Why does Barack Obama send his daughters to a church whose pastor preaches an ugly and bigoted theology?

Pulpit Bullies

Intro:

When Barack Obama yesterday condemned the most invidious remarks of his "spiritual mentor," Jeremiah Wright, National Review's Byron York was there. The auditorium at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center, York reports, "was filled mostly with guests invited by the Obama campaign." Unsurprisingly, they "thought he delivered a great speech."

Comment: Jeremiah Wright quotes (below) from bumpshack.com:

“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye.”

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” (Sep 2001)

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” (2003)

“In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01. White America and the western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.” (magazine article)

“Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!…We [in the U.S.] believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.” (sermon)

“Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary would never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had a people defined as a non-person.”

“Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill has been good to us. No he ain’t! Bill did us, just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty.” (sermon)

“The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community and wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.”

Comment: The liberals did not excuse the anti-American comments of Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell in the aftermath of 9/11!

The Crowd Was NOT Fickle!

The Crowd Was NOT Fickle!


Comment: Good read. Made me reevaluate my views.

MacArthur: Earth "not a permanent planet"

John MacArthur: Christians and the Environment

Comment: Worthwhile read!

Excerpt:

We are charged to treat responsibly all the wonderful resources God has given us. But that, in fact, has very little to do with the environmental movement. The environmental movement is consumed with trying to preserve the planet forever. But we know that isn’t in God’s plan.

The earth we inhabit is not a permanent planet. It is, frankly, a disposable planet—it is going to have a very short life. It’s been around six thousand years or so—that’s all—and it may last a few thousand more. And then the Lord is going to destroy it.

I’ve told environmentalists that if they think humanity is wrecking the planet, wait until they see what Jesus does to it. Peter says God is going to literally turn it in on itself in an atomic implosion so that the whole universe goes out of existence (2 Peter 3:7-13).

This earth was never ever intended to be a permanent planet—it is not eternal. We do not have to worry about it being around tens of thousands, or millions, of years from now because God is going to create a new heaven and a new earth. Understanding those things is important to holding in balance our freedom to use, and responsibility to maintain, the earth.

Just a footnote. Though this earth is our temporary home, do take time to enjoy God’s beauty. Take care of your yard. Stop to smell the flowers. Enjoy the forests. God placed those rich resources on this planet for our comfort and His enjoyment. Let us be thankful to Him for that.

Comment: Image from spacetoday.org. Note that John MacArthur is a "young earth" creationist (as am I!).

Bubbles lead to busts. Busts lead to panics!

Can’t Grasp Credit Crisis? Join the Club

Excerpts:

Raise your hand if you don’t quite understand this whole financial crisis.

...
I’m here to urge you not to feel sheepish. This may not be entirely comforting, but your confusion is shared by many people who are in the middle of the crisis.

“We’re exposing parts of the capital markets that most of us had never heard of,” Ethan Harris, a top Lehman Brothers economist, said last week. Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary and current Citigroup executive, has said that he hadn’t heard of “liquidity puts,” an obscure kind of financial contract, until they started causing big problems for Citigroup.

I spent a good part of the last few days calling people on Wall Street and in the government to ask one question, “Can you try to explain this to me?” When they finished, I often had a highly sophisticated follow-up question: “Can you try again?”

...
It really started in 1998, when large numbers of people decided that real estate, which still hadn’t recovered from the early 1990s slump, had become a bargain. At the same time, Wall Street was making it easier for buyers to get loans. It was transforming the mortgage business from a local one, centered around banks, to a global one, in which investors from almost anywhere could pool money to lend.

The new competition brought down mortgage fees and spurred some useful innovation. Why, after all, should someone who knows that she’s going to move after just a few years have no choice but to take out a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage?

As is often the case with innovations, though, there was soon too much of a good thing. Those same global investors, flush with cash from Asia’s boom or rising oil prices, demanded good returns. Wall Street had an answer: subprime mortgages.

Because these loans go to people stretching to afford a house, they come with higher interest rates — even if they’re disguised by low initial rates — and thus higher returns. The mortgages were then sliced into pieces and bundled into investments, often known as collateralized debt obligations, or C.D.O.’s (a term that appeared in this newspaper only three times before 2005, but almost every week since last summer). Once bundled, different types of mortgages could be sold to different groups of investors.

Investors then goosed their returns through leverage, the oldest strategy around. They made $100 million bets with only $1 million of their own money and $99 million in debt. If the value of the investment rose to just $101 million, the investors would double their money. Home buyers did the same thing, by putting little money down on new houses, notes Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com. The Fed under Alan Greenspan helped make it all possible, sharply reducing interest rates, to prevent a double-dip recession after the technology bust of 2000, and then keeping them low for several years.

All these investments, of course, were highly risky. Higher returns almost always come with greater risk. But people — by “people,” I’m referring here to Mr. Greenspan, Mr. Bernanke, the top executives of almost every Wall Street firm and a majority of American homeowners — decided that the usual rules didn’t apply because home prices nationwide had never fallen before. Based on that idea, prices rose ever higher — so high, says Robert Barbera of ITG, an investment firm, that they were destined to fall. It was a self-defeating prophecy.
...
Bubbles lead to busts. Busts lead to panics. And panics can lead to long, deep economic downturns, which is why the Fed has been taking unprecedented actions to restore confidence.


Comment: I'm in that club (of not fully understanding the credit crisis)! What I am doing is avoiding my own personal credit crisis. I have seriously cut back on the use of my credit cards and I pay them off every month. I'm not sure where all of this will shake out (at the National and global level) but I'm trying to keep my own house in order.

A plea for a stable dollar

WSJ: Dollar Bears

Excerpt:

Whereas we can have as many mediums of exchange as we want, we must price goods and services, and get into longer term contractual agreements, to ensure stable capital flows. But should we price in euros or in U.S. dollars? Or, as has been done for centuries, in terms of gold?

What matters is to have an agreed-upon unit of account in terms of which trading partners could price every contractual agreement, preferably having the medium of exchange serve as the unit of account, too. This anchor is missing in the international monetary system today, and is one reason for the financial havoc surrounding us. The volatility around a downward trend of the U.S. dollar -- which was closest to playing the unit of account/exchange double role for half a century -- has diminished its efficiency for these uses. As a result, contracts are shorter. Companies pay substantial insurance fees (and derivative contracts are in the trillions) to stay in their line of business and not get into exchange-rate trouble. Resource-rich countries keep their resources in the ground longer, rather than selling them for papers with uncertain values. And some investors have been loosing substantial amounts by holding bonds of devaluing currencies. Now people are deciding not to invest in U.S. dollar-denominated assets.

The issue isn't that "we will never have a perfect model of risk," as Mr. Greenspan appears to think. What we need is accountability, not perfection. With the proper anchor, central banks can sustain a stable value for their currency, and that is what they must be held accountable for. If they do that, even if financial institutions experiment with a wide range of innovations they cannot expand credit too much.

Crises bring us back to the basics. There is prosperity when talent is matched with capital and everyone can measure in a predictable unit of account. Stable currencies bring about long-lasting, wealth-creating employment. The destruction of wealth by debasing currencies occasionally "creates" employment (with people being forced to accept lower-paying second and third jobs) but it signals poverty, not prosperity.



Comment: Interesting that the "gold" base issue was raised. Summary: The Fed's moves (Bear Stearns & lowered rates) cheapens the dollar.

Layman's guide to "Heller v. District of Columbia"

WSJ: Gun-Rights Showdown

Summary:

1. Heller will be decided on originalist grounds not the doctrine of stare decisis.
   
2. Heller is a federal case. Because the District of Columbia is a federal entity, Heller provides a clean application of the Second Amendment which, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, originally applied only to the federal government. Before a state or municipal gun law can be challenged, the Supreme Court will have to decide that the right to keep and bear arms is also protected by the 14th Amendment, which limits state powers.
   
3. Heller involves a complete ban on operable firearms in the home. No state has a comparable law. And under current Supreme Court doctrine, even the First Amendment rights of speech and assembly are subject to reasonable time, place, and manner regulations. So too would be gun rights.
   

Conclusion:

But although the implications of striking down the D.C. gun ban are limited, a decision upholding an unqualified individual right in Heller would still be a significant victory for individual rights and constitutionalism. To shrink from enforcing a clear mandate of the Constitution -- as, sadly, the Supreme Court has often done in the past -- would create a new precedent that would be far more dangerous to liberty than any weapon in the hands of a citizen.

Umbrella Coverage

Umbrella Coverage for Preventing Your Ruin

Excerpt:

But many people with major assets either do not buy the extra coverage or do not buy enough. Some do not know about umbrella coverage, which also pays for lawyers and other legal expenses. Others have heard of it but do not understand it. Still others decide that they do not want to pay for it, even though the cost is usually a fraction of the price of a typical package of home and auto insurance.

Comment: We find this protection valuable.

Transcript: Heller SCOTUS case

Transcript: Heller SCOTUS case (PDF)

Excerpts:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: If you're right, Mr. Dellinger, it's certainly an odd way in the Second Amendment to phrase the operative provision. If it is limited to State militias, why would they say "the right of the people"? In other words, why wouldn't they say "state militias have the right to keep arms"? (p 4)

JUSTICE KENNEDY: One of the concerns, Mr. Dellinger, of the framers, was not to establish a practice of amending the Constitution and its important provisions, and it seems to me that there is an interpretation of the Second Amendment differing from that of the district court and in Miller and not advanced particularly in the red brief, but that conforms the two clauses and in effect delinks them. The first clause I submit can be read consistently with the purpose I've indicated of simply reaffirming the existence and the importance of the militia clause. Those were very important clauses. As you've indicated, they're in Article I and Article II. And so in effect the amendment says we reaffirm the right to have a militia, we've established it, but in addition, there is a right to bear arms. (pp 5-6)

JUSTICE SCALIA: I don't see how there's any, any, any contradiction between reading the second clause as a -- as a personal guarantee and reading the first one as assuring the existence of a militia, not necessarily a State-managed militia because the militia that resisted the British was not State- managed. But why isn't it perfectly plausible, indeed reasonable, to assume that since the framers knew that the way militias were destroyed by tyrants in the past was not by passing a law against militias, but by taking away the people's weapons -- that was the way militias were destroyed. The two clauses go together beautifully: Since we need a militia, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. (p 7)

JUSTICE SCALIA: Blackstone thought it was important. Blackstone thought it was important. He thought the right of self-defense was inherent, and the framers were devoted to Blackstone. Joseph Story, the first commentator on the Constitution and a member of this Court, thought it was a personal guarantee. (p 8-9)

JUSTICE KENNEDY: Well, there's no question that the English struggled with how to work this. You couldn't conceal a gun and you also couldn't carry it, but yet you had a right to have it. Do you think the Second Amendment is more restrictive or more expansive of the right than the English Bill of Rights in 1689? (p 16)

JUSTICE SCALIA: Doesn't "well regulated" mean "well trained"? It doesn't mean -- it doesn't mean "massively regulated." It means "well trained." (p 26)


Comment: 108 pages!

NYTimes: Supreme Court Hears Gun-Control Case

Gambling: The house always wins

CT: Gambling Opponents Say Moral Argument No Longer a Trump

Excerpt:

"The church's opposition to gambling has not been widely effective," said the Rev. Tom Grey, spokesman for the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, "because (the church is) not relevant in an irreverent age."

Grey, who fought gambling for years from the pulpit as a United Methodist pastor, said the moral argument that gambling is a sin is too easily swept aside as impeding the personal freedom of others.

As a result, Grey's anti-gambling coalition avoids explicit mentions of religion, and presents more economically grounded arguments that center around addiction, bankruptcy and crime, Grey said.

"There's a cost when people lose — they chase the loss," Grey said. "It's the government's dirty little secret. The house always wins."

Comment: I see gambling as a regressive tax on the ignorant.

How far can the Fed go?

Bernanke May Run Low on `Ammunition' for Loans, Rates

Excerpts:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke may be running out of room to pump money into the financial markets and cut interest rates to rescue the economy.

The Fed has committed as much as 60 percent of the $709 billion in Treasury securities on its balance sheet to providing liquidity and opened the door to more with yesterday's decision to become a lender of last resort for the biggest Wall Street dealers. The central bank has cut short-term rates by 2.25 percentage points since September and will probably reduce them again tomorrow.

``They're using up their ammunition on the liquidity and overnight interest-rate fronts,'' said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Jersey City, New Jersey-based Wrightson ICAP LLC, a unit of ICAP Plc, the world's largest broker for banks and other financial institutions.

...

Opening up lending to firms other than commercial banks represents a shift in the Fed's 94-year history. The so-called primary dealers include firms that are units of commercial banks and several that aren't, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch & Co.

Bernanke is likely to find new ways to do whatever it takes to keep markets running and revive economic growth, Pardee said.

Regarding the Fed's moves so far, ``that shows you how bad the market situation is, and it also raises the question of whether the Fed needs help from Congress or the administration,'' Sack said.


Comment: I have a degree in economics and I don't completely understand how this works (perhaps better to say I have a partial understanding).

191 tons

Doomed bridge’s weakest areas carried 191 tons: Investigators highlight heavy load piled on Minn. crossing before collapse

Excerpt:

MINNEAPOLIS - More than 191 tons of construction material had been piled over the weakest areas of an interstate bridge that collapsed last August, according to federal investigators.

In a followup to a preliminary report released in January, the National Transportation Safety Board report that the piles of rock and sand were placed over steel plates that were thinner than they should have been.

Calculations by the agency have determined that the bridge in Minneapolis was carrying a 630-ton load at the time it fell into the Mississippi River. About half of that load was sitting on the center span.

The Aug. 1 collapse killed 13 people and injured 145.

The NTSB had previously cited the too-thin gusset plates and construction project weights as factors in the collapse, but Monday's update included drawings and tables that pinpointed the locations of those heavy loads on the structure.


Comment: See earlier CFG post: The straw that broke

Updated: NYTimes: Mounds of Sand Stressed Minnesota Bridge, Report Says

The World From Our Window: Rick Phillips on Church Visions and Strategies

The World From Our Window: Rick Phillips on Church Visions and Strategies


Comment: Worthwhile read. I have not drawn conclusions yet, but thought provoking!

The economy: How bad is it?

Beware the Bailout: In rushing to fix one problem, has the Fed created others?


Excerpts:

It's said that we're in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Maybe. But remember the S&L crisis of the early 1980s? Or the commercial banking crisis of the late 1980s (from 1988 to 1992, 905 banks failed). Or the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, which sent South Korea, Indonesia and other countries on a boom-bust roller coaster? All were frightening. But what distinguishes this crisis—which brought down Bear Stearns over the weekend—is that it involves the entire financial system, not just depository institutions, and it's more mystifying than any of its predecessors.

...
At the epicenter of the crisis are the now-notorious "subprime" mortgages made to weaker borrowers and subsequently "securitized." On paper the financial system seems to have ample resources to absorb losses. Commercial banks have $1.3 trillion in capital; U.S. investment banks in 2006 had an estimated $280 billion in capital—and other investors, including foreigners, may hold half or more of subprime loans. But no one knows who or how much. Recent estimates of subprime losses range from $285 billion to $400 billion or even higher. Such guesstimates, and outright ignorance, breed caution and fear.


Comment: How bad is it? Seems that no one knows. See underlined sections above.

Will SCOTUS decide "the individual-versus-collective argument"?

Court decision on gun-control is personal for 2 women

Excerpt:

"In the event that someone does get in my home, I would have no defense, except maybe throw my paper towels at them," she said. But Parker lives in the nation's capital, which does not allow its residents to possess handguns.

Elilta "Lily" Habtu thinks that is how it should be. She knows about gun violence firsthand, surviving bullets to the head and arm fired by the Virginia Tech University shooter nearly a year ago.



Comment: Is personal protection guaranteed? Previous CFG post

More: Supreme Court considers 'right to bear arms'

Excerpt:

The court has not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment in the 216 years since its ratification. The basic issue for the justices is whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

The City Council that adopted the ban said it was justified because "handguns have no legitimate use in the purely urban environment of the District of Columbia."

But Dick Anthony Heller, 65, sued the District after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home for self-defense. His lawyers say the amendment plainly protects an individual's right.

The court's ruling, expected by the end of June, could have a far-reaching impact on gun-control laws in the United States and could become an issue in the November election.

The coward John Wilkes Booth

Comment: Lincoln Museum, Springfield, IL, 3/8/08

Newt Q&A on 9/11 and more

Newt Gingrich Answers Your Questions

Comment: A really excellent read. I only excerpt a brief portion.

Excerpt:

In the American conception, as stated powerfully by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, all are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. This proposition was among the most radical in history and it turned on its head the way in which people were governed. We no longer conceived of individual rights as coming from a king or monarch or dictator. In 1776, we asserted the self-evident truth that rights came from God to the individual, and that collectively, the people loaned power to their elected leaders. It is this self-evident truth that is the key to any sustainable democracy — the individual is sovereign and primary, while the state is servant and secondary.

What we face worldwide in the aftermath of 9/11 isn’t a conflict between different models of government; it’s a conflict between the civilized world — which respects the rights of men and women and includes people of all countries and all faiths, including Islam — and the irreconcilable wing of Islam, which is so totally at odds with the civilized world’s views of the rights of the individual that there is no way to reconcile the two world views. Conflict is unavoidable. Certainly, the promotion of democracy is a strategy that should be employed, but it has to include property rights, equality for women and people of other faiths, and the other bulwarks of successful democracies that protect the individual from the power of the state.

Obama's Pastor

Comment: Outright racism!

HT: A Little Leaven

Obama's church accuses media of character assassination

Obama distances himself from Wright

Caller: "the less black kids out there the better."

Response to caller 'a serious mistake,' says Planned Parenthood of Idaho

Comment: Tragic! Of course all abortion is murder!

So send in the Swiss Guard!

Pope: Enough With Slaughters in Iraq

Excerpt:

The pope also denounced the 5-year-long Iraq war, saying it had provoked the complete breakup of Iraqi civilian life. "Enough with the slaughters. Enough with the violence. Enough with the hatred in Iraq!" Benedict said to applause at the end of his Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square.

Comment: The Swiss Guard

The Conservative Case for McCain

The Conservative Case for McCain

Excerpt:

There is a yawning gulf between the viewpoints of Mr. McCain and those of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Nowhere is this more evident than on the critical issue of the steady collapse of our government's financial house.

Since 2000, the federal budget has increased 72%, to $3.1 trillion from $1.8 trillion. The national debt is now $9 trillion -- more than the combined GDP of China, Japan and Canada. Add in Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security commitments, and as a nation we are staring at more than a $50 trillion hole -- an invisible mortgage of $450,000 for every American family.

Hope alone won't carry us through the valley of the shadow of debt. The fact that neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. Obama has made cost-cutting a part of their political vocabulary is a clear indication that they would increase spending. In fact, Mrs. Clinton has already proven skillful at snagging pork. Over the past few years alone, she has attached some $2.2 billion in earmarks to federal spending bills. Mr. McCain has asked for exactly $0 in earmarks.

And while Mr. Obama's oratorical skills have been inspiring, his proposals would entail roughly the same $800 billion in new government spending that Mrs. Clinton proposes. To his credit, Mr. Obama admits that his spending proposals will take more than three clicks of his heels to fund. He would pay for his priorities with a bevy of tax increases which he hopes taxpayers won't notice.

But taxpayers will notice. Mr. Obama plans to raise taxes on capital gains, dividends and corporate profits. He wants to hike estate taxes by 50%. And he wants to eliminate the cap on payroll taxes. These tax hikes would increase the burden borne by individuals and decrease the competitiveness of our economy.

Comment: Sanford (Gov S.C.) is a potential VP

Avoiding "the global equivalent of a store clerk seizing your credit card and cutting it up"

A Proposed Diet for the U.S. Budget

Excerpt:

On paper, the government’s total assets, including facilities and inventory, are valued by the authors at about $1.4 trillion. If the government had to submit a standard financial statement of the type required of the average home buyer, it would show a negative net worth of $7.6 trillion.

Mr. Bittle and Ms. Johnson predict that even with continued foreign investment and financial forbearance, the nation may soon find it impossible to fulfill its existing and future commitments to its own citizens in the form of Social Security and Medicare payments. In 2006, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid consumed 39.7 percent of the federal budget of $2.6 trillion, compared with 19.7 percent for defense.

In the future, the cost of entitlement programs will balloon as 78 million baby boomers age. In 2006, there were fewer than 50 million Social Security recipients; 12 years from now, there will be nearly 70 million. With health care costs rising faster than inflation, the part of Medicare that covers hospital costs for the elderly is already paying out more than it takes in from payroll taxes.

“Unless something changes, we could see a time (around 2040, if nothing is done) when nearly every tax dollar collected will be needed to pay for retirement and health care for the elderly and interest on the debt,” the authors warn. “There will be almost no money for anything else, except maybe a basic national defense.”

Comment: Sobering fiscal reality!

Ephesians 2:14, "the middle wall of partition"

Ephesians 2:14, "the middle wall of partition"

Blogging beats Prozac

Can you blog away the blues?

Excerpt:

Viewed in this light, blogging could be prescribed as a potentially cheaper (and drugs-free) way to help people overcome a feeling of isolation.

That bloggers derive an elevated sense of self-worth comes as little surprise to this blogger. Blogging has been dismissed as a narcissistic pursuit, the equivalent of giving a megaphone to the most opinionated person in the room. But it can also be a tremendously beneficial pursuit -- for both the blogger and his or her readers. Most of the time, anyhow.

Comment: This explains it!

Such a plonker

Honey, will you marry... Oh. Never mind...

Excerpt:

The luckless 28 year-old's dreams of giving his sweetheart, Leanne, 26, the ultimate proposal have literally vanished into thin air.

Hajji, of Hackney, east London, had concealed a $12,000 engagement ring inside a helium balloon. The idea was that she would pop the balloon as he popped the question.

But as he left the shop, a gust of wind pulled the balloon from his hand and he watched the ring -- and quite possibly the affections of his girlfriend -- sailing away over the rooftops.


Comment: I'm not sure what a "plonker" is ... but that's what the man called himself! (His fiance will give him a "blonker"!)

What do Christians and Legos have in common?

What do Christians and Legos have in common?

Britain is Repossessing the U.S.A.

A Message from John Cleese

To the citizens of the United States of America:

In light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation ofyour independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new prime minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.

1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
   
2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters and the suffix -ize will be replaced by the suffix -ise. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (Look up
   'vocabulary').
   
3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize. You will relearn your original national anthem, God Save the Queen.
   
4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
   
5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.
   
6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
   
7. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
   
8. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
   
9. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.
   
10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
    
11. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth - see what it did for them.
    
12. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie McDowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.
    
13. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full Kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try Rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.
    
14. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
    
15. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.
    
16. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).
    
17. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; strawberries in season.
    

God Save the Queen.

Only He can.

John Cleese and Rich Miles



Comment: Sent to me by my daughter. The way the dollar is sinking versus the pound, this could be close to the truth!

Will Wells acquire NCC?

Wells Fargo likely to consider buying struggling Cleveland bank

Excerpts:

Wells Fargo is expected to be on a short list of potential suitors for Cleveland-based National City, which is looking for a buyer as it struggles with bad loans.

Wells (NYSE: WFC), on the other hand, is weathering the financial storm relatively well. The San Francisco bank's leadership has expressed interest in recent weeks in stepping up its pace of acquisition activity. In January, Wells agreed to buy five banks in Wyoming and Idaho from United Bancorp. of Wyoming Inc., of Jackson, Wyo. The bank is still integrating its recent purchase of Greater Bay Banks, which was based in East Palo Alto.

National City's (NYSE: NCC) investment bankers are shopping the troubled bank, according to a Wall Street Journal report Thursday.

Whenever a major bank comes on the market, Wells is often mentioned as a potential suitor given its deep pockets as the nation's fifth-largest bank. But National City's depressed share price and the troubled Midwestern markets it serves might be too appealing for a disciplined buyer like Wells Fargo to pass up.

...

National City's branch network includes Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Florida, Missouri and Pennsylvania. The Cleveland bank's branch territory would fit well with National City's dominance in the Midwest.


Comment: I hope Wells Fargo passes on this!

CFG: Biographical information

Where I went to school!

Work today: I reimaged my Thinkpad and am now loading on Acrobat Pro, SQL Server 2005 Management Studio, etc. My boss was giving me grief (about being a slow learner) and I told him that it was the fault of my schooling! Image is © the Far Side

Buffett, WaMu & WFC

Buffett, WaMu & WFC

Excerpt:

Some are speculating that Warren Buffett has already begun building a stake in the company and plans to eventually merge it with his other large holding - Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC). The idea may seem nothing more than a dream to some, but any such move could result in substantial value being unlocked for shareholders. WaMu shareholders would receive an ample buyout premium while Wells Fargo would get a cheap acquisition in today’s markets. Clearly, if the economy turns, this could become a great deal.

In the end, this is nothing more than a far-fetched rumor, but it is one that is definitely worth watching.

Comment: My take = "far-fetched rumor"

Cramer on Spitzer

The rise of modern convervatism

Goldwater, the John Birch Society and Me

Excerpt:

... it seemed inconceivable that an antiestablishment gadfly like Goldwater could be nominated as the spokesman-head of a political party. And it was embarrassing that the only political organization in town that dared suggest this radical proposal--the GOP's nominating Goldwater for president--was the John Birch Society.

The society had been founded in 1958 by an earnest and capable entrepreneur named Robert Welch, a candy man, who brought together little clusters of American conservatives, most of them businessmen. He demanded two undistracted days in exchange for his willingness to give his seminar on the Communist menace to the United States, which he believed was more thoroughgoing and far-reaching than anyone else in America could have conceived. His influence was near-hypnotic, and his ideas wild. He said Dwight D. Eisenhower was a "dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy," and that the government of the United States was "under operational control of the Communist party." It was, he said in the summer of 1961, "50-70 percent" Communist-controlled.


Comment: First they had to slay the dragon of the lunatic fringe (The John Birch Society).

Eliot Spitzer: Flashback 2004

18 Arrested in Lucrative Prostitution Ring Out of Staten Island

Excerpt:

Prosecutors from the State Organized Crime Task Force, working with the New York Police Department and the F.B.I., charged 16 people with enterprise corruption and two others with falsifying business records and promoting prostitution and money laundering.

About eight midlevel managers ran the ring, which operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, using about 15 to 20 drivers to dispatch 30 to 40 prostitutes each day, officials said. In most instances, customers paid $250 for sex, sometimes using credit cards. The transactions, officials said, were processed through merchant accounts held by escort services or limousine companies, and in one instance a company that hired musical bands for weddings.

''This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,'' the state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, who oversees the task force, said in a statement. ''It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring, and now its owners and operators will be held accountable.''


Comment: This post and the previous ("renting out" an organ for 10 minutes) underline the wrongness of Spitzer's behavior.

“renting” out an organ for 10 minutes

The Myth of the Victimless Crime

Excerpt:

“I’m here for a purpose,” she said in a conversation with her booking agent after meeting with Governor Spitzer, according to the affidavit of the F.B.I agent who investigated the prostitution ring. “I know what my purpose is. I’m not a ... moron, you know what I mean.”

Her purpose, as a man who knew patiently explained, is “renting” out an organ for 10 minutes. Men rent women through the Internet or by cellphone as if they were renting a car. And now, in response to the news about Governor Spitzer, pundits are wading into the age-old debates over whether prostitution is a victimless crime or whether women are badly hurt in prostitution no matter what they’re paid.

Whose theory is it that prostitution is victimless? It’s the men who buy prostitutes who spew the myths that women choose prostitution, that they get rich, that it’s glamorous and that it turns women on.

But most women in prostitution, including those working for escort services, have been sexually abused as children, studies show. Incest sets young women up for prostitution — by letting them know what they’re worth and what’s expected of them. Other forces that channel women into escort prostitution are economic hardship and racism.

The Emperor’s Club presented itself as an elite escort service. But aside from charging more, it worked like any other prostitution business. The pimps took their 50 percent cut. The Emperor’s Club often required that the women provide sex twice an hour. One woman who was wiretapped indicated that she couldn’t handle that pressure. The ring operated throughout the United States and Europe. The transport of women for prostitution was masked by its description as “travel dates.”


Comment: Good article on the victims of prostitution.

Updated: Woman at the Center of Governor’s Downfall

Excerpt:

On MySpace, it says: “I am all about my music and my music is all about me. It flows from what I’ve been through, what I’ve seen and how I feel.”

She left “a broken family” at age 17, having been abused, according to the MySpace page, and has used drugs, “been broke and homeless.”

“Learned what it was like to have everything and lose it, again and again,” she wrote. “Learned what it was like to wake up one day and have the people you care about most gone.

“But I made it,” she continues. “I’m still here and I love who I am. If I never went through the hard times, I would not be able to appreciate the good ones. Cliché, yes, but I know it’s true.”

Comment: She is younger than my daughter (my youngest child)

'Rasp Berry' and other bad baby names

A Boy Named Sue, and a Theory of Names

Excerpt:

Some of these mental problems might have been genetic — what kind of parent picks a name like Golden Rule or Mary Mee? — but it was still bad news.

Today, though, the case for Mr. Cash’s theory looks much stronger, and I say this even after learning about Emma Royd and Post Office in a new book, “Bad Baby Names,” by Michael Sherrod and Matthew Rayback.

By scouring census records from 1790 to 1930, Mr. Sherrod and Mr. Rayback discovered Garage Empty, Hysteria Johnson, King Arthur, Infinity Hubbard, Please Cope, Major Slaughter, Helen Troy, several Satans and a host of colleagues to the famed Ima Hogg (including Ima Pigg, Ima Muskrat, Ima Nut and Ima Hooker).

The authors also interviewed adults today who had survived names like Candy Stohr, Cash Guy, Mary Christmas, River Jordan and Rasp Berry. All of them, even Happy Day, seemed untraumatized.

“They were very proud of their names, almost overly proud,” Mr. Sherrod said. “We asked if that was a reaction to getting pummeled when they were little, but they said they didn’t get that much ribbing. They did get a little tired of hearing the same jokes, but they liked having an unusual name because it made them stand out.”


Comment: Johnny Cash: A boy named Sue

Reputation at birth: Does Not Play Well With Others

They Criticized Vista. And They Should Know

Excerpt:

Here’s one story of a Vista upgrade early last year that did not go well. Jon, let’s call him, (bear with me — I’ll reveal his full identity later) upgrades two XP machines to Vista. Then he discovers that his printer, regular scanner and film scanner lack Vista drivers. He has to stick with XP on one machine just so he can continue to use the peripherals.

Did Jon simply have bad luck? Apparently not. When another person, Steven, hears about Jon’s woes, he says drivers are missing in every category — “this is the same across the whole ecosystem.”

Then there’s Mike, who buys a laptop that has a reassuring “Windows Vista Capable” logo affixed. He thinks that he will be able to run Vista in all of its glory, as well as favorite Microsoft programs like Movie Maker. His report: “I personally got burned.” His new laptop — logo or no logo — lacks the necessary graphics chip and can run neither his favorite video-editing software nor anything but a hobbled version of Vista. “I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine,” he says.

It turns out that Mike is clearly not a naïf. He’s Mike Nash, a Microsoft vice president who oversees Windows product management. And Jon, who is dismayed to learn that the drivers he needs don’t exist? That’s Jon A. Shirley, a Microsoft board member and former president and chief operating officer. And Steven, who reports that missing drivers are anything but exceptional, is in a good position to know: he’s Steven Sinofsky, the company’s senior vice president responsible for Windows.

Their remarks come from a stream of internal communications at Microsoft in February 2007, after Vista had been released as a supposedly finished product and customers were paying full retail price. Between the nonexistent drivers and PCs mislabeled as being ready for Vista when they really were not, Vista instantly acquired a reputation at birth: Does Not Play Well With Others.


Comment: Microsoft insiders' Vista experiences. Netting it out: It's just an operating system! People buy a computer for the applications - not the operating system! (Leopard is one fun operating system, BTW!)

To whom is he "Deeply sorry"?

'Deeply sorry,' Spitzer to step down by Monday

Excerpt:

"I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me," he said in a brief news conference announcing his intention to resign, effective Monday. "I will try once again outside of politics to serve the common good."

Comment: Is he 'deeply sorry' to his dear wife to whom he made marriage vows? Is he 'deeply sorry' to his three teenage daughters? Is he 'deeply sorry' to the Almighty who commanded "You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14)? Or is he just 'deeply sorry' he was caught?

Blaming evolution

His Cheating Brain

Excerpt:

As the saying goes, power is also an aphrodisiac--and that's been true, says Kruger, as long as humans have been around. "In our evolutionary history, men who had lots of resources and status and power were able to have more than one partner. Your body is basically saying if you have this power, you should use it, because that's what has worked before," he says. "Even in modern history, whether you're talking about medieval kings or sultans or rock stars, quite a few have multiple partners. So you're not so surprised to see this dynamic in politics today."


Comments: "evolutionary history" is an oxymoron! Blaming evolution (or testosterone) is just another way to evade personal responsibility! There are many "highly evolved", powerful men who manage to stay true to one woman!

Onion: pink Shroud of Turin

Shroud Of Turin Accidentally Washed With Red Shirt

VATICAN CITY—The damage occurred when Pope Benedict XVI, who was on laundry duty, did not notice a brand new bright-red Hanes Beefy-T in the Holy Whirlpool washer.

The "lame" political ritual of repentance

Public apology, the ritual of repentance

Excerpt:

First, we watch the news conference. There's Spitzer, with his wife by his side. He says, "I want to briefly address a private matter." Then he expresses remorse (albeit vaguely) and promises to "dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family."

Then, we call Mark Geragos, the high-profile criminal defense attorney, who -- as it happens -- has not actually seen the news conference. He proceeds to describe the news conference that he has not seen.

"You've got to have the dutiful wife and you have to have the 'it's a private matter,' " Geragos says. "And remorse for the past and plans for the future."

Whoa.

"If you've seen one, you've seen 'em all," Geragos says.

How strange that so many of us watch when we already know what will happen. And as we watch, random thoughts emerge: Did Silda Spitzer know when she got dressed this morning what she was dressing for? And did he change his tie from blue to a bold red, knowing that this image of him would be indelible? How do you dress for a scandal?

And what about that last line?

"I will report back to you in short order," Spitzer said at the end of the news conference, like he was closing a business deal and just needed to check some numbers, like he was completely in control of the situation.


Comment: Image above is of Dina Matos McGreevey & former NJ Gov. James E. McGreevey. Below: Silda Spitzer

Comment: Spitzer and McGreevey have common tastes in ties! See also Newsweek: The Wronged Wives Club

7 more deadly sins

Seven More Sins, Thanks to Vatican

Excerpt "a clip-n-savable list":

1. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control
   
2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research
   
3. Drug abuse
   
4. Polluting the environment
   
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
   
6. Excessive wealth
   
7. Creating poverty
   

Comment: In case you forgot the original 7: Seven deadly sins

Deadbeat!

Credit Card Quiz


Comment: Take the quiz. I only got 5 / 11 correct.

SnowCrystals.com

SnowCrystals.com


Comment: Fascinating site!

Obama fires back on tax returns promise

Obama Memo on Clinton Tax Returns

Clinton aide compares Obama to Ken Starr

Comment: This just gets better and better! Interesting comment follows 2nd article:

They went from a negative net worth, to being worth over $35MM in less than 7 years. I'd say those tax returns are relevant to the people of Wyoming and Mississippi. Especially since she dumped $5MM in to her own campaign.

Springfield IL trip

Tomorrow Kathee and I will be leaving at 6:30 a.m. to drive to Springfield, IL. Our express purpose is to visit the Lincoln Presidential library & museum. We've been to Springfield before (a previous "week of Lincoln" trip where we read about 5 books about Lincoln plus visited Lincoln locations in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois). We will be staying at the President Abraham Lincoln Hotel

2 new data ports

Earlier: KVM switch

Comment: Photo quality poor (camera phone with shaky hand!). I had these ports installed today. I am still awaiting activation. The green and blue ports are data.

Church of the Wheat

John MacArthur: Pastors' Conference

Excerpt:

As the Lord builds His church, by what means does He do it? And has He revealed the means to us? If we are the undershepherds of Christ, called to be the human instruments by which Christ builds His church, then we need to understand how it is that He does that. We need to get in line with the divine pattern.

There are many ways to build “The First Church of the Tares,” behind which Satan is the real power. It can be done very effectively, it can be big and enduring. The gnostics, the Roman Catholics, the liberals, and the cults have all done it—and they are still around. The Church of the Tares is actually bigger than the Church of the Wheat. And today, those calling themselves “evangelicals” are also doing it. There are churches all around the country where tares gather together and call themselves churches.

If you want to take a shot at competing with the rest of the “tare-pastors” on how to get a large group of tares into a building each Sunday, there are plenty of strategies to do that.

But if you want to build the true church, the wheat, in the way that God commands, then we must discern how Christ builds His church, and how it is that we are to be part of that.

The answer is not vague or obscure. When you ask how it is that Christ builds His church, the answer is not hard to find. In fact, it is so clear and inescapable that we are bound to follow what He commands.


Comment: Good read! Excellent points.

Florida ‘train wreck’ scenario

Sen. Bill Nelson paints Florida ‘train wreck’ scenario

Excerpt:

Nelson sent a letter to DNC Chairman Howard Dean Thursday asking the committee to either accept the Jan. 29 results of the primary election or pay for a redo of the elections, which could cost in the range of $20 million. He sent the letter after Dean did not return his telephone call Wednesday.

“If they go to the Democratic Convention and stiff-arm the Florida delegations, how in the world do you think Floridians are going to support the Democratic nominee on Nov. 4?” Nelson told reporters Thursday. “It’s in everybody’s interest to find a solution to this problem.”

However, earlier in the day, Dean said the party would not pay for any do-over.

“We can’t afford to do that,” Dean stated on CBS’s “Early Show.” “That’s not our problem. We need our money to win the presidential race.”


Newt from 2/14: Newt: the makings of a Democratic civil war

Comment: The Democrats = the party of disorganization! Fascinating! They made the rules, then broke their own rules and now can't figure out how to resolve it!

This will cheer you up!

“seated us with him in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:6)

Comment: To my readers. I take a break today from bleak economic news (gasoline prices, inflation, housing crisis, sinking dollar, etc) with the above link. Links over to a Charles Hodge quote that will cheer the heart of every believer!

Coming alive in Christ (Ephesians 2:4-10)

Coming alive in Christ

Comment: Towards the end there is a good John MacArthur quote on faith as a gift of God!

Ruckman Declares Himself to be "DOS 6.11-Only", Riplinger Writes Book on Subject

approaching North: Ruckman Declares Himself to be "DOS 6.11-Only", Riplinger Writes Book on Subject


Comment: He's onto something!

HT: Approaching North

"She's alive! Alive!"

Clinton's three triumphs ended a month of defeats


Comment: Bride of Frankenstein

Previous CFG horror-themed, wordless Hillary commentary:

1. Fall of the House of Clinton
   
2. New Hampshire on Hillary
   

Comment: I got up at 1:30 am ... I was so excited to see the Texas outcome!

Born a generation too late!

Honey, you're out of date: Why 1950s wives are brilliant

Young Adults webpage returns to 4th Baptist

Fourth Baptist

Comment: Neil L added the link last night.

Home ownership: indentured servitude?

The argument against home ownership - What was a savings plan is now pushing some into indentured servitude

Excerpt:

Buying a home used to require a sizable down payment: in 1976, the average for a first-time buyer was eighteen per cent. By contrast, a National Association of Realtors study of first-time buyers between mid-2005 and mid-2006 found that almost half put down nothing at all, and that the median down payment was just two per cent. If you earn eighty thousand a year, no one will lend you four hundred thousand dollars to buy stocks, but plenty of people were willing to lend you that money to buy a house. As long as home prices were rising, all this leverage seemed like a good thing: it let people buy homes that they couldn’t otherwise afford, and maximized their return on investment. But, with home prices sinking — in the final quarter of 2007, they were down almost 9 percent from the year before—the downside has become clear: as many as fifteen million homeowners now owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Homeownership isn’t building wealth for these people; it’s locking them into indentured servitude.


The problem was exacerbated by an explosion in home-equity loans, fuelled by our faith that house prices can only rise. According to a recent study by the Federal Reserve, homeowners took out more than six hundred billion dollars in home-equity loans between 2004 and 2005 alone — ten times as much as they had a decade earlier — and are spending much of it on personal consumption. That destroys the forced-savings aspect of homeownership, since people are using up their home equity instead of saving it for the future. And it means that many homeowners have to devote more and more of their income to paying off home-equity debt, contributing to the current slowdown.

Even without lending and borrowing excesses, though, our high rate of homeownership would likely create problems as the economy slows. To recover from recession, economies need prices to fall until they reflect genuine supply and demand. With certain kinds of assets, like stocks, these adjustments take place quickly, sometimes viciously so. Buying and selling houses, though, is a far slower process. The good thing about this is that housing prices never suffer crashes on the scale that you sometimes see in the stock market. The bad thing is that it can take a long time for housing prices to reflect reality. Homeowners, as economists have shown, tend to remain unreasonably optimistic about the value of their homes, and they hate to drop their asking price. As a result, existing-home sales in the U.S. are now at a nine-year low.



Comment: Sounds like it will be a long time to equalize and stabilize! This hasn't helped: Countrywide warns pay-option loan defaults: Nation’s largest mortgage lender has $29 billion in risky deals

Excerpt:

Pay-option loans give borrowers the option to make a lower payment but can result in the unpaid portion being added to the principal balance. They also have the potential to provide high yields to investors who purchased the loans from lenders during the housing boom.

As of the end of December, Countrywide had nearly $29 billion in pay-option loans, with about $26 billion of the total having grown beyond their original loan amount, the company said in a filing late Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

"Our borrowers' ability to defer portions of the interest accruing on their loans may expose us to increased credit risk," the company said. It added that its risk could be greater because the amount of deferred interest on pay-option loans was on the upswing.

The company noted some 81 percent of the loans were made out to borrowers who provided little or no documentation on their income. As of the end of December, 71 percent of borrowers with pay-option loans were electing to make less than full interest payments.

Even though borrowers with such loans had the option to just make interest payments, many were increasingly missing payments, the company said.

Comment: I underlined the bonehead move of Countrywide!

"Survivors’ Stairway” exposed

A Last Glimpse of the 9/11 Stairway, Before It Moves

Comment: Click link for picture.

The "mother of all meltdowns"?

The Rising Risk of a Systemic Financial Meltdown: The Twelve Steps to Financial Disaster

Comment: The above article (which requires a subscription to read beyond the introduction, is the basis for the following analysis.

U.S. recession: A classic 12-act tragedy
Page-turning plot reads like Shakespeare, driven to dramatic climax

The 12 steps:

1. Home prices will fall 20% to 30% from the peak
   
2. Prime and near-prime mortgages losses ($ 300 Billion more!)
   
3. Consumer debt defaults will increase sharply
   
4. The credit insurers rescue package is insufficient
   
5. Commercial real estate loan market will deteriorate
   
6. Some large banks with heavy mortgage exposure will fail
   
7. Banks' losses grow as asset values drop further
   
8. Once the recession gains speed, expect corporate defaults
   
9. Unregulated 'shadow banking system' facing huge problems
   
10. As recession spirals out-of-control, stock markets drop again (in a typical U.S. recession the S&P 500 falls about 28%)
    
11. Credit crunch will dry up liquidity in many financial markets
    
12. Massive global recession spreading, spiraling down
    

Conclusion: Can anyone stop this classic Shakespearean tragedy before the dramatic climax? Probably not, says Roubini.

Another summary article: Martin Wolf of the Financial Times on my "12 Steps to Financial Disaster"

My fear is summed up in this Chris Farley quote: "you'll end up living in a van, down by the river"

Obama: "The fact pattern remains unchanged"

Ask Tough Questions? Yes, They Can!

Excerpt:

Obama responded with the classic phrases of a politician in trouble. "That was the information that I had at the time. . . . Those charges are completely unrelated to me. . . . I have said that that was a mistake. . . . The fact pattern remains unchanged."

When those failed, Obama tried another approach. "We're running late," the candidate said, and then he disappeared behind a curtain.


Comment: Finally the press wakes up!

(My ordination council went something like this!)

1. Question: "So you're a 5 point Calvinist ... and you believe in evangelism?!"
   
2. Question: "So you're reformed in your soteriology ... but you are not an amillenialist?!"
   

There was no curtain to disappear behind!

Reality: I was ordained by Haddon Heights Baptist Church in 1983.

QB great to retire

Favre to retire

Comment: Favre is one of the greatest athletes of all time! The NFL will not be the same without him!

Hodge on Ephesians 2:8-9

Charles Hodge, Ephesians

Vs. 8, 9. These verses confirm the preceding declaration. The manifestation of the grace of God is the great end of redemption. This is plain, for salvation is entirely of grace. Ye are saved by grace; ye are saved by faith and not by works; and even faith is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. We have then here a manifold assertion, affirmative and negative, of the gratuitous nature of salvation. It is not only said in general, ‘ye are saved by grace,’ but further that salvation is by faith, i. e. by simply receiving or apprehending the offered blessing. From the very nature of faith, as an act of assent and trust, it excludes the idea of merit. If by faith, it is of grace; if of works, it is of debt; as the apostle argues in Rom. 4, 4. 5. Faith, therefore, is the mere causa apprehendens, the simple act of accepting, and not the ground on which salvation is bestowed. Not of works. The apostle says works, without qualification or limitation. It is not, therefore, ceremonial, as distinguished from good works; or legal, as distinguished from evangelical or gracious works; but works of all kinds as distinguished from faith, which are excluded. Salvation is in no sense, and in no degree, of works; for to him that worketh the reward is a matter of debt. But salvation is of grace and therefore not of works lest any man should boast. That the guilty should stand before God with self-complacency, and refer his salvation in any measure to his own merit, is so abhorrent to all right feeling that Paul assumes it (Rom. 4, 2) as an intuitive truth, that no man can boast before God. And to all who have any proper sense of the holiness of God and of the evil of sin, it is an intuition; and therefore a gratuitous salvation, a salvation which excludes with works all ground of boasting, is the only salvation suited to the relation of guilty men to God.

The only point in the interpretation of these verses of any doubt, relates to the second clause. What is said to be the gift of God? Is it salvation, or faith? The words καὶ τοῦτο only serve to render more proninent the matter referred to. Compare Rom. 13, 11. 1 Cor. 6, 6. Phil. 1, 28. Heb. 11, 12. They may relate to faith (τὸ πιστεύειν), or to the salvation spoken of (σεσωσμένους εἶναι). Beza, following the fathers, prefers the former reference; Calvin, with most of the modern commentators, the latter. The reasons in favour of the former interpretation are, 1. It best suits the design of the passage. The object of the apostle is to show the gratuitous nature of salvation. This is most effectually done by saying, ‘Ye are not only saved by faith in opposition to works, but your very faith is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.’ 2. The other interpretation makes the passage tautological. To say: ‘Ye are saved by faith; not of yourselves; your salvation is the gift of God; it is not of works,’ is saying the same thing over and over without any progress. Whereas to say: ‘Ye are saved through faith (and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God), not of works,’ is not repetitious; the parenthetical clause instead of being redundant does good service and greatly increases the force of the passage. 3. According to this interpretation the antithesis between faith and works, so common in Paul’s writings, is preserved. ‘Ye are saved by faith, not by works, lest any man should boast.’ The middle clause of the verse is therefore parenthetical, and refers not to the main idea ye are saved, but to the subordinate one through faith, and is designed to show how entirely salvation is of grace, since even faith by which we apprehend the offered mercy, is the gift of God. 4. The analogy of Scripture is in favor of this view of the passage, in so far that elsewhere faith is represented as the gift of God. 1 Cor. 1, 26-31. Eph. 1, 19. Col. 2, 12, et passim.


Comment: Cf SharperIron thread

Complex Texas delegate math

Delegate Math Could Cloud Results

Excerpt:

The biggest prize is Texas, with 193 delegates, where the Democrats will have a primary and a caucus.

The primary will determine 126 delegates, based on voting in 31 individual state Senate districts. The caucuses will determine 67 delegates. They will be awarded based on the statewide results of the caucuses, which will be held after the primary polls close.

The two-step system increases the possibility that the primary winner might not win the most delegates to the party's national convention this summer.

Comment: Shades of that dizzying New Math that made me cross-eyed in the '60s!

Weather Channel "group think"

Weather Channel Founder Blasts Network; Claims It Is 'Telling Us What to Think'

Excerpt:

“The Weather Channel had great promise, and that’s all gone now because they’ve made every mistake in the book on what they’ve done and how they’ve done it and it’s very sad,” Coleman said. “It’s now for sale and there’s a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced – several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let’s hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information.”



The Weather Channel has been an outlet for global warming alarmism. In December 2006, The Weather Channel’s Heidi Cullen argued on her blog that weathercasters who had doubts about human influence on global warming should be punished with decertification by the American Meteorological Society.



Coleman also told the audience his strategy for exposing what he called “the fraud of global warming.” He advocated suing those who sell carbon credits, which would force global warming alarmists to give a more honest account of the policies they propose.



“[I] have a feeling this is the opening,” Coleman said. “If the lawyers will take the case – sue the people who sell carbon credits. That includes Al Gore. That lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the media stand to testify, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.”

Comment: GroupThink

Ephesians 2:4, "The great conjunctive leap"

The great conjunctive leap

Close call on landing

Comment: CNN reports

Rudy on SNL

Summary: His campaign like a SNL skit that started strong but without an ending.

Chavez: "we’ll send you a few Sukhois"

Troops Mass at Colombian Borders

Excerpt:

Chávez’s threat points to one of the tensest moments between Venezuela and Colombia in recent decades. Whether or not the saber-rattling produces conflict, Mr. Chávez stands to benefit from a distraction from social problems here, like food shortages and surging inflation.

Mr. Chávez couched his warning by saying he would react in the event of a Colombian raid into Venezuela. He taunted President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia, a Bush administration ally, calling him a “mafia boss,” “criminal,” “liar” and “lackey of the empire.”

Comment: Wiki: Sukhoi

George Will weighs GOP VP options

The running mate McCain needs

Excerpt:

Finally, Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty, 47, is national co-chairman of McCain's campaign. His is the only state (10 electoral votes) to go Democratic in the past eight presidential elections. The candidate who wins a majority of the electoral votes in the Mississippi Valley usually wins the White House. Pawlenty is a center-right politician in a center-right country, and the Minnesota Twins will open a new ballpark in 2010 because he helped to provide public funds, a practice that red-blooded Americans deplore in principle but enjoy in practice.

Your government: a serial killer?

‘Resurrected,’ but still wallowing in red tape

Excerpt:

In September 2006, the inspector general’s office tried to get a fix on how many people Social Security was improperly killing off by reviewing updates to the agency’s Death Master File.

In all, Social Security officials had to “resurrect” 23,366 people from January 2004 to September 2005. In other words, over a period of 21 months, Social Security was presented with irrefutable evidence that it had been “killing” more than 1,100 people a month, or more than 35 a day.


Comment: Wasn't this a theme of Brazil? Image above is the arachno-logo of the "Ministry of Information". With socialized medicine, a government with this kind of efficiency could schedule me for a hysterectomy!

AZ: Simple immigration reform

New Arizona law pressures Latinos to move

Excerpt:

The Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano approved the law last summer out of frustration with federal efforts to curb illegal immigration. It took effect Jan. 1.

The law suspends or revokes the business licenses of violators and was intended to reduce the economic incentive for immigrants to sneak across the border. Illegal immigrants account for an estimated one in 10 workers in Arizona, which is the nation's busiest gateway for illegal immigration.

The house that spite built

A Tiny, Beloved Home That Was Built for Spite

Excerpt:

Structurally, it’s more of an enclosed alley than a house — the brick walls of older houses on either side form the painted brick walls in the living room. It’s called the Spite House by some because John Hollensbury, the owner of one of the adjacent houses, built it in 1830 to keep horse-drawn wagons and loiterers out of his alley. Indeed, the brick walls of the living room have gouges from wagon-wheel hubs.

Comment: Image from Alexandria Daily Photo. More Narrow Thinking

And then there's the Skinny house in Boston!