Saudi Arabia is a pre-eminent example of how God’s sense of humor is unfathomable to mere human beings.

A tribe of primitive desert nomads who believe in an atavistic religion seize control of a vast sandy wasteland under which, completely unknown to them, contains more of the critical substance upon which modern civilization depends than anywhere else on earth.

This makes the nomads impossibly rich without doing anything to earn their wealth, which they proceed to spend billions of disseminating around the world their religion which is dedicated to destroying the civilization that gave them their wealth.

So now God is patiently waiting for us to get the joke and figure a way out of it.

Communist China, the People’s Republic of China or PRC, never tires of denouncing Taiwan as a “renegade province” that belongs to it, and bitterly complaining that any attempt by any country anywhere in the world to treat Taiwan as a sovereign independent nation is a gross interference in China’s “internal affairs.”

This claim is about to be publicly exposed as baseless - for it turns out that as a matter of international law, Taiwan is legally an overseas possession of the United States of America.

2008 is looming large on the world stage, and not just for us here in America-land. Yes, the year looks likely to see the most exciting presidential race in US history, one between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Condoleeza Rice, which Condi will win. (You can get a “Rice2008” bumper sticker at Rice2008 or T-shirt at AmericansForRice )

And yes, the race will electrify the world and gain its rapt attention. Somehow, however, lots of folks in other places will also focus on events of far more personal importance to them - particularly in China and Taiwan.

2008 is the year of Communist China’s coming-out party, when it hosts the Beijing Olympics. The Chicoms intend to use the 2008 Beijing Olympics as did the Nazis in the 1936 Berlin Olympics - as a glorification of their rule and a demand that the world provide it with the prestige it so desperately craves.

2008 is also the year of the next presidential election in Taiwan. After two terms, President Chen Shui-bian cannot run for re-election. How those contending to succeed him will conduct their campaigns may determine the survival of Taiwan - and of China. One campaign may prove critical, that of current Taiwan Prime Minister Frank Hsieh.

Silent screams. Night sweats. Quiet desperation. The whispered dread of impending doom. Liberals are suffering all of these anxieties over soon-to-be Justice John Roberts - at least the smart ones are who know the stakes.

Those stakes go far beyond Roe v. Wade. Smart liberals know the entire gigantic edifice of Federal bureaucratic control over our lives, which they have been painstakingly building since the 1930s, has as its foundation one thin reed of six Constitutional words tortured beyond recognition. Invest those words with normal recognizable meaning, and thousands of Federal laws and regulations are defunct.

This is the conservatives’ and the libertarians’ dream, and the liberals’ nightmare. What keeps making the liberals sit bolt upright in bed is knowing there is nothing they can do to prevent their nightmare from coming true.

To understand why, we need to talk about a farmer named Roscoe Filburn from Montgomery County, Ohio, who grew 23 acres of wheat back in the 1930s.

What do you suppose the reaction would be in the American, Chinese, and world press if a Major General in the US Army gave an official briefing at the Pentagon and stated:

“If the Chinese attack Taiwan, we will have to respond with nuclear weapons. We Americans would then have to prepare ourselves for the destruction of all our cities east of Kansas City. Of course, the Chinese will have to accept that hundreds of Chinese cities will be destroyed by us.”

Can you imagine the media feeding frenzy? Can you imagine the reaction at the White House? The general would be instantly cashiered and sent to a mental hospital for psychiatric treatment, while everyone in the Administration made every possible effort to repair the damage.

So why didn’t this happen when a Major General in the Red Chinese People’s Liberation Army - who is also the Deputy Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at the Chinese National Defense University - said exactly this in reverse on July 15 in Beijing?

So many of you have asked me about an alleged Al Qaeda plan called “American Hiroshima” - the multiple detonation of nukes smuggled in to the US - that I must respond, even though some very good friends of mine for whom I have high regard have been taken in by the fellow who’s making the claim.

That would be Paul L. Williams, who has been peddling this stuff for a long time. The funniest example is Williams’ claim that “documents captured in Afghanistan show that Al Qaeda had plans to assemble nuclear weapons with fissile material purchased on the black market.” A nuclear scientist friend of mine with all the requisite Pentagon security clearances could not stop laughing when I discussed this with him.

“I’ve seen those documents,” he told me, “and believe it or not, they are copied from an article in a science humor magazine called The Journal of Irreproducible Results. It was entitled “How to Build an Atom Bomb,” and these Al Qaeda-Taliban idiots didn’t know it was a put-on. It’s full of physics jargon and seems impressive - but when the article instructs you to make the shock wave focusing lens out of Playdough, you’ve got to be a retard not to get the gag. Living in an Afghan cave can do that to you.”

When you’re scuba-diving, you’re in another reality. You’re totally in the moment, absorbed and fascinated by a world utterly removed from that above the surface. But the pressure of this world drives gasses you’re breathing like nitrogen into your tissues, and if you return to the surface too quickly, bubbles of nitrogen come out of solution like an opened champagne bottle, into your bloodstream and can blow up your brain.

Returning to “civilization” from an African safari can have similar effects. Immersed in a world utterly removed from the outside, blissfully unaware of any “news” occurring anywhere as you watch a lioness play with her cubs or a lady elephant tease a big bull in heat, causing him to chase after her dragging his 40 pound “fifth leg” in desperation - you need to decompress and slowly return to reality.

I ignored this advice and am suffering the consequences. One day I was in a tent in the Serengeti. The next day I was in London with bubbles of the world’s insanity exploding inside my head.