What Next?

Well said from The Officers' Club.

At this point in the negotiations process (if you can even call it that), it may be time to call a spade a spade. This move by the Iranians was a harsh slap in the face to European representatives fighting for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis. Salvaging the negotiations will be difficult, especially when the Iranians refuse to even show up to the table. Diplomacy has failed, time to move on.

The question of whether or not Iran will play diplomatic ball has been answered, they won't. Now we have to ask "what next?"

What next? Well, we have to give diplomacy a chance. How long do we say that? Do we give them the same amount of time we gave Iraq? Do we give them 10% more time? The question is absurd: we give them no time. Diplomacy has turned into a game of pussy-footing.

What needs to happen is France and Germany should take due offense at Iran's ploy, and lead a strike. Then maybe we could sell Iran weapons and buy their oil, let Europe do all the work, use the death of their young men as a red herring in our politics, and when the dust settles demand that we have a say in the future of Iran.

Does ANYONE trust France and Germany to deal with Iran? Think about it: do you entrust the security of the world to them? I certainly don't trust France with it, given the dispositions of the French people, and Germany's Merckel has yet to prove her mettle (though I see promise there). I would trust a British-led European coalition, but how likely is that to exclude the United States?

Let them play their politics in Europe. It makes me wish they would revitalize their monarchies and go back to an age where Europe was truly the crux of human civilization. How very ball-dropping of them.

The Game is Over

Let's stop pretending that we aren't killing people.

50 Babies a Year Survive Attempted Murder

They are currently not considering pressing chargers against their attackers.

This is it. We've hit the wall. Abortion advocates must now say: a woman's right to choose supercedes a human's right to live. Or they must call it the sin and crime that it is and join the fight to end it.

They tried to avoid answering it before by calling into question whether the baby was viable, whether it was alive, and a number of other half-baked red herrings (half baked herrings are dead, by the way).

The game is over. We are not talking about "pretend" people, potential people, genetic material, or animals. We are talking about people, not merely humans. We are talking about BABIES being MURDERED.

Your turn, NARAL.

Oh ye of little faith

We mentioned before that this aspiring scholar sees a war between the United States and China as a horrible prospect that would see the death of potentially millions of Chinamen, and in a worse-case scenario, tens of thousands of American. But we would shock and awe them on a scale never before seen. They wouldn't even know which way was up by the time we got done bombing them back to the... uhh... gunpowder age... I'm not sure what kind of "ages" the Chinese went through, but we would definitely not lose a war with them.

The overwhelming assessment by Asian officials, diplomats and analysts is that
the U.S. military simply cannot defeat China. It has been an assessment relayed
to U.S. government officials over the past few months by countries such as
Australia, Japan and South Korea.

I contend that we could win conventional or nuclear war against the People's Republic of China, (especially, but not contingent, if those Pacific Doubting Thomases are on our side. And they better be there when steel meets steel, unless they secretly want oppressive governments to dominate the globe.) I'm assuming these nations don't have intelligence services to report on these things, or that their analyses are sheerly numerical.

A billion Chinese will not build a bridge across the Pacific.

Is Paris Burning?

Indeed. What are these Frenchmen doing?

Update: 13 Nights Running.

The Supreme Court (in brief)

Since a hostile anonymous poster requested it, and I see no reason not to oblige, here is my brief post on the Supreme Court:

The far-leftists (i.e., mainstream university liberals) are angry because they had no way of blocking Roberts without further hurting their party (v.g., a time-wasting filibuster). Roberts is one of the greatest legal talents of our day (even if you disagree with him). He is now the Chief Justice of the United States, and may well be so for the next fifty years. Let us hope he is as conservative as Scalia. If it turns out he forgets that his job is to interpret laws against the constitution, and instead, like so many others, becomes arrogant and believes that he is a moral legislator, then I will readily agree that he needs to go.

As for Miers, it's another strange one. She seems to have some kind of conscience, as she has contributed to both parties. This should appease those who claim to want someone who evaluates by issue and not down a party line. She seems to be genuinely born again in the Christ the Lord, which to any Christian is a blessing, and anyone in the Judaeo-Christian tradition should well understand how this will affect her philosophy. She seems to be a judicial conservative (and by this I mean she, unlike the New York Times, realizes that "judicial activism" does not mean "finding a law unconstitutional"). She would not be the first person to sit on the court without previously having been a judge: William Rhenquist himself's first robe was that of the High Court.

I do rather wish that the President had named Scalia to the Chief Justice slot, and battled it out in Congress. But I suppose I am willing to defer to a longer-term possibility, and cross my fingers on his legal philosophy.

With both nominees, only time will tell their true colors. All we can hope for is that they both trust the Lord's judgment, and believe firmly in their stated judicial philosophies.

Dearest antagonizer (whose identity remains a mystery, and I'm sure, makes the task that much more appealing), does that satiate your desires?

Doomsday Post

I went to DC a few days ago for an overnight trip. Just for fun.

A postal employee blew up on me, said I had a "John Roberts face". I'm not kidding. A postal worker went postal on me. After haranguing my friend and me for about 30 minutes about how other nations handle their capital districts better than the US, and how the US flies in the face of "international law" (that was the phrase that sparked the argument), I eventually said - jokingly of course - "international law? haha, I can tell you're on the left". This is where the explosion started. He yelled at me, told me to sit down (I didn't) and said a lot of nonsensical things. He walked away once, came back, yelled some more, walked away again... and fell flat on his face on the restaurant floor. Seriously.

We saw him again later that night, yelling at someone else in the bathroom at a bar. Kelly's Irish Times bar by Union Station receives a 3.5 out of 5 stars from The Aspiring Scholar (it loses one star for location and a half star for slow weeknights - but I will definitely go back if I'm ever in the neighborhood). It's definitely better than the other bars in the several block radius. We didn't realize how far the metro took us, and ended up trying to walk back from Union Station. When we finally flagged down a police car to ask for help, they told us they thought we had been robbed at gunpoint, because they were very surprised to see two young white males in shirts and ties on that particular street. Many thanks to Officer Hoffman and her partner (5th District, Metropolitan Police Department, Washington DC) for potentially saving our lives.

News... hmm... apparently John Roberts thought Michael Jackson was a bad role model for children, and the Washington Post seems to think that makes him some kind of uber-boy scout. I happen to agree with the man. I clicked Drudge's link to the Huffington Post's post by Cindy Sheehand, entitled Memo to Drudge, et.al. That post in and of itself wasn't too bad, but reading on, I was astonished at the sorts of things the left says. I'd reccomend it for anyone who wants to dance a little with the devil... just make sure your soul is entrusted to the Lord first.

As you can tell, this post is kind of a catch all. Hopefully September will bring some actual news - a welcome change from a protesting left-wing radical camped outside the President's ranch, and irrelevant documents about unrelated policy positions in the John Roberts confirmation process.

Dear Mrs. Sheehan

Dear Mrs. Sheehan,

We at the Aspiring Scholar are very sorry for your loss. As an army officer cadet and simultaneous member of the New Jersey National Guard, my heart goes to you and the family of every other soldier lost in combat. I dread the day I will have to write or call people just like you.

However, you are on a path to personal destruction. Any cheap Holywood production (like, say, a George Lucas production or a Tom Cruise film) knows that harboring revenge and striking out is not the way to peace. The President met with you in June, and you said you felt better knowing that he is sincere in his crusade for freedom (yes, crusade) and knowing that he is truly a man of faith. Please remember how you felt then and stop this nonsense waste of your time. You cannot expect President Bush to agree to meet with you again, when so far your form of petition has been, "I'm going to sit outside your Texas ranch until you do." Little kids try this all the time, and there is a very good reason parents don't accede to it. Accepting help from MoveOn-dot-org (I spell it out to avoid being accused to linking to them) also does not help your case, as it makes it appear that you are willing to politicize your son's death.

Your family calls on you to stop. They have taken the high road, the road to peace, saying, "The rest of the Sheehan Family supports the troops, our country, and our President, silently, with prayer and respect." I advise you to do the same. I think if you look inside yourself, and look to the Lord with prayer, you will find the peace you need, and you will definitely realize that your current actions are only hurting you, your family, and Casey's name (God rest his soul).

The nation feels your pain, but we also want to see you gain peace. Vengeance and anger do not beget healing.

God bless you and your family.

Yours in Freedom and in Christ,

The Aspiring Scholar