Win Mark Steyn’s Money

You know what? There’s a federal election happening in Canada! Yeah, I hadn’t noticed either. Of course, for the upcoming US election in 2008, we already have some unlikely candidates, such as Christopher Walken and General Zod.

Brother Hrab sends us the latest missive from neocon apologist and blowhard Mark Steyn. Steyn, of course, lost all credibility when he once wrote something to the effect that Islamic civilization has contributed nothing to the world. Clearly, he learns his history from comic books. When one’s bigotry becomes so pronounced, it pretty much invalidates anything else he has to say on the matter. But this article is kind of interesting, if you can manage to get past the boiling para-racist subtext. Essentially, Steyn is warning us all that the Western world will likely cease to exist by the end of the century.

And you know what? I think he’ s right. Unlike Steyn’s, though, my response is: who cares? Civilizations come and go and leave legacies, or they evolve into something new. As one friend put it, who mourns the Sumerians, the Mayans or the Chin empire? Western civilization has given humankind a great many boons, among them democracy and Greek science; but it has not existed in a vacuum, nor has it been representative of the needs and values of the vast majority of human beings. It was inevitable that when globalisation compelled the merging of world cultures, some new mutant world civilization would have to emerge. Let it come, I say.

But some things don’t change… like the price of a computer. Recently, Brother Bhash discovered the purchase receipt from when I bought my very first computer, back in 1986. Compare it to the price of my last desktop (I’m a laptop man now), from back in 1994: $1177 vs $1710. The lesson? Regardless of the era, a new computer is going to cost you $1000-$2000:

Meanwhile, the countdown to the inevitable USA/Israel/Iran conflict is on…Stay tuned…