End of an Era?

Much of the noise in Washington today is budget-oriented, the fiscal-cliff stuff and the inability of the parties to dissolve the gridlock associated with the bankruptcy into which the nation is devolving. This is the most important item for the attention of the president and Congress, and President Obama is back on the campaign trail ostensibly to stir up the citizenry to the point that it will bring pressure on not him but the Congress – okay, the nasty republicans – to just DO something, actually whatever he says.

Much of the noise in Washington today has to do with the “Benghazi Massacre” and especially the sex-scandals associated with it – titillating stuff that will eventuate in a bunch of hearings, though currently it should take a back-seat to the fiscal problems. UN Ambassador Rice has already made the deadly mistake of meeting with republican senators in an effort to smooth the way to a successful nomination as State Secretary. These meetings usually take place AFTER a nomination, not before. She just dug herself a deeper hole, especially since other matters of disqualification will probably soon be front-and-center.

The greater worry, however, lies in the demographics that are driving the nation into a culture wholly foreign to that which has made it the inordinate success of more than two centuries. The brief success-description is tied up in the term Western Civilization, involving economics, art, education and a distinct emphasis on personal accomplishment and accountability as impacted by the freedom to take risk and achieve.

The History Channel has just done a series on the men (not officially in politics) who made the country what it is – Rockefeller, Carnegie, Tesla, Edison, Morgan, Ford, for instance. These people, most of whom amassed great wealth, were ruthless competitors in many ways and had to be finally regulated to greater and lesser degrees by government, but they got things done. Now, people like them are practically regulated out of existence.

The most popular cultural pastime currently is the total denigration of the white male, the collective person driving Western Civilization. He is vilified as insensitive, i.e., unable to “care,” at least in the way and degree possessed by women and minority groups. He is the most tragic figure caught up in the incredibly stupid emphasis on diversity and a multiculturalism designed to bring him and everyone else down to the level of the lowest common denominator.

Political correctness militates against saying it, but the fact is that the white male (white people generally) is becoming not an endangered species in this country but a species destined for falling off the cultural cliff and leaving the nation in the hands of people without the tradition of Western Civilization, ergo, the drive and background to move forward.

The major culprit lies in the demographics. The U.S. birthrate has fallen to 63.2 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age. By contrast, that figure in 1957 was 122.7 (Pew Research Center). This has to do with mostly white women since whites make up about 75% of the population. Indeed, the current rate barely sustains the whole population, much less just the whites.

In 2007 (last available figures), there were 480 abortions among black women for each 1,000 live births (32%). Among white women, it was 144 abortions for each 1,000 live births (13%). This amounts to 312 abortions for each live birth in the two groups, 23%. Whites are headed into minority status, while blacks, already a minority, will join whites in becoming less a part of most power structures. In 2010, immigrants represented about 13% of the population while foreign-born mothers accounted for 23% of all births. The conclusion is obvious.

Most European birth-rates are already below the level of sustainability for what might be called the Caucasian factor. This will happen soon in this country as the white male (Western Civilization) becomes more marginalized. In a sense, this was demonstrated last year when the president completely bypassed Congress (predominantly white males) and sent three women (now a protected species though in the majority) to the United Nations to gain permission to attack Libya. The result of that incredibly un-Constitutional and now obviously insane escapade is obvious.

The election just completed involved the tipping-point for the near and probably distant future of the nation as it slides away from its Western Civilization roots and into a European style of governance – unemployment rate standing at 11.7% now, much worse in countries like Spain and Greece. These were once proud nations that couldn’t stand prosperity or rid themselves of corruption and thus slid from Western Civilization into socialism. This will be the U.S. ere long.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Sports-Corruption Redux

It seems that the athletic departments of the Universities of Kentucky and Tennessee are competing to see which can provide the best soap opera in town. Their football coaches have already been fired, attendance at games has dropped dramatically, especially at Kentucky, and there seems to be a general malaise connected to each. Okay…the attendance at Tennessee averaged only 94,642 per game (102,000 capacity) last year but is somewhat worse than that this year.

It’s all about money. Translated, this often means it’s all about incompetence and overstaffing, to say nothing of salaries bloated all out of proportion. The guy in the hot seat is the athletic director, though the presidents are complicit in whatever he messes up. Not many years ago, the president of Vanderbilt did away with the athletic director’s office and put accountability in his own office.

Tennessee’s athletic department is enjoying a current deficit for 2011-12 of $3.98 million. The reason: It’s in the process of paying buyouts to the former coaches of football, basketball and baseball, as well as the former athletic director, all of whom were fired and paid handsomely for the privilege of getting the axe. The football coach, Philip Fulmer, had a 152-52 record over 17 years but that wasn’t enough to save him, fired in the middle of the 2008 season and paid $6 million in the bargain.

Making matters worse in the current firing of Tennessee’s Derek Dooley, the university must pay him a cool $5 million, thereby increasing overnight its deficit to some $9 million. Added to the millions he’s been paid during his three-year tenure, this little nest-egg means he will never have to work again unless he just wants to.

There’s practically a cottage industry conducted by athletic directors and coaches in the matter of hijacking the taxpayers’ money, using the pink-slip method. Kentucky football coach Joker Phillips (three seasons) is being paid $2.55 million for being fired but athletic director Mitch Barnhart will probably earn a bonus for being smart enough to fire Phillips for just that paltry amount.

Barnhart was smart enough to fire former basketball coach Billy Gillispie (two-year tenure – “he didn’t fit”) three years ago and the university had to pay Gillispie (and lawyers) only $3 million for that privilege, even though, unbelievably, there had never been a signed contract. Getting rid of two coaches in a four-year period for only $5.55 million marks Barnhart as surely one of the wisest athletic directors in the nation. It’s a shame he isn’t teaching in the economics department instead of wasting his administrative genius on sports.

Contracts mean nothing in college sports. In order to come to UK, Barnhart was required to pay $100,000 to Oregon State for jumping his contract. Not to worry, UK paid that $100,000 for Barnhart, so he’s cost the institution $5.65 million…BUT UK has not been in trouble with the NCAA during his tenure, meaning he’s been smart enough to have someone see that violations don’t occur…or at least can’t be discovered...so far.

UK football coach Hal Mumme was fired in 2001 (before Barnhart’s tenure) and paid $1 million for that privilege. His immediate predecessor, Bill Curry, was fired but only for a measly $600,000. So…in the last 16 or so years, UK has paid a total of $7.25 million in buyouts to coaches it hired to extended contracts and then cancelled according to specifications noted in those contracts. Coaches and AD’s are smart enough to cover their backs financially.

UK paid Memphis State $200,000 to buy out current basketball coach John Calipari’s contract when Calipari came to UK in 2010, jumping his contract. So…the actual amount paid as an absolute loss financially stands at about seven-and-a-half million big ones. This is only what’s known about, considering the assistants who will be losing their jobs, but it’s only money. What could that squandered $7.5 million have meant academically, nearly all of it in just the last four years?

Just before he retired in 2011, UK Prexy Lee Todd, who had become Barnhart’s close friend (and benefactor), raised Barnhart’s salary by 26% to $600,000 (plus a myriad of “incentive” bonuses already in place) and locked him into his position until 2019, so firing him would be extremely costly.

On the basis of Wall Street establishments regarding huge bonuses for incompetence, Barnhart would probably own part of the UK campus by now. Currently, he’s among the highest paid AD’s in the SEC (second-highest last year).

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Benghazi

Benghazi was a massacre –
Some claimed it did not have to be,
Forewarned that it could well occur,
Officials met…did not agree;
For days and weeks the plea was raised
By those upon the Libyan sand
For greater force as buildings blazed,
Explosions heard throughout the land.

But president stood firm, declared
That brutal thugs were neutralized,
So, four who died were ill-prepared,
Their danger hardly realized
By those in power who would not heed
The warnings by those on the ground…
By bureaucrats who felt no need,
Who felt the warnings were not sound.

Predictably, the hammer fell,
Surprising no one on the ground,
As torture, murder then befell
Americans to terror bound;
But president could not admit
Assassination had not meant
That terrorism was forfeit
To one act of his intellect.

And so deception slyly drawn
Was foisted on the citizens,
The word was passed by just next dawn
Protesters there were denizens
Inflamed by film on Internet
Insulting their iconic god.
And then their forces, grimly met,
Grew violent to praise their god.

And praising Allah meant bloodshed
By Muslims throughout all the world,
But in Benghazi those four dead
Were not the targets of rocks hurled;
No…they were victims of attack
By terrorists well-trained to kill
And burn the buildings fiery black
With rockets, bullets and great skill.

The president knew within hours
Of all that happened in the night,
Indeed, officials watched for hours
The scene unfold, sometimes by sight
Through circling drone surveilling there,
The flames engulfing Consulate,
And dialogue with others there
Attacked elsewhere, who feared their fate.

Elections were two months away,
The president had campaigned hard
And tried with fervor to allay
The fear that jihad was not barred
By him or any other powers,
That terrorists still held full sway.
Benghazi, though, in those sad hours
Proved he was wrong, with hell to pay.

So…on next morn he made a speech,
Along with State Department head,
To the effect a U.S. leech
Had made a film that caused four dead;
It was a lie, as he knew well
But took that line for weeks to come,
It was a lie straight out of hell,
Should earn impeachment…thought by some.

United Nations was the scene,
The place to set the record straight
Two weeks beyond the deaths obscene,
Where life jihad would desecrate;
The president there made his speech
And blamed the film for frightful acts
And there the truth he did impeach –
His speech devoid of just the facts.

Perhaps he thought the people dumb
Or not concerned with truth and such
Or simply in recession – numb,
About most things not caring much;
He could be right, with nothing changed,
He could be wrong, still nothing changed,
But his response, so ill-arranged,
Will make a legacy deranged.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Sin-Tax Rides Again

Hunting for new revenue, the state administration (Kentucky) is angling for all the new taxes it can get away with. A possibility that has been floated is the increasing of taxes on a pack of cigarettes from 60 cents to $1.00. There’s no argument with this except that it just represents another example of the class warfare that marks the federal government these days, too. Let the smokers pay the freight!

The lead editorial in the Lexington Herald-Leader of 20 November was highly in favor of increasing the cigarette “sin tax” by the 50% mentioned above. Here is a claim in the editorial: “Type 2 diabetes is part of a grisly smorgasbord of disabling ailments that studies have linked to smoking.” Yeah…smoking contributes to heart disease, lung disease, throat disease and just about all other diseases anyone can imagine…probably a bad appendix, too.

However, the paper has been diligent in broadcasting the fact that OBESITY is a prime cause of diabetes, especially in Kentucky. Actually, obesity is a prime factor causing diabetes throughout the nation, whether people smoke or not. A prime factor in causing obesity/diabetes is the fact that the people – all people – have the nagging habit of eating, maybe half or more of them eating too much for their own good…so what else is new?

Would the obesity/diabetes problem be solved by installing a tax on food? Why not? Make the tax steep enough and folks will eat less, thus lowering their disposition toward diabetes. Of course, raising or leveling taxes on anything is designed to enhance revenue, meaning that if the tax discourages consumption the tax is useless or at least much smaller than anticipated.

Since such a tax would be much more discriminatory on retired folks or disabled folks or lazy folks, the old class warfare comes into play again. Or…why not base both the cigarette and food tax (and probably every tax) on the body-mass-index of people, thus making it attractive to be slim? Scanners in food-stores could instantly determine the BMI and charges adjusted accordingly. Again, loss of consumption means loss of taxes, so what’s a state to do?

A buyer can buy a horse in Kentucky for a cool million and pay no sales tax ($60,000) if he just ships it out of state. That’s a bone to the horse industry that’s indicative of how everything is done in Kentucky – based on the special interests of the people with enough money to buy from government anything they want. The horse can probably be shipped back later, but with its official residence somewhere else.

If there has to be an increase in the “sin tax” now, why not make it fair, the most destructive “sin” element in Kentucky being beverage alcohol? Imagine the amount of revenue to be collected if the current tax on alcohol were raised by 50%. Alcohol is known to cause everything from cirrhosis of the liver to brain damage to car/truck-wrecks that take thousands of lives every year. Beer-drinkers are known to stretch the bounds of (gasp) obesity/diabetes, just like cigarettes. Fair’s fair.

Okay…that introduces more class warfare, this time against the topers, unless, of course, booze is reclassified as a food, made of grain and all the rest. I don’t smoke and have never tasted beer or whiskey so I don’t have a dog in this fight tax-wise. What bothers me is the constant, unrelenting ability of the special interests to run the state. This includes all groups, from the teachers’ union to coal interests to tobacco growers to the horsy crowd to any outfit with the long-green.

According to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in September 2010, 20% of adults in the U.S. smoke. According to a report by Gallup in July 2010, 67% of U.S. adults drink alcohol. So…if revenue enhancement is a problem for the state and class warfare, as well as special interests, is to be the final arbiter of who pays the freight, a large part of the solution seems to be that the topers, who cause a great deal more misery, owe big-time, not the handful of smokers.

Alas, the smokers will probably get the hit, and if they don’t get out of the way fast enough, another kind of hit from a drunk driver.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Re-Shuffling Time

One looks at the current scene in the capital and wonders whether to laugh, cry, take a sedative or kick the cat. It’s new-appointment time so speculation has to do with who will succeed State Secretary Clinton, who has stayed out of the country since the Benghazi Massacre and is (or was – who knows?) now in Australia in her important role as official U.S. wine-taster. Defense Secretary Panetta has also been absent quite a lot and in Australia, perhaps to check out Aussie beer.

UN Ambassador Rice has been all but deified to take Clinton’s place, and she has the main credential, namely, an inordinate ability to lie. Clinton graphically described her 1996 narrow escape from terrorist-snipers in Bosnia during the 2008 campaign (ran for her life, with Chelsea hanging on). It didn’t happen, of course, as the film she should have known about proved. It was a monstrous lie. Her latest monstrous LIE about Benghazi and the infamous film has cemented her fitness for office (actually grounds for an immediate firing).

Rice lied to five major networks on the same day about what happened at Benghazi but the president took her off the hook in his 14 November press conference (the first in 8 months), simply stating that she reported what she’d been told, but didn’t say who lied to her. He also said he would, if he desired, nominate her, despite statements by Senators McCain and Graham (“outrageous,” the cads) that they would work to defeat the nomination, as if they could in Harry Reid’s dysfunctional Senate.

Defense Secretary Panetta is said to be on the way out, too, so a replacement must be found. Senator John Kerry has expressed an interest in the State job and perhaps in the Defense slot as well. He carries some baggage, of course, in both areas. When he cashed in his Purple Hearts in the Vietnam conflict (lost about a half-day’s work account serious wounds, one self-inflicted), he returned to Naval Reserve status and went to Paris to meet with North Vietnamese folks and undercut U.S. efforts to end that conflict, not that a lowly navy lieutenant actually mattered, no matter the size of his ego then, and still huge. That was state-department business.

He also threw his medals “over the fence somewhere” in a sort of hippy-dippy “Jane Fonda protest,” an extreme act of “loyalty” to the Navy (denied later). As a result, he was “swift-boated” by the Naval officers who knew him back in the day and who helped him lose his bid for the presidency in 2004.

Kerry voted for before he voted against the Iraq action, perhaps checking some poll or other to have his mind made up for him. He is definitely not secretary material for either job and a Senate hearing concerning either would be the best show in town. Especially since Kerry has continued his deceptions in campaigns as recent as 2004, every senator should read or reread the extremely well-documented (19 pages of notes) Unfit for Command before even considering him for any position. A greater fraud than Obama, he’s a pathetic liar and a disgrace, but that might qualify him in this administration.

Geithner will be leaving as Treasury Secretary. He’d cheated Uncle Sam out of four years worth of taxes when nominated in 2009 but paid up for only two (seems like about $38,000) since the other two dissolved account statute of limitations and he was too, too patriotic to pay an honest debt anyway. Obama nominated or was about to nominate some other tax-cheaters to jobs but they bowed out, as was not the case with former Senator Daschle, who paid up well over $100,000 but was too smeared anyway to get a job.

This tendency to cheat on taxes, of course, makes Daschle the front-runner for the Treasury job but he may have skipped some other tax-payments in the interim and may prefer not to pay up only to lose another costly chance at being a bureaucratic nabob anyway. Majority Leader Reid might be right for Treasury based on his information during the campaign that Romney had paid no taxes for ten years. A LIE of that magnitude qualifies him for any position in the cabinet.

Jack Abramoff, lobbyist extraordinaire, has been out of jail for a couple or so years and has even written a book about Washington corruption, so he might be a good choice for Treasury…he knows how to handle and mishandle money. Maybe Bernie Madoff could be sprung from his 150-year sentence to handle Treasury. Maybe he could cheat Europe and India out of a few trillion.

Of course, musical chairs could be in order for the cabinet. Homeland Security diva Napolitano might fit in at State. She had the wisdom to replace the term “terrorism” with “man-caused-disaster,” and warned early-on about keeping an eye on those potentially dangerous GIs retuning from the Middle East. She could be replaced by Attorney General Holder, who sues whole states when they have the audacity (of Hope) to enforce federal laws, keeping in line the administration’s anti-state posture.

The vice president has very little to do so maybe he could take over Holder’s bailiwick and sue the Catholic Church for daring to question the judicious use of abortions as population-control.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Women - Protected Species?

After each election, the editorial board at the Lexington Herald-Leader, Lexington, Ky., can be expected to deliver a commentary bashing white men, the implication being that they have ruined the country and kept women and minorities from assuming their rightful places in government, in the bargain. Ditto for this year. The thrust of the editorial of 09 November was that there isn’t enough DIVERSITY in Kentucky government, with the usual statistics to show that evil white men are threatening again, up to their old tricks.

Ironically, the second paragraph of the editorial included the news that the presidential election was not primarily decided by white men but by women (the largest segment of the population, more than half) and people of color. A little farther on came the claim that “we will be left behind” if the white-male MINORITY continues to run things. The editorialist probably did not see a strange conflict there, but the paper’s bias is what it is. One thinks logically that the victims (women, a majority, plus minorities) could vote the white-male bums out of office and replace them with saints from the regions of gender and color but, alas, such seems hard to do.

It makes sense to the H-L that women and minorities should take their places according to their percentage of the population – seems perfectly reasonable. How would it be if half of all the infantrymen (make that infantrypersons) in the army were women when wartime came around? Or policemen? Or firemen? Or power-forwards in the NBA or linebackers in the NFL? Silly? Of course!

The actual statistics relating to the above were carved out by the people with the credentials to do those jobs. Women make up 13.5% of the army but they are officially precluded from combat for reasons that are perfectly obvious, as found out quickly when integrated boot camps were tried. A similar circumstance obtains for the other professions mentioned. Parity is good for some things but not others, presumably. Even the editorialist might agree…nah…probably not.

Okay…those are physical things. Officeholders don’t need strong backs…they need strong minds and ambition. In Kentucky, there may be far more of the latter than the former but there’s nothing stopping women and minorities from attempting the heavy non-physical lifting that leads to the electorate and the bureaucracy. Indeed, women outnumber men handily now on college campuses and make up more than 45% of law school students so surely they have the strong minds. Constantly caterwauling about their mistreatment got old long ago but the editorialist seems not to have noticed.

As usual, the editorial cited the fact that women make about $10,000 per year less than men in Kentucky, with the supposed implication being that the legislature should do something about that, never mind that market-economics dictate who gets what and how much, not the government, something learned in economics 101. Wage and price controls have been tried and failed, of course, although the current administration in Washington seems hell-bent upon bringing everyone down to the lowest common denominator level.

This brings one to the admittedly chauvinistic question, to wit, is there some inherent superiority in women that qualifies them to be treated deferentially? Are their intelligence and drive so off-the-charts that in their over-qualification they must be a protected species, thus exempting them from contending in the hard games of politics and everything else? Physical strength is not noted. One has only to guess what might happen to a woman playing right tackle for the Giants even if she measured 275-lb., stood 6-4, and was hopped-up on steroids and did breast-feeding on the bench.

Predictably, the usual red herring is dwelt upon in the editorial, namely, that over half the single-parent families headed by women with young children in Kentucky live in poverty. No mention was made of the single-parent families headed by men. Maybe there aren’t any of those. The editorialist stated that many if not all the economic issues debated on the state and national levels are “women’s issues.” That doesn’t leave very many if any as men’s issues, but men are the devils (especially those evil minority-WHITE men) who got everything out-of-whack in the first place…right?

As for the single-mom poverty…72.1% and 35.9%, respectively, of black and white babies are born with no fathers of record, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In other words, women lack the power and supposedly the wit NOT to get in the poverty position? Men can be fornicators and adulterers but only women can be recognized as prostitutes or dumb or unlucky enough to get hooked up with the wrong guy, whether legally or otherwise. Constantly whining about what is mostly just being sex-happy won’t change a thing, and a lot of those poor gals probably are not all that unhappy with Uncle Sugar feeding their kids, doling out food stamps and checks, and paying 80% of their rent while they pig-out on cheeseburgers and fries, anyway.

Or…they can always go to San Francisco, where it was noted in the same issue of the paper that the government will finance all sex-change processes for those who can’t afford them. Then they can become single-dads and step up a notch.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The Meaning of 47%

Though Romney mentioned the figure “47%” in what was more a planning meeting than a rally or speech, it is now clear what he meant and what many have said for a while. When 47% of the adult population pays no taxes, it can be expected that most of that group will vote for the candidate whose main contention is that the nation can be run on the backs of the people who DO pay taxes. That’s nearly half the vote, and that candidate has just been reinstalled for another four years.

The consensus is that some 23 million people who allegedly would work if they could find a fulltime job are not working, so part of a conclusion is that many of them won’t bother to look hard for work because somehow the government will take care of them. This means they also will not buy products, the production of which makes jobs, because they won’t have the money to make purchases. They also will not become part of the tax-base, and so the vicious circle expands.

The thought in this corner is that the just completed election was pivotal, i.e., the nation, instead of returning to the capitalistic system of government that has made it the envy of the world, will continue on the current road to becoming a welfare (socialistic) nation. The healthcare law was the last bit of pavement applied to that road, and it’s hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel.

The chief whiners for special consideration – women, Latinos, blacks – furnished the immense pluralities with regard to wedge issues, but the net effect was economic. This is strange in that the law of the land allows for abortion on demand, the women’s main issue, so they could have voted their pocketbooks instead of their emotions. The president likely wants free condoms for women but in fits of passion they might not…

Latinos are scared out of their skulls over immigration, so they went for the guy who will attempt now a universal program of amnesty, never mind what his pre-election rhetoric has been. The democrat party stands to gain from a huge influx of Mexicans, especially, since this group is rapidly becoming the largest ethnic group in the nation already. Latinos voted their emotions but they killed the economy in the process. In many places, they also form a large welfare group being sustained by those who work. Think bankrupt California.

The blacks did what the blacks always do – voted a welfare-state setup (Democrat Party), meaning a tremendous drain on the treasury to sustain all the entitlements of the sixties plus all of the entitlements of one kind or another since then. The black family has virtually ceased to exist as one result of all the welfare. This is a generational matter now firmly entrenched. It will not improve, as 72.1% of all black births involve no father of record (2010), meaning single-mother, poor families that will be sustained by the government at great cost…a permanent underclass.

It sounds racist to bring up any of this but the demographics are what’s killing the system. It could be worse. In 2007, for instance (last available figures), there were 480 abortions among black women for each 1,000 live births, nearly half, so the insensitive way to look at that is that the welfare problem could be much worse absent that circumstance. Among white women, it was bad (or good), also, with 144 abortions for each 1,000 live births.

This situation has obtained for decades; otherwise, the population of the nation since Roe/Wade would probably include some 70 million or more people, result of both abortions (about 52 million) and the possible progeny of the earliest abortions, beginning 40 years ago. Making abortions as part of “healthcare” is quite cost-efficient, in other words, getting rid of the little fetuses, saving billions down the road.

Sixty-two percent of white men and 56% of white women voted for Romney, but 98% of black men and 99% of black women and 71% of all Latinos voted for Obama, according to exit polls. The conclusion to be drawn is obvious. Just as in 2008, the whites (72% of all voters) who voted for Obama, actually elected him, so racism is not operative.

The most damning figures relative to the economy are that 60% and 52%, respectively, of those in the age groups 19-29 and 30-44 voted for Obama, meaning that they have bought into welfare-as-normal. While it sounds politically incorrect to say it, this amounts to an amazing ignorance of how the nation has functioned until the last decade. This includes college students, who even now can’t find work upon graduation and could hardly expect anything to get better, at least soon, in a new Obama administration, which believes in taxing the workers – and not just the wealthiest, who already pay by far the most taxes – to support the non-producers.

As George Will wrote recently, in the 64 years (816 months) from Truman to Bush 43, there were 39 months of unemployment at 8% or above. In Obama’s tenure of just 46 months, that circumstance obtained in 43 months, 10% worse in just 5% of the time. Unbelievably, he was reelected. Unfortunately, unless he learns economics 101, this will continue. The unemployment rate – all things considered – is much worse than 8% now.

That tipping-point has arrived.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Columnist – Fully Evolved or…?

In an Op-Ed piece in the Lexington Herald-Leader of 03 November, Roger Guffey, a retired math teacher, took to task Georgia Congressman Paul Proun, a physician, account Proun’s dissing of human evolution. One supposes Proun has studied the human body about as well as Guffey but is the object of the predictable sarcasm accorded by the elitist evolutionists to those daring to disagree. In this case, Guffey is glad Proun is not from Kentucky, where, presumably, Guffey thinks idiots are expected to live…maybe not having evolved as fast as others from the…say, Neanderthal stage.

Guffey asks a series of questions which he seems to believe science incontrovertibly endorses as answers, therefore facts. Guffey asks why animals are tortured (his take on experiments) in order to find cures for human ailments, if evolution does not rule. The best answer might be another question, to wit, why haven’t animals tortured humans to find cures for their ills. The reason is obvious but anathema to the evolutionist or the politically correct, to whom the god of diversity mandates animals and humans to be on the same level.

Guffey asks why hemoglobins of humans and chimpanzees are “almost identical” but “very different” from those of dogs. He didn’t answer that but seems to mean that humans and chimps have evolved (didn’t say in which direction) while dogs haven’t, but doesn’t the true evolutionist believe that EVERYTHING evolved from a one-cell something? Humans and chickens have two lower limbs (almost identical?) but both are “very different” from snails. So what!

Guffey implies that snake venom is processed for injections to save humans bitten by snakes. Conclusion: Snakes and humans are in the same evolutionary chain? That might be news to most “evolution” anthropologists. His reasoning seems to be that all things share “some underlying physiological principles.” Well, of course! Physiological is defined as: “characteristic of or appropriate to an organism's healthy or normal functioning.” One hopes for healthy snakes and healthy humans no matter their origins. Who wants venom from an unhealthy snake?

Guffey mentions that pig heart-valves are successfully implanted in humans, thus establishing pigs somewhere in the chain. He didn’t say where. Plastic valves are also implanted in human hearts and they work fine. Is that because of the physiological attributes of the plastic, which is not a living organism at all? Among other components, plastic is made up of resins that come naturally from trees. Does that establish an evolutionary connection between human tissue and pine bark?

Guffey mentions that some babies are “occasionally” born with tails as extensions of the tailbone (human, presumably), implying the evolutionary connection between humans and apes. Some babies are born with Downs Syndrome or without limbs or an extra kidney or blind or as homosexuals, at least according to some regarding the latter. Exactly how do those “accidents of birth” fit into the evolutionary process?

Guffey’s shtick, of course, is that the actual explanation of the universe and everything in it is or will be found in science. He also mentions the Big Bang theory of beginnings, for instance, as characterized by Proun as a “lie.” There’s no argument here with science, by using which great discoveries are made every day that eventuate in a constantly improving standard of living.

Guffey’s actual, predictable hang-up with Proun, however, derives from religion, in which millions of people find their own answers as to the beginnings of and the consequent course of nature, including people, something those who actually have no explanation for the beginnings (scientists like Guffey) resent anyone else having. God can’t be seen, weighed, has no atomic number and therefore can’t exist, or at least can’t create anything.

On this “religious” note, Guffey ends his article, stating dogmatically that Proun “clearly feels comfortable citing Biblical verses that support his view of the world.” Problem: Guffey didn’t cite a single verse he accused Proun of citing, unusual for a scientist, whose mantra is “facts developed through research.”

Guffey’s final shot at Proun notes that Proun has been married four times and wonders if Proun “is as comfortable citing the verses on divorce” or just cherry-picks passages attracting voters. Is as comfortable as what? Well…as comfortable as citing the verses Guffey cited that Proun cited, which, of course, was none. And this is a treatise by a scientist?

Religionists claim that man was created by God essentially as is, has evolved from nothing, has been changed only slightly by his environment, and possesses a soul, another thing that can’t even be found, like a liver or a spleen, so for the math teacher it can’t exist; otherwise, it would surely have appeared in the evolutionary timeline by now.

By the way, one wonders what sort of creature Guffey, as part of the “chain,” is evolving into right now.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Anyone Seen Hillary?

Has anyone seen State Secretary Clinton lately? She was very prominent in the Rose Garden with President Obama on 12 September, when the impression was given that the “Benghazi Massacre” eventuated from the temper tantrum thrown by Libyans occasioned by a film showing Mohammad as a number of bad things, all of which are true. She later very publicly declared that the filmmaker would be arrested and prosecuted.

Whoa! Prosecuted for what? Never mind her exalted status as a graduate of the Yale Law School, she either didn’t know that prosecution for exercising freedom of speech (the film) is not possible or she knew by then that the guy could be canned for a parole violation of some sort or both or none. She wouldn’t have said that absent permission from Obama, a Harvard Law guy, although any prosecution for anything would be announced by the appropriate federal prosecutor, not the president or the state secretary.

To say that Clinton has taken a low profile since the egregious gaffes (actually outright lies) took place is to understate the situation. The film had nothing to do with the bombings and deaths of four Americans, even though the administration insisted that to be the case for days but finally realized too late for the learning that reporters had apparently ferreted out gazillions more information than anyone in the government. As a result, Obama and Clinton – as well as their apparatchiks – have been exposed as perpetrators of a cover-up far more serious than any attempted by Richard Nixon, who resigned under pressure.

Clinton should have been fired on the spot no later than 14 September, but the president couldn’t do that because he was not only a co-conspirator but the official actually responsible for the attempt at cover-up. Instead, as late as 16 September, UN Ambassador Rice was spouting this known LIE on five major networks. The administration-think (by wacky wonks) apparently was that the great unwashed would never catch-on or if they did would not care one way or another.

Now, it’s known that the proper investigative group that should have gone to Benghazi was not even activated; rather, the president sent (or tried to) the FBI, making the terrorist attack a simple crime. Weird but explainable…to have done the right thing would have been to admit that terrorism is alive and well in Libya, the terrorism brought on by Obama’s stellar leading from behind last year.

Well…Clinton got out of Dodge, and none too soon because the brickbats are flying. It would be even worse if the hurricane hadn’t hit the east coast and captivated attention for a few days, but the subject won’t go away, despite the fact that the “mainstream media” won’t touch the Benghazi affair with a ten-foot hard-drive.

The fact is that the president should be quickly impeached; indeed, he should have been impeached last year when he attacked defenseless and un-provocative Libya, in the first place. If he’s reelected, the first thing the House should do is handle articles of impeachment. Conviction and expulsion from office would not happen in the Senate but the point ought to be made that declaring a war without Congressional fiat and then covering up an egregious dereliction of duty should not go unpunished in some way. People on the ground in Libya had been imploring the administration over and over to send more security. Clinton’s outfit refused but the buck lay on Obama’s desk, as he finally admitted under pressure.

So…where is dear Hillary these days? As noted way over on page 10 of the Lexington Herald-Leader, Lexington, Ky., she has been gracing Croatia with her presence and straightening out the situation in Syria. Croatia, one remembers, is next-door to Bosnia, where Hillary claimed during her 2008 campaign to beat out Obama that she had to run and flee sniper fire in 1996, never mind the monstrous measure of that LIE. She was met on he tarmac by a welcoming party complete with the traditional child for a big hug. Of course, that’s Hillary just being…well, Hillary.

For a long time, Hillary has been dealing with something called the Syrian National Council, apparently some sort of group of Syrians in exile but has finally decided that she’s getting nowhere and stated in Croatia (one wonders why she was in Croatia) that some sort of consortium had to be formed with people doing the fighting (insurrectionists) being represented. She has pushed for a clambake in Doha, Qatar, next week, at which hundreds seem to be expected – the more the merrier – to figure out how to get Assad out of office.

The actual effort has to do with deciding just who among the rebels should be given guns, about the same as with Libya last year. The results of that are seen in the current movement of ammo and al Qaeda types to Syria to cause as much bloodshed as possible there. There are already enough guns in the Middle East to take care of wars for much of the rest of the millennium, but the U.S. has to keep playing the Ugly American and adding fuel to the fire…and, oh yes…helping Obama look PRESIDENTIAL!

Disgusting!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Liberals Ignore Libya

In an Op-Ed piece in the Lexington Herald-Leader of 30 October, Robert Olson, characterized as a Middle East analyst, discussed the importance of Syria to many nations, including the U.S. It was an informative piece that also included Syria’s importance to Russia, Iran, and China, the gist being that these nations resent “unilateral approaches” of the U.S., to Olson an obvious villain, though the actual villains are the colonialists such as Britain and France, which drew the lines in the sand.

The element that makes all the Middle East important to other countries is oil, something to fight over if push comes to shove. Without that commodity being in the picture, other nations would be content to let the Muslims fight each other constantly, mostly over religion, something they’ve done for centuries. Other nations’ only interest would be in competing for the jihadists’ weapons trade.

Olson made this statement near the end of the piece: “Since many of these calamities are due to the U.S. decision to pursue a war of choice in Iraq, Americans are responsible for a goodly portion of these sad events.” All wars are wars of choice, i.e, fight or not fight, regardless of the reasons or non-reasons.

In the matter of Iraq, Olson didn’t mention that the top intelligence services of many countries, including Britain and Russia, insisted that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, but this was not a unilateral U.S. action anyway. Many other nations, especially Britain, formed the anti-Saddam coalition. The mistake was in attempting nation-building, a mistake now being seen in Afghanistan, where American GIs are routinely “back-shot” by their “friends.”

Saddam finally consented to allow inspectors back in Iraq in September 2002, after they had been denied access for some four years, while Saddam did who knows what. They returned in November 2002. From September until their return (and even after that until March 2003), Saddam could have done anything (and probably did) with his weapons, which were not found. The betting here is that they went to Syria, despite the Sunni-Shiite contention, another reason for the U.S. not to get involved in Syria.

Olson is the typical liberal analyst. By referencing “war of choice,” he actually meant “just” and “unjust” wars, as determined by any individual. But giving Olson credit for not meaning that (who knows?), it has to be remarked that the ONLY war of choice for which there is absolutely no explanation in which the U.S. has engaged since 1991 (the Kuwait thing, by any definition a “just war” sanctioned by the UN), was carried out in March-October 2011 by President Barack Hussein Obama, when he ordered the U.S. military to rain bombs and missiles on Libya.

Olson ignored Libya as if it doesn’t exist (even with its oil, sold mostly to Europe) even though the “Benghazi massacre,” which would never have happened absent Obama’s idiotic order to attack Libya in the first place, has dominated the news for seven weeks and been a primary subject in the recent debates. Instead, Olson whined about the carnage in Syria, though didn’t mention that Barack Hussein Obama raised Syrian insurrectionist hopes with his pronouncement that Syrian President Assad just had to go, and then, of course, didn’t deliver.

Even though Libya was not only not a threat to this country but had relinquished much if not all of its WMD (at least the nuclear elements) to this country, Obama wanted to bomb Qaddafi and sent his three “lady-Amazons” (Clinton, Rice, Powers) to the UN Security Council to “get permission,” completely bypassing Congress and in direct violation of both the Constitution and the War Powers Act as well as in direct contradiction to the advice of his top military officials.

The cover for this was that Qaddafi was killing his people just like Assad and all the other Muslim rulers do routinely. Somehow, Obama hasn’t noticed his responsibility regarding Syria, about the size of North Dakota. With Russia, Iran, Lebanon and China on his side, Assad pays no attention to Obama, who has disgraced the office and should have been impeached over his Libyan massacre. Now, the “Benghazi massacre” has come back to haunt him, and the only response the administration has made has consisted of one egregious lie after another.

One wonders about Obama’s motivation concerning Libya. Since he acted so erratically, it may be that he’s a hopeless narcissist, working out some sort of fantasy regarding his Commander-in-Chief position. How better to feed it than to take on a nation with a military force less than one-twentieth of one percent the size of the U.S military? He’s such a narcissist that he actually thinks he had something to do with the wasting of Osama. The book on that event will be written some day.

But Olson the liberal didn’t bother with Libya. After all, hasn’t Obama said terrorism was being defeated? Admitting Obama’s unspeakable errors regarding Libya, not the least being his administration’s intolerable lack of security for U.S. government workers there, would be unthinkable to any liberal. Yeah…Obama’s disastrous "war of choice"!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Chauvinism or Common Sense?

WARNING! The following is a now unacceptable mishmash of chauvinism not easily tolerated by the timid mind vis-à-vis the requirements of diversity, which is the latest inhabitant to take up residence on Mt. Olympus, designated as the god-of-lunacy, that deity to which one may apply for deliverance from the horrors of unisex, now seen most prominently in the world of sports, including both those activities conducted according to the rules and the others, by far the majority.

It had to happen, not least because of Title 9, which changed the nature of the games forever, putting men in their place as unmercifully as a female divorce lawyer does in baring her teeth and all but masticating the poor male caught in her grasp. What happened, you ask? Women have invaded and will soon take over all sports enterprises in the land.

It started (not counting the redistribution to women of sports-department wealth on college/university campuses a few years back) when the gals demanded and, of course, received permission to invade male locker-rooms and interview players, thus invading their privacy amidst the smell of sweat and various liniments and the raucous remarks in the locker-room, known as the “land of the four-letter-word”…all while being sure to be properly ogled by players and TV-viewers, actually the main reason for the whole enterprise.

The big thing on campus is having lady managers for the men’s teams. Are there any male students as managers for the women’s teams? Surely not! They couldn’t lay their hands on the women. These girls are at the beck-and-call of the players and coaches, making one wonder if they have some kind of reverse-discrimination hang-up. This was never the case back in the day when men enjoyed camaraderie, the guys taking care of each other.

The lady reporters, all attractive, of course (eat your heart out, Brent Musburger), now roam the sidelines at football games to report instantaneously the grief being felt by any player traumatized by an injury or a personal problem like handling a (gasp) DUI charge. The zaniest thing, however, is the on-field halftime and game-end interviews with coaches, who have obviously been told to cooperate or else. They usually say something of magnificent wisdom like “my guys are getting beat,” and the lady interviewer treats it as something straight from…where else…Mt. Olympus, or maybe the Oracle at Delphi.

The most recent aggravation, however, is the lady play-by-play announcer or analyst, who seems to be connecting a teleprompter reading with each play and pitter-patter concerning same. The gals have never seriously played football so they understandably need help, but one hopes they will not get passionate about the action, in which case they sound like the proverbial fishwife. The ladies do play basketball and have some knowledge of the sport, but who wants to announce a women’s basketball game?

The NFL admitted it needed help when it allowed employment (or coercion) of scantily-clad “cheerleaders,” adding a bit of cheesecake to the game in case the guys get bored during the endless commercial “timeouts.” But everyone knows that has nothing to do with sports, just entertainment, so the ladies, who seem to be stopping by on their way to their regular jobs at strip joints, supply the ogling material. This also explains why the attendance is 100% for the Olympic “sport” of beach-volleyball, wherein the ladies cavort in their bikinis in the sand, even if the nearest beach is a thousand miles away. Women’s mud-wrestling will probably be next…all those clinging clothes!

Is nothing sacred anymore? The ladies do the newspaper sports-pages and write about things of which they can have little or no been-there/done-that knowledge. Okay…it’s a discrimination thing, as played out in Augusta National finally having to admit a couple of unwelcome women into membership. But it stinks, just like it stank when the social engineers insisted on integrated boot camps in the military. There are “guy” things and “gal” things, but today there are only “unisex” things, never mind that women and men are not the same biologically or emotionally or athletically. The boot camps had to be re-segregated for obvious reasons, but sports integration, unfortunately, is here to stay.

Then, there are the men who coach women’s teams and, in the vein of this subject matter, should bug out. There must be women who coach men’s teams but none readily come to mind. When the guy pats his point-guard on the derriere and sends her into the game he’s out of line, and his wife probably thinks so, too, although the money involved can look mighty good. The girls basketball coach at the University of Kentucky knocks down a cool $750,000 a year, while an associate professor might make about $50,000.

Women should coach women and men should coach men, and never the twain should meet, just as they should never meet on a battlefield. The same goes for the referees and the umpires. Nothing looks sillier than a 5-2, 110-pound woman referee staring up a 7-foot power-forward, or a 6-6 male referee staring down a 5-2 lady guard.

Okay…you were warned…call me a chauvinist! The women may have a bit of catching-up to do, but they should bust the glass backboard and take care of their own business and stop whining about equal opportunity. Nothing is equal in sports; otherwise, there would be no game.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

DNC Memorandum #11

From the office of the chairWOMAN, 25 October 2012

**Listen up!!! There’s been some complaining account the recording “I am Woman” being played throughout the building every hour at 90 decibels. This complaining is to stop. The reason for this noise is that everyone is to be reminded that a major POTUS campaign theme is the “Romney War on Women.” POTUS’s campaigning with Sandra Fluke and his insistence that she speak at the convention are paying off, even though I had to shorten my remarks. A new program is in the works called Obamacondomcare and will become a part of Obamacare after the reelection. Under the act, a doctor refusing to do an abortion at any fetus-stage will face 30 years in prison, and a daily government-allocation will be made to all women older than five years of two super-slimy-fail-safe-exotic condoms, featuring the two-second automatic-unrolling feature for overwhelming passion- attack panic. Also, a billion dollars will be budgeted for research into converting the pregnancy problem from women to men, who, even in POTUS’s new homosexual marriage-mode, cannot conceive and therefore actually be married.

**Be WARNED that any mention of the film “Innocence of Muslims” in any town-hall or other meeting will be grounds for drastic discipline (even criminal charges) or outright termination (job, not life, for bimbo interns). POTUS and his people, such as State Secretary Clinton, have not yet devised the proper accounting for what happened in Benghazi (massacre, for recent Harvard grads). If any participant mentions that POTUS and Clinton have been “all over the map” on this, remind him/her that POTUS said Romney had been “all over the map,” too. For obvious reasons, the accounting will be made after the reelection and since it is an in-house accounting will make POTUS appear as commander-in-chief of the whole world while leading from behind, a brand-new concept not yet understood by the hoi polloi. Do NOT try to explain this concept. Three professors at MIT have worked on it for a year and recently were discovered baying at the moon in Harvard Square.

**Door-to-door canvassing is now top-priority. Since there have been reports of residents being traumatized by rings and tattoos, this is the new rule: Nose-tongue-eyebrow-navel-pinkie-lip-nipple- and other rings must never be in evidence, requiring removal of or otherwise hiding them. Long sleeves and full-length pants are to be worn in the case of tattoos on legs and arms, and turtlenecks must be worn to hide neck-tattoos, popular now. In the Bible-belt, there’s to be no cleavage shown except in venues such as men’s service clubs, in which case there’s no limit and staffers may wear Monica-pins, as well. In the rest of the country, most anything goes, though bikinis are not allowed. The ring business also accrues to safety, since two heavily ringed Howard-Dean canvassers were struck by lightning in Kansas in 2004 and didn’t survive.

**There have been further questions about Senator Reid’s assertion that Romney has paid no taxes for ten years, notwithstanding elements that sort of refute his claim, such as tax returns, making Reid either loony-tunes or a humongous liar. As it was in August, a request has been made that the DNC find Reid’s informant, since in the pressing business of the Senate and time-consuming vacations the senator can’t remember who it was. The only response (anonymous) I’ve received designated his informant as “a little bird,” which I did not find amusing. So, a tire-gauge and light-bulb personally signed by POTUS will be awarded to the staffer who solves this problem.

**Rumors circulating around the bottled-water keg (D.C. water unsafe) and non-salt, non-trans-fat, non-hamburger (eating grease okay if Senator Biden does), non-hotdog, non-dairy-product-of-any-kind, non-chocolate, non-smoking (smoking okay if Obama lights up), veggie-fortified, yogurt-enhanced snack-bar and body-mass-chart, carbon-cap-graph, endangered-species-obituary-wall-chart, blue/red-state-map, and Bush/BP/Limbaugh/Romney-dartboard that Candy Crowley will replace VPOTUS on the ticket account her sterling outing of Romney as a liar in the town-hall debate are untrue. A consulting firm determined that, while she possessed gravitas, she lacked the VPOTUS smirk used so effectively in the Veep debate. The rumor that I referred to it as the “jerk-smirk” is untrue and I will not say that again. Also, the rumor that VPOTUS plagiarized the smirk from David Letterman is untrue, as is the claim that Letterman told a gorgeous assistant in a usual tete-a-tete (use your imagination) that VPOTUS would wreck his jaw trying to emulate it.

**On the obvious assurance by the pollsters that POTUS will remain POTUS after the election, the usual jockeying for positions in the new Obama administration could be distracting. Do NOT be distracted but feel free to recommend me for any cabinet post, preferably State or Defense but NOT Homeland Security or Labor. My hair’s as good as Hillary’s any day. Come to think of it, so is a Golden Retriever’s. I have the credentials, not the least important being my second job as a Congressperson, though it doesn’t pay as much as DNC chairWOMAN. Note the sacrifice! Since to the victor belongs the spoils, read up on cronyism and act thusly in the coming days. POTUS is said to be planning a novel, win or lose, on the subject after the reelection, with the working title “Solyndra & the Czars.” His co-writer is said to be Chinese, recommended by the sculptor of the MLK Jr statue on the Mall, and rumored to have run the company that ran the POTUS/czar’s solar-panel company out of business.

**On the unthinkable and wholly impossible chance that POTUS will lose the election, be advised that there will be no severance pay and no laudatory referrals account the DNC predictably being blamed, thus making a referral worthless anyway. I will still be in Congress but don’t come near my office since all my time will be used in planning how to take Pelosi’s job, which pays more.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Newest Can of Worms

The new can of worms now being opened in the Middle East is the direct result of one of President Obama’s most idiotic moves, namely, the unprovoked attack on Libya last year that he ordered and then went on vacation in Brazil to announce to the world, claiming earlier that the “little war” would be over in days, not weeks. It lasted seven months and went far beyond the initial aim, accomplished in four days, of establishing a “no-fly zone.” The administration has never divulged what it knows about the Libyan deaths caused by the U.S. and NATO, i.e., if it knows anything…or cares.

The act of making war on Libya was whitewashed under the rubric of saving the Libyans from their dictator/tyrant of two generations – Moammar Qaddafi. This is what the ladies the president sent to Washington presented to the Security Council, which, with key abstentions, said “Go get Qaddafi, we don’t like him, either.” Why should Russia or China care about Libya, population 2 million less than that of New York City, which sold its oil to Europe (not the U.S.) anyway?

Defense Secretary Gates, who had inveighed mightily against this tragic mistake and was in Russia when the dear leader announced his “little war,” pronounced it as done “on the fly.” Translated, this means without sufficient planning. As transparent as it was, his statement understated the fact – total disaster not surprisingly perpetrated by a president who probably doesn’t yet know a salute from an obscene gesture…or care to know.

Now, as Obama’s mentor, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright, would insist, the chickens have come home to roost. The problem: how to deal with insurgents/rebels to whom fighting (sometimes just each other) is all they know to do. Libya is a mess, for which the administration had/has virtually no understanding, as evidenced by the overwhelming incompetence recently exhibited regarding the safeguarding of American workers in that benighted country.

Four Americans died, one, the ambassador, probably tortured, as well. It’s obvious that the administration (Obama) knew exactly what happened but rather than admit it, simply manufactured a falsehood of immense proportions, blaming a planned terrorist attack on a movie about Mohammad, progenitor of the cult of Islam. Then, the apparatchiks like UN Ambassador Rice and press-spokesman Carney were sent out to TV-land to spout the line. It didn’t work and now the citizenry knows all about what happened – or at least as much as the administration, which, actually, may not be much at all.

But…what to do with those pesky insurrectionists who now have nothing to do in Libya except fight each other, which does get old after a while, especially for the al Qaeda types to whom beheading is such a joy.  Thanks to all the goodie-good nations in 2011, they have more weapons of all kinds than they know what to do with, so why not collect the weapons, go on over to Syria (about the size of North Dakota) and join the rebels there – Muslims against Muslims…perfectly normal and in a small area of 23 million people – just the right size and type for close-up killing.  

The Libyan “little war” was over in October 2011, but the Libyan government (such as it was, if anybody knew) was already parleying the next month with folks like the Turks in the interest of making Syrian President Assad get out of Dodge (okay, Damascus), preferably with his toes turned-up. The latest news is that this is what’s happening – sorta like al Qaeda bivouacking with the dissidents (though no one knows one from the other, with regard to agendas).

So, in April this year, the Lebanese impounded a ship headed for Tripoli, Lebanon, that was loaded with weapons from – you guessed it – Libya. The weapons were headed for the Syrian rebels and had to be transported across Lebanon, now under the control of the Sunni Muslims, no friends of Assad, who leans on Iran’s Ahmadinejad and the Shiites.

But why not just land the weapons, which bore various Libyan markings, in a Syrian seaport – Lattackia or Tartous, both close to Aleppo, Syria’s largest city? Don’t the Iranians land their ships in those ports? Well…yes, but Aleppo has been under attack by the Syrian military for a long time and Syria still has an air force that could wipe out any movement around either port. As the weapons are smuggled into Syria through Lebanon, the Middle East will become even more of an international catastrophe going somewhere over there to happen.

All of this is to say that if Obama’s attack, with his glorious new military tactic called “leading from behind” (the mother of all oxymorons), had never happened, this Libya/al-Qaeda intrusion vis-a-vis Syria would not be threatening world peace today. Qaddafi would have finished his purge, a very routine happening in Muslim-controlled countries (as in Syria now and Egypt and Tunisia earlier) and Obama wouldn’t be up to his ears in lies.

As it is, world leaders must have been wondering ever since Obama, with absolutely no provocation and no approval of Congress, decided to jump Libya – sorta like an elephant settling an argument with a gnat. He can’t come clean on this because there was NO reason for the Libyan massacre, either in March – October 2011 or that of the Americans on 11 September.

This nation is leaderless.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Prez-Debate-II Recap

Obama and Romney sort of went mano a mano in their debate on the sixteenth, a bit of refreshment from the blinking lights and beeps signaling when a candidate can and cannot express himself. The vast majority of prepared questions were not asked, though one could never have believed they would be used. Some eleven or so questions were used and read by participants in the Town-Hall setting.

Moderator Candy Crowley of CNN (Obama cable-supporter) did fairly well although she made a critical error in trying to neutralize a humongous Obama lie concerning the Benghazi attack on 11 September. I watched as he and State Secretary Clinton appeared in the Rose Garden on 12 September and solemnly declared that the Benghazi slaughter was due to passions aroused by a film that Obama made sure everyone understood was made by an American.

Since he mentioned much later something about terrorists, Crowley tried to connect the two statements, which only made matters worse for Obama since it indicated that he knew the actual circumstances surrounding the Benghazi attack; otherwise, he would have had no reason to mention terrorists. He should admonish whoever prepared his remarks, and Crowley later acknowledged her perfidy in attempting to advance the cover-up.

Whereas President Nixon tried to cover up a simple burglary in 1974, Obama tried to cover up an incident in which four U.S. government employees were killed. Nixon resigned. Obama flies above an “insignificant” event like the betrayal of U.S. workers. Nixon was at the mercy of a democrat Congress, 56% majority in both houses, but Obama has the Senate in his pocket. Even worse, UN Ambassador Rice was sent out to perpetuate Obama’s humongous lie all over TV at least four days after the truth was known. Benghazi-gate is a much worse cover-up than Watergate, by any measure.

Strangely, as always seems the case, the moderators in the debates are culled from left- or far-left-leaning networks, respectively this year, Jim Lehrer (PBS), Martha Raddatz (ABC), Candy Crowley (CNN), and Bob Schieffer (CBS). The latter three networks are firmly in the Obama corner, as any valid consensus of observers would indicate. Indeed, a Raddatz ex-husband heads the Obama Federal Communications Commission and both she and her current husband have been connected to PBS, for which he is still a 30-year employee. ABC’s head guru, George Stephanopoulos, was Bill Clinton’s chief-of-staff.

Romney put to rest any question as to who is the better speaker, as well as who thinks better on his feet. Obama came out swinging but he was backed into his corner by Romney over such things as the energy quagmire, the huge added costs to the taxpayers of Obamacare, and the results of lowering tax-rates. Obama has no background in economics but Romney knows chapter-and-verse regarding the financial systems worldwide and how they work.

Romney’s fluidity of speech, sometimes almost too rapid-fire, contrasted sharply with Obama’s broken sentences, pauses apparently to decide what to say, and general unease, perhaps even anger. Romney kept battering Obama’s record for the last four years, particularly with respect to his energy policies, magnified by forcing Obama’s hand in the matter of his granting less than half the number of licenses for drilling, compared to preceding years.

Obama tried the lame claim that 5 million jobs had been created during his tenure but Romney shot it down by mentioning the 5 million jobs lost – zero accomplishment. Romney also bore down on the fact that the actual unemployment rate is 10.7%, for which Obama had no answer, not even arguiung the current untrue claim of 7.8%. Obama had no answer to Romney’s correct assertion that instead of cutting the deficit in half, as he promised in 2008, Obama has doubled it.

Perhaps the most amazing and totally unexpected statement made by Obama was that he took responsibility for the now-known denial of on-site requests for beefed-up security for U.S. workers in Libya that were made over a substantial period. State Secretary Clinton had already thrown herself under the bus for that debacle in her statement in Peru the day before the debate. Did Obama not know that, or was he just pushed to the wall by Romney and had to morph into Trumanism (the buck stops here). Throwing himself on his sword was totally out of character, this from the guy who said policemen acted stupidly and supposedly has no clue about the “Fast and Furious” botched U.S.-to-Mexico gun-running scheme that has cost many lives.

This reminds of how things are done in this administration. Obama ordered the U.S. military to carry out an unprovoked attack on Libya, a sovereign nation, last year and announced his action in Brazil, whereupon he went on vacation for nearly a week while Libyans were dying. Clinton took responsibility for Libya but announced it well over a month after the fact not in Washington but in Peru, safely out of the country. This is exponential weakness. After his Rose Garden deception, Obama took off for Las Vegas and points west (one activity a silly talk-show – entertainment) while Americans were dead and the Libya situation required the commander-in-chief, as Obama often alludes to himself, to be on the job in Washington. Disgusting!

This election is a turning point in the nation’s history. Will the U.S. slide into socialism conducted by weak-kneed leaders, or will it return to its roots?

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Veep Debate Recap

If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet.  Proverbs 29:9.

The vice presidential debate (actually not a debate, just a series of arguments of sorts) was boring at best, insulting at worst. It was boring in the sense that the only consistent passion shown was that of Biden, who was ardently in love with himself and showed it. It was insulting in the sense that the rudeness exuding from Biden indicated that he judged the public to be so shallow that it would approve of his waspishness and count it as macho-stuff, the heavyweight rhetorically annihilating the bantamweight.

On substance, the contest was probably a draw, mostly because Ryan was far too polite to either nail Obama substantively on issues such as Libya or allowed the constant interruptions by Biden to disrupt any logical flow of facts and ideas. In this, moderator Raddatz was Biden’s accomplice. She could have at least occasionally told him to shut up but she didn’t. A former Raddatz-husband is the top dog at the federal Communications Commission and her current husband has been with National Public Radio for some 30 years. She also worked for NPR back in the day and is now employed by Obama-propaganda-arm ABC, so the liberal bias was/is obvious as expected.

The aggravating element connected with the whole process has to do with the much ballyhooed “rehearsals” conducted in preparation for the event. One could hope that the candidates have a good enough grasp of the total picture to simply say what they know, without having to perform by rehearsal-oriented rote.

Yeah…this is done as a safeguard against making gaffes, but it provides an artificiality that gives the lie to the whole shooting match. In any case, neither candidate seemed to have profited from his “rehearsals,” since neither did all that well, stammered around constantly and gave the impression that he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to say. Ryan, who is known as a “facts-and-figures” man, did poorly because he was either rattled by the constant interruptions or just forgot. Everyone expected Biden to be Biden, so his rambling didn’t register as a minus. He was supposed to be obnoxious and not too well informed. He delivered.

Since complete sentences – without the ums and ahs and backups-to-start-over – were often rare, even preparing a transcript would be hard to do, much less understand, but the body-language was instructive. Obama was sort of like a totem-pole in the first debate so it was obvious that Biden meant to hog the show, belittle Ryan and chose to use the smile/smirk/eye-roll approach. Sometimes he even laughed while Ryan was speaking. He made a jackass of himself, just as did Gore in 2000 when he was attacked by the “sigh syndrome” when George Bush was speaking.

Perhaps the most telling point made by Ryan was that President Reagan and Speaker O’Neill, a powerful democrat, worked together in the 1980s to bring about very good things culminating in the demise of the Soviet Union and a strong reconfigured military. It’s obvious that total gridlock faces the nation if Obama is reelected since his idea of governance (socialism) allows for no compromises and is totally antithetical to the American “enterprise” system that has made the nation the freest and strongest in history.

Strangely, Ryan didn’t mention that the top and bottom tax-rates when Reagan took office were, respectively, 69% and 14% but only 28% and 15% when he left office. This brought on the prosperity of the 1990s but President Clinton helped to create the downturn beginning in 1999 when he got the top rate raised to nearly 40% in 1993.

On the day before the debate, administration witnesses under oath made it plain in a House hearing conducted by Representative Issa that the State Department repeatedly denied requests for beefed-up security in Libya long before the Benghazi massacre. Ryan could have hammered that fact but he didn’t, either because he wasn’t aware of the hearing testimony or was too nice to employ plain facts.

Biden, who should have known within two days of the massacre that it was a terrorist attack, blamed the intelligence community for the administration’s bungling and said “we” didn’t know about the requests for extra help. He didn’t say who “we” referenced but press-guy Carney said the day after that Biden meant himself and the president. In other words, Biden, speaking for the president, threw Clinton under the bus…or he lied. Clinton had already thrown her staff to the wolves. What an unspeakable mess!

All the back-and-forth about Social Security and Medicare was just smoke, neither Biden nor Ryan making much of anything clear. Actually, there are no absolute details, just frameworks within which reform must be accomplished. Obamacare stands as it is and Ryan did make the case for doing something on the basis of everything from nursing homes to physicians opting out of serving old people if the plan isn’t changed.

Biden laughed his way through the whole thing, blowing off Ryan just like Obama through sheer arrogance and total detachment tried to do to Romney. It didn’t work because the intensity of his disdain for his opponent was greater than Obama’s, just in a different way. People despise condescension, and may well blow off Obama/Biden, the nasty-boys, in November.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama/Clinton Stonewall, Misread Syria

One can be thankful for C-Span. Through the years, I’ve watched especially the hearings held in Congress, with all their warts and foibles. I watched Ted Kennedy skewer Dr. James Holsinger, Bush 43’s eminently qualified nominee for surgeon-general, providing an example of the arrogant jackassery possible, exampled also by Joe Biden when he told Attorney General Gonzales, “I’ll be watching you, buddy,” or words to that effect.

In 1954, I repaired to the lobby of the local hotel in the evenings to watch the Army-McCarthy hearings (probably replays), the best entertainment in town though not on C-Span, of course. One of the most enlightening hearings was the House hearing regarding Katrina, the one all democrat members of the committee avoided, and for good reason. Truth can be a hard thing to swallow.

C-Span did everyone a favor this week in airing the hearings conducted by Congressman Issa concerning the catastrophe at Benghazi, in which the ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were murdered on 11 September in what was known immediately by the people on the ground as a well planned and orchestrated terrorist attack, something the administration, in the face of an abundance of intelligence, labeled long after the fact as a “protest” engendered by a movie trailer allegedly insulting Mohammad, though it merely described the man accurately.

An army officer and three State Department staffers, one an ambassador, were the witnesses in the segment of the hearing that I saw. With the exception of the lieutenant colonel, they were the obvious scapegoats sent out by the administration to do their duty and take their places “under the bus.” Their discomfiture could have been avoided if their superiors had stepped up to the plate and taken the responsibility for an event that competence on their part could have prevented.

Instead, one remembers the scene in the Rose Garden shortly after the massacre, when State Secretary Clinton and President Obama appeared to publicly consign the blame for the whole affair to an American’s film about Mohammad. As is his wont, the president blamed some part of this country concerning a tragedy – this time an individual – for being bad, another of his ways for apologizing for the very existence of the U.S.

Obama might as well have said that the Americans deserved to die because Mohammad was insulted and that free speech that decries Islam is a bad thing no matter how true and shouldn’t be allowed. Both he and Clinton, who made the same fraudulent case in other venues, certainly knew within at least two days how inordinately untrue their claim was, but they sent out UN Ambassador Rice and press-apparatchik Carney all over TV to spew the BIG LIE days after they had to know better.

Clinton, Carney and Rice should have been the witnesses in the hearing but it would do no good to call them because the president doubtlessly would invoke executive privilege in foreclosing that possibility. Or, Director of Intelligence Clapper might be called but the same thing would probably happen. These people are above the fray and will not fall upon their swords.

The lesser ones are expected to do the sword-number. After all, the term “terrorism” is not allowed in this administration. As Homeland Security Chief Napolitano insisted long ago, there’s no such thing as a “terrorist” – too harsh a term that she replaced with “man-caused disaster.” So, what happened in Benghazi was carried out by “man-caused disasters.”

The apparatchiks in the hearing, forced to tell the truth under oath, indicated that requests for more security forces in Libya had been ignored or denied for months before the slaughter. They indicated that the mishandling was not a matter of funding, of which there was plenty to meet all the necessities. The buck, of course, gets its first stop on Clinton’s desk and its second stop on Obama’s (as President Truman’s ghost would have it), except in this case the buck stops nowhere. It’s just “out there,” floating around in bloated-bureaucracy-la-la-land.

Congressman Kucinich, in a prepared speech, made the most telling points, especially that the Libya mess was fomented by the U.S. in the first place through an un-Constitutional act by the president, a fellow democrat, in simply on his own ordering the U.S. military to attack a sovereign nation in 2011 for no reason. Libya, with a population two million less than that of New York City, was a threat to no one.

Now, the president has dispatched some 150 military operatives to Jordan, next-door to Syria, where civil war rages, something in which this country must not be drawn. According to the Associated Press of January 2011, $100 million was added to the regular $363 million allocated by the U.S. government to Jordan, so how could Jordan’s King Abdullah say “no,” when he probably hates the whole impingement upon his nation?

Obama thought he could change the government of Libya and show his power, with the result being, as Lieutenant Colonel Andy Wood said in the hearing, the strengthening of Al Qaeda, not Libya or the U.S. What does Obama propose for Syria? Chances for his defeat in November seem slim but four more years of his chaotic, dangerous and unpredictable behavior is unthinkable.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Football & NASCAR – Blood-sports

The Sunday and Monday sports sections of newspapers appear more than anything else as hospital-emergency-room reports of the activities of the preceding day/night. The reason: Television drives sports, i.e., the money generated by and through the medium dictates what is and is not exciting enough to garner viewers. Apparently, the marketers have discovered that athletic prowess and/or skill with machines are not conducive enough, and consequently have placed a premium on blood and gore to accentuate the mayhem involved in most competitions.

This is true on all levels of sports, beginning in earnest in high school. Football is now a blood-sport and fans either cheer or groan – depending on their loyalties – when the quarterback finally sits up, wonders where he is and may or may not be helped to the nearest disappointed trainer for the usual question of a concussion-victim as to his name and the date. At least two such NFL quarterbacks went down thusly over the weekend. One of them was having a bad day for the home team, so the fans cheered as he lay prostrate for several minutes. Weird.

Back in the spring, Bounty-gate took place when it was revealed that NFL New Orleans Saints players were being paid “bounties” for the deliverance of incapacitating injuries and agonies to their opponents. The defensive guru, JonathanVilma, received a one-year suspension by the NFL for his alleged participation in the program that allegedly rewarded players for “kill shots,” “cart-offs,” “knockouts” and other injurious hits on opposing players. Three others received lesser discipline, as if bloodletting and other trauma are judged by level of attainment. This didn’t happen in a vacuum, so the guilt probably can be shared up-the-line.

According to the NFL web-site remarking an Associated Press analysis, 3,377 players have sued the NFL, charging that not enough was done to inform them of the dangers of concussions in the past, or to take care of them today. Many things could be done to make football safer, but don’t hold your breath. Helmet-to-helmet blows and body-slam blocking are here to stay, lest the sport become boring.

I’ve never watched more than a few minutes of any NASCAR Race. Not knowing the finer points such as the use of a restrictor plate, watching cars roar by gets boring after a while for people like me, but I have to admit that watching the pileups shown on the news elicits ahs and ohs. However, I’ve always heard about Talledega as the real snake-pit, so I tuned into the last two laps on Sunday and – VOILA – just in time for that glorious 25-car pileup in the last half-mile or so as the drivers did whatever was necessary for top positions…and all those points and all that CASH. Apparently, no one was hurt in the four-lane-wide 200-mph melee, and I saw one car flying like a plane over the whole scene, its driver, who was trying to hold the lead, admitting later that the smashup was his fault. Two cars finished.

The cars were all moving in the same direction and that doubtlessly accounted for driver-welfare, though sometimes drivers are critically injured or killed, but I was reminded that the NASCAR officials had been questioned earlier this year about the constant bumping and spinning-out caused by the drivers, all of it intentional, whereupon the movers-and-shakers said there would be no adjustments. The fans love it. Macho-stuff for big bucks!

And that’s true. The narrow track at Bristol, Virginia, was dangerous and thought to need another lane a few years ago, and one was added to make it wider and therefore safer, whereupon attendance at the races went down precipitously. So, predictably, that new lane was taken out, thus guaranteeing that the drivers would once again deliver carnage as entertainment. NASCAR is safely in the blood-sport category again at Bristol.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., winner at Talledega five times and in the Sunday field, complained about what that race had become and said that there’s been enough carnage. Drafting (two cars bumper-to-bumper in order to increase power and cut down on drag) is inordinately dangerous but has become popular, with the rear driver just nudging the wrong way (or right way, depending on motive) spinning the front-car out completely, often wrecking many others, while the rear car goes merrily along…or not, depending upon the spin.

As I remember it in the long ago, tackling and blocking were carried out from the waist down and head-hunting was not the game. There were more pads than used now but the helmets were like cardboard compared to the current space-like contraptions, not that they do much good because tackling and blocking now are from the waist up and helmet-to-helmet or helmet-to-chin action provides for a sure “cart-off,” the surest way to big bucks. According to Bloomberg, the average salary for a NFL player was $1.9 million in 2007. Many, however, such as prized quarterbacks, make many times more and sign long contracts.

Restrictor-plates that diminish the volume of air intake to engines were required at Talledega to hold speeds to about 200 mph but they aren’t used in every race. There was a time when the drivers used skill and the car-owners depended on brains but it doesn’t take much talent or gravitas to nudge a car out of a race, just the killer instinct and the craving for big bucks. According to Yahoo Sports, Earnhardt made $30 million from all sources in 2009. In a 19-year career, Jeff Gordon had made $110 million in track-earnings by 2009.

It seems that leagues, amateur and professional, have made strides in foreclosing the use/injections of steroids and human-growth-hormone, drugs that turn ordinary guys into monsters, but in this TV-driven money-as-the-most-important-component age, blood-sport is alive and well…okay, unwell.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Debate Recap & October Surprise

The presidential debate on 03 October in Denver was refreshing in the sense that it was not a moderator’s show. One remembers the circus MSNBC’s Chris Matthews made of one of the republican debates by prancing up and down in front of the candidates and firing at them rhetorically like a commando taking out the enemy. An effective rebuke couldn’t be made because there were too many candidates and too little time for any of them to actually make a point. Or, there was the time that NBC’s Brian Williams asked Texas Governor Perry how he slept at night…weird.

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Now, the “October Surprise” has arrived… – DRUMROLL, PLEASE –… the unemployment rate has slipped down to 7.8%, just in time for the election, though people with walking-around-sense know that this is a contrived figure, an absolute lie – and a huge one. There were 114,000 jobs created in September, while 375,000 people filed first-time unemployment claims and employers cut 2,000 more. If attacked by unbelief, check these facts out with the appropriate government agencies (Bureau of Labor Statistics). The unemployment rate for July was 8.1%, increased to 8.3% in August but, yo-yo-like, decreased overnight to 7.8% in September, even though net employment was minus 263,000. The administration continues what it has been doing to cook the books, namely just whimsically contrive a certain number of folks who have dropped out of even looking for work until the right number is achieved.

The BIG LIE is alive and well, and Obama and czars are betting that the great unwashed is too ignorant or uninformed to understand. Disgusting!

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In short, the debates usually furnish the opportunity for the “news anchors” and other highly overpaid celebrity news people to perform by displaying their knowledge (or lack of it) and their ability to “regiment” the whole affair, like a drill sergeant setting the cadence. Moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS has been around a long time, sensed that much was being accomplished in letting the candidates “argue it out” and was smart enough to just step aside and let it happen.

It was obvious that Romney had prepared for the debate, while the president had not, but Obama joined in the free-for-all so Lehrer actually was facing the wall. When Lincoln “debated” Douglas, there was no moderator to bang the bell, blow the whistle, flash the lights and generally further be a nuisance, like interrupting constantly to remind the contestants of the “rules.” It’s much better to thoroughly hash out two or three matters than be confined to “sound bites” and campaign rhetoric in attempting but not actually covering eight or nine. For instance, Bain Capital was not mentioned nor was governmental furnishing of birth-control or abortion vehicles.

The president exuded an air of simply “being bothered” by the whole thing, something to be endured but neither enjoyed nor particularly worthwhile, thus his appearing as if he had just strolled in after eighteen holes. He constantly looked down and grimaced, perhaps confident that he had the vote tied up and didn’t really need just another campaign appearance. After all, he has his loyal base plus the entire black and homosexual vote (miniscule as it is), the women (especially up to age 30), the Hispanics and the unions.

One remembers the debate of 2000, when Vice President Gore, apparently feeling much the same as Obama, was attacked by the “sigh syndrome” whenever George Bush had the floor. He was doubtlessly confident that the prosperity (though rapidly declining at the time) during the administration of Bill Clinton, the luckiest president in all of history, would propel him easily into the White House, so he sweated and sighed and sighed and sighed through the evening. Clinton had managed to increase top-rate income taxes by 28% in 1993, thus discouraging the job-makers from doing business, while also not answering the first efforts of al Qaeda to hurt the U.S. The USS Cole massacre, as well as other incidents, was a vivid memory in 2000. Gore bit the dust, even though he tried to steal Florida and had to be stopped by the Supremes.

The president indicated his unbelievable ignorance when he claimed that tax credits were earned by businesses when jobs were outsourced to other countries. Romney didn’t argue the point, only suggested that in his long business-history he had never heard that. The president was left with his jaw hanging and, of course, made no response.

As usual, much time was spent on education – safe ground, since everyone’s for education. Obama’s Education Secretary was school superintendent of Chicago schools when appointed, overseeing a system in which 79% and 80% of eighth-graders, respectively, are not at grade level in reading and math. The national averages of non-proficient readers and mathematicians are 29% and 26%, respectively. Chicago schools didn’t get that deficient overnight, so Secretary Duncan presided over that debacle in a system so dominated by unions instead of educators that it’s virtually hopeless, even though the teachers’ average salary is $76,000 per year, $21,000 or 38% above the national average (2009). This amounts to mediocrity expensively institutionalized.

No mention was made of the system in Chicago, Obama’s hometown. Instead, Romney argued persuasively that education is a state matter and noted that during his tenure as governor of Massachusetts the state had the best system in the nation. In the discussion about healthcare, he made the same argument and noted that Massachusetts inculcated a healthcare system when he was governor. He reiterated his promise to get Obamacare repealed and replaced so that states could handle the health situation without federal intervention such as the panels of bureaucrats to mandate who gets what services and when and where, if at all. Romney mentioned that $90 billion spent on programs and policies to develop so-called alternative energy – complete failure and payoff to cronies – could have been better spent on things like hiring teachers, 2 million of them.

It was the best presidential debate ever witnessed by the perpetrator of this blog. Obama was either in over his head or woefully unprepared. Perhaps he’ll figure a way to utilize a teleprompter in the next two sessions.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

We Will Bury You!

Caveat: This material is not useful for atheists and agnostics, as well as practitioners/participants involved in any belief system other than Judeo-Christian, including Islam, the originator of which attempted to hijack some of especially the Old Testament in order to give written validity to his cult.

Historians, especially the “faith-based” ones, have written many books designed to make comparisons among the various cultures, going back thousands of years, with particular respect to their rise and fall. The Greek and Roman empires have perhaps been given the most attention, either one thought to be too powerful on the basis of known facts to be overcome by an enemy but, nevertheless, consigned to the “ash-heaps of history.”

The reasons have been many and varied, with all of them bearing at least a kernel of truth. Perhaps the most accepted reason for a culture’s disintegration and enslavement occasioned by another culture is simply that it rotted out from within, i.e., its people “couldn’t stand prosperity” and in their sensual preoccupations lost their focus – loss of government and consequent loss of the military, which is the only vehicle guaranteeing stability and security. Declarations and diplomacy are fine but worthless unless supported by military might.

An interesting phenomenon remarked in the Old Testament many times has to do with the instances in which God (not Allah or Buddha or Confucius) sort of intruded himself into his Creation and actually used individuals or whole populations or nations or armies to carry out his scheme of the day. Usually, the Israelites, the chosen people of God, bore the brunt of the schemes, their miseries delivered by an entity chosen by God to administer the appropriate punishment for their unceasing proclivity toward disobeying God’s edicts, fashioned to make them acceptable in his sight and amenable to all people rather than hung-up constantly on their own foibles, best described as orgy-oriented or greed-motivated.

An example is seen in the last chapter of II Chronicles, but actually throughout the OT books of history. God dealt with his people (no one knows exactly how) as well as with the leaders and people of other cultures/races. Using prophets like Isaiah and many others, God warned his people from time to time of impending doom if they didn’t shape-up. Sometimes they did, at other times, not. Sometimes, God even used angels to carry out his plan, one such angel dispatching 185,000 Assyrians who were threatening the Israelites, so other folks besides the Jews reaped the whirlwind for their actions when they countered the will of God.

After a long list of wrongdoing by Israelite kings (and the people), there is recorded in chapter 36 the information that the wrath of God vis-à-vis the Israelites had reached the boiling point and God sent the Babylonians to subdue Israel – by war – and carry them off to Babylon as slaves. About 70 or so years later, Cyrus, non-Israelite king of Persia whose army had overcome the Babylonians, indicated God had spoken to him and he allowed the Israelites to return to rebuild Jerusalem, which Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king had sacked.

These verifiable historic matters, well documented in the OT, deal with events up to the time of Christ, after which there is little history noted in the Bible, with the last words of any kind written by John the Apostle no later than 100 A.D. The great unknown, then, has to do with when, if, or how God might have intruded into his creation since 100 A.D. There’s no written record, but God is not dead.

This remarks in many ways the state-of-the-union – and not as per any speech, usually sound and fury signifying nothing anyway. This country is usually called either a “Christian nation” or a “nation of Christians.” Either way, has God in some phenomenal way dealt with this country, and has he done so with other nations/empires, not vocally, of course, but by using leaders and populations to carry out a specific course of action? Did God give a push to the Greeks? Did God “use” the Goths and the Huns to decimate the Romans, just as he used the Assyrians to punish Israel?

What about the “Crusades period?” Who was right and who was wrong? The Roman Catholic Church was shot through with evil but, at least for the faithful peasants, it had to do with God and Christianity. The Muslims were the product of Mohammad, a killer and cult-leader, who began a system of terror that survives to this day, with the killing of innocent “infidels” practically an act of worship and martyrdom if the killer’s life is lost in the process.

Is it conceivable that God could use Islamists to teach hedonistic Christians a lesson, or that God might use the U.S. and other nations of like mind to rid the world of the ayatollahs’ indiscriminate terrorism? After all, the way of terrorism is the way of blasphemy since in the mind of God life is sacred enough to give his son to redeem it. The suicide/homicide bomber, often with financial compensation accruing to his family, kills wantonly.

There are no answers but one wonders in light of such things as the sanctioning of homosexual marriage and its consequent violation of the body, God’s handiwork, and the gradual disintegration of the family, God’s prescribed pattern for survival/stability, if this country is “rotting from within,” as did Rome and other empires. This is probably what former Soviet strongman Khrushchev meant in 1956 when he said, “History is on our side, we will bury you.” The history is plain enough! One wonders what entity might conduct the burial.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark