Aliens: The Real Enemy?

The other night we watched Battle: Los Angeles, which for all practical purposes is a modern war movie, but with the science fictiony twist of the enemy being extraterrestrials. Earlier in the summer we went to see Battleship, which was the same basic plot, but focused on the Navy, and Hawai'i (which I'm all for).

This seems to be the way all war movies are going to be from now on. Aliens are the new arch-enemy.

Of course, we have seen this all before in various forms since the 1950s, with War of the Worlds and The Day the Earth Stood Still. However, since Independence Day, it has been the case that mostly, if not exclusively, all war movies involve aliens as the opponent. The only exception would be historical war movies.

There must be some covert and unpublished order given to Hollywood that we cannot have any human enemies for a prospective war in a movie. Why? Perhaps because we are all supposed to be one big happy One World Order. To get us all in that frame of mind we must not think of any other nation or people as an enemy.

But also, perhaps, mostly is a fear of not being politically correct, internationally.

Pick any country to use as an enemy against the U.S. in a movie and I bet you will run into writers, directors, producers and actors who will worry about offending that nation. Why, to think that some other nation could actually perpetrate some evil plot against the U.S.—unless we are also guilty of something—is unthinkable. How dare we imply that some country might be a true enemy! That would be considered bigoted.

(As an aside, also notice how all spy movies involve U.S. spies in cahoots with other U.S. spies against—you guessed it—U.S. spies. Don't we actually spy against other nations?

Also, I would rather have peace than war. We should be getting out of as many conflicts as possible and just make sure our own borders are secure. Then we should be the disseminators of liberty via debate, proclamation and diplomacy—with the security of a strong and ready military.)

You see, aliens are safe. Regardless of the unlikely idea that they could get here in the first place (a whole ’nuther science issue), they make obvious and uncomplicated enemies. Since they don't represent any other nation, there is no fear of offending anyone.

Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy a good alien action plot occasionally. This is just an observation of our pop culture, and perhaps a recognition of an overarching “understanding” of the message we are supposed to get from all this lack of authentic war movie enemies, i.e., a country that really exists as a possible threat, such as China, Russia, North Korea or Iran, cannot possibly exist. 

You get the idea.

Islamic Anger Shows They Are Not Ready For Liberty

Protests over an offensive movie?

Of course, you should have heard by now about the two sieges and murders of U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya at the hand of Islamic extremists. Supposedly this is in response to an "insult" to Mohammed in a movie that was made and released in the U.S. on YouTube. I think this is a lame excuse, but if it has any real connection, it is hardly commensurate with the murder of three people who had nothing to do with it.

What are they thinking?

What is the mentality of such an attack against a U.S. embassy in response to a movie release that people may find offensive (and, true, Hollywood gives people plenty to be offended about)? I am hearing many reports that at least the Libya attack was not motivated by the YouTube movie. But if either of these, or the growing number of embassy "demonstrations" erupting today (and beyond?), is a result of offense at this movie, does that give you any sense of objective reasonableness within the Islamic mindset?

Let's take this idea further. 

Let's say you and a bunch of friends and neighbors and family members become greatly offended at some insult to Jesus, or some famous historical figure of U.S. history, such as George Washington, presented in some Bollywood movie. What are you going to do about it? Perhaps you would write letters to the producer. Maybe you would organize a boycott of the movie. Probably you would set up a protest at one of the theaters that showed it (hard to do that to YouTube, though), which did happen a couple of decades ago over a very blasphemous Jesus movie.

Would you stage a siege of the India embassy in Washington D.C? Of course not! Why not? Because everybody knows that the government of India was not responsible for the production of that movie at all.

Islam radicals only know of totalitarianism

How does this relate to what the radical islamists are doing then? If a movie upsets them then they go and besiege the U.S. embassy. Why? Obviously, they think that the U.S. government is responsible for whether the movie was made, for what it said, and that it was released and allowed to be played.

You must remember, that most of the islamic countries are unlearned, and mostly have the perspective of thousands of years of tribal existence, which was monarchical in nature. That is, the only freedom you have is what the ruler of your tribe, or nation, allows you to have. That's it. And if what you do is only what your ruler allows, then what you are allowed to do is the responsibility of your ruler.

So when the radical islamists look at something coming from America, or the West, then they look at it from the governmental ideals they live in. They have no conception of liberty, of free market economy, of personal responsibility within the context of a nation or as a citizen. There is no philosophical foundation in their outlook for any of the freedoms that we as U.S. citizens conceive of or enjoy.

Blame the U.S. government for it all

So no matter what comes from our society to offend the radical islamists, they will continue to throw their anger against the U.S. government. The sooner we pull everything out of the Middle East, the sooner they will forget about the U.S. and they will have to put up with each other. And if their history is any indication, that will mean they will be infighting and at each other's throats within a few years. Or we can allow China to go in and try to put them in peaceful order. Let them wear out their military and use up all their financial resources to futilely keep the area stable.

Already a pawn of China?

When it comes to what the U.S. of A. is doing on the international scene, it appears to be one big conundrum. People on the left feel President Obama has crossed them, leading us further into the Middle East, not closing Guantanamo Bay, and so forth. Those on the right feel perplexed because he has basically continued and furthered the Bush Administration’s path of the War on Terror. Not only that, but he has quagmired the U.S. into Lybia, which also seems to be enmeshing NATO into a Vietnam-like venture. And soon he (and Hillary) may drag us into Syria.

Now we also have our economy heading downhill fast. Nothing brave in the line of holding the line on spending is happening. In fact, everything passing for financial legislation is only new dressing for the same old increase in spending on a scheduled basis. This will only increase our national debt beyond repayment within a few years.

What’s going on? How come, no matter who is in power, the same things keep happening, maybe just at a different pace?

The Bible says the borrower is servant to the lender. Well, that makes the U.S., steeped in tens of trillions of dollars in debt plus even more in unaccounted obligations (like pensions), a servant to many parties. One of those is China. At this point, the U.S. is in a compromised position, and we are not free to deal with China from a position of strength or integrity, because of the fact we owe China trillions of dollars, which we can’t begin (or maybe never will be able) to repay.

Perhaps its possible that China, knowing that we cannot repay them, at least not in the usual or expected way, may be even now demanding we repay them in other ways. One of those ways may be by spending our military strength to do what they would like to see happen around the world: weaken their areas of interest, increase destabilization, all the while making it easier for China to wait for the right time to come on the scene and “take over.”

Seems far fetched? You never know who is calling who at the White House these days.

Shave over the Day of Rest?

I have noticed something over the last several years. Monday mornings I get started shaving, splashing the hot water on my face. My brain tells me that my whiskers seem much shorter than they usually are on any other morning.

Now, I don’t know how many guys notice this, if they would. But it seems to me there’s only one real explanation for this: God’s day of rest.

You see, if you remember the account of the creation in Genesis, God rested after everything was done, and He called it the 7th day. He later commanded His people to rest on the 7th day, because He rested after His work of creation.

Whether or not God created it all in a literal or figurative seven days, He commanded we observe a literal seventh day for rest. Now, of course, as a Christian, I believe God changed that day of rest to the 1st day of the week, to also commemorate the resurrection of Jesus. So if we are obedient, we will honor God on His day of rest, or the Lord's Day, whichever way you want to say it.

So, do we (in general, everyone on earth, or just believers?) actually rest on this day of rest? I mean, is there a seven-day cycle we all are somehow in tune to in some basic physical sense? Do many of our bodily systems actually relax their functioning during that day? Considering my whiskers on Monday morning, I would think this is so.

 Does anyone else think this, as well? Or do you think this is totally bogus, or just psychological?

Creaking Ice

Last Sunday we took a short drive out to Lake Maria State Park just outside of Monticello, Minnesota (because that’s near our home!). By the way, it’s pronounced mar-eye-ah, like the song from Paint Your Wagon. Lake Maria is not very big; I would say about 600 yards across.

It has been a mild and drought-like winter thus far. Little snow (less than 9 inches) and above freezing daytime temperatures for a several weeks. Though it is still getting cold enough at night to form ice over lake surfaces.

We drove down to the lakeside to be out in the sun for a while. With barely any wind, it was still warm enough for me to walk around without a cap, and for some reason I had forgotten my gloves as well.

As we walked a path to the lake, we noticed some strange sounds. At first I thought someone must have had some music on loudly enough to carry across the lake from the other side. It was bassy, not like drum thumps. But then again, there was really no echo.

It was nearly 40 degrees by then. There was a fishing dock, and we walked out on it. The ice seemed just thick enough to walk on. At the shore it seemed to be at least four, maybe five inches thick. Alex and I walked out onto the ice nearby the dock. The ice was not transparent, so I couldn't tell how thick it may have been there.

That’s when we heard cracking! It was slight, but enough for all of us to hear it. And it didn’t last long. I also noticed the visible crack through the ice from one corner of the dock radiating out toward the shore to the south. Now I have been on lake ice during March while ice fishing, and then there can be lots of water on the surface as the temps get warm enough. But you know the ice has been almost a foot thick still, and there is no danger. This ice at that time was a different story. No knowing when or where it might not be thick enough.

Alex and I made our way back to the shore and returned to Connie on the dock. All through this time we were still hearing that low thumping sound. It actually was coming from under the ice! We walked further along the lake to the boat access area. There we could see a long crack about 8 feet from the shoreline. It stretched parallel with the shore for a long distance. The crack was about an inch wide, with more ice having filled the space between; a good sign that it separated once and then refroze. I noticed more cracks similar in other places.

At this place the low sound was more noticeable, too. Somehow, there was some kind of wave action going on under the ice. The ice was thin enough to allow the sound to come through. Also, I think the ice was thin enough to flex under the movement of whatever wave action was going on. Like the skin that forms over a pot of cooling soup, it would move slightly from the movement of the water underneath. That would explain the cracking all over the lake as well.

I was just left with a wondering whether this was common on other lakes this year, or if there was some unique aspect to this one.