Ready Or Not?

     After I’ve assembled tidbits from the morning news in preparation for a tirade, I strive to find a unifying element to them. Today it was easier than usual.

---

     1. The Idiots Are Coming! The Idiots Are Coming!

     I think it was Einstein who said that the two most abundant substances in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. Nor was he incorrect:

     ‘TV ad showing people drumming a rhythm on baked bean cans banned on safety grounds. A Heinz television advert showing people drumming a rhythm on its baked bean cans has been banned by British regulators on safety grounds.

     The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that Heinz’s Can Song advert should not be broadcast again in its current form after nine people complained that the ad encouraged unsafe practices or could be dangerous for children to copy. Over 1.6 million people viewed a version of the ad on YouTube…’

     Great God in heaven! I fancy my powers as a storyteller, but I can only wish I were creative enough to make this stuff up!

     Are you ready to withstand the rising tide of idiocy, Gentle Reader?

---

     2. Trends In Self-Identification.

     Remember that white chick Rachel Dolezal, who "identifies as black?" Well, she might be on the leading edge of a trend:

     KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A metro mom feels helpless after police say her daughter was attacked at school. The mother said students are targeting her daughter because of her skin color.

     Police say a 12-year-old girl was punched in the face at school by another student Monday at the Frontier School of Excellence off 56th Street and Troost in Kansas City.

     Chandis Kee said this is the second time in two weeks her daughter was attacked, and she said it’s because of her race.

     “About two weeks ago she reported being called racial names,” the mom said.

     She said that’s about the time her 12-year-old daughter Blessyed was first attacked by two girls.

     The victim, Blessyed Kee is white. Please read the whole article. If it doesn’t horrify and enrage you, check your pulse: you may have died and not noticed.

     As the Negro population of this country swells and becomes more assertive, we can expect more such attacks – and not just on defenseless schoolchildren. Prepare as seems best to you.

---

     3. Priorities.

     Let’s imagine that you’re a hysterical left-liberal idiot (pardon the redundancy) who foresees a catastrophe and wants to prepare for it. What could be more important than having a vibrant, flexible economy that’s able to make things?

     Former NASA stars have been protesting for year at the dismal standards in NASA climate research. The same guys who walked on the moon, worked on the Apollo missions, and ran the shuttle program were fed up with NASA’s excellent brand name being exploited by junk scientists to do political promotions. Under Obama NASA was told to do three things -- inspire kids, help international relationships and help Muslim nations “feel good”. So much for space exploration and science.

     Obama slashed former President George W. Bush’s Constellation program, designed to take humans back to the moon and eventually to Mars, by leaking information to the press and threatening to veto the projects. NASA astronauts now rely on Russia to reach space, and NASA has been forced by the Obama administration to delay the Mars mission until 2030.

     That’s about to change.

     Joanne Nova, truly one of Australia’s brightest gems, also links to a New York Times interview with the president-elect:

     JAMES BENNET, editorial page editor: When you say an open mind, you mean you’re just not sure whether human activity causes climate change? Do you think human activity is or isn’t connected?

     TRUMP: I think right now … well, I think there is some connectivity. There is some, something. It depends on how much. It also depends on how much it’s going to cost our companies. You have to understand, our companies are noncompetitive right now.

     They’re really largely noncompetitive. About four weeks ago, I started adding a certain little sentence into a lot of my speeches, that we’ve lost 70,000 factories since W. Bush. 70,000. When I first looked at the number, I said: ‘That must be a typo. It can’t be 70, you can’t have 70,000, you wouldn’t think you have 70,000 factories here.’ And it wasn’t a typo, it’s right. We’ve lost 70,000 factories.

     Outstanding. Clearly we have more than one reason to be grateful for the presidential election results.

---

     4. A Really Serious Unreadiness.

     Space.Com is here to frighten you about it:

     The prospect of aliens visiting Earth has been percolating through human thought for decades, thanks to countless sci-fi books and movies, such as the newly released film "Arrival." But it's still not clear how we would deal with the real thing.

     Astronomers have drawn up a series of recommended actions to be taken after the detection of a signal from a faraway alien civilization, but it seems that no such effort has been made with regard to E.T.'s arrival here, said veteran alien hunter Seth Shostak.

     "I don't know of any protocol if they land," said Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California.

     "I've never heard of any such thing, and I'd be surprised if there was one," Shostak told Space.com. "But who knows what's in the bowels of the Pentagon?"

     The U.S. military devises an incredible array of contingency plans — the Pentagon mapped out an invasion of Canada in the 1920s and '30s, after all, as part of a hypothetical war with the United Kingdom — so it is indeed possible that some kind of alien-fighting blueprint is locked away in a filing cabinet in Washington, D.C.

     However, if the new arrivals turn out to be hostile or predatory, even the most ingenious battle plan would almost certainly fail, Shostak said. Any extraterrestrial civilization capable of journeying from its own star system to Earth would be far more technologically advanced than humanity is, he noted.

     "It would be like taking on the Roman legions with the U.S. Air Force," Shostak said.

     When I showed this to the C.S.O., her immediate reaction was to run to her clothes closet. I asked what she was doing.

     “I have to make sure I have the right outfit for an alien invasion,” she said.

     Clearly, a woman’s wardrobe must be flexible.

---

     5. The Readiness That Matters Most.

     In one of his early books, Robert Ringer reminded us that no matter how long you live, it’s trivial compared to how long you’ll be dead. Quite a lot of people – call ‘em SJWs for brevity – want you to squander the brief candle of life on remorse for things you didn’t do and never will. Dystopic has penned a simple, beautiful refutation:

     SJWs prattle on about the sins of those that came before us. There was slavery, and genocide, and conquest, and rapine. The world is full of sin. Full of wrongs committed by one people against another, brother on brother, since the dawn of creation.

     You and I, dear reader, are not equipped to bear these crosses. The weight of them is too great. The scales of balance could never be righted. SJWs would try to make us bear them even so (note that they absolve themselves of the responsibility), but we cannot. I am incapable of righting all the wrongs I have committed personally. What makes these people believe that all the wrongs of history could be shouldered upon us?

     No, it is difficult enough to bear the weight of my own sins. Christ provides relief for us, a way to lay down those burdens. He did not ask us to bear the weight of the world. He took that upon himself.

     And that’s only a teaser. If The Declination isn’t part of your regular Web-reading cycle, you can’t imagine what you’ve been missing.

---

     6. For Thanksgiving Day.

     Please read this little piece. I wrote it some years ago, in an unanticipated fit of gratitude for something I wasted far too much of. I return to it each year, for I need the reminder quite as much as anyone.

     Thank You, God, for the gift of life, with all its tragedies, trials, and triumphs. For gratitude itself is among Your greatest gifts.

     Happy Thanksgiving Day. May God bless and keep you all.