Ooops!

Here's more "diplomacy by other means."

Next time North Korea's Diminutive Dictator decides to test launch one of his little phallic Dong missiles, we fire off a few of ours as if we are trying and shoot down his Dong. But since we know his Dong doesn't point straight, we don't even bother really trying to shoot it down since it's going to go flaccid on him anyway. Rather, we allow our missiles to continue on to the Dim Dic's missile launch sites, his nuclear manufacturing sites and save one for his big fat ass.

Then Condi Rice goes to the UN and apologizes. "Oops... sorry. A terrible accident. No harm was intended. We merely meant to intercept the Dong but we were using those cheap Chinese missle guidance chips we bought at Wal-Mart and completely missed, instead hitting the late dictator Eel. President Bush sends his condolences to the family. We'll try to get this problem fixed soon." In the middle of the UN General Assembly, Condi looks directly at the Iranian Ambassador, flashes her little sly smile and adds, "We certainly don't want this to happen again."

The Folly of the Faithless

 



Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows,
but only empties today
of its strengths.
                     ~Charles H. Spurgeon





      Hardly a day passes when we are not treated to the ramblings of some lost soul who tries to convince us – too often through the courts – that there is no place for “God” in the public square, in law, or even in public discourse. They would have us believe it’s totally obvious that the Founding Fathers created our Constitution to protect atheists from the very notion that humanity could believe there is a greater power guiding our Nation through the stormy seas of history.

      Why do we need a God, the atheist argues; Modern Man and Science have the answers. But Man is, if anything, fallible. When it comes to issues of the conscience, or of life and death, even the most degreed men and women, (why, MENSA men and women!) have no idea how or why human destiny unfolds as it does. Unforeseen circumstances and unrestrained appetites will rot the humanity of even the most intelligent and successful among us.

      The simple fact, demonstrated every day in the news, is that we cannot count on our fellow man, no matter how degreed or pedigreed, to have the right answers to anything. Should we accept what they offer us with blind faith when their solutions just fizzle? Can we, indeed, be sure about anything? For all of Mankind’s history, he has turned for advice to the “force” he calls God... a metaphor for the celestial library built by man over thousands of years, a mythic receptacle for all the knowledge and experience of the human race, consolidated, from thirteen thousand years of trial-and-error, into one place.

       Instructed and guided by the ancient gods, Inscribed in ancient manuscripts, Man translates  what he has learned into an owner's manual for the human race; a grand perspective of life, of what works and what doesn't work, in matters of leadership and judgment, in matters of the heart, and of life and death. It predicts and warns of the consequences of making this choice or that choice, of doing this or doing that. It illustrates for us the consequences of our predisposition to the haughty. It acknowledges and warns of the contempt many have for the rules of decency and consequences. Are we now so certain of our own ability to avoid the pitfalls of our decisions that we spit in the face of two-hundred-and-fifty generations of our forebears?

       Liberal philosophers declare that God is dead; that “Modern Man” need not feel beholden to follow the wisdom passed down by his progenitors. Warm, breathing people like those we know today, who lived to pass along humanity’s unique genome, and then died, so you and I could have our turn. Liberals, caught in the thrall of progressive philosophy, seem to think themselves above their forebears, believing their new moral decisions are intellectually superior to traditional values. Some prefer to skip morality altogether – doing “what feels good” – to hell with consequences.

       Atheists seem to believe the faithful are hung up on the notion of a Cosmic force sitting in judgment over them. They think Christians, Jews and Muslims behave because they fear punishment, or believe they will get a reward in some imagined heavenly afterlife. But faith in their God has less to do with fear of punishment and more to do with the inner strength and joy that humility and supplication brings to the faithful.

       We have seen the consequence of the philosophy of the faithless here in our Nation. Our culture has become corrupt. Our narcissistic leaders cater to the wretched, bow to a lower common denominator, telegraphing to all that the nation’s faithful are no longer relevant. Transforming our once great education system into institutions for indoctrination. Children are taught how to put a condom on a cucumber but receive no moral wisdom about what to do with the cucumber. In one generation, the godless have reduced a once confident Nation to one rejecting its own goodness, its history and its Founding Principles. They lead us into a house of mirrors where normalcy is distorted; enemies are embraced, men marry men, wife and baby killers are celebrities, teachers are predators, the very military which protects the nation is intentionally weakened and/or treated like cold-blooded killers, and flag wavers are considered extremists.

       A future stripped of God may be guided by law, but it cannot, by definition, be guided by morality.

       Next time someone suggests God is no longer relevant, ask; if you find yourself waiting for some critical test results from your doctor’s lab – will it be good for you, or will it be very bad – what will you turn to to make the outcome a good one? Or when the airliner you’re on is going down. Or when a loved one is in the ICU. Or when the jury on your capital case is in deliberation. Among all these, God knows, you find few atheists.

Cruisin'

~
At first glance, I thought the current Tom Cruise Hollwood episode was another Mel Gibson sort of thing. You know, Hollywood getting down on somebody for reasons only Hollyweirdos could come up with. I mean, here's a guy who's made millions upon millions for Paramount. Here's a guy who's been a #1 box office draw for years. Okay, not a consummate actor the likes of, say, a Gregory Peck; but surely not a Kevin Costner either.

But on reflection, I think I was wrong.

Whereas Mel could be forgiven because he was drunk as a skunk at the time he crossed the line, Tom... well... he is just high on life. I think there are several reasons that Tom got the royal - and very public - boot. The first are financial. If there is anything that motivates Hollywood, it's the bottom line. And Tom's was becoming a problem for Paramount. Tom's hat size got so big, he demanded more than they were willing to give. He was one of the very few actor/franchises so powerful he could demand, and get, payment "up front," meaning essentially that he got paid before the studios did! If his film tanked, he still had his, and the studio was left holding the empty money bag.

Okay, let's assume this is all true. There was no reason to make this separation public in the big way it was done. It could have been resolved quietly between the parties. You know, come up with some positive spin about why they both agreed to part amicably. No. There is something adversarial here. There has to be some other, some more personal reason.

There's Tom's annoying proselytizing of Scientology and his unseemly criticism of Brooke Shields (In May 2005, Cruise, her former co-star, a Scientologist whose religion frowns on psychiatry, excoriated Shields for both using and speaking in favor of the antidepressant drug Paxil to help relieve depression and other postpartum effects. By extention he was accusing all mothers of overdoing the postpartum blues thing). Now, if it was just that, I'd be 100% on Tom's side. Hell, this is America. He has the right to praise his belief system, even if I wouldn't. If muslims can go on with their anti-American rants in mosques all over America, surely Tom can rant about his religion. And if he has an opinion about post-partum blues, what the hell, he may not be a pharmacologist, but he still has First Amendment Rights to bloviate. So I'd be telling Tom he should hire himself the meanest pit bull lawyers he can get to go up against those mean bulldog studio execs, and sue them for one billion (with a "b") dollars. He'd have plenty of ammo on his side, and those Hollywood types need a good cleansing.

But Tom went farther. It's my understanding (though unconfirmed) that he began to insist if foreign theater chains wanted him to come to their countries to promote his films, if they wanted his and his group's support, why the motion picture people from those countries would just have to get themselves indoctrinated in Scientology. Well now. That's quite another thing, isn't it? That's sort of like a Japanese auto maker insisting its dealership owners in America brush up on Buddhism before they could sell Hondas in America.

Perhaps Cruise felt he could get away with it because - to make things even more complicated - his film company partner, Paula Wagner, is married to a Paramount exec!

But it seems the head of one of Paramount's major foreign distribution firms wasn't buying any of it. He was put off enough to write a strong letter of protest to Paramount. That's not the kind of letter a company enjoys receiving. It begs to be acted upon. On top of this, it's not difficult to imagine there was at least one recent mother either exec'ing at the studio, or a spouse of one of the execs, who expressed her own views on Cruise's postpartum prattling.

As an action hero, Tom is in his mid-to-late forties, an age past which few actors can manage the demanding physical work. And as a purely dramatic actor, while his million-dollar-smile and face can still handle those extreme close-ups, his acting ability might not be enough to bring in the kind of return on investment the studio expects. Couple that with Tom doing his best to alienate his most loyal fans, women; when Paramount weighed his profit potential against his deficit potention, Tom came out short.

But fear not, loyal Cruise fans, Tom and Paula Wagner have enough projects in the hopper to cruise along for years to come. Long enough for Tom to become the next aging, balding, bloated William Shatner.
~

Terrorism: The Cost of Freedom

“Those who expect to reap
the blessings of freedom,
must, like men,
undergo the fatigue
of supporting it.”
~Thomas Paine


        It would seem we in the West, have but two choices in the 21st Century.
        If we place world peace above all else, we will eventually capitulate to the tyranny of a One World government. We may have peace but few freedoms granted to us by a handful of plutocrats.
       On the other hand, if we choose to keep our freedoms, we may also be forced to accept terrorism as a fact of life. Because in a free capitalistic society, as long as there are "haves" there will be "have nots." Thus there will always be discord. Wealth by definition is concentrated in the hands of the few, and can only be built on the backs of the many. Thus the "have nots" will always outnumber the "haves," and the "haves" will always exploit the "have nots." Eventually, the "have nots" will have had enough. They will rebel.
       But out-and-out revolution is unlikely in a modern nation possessed of powerful means to control the masses of “have nots.” Therefore the “have nots” are left only with the techniques of terrorism to make their voices heard. "Haves" in adversarial nations will secretly fund and supply the “have nots” with weapons to gain advantages and to assuage anger among their own "have nots." This is a time-tested formula. 
       Sadly, at this stage of human evolution, there are no other realistic choices.
       Those who believe an end to terrorism can be achieved, believe in a pipe dream. Perhaps modern-day terrorism might have been preventable had our past and present political leaders had any foresight; more importantly, had they had any backbone. But they continue to be slaves to their own greed, and bend to the will of the One World socialist movement (ie: Marxists – are you understanding the real enemy is not Islam? Islamic terrorists are simply the willing “have not” henchmen for the real enemy, Marxism) and that most insidious weapon of mass destruction – Political Correctness.
       As a result of the PC infection, America has so many terrorist sympathizers in its own midst that terrorism eventually will become, as it has most notably in Israel and now in Europe, part of America's everyday reality. It will be here to stay. Our governmental agencies, charged with the defense of the nation, are so hamstrung by PC that, while they may foil one plot in one city, another will soon be born in another city.

       Looking at it coldly, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Just as the price of your freedom to travel freely on the Interstates is a certain number of traffic deaths per year – a price we pay and hardly mention anymore – the price of Western freedom is a certain number of deaths per year attributable to terrorism.
       Wait, I hear you say, these traffic deaths are "accidents" and unavoidable. Rubbish! If the kind of draconian driving laws which would be imposed by a One World government (including the types of cars and how they are powered) were ever implemented, highway death tolls would be drastically reduced. But nobody in America would tolerate such laws. Therefore, we accept higher rates of traffic deaths as part of the price of living the way we want to.
       Restated, the price of your freedom to travel freely on the Interstate is a certain number of traffic deaths per year. The price of maintaining America’s free life style is a certain number of lives per year lost to terrorism.
        Americans who know anything about our history and the price this nation paid in its most precious blood, are not willing to capitulate to world Marxism. Aside from its abject failure, it is bleak, discourages inventiveness, and suffocates the human spirit.

       So how many casualties per year – both military and civilian – is America willing to accept to maintain its freedoms? 100? 1,000? How about 10,000 terror deaths per year? More than three 9/11's. Does that sound horrible? Far too excessive? I don't want to shock you, but here in America, just for the freedom to drive 65+ mph, we turn a blind eye to well over 40,000 deaths per year. 40,000!

          (According to NHTSA statistics, in one recent 
          year there were over 6.8 million major accidents
          on America's highways alone, in which over 41,000
          were killed and another 3.5 million were injured.)
 
       Since you can't have your cake and eat it too, are 10,000 deaths per year for America's freedoms really too much? That's 200 deaths per State. About 17 per month. In many of America’s largest cities, there are more than 17 deaths per month caused by gangs – deaths which don't buy freedom or anything else. I don't hear many Americans squawking about that either.

TEN RIGHTEOUS MEN

If we are endowed by our Creator with the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, but we no longer believe in this Creator, our rights must disappear with Him

The God of the Hebrews was a demanding and a sometimes vengeful God. He sent His angels (emissaries) into Sodom and Gomorrah to learn whether these infamous cities had truly sunk into the abyss of the human id before judging them.

Abraham, a man who was stunningly forthright with his God, used this opportunity to bargain with Yahweh, getting Him to agree that should the angels find 50 righteous men in these cities, He would spare the cities in order to spare the righteous men. Crafty Abe bargained the required number of good men from 50 down to ten. But in the end, the angels found only one; Abraham's nephew Lot. In fact, the angels barely escaped the city with their dignity as they were coveted by aggressive homosexuals.

Therefore the Lord visited His punishment upon the cities, destroying them in what is described as a raining of brimstone, or a nuclear holocaust. Satisfy yourself that this is not “just a myth":
http://www.arkdiscovery.com/sodom_&_gomorrah.htm

Does all this have an eerily familiar ring? Whether or not you believe in Abraham's God, or any God, or no God at all, you can view this Biblical story as a metaphor. But this metaphor is based on real events

Are we living in the new Sodom of our Age? Is not America a Land whose moral sentiment is declining precipitously? Our people have turned gambling, alcohol, drugs, child pornography, homosexuality, et al. into major industries. Instead of Sodom and Gomorrah, we have Frisco, Hollywood, Vegas, Chicago, New York and The Big Easy. Many of our citizens reject the old God and look upon  Mammon, wealth and power as their new gods. Instead of healing the sick, fortunes are made by endlessly treating them. Many reject the very idea of factual history-based education, preferring “feelings”-oriented liberal indoctrination. Hard work is no longer considered an honorable pursuit by elites, rather something for fools. Do we imagine if there is a higher power in this Universe that it could be blind to this?

If God is as angry as we are told He can be, He may just as quickly revoke all the blessings with which He ever endowed a Land. If, as our Constitution so elegantly states, we are endowed with certain inalienable rights by a Creator, but we no longer believe in this Creator, who will guarantee these rights? Perhaps  the Lord will look more kindly upon the jihadis in the houses of Ismael because they still bow to Him.

A God, seeing so many Americans who rebuke you – America, the very Land to which you have given so much – so many who insult you, spit upon you, hate you and do their best to remove your very name and image from every public venue, would you not consider revoking their rights and privileges?

You might once again send your angelic emissaries down – this time to America – to search for ten righteous men. Today, you might judge a nation by its Media. Can your angels find fifty American men or women in Media, or government, or entertainment who can be characterized as truly "righteous"? How about 25? 10? In today's polarized politization of everything, no matter who appears on the screen, 50% of viewers will describe him or her as evil. God’s emissaries would observe all the familiar icons of sleaze we see day in and day out in the Media. They could well conclude our vessel of civilization has been turned upside down so the dregs now settle to the top.

You may not believe there is a God who interacts this directly with Man. But this is where the metaphor comes in. “God” is a metaphor for the natural laws of the universe. In addition to the tangible or obvious elementals of Mass, Energy, Time and Motion, we have the intangible, unpredictable and unknowable factors of Destiny and the Uncertainty Principle. It is through these phenomena that God manifests His Will in our world.

Right now, if you look around at the Big World Picture, America would seem to be at a nexus. Perhaps His emissaries are here, hidden in plain sight among us, searching once again for those ten righteous men. If their search ends the same as in the Biblical event... I don't need to tell you what pain an angry God – or if you prefer – an angry Universe can inflict upon a Land – indeed a world! – peopled by so many smug and ungrateful wretches as we see today. 

I hope you enjoy the smell of brimstone.