10.18.2006 | God works in mysterious ways...or not

I recently received a well-intentioned email from a friend who is a devout Christian. It was one of those treacly things about how God is always watching over us, in matters small, and great.

The theme of this particular message was about individuals who might have died on 9/11/01 but for happenstance. Here's a sample of the things that prevented a small group of people from being in the wrong place at the wrong time:

...the head of a company survived 9/11 because his son started kindergarten.

Another fellow was alive because it was his turn to bring donuts.

One woman was late because her alarm clock didn't go off in time.

One was late because of being stuck on the NJ Turnpike because of an auto accident.

You get the gist. Just another day, with its random (or not) intersections of events. But this message concludes with this thought, that these events are not at all random:

Next time your morning seems to be going wrong, the children are slow getting dressed, you can't seem to find the car keys, you hit every traffic light, don't get mad or frustrated; God is at work watching over you.

Now that's nice work if you can get it: God at work "watching over you." This is a school of belief in some Christian circles. That God is a personal God, a kind of celestial butler, who takes care of your every need and keeps you out of harm's way. I suppose that it's a small leap from Buddy Christ to God the Butler.

This kind of piety makes me sick unto puking. Does anyone truly think that those who did not make their appointed rounds with death, by sheer happenstance, were any more worthy than the 3,000 or so that did die that heinous day? Well, the usual answer by the pious crowd is the unanswerable "God works in mysterious ways."

Look, I happen to believe that God exists, and that he is the alpha and the omega. As for everything in between the beginning and end, it is simply beyond reason to think that those who lived but should have died on 9/11 have some special purpose in God's plan. Or that those who died are, as well, simply filling their assigned roles in that plan. Assuming such a plan exists in the first place.

I believe that God's given us the keys to the place while the big guy is off on some cosmic beach doing his thing. The nine-dollar term for those keys? Free will. Those who died on 9/11 were killed by terrorists that we were unable to detect and stop in time.

It is always on us that anyone dies "before their time" (another holdover from a more pious age) of anything but old age. Crime victim? We, i.e. our society, did not catch the criminal in time. Malnutrition? We did not assure that all have sufficient food. Flood victims? Why do we allow idiots to build homes in flood plains, anyway? And the list is endless...

Those who lived through 9/11 by accident, as it were? Lucky. No cosmic plan. Am I certain? Not quite 100%; it is possible that God selected those whose schedules were disrupted, and who survived. Possible; in the same sense as it is possible that all the oxygen molecules in the room I am in could, through random motion, cluster in one corner while I suffocate to death.

10.12.2006 | Diplospeak

I used to have a lot of respect for Colin Powell. He's from the Bronx, after all, and went to City College (which was my second choice, and not shabby, either). And, he had a good career, to say the least. Until he became our Secretary of State.

Well, I also used to respect Condi Rice, and then she spoiled it by becoming...yep. Now, she apparently does not know the difference between terrorists and human beings. She accepted an invitation to be suckered by the Palestinians, a despicable bunch of terror-loving mokes if ever there was one.

And here's what she had to say, as reported by y-net:"

The Palestinian people deserve a better life, a life that is rooted in liberty, democracy, uncompromised by violence and terrorism, unburdened by corruption and misrule and forever free of the daily humiliation of occupation," she told a dinner organized by the American Task Force on Palestine.

This is nonsense, plain and simple. The only "humiliation" visited on the paleos is from their own terrorism and inability to live in peace.

The paleos are ruled by terrorists, who have the support of a large majority of the people. The paleos love terror, and have yet to recognize that a Jewish state could possibly exist in the Middle East.

The Palestinians are not worthy of a state unless and until they give up on terror. Hamas, and Fatah, merely disagree on how best to get rid of all the Jews in the Middle East. Condi Rice has now joined them, by expressing sympathy towards those who deserve none.

Shame on us for not having the courage to simply tell these asswipes in Palestine, "until you formally renounce terrorism, recognize Israel, and accept that there's going to be a Jewish state in the Middle East, we Americans are never going to lift one finger to help you."

Don't hold your breath for someone like Rice, who has sold out to the Arabists in the State Department, to speak this kind of truth.

10.10.2006 | We already know what did not work

So, what does the North Korean nuclear test have to do with Israel or Jews? Just everything. Do we think that Arab and Muslim terrorists will not buy from the North Koreans because they are not Muslims? And a rogue state that is insanely hard up for cash wouldn't ask too many questions if some moke with a rag on his head stops by with a few hundred million in oil revenues.

The North Korean nuclear test was provocative; it was intended to be. The Hermit Kingdom is testing us, and, so far, we are what the Red Chinese, now our "friends" call a "paper tiger."

The missiles the NKs fired last July 4? "Unacceptable." The perhaps-nuclear test this week? "Unacceptable." What has not worked in stopping these "unacceptable" events has been diplomacy and engagement of Dear Leader Kim.

Despite the flashing neon signs to the effect that diplomacy will not work on this bunch of lunatics, all the usual suspects are still urging more of the same. The New York Times in their editorial whines that it "has been months since negotiators even sat down at the table." Yes, that's the ticket. If we could just find the right shape for that table...

Absent bombing North Korea back to the stone age (oops, forward to the stone age...) our options are limited but we do have them. Just not the ones that the diplomats and appeasers in Congress and the academy would have us exercise.

The current path, going to the United Nations, is a total waste of time. The Security Council is unlikely to do anything meaningful that we could not more readily accomplish by pressuring the North's protector, China.

Let me modify this: the Security Council may issue fine-sounding rhetoric, but that's all it ever will be. Virtually since the first Korean war 55 years ago, the only time that there's been meaningful UN-sanctioned action is when the Russkies go out for some borscht and vodka.

I don't mean that the North Korean problem is easily solved. I do mean that we should not waste any further time or money appeasing them, a la Clinton. His administration's approach was promise anything just to kick the crisis far enough down the road so that they don't have to deal with it. Monica was much more fun, anyway...

The closest I've seen to a realistic proposal so far comes from James Robbins at NRO:

...the U.S. should do what it should have been doing all along: put pressure on Kim’s regime in every way possible. Sabotage, espionage, information operations, subversion, deception — the works.

For those who say that such methods are too destabilizing and will interrupt the diplomatic process, I say: 1) They are supposed to be destabilizing; 2) The diplomatic process has brought us to this point, so why are we so enamored of it?

Stability in Northeast Asia is every much as over-rated as is stability in the Middle East. When a situation becomes unacceptable, in the everyday plain sense meaning of the word, and not how it is used in diplomatic doublespeak, then it is time for a change.

Change means some form of destablization. For North Korea, now is not too late. Tomorrow may well be.

10.09.2006 | "Unacceptable"

Growing up in the Bronx, we weren't what you might call sophisticates. We knew that wine came in two colors, and that the beer you drank was the brand that was cheapest. Why else would anyone drink Pabst? We also didn't know very much about the so-called finer things in life.

But we did know how to spot bullshit. We knew, with killer instinct, when a guy was lying through his teeth. We had especially good radar that told us when so-called adults were being what has come to be called "nuanced." Which to us would have been, had we known that French word "nuance" in the first place, just the same as bullshit.

Now comes North Korea's nuclear test and the cockroach posing as the Dear Leader (what, Team America isn't true? Say it ain't so...). Well, we would have known how to handle a moke like Kim Jong Il, but he's got a million-man army, so that approach won't work, either...

Now to the bullshit department. Our dear leader Dubya, along with other dear leaders in various parts of the world, have deemed the Cockroach's test "unacceptable." Well, back in the day, this word meant that you would do something to change that which was not acceptable to you. With your fists, or rocks, or a baseball bat. But you absolutely would not say that something was unacceptable and then just keep talking about it.

Because that is exactly what we are doing. Talking. Talking. And, the gravest threat of all, referring the whole thing to the Useless Nation's insecurity council for more...talking.

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't the toughest kid around, and I didn't hang out with the toughest gang. We knew our limits. And it is for precisely that reason that we chose our words with care. If we could do something to change that which was not acceptable to us, we did so. If we could not, we basically shut up.

Message to Bush and, especially, all the asshat diplomats and politicians out there: if we are not prepared to actually do something to disarm North Korea, then let's simply stop flinging words about as if they had no meaning.

There is no honor in laying down verbal gauntlets if we are not prepared to back them with action and not just more tough-sounding but empty words.

10.07.2006 | Right up there with "black is white"

Consider this from a "nationally recognized employment law expert" named Gregg, in his advice to a Wisconsin state legislative committee (as reported by the LaCrosse Tribune):

Gregg, who is white, said the point system aimed at veterans helped launch his career and that affirmative action "helps everyone" by ensuring equal access to opportunity in the hiring process. Without affirmative action, hiring decisions largely would be based on favoritism, he said.

There are two parts to this Orwellian hash. The first is that preferential hiring of veterans who are not disabled is a good thing. More on this below.

What is truly Orwellian is the notion that "affirmative action" somehow, ensures "equal access" to oppotunity. Wasn't the very nature of affirmative action to give unearned preference to approved groups in order to compensate for real or perceived discrimination? Well, that's the nose of the camel peeking under the tent, as they say. It isn't long until the whole smelly beast is inside.

Well, the smelly beast that is racialism in the form of unearned preferences in hiring has now convinced at least one idiot that "inequality" is "equality." I don't agree that any group should have an unearned advantage in this day and age. But I can understand those who sincerely believe that certain groups still need such preferences in hiring.

Regardless of what I or you believe, however, it is impossible in logic to give one group preference in hiring and then turn around and claim that all groups have "equal access" to opportunity. Both things can not be true.

Such is the nature of those who still patronize blacks and other groups by telling them that they are not good enough to compete on their own. Keep on telling them that, and there's a better chance that they never will be good enough.

As for veteran's preference, that is different. These are men (mostly, but not exclusively) who have served their nation. Many have put their lives on the line in combat. They deserve preference; they've earned it.

Contrast this earned preference with those who were born with what is now the politically correct set of genes or ethnicity. Such preferences are inimical to liberty, they are unamerican, and should be ended forthwith.