Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff

Ah yes, the expose on the inner workings of the Trump White House.

I haven't read the book nor do I intend to. Instead, I'm doing my best to ignore the whole thing. Here's the problem, I would have no way of verifying what Wolff says in his book and I know nothing about the author so I can't even use strength of character as a justification for accepting his claims.

I can guarantee you this. Some of the claims are true; some of the claims aren't true and a lot of the claims are partially true but embellished.

You're not going to sell many books if you don't do a really good job of playing to the fears of Trump's opponents.

So this is at the very least the old poison pen trick. It's trial by accusation and it's very, very difficult to refute all of the claims. It would be like getting all the bad stuff back into Pandora's Box.

Even if one could manage to refute all the claims there would still be a lingering stain.

The book sold a million copies in four days. This guy Wolff must be laughing all the way to the bank.

The only thing it's going to accomplish is it will wider the wedge. To Trump's supporters it's just another example of a corrupt media out to get their guy. To Trump's critics it will serve to deepen the puzzlement over how anyone could have voted for him.

I don't need a book to tell me Trump is potentially dangerous. It looks to me like he has Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

People with NPD don't take criticism well, need constant attention and admiration and can act unpredictably if they're not treated as they think they deserve.

This is NOT the sort of guy you want in possession of the nuclear codes.

Have to love those F-52s

Trump has announced that Norway has purchased a number of F-52 aircraft from the US. The only problem is there is no such plane as the F-52.

Norway bought F-35s.

I would give him a pass on this one if Norway has purchased 52 F-35s but they only bought forty. Maybe Trump was thinking of the Norwegians estimate of the life cycle costs of 52 F-35s that was presented in the Canadian House of Commons?

In any event, I don't think it's too much to ask of the Commander in Chief to know the name of his country's premier fighter aircraft.

Except it isn't a fighter. The F-22 is a fighter. The F-35 is a flying sensor platform with muscle. It's capable of bringing to bear punishment from multiple platforms in a network cloud that covers land, sea and air. Plus it packs a wallop all its own with no help from anywhere else.

As time goes on the F-35's array of software will be finding new and ever more destructive ways of bringing maximum violence to bear.

Shithole Countries?

I've decided that there is a real danger of getting "used to Trump."

I've not going to get into a discussion of whether places like Haiti or some African countries are "shitholes, " whatever that might mean, or not.

The issue is the President of the United States should not be using that kind of language in a public meeting.

We all know Nixon cursed like hell in private, and I'll bet Johnson wasn't far behind them, but at least in public were perfect gentlemen.

Now, I've been known to use profanity when the situation called for it, but never in polite company. This guy is a pig and the simple fact that it seems like the countries of people of color are shitholes while those nice white population are just spiffy implies a much bigger problem.

This moron is a serious embarrassment but the fact that people voted for him, and will most likely vote for him again, is an even bigger embarrassment.

We Don't Need No Leviticus

So I recently encountered an apologist that dismissed the need to use Leviticus in condemning homosexuality because Jesus fulfilled the law. This was a way of getting around all the other stuff in the OT that Christians ignore.

Instead he declared that Romans 1: 26-27 and 1 Corinthians 9-10 condemn homosexuality and that's good enough for him.

Except both Romans and 1 Corinthians are written by Paul and we know that Paul often uses his own opinion because he tells us that himself.

Besides, Romans 1:26-27 refers to Pagans as explained in line 22 & 23 and no one is really sure what 1 Corinthians refers to.

Romans 1:22-23 "Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles." 

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 "Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." 

The problem with this verse are the two words translated here as "men who have sex with men." This translation is from the NIV which also has a footnote which states definitively "The words men who have sex with men translate two Greek words that refer to the passive and active participants in homosexual acts."

Yeah, well, maybe. The two words are "malakos" and "arsenokoites." The KJV is actually better and translates these two words as "effeminate" and "abusers of themselves with mankind."

The NKJV is totally dishonest and translates them as "homosexuals," and in a footnote says "that is catamites" which are boy slaves kept for homosexual purposes, and "sodomites."

The NRSV translates them as "male prostitutes" and "sodomites."

So what do they really mean? "Malakos" literally means "soft" but there are examples of it being used to mean "effeminate" as well. Since Paul is listing people who aren't getting into the "kingdom of God" I suppose "effeminate would make more sense than "soft." But "effeminate" is not the same thing as homosexual.

The second word "arsenokoites" is a neologism. There is no evidence of it being used prior to 1 Corinthians and subsequent uses are usually when Paul is being referred to or sinful behavior is being listed. It's a compound word consisting of "male" and "bed" so literally a "male bed."

Since Paul was listing sinful behaviors once has to assume it's a behavior consisting of a male and a bed. But exactly what, no one really knows. Granted, that something related to homosexual sex is very possible, but you would think the All Knowing, All Powerful, Creator of Heaven and Earth could have come up with something a tiny bit clearer.