The Christian bailout of 2008

"If 2008 is remembered as the year of the “bailout,” when the federal government spent billions to rescue the nation’s financial system, it should also be recalled for another kind of bailout—Christians with impeccably pro-life records who suddenly abandoned what they declared to be a sinking ship." Touchstone

Code in my node

Down for the count. Really miserable with a winter cold, but I made it through Christmas. I've switched a social engagement so I don't have to host in a germy house on Sunday; we have one Hormel heat and eat in the cupboard (they are wonderful according to my husband) and we got carry out pizza last night. I have a few leftovers from Christmas Eve still in the frig, but after today, someone will need to go shopping.

My husband's gone off to spend his gift certificates at Dick Blick, which is also having an after Christmas sale. I've been admiring my 10 volumes of Westminster Pulpit by G. Campbell Morgan, although I'm only opening them, not reading. My eyes don't seem to be focusing.

This would have been a good day to go for a walk--it's supposed to be in the 60s. And in some places in the city gasoline is $1.29--so a good day for a drive too, for all those after Christmas specials (which I'm missing).

My Christmas card

Not everyone is fortunate enough to be married to an artist, someone who has consistently been kind, thoughtful, considerate and creative for 50+ years. I didn't get a dual bag vacuum cleaner, but I did get a very nice, hand made Christmas card. It's the only blogger award I've ever received, and since he doesn't use the computer, he only reads what I print out.



Then he also painted a watercolor version of this, which now hangs in my office. There have been many "do not enter" signs on his office door in the last few weeks.

Consider your year-end gifts carefully

Choose a worthy cause, like "Sponsor and save a lifestyle."

Double whammy if you’re 70.5

President Bush has signed legislation that will temporarily suspend the penalty for seniors who fail to take the required minimum distribution from IRA and employer retirement accounts in 2009, but you’ll still need to do the required distribution for 2008--and that’s based on your fund balance at the end of 2007. Not good, folks, not good. Imagine this (and I know you can with little trouble). Congress, particularly Democrats, with Hank and Ben leading the charge, just had to rush through that horrendous September bailout which was supposed to create more credit from banks so they could help business. At least, that’s the way we were told it would work. But so far, all that’s happened is a run on the government for more bailouts, from the auto industry to universities to home builders. And the lending institutions have continued to give their year end bonuses and perks. But those mental midgets we elected just couldn’t figure out a way to rush through a plan to change the wording in the 2008 requirement--the year a lot of us lost 40-50% of the value of our accounts. How tough would it have been to change 70.5 to 71.5 or 72.5? I'm not sure this is the best source, but I'm going with it now because it doesn't require registration. Full text of HR 7327 here, but use your "find" command (control F) with the word "retirement" to get to the correct section.

No surprise here--NY Times lies about President Bush and covers for Clinton

In fact, the Times' article ignored a wealth of its own reporting, dating back to the era of Bill Clinton, whom the article mentioned only once, in passing.

For example, in September 1999, the Times noted that, "Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stockholders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits."

The 1999 piece went even further:

"In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times," the Times noted presciently. "But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's."

Likewise, the Times made no mention over the weekend of President Clinton's aggressive deregulation of the financial services industry, which empowered banks, brokerage firms and insurance companies to engage in some of the very practices -- such as credit default swaps -- that contributed most to the current fiscal crisis.

While the Times mentioned that mortgage bankers and brokers donated almost $850,000 to President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, the newspaper omitted the fact that the top three recipients of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and its sister organization Freddie Mac over the last two decades were all Democrats.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, head of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; President-elect Barack Obama; and Bush's 2004 opponent John Kerry all benefited from Fannie and Freddie.

Asked to respond to the White House criticism, Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said Sunday's article "was based on on-the-record interviews with dozens of current and former (Bush administration) officials."

"It is part of an ongoing series that examines in-depth the accountability of numerous players in the economic meltdown, including Congress, rating agencies, brokerage houses and the Fed," Keller said.

Merry Christmas

Let's not forget the other babes

After Herod got word that there was a Jewish baby born recently, "king of the Jews" who could be a threat to his power, he decreed that all male babies under the age of two should be murdered [Matthew 2]. "Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more." It's a sad, sad story from history. But so is this--a leader, a king maker like no other we've ever had, not because of his color, as some want to think, but because he's the first president openly and proudly hostile to the unborn, our future:

"Despite some Catholics’ claims to the contrary, the new president’s approval of legalized abortion is unmistakable. Unlike Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry, Barack Obama refused to make even verbal gestures toward compromise or nuance during the presidential campaign. The flatfooted line he delivered at the Saddleback Forum—that a decision about when life begins is “above my pay grade”—proved that he has internalized the peculiar logic of Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, which cast laws against abortion as government’s unconstitutional intrusion into private metaphysical decisions. But his earlier line that he didn’t want young women “punished with a baby” proved that he has also internalized what stands behind those decisions: a worldview in which life is not a gift but a burden to be shouldered only when we will." First Things

We both laughed

My husband is the flowers and jewelry for gifts type--if I ever got an appliance as a gift I probably requested it. Like the year he gave me a laptop. I returned it--didn't like it, but the one I bought (half the price) hasn't been all that reliable. But some men may not be amused. Well written and acted, though.

This ad is ubiquitous

It's at every blog, news source, and on-line product I see. "My Teeth are Finally White." Not once did I bite--so I have no idea what would come up if I clicked.

I drink a lot of coffee and tea, and my teeth are definitely not white. I notice it in most people my age. Think about it. If you expose anything to the chemical make-up of food and saliva for many decades, you'll have staining, whether it's your brick walkway, a ceramic sink or your own teeth. I think I've found a solution. I've started wearing lipstick again. Had only used it occasionally for probably 30 years. Sure, it's an optical illusion, but it works.

And so, it is Christmas Eve Day. The temperature here in Columbus is 39 degrees, it rained during the night, so I'm hoping the ice build up is gone. I haven't left for the coffee shop yet, hoping a few more early travelers will clear the roads for me.

We'll have a casual dinner here with the children tonight--soup and sandwiches--then church, and tomorrow we'll go to Canal Winchester to our son's home. His handsome face and mellifluous voice were on TV yesterday, as he was interviewed about an unhappy event. For the second time in 6 weeks someone has died in front of his place of work in an auto accident. He and some fellow workers rushed out to help, but it was too late. Then a nurse stopped to help. God bless the Good Samaritans of this modern age. Two elderly women, one dead, one in critical condition according to the news. You almost pray that she expires without waking up--they were 81 year old twins, we heard. They've probably spent their lives together, sharing and caring, and so it was perhaps at the end.

Our purple and green bureaucracy

As the New Yorker cartoon by Frank Cotham says, “It’s always cozy in here. We’re insulated by layers of bureaucracy.”

Red state or blue, green bureaucrats are pure gold for large companies--Goldman Sachs and General Electric, for instance--they help regulate the little guy out of competition. Even back when I was a liberal writing about supermarket coupons and sweepstakes (1983), I noted that the best and biggest offers came from the largest food companies, and eventually through the cooperation of the penny pinching consumer, would put the small companies out of business and then raise prices.

Forward looking green businessmen like Henry Paulson (our Bush Secretary of Treasury who helped design our current bailouts) and his partner Al Gore (our Clinton vice president) in GIM will get rich from imaginary carbon footprints and cap and trade points. Both will lead a lifestyle of wealth and privilege the rest of us can only imagine, with you and me footing the bill, and Joe Biden leading cheers assuring us he‘s looking out for the middle class tax payer.

But the poor will pay the most. The US poor are rich by the rest of the world’s standards, but even they will be hurt by the green quicksand that drags down the economy. It’s only when you’ve got the basics of life taken care of that you can turn your attention to taking care of the environment. It doesn’t make sense to spend billions of resources fantasizing about miniscule amounts of this or that in our food, water and air when millions around the world go to bed hungry or are unable to work, weakened by malaria through the hyper-vigilant actions of environmentalists fearing the death of a bird egg. There are thousands of non-profits, religious groups and think-tanks dependent on keeping us terrified and anxious about all the products, foods, building materials, and vehicles in our lives. They "earn" their salaries and research funding with government grants. Technically, they aren't on the government payroll, but they might as well be.

Our green bureaucrats will eventually destroy American auto manufacturers, those three companies they first built by reducing competition (did you ever wonder where the rest of them went?) or taxing them out of the industrial Midwest. First the jobs building automobiles went south, and then to overseas workers, to be shipped back to us. The newer angle is to force on us cars no one wants, built in plants that could only please a large union work force, supporting the medical bills of millions of UAW retirees for a few more years.

Dear readers, the men and women we’ve sent to Washington aren’t stupid; but at their deep purple heart of heart on the fringes, they are socialists. They may reach to extol Reagan, but they stand on the back of FDR. Government will own it all--and 2008 will be the watershed year. And for those officials of either party--staff, appointees or elected--it’s a paid-in-full ride to the end. When they retire, or are voted out, they hang around in Washington think tanks or their branches and become lobbyists, researchers, writers or conference organizers, but nothing changes.

Other than being larger, with a bigger budget, do you see anything different between the Clinton bureaucracy of 1998 and the Bush bureaucracy of 2008? And they’re all back through the revolving door, along with a few newer Chicagoans funded by the sheiks from the middle east who banrolled the Clinton.

When the deep purple falls
over green regulatory walls
And the stars begin to twinkle in DC—
In the mist of a memory
you wander back to me
Taking my taxes with a grin...

Not much justice here, move along

Seems to be a think tank in the tank for Obama and various "progressive" (socialist, marxist) causes. Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

Willful, crusading ignorance

A janitor/student at IUPUI (Indiana) Keith John Sampson was charged with racial harassment by a co-worker for reading a book on his break time about the Klan. The book was actually anti-Klan, but all the woman saw was the word Klan. She didn't ask, just filed a complaint. The office of equal opportunity (one woman) found him guilty without ever looking at the book (Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan) and put the finding in his permanent record. This amazing story, and a very well made film about the incident is at the FIRE blog. Eventually, the president of IUPUI apologized to the student when it became national news through FIRE's effort, but the woman was promoted, and no faculty member ever came to his defense. It makes you wonder what country we're living in.

Let Caroline run

She couldn't do a worse job than her uncle, cousins, and other assorted in-laws who've married the Kennedy name and used it to climb the political ladders in their states. I don't think she's killed anyone; don't know if she's ever had a job, but that too isn't unusual for the elites who inherit wealth from a capitalist ancestor and then swing left. But she can't match Sarah Palin. There's no comparison in talent, experience, and guts. In a recent interview when asked about the vilification she got for being "common," not from the educated elite, she replied

"But once the electorate knows what that candidate’s convictions are and positions are, I don’t think that matters. You just prefaced your question with the fact that I didn’t come from that ‘stock’. I got my education from the University of Idaho because that’s what I could afford. It was the least-expensive school that offered the programs I knew would benefit me in my future. My Dad was a school teacher and had four kids in college at about the same time. It didn’t occur to me to ask my parents to pay for my college education. We all worked through school and paid for schools that we could afford. I still got a great education. No, I don’t come from the self-proclaimed ‘movers and shakers’ group and that’s fine with me. It’s caused me, or rather, allowed me, to work harder and pulled myself up by my bootstraps without anyone else helping me. I think it allows me to be in touch with the vast majority of Americans who are in the same position that I am. That is desiring government to be on our side and not against us. And that means, in a lot of ways, for government to get out of the way to allow our families and our businesses to keep more of what they produce, to meet our own priorities." Interview

Caroline doesn't have bootstraps, but she's had to overcome a lot of losses in her life, and although I'd never vote for her, she's probably better qualified than the governor who will appoint her, and the various people claiming she's not qualified. Look what electing and appointing all those "qualified public servants" got us. You know, the ones with Fannie and Fred oversite, the ones taking bribes (at least she won't need to do that!), the ones who threw friends and relatives under the bus, the ones who do nothing but bring home the pork.

An updated carol

Seen at PUMA P.A.C. A sock puppet is someone who pretends to be someone else on the internet, but obviously they can be fakes in real life too as all those who trusted Bernie Madoff or Marc Dreir or even Barney Frank and Barack Obama (lots of lefties mad at him--just read PUMA PAC) found out.

Oxygen isotope ratios

Lynne Bell from the School of Criminology in Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, and her colleagues analysed oxygen isotope ratios in the bones and tooth enamel in 18 of the sunken sailors of the Mary Rose, one of King Henry VIII's war ships. This analysis showed the men may have been from the Mediterranean area and probably didn't understand English, thus didn't get the command correctly during the battle with the French. This information on why children might need to understand standard English or you your stock broker in order to do well (not really, but one could make that argument) is found at the blog about Decoding the Heavens, by Jo Marchant, mentioned in the previous entry.

What happened to the women?

The modern women’s movement is dated from the late 60s or early 1970s. It sort of evolved from the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam war protests, I’m told. Women got tired of sleeping with, and making coffee for the movers, shakers, and criminal element, although some like Bernadine Dohrn went on to marry one. I can remember attending “consciousness raising” groups on the OSU campus--women sitting around, usually on the floor, discussing the various ways society or more specifically men had kept them from their potential or dreams, and how things would be different if women were in charge. More collaborative. Kinder. More team work. We were so radical we didn’t even serve snacks like church ladies.

Well, we’re about 40 years down the road. I’d like you to take a look at this very interesting video about the Antikythera Mechanism. http://www.antikytheramechanism.org/

Never heard of it? Me either before today when the Nature video notice popped up in my e-mail. But, neither had some of the men in the video interview. It really is fascinating, and there are two parts. If you’re like me, you prefer to read, not watch, but watching does bring you up to speed a little faster than reading 2000 years of the history of science.



However, what I want to mention is the lack of women in this story, either ancient or post modern. You do see two women applauding one exhibit, but they could be wives or secretaries, or guests. No women are included in the story.

Not for a minute do I think women have been excluded the last 30 years--although possibly the years before. Nor will I say there aren't more women in the sciences than when I was young. Even so, more women than men were graduating from high school in my grandmother’s day, and that didn’t seem to give too many a career boost. Did we really need so much help if it comes naturally? In the last 30 years, there have been many workshops, special classes, special laws, special gendered regulations, speech codes, extra math anxiety classes for middle school girls (even when my 41 year old was in middle school), Title 9, and disinterested girls served at the expense of very interested boys. Yes, there are a few women who really take to math and science, who are willing to postpone all other gratification in order to get that A or that scholarship or that PhD, and then by-pass marriage and family so she can sit in a lab at 3 a.m. on Sunday morning, but most don’t care to.

You’ve heard the old adage, it’s not paranoia if they are really out to get you? Well, it’s not discrimination if you really can’t or won’t do the job. I had an epiphany when I was about 16 or 17. It was during Algebra II class--virtually everyone who was planning to go to college was in that class. After our freshman year we began to split into certain groups, and I knew I was in over my head. Some took home-ec, office practice and shop or ag, and some went the other way (don’t remember what it was called, but something about college). It wasn't rigid like European schools--in fact, we had little or no counseling as I recall. Someone signed your choice and you were in.

These days someone would jump to my rescue and say I had “math anxiety” and I would be assigned to a special group. I even called it that during most of my adult life. I’d make many excuses--and it was true, I surely was anxious as I saw the numbers and letters swimming and scooting around with little squiggles and making no sense whatsoever the way geometry had. Rather than sit there and watch my classmates all succeed where I would fail, I made a detour and transferred to a psychology class. I could have asked for help--we had great teachers; I suppose I could have even had tutoring, the fact remains I didn't. If it would have mattered to me, if I'd loved math, I would have. I might have been anxious, but I wasn’t stupid. I just couldn’t make any sense out of algebra and moved in another direction.

Back to the video. Did you notice the elderly man in the video, the master instrument maker of medieval instruments, the one who’s to build the replica? Wearing hearing aids. Notice his delight at the computer model. Is there a woman out there of any age who could or would do either one? Design the replica or the computer model? Even with math anxiety counseling and middle-school workshops? Asian women, you say? Well, yes, far more than the Euro-women. But I scan a lot of photos of boards, awards, and special honors--the number of women at the top in any field (other than the ones men choose not to enter) is discouraging after 40 years of special help.

Still, a book about it http://www.decodingtheheavens.com/ might be doable for book club selection.

Why I don't read Time Magazine

The last time I read Time was during the time we spent in Finland in 2006, and I was desperate to read something in English so I bought the international edition. Biggest waste of $5 ever. And this? It's pathetic.

"His genome is global, his mind is innovative, his world is networked, and his spirit is democratic," gushes Time magazine's David Von Drehle in his "Person of the Year" profile of Mr. Obama. Time betrays its parochialism by almost invariably choosing the American president-elect for the honor every fourth or eighth year. But although the selection of Mr. Obama was predictable, Time's choice for a cover is instructive. The Che Guevara-esque, eyes-to-the-far-distance portrait by "street artist" Shepard Fairey is a throwback to the magazine's earliest days, when hero worship was considered an honest form of journalism." At WSJ op ed on presidential monuments.

His campaign funding indeed had a global genome, and all we know about his world is what he wrote in his own autobiography, including his place of birth. But his innovative mind? He not only has an annoying stutter as he grasps for adjusting the facts, but he's forgetful of faces, names and dates. He barely knew Governor Blagojevich, Bill Ayers was a total mystery, Rev. Wright was just a guy in front of the church, Grandma was conveniently never available for an interview, and Farrakhan who?

A trip to No Man's Land

There's a scanned issue of The Gospel Messenger Supplement for Kansas at Brethren Archives. The Gospel Messenger used to be published in Mt. Morris, Illinois, which was a growing community with many German Baptist Brethren (renamed Church of the Brethren about 100 years ago), with a college and printing press located there. The supplement is dated May 15, 1888, and is all about encouraging the Brethren to move to the wonderful state of Kansas.

It's my recollection that the railroads owned huge tracts of land in the west they needed to sell, and a number of their salesmen were drawn from the Brethren who talked their fellow church members into moving west. I suppose it was missionary zeal combined with financial gain. There's an interesting map in the issue which shows Kansas bordering with territories, one labeled simply no man's land, not the United States. After extolling the virtues of the state--it was dry (no saloons), McPherson College had just opened (Brethren college), good soil, large numbers of Brethren within a day's ride, etc. I noticed this little item:

"Any Brethren buying round trip tickets to Higgins, Tex. can without much difficult secure teams and visit Brethren in No Man's Land."

The Brethren publishing firm was originally private and moved to Mt. Morris from Lanark. The original publisher, M.M. Eshelman, failed and the founders of the college took over, D.L. Miller and Joseph Amick. They merged Brethren at Work with Primitive Christian of Huntingdon, PA, which is why you see both towns on the masthead, and renamed it Gospel Messenger. Then this private business was turned over to the church in 1896, which moved it to Elgin, IL in 1899 [all this is according to Mt. Morris Past and Present, 2nd ed. p. 221]. The building was purchased by the Kable Brothers who had already purchased a failed printing company.

When the Brethren split three ways, conservative, moderate and progressive, the progressives took the name "The Brethren Church," and the conservatives "Old German Baptist Brethren," which left the middle and largest group with no name. I'm quite sure that I've seen a poem in an issue of either the 1888 or 1889 issue of Gospel Messenger titled "What shall we name the baby?" or something like that, but I haven't been able to track it down. I'm sure it refers to naming the larger of the three groups.

Kansas and Kansans, 1918, with article on the Brethren.

Got a G.I. in your life?

G.I. Jobs might be worth a look. An Ohio company got high marks as a military-friendly employer, it was announced November 8, 2007

AEP Recognized as Military-Friendly Employer for Fifth Consecutive Year.

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- G.I. Jobs magazine is recognizing American Electric Power as one of the nation’s 50 most "military-friendly" employers for the fifth consecutive year. AEP is among only seven companies that have been named to the publication’s top-50 list each year since its inception in 2003.

G.I. Jobs helps provide training and career opportunities for veterans and those in transition from military to civilian employment.

This year’s honorees, including five electric utility companies in addition to AEP, were selected from a pool of approximately 2,500 corporations with annual revenues of at least $1 billion.

The December 2007 edition of G.I. Jobs, which features the list of military-friendly employers, can be accessed at http://www.gijobs.net and this press release at http://www.gijobs.net/press.cfm?id=27.