This week we'll be talking a lot about numbers.  It's a mark of a primitive brain to be superstitious about particular ones, to believe that certain numbers are "lucky" or "unlucky."

For all their vaunted rationality, most Chinese for example have a Stone Age superstition that the number 8 brings good fortune.  So they quite purposefully are having their Olympics begin today, 08/08/08, precisely at 8:08pm Beijing time.

People with primitive beliefs are vulnerable.  If the Chicom Olympics don't live up to expectations, don't bring China the world's adoration and respect, then the Chicoms risk losing the "Mandate of Heaven" - the superstitious belief that fate favors them.

Watch the Games unfold over the next two weeks with that context in mind.  There's a lot more drama going on than just in the athletic contests.

***

Now for fun with numbers.  Magic numbers.  The most magic number in America right now is 112.

Alpbach, Austria. Nestled in the middle of the Alps, this is about as scenic as a place can be. The homes and lodges, all of which have the distinctive Alpine architecture, are graced with lovely hanging red and white flowers. There is no crime, no graffiti, no litter and no apparent poverty.

In short, it is the perfect place for the 63rd annual Alpbach European Forum, where many European opinion leaders gather each summer to discuss the problems of, and opportunities for, Europe.

Alpbach, of course, is no more representative of Europe than is the Disney-created town of Celebration, Florida, representative of America. They are both attempts to produce the ideal community.

Many conference participants seek to fashion their ideal version of Europe, yet fail to understand that the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment and the economists of the Austrian School (along with their University of Chicago comrades) many years ago set forth the rules that need to be followed for Europe and the rest of the planet to achieve peace, tolerance and ever-increasing prosperity.

Ironically, America learned the lessons from these Europeans better than did Europe, and now many Asians are learning them and becoming ever freer and more prosperous as a result. Yet today, many in Europe claim they have a more humane economic system than one with the rough edges of American style capitalism. However, reality shows a very different picture.

As USS New York, forged with steel from the Twin Towers, prepares to join the fleet, she will enter a world of crises. As we obsess over worthless Afghan real estate, truly vital problems loom abroad.

Violent challenges to our security and strategic position are slighted or ignored, while a combination of politics, pride and inertia bind us to a distant land of marginal relevance.

The crises highlighted below are not in order of priority. Any of them could take a painful bite out of Washington's complacency:

This week it became abundantly clear what a certain megalomaniacal naïve neophyte narcissist presidential aspirant should most appropriately be named.

Predecessor names have been Obambi, The Obamarama, Obamessiah, The One, and The Child - the latter due to the rumor that when in Israel last month, he made a secret visit to Bethlehem to see where he thinks he was born.

They are all obsolete now, because as of this week, he shall henceforth be called:  Egobama.

A proverb of the ancient Greeks applies to Egobama:  He whom the gods wish to destroy they first drive crazy.  For the Greeks, it was a particular kind of craziness that caused self-destruction:  hubris.  Not rational earned pride but lunatic self-importance, egomania.

***

The HFR breathes a sigh of relief that at last the invertebrate incompetent crook running Israel, Ehud Olmert, is stepping down.   Getting this despised man out of power has been like trying to pry an abalone off a rock (any diver knows how hard that is).  And tragically, he'll still be around for many more months - the mortally critical months from November to January in particular.

Those are the months - specifically from November 5 to January 19 - between the US election and inauguration.  That's when Bush will have a fully free hand to conduct a US strike, or assist an Israeli strike, on Iran.

***

Should the HFR raise a glass to coincidences?  Like the coincidence between the Half-Full Report 07/16/08 revealing the CIA-ISI-Taliban-opium nexus and the CIA leaking to the New York Times two weeks later (7/30) a story about the Pakistan ISI links to the Afghan Taliban?

Isn't it funny how all of a sudden, right after but never before - for years never before - the To The Point revelation, there's a flurry of big time media stories denouncing the ISI-Taliban connection?  How about this headline in the Washington Post today (8/01):  U.S. Officials: Pakistani Agents Helped Plan Kabul Bombing.

Even funnier is how CIA Deputy Director Stephen Kappes is doing the CYA Dance after the TTP revelation, leaking these stories.  What's not funny is that it's all smoke and mirrors.

[Richard Rahn send us this from Mongolia, about which I wrote when I was there five years ago (August 2002) in Glaciers in the Gobi.  Yes, there really is a glacier in the Gobi Desert. -JW]

Ulan Bator, Mongolia. This, one of Asia's poorest countries, has been an economic laggard relative to most of its Asian competitors. But now the economy has begun to grow rapidly. The question is, can this growth be sustained and perhaps even speeded up?

Mongolia is landlocked in the center of Asia between two powerful neighbors, China and Russia. Though twice the size of France, it has less than three million people. Traditionally, the Mongols have been nomadic, tending their animal herds along the thousands of miles of Central Asian grasslands.

Despite its handicaps, Mongolia has a few things going for it.  Consider:  by 2010, it is expected that 60 percent of Mongolians will have access to high-speed Internet.  Compare that to Russia, where little more than 1% do.

Recent months have seen a number of unexpected and extremely encouraging statements coming out of the Moslem world.  Respected, mainstream Moslem leaders in a variety of countries have voiced opinions which are at odds with traditional, conservative Islam.

They have challenged aspects of shari‘a and are calling for a liberal, modernist, enlightened Islam compatible with Western norms.  Perhaps the most significant of all is a report by a group of British Moslems calling for an end to the apostasy law and for full freedom in all religious matters.

Significant cracks seem to be forming within the mainstream Islam. Important mainstream leaders are coming out against long-held key traditional views and Wahhabi-Salafi doctrines and practices, openly supporting ideas compatible with modernity.

Here are some examples.

Yes, it's the Breck Boy, making headlines in Tuesday's (7/22) National Enquirer:  Sen John Edwards Caught with Mistress and Love Child.  And get a load of the mistress' picture.  Isn't she a looker?  Can you imagine waking up next to that?

Last October, the Enquirer ran a story about Edwards cheating on his wife, whose cancer he was milking for the sympathy vote during his presidential campaign.  But the Enquirer never revealed her name, so her identity came as a big surprise to the public when it was revealed now.

A surprise to the public - but not to you.  For the day after that first NE story, on October 11, 2007 you learned her identity in The Breck Boy Is Cleared From The Presidential Field.   She's a New Age Bimbo named Lisa Druck, who now goes by the name of Rielle Hunter.  But as a TTP'er, you already knew that - a long time ago.

The HFR  raises its goblet of glee that the Breck Boy has been cleared from the vice-presidential field. 

***

Now let's have a beer on the beach - Huntington Beach in Orange County, California, where the Republican Party will triumph or die in November.

Do you fear the Internal Revenue Service, even though you have done nothing wrong?  Most Americans do, and for good reason.

For decades, the courts, congressional hearings and the press have documented a steady stream of abuses by IRS personnel and federal prosecutors dealing with tax cases.

Last week, a federal judge dismissed charges against 13 former employees of the accounting firm KPMG because the government had violated their rights, in what had been billed by the government as its biggest-ever tax shelter case.

Despite overwhelming evidence of disgraceful and illegal government behavior (in the private sector it would be called extortion), the government has decided to appeal the case. Have they no shame?

Of, course, that's a rhetorical question.  Who needs shame when you have guns and power instead?

There's a legend that says Nero played the lyre (the fiddle wouldn't be invented for another thousand years) while Rome burned in 64 AD.  What instrument does Obama play, as he cavorts indecisively about the world stage?

On three fronts - South Korean trade, Ukrainian/Russian diplomacy and Afghan war fighting - the Obama administration is being increasingly pressured by unfolding events to shed ideology and rationalizations and come quickly to a realistic analysis of world events and their consequences.

In each of these cases, in the absence of very prompt United States policy decisions and actions, we shall incur long-term irreversible economic, geopolitical or national security harm. Let's discuss the first two here, and hold the third for a future discussion by itself.

Do you think the world is getting better or worse? Despite the endless doom and gloom dished out by many in the media and political class, the objective evidence is that by almost any measure the world this past year was a better place for most of its habitants.

Yes, the rich are getting richer, but the poor are also getting a lot richer, so much so that there are fewer poor each year. And more people live in free countries than ever.

It is good to remind ourselves, as unhappy as we may be with our political leaders, that things are really getting better.   So despite the media hype and the blogs, the safer bet is things will get better for you and your family rather than worse.

However, there are three real risks to most people's future well-being: Islamic fundamentalism, irrational global environmentalism, and the U.S. Congress.

Once the apotheosis of a pro-Western, dependable Moslem democracy, last week Turkey officially left the Western alliance and became a full member of the Iranian axis.

It isn't that Ankara's behavior changed fundamentally in recent days. There is nothing new in its massive hostility toward Israel and its effusive solicitousness toward the likes of Syria and Hamas.

Since the Islamist "Justice & Development" AKP party first won control over the Turkish government in the 2002 elections, led by AKP chairman Recip Tayyip Erdogan [pronounced air-doh-wan], the Turks have incrementally and inexorably moved the formerly pro-Western Moslem democracy into the radical Islamist camp populated by the likes of Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, al-Qaida and Hamas.

What made Turkey's behavior this week different from its behavior in recent months and years is that its attacks were concentrated, unequivocal and undeniable for everyone outside of Israel's scandalously imbecilic and flagellant media.