Happy New Year, Everyone! For as long as it lasts, 2008 promises to be a very significant year. We will finally elect a new president (hopefully the year will last until Election Day) and get rid of the ignoramus that keeps making situations worse than anyone can imagine. His latest fiasco, the dance of death that Bush and Rice concocted between Bhutto and Musharraf played out as most feared with the death of Benizer Bhutto and the frightening possibility that the Islamic radicals could get their hands on Pakistan's nuclear weapons. If that even remotely appears that it could happen, watch for Israel, the U.S., Britain, Russia, China and India to launch pre-emptive strikes against the Pakistani missile sites before they can be used against us. Then, literally, all hell will break loose with fighting erupting in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Syria if not the entire Middle East and beyond. However, if we succeed in neutralizing the Pakistani nukes, we will probably stave off a nuclear holocaust that would engulf the Middle East and their neighbors; but a horrific war would ensue that will result in millions of dead and more millions wounded.

However, if the Islamic militants suddenly and without warning acquire these weapons, they could immediately launch them at Israel and the American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then the countries mentioned previously would retaliate in kind with their nuclear arsenals fired within a half hour of the arriving Islamic nukes. It won't matter then who rules the world because the world will run amok and the inmates will be running the asylum.

The end of the world as we know it could be realized in 2008! I’m not talking about God smiting us; I’m talking about us smiting us! If Pakistan’s weapons are fired, the reaction of Israel, the U.S., Britain, Russia and China deploying their nuclear arsenals will wreak havoc on the world; spreading rapidly from country to country. The U.S., Canada, Mexico and South America could be spared the direct nuclear bombardments only to face a worse fate; the nuclear winter that will follow and the slow death of most animal life on earth. It could only take a spark to ignite this powder keg.

2008 could mark the beginning of the end, or things could turn around and we could have peace borne out of fear of annihilation by all parties. It could easily go in either direction. Anyone know all the verses to Kumbayah? Start singing!