Saturday, March 30, 2013

How to Get Yourself Blown Up - North Korea Could Give Lessons

 All the blustering that North Korea's diminutive leader, Kim Jong Un is doing lately, just may get his country turned into a sheet of radioactive glass if he's not careful.  Kim's high-testosterone postering may be an effort to mask the 29 year-olds apparently tentative hold on power in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.  Kim came to power with fewer supporters than any previous leader since 1949 and his probably misguided attempts to shift the power structure in North Korea from the military to the Party and security apparatus may have made trigger fingers itchy among the generals, who seem more than a little concerned about the security of their own positions.

Kim Jong Un has shut down some of the North Korean military's favorite money-making activities like overseas investment and the notorious "Room 39", a black market operation that counterfeits US currency, smuggles drugs and produces a significant portion of the world's fake Viagra.  He's even fired top flag officers like Vice-Marshall Ri Yong Ho.

China, busy with its own internal political turmoil hasn't helped any in toning Kim down. In fact they've handed the North Koreans at least six mobile missile launchers, increasing Kim's launch capability.

In what is apparently a behind the scenes attempt to shift the Communist party  to preeminence in the new government, Kim's supporters have created unrest among the folk who have their hands on North Korea's nuclear trigger. In typical tin-pot despot fashion, Kim has resorted to a display of his manhood as a way to get his troops in line and focused on an outside threat - any outside threat - that will draw attention away from his ineptitude as a leader.

Unfortunately, he's chosen a poor target for his threats.  He might get away with it if he had a conservative or even moderate Republican in the White House. Ronald Reagan probably would have issued a warning and then blown up all his missiles and shot the back porch off his house while he was at it.  The Bushes would have spent a year organizing a coalition and given Kim plenty of time to ratchet down the rhetoric. Unfortunately, he has a liberal Democrat sitting in the oval office.

It is axiomatic among criminals that if you had a choice of cops pointing a gun at you, that you'd be far better off if that cop were a man. Bad guys are far more frightened if a woman is looking down the barrel of a gun at them than if it's a man back there.  They belief among criminals that a woman is more likely to pull the trigger than a man is probably based at least on anecdotal evidence.

The thinking is that a man is stronger and more aggressive by nature, therefore is more in control of his decision to shoot than a woman who is seen by hoodlums as weaker and less aggressive, but more easily frightened and therefore more likely to shoot if threatened.

With the increasingly wimpy commander-in-chief the US currently has calling the shots, Kim may find himself threatening someone who is more likely to be frightened and to shoot first. Though whatever shot Barak Obama may take may be less deliberate, Kim Jong Un should remember that it doesn't take much accuracy or planning to hit a target with a nuke.  For every nuke he can point at the US, he's got 50 that can be quickly pointed in his direction.

 With a Bush or Reagan, Kim would have plenty of warning that all hell was fixing to break loose. If he's counting on that with this president, however, he may have seriously misjudged the situation. And if Obama closes his eyes and squeezes the trigger, heaven only knows what or who he might hit.

(c) 2013 by Tom King

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

When You Poke a Snake, Sometimes It Bites You....

Iran to Sue Affleck and Clooney over "Argo" Film
(c) 2013 by Tom King

(c) Fox News
Man, you try and clean up one leftist mess and next thing you know you're being sued for your troubles.  That's the lesson Ben Affleck, George Clooney and Grant Heslov may be learning soon.  In an ironic twist French lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, legal advisor to some of Hollywood's leftist buds down in Venezuela,has flown to Teheran to discuss where to file Iran's upcoming lawsuit against the producers of "Argo" the Oscar-winning revisionist historical film that does its best to rehabilitate Jimmy Carter's reputation as a decisive, muy macho world leader during the Iranian hostage crisis back in 1979.  I do hope Isabelle remembers to put on her burkha before disembarking from the plane at Teheran International.

It was a noble effort by a gang of leftist filmmakers to try and polish up the reputation of one of the more notably inept Democrat presidents in memory.  Jimmy Carter can certainly use it and President Obama, who looks more and more like Carter every day, could really stand to have his mentor's rep tidied up a bit.  Unfortunately, in prettying up President Carter and making him look more butch, they've poked the snake and the snake is not amused.  Iran does not like the way its leaders, many of whom still sit in cushy offices there in the Iranian capital, are portrayed in the film.  The Iranians, in consequence, have expressed a desire to sue themselves some rich Hollywood producers by way of getting their feelings soothed.  And they've found a French lawyer who's just the lady to do it for them.

I suspect, however, that a lawsuit might not be enough for the mullahs who would rather preserve their own version of how the hostage crisis went (heroic act to Iranians / big lot of embarrassment for the Great Satan).  If I were Ben, Georde and Grant, I'd have somebody with a bomb-sniffing dog go over my Maserati every morning before I cranked it up.  I'm just saying.  These folks have a really poor sense of humor and an even poorer respect for what Hollywood is trying to do for the cause of leftist totalitarian regimes everywhere.
I'm just telling you guys to be careful.  It's why we give the jihadists what they want - so they don't blow us up.  It's leftist diplomacy 101 - the Neville Chamberlain Principle it's called.

Tom

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Where are the Gideons when we need them.....

(c) 2013 by Tom King

 The Republicans have forgotten how to speak clearly and how to tell stories that clarify issues.  Check out this short piece by Ronald Reagan more than a half century ago.  And he was still a Democrat at the time!!!


"A doctor would be reluctant to say this. Well, like you, I am only a patient, so I can say it in his behalf. The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it's like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren't equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can't live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go some place else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

This is a freedom that I wonder whether any of us have the right to take from any human being. All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man's working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it is a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay and pretty soon your children won't decide when they're in school where they will go or what they will do for a living. They will wait for the government to tell them where they will go to work and what they will do.

What can we do about this? Well, you and I can do a great deal. We can write to our congressmen and our senators. We can say right now that we want no further encroachment on these individual liberties and freedoms. And at the moment, the key issue is, we do not want socialized medicine. "
 


- Ronald Reagan

I have to wonder whether, in these troubled times, perhaps we have been denied a Gideon, a champion to stand in the breach and to defend our liberties and our the nation, because we've wasted so many of the ones we've already been sent. A little prayer from all of us about now would not go amiss I'm thinking.

Just one man's opinion...

Tom King

Thursday, March 7, 2013

More Gun Laws / Fewer Gun Deaths / Safer Criminals

Think of all the criminals whose lives we'll save.....
(c) 2013 by Tom King

Call it an on-the-job safety measure for working burglars
A Yahoo News story this morning sounded the initial trumpet for a study that shows the stricter gun laws mean fewer gun deaths.  This study will become the center of an artificial media firestorm in favor of gun control over the next few days.  The study will be cited endlessly as "proof".  Note, however, that the headline carefully states that gun laws mean fewer gun deaths, not fewer murders. And by the way, they count burglars, intruders, muggers and thugs who are shot by citizens in self-defense or by police as "gun deaths".

A similar study in England also found there were fewer "gun deaths" after they enacted gun laws.  What they didn't tell you was that deaths by poisoning, bludgeoning, knife attacks and other means went up sufficiently to more than compensate for reductions in death by guns.  There is actually evidence that the murder rate overall either climbed or did not change. In addition, crimes with handguns have doubled, gang-related gun crimes have exploded to the point that formerly unarmed British Bobbies are now carrying guns in self-defense.  Ironic in that under the British gun laws, self-defense is not considered a good reason for getting a gun license.

I suspect if the American study had compared the "gun death" rate to the overall murder rate they would have found either no change in the murder rate or that murder rates rose (especially in more dangerous places like Chicago). 

Murder is murder and, apparently, if you take away one weapon, people simply find other means to kill.  So instead of being shot, you get bludgeoned to death.  Is that somehow a better way to go? Oh, and by the way, you can't shoot back.  So, if your attacker is larger than you, you will soon have no way to equalize things since you can't legally defend yourself with a gun.  Gives the bad guys a sporting chance, what?

I have wondered how long it would take the anti-gun lobby to gin up this sort of study.

As Benjamin Disraeli once noted, "There are lies, damned lies and statistics."

I'll leave it to you to determine which category this latest "proof" belongs to.

I'm just sayin'

Tom King

Monday, March 4, 2013

The Old World Really Wants to Meddle with the New

 UN Investigator Wants to Go After Bush Too
(c) 2013 by Tom King

And now the UN is getting in on the Bush-bashing - as we knew it would given a little Obama encouragement.  The president seems to have been taking lessons from Clinton on the art of misdirection. Now he's got his internationalist buds blaming stuff on Bush too.  These guys aren't going to be happy till they put the former president in jail.

All I've got to say is - from 9/11 to the end of the Bush administration and for months beyond it - no terrorist attacks on US soil.  Teddy Roosevelt always said, "Speak softly and carry a big stick."  Bush did that pretty well. The Arab nations understand the big stick.

The Obama administration is more like "Speak a lot but don't actually do anything really meaningful unless France gives you permission."  Unfortunately, the Arab nations see that as weakness and an opportunity to go after us again. This UN report basically says, that when you go after terrorists, you must be polite about it and stick to Marquis of Queensbury rules and protect the human rights of terrorists with great care. 

If you don't, the reasoning seems to go, the terrorists might try to blow you up... 

They also want to prosecute American leaders they don't agree with which sets a dangerous precedent.  This kind of UN meddling reminds me a bit of that one world government with "teeth" that even international church leaders like the pope endorsed a couple of years back - one that would be organized by trade and labor unions, international political parties, and diplomats which would be strong enough to keep powerful nations like the US in line. Now we have the UN demanding we prosecute US leaders for being too tough on terrorists.  Next they'll be assigning international representatives to monitor our elections..........................oh, wait.  They've already done that.

We are seeing the rise of internationalism on every hand, which might not be bad, were it to focus on stuff like stopping terroristm, preventing one nation from attempting to drive the people of another nation into the sea or driving tanks over another nation's borders in order to permanently expand their own borders or harboring terrorist training camps and paying terrorists to perform terrorist acts or developing nuclear weapons when they are openly and vocally threatening other nations and supporting providing equipment and training to terrorists and terrorist nations.

That might be useful.  Unfortunately, the focus of internationalists seems to be on weakening the US and creating a strong enough world government to reduce America to a feeble, economically weakened, militarily impotent power. In this, they've had the aid of our own libs (both varieties - the progressive and Ron Paul isolationist varieties - I can't see a lot of difference between the two on this issue).

Look, I've seen the way most of these nations form governments. It's a mess and heaven help you if the bad guys get enough votes to take over. That is NOT something we want to be subservient to. The United States is a haven of liberty, personal, religious and physical liberty. If we take down the walls that protect that liberty, if we lay down our arms and lock up the guard dogs, we will not last long.  If we as a nation decide to do this and submit ourselves to "international" opinion, we will soon find ourselves living in a nation like all those other coutries our ancestors left, piling on freighters, cattle boats and anything they could find that would float in order to get to America. 

Now we have their descendants clamoring to bring the Old World that our forefathers left into America's business - with TEETH? Do they NOT teach history in public schools any more.  The Monroe Doctrine should still be in force.  Hey, we'd even make it a two-way deal and leave them all alone, if the Old World wouldn't keep calling us over to clean up their messes every time we leave them to their own devices for any length of time.

There are reasons our ancestors left the Old World.  Perhaps we need to re-examine those reasons ever once in a while.

Friday, March 1, 2013

How Much for a Mess of Pottage?


Still think that GM/Chrysler bailout was "good for America"?  Chrysler promptly sold itself to Italy.  Meanwhile, GM is busily transferring the bulk of its technology and resources to China with seven plants located there and 70% of GM cars now being made in China.  Cadillac is even a major sponsor of Chinese Communist Propaganda films.

Republican and Democrat corporate sponsors made out big time on the selling out of Americans who "saved" GM and Chrysler in the first place.  So did the unions. It's no wonder they're trying so busily to push religion out of American life.  Religion is not acceptable to their Chinese overlords (who are all driving Cadillacs these days).

The big losers?

  1. Chinese workers who get slave wages, ungodly hours and medieval government healthcare.  
  2. American workers whose jobs will go away so that soon we'll be unable to continue consuming more than we produce.  When that happens, our economy collapses under a weight of debt and we become Chinese workers in fact if not in name.
Corporate America is selling out, cashing in and moving to the Cayman Islands. They're looking ahead and whatever they're seeing, it's not an America where business has much of an opportunity.  Perhaps they're planning to wait offshore till we're fully "socialized" and then they can come back to America and get some of that cheap labor they have in China. 

The so-called 1 percenters aren't going to be hurt by this president or probably by any president that either party puts up.  They're the ones engineering this disaster.   Looks like the losers will be ordinary Americans who will be rapidly reduced to working anywhere at any price to feed their families.

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.Revelation 13: 16-17


Over a century ago, a 19th century church leader wrote, "In all our great cities there will be a binding up in bundles by the confederacies and unions formed. Men will rule other men and demand much of them. The lives of those who refuse to unite with these unions, will be in peril........Men will bind themselves together in unions that will wrap them in the folds of the enemy. A few men will combine to grasp all the means to be obtained in certain lines of business. Trades unions will be formed, and those who refuse to join these unions will be marked men. These unions are one of the signs of the last days. Men are binding up in bundles ready to be burned."  - E. White


Can't those of us who study history and Scripture see where we're headed?  Or are we prepared to sell our American birthright for a mess of pottage like Esau.  At least Esau sold his birthright to his brother who did some good with it.  Corporate America and our elected leaders are in the process of having a fire sale and those who are buying us up are neither our brothers or our friends.

Just one man's opinion....

Tom King