"Advising the target of proposed annihilation to respond "proportionately" to a feeble aggressor is so vile as to be almost funny. God's response to those who sow the wind does not seem particularly proportionate.
If Hosea 8:7 gets it right, they shall reap the whirlwind." -- George Jonas
Here's hoping Hamas reaps the whirlwind.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
To the Inevitable Year End Music List Makers....
Boo, hissss. I crap on your lists.
... See, that rhymed.
I like it when my favorite music is all a non-mention in the year-end lists of the hoity-toity music mags. It's a sign of an almost "Bushian" combination of ignorance and self-confidence that these non-mentions make me feel both superior and privileged to the rewards of a secret knowledge that makes the highest audit level of Scientology seem a cheap investment.
In short, I (with only a very few exceptions) look down on music critics like I look at Amway salespeople.
... See, that rhymed.
I like it when my favorite music is all a non-mention in the year-end lists of the hoity-toity music mags. It's a sign of an almost "Bushian" combination of ignorance and self-confidence that these non-mentions make me feel both superior and privileged to the rewards of a secret knowledge that makes the highest audit level of Scientology seem a cheap investment.
In short, I (with only a very few exceptions) look down on music critics like I look at Amway salespeople.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Search Order = Where we are headed....
Search Order -- by Raúl Rivero
What are these gentlemen looking for
in my house?
What is this officer doing
reading the sheet of paper
on which I’ve written
the words “ambition,” “lightness,” and “brittle”?
What hint of conspiracy
speaks to him from the photo without a dedication
of my father in a guayabera (black tie)
in the fields of the National Capitol?
How does he interpret my certificates of divorce?
Where will his techniques of harassment lead him
when he reads the ten-line poems
and discovers the war wounds
of my great-grandfather?
Eight policemen
are examining the texts and drawings of my daughters,
and are infiltrating themselves into my emotional networks
and want to know where little Andrea sleeps
and what does her asthma have to do
with my carpets.
They want the code of a message from Zucu
in the upper part
of a cryptic text (here a light triumphal smile
of the comrade):
“Castles with music box. I won’t let the boy
hang out with the boogeyman. Jennie.”
A specialist in aporia came,
a literary critic with the rank of interim corporal
who examined at the point of a gun
the hills of poetry books.
Eight policemen
in my house
with a search order,
a clean operation,
a full victory
for the vanguard of the proletariat
who confiscated my Consul typewriter,
one hundred forty-two blank pages
and a sad and personal heap of papers
--the most perishable of the perishable
from this summer.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
CIA Recruitment on the Radio -- What????
Yep, folks. File this under more "Stuff I Just Don't Get".
And I don't know 'bout you, but I don't really feel any safer, now that I know this:
There are CIA Recruitment ads on radio (610 WTVN), complete with martial music and "be-the-best-you-can-be" kinda crap, website address, AND they tout that The Company is now an "Equal Opportunity Employer".
Wow.
Again, don't know 'bout you guys, but I grew up with the John Le Carre' "Smiley" novels, Graham Greene, Frederick Forsyth, Edward S. Aarons, the best: Adam Hall's "Quiller" and more, and I don't see my CIA operatives as average people.
I want my spy to be a 150+ IQ MIT grad, recruited by his/her professor with a whisper-in-the-ear out of an IVY League Masters program.
I want them to be ultra-smart persons of questionable ethics and morals who don't mind waterboarding the occasional terrorist/informant/captive for the "greater good", and who are always up for a little "wet-work" on the side.
The Republic is in serious trouble and the CIA is now an Equal Opportunity Employer.
We truly do not want to be an independent nation much longer.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Ohio Spends 7 MIL on Rigged Bid for Breath Testers....
State of Ohio to spend 7 Million on 700 Breath Alcohol testing machines. AND, guess what, the bid was RIGGED.
Furthermore, it appears that the machine is unreliable.
They must be planning on making their money back pretty quickly.
Just like the decision to use this grant money, the DUI game is rigged to make money for the state.
This is NOT about highway safety. It is only about REVENUE.
Furthermore, it appears that the machine is unreliable.
They must be planning on making their money back pretty quickly.
Just like the decision to use this grant money, the DUI game is rigged to make money for the state.
This is NOT about highway safety. It is only about REVENUE.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Social Security -- The Biggest Ponzi Scheme....
From The Mises Institute:
Wall Street executive Bernard Madoff was recently arrested after admitting to his sons and later, to the FBI, that he was running a gigantic Ponzi scheme -- to the tune of $50 billion. He is now being sued by a number of investors.
Since he voluntarily admitted to the crime, he sets a good example for individuals like Michael Astrue, commissioner of the Social Security Administration.
With a budget of over $600 billion and more than 62,000 workers, the SSA is one of the largest pyramid-Ponzi schemes in existence.
Yet there is one difference: contributions to social security are compulsory, whereas Madoff's firm didn't coerce starry-eyed investors. While neither has the moral high ground, if Mardoff is going down -- to be consistent -- so should the SSA.
Wall Street executive Bernard Madoff was recently arrested after admitting to his sons and later, to the FBI, that he was running a gigantic Ponzi scheme -- to the tune of $50 billion. He is now being sued by a number of investors.
Since he voluntarily admitted to the crime, he sets a good example for individuals like Michael Astrue, commissioner of the Social Security Administration.
With a budget of over $600 billion and more than 62,000 workers, the SSA is one of the largest pyramid-Ponzi schemes in existence.
Yet there is one difference: contributions to social security are compulsory, whereas Madoff's firm didn't coerce starry-eyed investors. While neither has the moral high ground, if Mardoff is going down -- to be consistent -- so should the SSA.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Tips on How to Discourage Burglers....
Under the "Things I don't understand" label.
The Columbus Dispatch has an article on "Tips on How to Discourage Burglers".
Nowhere in the article do they mention shooting the burgler, cutting off his head, and hanging said head from the railing/balustrade/overhang of your front porch along with a sign that simply says: "Burgler".
IMNSHO, that should be "tip #1".
The Columbus Dispatch has an article on "Tips on How to Discourage Burglers".
Nowhere in the article do they mention shooting the burgler, cutting off his head, and hanging said head from the railing/balustrade/overhang of your front porch along with a sign that simply says: "Burgler".
IMNSHO, that should be "tip #1".
Monday, December 8, 2008
An Open Letter of Apology....
Dear Mr. Perot,
We were wrong. You were right.
We are very sorry.
Sincerely,
The American People
WTS says: "And we laughed him away, because he dared think us intelligent enough to be interested in the statistics that were spelling out our national peril. That was his big mistake. If he'd only put the damned charts on the side of a NASCAR, he'd've served two terms."
CFG says: "We have a problem created by people spending money that they had no hope of ever paying back. The government is solving the problem by spending money that we have no hope of ever paying back."
The Issue is Main-stream Islam's support for Terror....
A great article from Harold Evans at US News and World Report.
I think the most important issue relating to World-wide Islamic Terrorism is the support that Radical Islam gets from "mainstream" Islam -- along with almost NO condemnation of the radical element's plans for exectuting a cycle of terroristic violence that they promise will end only when Islam rules all people.
Mosques all over the world collect money for supposedly peaceful purposes that finds its way into the hands of terrorists. This is documented. It is not even a secret to the Muslims who are encouraged to give by their leaders.
Even in democratic host countries, Imams preach the establishment of Sharia Law and the eventual subjection of non-Muslims into Dhimmi-hood.
No other organized and supposedly mainstream Religion has these world-wide problems. You can't even compare any other religion's hard-line supporters to Islam's.
For those of you who point the finger at "extremists" of ANY religion, that's not the deal here.
Actually, there are so many different sects within major "religion" - especially in "Christianity", and for the sake of labeling, I don't see a lot of these as "Christian" - that even the label of "extreme" is not a good indicator.
For instance, many would think the "Amish Friends" or lighter versions of the same an "extreme", or the Bahai, but you would be hard pressed to find more peaceful people.
And even "Fundamentalism" is a misnomer in this "extreme" usage, as the church of my family (GARBC Baptist) is "Fundamental", but you would be hard pressed again, to find a more peaceful people.
Just because someone believes that the Bible says that you, as an unbeliever, are doomed to Hell, and feels a need to warn you about that danger, doesn't predispose them to violence. And while you might find them smuggling Bibles into China, you won't find them blowing up a cafe' of "unbelievers" -- or bombing someone else's church.
So, again, I think that at some point you have to point the finger, and say "You people are not policing your own. What is your problem?"
That is the question you need to ask mainstream Islam.
I think the most important issue relating to World-wide Islamic Terrorism is the support that Radical Islam gets from "mainstream" Islam -- along with almost NO condemnation of the radical element's plans for exectuting a cycle of terroristic violence that they promise will end only when Islam rules all people.
Mosques all over the world collect money for supposedly peaceful purposes that finds its way into the hands of terrorists. This is documented. It is not even a secret to the Muslims who are encouraged to give by their leaders.
Even in democratic host countries, Imams preach the establishment of Sharia Law and the eventual subjection of non-Muslims into Dhimmi-hood.
No other organized and supposedly mainstream Religion has these world-wide problems. You can't even compare any other religion's hard-line supporters to Islam's.
For those of you who point the finger at "extremists" of ANY religion, that's not the deal here.
Actually, there are so many different sects within major "religion" - especially in "Christianity", and for the sake of labeling, I don't see a lot of these as "Christian" - that even the label of "extreme" is not a good indicator.
For instance, many would think the "Amish Friends" or lighter versions of the same an "extreme", or the Bahai, but you would be hard pressed to find more peaceful people.
And even "Fundamentalism" is a misnomer in this "extreme" usage, as the church of my family (GARBC Baptist) is "Fundamental", but you would be hard pressed again, to find a more peaceful people.
Just because someone believes that the Bible says that you, as an unbeliever, are doomed to Hell, and feels a need to warn you about that danger, doesn't predispose them to violence. And while you might find them smuggling Bibles into China, you won't find them blowing up a cafe' of "unbelievers" -- or bombing someone else's church.
So, again, I think that at some point you have to point the finger, and say "You people are not policing your own. What is your problem?"
That is the question you need to ask mainstream Islam.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Union Concessions tend to hurt retirees more....
Retirees have virtually no defense against the broken "promises" of their employer.
What bothers me about "union concessions", is that they always seem to be tied to the retirement benefits of workers who have already retired.
It's like getting a 30-year loan from your bank and five years into it, the bank comes back and doubles your interest rate -- it's just damn unfair.
Some of these guys were employed way before 401Ks and Roths. And here they are with half the retirement they were promised and little to no health care.
Life's a bitch -- and then you retire, evidently.
Of course, the way things are headed - and fast - it really won't make any difference. Retirement and health benefits will soon be a part of our Golden Age past....
What bothers me about "union concessions", is that they always seem to be tied to the retirement benefits of workers who have already retired.
It's like getting a 30-year loan from your bank and five years into it, the bank comes back and doubles your interest rate -- it's just damn unfair.
Some of these guys were employed way before 401Ks and Roths. And here they are with half the retirement they were promised and little to no health care.
Life's a bitch -- and then you retire, evidently.
Of course, the way things are headed - and fast - it really won't make any difference. Retirement and health benefits will soon be a part of our Golden Age past....
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Evil Hates Goodness....
The Rabbi and the Terrorists By Dennis Prager
It was obvious to observers around the world that one of the designated targets of the Pakistani Islamist terrorists was the Mumbai Chabad House, the one Jewish center in Mumbai. The 10 Islamic terrorists who came from Pakistan to India chose their targets with great care.
If one assumes that the terrorists' primary goals were to destabilize India, weaken growing Indian-Pakistani cooperation in fighting terrorism, and greatly increase Indian-Pakistani tension, hopefully to the point of military war between the two countries, every one of the targets made strategic sense. Slaughtering as many people as possible in India's major economic center, including as many foreign tourists as possible at Mumbai's finest hotels, also made sense.
But one target seemed to make little sense. In fact, until the attack was over people were uncertain whether the terrorists' attack on the Jewish center known as the Chabad House was part of the original plan or chosen spontaneously. Only when the lone terrorist who was captured told his interrogators that the Chabad House was planned a year earlier was it indisputable that killing the Rabbi, his wife, their children and any other Jews present was part of the plan.
The question is why?
Why would a terrorist group of Islamists from Pakistan whose primary goal is to have Pakistan gain control of the third of Kashmir that belongs to India and therefore aimed to destabilize India's major city devote so much of its efforts -- 20 percent of its force of 10 gunmen whose stated goal was to kill 5,000 -- to killing a rabbi and any Jews with him?
The question echoes one from World War II: Why did Hitler devote so much time, money, and manpower in order to murder every Jewish man, woman, and child in every country the Nazis occupied? Why did Hitler -- as documented by the late historian Lucy Dawidowicz in her aptly named book "The War against the Jews" -- weaken the Nazi war effort by diverting money, troops, and military vehicles from fighting the Allies to rounding up Jews and shipping them to death camps?
From the perspective of political scientists, historians, and contemporary journalists, the answer to these questions is not rational. But the non-rationality of an answer is not synonymous with its non-validity.
For the Islamists, as for the Nazis, the destruction of the Jews -- and since 1948, the Jewish state -- is central to their worldview.
If anyone has a better explanation for why Pakistani terrorists, preoccupied with destabilizing India, would expend so much effort at finding the one Jewish center in a country that is essentially devoid of Jews, I would like to hear it.
With all the Pakistani Islamists' hatred of Hindus, they did not attack one Hindu temple in India's major city.
With all their hatred of Christian infidels, the terrorists did not seek out one of the 700,000 Christians in Mumbai.
To reinforce my point, imagine a Basque separatist terrorist organization attacking Madrid. Would the terrorists take time out to murder all those in the Madrid Chabad House? The idea is ludicrous. But no one seems to find it odd that that Pakistani Muslim terrorists who hate India and want it to give up control of Indian Kashmir would send two of its 10 terrorists to kill perhaps the only rabbi in Mumbai. As Newsweek reported during the siege, "Given that Orthodox Jews were being held at gunpoint by mujahideen (sic), it seemed unlikely there would be survivors." Newsweek, like just about everyone else, simply assumes Islamists will murder Jews whenever and wherever possible.
They are right.
For years I have warned that great evils often begin with the murder of Jews, and therefore non-Jews who dismiss Jew-hatred (aka anti-Semitism, aka anti-Zionism), will learn too late that Jew- and Israel-haters only begin with Jews but never end with them. When Israeli Jews were almost the only targets of Muslim terrorists, the world dismissed it as a Jewish or Israeli problem. Then it became an American and European and Filipino and Thai and Indonesian and Hindu problem.
Two final points:
One is that it is exquisitely fitting that the same week the murders in Mumbai were taking place, the United Nations General Assembly passed six more anti-Israel resolutions. As it has for decades, the U.N. has again sanctioned hatred for a good and decent country as small on the map of the world as the Chabad House is on the map of Mumbai.
Two: Statements from Chabad in reaction to the torture-murders of a 28-year-old Chabad rabbi and his wife called on humanity to react to this evil "with random acts of kindness." Evil hates goodness. That's why the terrorists targeted a Chabad Rabbi and his wife.
Copyright 2008, Creators Syndicate Inc.
It was obvious to observers around the world that one of the designated targets of the Pakistani Islamist terrorists was the Mumbai Chabad House, the one Jewish center in Mumbai. The 10 Islamic terrorists who came from Pakistan to India chose their targets with great care.
If one assumes that the terrorists' primary goals were to destabilize India, weaken growing Indian-Pakistani cooperation in fighting terrorism, and greatly increase Indian-Pakistani tension, hopefully to the point of military war between the two countries, every one of the targets made strategic sense. Slaughtering as many people as possible in India's major economic center, including as many foreign tourists as possible at Mumbai's finest hotels, also made sense.
But one target seemed to make little sense. In fact, until the attack was over people were uncertain whether the terrorists' attack on the Jewish center known as the Chabad House was part of the original plan or chosen spontaneously. Only when the lone terrorist who was captured told his interrogators that the Chabad House was planned a year earlier was it indisputable that killing the Rabbi, his wife, their children and any other Jews present was part of the plan.
The question is why?
Why would a terrorist group of Islamists from Pakistan whose primary goal is to have Pakistan gain control of the third of Kashmir that belongs to India and therefore aimed to destabilize India's major city devote so much of its efforts -- 20 percent of its force of 10 gunmen whose stated goal was to kill 5,000 -- to killing a rabbi and any Jews with him?
The question echoes one from World War II: Why did Hitler devote so much time, money, and manpower in order to murder every Jewish man, woman, and child in every country the Nazis occupied? Why did Hitler -- as documented by the late historian Lucy Dawidowicz in her aptly named book "The War against the Jews" -- weaken the Nazi war effort by diverting money, troops, and military vehicles from fighting the Allies to rounding up Jews and shipping them to death camps?
From the perspective of political scientists, historians, and contemporary journalists, the answer to these questions is not rational. But the non-rationality of an answer is not synonymous with its non-validity.
For the Islamists, as for the Nazis, the destruction of the Jews -- and since 1948, the Jewish state -- is central to their worldview.
If anyone has a better explanation for why Pakistani terrorists, preoccupied with destabilizing India, would expend so much effort at finding the one Jewish center in a country that is essentially devoid of Jews, I would like to hear it.
With all the Pakistani Islamists' hatred of Hindus, they did not attack one Hindu temple in India's major city.
With all their hatred of Christian infidels, the terrorists did not seek out one of the 700,000 Christians in Mumbai.
To reinforce my point, imagine a Basque separatist terrorist organization attacking Madrid. Would the terrorists take time out to murder all those in the Madrid Chabad House? The idea is ludicrous. But no one seems to find it odd that that Pakistani Muslim terrorists who hate India and want it to give up control of Indian Kashmir would send two of its 10 terrorists to kill perhaps the only rabbi in Mumbai. As Newsweek reported during the siege, "Given that Orthodox Jews were being held at gunpoint by mujahideen (sic), it seemed unlikely there would be survivors." Newsweek, like just about everyone else, simply assumes Islamists will murder Jews whenever and wherever possible.
They are right.
For years I have warned that great evils often begin with the murder of Jews, and therefore non-Jews who dismiss Jew-hatred (aka anti-Semitism, aka anti-Zionism), will learn too late that Jew- and Israel-haters only begin with Jews but never end with them. When Israeli Jews were almost the only targets of Muslim terrorists, the world dismissed it as a Jewish or Israeli problem. Then it became an American and European and Filipino and Thai and Indonesian and Hindu problem.
Two final points:
One is that it is exquisitely fitting that the same week the murders in Mumbai were taking place, the United Nations General Assembly passed six more anti-Israel resolutions. As it has for decades, the U.N. has again sanctioned hatred for a good and decent country as small on the map of the world as the Chabad House is on the map of Mumbai.
Two: Statements from Chabad in reaction to the torture-murders of a 28-year-old Chabad rabbi and his wife called on humanity to react to this evil "with random acts of kindness." Evil hates goodness. That's why the terrorists targeted a Chabad Rabbi and his wife.
Copyright 2008, Creators Syndicate Inc.
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