Monday, April 16, 2012
Bernanke’s Fairy Tale Recession Story for Kids
Rather than admitting to the arbitrary and capricious nature of the bailouts, Mr. Bernanke would have us believe that he and his band of bureaucrats executed a cogent strategy to pull from the brink of disaster companies—and, indeed, a nation—that were too big to fail. The fact is that they guessed their way through the bailouts and cannot point to any cogent analysis of the costs of “inaction.” "
Bernanke’s Fairy Tale Recession Story for Kids: Newsroom: The Independent Institute
Hilary Rosen vs. Ann Romney
The GOP and radio/TV talkers (I’m listening to Rush at the moment) should get off the choice of women to work at home or at the office, and get on with the important stuff--defeating Obama. They keep letting him define the topic. Democrats are too clever to talk about real issues, they want slogans like "hope and change" and "war on women." And the GOP always fall for it.
The issue is that today most “stay at home moms” are at opposite ends of the social spectrum. Women in the top 20% are more likely to be married, have a good income, have good educations, and will be staying at home with their smart, well cared for children at least during their critical formative years, kids who have the advantages that only good genes can buy. At the other end, you have welfare moms who didn’t have their first baby after they got married, or didn’t marry at all, and maybe didn’t finish high school. These are the “stay at home moms” that Uncle Sam parents.
If Republicans continue down this road, defending moms at home, the Democrats will turn on them and start defending welfare moms at home.
What is the difference between garden peas, snow peas and sugar snap peas?
This is from today WHFoods newsletter. When we eat peas, it’s usually shelled garden peas. I remember shelling fresh peas from my mother’s garden. For lunch I often diced some onion and pepper, then add frozen garden peas and frozen corn.
Garden Peas
Garden Peas need to be shelled before eating. Fresh garden peas have rounded pods that are usually slightly curved in shape with a smooth texture and vibrant green color. Inside garden peas are green rounded pea seeds that are sweet and starchy in taste and can be eaten raw or cooked. Garden peas have more nutrients and more calories than snow peas or sugar snap peas. However, they require more work to prepare because they must be shelled before eating. As most people do not want to spend the extra time to shell their peas, the demand for fresh garden peas is very low, and they can be more difficult to find than other varieties of peas. Garden peas are sweet and succulent for three to four days after they are picked but tend to become mealy and starchy very quickly if they are not cooked soon after harvesting.
Ninety-five percent of garden peas are sold either frozen or canned. Frozen garden peas are a good substitute for fresh Garden Peas. They are already shelled, and because they are blanched before freezing, they take no time to prepare - just heat and serve. They also retain their flavor and nutritional value because they are frozen soon after they are picked. Frozen peas are more flavorful, contain less sodium and have more nutritional value than canned peas.
Snow Peas or Chinese Pea Pods
Sometimes called Chinese pea pods, this variety is usually used in stir-fries. Snow peas are flat with edible pods through which you can usually see the shadows of the flat Pea seeds inside; they are never shelled. Fresh and frozen Snow Peas are available.
Sugar Snap Peas
A cross between the garden and snow pea, they have plump edible pods with a crisp, snappy texture; they are not shelled. Both snow peas and snap peas feature a slightly sweeter and cooler taste than the garden pea. Like snow peas, snap peas have fewer nutrients and calories than garden peas. Fresh and frozen sugar snap peas are available.
Security? No problem?
Just last Friday we were told there was no compromise of the President's security with the news about the Secret Service security detail being sent home and replaced. I thought then that the writer of that story must not watch TV or movies with an international crime plot. There’s often a woman (or man these days) selling sex for secrets. This is not about dignity, it's about the president's safety. And it's probably not the first time this has happened. Oldest trick (excuse the pun) in the book.
Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), whose panel maintains jurisdiction over all federal agencies, said he had reason to believe that more than 11 Secret Service personnel were involved but never specifically explained why.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
God must be weeping over the American culture of death
Planned Parenthood Federation of American shows 528,000 active donors on it's most recent tax filing ($1.04 Billion budget). What are the donors thinking? Is there not enough death, destruction and disease in the world without claiming it on their income tax as a charitable deduction? The primary "beneficiaries" of these gifts are the poor and black.
According to its 2009-2010 report it provided 329,445 abortion procedures and just 841 adoption referrals.
Always civil, the Democrats
State Rep. Chuck Kruger, the Democratic chairman of the Maine Legislature’s Moderate Caucus, tweeted in August, “Cheney deserves same final end as he gave Saddam. Hope there are cellcams #cheney.” The Maine Wire first reported this, and preserved a screen shot of the now-deleted tweet.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer at Union Seminary
Accustomed to the rigors of German scholarship and theology, the visiting young student Bonhoeffer not yet 25 writes in 1930 about his colleagues—faculty and students—at Union:
“The theological atmosphere of the Union Theological Seminary is accelerating the process of the secularization of Christianity in America. Its criticism is directed essentially against the fundamentalists and to a certain extent also against the radical humanists in Chicago; it is healthy and necessary. But there is no sound basis on which one can rebuild after demolition. It is carried away with the general collapse. A seminary in which it can come about that a large number of students laugh out loud in a public lecture at the quoting of a passage from Luther’s De servo arbitrio on sin and forgiveness because it seems to them to be comic has evidently completely forgotten what Christian theology by its very nature stands for.”
“Things [outside the seminary] are not much different in the church. The sermon has been reduced to parenthetical church remarks about newspaper events. As long as I’ve been here, I have heard only one sermon in which you could hear something like a genuine proclamation, and that was delivered by a negro. . . One big question continually attracting my attention in view of these facts is whether one here really can still speak about Christianity. . . There’s no sense to expect the fruits where the Word really is no longer being preached. But then what becomes of Christianity per se?”
The American seminaries had, of course, taken their lead from the 19th century German theologians, even though as Bonhoeffer noted they were not even up to the level of the fundamentalists they ridiculed. America had long since lost the fervor of the “awakenings” that had shaped it, at least in the seminaries. At that time, Hitler’s small party was gaining ground in Germany. Germany has since recovered from that disastrous time—at least politically and economically. I’m not sure the American mainline churches have been able to expunge the demons of the liberal seminaries.
From p. 105-6 of Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas
On reading Bonhoeffer
I’ve decided to recommend Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas for next year’s book club selection. In order to have it finished by the next meeting in May, I have to read at least 22 pages a day. The following description is from Truth and Triumph, for which he’d done an interview:
“Eric Metaxas is the New York Times bestselling author of Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery. His work has been published in The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, Regeneration Quarterly, Christianity Today, National Review Online, Beliefnet, and First Things. He's also been featured on CNN, The Fox News Channel, and National Public Radio. He lives with his family in Manhattan.
Last fall, Metaxas' newest book, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy, became a New York Times No. 1
bestseller. In the book, Metaxas explores what happened when the German theologian's profound faith convictions ran up against a Nazi regime determined to co-opt, corrupt, and then neutralize the voice of the church in Germany.”
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Cooking
My goodness she has written a lot of books. It took me awhile to find the right cover photo! I got it for 90 cents today at the resale shop. I don’t do a lot of “scratch” cooking these days, and hers are guaranteed “nothing is made from scratch.”
Overview
- Recipes for every palate and mood—the Semi-Homemade way creates an inspiring pairing of fresh ingredients and packaged foods.
- Quick-to-the-table, delicious recipes to satisfy any culinary whim any time of the day. Delectable breakfast fare, light lunch bites, family-pleasing dinners, simple appetizers and snacks, sassy cocktails, and more.
- Most recipes prepared in 30 minutes or less.
- All-new bonus chapters on red-hot topics: slow cooker favorites, restaurant remakes, and kid’s cooking.
- Time-saving tips for shopping, prepping, leftover storage, and Sandra’s brand recommendations for success.
- Wine suggestions to create delicious dining occasions every day.
- Beautiful photo of every recipe.
My Valentine by Paul McCartney
Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp
You won't find anything prettier. . .
“The videos were shot on 35mm and Paul worked with Academy Award winning cinematographer Wally Pfister (Inception, The Dark Knight), editor Paul Martinez and producer Susanne Preissler to create these elegant and powerful films based on an original idea by Stella McCartney.
'My Valentine' is the second Paul McCartney music video Natalie Portman has starred in, the first being the Michel Gondry directed 'Dance Tonight' in 2007. For this new performance, she was exclusively dressed by Stella McCartney. Johnny Depp also plays guitar in his version and recorded the track's guitar solo live. His guitar take was then mixed and mastered into the final track. The original guitar solo on the studio version of the song was performed by Eric Clapton. “
Adjusting to the poor house
The Obamas’ adjusted gross income was their lowest income since 2004 when he wrote his best-selling memoir, “Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.” This was the first year since 2006 that the Obama family income dipped below $1 million. In 2010, his adjusted gross income was $1.7 million; in 2009, it was $5.5 million.
I wonder how much the fabulous vacations they’ve had since January 2009 would rack up in any other family’s budget, the incredible state dinners, the gifts of clothing from designers, the servants to attend to every need, the limo service and celebrity entertainment? I’m sure it’s a stressful job, but for the wife and kids, it’s pretty nice—especially considering how that life style is condemned almost weekly in his speeches. If we elect Mitt Romney, I’m guessing he’ll pay his own way for many of the perks Michelle has come to demand.
Friday, April 13, 2012
My friends and readers could say this about me. . .and do
“When I read your constant barrages aimed at the first black president, I think to myself, "Doesn't [Norma], the devout Christian, understand what it took to get to this place? And where would [Norma] have been in the years of the freedom struggle that finally eventuated in some measure of equality for African-Americans and even a black president?" Isn't there some way you can temper your attacks on Obama with this history in mind?. . . "The presidency of an African-American is a dramatic symbol of the advances in the struggle for human rights in this country so long denied to black citizens. Unless you have a record deep in the civil rights struggle, relentless attacks on this symbol will be seen as giving aid and comfort to, if not an expression of, the latent racism that is still much with us in this country. That is why criticisms of this president-as-symbol are not to be made in the same way as the conventional political fisticuffs."
But it was said about another writer critical of this president. . . someone named Pete who insists on judging the president on his actions and knowledge, his political and economic leadership, not the low expectations and double standards of liberal supporters and the American media.
If John McCain, a great patriot and war hero, had won in 2008 and took the same downward path, reversed his promises and then told lies, I would still be writing a blog about the deficit, the czars, expanding the war into more middle east countries, the over regulation of the health and energy industries, the strange reasoning of the Buffett fair tax, even his narcissism if it jumped out in every public appearance. And if McCain’s wife (the second one) who is quite pretty for her age appeared in Las Vegas in a crotch exposing skirt disgracing the office of FLOTUS, I’d mention it here.
ABC dives into the sewer
Creator/Producer Nahnatchka Khan thinks this is real life America. And maybe it is in his neighborhood. Turn it off.
“Last night Don’t Trust the B---- in Apt. 23 premiered on ABC at 9:30 pm Eastern/Pacific -- that's just 8:30 in the Central and Mountain time zones -- and it may well represent a new all-time low for broadcast television.
The program is a sexist mixed-bag of hedonism, drug-use, alcohol abuse (including the main character plying a 13-year-old boy with alcohol to get him drunk) and explicit levels of promiscuity that are shocking even by today’s broadcast TV standards. “
http://www.parentstv.org/ptc/publications/emailalerts/2012/0412.htm
It Is Hard to Be Catholic in Public Life
This freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, is the trunk from which all other branches of freedom on our great tree of liberty get their life. Cut down the trunk and the tree of liberty will die and in its place will be only the barren earth of tyranny. Our founders understood this, and that is why James Madison described the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom as "the true remedy."
It Is Hard to Be Catholic in Public Life by Rick Santorum.
Many schools looking at start times
To me, it looks like bus transportation is the problem. But what about that metropolitan area traffic for the bus drivers if schools start later [110,000 students along 6,500 routes , 1,500 buses]?
“Most high schools in Fairfax County, VA [suburban Washington DC, median family income $122,200] start at 7:20 a.m., with bleary-eyed students getting picked up by their school buses as early as 5:45 a.m. In Arlington, the high school start time is nearly an hour later, and in Loudoun [richest county in the country] most high schools begin at 9 a.m.
“It’s important for the physical and mental health of our adolescent students,” said School Board member Sandy Evans (Mason), who sponsored the resolution and was a co-founder of the advocacy group Sleep, which led previous efforts to shift start times.
Evans cited research indicating sleep deprivation contributes to such problems as depression, obesity and poor academic performance. In a county survey, two-thirds of students reported getting seven hours or less of sleep on school nights.”
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Religious Liberty Under Attack—Concrete Examples--
A Statement on Religious Liberty
pdf version
to order copies
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty
Excerpt
Is our most cherished freedom truly under threat? Sadly, it is. This is not a theological or legal dispute without real world consequences. Consider the following:
- HHS mandate for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. The mandate of the Department of Health and Human Services has received wide attention and has been met with our vigorous and united opposition. In an unprecedented way, the federal government will both force religious institutions to facilitate and fund a product contrary to their own moral teaching and purport to define which religious institutions are "religious enough" to merit protection of their religious liberty. These features of the "preventive services" mandate amount to an unjust law. As Archbishop-designate William Lori of Baltimore, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, testified to Congress: "This is not a matter of whether contraception may be prohibited by the government. This is not even a matter of whether contraception may be supported by the government. Instead, it is a matter of whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception or sterilization, even if that violates their religious beliefs."3
- State immigration laws.Several states have recently passed laws that forbid what the government deems "harboring" of undocumented immigrants—and what the Church deems Christian charity and pastoral care to those immigrants. Perhaps the most egregious of these is in Alabama, where the Catholic bishops, in cooperation with the Episcopal and Methodist bishops of Alabama, filed suit against the law:
It is with sadness that we brought this legal action but with a deep sense that we, as people of faith, have no choice but to defend the right to the free exercise of religion granted to us as citizens of Alabama. . . . The law makes illegal the exercise of our Christian religion which we, as citizens of Alabama, have a right to follow. The law prohibits almost everything which would assist an undocumented immigrant or encourage an undocumented immigrant to live in Alabama. This new Alabama law makes it illegal for a Catholic priest to baptize, hear the confession of, celebrate the anointing of the sick with, or preach the word of God to, an undocumented immigrant. Nor can we encourage them to attend Mass or give them a ride to Mass. It is illegal to allow them to attend adult scripture study groups, or attend CCD or Sunday school classes. It is illegal for the clergy to counsel them in times of difficulty or in preparation for marriage. It is illegal for them to come to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings or other recovery groups at our churches.4
- Altering Church structure and governance. In 2009, the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut Legislature proposed a bill that would have forced Catholic parishes to be restructured according to a congregational model, recalling the trusteeism controversy of the early nineteenth century, and prefiguring the federal government's attempts to redefine for the Church "religious minister" and "religious employer" in the years since.
- Christian students on campus.In its over-100-year history, the University of California Hastings College of Law has denied student organization status to only one group, the Christian Legal Society, because it required its leaders to be Christian and to abstain from sexual activity outside of marriage.
- Catholic foster care and adoption services. Boston, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and the state of Illinois have driven local Catholic Charities out of the business of providing adoption or foster care services—by revoking their licenses, by ending their government contracts, or both—because those Charities refused to place children with same-sex couples or unmarried opposite-sex couples who cohabit.
- Discrimination against small church congregations. New York City enacted a rule that barred the Bronx Household of Faith and sixty other churches from renting public schools on weekends for worship services even though non-religious groups could rent the same schools for scores of other uses. While this would not frequently affect Catholic parishes, which generally own their own buildings, it would be devastating to many smaller congregations. It is a simple case of discrimination against religious believers.
- Discrimination against Catholic humanitarian services. Notwithstanding years of excellent performance by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Migration and Refugee Services in administering contract services for victims of human trafficking, the federal government changed its contract specifications to require us to provide or refer for contraceptive and abortion services in violation of Catholic teaching. Religious institutions should not be disqualified from a government contract based on religious belief, and they do not somehow lose their religious identity or liberty upon entering such contracts. And yet a federal court in Massachusetts, turning religious liberty on its head, has since declared that such a disqualification is required by the First Amendment—that the government somehow violates religious liberty by allowing Catholic organizations to participate in contracts in a manner consistent with their beliefs on contraception and abortion
Do couples still get married in churches?
Recently at our Faith of our Fathers group (FOOF) at the UALC Mill Run church we were discussing the removal of most religious/Christian content from public education textbooks and courses despite its inclusion in the founding documents. But maybe we should be looking closer to home.
Today I picked up (free) a copy of Columbus Bride at Giant Eagle. You'd be hard pressed to find any religious content in the wedding photos--hardly even a church or cathedral. Lots of country clubs, old barns, the Atheneum (which has sort of a faux chapel), Franklin Park Conservatory, old wineries, city streets, parks, and party barns. Maybe it's the interior of the modern churches which look like theaters and party houses--so why not just rent one or take the photos outside?
When we were in Russia in 2006 we saw so many weddings in the public square--in front of government buildings, fountains, parks etc. They had 70 years of Communism. What's our excuse?
Top, bottom and middle
--everyone is doing better in this country. The income of households between the 60th and 80th percentiles grew by 40 percent, and those in the 40th to 60th percentile grew by nearly 40%, and of course, these groups are very fluid. I've been in 4 of the 5 percentiles myself and am at the bottom again (retired), same as when I was 21 and graduating from college 5 months pregnant and no job. But I know that cutting taxes works better for me than raising them, and reducing my spending is the only way for me to have money to invest or to donate to charity. However, I also know a household made up of a married couple of college educated parents with 2 or 3 children will always do better economically than a single mom with a high school education and 2 or 3 children. That's just math. That's not even political affiliation or loyalty, or race or age. If it didn’t work that way why would we have all these grants and loans to send low income people to college, if not to elevate them?
But there is a party who come November will say Uncle Sam is a good step-father, but it lies.
Can you handle one more conspiracy theory about JFK?
I know nothing about the author of the book review, the author of the book, the murder of this particular lover of JFK, or the website that posted the review, but after I started reading the very lengthy book review, I did sort of get interested. http://www.fff.org/comment/com1204g.asp
“In early 1976 the National Enquirer published a story that shocked the elite political class in Washington, D.C. The story disclosed that a woman named Mary Pinchot Meyer, who was a divorced spouse of a high CIA official named Cord Meyer, had been engaged in a two-year sexual affair with President John F. Kennedy. By the time the article was published, JFK had been assassinated, and Mary Pinchot Meyer herself was dead, a victim of a murder that took place in Washington on October 12, 1964.
The murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer is the subject of a fascinating and gripping new book by Peter Janney, Mary’s Mosaic, who was childhood friends with Mary Meyer’s three sons and whose father himself was a high CIA official. Janney’s father and mother socialized in the 1950s with the Meyers and other high-level CIA officials.”
One of the clerks at the coffee shop loves “true crime” type books, so I may print this out for her. For me, just reading the review was enough. The further away we get from 1963, the less we know it seems.
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