From Your Mouth To God's Earts

New York Times reporter predicting one term for Obama.

Good.

Pick Your Target

As the title of this piece goes, Rich People vs. Politicians.

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, with about $60 billion in assets each, are America's richest men. With all that money, what can they force us to do? Can they take our house to make room so that another person can build an auto dealership or a casino parking lot? Can they force us to pay money into the government-run retirement Ponzi scheme called Social Security? Can Buffett and Gates force us to bus our children to schools out of our neighborhood in the name of diversity? Unless they are granted power by politicians, rich people have little power to force us to do anything.

A GS-9, or a lowly municipal clerk, has far more life-and-death power over us. It's they to whom we must turn to for permission to build a house, ply a trade, open a restaurant and myriad other activities. It's government people, not rich people, who have the power to coerce and make our lives miserable. Coercive power goes a long way toward explaining political corruption.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich's hawking of Barack Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat; Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel's alleged tax-writing favors; former Rep. William Jefferson's business bribes; and the Jack Abramoff scandal are mere pimples on the government corruption landscape. We can think of these and similar acts as jailable illegal corruption. They pale in comparison to what's for all practical purposes the same thing, but simply legal corruption.

Thank you Glenn Reynolds for point this one out.

Economic Round Up

Slicing and Dicing Fannie and Freddie.

Save the rich, Save the economy. The case for lowering tax rates.

Start Lending or Start Losing.

Road to Ruin is Paved with Keynesian Economics

Crime and Parenting

An excellent article by a LAPD police officer.

Perhaps we should return to the days of parents being responsible for their children's behavior. Someone would grow up fast.

Speaks for Itself

Van-tastic

I have a Windstar, not an Odessey but I still like this ad. Now if only I had some bitchin' flame decals for my minivan. Then I'd be one happy mommy.

A Lovely Tribute

Below is a lovely tribute to a man I never read or knew but now deeply regret his absence in my thinking - Father Richard John Neuhaus.

Like the moment you first understand Shakespeare and regret you hadn't started reading him earlier, I am discovering a new voice at the moment the man behind the voice joins his beloved creator. Another reason to look forward to heaven.

This is from NRO-Corner

RJN & the Jews by David Novak
Along with his many other friends and admirers throughout the world, I mourn the death of my co-worker Fr. Richard John Neuhaus.

I first met Richard, briefly, during the mid-1960s, when he was a Lutheran pastor and leader in the anti-Vietnam War movement. I became a foot soldier in that movement when my late, revered teacher, the incomparable theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel — Richard’s mentor and fellow leader — enlisted me. From my teacher and his, Richard learned to love Jews, especially those Jews whose faith he saw as intending the same God he himself served. And this God, for him and for us, is not only Creator of heaven and earth, but also the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — and, for Richard as the faithful Christian he was all his life, the God of Jesus, too.

This God in common, the deepest teachings of whose Torah we both loved, is what brought us together again — this time with true and ever-deepening friendship, in the mid-1980s, when Richard was organizing his Institute on Religion and Public Life (then called the “Center on Religion and Society”). He enlisted me as a Jewish theologian and ethicist. This renewal of our relationship changed my life forever, and I am convinced that change was for good.

One of the highlights of our friendship was my annual two-day visit to his summer cottage in the Ottawa Valley, where we would engage in the most intense conversations possible between two persons. These talks could only deal with “first things,” and took place over the tasty kosher food I brought from Toronto and the good cigars, good whisky, and good accommodations he supplied.

Alas, those conversations — at least in this world — are over. But I know from time to time, when I am confused in my thinking, I will hear his rich baritone voice saying, “Now David, you don’t really mean that!” and I will gain some clarity. And that, no doubt, will whet my appetite for resuming our conversation in the true future, before the same God whose world-beyond is without end. Richard, I hope you can save a place for me there, God willing (see Malachi 3:16).

Rabbi David Novak is the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto.

For more tributes, go here and scroll down.

The Great Inflation

City Journal (excellent publication) has a book review up about economics and inflation that sounds fascenating. The book is titled, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath by Robert Samuelson and it covers the time between 1960 and 1980 and what inflationary control devices were used to the relative detriment of our economy as well as how "economics" is more like fiscal anthropology than any more "mechanical" science.

Dane Stangler wrote the book review and made several strong points. I particularly enjoyed his conclusion...

Samuelson concludes by pointing out that capitalism’s inherent restlessness is the source of both its prosperity and instability: “Our relentless search for some sensible balance can never reach a permanent resting place. . . . Some economic turmoil is always inevitable, and the very effort to suppress it may bring it about.” The great lesson of The Great Inflation, though, is one that Samuelson himself may not fully recognize. A highly developed market economy achieves order and avoids chaos because, for the most part, individual actions are remarkably well-coordinated. The crucial organizational tool is the price mechanism. In 1945, Friedrich Hayek observed:

The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form, but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess.
The only way to coordinate such decentralized information is through prices that constantly adjust according to innumerable individuals’ states of knowledge. When prices get distorted, the entire system can break down. The great mistake of the 1960s and 1970s was to believe the conceit that government could actually control and guide economic order. The economy, it turned out, was not a clockwork, and the result was havoc-wreaking inflation. This should be a timeless lesson for all of us, especially presidents-elect

Obama Picks Socialist

Hopefully, the outing of Carol M. Browner as "one of 14 leaders of a socialist group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for "global governance" and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change" in the Washington Times will prevent her from serving in Obama's administration.

Socialism has no place in American society. It's ultimate goal is to supplant the capitalism and Constitution this country was based on and place American in a subordinate position under the extra-national governance of organizations like the UN.

Unacceptable.

I do like this Mommy

This is a wonderful website full of very realistic views of parenting and being a mom in particular.

It's called Bad Mommy Moments. And I've been laughing out loud for the last 10 minutes.

Not going to worry when I'm dead

Using crematoriums to heat your home is so ghoulish but folks in Halmstad, Sweden are buying it.

What I find amusing is the first sentence, "you’re dead and worried about the carbon emissions created from your cremation, relax."

If I'm dead then I'm having a dirt nap - you can't get more "relaxed" than that.

Damn EU

Now they are attempting to ban plasma TVs. Of course, their ban ripples across our economy so buy your big TV now.

Ironically, it is being done because they can not meet their nonsensical Kyoto Treaty emissions agreements and they foolishly still believe in global warming rather than the coming ice age (see post below).

Finally, as energy becomes scarce - thanks to Russia - EU elites think they can control consumption by edict.

This is yet another example of socialism at work.

Before the Illinios Taint

ABC News has posted an article from France containing a long lost interview with the Obamas from before Obama entered politics.

Centering on marriage, it is an interesting and rare glimpse into Obama's past belief system. Let's hope some of that past returns.

Retaining Wall Against PCBS

Dr. Helen explains her views on Social Justice Advocacy(doesn't that just send chills down your spine).

Let's face it, this is nothing more than attempts for elites to find employment by creating victims who are never encouraged to get out of victimhood. Or any other 'hood.

Peace Lovers Love Hate

A good point from the Australians.

Crikey!

Vicious and Laughing Out Loud Hilarious

P.J. O'Rourke is scathingly funny in his column over at The Weekly Standard.

Titled, A New Circus Comes to Town, Mr. O'Rourke ponders whether it is too soon to call it Obama's failed presidency.

Ouch.

While I do think he's a little tough on Hilary Clinton, this was pure O'Rourke fun! Here's a snippet but do read the whole thing. I promise you'll laugh.

So we may speak without compunction of the failed Obama presidency. What a blessing that it's a failure. Things are bad enough the way they are. There's already a huge ongoing government intervention in the economy. Bringing the government in to run Wall Street is like saying, "Dad burned dinner, let's get the dog to cook." Now the government's going to take over the auto industry. I can predict the result--a light-weight, compact, sustainable vehicle using alternative energy. When I was a kid we called it a Schwinn. And next in line for political therapy is health care. Voting will cure what ails you. Go to the doctor when you've got cancer, and he'll say, "Don't worry. Everything will be fine. I'm going to treat your disease by going inside this small, curtained booth and putting an 'X' next to a very special name."

70s Revisited

A lengthy article in the Russian newspaper Pravda is reporting that we are on the brink of a new ice age.

Not only do I remember the ice storms of New England in the early 70s, I also remember watching a documentary about the coming ice age as a little girl.

What's the big deal about the 70s, well that was when...

Since the late 1970s, the Milankovich theory has remained the predominant theory to account for Ice Age causation among climate scientists, and hence the Milankovich theory is always described in textbooks of climatology and in encyclopaedia articles about the Ice Ages.

According to the Milankovich theory of Ice Age causation, these three astronomical cycles, each of which effects the amount of solar radiation which reaches the earth, act together to produce the cycle of cold Ice Age maximums and warm interglacials.

I'm sure the "global warming" and "climate change" folks are going to have a field day with this.

Especially the ending of this article...

The AGW [anthropogenic global warming- my addition] theory is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change. The data from paleoclimatology, including ice cores, sea sediments, geology, paleobotany and zoology, indicate that we are on the verge of entering another Ice Age, and the data also shows that severe and lasting climate change can occur within only a few years. While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored.

Apparently Slovenia is experiencing -49C, brrrr.

Consumption-sumption, what's your function?

I think ScreenDoorRepublic has it right, here.

VDH - Ironies of 2008

Victor Davis Hanson hits a lefty/liberal nerve with his Ironies of 2008.

Mandatory and hilarious reading.

Over-Hyped

Like everything about Obama, the inaugration is rapidly appearing to be over-hyped as well. Inaugural rentals are not the hot ticket everyone thought they would be.

I especially like this last line in The Washington Post article detailing the collapse of the inaugration rental market....

""Everyone thought it was easy money," he said wistfully."

Of course.

And, despite this being super historical, there will be no official count. I suspect out of fear that much-lower-than-anticipated crowds will embarrass The One. I mean the Million Man March was no such thing. OUCH!

Just Desserts

Well, the Somalian pirates thought they were getting a ransom.

Instead five drowned as they fought over their "cut".

Ha! Ha!

Good News!

Technology and human savvy save a girl from her kidnapper.

Hooray!

Clean Census

The 2010 Census is coming up and as the folks at American Thinker state a clean census is vital for clean elections.

Given the numerous instances of voter fraud by liberal groups like ACORN, do we really think liberals won't use the 2010 census to gerrymander districts to their own advantage.

For that matter, do you really think any politician wouldn't make the attempt?

A clean, transparent census is a solid step to making our elections honest and correct.

This is news?

Eight years ago, Obama plugged some diner's peach cobbler. It never aired.

Now, they are airing it.

Yawn!

And that is what passes for news these days, folks.

Good for the Goose

Then its good for the gander.

Here is your link to the Obama countdown clock.