Folks, the United States and her allies are on the cusp of having to make some monumental decisions very shortly, decisions that will have a direct influence on charting the future course of freedom or oppression on the planet.

On Wednesday, a deal was signed between the United States and Poland guaranteeing a US missile defense base to be constructed in Poland, 115 miles from the most western portion of the border with Russia (see map). The ten involved missiles are not nuclear tipped but are instead designed to shoot down other incoming missiles.

Note this paragraph:

After Warsaw and Washington announced the agreement on the deal last week, top Russian Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn warned that Poland is risking attack, and possibly a nuclear one, by deploying the American missile defense system, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.

And further, from AP:

The long-range interceptor missiles to be deployed in Poland do not have, and in the foreseeable future will not have, any target other than Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles,” a ministry statement said.

“It is clear to us — and the U.S. leadership does not deny this — that the … U.S. anti-missile defense in Europe will be broadened and modernized. In this case Russia will be forced to react, and not only through diplomatic demarches,” the statement said.

It is clear to me that Russia by way of President (and former Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin is longing for its former power and glory days. I put little past Putin these days. I wouldn’t be stunned to discover his plan to re-introduce nuclear missiles back to Cuba.

President Putin knows the United States military is essentially at its maximum capacity now. It knows the UN is meaningless, as is NATO. With regard to NATO:

The foreign ministers of all 26 Nato countries met in Brussels to reaffirm their support for Georgia.

In a joint statement, the Nato foreign ministers said: “The Alliance is considering seriously the implications of Russia’s actions for the Nato-Russia relationship.

“We have determined that we cannot continue with business as usual.”

Also:

Russian authorities informed the Norwegian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday that officials in Moscow were immediately halting, canceling or postponing all planned military cooperation with NATO’s members, the Norwegian daily Aftenposten quoted government sources as saying.

In my mind, this is a Power Play on a couple of fronts. It is an attempt to restore Russia to its eminence as a world power and player. It is an attempt to showcase Putin as the center of power. And it is peripherally an attempt to control world energy supplies. Whoever controls energy — at a time when the United States cannot seem to determine its own energy future — controls the true power in the world, literally and figuratively.

This is a very dangerous situation and should be foremost on everyone’s current Threat Board.

One of the added benefits of driving a hybrid automobile is the low noise level experienced, particularly at low speeds when only the electric motor (instead of the internal combustion engine) is engaged. I rented a new Toyota Prius a few months back. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

A brief word about me: I like quiet. I moved two counties away from my job, into the mountains, because I am tired of hearing helicopters, jets, sirens, traffic, horns, shouting people. When I eat dinner in a restaurant I detest your shrieking or crying baby. I want you to shut the hell up in the theatre. I’ve had it up to here with loud people in public or on their cell phones.

Quiet good. Loud bad.

So now, considering that a hybrid vehicle is quiet, well, wait; apparently they’re too quiet for blind people.

What the hell?

And more: there’s a push to make hybrid cars louder:

The recently introduced Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2008 proposes a two-year study determining the most practical way for hybrid and electrical vehicles – cars that are functionally silent at slow speeds – to provide non-visual cues for pedestrians. The solution will likely establish a minimal sound level for these cars. The automotive industry will then have two years to incorporate this change into new vehicles.

A Toyota representative says:

Toyota spokesman Bill Kwong says he wasn’t aware of the issue and believes that the responsibility lies with drivers and pedestrians to watch out for each other. Mr. Kwong adds, “One of the benefits of the vehicles is that they don’t contribute to traffic noise.”

I’m with Kwong. This is just plain stupid. To blind people agreeing with this issue: just shut the hell up. Try teaching your dogs about cars in general. This entire world wasn’t designed for you, and I am getting so damned tired of having the very few rule the very many.

Victor Davis Hanson makes an excellent point in his newest piece, “Brave Old World.”

In reality, to the extent globalism worked, it followed from three unspoken assumptions:

First, the U.S. economy would keep importing goods from abroad to drive international economic growth.

Second, the U.S. military would keep the sea-lanes open, and trade and travel protected. After the past destruction of fascism and global communism, the Americans, as global sheriff, would continue to deal with the occasional menace like a Muammar al-Gaddafi, Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-il or the Taliban.

Third, America would ignore ankle-biting allies and remain engaged with the world — like a good, nurturing mom who at times must put up with the petulance of dependent teenagers.

But there have been a number of indications recently that globalization may soon lose its American parent, who is tiring, both materially and psychologically.

I do not disagree with this premise. But please read on (and peruse the entire article, if you will) and note Mr. Hanson’s conclusion:

So, what a richer but more critical world has forgotten is that in large part America was the model, not the villain — and that postwar globalization was always a form of engaged Americanization that enriched and protected billions.

Yet globalization, in all its manifestations, will run out of steam the moment we tire of fueling it, as the world returns instead to the mindset of the 1930s — with protectionist tariffs; weak, disarmed democracies; an isolationist America; predatory dictatorships; and a demoralized gloom-and-doom Western elite.

If America adopts the protectionist trade policies of Japan or China, global profits plummet. If our armed forces follow the European lead of demilitarization and inaction, rogue states advance. If we were to treat the environment as do China and India, the world would become quickly a lost cause.

If we flee Iraq and call off the war on terror, Islamic jihadists will regroup, not disband. And when the Russians attack the next democracy, they won’t listen to the United Nations, the European Union or Michael Moore.

Brace yourself — we may be on our way back to an old world, where the strong do as they will, and the weak suffer as they must.

So few realize: when you damage America, be it by those internally or externally, you damage and threaten the entire planet. The Demorats simply do not, cannot, understand this clear concept.

What do you suppose might be in our immediate future, given the potential of a Barack Hussein Obama win, and its concomitant “owned” House and Senate?