The Opinionator

Radio Shack Management = Scumbags

Radio Shack laid off 400 workers today. Having been laid off once myself, I understand this can be a traumatic thing. But Radio Shack management found a way to add insult to injury by letting those unfortunate workers go via email!

Several years ago, computer reseller Inacom let their people go via a voicemail, which was forwarded to me by an acquaintance who was with Inacom. We agreed that was the lowest thing we had seen in the workspace. In an example of workplace Limbo, Radio Shack has managed to go even lower. What kind of management does not have the decency and courage to face workers they are laying off? Scumbags.

I can assure you that The Opinionator clan will never set foot in a Radio Shack again. We will not enrich this company and their management.

H/T: Drudge.

If 9/11 Was An Inside Job....

...then why did we blame it on Al Qaeda? If our intent, as many have suggested, was to attack Iraq, why not blame 9/11 on Iraq? After all, who gave a rat's ass about the Taliban and Afghanistan? If we learned from the experience of the British and the Soviets in Afghanistan, we would have been silly to implicate Al Qaeda and then attack their hosts, the Taliban government in Afghanistan. It would have been easier to blame Iraq and cut out the interim step of attacking the Taliban.

Of course, there is also that inconvenient part of the story that the left wing wackos tend to overlook, which is that Al Qaeda has not been shy about admitting they were responsible for the attacks on 9/11. Maybe the real question is, "how stupid do you have to be to believe 9/11 was an inside job?"

Juan Williams Gets It

In this column, "Banish The Bling" liberal columnist Juan Williams asks the hard questions that need to be asked regarding the culture of failure that is afflicting much of the black community today. As my children attend an inner-city magnet school located across the street form a large housing project, we see this culture on a regular basis. As I have discussed before, the gym at the school is packed for a basketball game yet the Science Fair has no one attending from the "apartments" across the street. In contrast, families from the suburbs are driving up to 25 miles to attend. Williams is taking quite a risk by asking these questions, but they need to be asked. Example:

Where is the civil rights groundswell on behalf of stronger marriages that will allow more children to grow up in two-parent families and have a better chance of staying out of poverty? Where are the marches demanding good schools for those children -- and the strong cultural reinforcement for high academic achievement (instead of the charge that minority students who get good grades are "acting white")? Where are the exhortations for children to reject the self-defeating stereotypes that reduce black people to violent, oversexed "gangstas," minstrel show comedians and mindless athletes?

Be sure to give Williams' column a read.

H/T: Boortz.

She's Right, This Does Say It All

Be sure to drop by Allison Kaplan Sommer's blog, "An Unsealed Room" for some great blogging and podcasting on the War in the Middle East directly from Israel. This post, titled,  "This Says It All," really does say it all.

Be safe and good luck Allison. It may not mean much in a practical sense, but here at The Opinionator World HQ and at Temple Beth Shalom in Cary, North Carolina, we have your back.