Opposition without its own trousers

I'd like to suggest both legs of the dacks read this, and report their responses back to the punters.

CRISIS OF FAITH IN THE MUSLIM WORLD
[...] As I have reported before, the demographic position of the Islamic world has set a catastrophe in motion. It is hard enough for rich nations to care for a growing elderly population, but impossible for poor nations to do so. Iran, along with most of the Muslim world, faces a population bust that will raise the proportion of dependent elderly in the population to 28% in 2050, from just 7% today. If America faces discomfort, and Europe faces crisis, Muslim countries face breakdown. [...]
[...] In a program made public on August 15, Iran's new president proposed a pre-emptive response to the inevitable depopulation of rural Iran. He plans to reduce the number of villages from 66,000 to only 10,000, relocating 30 million Iranians out of a population of 70 million. In relative terms, that would be the biggest population transfer in history, dwarfing Joseph Stalin's collectivization campaign of the late 1920s. A generation hence, Iran will not have the resources to provide infrastructure for more than 50,000 rural villages inhabited mainly by elderly and infirm peasants. In response, Iran will undertake the biggest exercise in social engineering in recorded history, excepting perhaps Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. [...]

That prospect leaves the Iranian President's latest verbal thrust at Israel sounding like a playful entertainment.

If Spengler's demographic picture is correct, how do Iran, Turkey, Libya, Malaysia, etc, see their futures? Iran, in particular, faced with enormous internal challenges, is going to be susceptible to threats emanating from mischievous outsiders, like Condi Rice.

It might be a good time to think about girding the loins and moving to a low-fibre diet.

What else is on the menu, as Chuck & Camilla sit down with the Bush gang?

Rice pudding, with cherries? Just don't ask for yellow cake, Chuck. That could give Mr Blair a case of apoplectic indigestion.

Editorial: Remember That Mushroom Cloud?
[..] President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and George Tenet, to name a few leading figures, built support for the war by telling the world that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling chemical weapons, feverishly developing germ warfare devices and racing to build a nuclear bomb. Some of them, notably Mr. Cheney, the administration's doomsayer in chief, said Iraq had conspired with Al Qaeda and implied that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11. [...]