combat against Hamas in Gaza in 2012 and that it would be a much bigger battle. This is because the new direction phase (the 2008 Israeli invasion of Gaza) is always smaller than the fulfillment phase that occurs about four years later.

The Template also predicts an upcoming clash with Hezbollah and Syria. The previous conflicts (with Hezbollah in 2006 and against Syria's nuclear facility in 2007) were like the seeds of war that will grow into a much larger war in the 2010-2012 range. That is the way the template unfolds. It begins with a movement in history, in this instance the 1973 Yom Kippur War. This movement is transformed, or moves in a new direction, around the 2006 cycle date. This new direction is often small and insignificant in its appearance when compared to its culmination that occurs around the 2010 cycle date (plus or minus 1-2 years in most cases). We are on the verge of witnessing a much larger culmination of this conflict between Israel and Hezbollah-Syria-Hamas.

History is not a random series of accidents. It is the unfolding of a sovereign God's plan for humanity and it occurs on a Template of Time of His design. This blueprint is found in the Bible where all of the time patterns and time cycles reside, and it is laid out in The Template of Time: How Time Patterns: Reveal the Destiny of Nations.

The Convergence of the Twain

2012-01-16T09:03:00.000-06:00

The great Victorian novelist, Thomas Hardy, was also an exceptional poet. His poem, The Convergence of the Twain, was about the predestined intersection of two objects: an iceberg and the Titanic. It is a timely opportunity to share excerpts of this poem after the foundering of a massive cruise ship, the Costa Concordia, and the expected convergence of two foes, Israel and Iran.

"The Convergence of the Twain"

(Lines on the loss of the "Titanic")

                                                                By Thomas Hardy

          I

     In a solitude of the sea
     Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

          V

     ...Dim moon-eyed fishes near
     Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?". . .

Sometimes two objects seem to be predestined to converge. There is an irresistible gravity drawing them together. So it is with Israel and Iran, who appear to be heading for their own set of rocks. Iran has begun conducting drills simulating the defense of their nuclear facilities against an anticipated attack from Israel. And the U.S., this weekend, postponed the joint military exercises it was going to conduct with Israel in the spring.

War feels imminent, particularly after three top Israeli officials, including Benjamin Netanyahu, publicly denounced the efficacy of sanctions against Iran. These three denunciations just occurred, and all within a 48-hour period.

Hmmm, let's see, if sanctions are failing and offer no hope of success, then what is the next logical step?

I close with the concluding stanzas of Hardy's great poem:

          IX

     Alien they seemed to be:
     No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history.

          X

     Or sign that they were bent
     By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one August event,

          XI

     Till the Spinner of the Years
     Said "Now!" And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

The Lone Ranger: Israel Versus Radical Islam

2012-01-14T09:43:00.000-06:00

Way back when, in another geologic era, there was a western called "The Lone Ranger." It's a strange name because he was always seen with his trusty American-Indian sidekick, Tonto. But in the odd logic of TV, he was a lone ranger.

The U.S. audience loves the idea of a single man standing up to a town, a city, a country or an intergalactic alien conspiracy. Usually the hero has difficulty speaking intelligibly (think Schwarzenegger or Stallone), or has super powers (Spiderman, Green Lantern). It matters little how ludicrous the premise, how impossible the odds, hundreds of thousands will stand in line, shell out $20 or more for a couple of tickets to watch the hero destroy the Russian Army with a large knife and a bow and arrow.

It appears like we are about to watch a new episode of this Lone Ranger drama. In this instance it will involve Israel taking on terrorist sponsors Iran and Syria, sponsored terrorists Hezbollah and Hamas, and later on, possibly even an increasingly radicalized Egypt and Iraq. Will the U.S. be involved? Yes, but perhaps not at the start. The U.S.'s recent pronouncements have served to isolate Israel. After the nuclear scientist was killed our Secretary of State said as emphatically as she could: “I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran.” Israel, the other possibility, saw herself standing on the center stage with several large spotlights focused on her.

Additionally, the Wall Street Journal's Saturday/Sunday edition today reports "President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other top officials have delivered a string of private messages to Israeli leaders warning about the dire consequences of a strike" (p. A9). This could all be a part of a plan of deception to mask their true intent of striking Iran with Israel, but avoiding a military strike does align with Obama's deepest hope: no military action and no oil supply disruption before the election. Military action risks a second recession and a certain Obama defeat.

All of this indicates that Israel is indeed preparing for a unilateral military strike against Iran. They probably feel the U.S. strategy of sanctions has failed. It only delays Iran's inevitable development of a nuke. Israel won't risk this outcome even though the results of a strike will be costly. How costly? Imagine thousands of missiles striking Israel from Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran. This would necessitate Israel's invasion of Lebanon and Gaza to stop the bombardment of Hezbollah and Hamas. Once this line is crossed Syria would likely be pushed into action by its sponsor Iran. There would be no decisive battles in this conflict. It would be a war of wills fought from village to village, house to house. And militants from Egypt and Iraq would join in this pitiless contest.

Why risk it? Perhaps because if Israel does nothing it will experience war anyway, and on the terms of an enemy now armed with nukes. Which course do you think would be safer, waiting or striking? In a chess match the white pieces have the advantage because they move first. And in terms of Israel's decisions and preparations the Line of Departure may already have been crossed.

Forgotten In This Mess: Pakistan

2012-01-13T07:59:00.000-06:00

What ever happened to Pakistan? It used to be front page news. There was the Bin Laden hit and the revelation that this jihadist kingpin was living quite well in Pakistan for many years. Then there was the tragic drone strike resulting in the death of many unsuspecting Pakistani soldiers, and the understandable outburst of anger from Pakistan. Lately there have only been a few dribs and drabs of news, but these tidbits point toward the realization of another prediction of the Template of Time.

There are two sequences of history that converge on the year 2010. One began around 1974 and the other around 1978. With respect to Pakistan's history these movements involved the following. In 1973 Pakistan adopted a constitution and elected Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Prime Minister. When the next date approached this situation changed radically. In 1977 the constitution was suspended during the military government of Zia-ul-Haq and in 1979 Bhutto was hanged.

These two movements will each go through two more phases. First they will be transformed, or sent in a new direction, and then this new direction will achieve its culmination. The new direction for the c. 1974 movement occurred around the year 2006. It was a horrible new direction. The movement that began with a constitution and Ali Bhutto's election was redirected by the 2007 videotaped assassination of his eldest daughter Benazir Bhutto. This new direction should achieve its culmination around the year 2010 (plus or minus one or two years, or 2012).

The movement that began c. 1978, namely, the establishment of a military government and the execution of Ali Bhutto, should receive a fresh infusion of historical energy around the year 2010, or 2012 at the latest.

So we have two movements converging on the year 2010 (plus or minus one or two years) that involve the execution of two moderate leaders in Pakistan. What does this suggest? In The Template of Time, published in June 2010, I wrote the following: "The tragic impulses of the execution of Ali Bhutto and the murder of Benazir Bhutto suggest the following culmination: conservative forces, probably military, will seize power around 2010" (p. 196).

This prediction is looking increasingly more likely. The Pakistani military warned Prime Minister Gilani of "potentially grievous consequences" after he publicly criticized the military. There was also an anonymous memo that surfaced from someone in the Pakistani government seeking U.S. help to stop a potential military coup. This memo was sent following the Bin Laden operation. Now, this coming Monday, Parliament will have a confidence vote. The Prime Minister is calling it a vote for dictatorship or democracy. Things do not look good for democracy in Pakistan, and it appears another prediction made by the template is on the verge of being realized.

The World's Most Dangerous Jobs and Obama's Re-election

2012-01-12T10:17:00.000-06:00

The world's most dangerous job index includes Alaskan Crab Fisherman, Loggers, Bomb Squad Technicians and now Iranian nuclear scientists. Their work at nuclear facilities is relatively safe, but their commute has become one of the hairiest road trips in history. Imperial rulers driving down lanes filled with bomb throwing anarchists had a better chance of reaching their destination.

Yesterday the fourth Iranian nuclear scientist was killed in what is believed to have been a Mossad hit. Israel will neither confirm nor deny complicity. But an Israeli Defense Forces spokesman did manage to respond to this via a Facebook (!) posting, "Don't know who had an open account with the Iranian scientist but I'm definitely not shedding tears."

The Facebook posting was provocative--a kind of stick in the mullah's eyes--but nowhere near as provocative as the assassination itself. Israel is virtually daring Iran to pull the trigger and start a regional war. From the Israeli standpoint it would be ideal if Iran struck first. It would virtually ensure the U.S. would join in the conflict with Iran immediately, particularly if Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. could then level its massive firepower against the heavily guarded, buried in a mountain, Iranian nuclear facilities. But if the U.S. fails to commit to an operation against Iran, and if this provocation and others that may follow fails to start a conflict, then Israel will undoubtedly move on its own.

The primary goal of an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities is to prevent them from developing a nuke. The reason for such a desperate strategy is obvious. When a radical nation wants to destroy you, then letting them have a nuke is not the best survival strategy. But might Israel have secondary goals? If they launch a strike and Iran disrupts the oil supply (virtually guaranteed), and this oil-shock leads to a recession (strongly predicted by the template), then President Obama's chances for re-election are virtually sunk. He would be another Jimmy Carter, limping into the re-election campaign with both a bad economy and an Iranian albatross hung around his neck. The more times change, the more they stay the same.

Would Israel want Obama to lose in his election bid? They would deny this with a fervor that would make a nineteenth century itinerant preacher sound like a milquetoast. But it is well known that Obama and Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu belong to the mutual loathing society. However, leaders disliking one another is nothing new, and certainly would not lead to such a calculation, but having a more pro-Israel president in the White House has got to be a tempting thought.

For the record, the revised and expanded version of the Template of Time made the following forecast on September 20, 2011 (when it was first published): Mitt Romney would win the Republican nomination and become president in 2012. Now, after the many gyrations of the primary (Perry leads, Cain leads, Gingrich leads, yeesh!) Romney appears to be a virtual lock to win the nomination. If he does win, then all that is needed for his presidential victory is for the improving economy to reverse course dramatically. This is not something I wish for, but it is another historical outcome that the Template of Time forecasts.

Why Is the Media Not Covering the Military Build-Up Around the Strait of Hormuz?

2012-01-11T09:06:00.000-06:00

We have the U.S., the U.K., France, and even Canada sending warships to the Strait of Hormuz. We have a Russian aircraft carrier off the coast of Syria. We have the launching of the largest U.S./Israel military exercise and the follow-on deployment of U.S. soldiers in Israel. Yet where are these harbingers of war being reported? I've checked the websites of CNN, the BBC, and Fox News, I've watched mainstream television's evening news, and have seen or heard nada, zilch, zero.

Why the news blackout? There cannot be a national security gag order in effect, because this news is being reported elsewhere. It cannot be because it is too depressing, because news organizations are to depressing stories what the radio is to music. They both deliver the goods.

The only thing I can think of is they fail to see the significance of this story. This would mean news organizations are not too bright--a strong possibility. More likely, their journalistic radar for meaningful news has lost its calibration due to the non-stop coverage of Kim Kardashian, Justin Bieber and other eructations of our dismal culture. When you focus on the meaningless day after day the meaningful becomes covered with a cloak of invisibility. It can dance in front of a news producer's eyes and not be seen.

Blind and mute, the American colossus stumbles toward a conflagration in the Middle East that will likely lead to a global outbreak of terrorism, staggering oil prices and recession. Hardly a story worth covering. And now the news, "Kim Kardashian claims her marriage was real and not a PR stunt...."

Drought Conditions, High Winds, Awaiting a Spark

2012-01-09T11:14:00.000-06:00

The conditions for a conflagration are drought conditions and high winds. All that is needed is a spark to set this area ablaze with an intensity level that cannot be controlled until it burns itself out. The preconditions of an intense regional war are declared enemies gathering their forces closer and closer, daring each other to fire first. As the threatening posture intensifies, all that is needed is a spark.

The critical mass of nations deploying to the Middle East is alarming. France is joining the party by sending an aircraft carrier to the Sea of Oman (it adjoins the Persian Gulf), where it will be joined by a British destroyer specializing in missile defense. The U.S. Navy, per the previous post, has docked an aircraft carrier off the coast of Israel for joint military exercises and has another carrier group in the Sea of Oman. Additionally, for the first time, the U.S. Navy recently launched a RQ-4 Global Hawk drone from a carrier. This is a massive UAV that can cover 40,000 square miles of terrain a day, fly as high as 65,000 feet, and reach speeds of around 500 mph. It can stay airborne for 36 hours and it is conducting surveillance of Iran's coast.

Russia has gotten into the act. Its sole aircraft carrier, the 67,500 ton Kuznetsov, is now parked off the coast of Syria in a show of support for the homicidal dictator, Bashar al-Assad. Russia has never had much of a developed palate when it comes to making friends and allies. If there is a loathsome pariah somewhere in the world, Russia will find this individual and give him/her a state dinner and a military parade. (The parade is thrown in because there are few things Russia enjoys more than showing off the hardware of death.)

All joking aside, nations rarely show this degree of coordinated military action without an objective. All that is needed for this powder keg to explode is a spark and Iran, if it is true to its word, provided its warning to the U.S. to stay out of the Persian Gulf. After all of the pieces are in place we can anticipate the U.S. Navy will be sailing through the Strait of Hormuz with multiple air forces on the ready.

What the Eve of War Looks Like

2012-01-07T08:48:00.001-06:00

This is what it looks like on the eve of war. Prior to fighting the combatants engage in the ancient practice of flyting, a ritual exchange of insults. They make threats, laugh at threats, but much more ominously, bring their armies forward toward the Line of Departure. Crossing this line is war. We are moving closer to this line with Iran.

According to a Jerusalem-based news agency (the Debka File), thousands of U.S. soldiers recently entered Israel to conduct the largest U.S.-Israeli joint military exercises ever. Unlike most military exercises, many of these soldiers will remain in Israel until year's end. In other words, they have been deployed to Israel. Also, an aircraft carrier is en route to participate in this exercise. The U.S. soldiers are mostly missile interceptor teams (they may be needed in the coming days), airmen, marines, intelligence officers, and the like. And today we read about naval ships from Great Britain heading toward the waters of the Persian Gulf.

It is clear that the Obama administration does not want this fight. It knows that this will disrupt the global oil supply which would endanger the fragile world economy. A tanking U.S./world economy just before the 2012 elections is not a sought after scenario. But I believe the administration also knows that Israel will act whether the U.S. participates or not. And if Israel acts alone the global economic results will either be the same or worse. After all, if Israel acts alone, which they likely will if no one is willing to join them, then Iran is wounded and can likely strike back by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, and wreak greater havoc elsewhere. But if the U.S. joins this strike, then the damage Iran might inflict would likely be lessened as their capabilities will be crushed and not wounded.

Which brings us to Israel. Why would Israel risk damaging the global economy to attempt to delay the Iranian nuclear program (few think their actions would be able to destroy their work completely). The Israeli mind-set is different from America's and the rest of the world. We fear a recession that may last months or a year or two; they fear surviving as a functioning state. In the 1920s and 1930s many Jews discounted Hitler's ravings as so much talk. They will never make that mistake again, and when Iran says they belong on the ash heap of history, history has taught them to take these threats seriously.

As we inch toward this Line of Departure we mustn't discount the following possibility. Iran might strike first. Wouldn't this be suicidal? Whether they strike first or wait to be attacked the Iranians must believe war is inevitable, therefore, why not take advantage of the one thing that might favor them in the early stages of a conflict, namely, surprise? Whatever the case, forces are being gathered and moved closer to the launching point, and this is what it looks like on the eve of war.

Is Iran Childishly Acting Out?

2012-01-06T09:01:00.000-06:00

Iran's Air Force is outclassed and outgunned by the jets on just one U.S. aircraft carrier. And there are many more of these U.S. jets stationed at bases near the Persian Gulf. Yet this nation continues to make war-like sounds. It has just announced it will be engaging in a fresh round of naval exercises around the Strait of Hormuz in the coming weeks, and this after having just completed a ten-day naval exercise near the strait and warning the U.S. to keep its carriers out of the Persian Gulf. Is Iran a child-nation acting out, who deserves and is seeking a spanking, or a clever fox pursuing a long-term strategy that involves provoking a regional dust-up?

It is hard to see how war against a superpower can advance one's strategic aims. Ultimately, if this is what Iran wants, then it could prove to be a disastrous miscalculation. But Iran's strategic aims are now threatened in ways they weren't before. If Iran were to draw a red line, as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is fond of doing, it would be around its brutal ally Syria. Attempt to remove their Shi'ite ally, President Bashar al-Assad, or Shi'ite rule, and that is crossing a red line, meaning: it is a cause for war. Syria is a strategically important piece in their anti-Israel strategy, and their desire to be influential in the region. Syria not only offers a land bridge to Israel, it is also the primary conduit for funneling supplies (missiles, mortars, mines and mayhem) to their Lebanon-based, proxy-army Hezbollah.

Unfortunately for Iran, the Assad government is a "dead man walking," or so it was characterized by the point-man on Syria for the U.S. State Department, Frederic Hof. It may collapse in weeks or months. How can this be prevented? To engage in a conflict with the Great Satan, the USA, and the little Satan, Israel, might be a way of refocusing Syrian discontent. Iran probably feels a conflict with the U.S. would be limited, as the U.S. has little appetite for another protracted, costly Middle Eastern adventure. And in a limited engagement that the U.S. eventually ends, it will have gained prestige in the region for having stood up to the USA and survived to tell the tale. Meanwhile, if it can trigger a global recession by dramatically slowing down or stopping both the oil production and oil shipments from the Persian Gulf region, it will have delivered a potentially devastating blow to the U.S. economy.

Acting out? Perhaps. Pursuing a long-term war strategy? More likely.

The Coming Sunni-Shiite War In the Middle East

2012-01-05T08:44:00.001-06:00

If war is hell, then a religious war must occur on the lowest rung of Dante's Inferno. When you read an account of the Wars of Religion in France in the sixteenth century, or the Thirty Years War, another struggle pitting Catholics against Protestants, you see how religious fervor is a dangerous ingredient to add to war.

Today Iraq's fragile coalition is splintering as a series of bomb blasts have killed dozens of Shiites. Car bombs are the preferred weapon of the Sunni Muslim minority. The Shiites typically retaliate with death squads. These death squads are primarily made up of Shiite members of the police and military. They arrest young Sunni men during the day or night, and torture or kill them. However, both sides have used death squads and car bombs.

The largest outbreak of a Sunni-Shiite War of Religion occurred almost thirty-two years ago when the Sunni ruler of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, invaded the largely Shiite nation of Iran in 1980. It was a preemptive strike that sought to prevent the spreading of the Ayatollah Khomeini's Shiite revolution that put him in power in Iran in 1979. It is estimated that over 500,000 people died in this protracted war that resembled WWI with its use of chemical weapons, trench warfare and the like.

The current outbreak of violence, and the increasing tension between Sunni Arab nations and Iran lead to the question, "Is the current Sunni-Shiite violence going to result in another war?"

The answer is unfortunately "yes," and this prediction is based on the same template that, prior to the outbreak of the Arab Spring, successfully predicted the ouster of Mubarak from Egypt around the year 2010 (it happened in February of 2011). It also predicted the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan around the year 2014 (the date that has since been adopted by NATO), and President Saleh's ouster from Yemen. Now it is predicting we are in the early phases of another outbreak of a Sunni-Shiite War of Religion that will grow in violence and magnitude until it achieves its culmination around the year 2014. It will likely involve several Sunni Arab nations and their support of Sunni Arabs in Iraq, Syria and Bahrain, as well as their opposition to Iran and its pursuit of nuclear power. How the template can predict such events is explained at www.thetemplateoftime.com.

Predicting a Collision Is Easy, Because You Can Cause It. Predicting the Aftermath? That's a Different Story.

2012-01-04T12:23:00.000-06:00

At CERN, near Geneva Switzerland, scientists from across Europe accelerate sub-atomic particles around a circular track and make them collide with one another. They then watch the results of this high-tech wreck to see if new particles are revealed, among other things. The collision is controlled and planned; the results are not.

In the sphere of geopolitics we have nations like the U.S., or Iran, pursuing contrary policy goals that will eventually lead to a collision. And, like the particle accelerators at CERN, what this collision will ultimately produce cannot be controlled. But that doesn't mean either party won't try to control the aftermath.

For example, the Obama administration recently unveiled a financial weapon it can use against Iran. It allows the president to slap stiff sanctions on financial organizations that do business with the central bank of Iran. AND it allows him to forgo, or delay, the application of these sanctions should he feel it would raise oil prices. In his hoped for scenario, he will be able to strike Iran with painful sanctions and control the aftermath by keeping the price of oil at bearable levels. Is this possible? According to the Template of Time, no.

Two of the clearest predictions the template is suggesting are these: Israel will bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities with U.S. help being likely, and there will be a dramatic spike in the price of oil leading to an aftermath the Obama administration most dreads: a severe downturn in the economy. A severe recession in 2012 would almost assuredly doom his reelection bid. Unfortunately for the U.S., and Obama, this recession appears inevitable.

Why? Because history unfolds on a template with a precision that enables predictions of future outcomes, including the unanticipated outcomes of collisions like Iran and the U.S. In the case of the price of oil and its relationship to the economy there were two oil shocks leading to recessions. One began in 1973 (the Arab Oil Embargo) and the other began in 1979 (with the accession of the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran). Both of these historical movements converge on the year 2010, according to the design of the template. That means that on the year 2010 (plus or minus one or two years) we should see another energy related shock to the economy. My guess is it will involve Iran shutting off the Strait of Hormuz and sabotaging the oil fields of their oil-rich, Sunni-Muslim enemies: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait.

Meanwhile, history is accelerating. Many collision are imminent. Syria and Iraq are veering toward civil war. Egypt and Tunisia have their former autocratic rulers on trial. A power struggle in Libya is shattering a brief peace. Yemen is a boiling pot that cannot simmer down. And Iran is defiantly shaking its fist at the western world and its Sunni Arab neighbors. What will happen next?

The lesson of time is this: the nations may think they control the collisions or conflicts and what these conflicts will produce, but these historical movements are part of a predestined plan that is unfolding on a template. Proof of this outrageous claim is the way history has followed this time pattern for over 2,000 years. And even more powerful proof exists. It has generated predictions that have since come true. If you can name another system that has passed these two tests, then please let me know.

America's Culture

2012-01-03T14:25:00.000-06:00

What is a nation's culture? If nations were living beings, then its culture would be the expression of its soul. When we think of Periclean Athens we see an elevated culture that reflects well on ancient Greece. It produced philosophers like Socrates, sculptors like Phidias, and playwrights like Euripides. We need not go back that far to find cultures that seemed to express a healthy, vital soul. England's Victorian Age produced the following giants in just the field of literature: Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, W. B. Yeats, Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, George Eliot and others.

Just as you judge a tree by its fruit, you judge a culture by its productions, the expressions of its soul. On that front where are we? Poetry Magazine, the famed Chicago journal that catapulted T.S. Eliot to recognition with the publication of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," is now rolling in money from an enormous bequest, yet poetry in America has never been as irrelevant. Take a moment. Think of a great poem you've read in the last ten or twenty years. What was the name of that poem? What was it about?

What seems to be far more vital in our culture, and powerful in its influence, is Reality TV. Now ask yourself, "What Reality TV programs am I familiar with?" I don't even watch this rot yet I am intimately familiar with many of its shows. Jersey Shore and Keeping Up With the Kardashians are much-hyped programs that I see on commercials, on news programs--somehow they are newsworthy--and in headlines on the web. I've never watched Jersey Shore, yet I know about its lowlights, Snooki and the Situation.

If this fruit is a sign of what our culture has to offer, then the soul of America is deathly ill. Consider the drama of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. I've never watched this gem of a show, but I am bathed in news about its shell of a person, Kim Kardashian. This vacuum-tube with a face evidently believes that the sacrament of marriage is little more than a PR vehicle best used to boost ratings. To show how toxic this show and others have become, one does not even need to watch them to be sickened by them. They are a part of our culture. We swim downstream from these polluters.

And so it goes. From operatic arias to flatulence, from poetry to celebrity drivel. America deserves better and we can do better. If you are dismayed by the state of our culture, the healthiness of our nation's soul, then make a New Year's resolution worth keeping: do your utmost to promote that which is worthwhile to you. If you find a person whose work deserves a wider hearing, then post this person on your social networking pages, and encourage your friends to do the same. If the work is genuinely good, then your friends will thank you for it and they will forward this work to others.

Go viral in the new year. In the days of Martin Luther the Catholic Church was the guardian of Europe's culture, and it was in need of reforming. Luther protested against the selling of indulgences and his protest, his "95 Theses,"went viral almost 500 years ago. How? Luther sent copies of his "95 Theses" to his friends and, with the advent of the printing press, they were able to produce thousands of copies quickly and relatively inexpensively. Today it is much easier to go viral; and much less expensive. The internet is to our time what the printing press was to the 16th century.

We may not control the airwaves, but we do control networks of friends and followers. If you find something elevating, comforting or life-affirming, tell your network of friends about it. Help to create a culture that is satisfying to the soul in an enduring way, instead of a culture that peddles sensations. Our culture cannot save itself, but as we labor in this landfill we can turn our own little plot into a garden.

Iran Draws a Red Line

2012-01-03T06:43:00.000-06:00

After Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, started drawing red lines around the nation of Iran--their developing nuke was a red line as was shutting down the Straits of Hormuz--Iran decided to get into the act. Message to U.S. Navy from Iran: if you reenter the Persian Gulf with your carrier...watch out.

This is probably where the U.S. wants Iran: in a box. Now if they attack a U.S. ship that is not violating any laws, they are the aggressors and can be retaliated against. If they fail to attack, then they lose face and credibility.

Expect a carrier group to be heading through the Straits of Hormuz soon. This morning the price of oil futures is up 2.5% in pre-market trading. This could get very ugly, very soon.

The Staring Contest

2012-01-02T09:50:00.000-06:00

Right now we are witnessing a staring contest and each side is waiting for the other to blink. On one side we have the Sunni Muslim world and on the other side are the Shi'ites.

Fueling this contest is a renewed fear among Sunnis of the spread of Shi'ite influence. The first impulse of fear came from the accession of the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. The new impulse is coming from the fear that Iraq will become Iran's partner. Indications of this Shi'ite alliance strengthening are manifold. For example, the rest of the Sunni-Muslim and Arab world are united against the Assad regime while Iraq, an Arab nation, refuses to condemn its actions. They stand with the Persian-Shi'ite nation of Iran in their support of Assad.

So the conflict between these two sects will intensify until it explodes. The Sunni Muslim state of Turkey is on the verge of invading Syria to end the violence. This is due, in part, to the way the violence along their border with Syria is leading to a refugee problem. Turkey has already invaded Iraq to take on Kurdish separatists, so their willingness to use their military muscle to resolve issues in neighboring countries is evident. Furthermore, it desires to expand its regional influence and dethroning a Shi'ite leader would certainly cement its position of leadership within the Sunni-Arab world.

Whoever fires the first shot in this coming conflict between Sunnis and Shi'ites will be the one who has blinked. Right now we have two dry eyed contestants with their fingers on triggers.

Happy New Year! Now, Fasten Your Seat Belts

2011-12-31T19:46:00.002-06:00

President Obama virtually assured the New Year will be lively. From his vacation in Hawaii the serial-prodigal-spender signed an act that will severely penalize any bank or financial institution that does business with the central bank of Iran. Those banks/institutions will be prevented from conducting business in the U.S. This would be like a Joe Frazier left hook to an economy that is on the ropes. In other words, it would knock Iran out. And they realize this.

Prior to signing this Iran said such a move would be considered an act of war. Perhaps it is. Whatever the case, both sides are trying to maneuver the other into a box similar to the chess situation called zugzwang. This occurs when the other side must move and any move it makes is disastrous. If Iran does nothing it will be crippled by U.S. sanctions, the citizenry would suffer, and would likely take to the street in numbers that could topple the regime. But if they do something (e.g., shut down the straits of Hormuz), then they will face the combined wrath and fury of the U.S., Israel, and probably a few Sunni Arab nations. Damned if you do; damned if you don't. Zugzwang.

I feel certain the U.S. would prefer to have Iran fire the first shot in this imminent conflict. It offers the possibility of absolution. It would make the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities an action that is virtually "guilt-free." After all, their bombing of Iran would merely be returning fire, retaliating...self-defense. The U.S. and Israel, and possibly a few Sunni Arab countries, are perfectly happy to bomb Iran without this world-opinion get-out-of-jail-free card, but it is always preferable to have an unassailable position such as the one that is offered by a foe attacking first.

As I said on Facebook, the year 2012 will be a wild one.