Suddenly, a new national debate is beginning about the national security, economic and other implications of Persian Gulf potentates using their petrodollars to buy up strategic American assets.

Most recently, the Emir of Dubai's purchase at fire-sale prices of 4.9 percent of the largest U.S. bank, Citigroup, caused a level of unease not seen since he tried to buy his way into many U.S. port facilities.

Almost completely unremarked thus far has been a parallel - and in many ways far more insidious - effort to penetrate, influence and dominate America's capital markets: so-called "Sharia finance."

Some estimates suggest an amount nearing one trillion dollars is now being invested around the world under this rubric. If trends continue, all other things being equal, such funds may grow to many times that amount within a few years.

As one Islamofascist puts it, Sharia investing is simply "financial jihad against the unbelievers." 

Paul Krugman, Princeton economist and columnist for The New York Times, has no problem with coercing people to do what they'd rather not do. So it's no surprise that he favors the universal health case system advocated by Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. 

He is worried, however, that under the more modestly coercive system advocated by Barack Hussein Obama, "healthy people could choose not to buy insurance-then sign up for it if they developed health problems later." 

Under Hussein Obama's system, argues Professor Krugman, "People who did the right thing and bought insurance when they were healthy would end up subsidizing those who didn't sign up for insurance until or unless they needed medical care."  The old free rider problem, nothing very novel at all.

Yet the problem arises only if there is coercion involved in the first place.

Recently, Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News, wrote a column titled, Mexican Visitor's Lament.

She interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while she was visiting Denver.  Hernandez said, "They (illegal aliens) pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes....what happens to your country's economy if 20 million people go away?"

That's a good question --- it deserves an answer.  Over 80% of Americans want secured borders and illegal migration stopped.  But what would happen if all 20 million vacated America?

For starters here in California where I practice law, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems, bankrupted hospitals and overrun prisons.

For months, Mrs. Hillary Clinton has hinted that Sen. Barack Hussein Obama, less than three years into his first Senate term, lacks the preparation to deal with U.S. foreign policy challenges. In a speech last Monday (11/19), she suggested the nation's budget deficit, income inequality and lack of comprehensive health coverage also required a more experienced steward.

As the Associated Press reported: "The economy needs help and fast, Hillary Rodham Clinton declared Monday, claiming the experience for the job and saying the nation can't afford to break in a newcomer... ‘There is one job we can't afford on-the-job training for - our next president. That could be the costliest job training in history,' Mrs. Clinton said. ‘Every day spent learning the ropes is another day of rising costs, mounting deficits and growing anxiety for our families. And they cannot afford to keep waiting'."

Good grief. What plausible claim does Miss Hillary have to experience in managing a national economy, balancing a budget or fixing income inequality? Even on health care, according to her husband, the aspiring "First Louse" (he wants to be called First Laddie, but I think the derivation from First Spouse works better) claims that she didn't have much to do with HillaryCare - it was his fault.

When the citizens of Eastern Europe rejected communism 18 years ago they were inspired by dissidents who told them that people have a right to "live in the truth" and that democracy equaled liberty and justice.

Now, 18 years later, democracy is in crisis in Eastern Europe, where people have come to realize that they have not gained truth, freedom or justice. Eastern Europe is going through the same crisis of political disillusionment as Western Europe.

While in Budapest last week, I read the German-language Budapester Zeitung.  It had a front-page article about the adoption of a bill against hate speech. This is the same bill that the European Union is imposing on all its member states. It restricts the freedom of the people, who are no longer allowed to say things that might be deemed offensive by "ethnic, sexual, religious or other minorities."

In Western Europe this legislation is not merely used to prosecute genuine racists, but is increasingly abused to clamp down on those who oppose the Islamization of their countries or on those who disapprove of homosexual behavior.

Here in Eastern Europe, authorities wish to do the same, putting in place legislation to silence the defenders of Hungary's national identity and traditional morality.

It has become obligatory for both pro- and anti-war commentators to never mention the possibility of victory in Iraq.

The most that anti-war people will admit is that the surge has gained a temporary military advantage in a war that cannot be won militarily. The most pro-war commentators will claim is that they see the possibility of "success" perhaps, maybe, someday, somehow.

But as of Veterans Day 2007, I think one can claim a very real expectation that next year the world may see a genuine, old-fashioned victory in the Iraq War.

In five years we will have overturned Saddam's government, killed, captured or driven out of country almost all Al Qaeda terrorists, suppressed the violent Shi'ite militias and induced the Sunni tribal leaders and their people to shun resistance and send their sons into the army and police and seek peaceful resolution of disputes.

And we will have stood up a multisectarian, tribally inclusive army capable of maintaining the peace that our troops established.

The U.S Comptroller General and head of the GAO, Government Accountability Office, has described the entitlements crisis facing this country as a "tsunami" that approaches while we continue to party on the beach.

What GAO head David Walker is talking about are the massive upcoming obligations under Social Security and Medicare that we have no funds to meet. Tens of trillions of dollars of supposed commitments, promises made to us by our government, that today we have no clue how we'll pay.

In those rare moments when our political "leaders" screw up sufficient courage to acknowledge this dark and ominous fiscal cloud hanging over us, the discussion is invariably technical. Proposed tax increases, cap increases, retirement age increases, benefit cuts, indexing -- all geared to "save the system."

But who has considered that, despite all the discussion about unfunded liabilities, what we really have on our hands is, at root and core, a moral crisis?

From Islamabad to London to Paris to Moscow to Los Angeles - wherever a flickering video image could reach - the nerves of the world became more frayed this week with the images of mass demonstrations in the streets and the stunning announcement that Hollywood writers have gone on strike for more humane working conditions.

The contract between the 12,000-member Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) expired Oct. 31. (Who knew it took 12,000 writers to produce the dreck coming out of Hollywood these days?)

Imminently we will be seeing the pathetic consequences of the strike: heartbreaking images of Jay Leno telling lame jokes (well, not all things will change), Jon Stewart silently making mere faces at the camera (his clever lines having been unwritten due to the strike), Stephen Colbert, denied the words written for him to mock Bill O'Reilly, forced to pointlessly over-gesticulate.