Ancient Rome's greatest historian was Titus Livius, known to us as Livy (59 BC-17 AD).  In the Second Book of his monumental history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita (From the Founding of the City), he tells the famous story of Horatio at the Bridge.

In 510 BC, Rome was threatened with destruction from an invading army of Etruscans.  All Romans living in the countryside had abandoned their homes and fled for protection inside the city.  The city walls were heavily garrisoned, but the most vulnerable point was a wooden bridge, the Pons Sublicius, across the river Tiber and into Rome.

When Etruscan forces focused their attack on the bridge, the Roman troops guarding it fled in fear - save for one man, a soldier named Horatius, whom we call Horatio.

Watching the President's State of the Union speech last night, I thought of Horatio at the bridge.  When I talked to Tony Snow, the president's spokesman today, I understood why.

For at least a quarter-century now, I've been hearing the same mantra from soccer enthusiasts:  "Every little kid in America plays soccer.  When they grow up, soccer will be more popular than football or baseball."

This hasn't happened and never will happen.  Kids love to run around and kick a ball.  Watching grown-ups do it has all the drama of watching paint dry. 

A majority of Americans will not pay much attention to the World Cup this month while the rest of the world goes bananas about it because "soccer" should really be named "bograkab" - bunch-of-guys-running-around-kicking-a-ball.

Here's a synopsis of most every period of most every professional soccer game ever played:

Run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball - never score. 

Run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball - never score. 

It doesn't get more exciting in sports than this.  Except for curling.

So - now that I have all soccer fans totally enraged (something that's very easy to do, by the way), let's talk for real about why soccer will never be a competitor to football or baseball or basketball for the hearts of American sports fans.

It is imperative that you tend to your Plan B program, whether you decide to stay in Dodge (the US) or not!

One significant part of your preparation should be to put together a medicine cabinet, because when the Unaffordable Healthcare Act fully kicks in, it may not be possible to secure critical prescription items such as antibiotics, even with a prescription. Yet it is possible to acquire antibiotics and other items today without a prescription.

Furthermore, as has already been the case in Canada for some years under socialized medicine, certain surgical procedures may be unavailable because of your lack of "social utility," especially depending on your age. Or wait lines may be so long that your prognosis changes from problematic to critical during the intervening time.

Also, new medical modalities may not be available here in the United States. This is why, as part of your Plan B, you need to know about medical tourism, through which it will be possible to access new alternatives, and to do so far less expensively than in the U.S.

A healtcare storm is about to descend upon us.  How do you prepare for it?

This past week, the chief proponent of Jihadi Islam and the use of terror to force people to believe in his religion, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, traveled to Latin America to create an alliance with three atheistic Communists:  Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, and Rafael Correa of Ecuador.

This emerging "Marxist-Islamist entente," as it has been described, has caught a lot of folks by surprise.  How in the world, they ask, could Chavez toast Ahmadinutjob by hailing him as the leader of "a revolution kindred to the Venezuelan revolution: the Islamic revolution."

What could the imposition of atheistic Marxism upon a society, Chavez's goal, have in common with the imposition of a theocracy?  The answer must be, can only be for these puzzled folks, the bond of anti-Americanism.

As an editorial in the conservative New York Sun expresses it:

That the left makes common cause with the Islamists is one of the bizarre facts of modern geopolitics. The only thing Marxists like Messrs. Chavez, Ortega, and Correa have in common today with the likes of Mr. Ahmadinejad is a hatred of America. That is the foundation on which the Marxist-Islamist scheme is formed and the motivation behind any actions it carries out.

The New York Sun is almost infinitely superior to the New York Times in its understanding of the world.  It is well aware of the dangers of the alliance of Marxists and Islamists to America's national security. 

Yet the common bond between the two is far, far deeper than a simple emotion of hate.  The bond is as deep as you get.  It is metaphysical.  That is because Marx and Mohammed share the same view on the nature of reality.

You've heard of the Darwin Awards, right?  They're awarded to idiots who kill themselves doing something astoundingly dumb, thereby contributing to human evolution by removing themselves from the gene pool. 

Awardees are individuals, but I am nominating an entire inhabited region of the world:  Palestinian Gaza.  Gaza should, in fact, be re-named Darwin City.  Consider this news bulletin from Gulf Daily News of Bahrain, dated May 27, 2006:

GAZA CITY: Four Palestinians were killed in northern Gaza yesterday as Israel fired dozens of artillery shells into the territory. Three men died and five other were wounded in a house when a family member brought in and accidentally set off an unexploded Israeli shell that landed near the area, Palestinian security sources said.