Hugh, good thought; though we do have troops on our borders. The interesting part is that they cannot shoot. Hmmmm.

mmmkay... did your mother told you that? was it before or after LV buffé ?

Here is my guess for what the world will look like on a large, macro view in 5 years or so:
1 The US and Russia will be more strongly in competition with each other, and Russia will be flexing muscle around the globe in area that interest them directly. Their tensions will also rise with China, and both will have standing armies on their long border.
2. The Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan thing will become more of a regional issue and fade from the headlines. The Bush/Blair policies will be seen as having held the region together and tensions will lessen.
3. The devaluation of the US dollar will be seen as a brilliant move by the US, causing a resurgence in US manufacturing and making the rest of the world eat our huge deficit from the Iraq war.
4. Citibank will have been broken up, along with Merrill. The bull market will be raging again.
5. President McCain will be starting his second term.
6. I will be retired again from my golf pro career.
7. My old 84' Carrera will be worth $35,000.(Canadian).:D

WOW I never thought an 84 Carrera would be worth 70,000.00 USD

Keep up with the exchange rate Tabs. That's $32,459 (USD). ;)

That is really a stretch. I guess using the same reasoning you could say that obviously Clinton was harboring AQ as well since they were also acting in our country with impunity during his administration. Same for Great Britain and Spain...AQ made attacks in those countries too.

Two of our staunchest allies in the middle east are regularly slammed on this BBS One is Israel who is apparently the cause of all the world's troubles and the other is Pakistan who many here would like us to attack for no reason. Amazing.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Saddam was once our buddy, but we've shown the world how we treat our "friends". Nobody will likely make the same mistake.

Are you ignorant of the context of why Iraq became a western "buddy"? Or are you just trolling?

By the way, the conspiracy theory in your signature is not quite true. First, Cobasys joined the patent infringement lawsuit after the initial filing, as a co-plaintiff. Second, the case was settled in arbitration and the companies all agreed to cross license the technologies. All limits to what could be manufactured and by whom expired in mid 2007.

Thanks for the info Rearden, I'll read up on it, but keep the sig for a while because the situation stunk and still stinks:i.e. talks like a duck, quacks like a duck, must be a____. Sears still doesn't have a NiMH battery for sale for $60.

Iwreck benefited only a select few Friends of George(tm), and with the outbreak of de-centralization worldwide any advancement of possible regional US interests is hampered by our bait-and-switch practices with Sadam, the Kurds, etc...
Teeth without focus makes both contenders wary and switch their attention. Remember the "battered wife attacking the responding officer" situation?