Benefits Both Short and Long-term

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/science/30tier.html

This piece combines nicely with another from across the pond with a more global perspective --

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece

Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Indeed

And the slouchers aren't so much Penn Gillette (who is a real mensch for posting this, as The Anchoress says, and a brilliant entertainer and thinker regardless), but we in the faith who so rarely offer the Good News we've been given in so winsome and inviting a way -- http://theanchoressonline.com/2008/12/20/penn-jillette-slouching-toward-bethlehem/

What a Christmas gift!

Glad To Know It

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/22/bush-cheney-comforted-troops-privately/

In the middle of the tragedy and comfort, it's delightful to imagine Melinda Doolittle and Dick Cheney chatting among 350 wounded returned soldiers at an "Idol" party (click to pg. 4 for that).

I really think the history of this last decade when viewed a few decades on along will disconcert and startle some of my friends. So much about Saudi Arabia that can't be said, and the peculiar problem of Western anti-Semitism. But if Iran is a rational state actor in another ten years from now, and Saudi's internal disasters haven't spread too widely, and Syria continues the course she's on, then . . . may we all live to happily see that outcome!

Christmas by John Betjeman

The bells of waiting Advent ring,

The Tortoise stove is lit again

And lamp-oil light across the night

Has caught the streaks of winter rain.

In many a stained-glass window sheen

From Crimson Lake to Hooker's Green.



The holly in the windy hedge

And round the Manor House the yew

Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,

The altar, font and arch and pew,

So that villagers can say

"The Church looks nice" on Christmas Day.



Provincial public houses blaze

And Corporation tramcars clang,

On lighted tenements I gaze

Where paper decorations hang,

And bunting in the red Town Hall

Says "Merry Christmas to you all".



And London shops on Christmas Eve

Are strung with silver bells and flowers

As hurrying clerks the City leave

To pigeon-haunted classic towers,

And marbled clouds go scudding by

The many-steepled London sky.



And girls in slacks remember Dad,

And oafish louts remember Mum,

And sleepless children's hearts are glad,

And Christmas morning bells say "Come!"

Even to shining ones who dwell

Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.



And is it true? and is it true,

This most tremendous tale of all,

Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,

A Baby in an ox's stall?

The Maker of the stars and sea

Become a Child on earth for me?



And is it true? For if it is,

No loving fingers tying strings

Around those tissued fripperies,

The sweet and silly Christmas things,

Bath salts and inexpensive scent

And hideous tie so kindly meant,



No love that in a family dwells,

No carolling in frosty air,

Nor all the steeple-shaking bells

Can with this single Truth compare –

That God was Man in Palestine

And lives to-day in Bread and Wine.

Homelessness Service & Civic Support

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/nyregion/25shelter.html

Perhaps sadly, i find this story more interesting for the outlines of the program structure indirectly described than for the actual narrative in the foreground . . . but the foreground story is an old, old story, while the nuts and bolts rarely get much discussion in public, let alone scrutiny.

Trapp Family Today

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/business/25vontrapp.html

You would have to have a heart of stone to not be amused that the piano bar guy's theme song for Johannes today is "Desperado" by The Eagles, and his son, Maria's grandson's theme is Scott Joplin's "Solace."

To quote another great song, "What a Wonderful World."

The Christmas Tree That Survived Hiroshima

This may be an old story to some, but i just ran across it -- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/12/21/international/i100310S44.DTL

First, Have a Budget

Alarming American Consumer Debt Statistics

Following is a good dose of reality regarding debt in America. These and other statistics are posted at ProgressiveRelief.com.

Consumer Debt Statistics:

* There are 1.3 billion payment cards - including credit cards, debit cards and store cards - in circulation in the United States. The average American home has 13 payment cards.
* Americans make over 1.5 trillion dollars worth of credit card purchases annually.
* The typical credit card purchase is 112% higher than if using cash.
* Over 40% of US families spend more than they earn.
* Americans carry, on average, $8400 in credit card debt.*** If one were to make a 2% payment every month at an annual APR of 15%, it would take about 30 years to pay off and include about $13,000 in interest.
* The average U.S household pays $950 in interest each year.
* About 18% of all U.S. personal consumption expenditures (PCE) are made on bank credit cards. If retail cards and debit cards are included, the figure rises to 24%.
* 96% of all Americans will be financially dependent on the government, family, or charity at retirement.
* Almost 1 in every 100 households in the United States will claim bankruptcy.
* According to the National Association of Realtors, the average homeowner stays in his home for 7.1 years. With an 8% mortgage, he will sell his home still owing over 90% on his mortgage. If he was to continue this trend, he would never pay off a mortgage in his lifetime. Only 2% of homes in America are paid for.
* On average, Americans can expect to receive only 37% of the amount they will need to live comfortably from their retirement plan.
* Nearly half of all Americans have less than $10,000 saved for their retirement. 39% of Americans are anxious about their ability to achieve their desired retirement lifestyle.

***In Ohio in 2008, that's $8750 on 14 cards.

Worth Your Time, Better Than Doing It Yourself

http://www.citypages.com/2008-11-26/news/living-on-the-streets-of-minneapolis-for-a-week/

A young reporter takes $40 and spends a week on urban streets, in Minneapolis. Not a bad slice of life narrative; didn't spend much time talking to his cohorts, though.

Hey Ya! Charlie Brown

When i first saw this, i thought i wouldn't like it.

I did!

You might, too -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGnYw-OuCnI

Snap!

. . . To be converted is not a work for self-fulfilment because the human being is not the architect of his own eternal destiny. We did not make ourselves.

Therefore, self-fulfilment is a contradiction and is also too little for us. We have a loftier destination.

- Pope Benedict XVI

So, What Are You Allowed To Say?

If these stories represent the other side of a line, is there any ground other than "whatever" on the safe side? Because i'm not seeing it -- even if i wouldn't write the same letter the administrator at UT did, i'm horrified that this is now seen as actionable . . . and the Canadian counselor is saying, in the article's fourth para, no more than i have in public forums on a number of occasions (which is nothing on how i've challenged evangelical Christians to be accountable, but i'm sure THAT'S fine).

http://www.getreligion.org/?p=4196

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36939

One-stop Shopping for Missional

...the missional church, that is -- http://jrwoodward.net/2008/11/a-primer-on-todays-missional-church/

The Christian Century

This magazine shaped a great deal of my theological interest in ministry, and this is an evangelical article on the sort-of-centenary of what is still a major mainline Christian magazine:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/006/12.20.html

excerpt:

At their best, Progressives battled corruption, promoted women's rights, improved living and working conditions for laborers, cleaned up the nation's food supply, and sought to make the world safe for democracy. At their worst, they marched around with supposedly scientific agendas and told everyone else to get with the program or get out of the way. The frenzied patriotism surrounding World War I, a general inattention to racial injustice, the failed experiment of Prohibition, and the insidious legacy of eugenics are among the stains on the Progressive record.

Fact: I am baffled by this story

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30Surrogate-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

It sure looks to me like the photographer and/or editor of the piece took a bit of upper crust cluelessness and played a more than cruel joke on her; if you read the descriptions of the surrogate in the piece, the photos are the result of someone working really, really hard to make a point.

The overall effect is really kind of Gregory Crewdson. Yikes.

Doug Adairs No More

Try not to enjoy this story too much -- i guess Bill Kurtis got out just in time.

What i don't get is that with the end of long-time local anchors, no one but meteorologists will be making regular salaries in TV news. How the heck does that work? I guess it works the same way as no one but editors making a regular, grown-up salary in newspaper offices.

Chris' Project for Thanksgiving Week

The "garden" in front of the large house is made of glue and basil for one crop, rosemary for the other; the firelay should be in the middle under the smokehole, but then you couldn't see it!





In the wider shot, the spot out the window straight across the road almost to the foot of the hill is where indications of a large house were found in the Murphy Site archaeological dig in the 1980's and early 90's, dated to around 2000 years ago. The components of the Murphy site are one of the most studied and analyzed Middle Woodland habitation areas, and we live smack in the middle of them. At any rate, if there was a large family group structure at Murphy 1 (see the graphic in the first link for "structure zone"), it might have looked somewhat like the model on the table in the foreground.

Pie, crust, filling, mmmm

http://www.notmartha.org/tomake/piesbakedintinyjars/

http://www.recipe-recipes-message-board.com/forum/view_topic.php?forum_id=35&id=1752

(As noted in the first link, the key crust recipe is at the second post in this link; scroll down.)

(Oh, shoot -- here:

All-Butter Pie Pastry

Use a combination of tart and sweet apples for this pie. Good choices for tart are Granny Smiths, Empires, or Cortlands; for sweet, we recommend Golden Delicious, Jonagolds, or Braeburns. Wrap leftovers tightly in plastic wrap and store at room temperature for up to 24 hours. To reheat, remove the wrap and warm the pie in a 350-degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes. See below for freezing instructions.

Makes one 9-inch pie, serving 8 to 10

All-Butter Pie Pastry

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (12 1/2 ounces), plus additional flour for work surface
1 teaspoon table salt
1 tablespoon sugar
16 tablespoons unsalted butter (2 sticks), cold, cut into 1/2-inch cubes and frozen for 10 minutes
3 tablespoons sour cream
1/3 cup ice water , or more if needed

Apple Filling

1/2 cup granulated sugar (3 1/2 ounces), plus 1 teaspoon
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar (1 3/4 ounces)
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 1/2 pounds tart apples (firm), about 5 medium, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices (see note)
2 1/2 pounds sweet apples (firm), about 5 medium, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices (see note)

1 egg white , beaten lightly

1. For Pastry: Process flour, salt, and sugar together in food processor until combined, about 3 seconds. Add butter and pulse until butter is size of large peas, about ten 1-second pulses.

2. Using fork, mix sour cream and 1/3 cup ice water in small bowl until combined. Add half of sour cream mixture to flour mixture; pulse for three 1-second pulses. Repeat with remaining sour cream mixture. Pinch dough with fingers; if dough is floury, dry, and does not hold together, add 1 to 2 tablespoons ice water and process until dough forms large clumps and no dry flour remains, three to five 1-second pulses.

3. Turn dough out onto work surface. Divide dough into 2 balls and flatten each into 4-inch disk; wrap each disk in plastic and refrigerate until firm but not hard, 1 to 2 hours, before rolling. (Dough can be refrigerated for up to 24 hours. Let thoroughly chilled dough stand at room temperature for 15 minutes before rolling.)

4. For Pie: Mix 1/2 cup granulated sugar, brown sugar, salt, zest, and cinnamon in large bowl; add apples and toss to combine. Transfer apples to Dutch oven (do not wash bowl) and cook, covered, over medium heat, stirring frequently, until apples are tender when poked with fork but still hold their shape, 15 to 20 minutes. (Apples and juices should gently simmer during cooking.) Transfer apples and juices to rimmed baking sheet and cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes. While apples cool, adjust oven rack to lowest position, place empty rimmed baking sheet on rack, and heat oven to 425 degrees.

5. Remove 1 disk of dough from refrigerator and roll out between 2 large sheets of parchment paper or plastic wrap to 12-inch circle, about 1/8 inch thick. (If dough becomes soft and/or sticky, return to refrigerator until firm.) Remove parchment from one side of dough and flip onto 9-inch pie plate; peel off second layer of parchment. Working around circumference, ease dough into plate by gently lifting edge of dough with one hand while pressing into plate bottom with other hand. Leave dough that overhangs plate in place; refrigerate until dough is firm, about 30 minutes.

6. Meanwhile, roll second disk of dough between 2 large sheets of parchment paper or plastic wrap to 12-inch circle, about 1/8 inch thick. Refrigerate, leaving dough between parchment sheets, until firm, about 30 minutes.

7. Set large colander over now-empty bowl; transfer cooled apples to colander. Shake colander to drain off as much juice as possible (cooked apples should measure about 8 cups); discard juice. Transfer apples to dough-lined pie plate; sprinkle with lemon juice.

8. Remove parchment from one side of remaining dough and flip dough onto apples; peel off second piece of parchment. Pinch edges of top and bottom dough rounds firmly together. Following illustrations 1 through 4, trim and seal edges of dough, then cut four 2-inch slits in top of dough. Brush surface with beaten egg white and sprinkle evenly with remaining teaspoon sugar.

9. Set pie on preheated baking sheet; bake until crust is dark golden brown, 45 to 55 minutes. Transfer pie to wire rack and cool at least 1 1/2 hours. Cut into wedges and serve.

10. Freezing Instructions:

We tried two different methods for freezing: (1) fully assembled and ready to go directly from freezer to oven and (2) divided into separate components of crust and cooked apple filling to be thawed, assembled, and baked. Both versions were good, although the reassembled pie was deemed marginally better for its slightly flakier, more evenly browned crust. You'll probably want to choose one method or the other based on how long you expect to keep a pie (or its components) in the freezer.

Assembled pies kept well for up to two weeks in the freezer; after that, the texture of the crust and apples suffered. To freeze an assembled pie, follow the recipe all the way through sealing the pie crust, but do not brush with egg wash. Freeze the pie for two to three hours, then wrap it tightly in a double layer of plastic wrap, followed by a layer of foil, and return it to the freezer. To bake, remove the pie from the freezer, brush it with egg wash, sprinkle with sugar, cut slits in the top crust, and place directly on the baking sheet in the preheated oven. Bake 5 to 10 minutes longer than normal.

For a longer freezer storage time of several months, freeze the crust and apples separately. Freeze individual batches of the cooked, drained apple filling in quart-sized freezer bags (this doubles as a great alternative to canning). Then make the pie dough, shape it into two 4-inch disks, wrap the disks tightly in a double layer of plastic wrap and foil, and freeze. When you're ready to make the pie, simply thaw the apples and crust in the refrigerator the night before, assemble as per the recipe instructions, and bake as directed. Of course, you can always just freeze the apples and make the crust fresh the day you bake the pie.

Couldn't Get Me More Interested Even With Sprinkles

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081124130956.htm

Annual Thanksgiving Traditions . . .

. . . of which a story like this is sadly one:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-thanksgiving25-2008nov25,0,1458033.story

Thanksgiving Day cooking

Mmmm - Sweet Potato souffle

Seriously, the Thanksgiving Day page at NYT is durn useful

Quel horreur

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/world/europe/23cafe.html

Very long, very painful read

You've been warned.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/14/AR2008111401698_pf.html

from NRO, the eHarmony case is settled

pcHarmony.com [Mark Steyn]

This doesn't seem an encouraging development ( http://michellemalkin.com/2008/11/20/eharmony-forced-to-offer-same-sex-dating-services/ & http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/11/eharmony-goes-g.html ):

The Pasadena-based dating website, heavily promoted by Christian evangelical leaders when it was founded, has agreed in a civil rights settlement to give up its heterosexuals-only policy and offer same-sex matches.

EHarmony was started by psychologist Neil Clark Warren, who is known for his mild-mannered television and radio advertisements. It must not only implement the new policy by March 31 but also give the first 10,000 same-sex registrants a free six-month subscription.

“That was one of the things I asked for,” said Eric McKinley, 46, who complained to New Jersey’s Division on Civil Rights after being turned down for a subscription in 2005.

I don't know Mr McKinley's taste in men, but this would have been a less predictable case had he attempted to acquire a Muslim boyfriend at, say, singlemuslim.com. Indeed, Mr Warren and his colleagues at eHarmony might have been better advised to convert to Islam and claim the right to have the case settled by one of the west's fast multiplying Sharia courts, which are (to put it mildly) less antipathetic to "heterosexism". As the Belmont Club comments:

Sharia law is at heart a desire to live outside the system and while its spread is probably a bad thing for the West, one wonders how much the paralyzing and expensive effect of excessive litigation and over regulation in Western society has driven the rise of parallel private institutions.

There'll be more of that in the years ahead. As Michelle Malkin says, the eHarmony settlement is like a meat-eater going to a vegetarian restaurant and demanding a ribeye. The "tolerance" enforcers are jeopardizing the very possibility of any shared societal space. Good luck with that.

Inconvenient Truths?

The world has never seen such freezing heat
The London Telegraph

By Christopher Booker
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 16/11/2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/16/do1610.xml

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. (He was recently in the news here for supporting the Greenpeace activists acquitted of criminally damaging a coal-fired power station in Kent, on the grounds that the harm done to the planet by a new power station would far outweigh any damage they had done themselves.)

Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

Another of his close allies is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, who recently startled a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising "very much faster" than ever, in front of a graph showing them rising sharply in the past decade. In fact, as many of his audience were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped.

Dr Pachauri, a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, may believe what Dr Hansen tells him. But whether, on the basis of such evidence, it is wise for the world's governments to embark on some of the most costly economic measures ever proposed, to remedy a problem which may actually not exist, is a question which should give us all pause for thought.

The Lessons of Ghost Towns

One of John Derbyshire's best -- http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzU0ZDliOGZjNjA0N2JiZjcwYmM2NzY2NGM4ODg3YjY=

Dreher Gets It Half-Right

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-dreher_16edi.State.Edition1.2a6f40b.html

Yep.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjRlMDEyZDcyYTNlODliYmRhZWRkNjc2OGE2YjViOWI=

A Field Guide to Clouds

http://www.stormeyes.org/tornado/SkyPix/skypixca.htm

Tigers eating their young - Dawkins on Pullman et alia

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/07/the-dawkins-delusion/

Not Encouraging.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/nyregion/09panel.html

Hoo-aah!

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MGEzN2MxYTQ5MDE2YTc5M2Y1MzFkNThlNjZiNGI4ZmM=

Evangelicals and Obama

From 78% to 74%, but that 78% was a record; no sea change here --

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctpolitics/2008/11/the_evangelical.html
If you check the hotlink balloons, you'll see Ohio was 70% and Indiana 66%. Midwestern economic turmoil did much to help Obama, i expect particularly in the area of health insurance uncertainty.

And the much vaunted "new evangelicals"?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122601904162807153.html

Very interesting analysis on income inequality and party

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzdkOWQ3MmRmYmQ0ZjNiMTZmYWZhYzQ0MTMwNmIyNTY=

Lengthy, but no longer than it should be.

Mmmmm. Quiche.

Refreshingly Candid, If a Bit Obtuse

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14982.html

The Chosen One (no, not him)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZFitUCO_pk

Click and enjoy, just a minute and a half.

Just When I Start To Think It Might Not Be SOOO Bad

The Obama Administration starts to look scary to me again in the future as we learn more scraps hidden under the rug about his past --

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmFhYzIzMGQ1Y2FlMTA4N2M1N2VmZWUzM2Y4ZmNmYmI=

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDFkMGE2MmM1M2Q5MmY0ZmExMzUxMWRhZGJmMTAyOGY=

Yeah, yeah, it's National Review. Conservative rag. Right. Does that mean these quotes and speeches didn't happen?

Right.

Say Whaaaaat?

http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2008/10/25/no-way-out

Don't miss clicking on the chart, to see the facts up close and personal.

One. Two.

One --

http://www.cny.org/archive/eg/eg102308.htm

Two has been scrubbed off the internet for copyright reasons, but you can get the gist of it here --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas

Columbia Is the Key

. . . but no one seems to want to turn the knob and look behind that door:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjY4YzdhMDBkZGQ3ZmU2MTUzYjdkMzc5ZjUzYmViZWM=


I don't worry about the first two years of an Obama presidency as much as i do the last two . . .

Community Capitalism

Town-hall discussions

The ideas in “Community Capitalism: Lessons from Kalamazoo and Beyond” will be discussed in three town-hall discussions at the Career and Technology Education Centers, 150 Price Road, Newark.

The forums will be:
• 7:30 p.m. Nov. 11
• 4 p.m. Nov. 18
• 7 p.m. Nov. 19

David Brooks on Patio Man, Revisited

Patio Man Revisited
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/opinion/21brooks.html

By DAVID BROOKS
Published: October 20, 2008

Patio Man is surprised at how much the bankruptcy of Sharper Image has upset him. In the vast expanse of teenage clothing stores at the mall, Sharper Image at least offered him a moment of interest and delight. The store allowed him to indulge his curiosity in noise-canceling headphones, indoor putting greens and overly expensive toy cars. Now it seems that might all come to an end, and he will have to adjust to life without. He is adjusting to a lot of changes these days.

For all the talk of plumbers and investment bankers, populists and elitists, Patio Man is still at the epicenter of national politics. He is the quintessential suburban American, the service economy worker, the guy who wears khakis to work each day, with the security badge on the belt clip around his waist.

He lives in northern Virginia, along the I-4 corridor near Orlando, Fla., in or near Columbus, Ohio, along the Front Range of Colorado, in the converging megalopolis between Albuquerque and Santa Fe and in many other places.

He has a house — worth less and less — in a relatively new development. He’s holding off on the new car. He’s trying not to look at his retirement account balance. But he’s happy with the new street-scape shopping area where he and his family can stroll before a movie.

If you wanted to pick words to capture Patio Man’s political ideals, they would be responsibility, respectability and order. Patio Man moved to his home because he wanted an orderly place where he could raise his kids. His ideal neighborhood is Mayberry with BlackBerries.

He doesn’t expect much of government. He believes that he is responsible for his own economic destiny. But he does expect government to provide him with a background level of order.

In times of turmoil, he has gravitated toward the party that could restore his sense of order. In the 1970s, crime and social breakdown seemed like the biggest threats to order, and he gravitated to the G.O.P. In the late 1990s, Republican revolutionaries seemed to bring instability, and he softened on Clinton. Then terrorism threatened his equilibrium and he helped re-elect Bush. Then, post-Iraq and post-Katrina, administrative incompetence led him a bit the other way.

Now disorder has come from an unexpected direction, not from foreign enemies or domestic zealotry but from a society-wide contagion of financial risk-taking. Government programs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac seduced people into homes they could not afford. Private bankers took on too much risk with too little capital. Consumers, including Patio Man himself, racked up an enormous personal debt.

The effects threaten everything he has achieved. There are foreclosures in his neighborhood. Like all taxpayers, he’s been asked to backstop Wall Street’s losses. He braces for recession.

How is Patio Man responding?

On one level, the changes are surprisingly modest. There have been no big changes in how Americans describe their political philosophies. Somewhere between 40 percent and 49 percent still call themselves conservative, and about half as many call themselves liberal. Distrust of government is still high. Ronald Brownstein of the National Journal compared today’s poll results, group by group, with past election results. Especially for those over 30, the stability of the preferences is more striking than the changes.

But deeper down, there are some shifts in values. Americans, including suburban Americans, are less socially conservative. They are more aware of the gap between rich and poor. They are more open to government action to reduce poverty.

But, most of all, there is a tropism toward order and stability.

Some liberals think they are headed for an age of liberal dominance and government expansion. “If Obama offers a big, budget-busting program next year, it will more likely be seen as fair than irresponsible,” Jonathan Alter writes in Newsweek.

But the shift in public opinion is not from right to left, or from anti-government to pro-government, it’s from risk to caution, from disorder to consolidation.

There is a deep current of bourgeois culture running through American suburbia. It is not right wing, but it is conservative: a distrust of those far away; a belief in convention and respectability; and a strong reaction against anything that threatens to undermine the stability of the established order.

Democrats have done well in suburbia recently because they have run the kind of candidates who seem like the safer choice — socially moderate, pragmatic and fiscally hawkish. They, or any party, will run astray if they threaten the mood of chastened sobriety that has swept over the subdivisions.

Patio Man wants change. But this is no time for more risk or more debt. Debt in the future is no solution to the debt racked up in the past. This is a back-to-basics moment, a return to safety and the fundamentals.

Whooops.

And from my WV experience, i coulda toldja this would happen:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081017/ap_on_re_us/child_health_hawaii

You Go, Joe!

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081016/NEWS09/810160418

So read the Toledo view of the guy who helps to point out -- when you say, as Joe the Senator does, that the top 5% need to be OK with paying more taxes, you miss two things. First, 45% of US households pay no income tax (see earlier post with WSJ link), and in that top 5% are both Warren Buffet, who certainly can afford to pay a bit more, and Joe the Plumber at a total business income of $250-275,000, which is a small business with maybe four employees, and is the engine for much of the job creation in Ohio and the nation as a whole.

Plus, when the top 5% is already paying over 75% of income tax revenue, let's understand who we're talking about. If Joe the Plumber can't hire a new apprentice plumber, that's a missing step up that minimum wage increases and EITC payouts and "stimulus packages" don't replace.



You go, Joe! (The Plumber, not the Senator.)

95% Banana Syrup

It would be nice to get to ask Joe Biden about the 95% BS he and his running mate are selling, but since there's no give-and-take at Obama-Biden rallies, unlike McCain-Palin events (where folks can get all horrified by the voices of average Americans who, it should be said, need no "whipping up" to be frustrated and angry at Washington maneuverings), no one will hear answers to these points --

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122385651698727257.html

Iraq Journal

This is part V, but it should give you a solid taste (and might make you want to read the first four installments!) --

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTAwZjVjZTAxZWM5ODNiMjQwMzIyZmUwOTIwMjQ0NGI=

You May Think You Know Computer Basics

. . . but this article taught me a thing or two, and i'm not saying what, it's almost that embarrassing:

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/tech-tips-for-the-basic-computer-user/?ei=5070&emc=eta1

Where We Can All Agree

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-klempner/a-conversation-with-tracy_b_91799.html

Work still going on, with roots and shoots weaving into Granville, Ohio; "Mountains Beyond Mountains" is well worth a read. A quote:

MK: To put it in more popular terms, we could say that he knows his purpose, and that his purpose is morally irreproachable. In the book, it's pretty clear that he gets the most satisfaction from doctoring, even if -- and perhaps especially if -- he has to hike a long ways to get to a patient, or even to chase a patient into a field to get him to take his medicine.

TK: Yes, Farmer gets enormous pleasure from being a doctor, and a lot of that is the altruistic impulse, which some people don't think exists. But they're wrong.

I once had a conversation with a psychiatrist friend of mine who stated flatly that altruism doesn't exist. So I said, "All right. What if I agreed with you? You would still have to acknowledge that there is a difference between that kind of selfishness that leads to slaughtering six million Jews and the kind of selfishness that leads a doctor to save millions of lives." She couldn't argue that.

But I do believe altruism exists, and you can see it in him. Maybe in the long run in some psychological way it's self-serving, but I don't really care. It was very beautiful to see -- it really was. Everyone who watches him with his patients always finds it moving.

He also loves animals, and he loves to grow things, and he's enormously knowledgeable about reptiles and lizards. So what's that about? This is a person who is really in love with the world and who, in proportion, is offended by the horrible flaws in it.

MK: What about the millions of materially affluent Americans who don't really have any purpose in life, who can't imagine that the work they are doing makes any kind of meaningful contribution, who have to live every day with, as you put it, ambivalence? Would Farmer recognize that this too comprises a variety of poverty, albeit spiritual poverty?

TK: I think Farmer is aware of the soullessness of our culture, and, in fact, he's given a way out for a fairly large and growing number of people: He does all the work, all we have to do is make a donation. Then we can all feel better. (laughter)

Unhinged Ragemongers?

Not on the McCain side, but (horrors) with The One Who Will Restore Balance To The Force -- http://michellemalkin.com/2008/10/12/crush-the-obamedia-narrative-look-whos-gripped-by-insane-rage/

Read It Skeptically

This article I was skeptical about, until I started reading. And reading. And became convinced, at least as far as you can know this sort of thing for sure . . .

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/who_wrote_dreams_from_my_fathe_1.html

Interesting - Not Definitive, But Interesting

http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/10/can-democrats-reduce-abortion.html

This kind of thinking will be important over the next four years, since i tend to be in general agreement with this early am post at National Review Online (Oct. 8) --

Mood [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

This is a fuller elucidation of what a lot of people are e-mailing me:

Kathryn, love your articles, you seem to have the pulse of the country much more than most. McCain kissed it away tonight. Without some unforeseen event, he will lose by about 6-8 points and assure a Democratic majority in the Congress and the Senate, although I still think the Republicans will hold onto about 42 seats or so in the Senate, although with Snowe and others, I’m not sure that means much. However, he has created the future and maybe that was his role in everything. The same way that Ford created Reagan by allowing Carter to win with his bad debate performance, I think McCain has created our future with Palin. Her instincts and idealogy with 4 more years of experience coupled with an Obama Administration (ala Carter) will lead to a conservative revival which hopefully, at 43 years old, will be the last one that I have to experience in my life. The next 4 years are going to be brutal, although hopefully, the Democrats will overreach during the first two years and usher in Republicans to the House and Senate that understand the mistakes of the past and start acting like Republicans. With Gov. Jindall, Gov. Palin and Gov. Romney (who I voted for in the primary in Georgia, because I saw this coming, and I loved Gov. Romney’s message), the Republicans will be reborn. We, as a party, need to say never again to moderate, old Senators, or even VP’s (see Dole, McCain and Bush 1) and start putting forward young, energetic and idea driven governors. They have executive experience, ideas and the ability to communicate the ideals that make our party great. I hate that we have to go through the next 4 years with Obama at the helm. We will be tested severely by every adversary we have in the world and Obama’s instinct to talk and negotiate above every other action will serve us terribly.

My family and I will suffer serious financial hardship over the next 4 years. Obama has no understanding of those of us who work 80 hour weeks, spend countless nights away from our families to provide a good life for them and aren’t some notorious CEO’s ( could that guy from Lehman be a bigger idiot?).Gov. Romney’s speech at CPAC and Gov. Palin in this campaign are the only two people that I have seen that speak to us who bust our backsides to support our family, don’t want Government to give us anything and understand what we are all about.

It is time for the younger conservatives to rise up, take control of our party and start expelling the idiots like Stevens from Alaska, that think giving money away should keep us in power forever. It is better to say to Snowe and Specter and the others, thanks, but we will stay in the minority for awhile and let liberals show you what their policies mean rather than cater to you and let moderates destroy our party again. To many people have forgotten what unbridled liberalism means (ala Carter again). While we tried to label Clinton with that, he totally understood that liberalism would destroy him, and after the first two years governed from the center to save his own hide. While he did nothing spectacular, he ended up being an OK President because of this.

I had incredible arguments with my friends that McCain was this person and I don’t think I ever saw a worse debate performance with so much on the line than tonight. After about 30 minutes, I looked at my wife and asked if McCain could call in a reliever and send in Palin from the pen. I do believe we will be a better party because of this. We will go back to thinking about our beliefs. We will go back to learning how to argue and get our point across with a hostile press and a mocking Democratic party. I have always believed that with a liberal press that we, as conservatives, have learned to think more and argue our beliefs better than the liberals, who are so used to being fawned over with their class warfare arguments and have become lazy. I think this is one of the biggest mistakes McCain has made. He got so used to being fawned upon because he was ripping Republicans so much of the time, that he didn’t become prepared to argue his positions and I’m not really sure he had a belief in his positions outside of foreign policy, which sadly, are right on.

I think Gov. Palin realized early on what was going on and has prepared herself accordingly. After a couple of interviews, she knew what the game was and retooled herself to deal with them. Something the mainstream media and the liberals don’t understand about her was that she was a pretty good athlete. What these people don’t get is that these kind of athletes don’t like to lose. They may get their backsides kicked, but they realize it, identify the weaknesses and then correct it and get better. She is going to be an absolute force in 4 years. She is going to get the street cred now for being better than McCain during this election. She is going to bone up the next few months and be a counterweight to all of the Obama policies during the next 4 years. Reporters are going to beat a path to her door in Alaska She is the future of the Republican Party and at 48 or so in 4 years, will be the conservative change we need which will emphasize conservative principles along with the ideal that power obtained by compromising your principles is not power worth obtaining. Her responsibility argument at the debate scored the highest among the dials of independent voters. To say, go ahead and pursue happiness (hello, an argument in the Constitution), but I will protect your rewards and keep both Government and Business from screwing you will be an absolutely winning argument. This is the sense I get from her. I wrote Kathleen Parker and said I thought she was way to quick to jump the gun for Gov. Palin to exit the campaign.My point was, we, as normal Americans, want somebody who understands us, has good instincts and can learn from his or her mistakes and get better. I think Gov. Palin fits this bill. In all honesty, I think Gov. Romney (with Gov. Palin’s instincts) and Gov. Jindall also have this ability and I am encouraged that the future of the Republican party is in great hands. for her response to all of his policies and she is going to shine more and more.

I think Rush had it extremely right and I have been advocating the same thing with my friends and associates. This is 1976 pretty much over again. The country is depressed, things are bad and the Republicans (ala Nixon and Ford) are getting blamed for it all over again, and truthfully, they have some culpability again. Obama will be an absolute disaster as Carter was. They both believe that negotiating with enemies will prove you are the better person and we, as a country, will suffer for it. They believe that government will solve any economic problems and history will show once again, as it always has, that government will cause many more problems than it will solve. Our problem currently isn’t deregulation (see the problems that Sarbanes-Oxley has caused), but the lack oversight of current laws. This is the one area that I agreed with McCain was that Christopher Cox should go, along with(my own suggestion) Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Hank Paulson. These are the best and brightest and they let this meltdown happen? All of these people like Bush, McCain, etc. seemed to know what the danger of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were and they didn’t raise a bigger alarm bell? Reagan might have had policy differences that he tried to get around like the Contras, but he understood when government policies were causing the problem and although he suffered a recession in the first couple years, he knew his policies were the right course. I hope Gov. Palin, Gov. Jindlall or whoever in 2012 understand this also.

As in the past, Republicans will get better and prevail again. Gov. Palin, Jindall, Romney and others are a shining light in our party. We can only hope that they will provide a Reaganusque leadership to our party. It is our responsibility, as conservatives, to never let the Delays, Hasterts, Doles, etc. lead our party again. We must demand accountability and conservative principles. We can disagree on a number of issues, but we must never let those who believe that government can spend the money better than those who make the money, ever in power in our party again.

I have always believed that half a loaf (Dole, McCain, etc.) was better than no loaf at all. Now I have changed my mind. What good has been President Bush’s agreeing to No Child Left Behind with Sen. Kennedy? Or Sen. McCain’s to McCain Feingold? Or Sen. McCain’s to McCain/Kennedy on immigration? What, I believe, is the problem here, is that when the American public says they want bipartisianship, is that they really don’t, they just aren’t convinced of either side’s argument and they get tired of both sides trashing the other side, instead of arguing the merits of their side.

Thank you Kathryn once again for your great articles. I’m not sure you will agree with what I wrote, but it has been written with incredible passion. I am one of those who gets teary eyed when I hear the National Anthem at the Indy 500 or a Braves game (grew up in Indiana, live in Atlanta). I think back to Michael Moore who mocked George Bush in 2004 about wanting to send his daughters to Iraq and respect Gov. Palin and Gov. Biden beyond belief for supporting their sons who are in Iraq and who don’t really know if they will see them again. It was the one part of VP debate that I actually was totally in sync with Sen. Biden, loving my 5 year old as I do. Please keep up your great articles the next 4 years, keep the faith, and know there are millions of people out here who read your articles, think about them and respond to them. Conservative principles never change, but like all things, they need to be thought about, argued better and always refreshed. We may yet consider Sen. McCain a conservative hero, not for his own ideas, but for who he led us to, in Gov. Palin. At least we can hope so...

* * *

[Lopez again] I'm not there. I still have the fight in me. You know why? Tuesday night: What Barack Obama said about 9/11 encapsulated it for me. As Gov. Palin might put it: He just doesn't get it. "A lot of you remember the tragedy of 9/11." Were there five-year-olds in the room there I missed? We all remember, Senator. And tragedy? Maybe we should elect the head of the Red Cross commander-in-chief.

10/08 03:04 AM

A Story That Could Be Anywhere

And sounds like stuff we work with every day here in central Ohio --
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/us/03omaha.html?em=&pagewanted=all

Very much worth a read.

Oh, Really

I've lost track of how many people have e-mailed and commented to me that "Sarah Palin attended five colleges!" with the breathless assumption undergirding the exclamation point that she must, therefore, be a dim bulb.

Best overview of the point -- http://www.slate.com/id/2201332/

Once again, i only like her better for reading Tim Noah's mean-spirited snark. I took six and a half years to graduate, from a land grant state school (Purdue, to which you can readily compare U of Idaho at Moscow). I didn't end up spending stretches back at home taking courses at local colleges, but i also didn't live in a state that was thousands of miles away from the bulk of the US, either. Between a sojourn into the Marine Corps and living on friends' sofas while working an odd set of jobs i never entirely withdrew from Purdue, playing "beat the reaper" with the bursar's office, and racking up some ghastly semesters, grade wise, while also picking up my share of A's in some challenging courses. A reporter would have a field day with my transcripts, just as they're having fun with the Hawaii-Idaho-Alaska-Idaho peregrinations of the young Sarah Palin.

Oh, and Obama hasn't released squat from his college transcripts, Occidental, Columbia, or Harvard Law.

Capper -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/01/AR2008100103437_pf.html

Ayup.

I'm not a huge Dave Ramsey fan, but in this 3 point plan i agree with every word --

http://www.daveramsey.com/etc/fed_bailout/3_steps_to_change_the_nations_future_10928.htmlc?ictid=sml

Here's a whole new way to get the base motivted for McCain-Palin

Thanks, Bill Maher --

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/movies/01reli.html

How'd we get here (here being Wall St. & Washington)

. . . almost eleven minutes, but worth it with the sound turned down a bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4&feature=iv&annotation_id=event_597487

If you aren't sure about the basis of that (but you can look up everything the maker of the video/PP said), try this set of C-SPAN clips --

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&feature=related

What a President should be reading (1903 edition)

http://books.google.com/books?id=KPMEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA265&lpg=PA265&dq=theodore+roosevelt+nicholas+murray+butler+november+4+1903&source=web&ots=tABgmNj7Ox&sig=XWaObhC6DDCzn1seH2AYb4xLKsw&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPA267,M1

Yeah.

Not short, but no longer than it needs to be -- worth a read.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YWE1YTg0N2I5OTQ1ZWNkYjFmYTNjZjQ2ZmMzYmM5ZjA=

Planning For When You Can't Plan

"Only a crisis, real or perceived, produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable."

- Milton Friedman

This Seems Quite Fair To Both Parties . . .

. . . who both deserve a flogging:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/business/20prexy.html

Dateline 2000

http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_the_trillion_dollar.html

I've worked around housing issues for 16 years, and never seen CRA do a bit of good for actual people, just programs and organizations.

courtesy National Review Online, Sept. 17

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) wrote:

It’s not as though this couldn’t be foreseen. It was. By the same guy who called for (years before it happened) a surge of troops to turn things around in Iraq.

John McCain. 25 May 2005, speaking to the Senate [Congressional Record]:

"Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.

The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation."

* * *

The legislation was blocked by Democrats, with the assistance of a few Republicans.

James Johnson, former CEO of Fannie Mae and current Obama advisor, has cost us many tens of billions of dollars we can’t afford.

Franklin Raines, former CEO of Fannie Mae and current Obama advisor, has cost us many tens of billions of dollars we can’t afford.

Barack Obama: if we can’t afford his advisors, we certainly can’t afford him.

September 17, 12:52 pm

07:17 PM

McCain Did Anticipate Problems with Fannie and Freddie [Mark Hemingway]

ABC's Jake Tapper:

"Two years ago, I warned that the oversight of Fannie and Freddie was terrible, that we were facing a crisis because of it, or certainly serious problems," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told CBS this morning. "The influence that Fannie and Freddie had in the inside the Beltway, old boy network, which led to this kind of corruption is unacceptable and I warned about it a couple of years ago.”

How does this claim of foresight square with this interview that McCain gave to the Keene (NH) Sentinel, discussing the subprime mortgage crisis, in December 2007?

Tapper goes on to quote McCain saying of the broader subprime/liquidity crises that occurred at in the last few months of 2007, "So, I’d like to tell you that I did anticipate it, but I have to give you straight talk, I did not."

A couple points — in the quote above McCain is clearly referring to Fannie and Freddie explicitly. While they're arguably the lynchpin of the current financial crises, anticipating problems with Fannie and Freddie is hardly the same as foreseeing the overall extent subprime crises.

And if Tapper googled a little harder he would see that McCain's not making a "claim" — he really did anticpate the problems with GSEs and see them as a systemic financial problem. He even sponsored legislation to deal with it:

"I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole."

McCain deserves credit for being on the right side of this. Meanwhile, Obama in just four years in the Senate raked more contributions from Fannie and Freddie than any other Senator in the last 19 years — save Dodd. McCain should pummel Obama with this. He's right on Fannie/Freddie where Obama has done nothing but take their money look the other way.

A Dissident View From Great Britain

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/09/17/do1705.xml

Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator

By the way, i trust y'all have seen the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator -- http://personal-space.com/script/script.php

I would be "Log Justice Palin," while my wife is delighted with "Torpedo Vindicator Palin."

Helloooooooooo Obama Campaign

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09172008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/obama_objects_129453.htm?page=0

Um, this looks like the kind of reaction a campaign gives to a developing problem, not a rabid unhinged columnist who is making wild, unsupported accusations.

Grim Joy For Nov. 4

http://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/the-audacity-of-defeat

What Do You Do With Stuff Like This?

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080914_Intolerance_thrives_in_Palin_s_Pacific_Northwest.html

Words. Fail.

Camille Amazes, Again

If reading this doesn't make your head hurt (in a good way), you need to read it a second time, slowly -- this is an original, if incredibly self-absorbed thinker if you've never run into Camille Paglia before. Set all categories aside and prepare for a brain-scrambling ride, since she has a consistency and integrity to her writing that makes it hard to not take what she says very seriously.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/print.html

Someone from "the liberal media" took a deep breath...

....and dove into what they seem to think of as the shallow end of the gene pool, and came back to the surface with a fair and insightful account --

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/no-laughing-matter/index.html

Brie for breakfast? Has she no irony?

Don't answer that.

Double whoa.

With friends like these, Obama needs no enemies a'tall -- and to think i once thought of attending this school:

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/wendy_doniger/2008/09/all_beliefs_welcome_unless_the.html

Two Big Steaming Piles

These would be funny if they weren't so horrible -- do Democrats really not get this country to the extent these comments indicate?

Don't answer that. Well, not right away, anyhow.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/obama-and-the-palin-effec_b_123943.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/07/russell-brand-mtv-vma-hos_n_124684.html

On the other hand, Jordin Sparks and the Jonas Brothers come off rather well. Maybe even Britney Spears has a clue, too; i did not expect to write that sentence in 2008.

God is Funny, All the Time

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2008/09/my_base_instincts_and_gods_lov.html

Oh ho ho ho . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/us/politics/09donate.html

Yeah, just read it and snicker.

Pro-Life Can Be a Complicated Thing

This isn't red meat for the right, but an interesting wider view of trends by David Frum -- http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/09/06/david-frum-sarah-and-todd-palin-and-the-quiet-success-of-the-pro-life-movement.aspx

I've been bemused by the number of liberal commenters in the MSM who try to say that somehow the conservative and even "religious right" is now hypocritical because we're pro-life and pro-family, but now we've created part of the setting for an increase in single motherhood (which Bristol Palin won't be, but anyhow), which is the heart of Charles Blow's op-ed in the Saturday NYTimes -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/opinion/06blow.html.

Frum answers -- true. Pro-life as a higher value has necessarily meant a wider acceptance and even affirmation, up to a point, of single motherhood, and that creates some interesting tensions that are still working themselves out.

Myself, i think the tension is less than it looks, and was never there -- young unmarried mothers have always been in the picture, and sending them out the church door alone on a winter night barefoot, shunned by all, is good Silas Marner-type material, but just hasn't been true among evangelicals and even most stripes of fundamentalism. The tension is in going from shame perhaps once overplayed to now celebration . . . perhaps a bit overplayed. We can affirm and support without being thrilled that the number of one-parent households is going up, but it will continue to be a delicate balance.

How Blow and others can say with a straight face that "we" on the right should accept more abortions in order to have more two-parent families, or we're inconsistent, is another sign that we tend to talk past each other on this particular divide, but Frum makes a good attempt at putting some guide ropes up across the chasm.

Owwwwww -- That'll Leave a Mark

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/06/the-recycled-flags-of-the-dncc/?print=1

I have nothing more to say.

Talk About Your One-Stop Shopping

http://explorations.chasrmartin.com/2008/09/06/palin-rumors

He Cooks. End of Story.

http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/story/8924080p-8824177c.html

Sarah the Riveter

There's the art; here's the science of governing -- i continue to be even more impressed by Gov. Palin as a (wait for it) governor, as in "one who governs."

http://www.anchorrising.com/barnacles/006280.html

A Snapshot of Sarah Palin's Domestic Governing Experience
Carroll Andrew Morse

A review of Sarah Palin's administrative orders (what many other states call "executive orders") shows action taken on a range of statewide issues. In two years as Governor of Alaska, she has implemented policies in areas ranging from healthcare reform to housing policy to mental health reform to energy production. Here are the highlights.

Very soon after taking office, Governor Palin issued Administrative Order 232 (February 15, 2007), establishing the Alaska Health Care Strategies Planning Council and giving it a broad mandate to create an action plan. By the end of 2007, the Council had reported back with an extensive set of proposals; Governor Palin had obviously selected commissioners who weren't afraid of detail. The first area the commission focused on -- even coming up with some proposals that are economically rational -- was lowering costs…

* Increase the place of consumerism in health care purchasing by giving people control over their health care dollar – the foundations are accessible, transparent, evidence-based price/quality information about providers and services (short-term).
* Create an easily accessible and constantly updated website containing evidence-based price and quality information about health care providers and services (short-term)
* Increase community-based health care services, both public and private sector
* Stabilize the costs of health care by reducing the rate of increase relative to other states (national increase is 6%, decrease Alaskan rate to 4% annual increase)

The report contains similar lists in six other areas; creating a sustainable health care workforce, guaranteeing clean and safe water and wastewater systems, making quality health care accessible to all Alaskans, making personal responsibility and prevention in health care a top priority, developing the statewide leadership necessary to develop and support a comprehensive health care policy, and increasing the number of Alaskans covered by health insurance.

Following the release of the report, Governor Palin introduced legislation to begin implementing of the recommendations. To facilitate an increase in community-based health services, she has proposed repealing Alaka's certificate-of-need (CON) program, which prohibits new health care facilities from being constructed unless the government determines that there is a "need" for a new facility in a given area. To make costs and prices more transparent, Governor Palin has proposed requiring that all health care facilities in Alaska make accurate and updated lists of the costs of their procedures available to the public. The Governor explains her initial legislation here, in an op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News.

In response to the discovery of unexpected corrosion in Alaska's oil-pipeline system, Governor Palin issued Administrative Order 234 (April 18, 2007), creating a Petroleum Systems Integrity Office to monitor and coordinate the maintenance of Alaska's oil infrastructure. The office was up and running quickly enough so that by July 6 of 2007, the Petroleum Systems Integrity Office Coordinator was the go-to person when the U.S House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce wanted detailed answers to questions on dangers to pipelines, for example...

1. Does the build-up of sediment in a pipeline send up a red flag, since bacteria can flourish under sediment and lead to aggressive microbial corrosion?

Yes. Sediment in a pipeline can cause or contribute to problems, including providing an environment in which corrosion-causing bacteria can grow, creating difficulties with intelligent pigging, and blocking of corrosion inhibitor interface with the pipe wall. The presence of sediment is therefore a red flag for consideration of these issues, and generally calls for measures to remove it and to prevent its build-up.

In the area of housing policy, Governor Palin issued Administrative Order 236 (May 1, 2007), continuing the work of a commission created in 2004 by former Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski. The major recommendation from Murkowski's commission had been the creation of a housing trust fund to assist people in need, but he never implemented it. Palin proposed $10 million dollars in her 2009 budget, to be overseen by a new body created through the administrative order, to be used to jump-start the trust fund. Her actions won plaudits from Alaska's housing advocates.

The Alaska Climate Change Sub-Cabinet was created by Governor Palin through Administrative Order 238 (September 14, 2007). Among the areas where the sub-cabinet is to develop recommendations on are…

* The assembly of scientific research, modeling, and mapping information in ways that will help the public and policymakers understand the actual and projected effects of climate change in Alaska, including the time frames in which those effects are likely to take place.
* The prioritization of climate change research in Alaska to best meet the needs of the public and policymakers.
* The policies and measures to reduce the likelihood or magnitude of damage to infrastructure in Alaska from the effects of climate change.
* The potential benefits of Alaska participating in regional, national, and international climate policy agreements and greenhouse gas registries.
* The opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Alaska sources, including the expanded use of alternative fuels, energy conservation, energy efficiency, renewable energy, land use management, and transportation planning.

The sub-cabinet has opened the civic dialogue about the science and the potential impacts of global warming to a broad cross-section of Alaskans.

Finally, Governor Palin reshuffled the governing board of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute, "the only public inpatient psychiatric hospital" in Alaska, through Administrative Order 241 (July 1, 2008). What's interesting about this reshuffle is who the Governor added to the board…

Six members representing the general public; members appointed under this paragraph must be or have been consumers of behavioral health services and have been diagnosed with one of the mental disorders [defined elsewhere in law].

…or, as the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services described it…

The Alaska Psychiatric Institute is forming a new advisory board with a unique feature: at least seven seats will be held by people who have used the state’s mental health services.

The new board will focus on patient rights and responsibilities, as well as continuing the transformation of the hospital to a recovery-based organization. “To accomplish this, we need — at the table — the very people we serve,” API Chief Executive Officer Ron Adler said.

Let's cut to the chase now. Did Barack Obama get so many changes underway as a community organizer? How about as a United States Senator?

Palin - Not a Creationist, But Wired Wants Her To Be (Updated)

And if the facts aren't getting the job done, hey, just make stuff up --
http://www.getreligion.org/?p=3870

Of course, now that it's out there, we'll hear this for years, just like James Watt and the End Times -- http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/009475.php

Update -- from the NYTimes' "The Caucus" blog:

From NYTimes "The Caucus" --

Several conservative Web sites circulated this post by Jeff Goldstein, who wove together on Protein Wisdom many of the themes that emerged today among Republicans in the wake of the Palins’ disclosure:

Many on the left will believe, quite mistakenly, that such an announcement is likely to weaken Palin’s support among “the hard-right conservative base”. But in fact, it will do no such thing — first, because the “hard-right conservative base” that liberal Democrats consistently invoke is largely a caricature that lives only in their minds and as a convenient trope in their rhetoric, from whence it can be trotted out as a foil and a boogeyman on cue; and second, because those energized over the choice of Palin include many disaffected libertarians and classical liberals who were, until the announcement of the Governor’s candidacy, set to either sit the election out, or else cast a protest vote for Bob Barr.

That the Palin family — by dint of ugly rumor mongering from “progressive activists” and a compliant left-leaning press that was cynically situating itself to pretend that these rumors “needed investigating” — was all but compelled to release information about their teenage daughter, is precisely the kind of thing that drives real civil libertarians and privacy advocates crazy, especially because the information has nothing whatever to do with Governor Palin’s candidacy, but instead invades the privacy (and quite possibly affects the “choice”) of a minor.

This kind of savage smear campaign by leftists and so-called “feminists” — a campaign that forced a young woman to make public a very private matter in order to stop vicious rumors about the Palin family — suggests that, when it comes to “privacy concerns” (NSA data mining for terrorists = bad; demanding the release of a Governor’s medical records = good; parental notification for abortions performed on women under a certain age = bad; insisting that the world be privy to the private sexual and family concerns of the seventeen-year-old daughter of a conservative = good), “progressives” care about such things only insofar as it protects their political interests and advances their political agenda.

Not My Favorite Point About Her

UPDATED (see above, i got sucked in to a false story! jbg)

Not good, but not as bad as i could easily envision --

"During a 2006 debate, she said she was a proponent of teaching both evolution and creationism in schools. She later clarified her stance in an interview with the Anchorage Daily News, saying that she doesn't think creationism needed to be part of the curriculum and that she would not push the state Board of Education to add such alternatives to the state's required curriculum."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g4-w_DCWffagBaQb8Il9a0R2hkPAD92SL7E00

Teach Your Daughters Well

http://surberpictures.blogspot.com/2008/08/caribou.html

For a careful comparison of Sarah Palin to Theodore Roosevelt (really!) --
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDM0NTdiZTBkZDIxYTgyOTEyODI2MmVhMDcxNTU5YzU=

Already Entrusted With National Security

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2008/08/commanding-the.html

Son of a gun. I had no idea -- hope they get more chances in MSM to explain what "C-in-C of the Alaska National Guard" really means!

And this on international policy and energy:
http://gregransom.com/prestopundit/2008/08/you-msm-idiots-sarah-palin-doe.html

Biden's Plagiarized Life

You gotta read this quick dismantling of Joe Biden's "roots" --

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0831chapmanaug31,0,7175933.column

Palin Criticisms Dismantled

Thank you, Ed Morrisey --
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/08/30/desperation-from-democrats/

And her husband is 1/4 Native American . . .

from http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/story/8334949p-8231037c.html

Todd Palin, who has been a quiet background presence in her campaign, broadens the family resume considerably: fisherman, oil field worker and Alaska Native. The family fishes a commercial setnet site on the Nushagak River in Bristol Bay every summer. Todd has worked 18 years on the North Slope for BP, where he is now a production operator, a job Sarah says he would quit if she's elected. His Yup'ik grandmother, Helena Andree, grew up in a traditional Native household in Bristol Bay and now lives in Homer.

Todd Palin is also a three-time winner of the Iron Dog snowmachine race, the 2,000-mile trek from Wasilla to Nome to Fairbanks that's billed as the world's longest snowmobile race.

Finally, Analysis That Sees the Obvious!

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/08/29/what-the-palin-pick-means-for-evangelicals.aspx

Alan Wolfe is saying in a wider forum something i don't see acknowledged or understood by Democratic Party folk much, that "Evangelicals are a complex bunch of multiple audiences, and they aren't all that lock-step . . . except in regards to abortion." I keep seeing Obama partisans dismiss all evangelicals too often as "easily led" because there's an assumption that the Pro-Life movement is all about "Bubba bait for boobs" and it's only an every four year conditioned reflex.

Ironically, looking at Palin may help Democrats to stop making those blanket assumptions, and figure out how to reach the lower hanging branches of evangelicalism, while acknowledging (as Bill & Hillary always quietly but persistently did) that anti-abortion folks might have a sincerely held position of their own, and not just signals through their back teeth fillings from Jim Dobson.

Most worrisome about Palin is that she's pro-"Intelligent Design," but she and her husband are home-schoolers in the town at the beginning of the Iditarod, so it doesn't exactly surprise. Would she push for requiring the teaching of it? Hard to tell, because she's of the libertarian side of the conservative equation (see the TNR link!) and doesn't like to tell people what to do -- she refused to sign a bill, effectively vetoing it, that banned civil unions for gay and lesbians in Alaska, saying it was "unwarranted intrusion into private matters." This is going to be a fascinating political season with the old molds all thrown out the window!

From CrunchyCon on Aug. 29

A Palin view from an Alaskan
Friday August 29, 2008

posted by Rod Dreher @ 1:28pm

This from Richard, in a Palin combox thread below. Lots to consider in this balanced consideration:

As a former Alaskan, my first reaction is purely and simply tribal. Wow. Some random thoughts.

I have met Sarah Palin (n.b. Alaska is a small state, so evereyone meets everyone else, ultimately). In a small setting, she comes across as informed, charming, and very good looking. Did I tell you she is good looking. The big question, shortly to be answered, is whether she can play in Minneapolis as well as she played in Wasilla. This is a big, big, question, and McCain has bet big on red, and is now watching the little silver ball roll around the roulette wheel. She is a walk the talk Christian, not a political Christian. Of all the various things that have been written or said about the Palin's fifth child, the one that says the most to me about their "values" (I hate the term, but it will have to serve) as a family is the quote from the Palin's oldest of four, and only son, Track, now serving in Iraq, who said simply: "I'm thrilled. I always wanted a brother".

The Palins are definitely Sam's Club Republicans. Wasilla is exurban Anchorage, the sort of place where one finds F-150s and hardly any Volvos, and where people shop at Costco and Target, and eat at Chepo's Fiesta -- when they're not barbecuing salmon they've caught themselves. The Palins fished in Bristol Bay for heaven's sake, which involves a three to four day trip around the Alaska Peninisula from a Homer or Seward home port, out of radio range, where your two or three crewmates are who you have to depend on if things go wrong. And they can go very wrong. The Bristol Bay red run is not quite "deadliest catch", but it's no walk in the park, either. And Todd Palin has won a couple of Iron Dog snowmachine races back and forth between Wasilla and Nome. McCain may have just locked away NASCAR country's votes.

The big question I have, having watched Sarah Palin's career, is can she function as a key contributor in a major and sustained political effort that is not about her? She is not an organization Republican nor, is it yet clear, an organization person necessarily ready to adapt to someone else's organization. Now, given the state of things in the republican party in Alaska, not being an organization Republican is probably a good thing. But this is now a ticket with two mavericks, one of whom will need to serve as VICE president. How will she contribute, and will she possess the management chops to take on whatever portfolio is shared with her, and add value?

Big questions. Huge learning curve ahead.

In the intimate environment Alaska presents, Sarah Palin has most usually been among the most clever people in the room. We will shortly see how she performs when she moves from Alaska Class 4A to her debate with Joe Biden. The potential for a Dan Quayle moment is not infinitesimal. On the other hand, her selection sets up the possibility of an interesting one-on-one with Barack Obama. He's had the gym floor all to himself the past few months, three point shots and all. Unlike Barack, Sarah has a championship ring, as a former Wasilla Lady Warrior.

Do not assume that because Sarah Palin has been picked, that John McCain has gone all soft on the oil industry. Spend some time googling "Palin", "Gas Line", "ExxonMobil", and "Point Thompson", and you will quicky discover enough information to squelch any thought that Gov. Palin is in any way cordial toward Big Oil. The question is whether her Administration's thumb on the scales to favor a Canadian company for the gas line project -- a company whose capital and management chops for a project of that magnitude remain uncertain -- will blow up some time during the next four years will be very interesting to watch.

For the next 48 hour news cycle, this is an inspired political pick. For the next 60 days and beyond, that little silver ball keeps rolling around the roulette wheel. I have this funny hunch that when that little ball stops, we will instantly know what McCain has risked with this pick. It's the kind of Hail Mary pass that I suppose one ought to expect from a guy who once flew jets off of carriers. McCain fans might just want to pur themselves a double before they sit down and watch CNN/Fox the next few weeks.

Nat Hentoff said Palin . . . last May

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/may/26/sarah-palin-as-mccains-vp

Hmmmm.

From National Review Online, Aug. 26 --

Factoid on Military Service on the Ticket [Pete Hegseth]

For the first time in 44 years, the Democratic ticket for President will not include a veteran of America's Armed Services. Neither Senator Obama nor Senator Biden have spent one day in military uniform.

And by my calculations, it's been 76 years (Hoover-Curtis ticket in 1932) [and how did that ticket do, by the way? jbg] since the Republicans nominated a duo without any military experience. This year, that streak continues...

While military service is not a presidential prerequisite, one should not under-estimate the value combat boots bring to understanding leadership, service, and courage...especially in the dangerous world we live in today.

08/26 07:31 PM

Grilling Joe Biden

Hmmm. Slate gets all up in Joe Biden’s grill –

http://www.slate.com/id/2198543/

http://www.slate.com/id/2198597/

This is an issue that really turns up my gas flame -- clergy who lift sermons without attribution have an ethical issue they oughta get right about, but when you put yourself into the stories you lift, first-person pronouns and all, there's something not right inside that psyche.

Not Much Bouncing Around Here

Big mistake, say many, to directly run ads challenging McCain's campaign on the Ayers issue, since that might make Mainstream Media do a . . . whoops, there it is:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-08-25-ayers_N.htm?csp=34

Don't forget to watch Pollster.com and realclearpolitics.com --

http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/08-us-pres-ge-mvo.php !!!!!

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ Watch those favorable ratings in the righthand column . . .

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html

And at National Review Online --

Nervous Democrats Need a Convention Bounce [Peter Kirsanow NRO]

It's imperative for Obama to get a sizeable bounce out of this convention since he didn't get one by choosing Biden. The Democrat nominee usually has a healthy lead in August polls as well as in electoral vote projections.

Rasmussen's latest electoral vote projection has Obama leading McCain by only 10 votes—193 to 183. Obama's lead has shrunk by 35 votes since the previous projection. Every single state in which there has been a shift has trended away from Obama, including Ohio which has gone from " Leans Democrat" in early July to "Toss-Up" in late July to "Leans Republican" today.

( BTW - In August 2004 Kerry had greater than a 100 vote lead over Bush in most electoral projections.)
There will be few opportunities between the convention and the election for Obama to improve his poll numbers. In fact, his campaign's reaction to the Ayers issue shows they realize that that there are numerous opportunities for continued erosion.

Barring calamitous gaffes by either candidate, the debates present the best remaining opportunities for separation. But the presumption that Obama would shine in the debates was deflated when McCain trounced Obama at Saddleback.

Obama may still have two significant advantages: cash and turnout. Democrats, stung by the GOP turnout machine in 2004, have been working furiously to make sure voters get to the polls. This could be the difference in 2008.

Two of the biggest unknowns: to what extent are the polls underestimating the turnout among black voters, especially in pivotal states like Ohio ( in the primaries, polls underestimated black turnout in some southern states) ; to what extent are polls overestimating support for Obama in pivotal states ( Obama performed significantly worse than his poll numbers projected in several states).

Opening Moments of the DNC - 25 Aug. 08

Wow. This was more religious than some denominational assembly openings i've attended! A prayer, the Navajo/Dineh Codetalker Color Guard & kid's chorus Pledge and America the Beautiful, then a preacher gets up to talk about the pre-opening as an interfaith worship service in the hall, and that she's the CEO -- an NYT Sunday Mag profile of her:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/magazine/20minister-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

Weddings and Non-members

Oy.

http://weddings.about.com/b/2008/08/20/is-it-wrong-to-have-your-wedding-in-a-church-if-youre-not-a-member.htm

You gotta read down to the forum moderator's response, which is . . . well, she doesn't get it. We ARE stage sets, and we should get used to it and be more cooperative.

But she did print this, for which i thank her. (Yeah, i added a comment myself, too.)

Rick Warren in Aug. 23 WSJ

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121944811327665223.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

Pastor Rick does a good job of explaining what evangelicalism ISN'T becoming.

This Is Soooooooo Huge . . .

. . . for Licking County in particular and Ohio in general:

http://www.ancientohiotrail.com

Go and wallow (especially in the pdf "Itineraries", and know this site will only grow and develop over the next couple years. Kudos to John Hancock and the CERHAS crew!

Very interesting read on the Civil War

http://www.ajc.com/living/content/living/stories/2008/08/24/south_confederacy_civil.html

For all those who wanted to say a) the South didn't really lose, and b) the war wasn't about slavery, this is a devastating counter-argument.

Effective Promotional Material . . .

. . . whether i agree wid 'em or not (NOT), but this is just exemplary in making the viewer think "i'd like to know more about what their story is saying."

http://www.creationmuseum.org (see embedded video for current ad), and their older video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y01ZpqC55Oo

McCain As Revolutionary (or at least a rioter!)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-mccain-faithaug15,0,575244.story

Time - The Global Ambition of Rick Warren

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1830147,00.html

Hmmmmm.

Americans are about six percent of the world’s population and we account for about forty-five percent of the world’s philanthropy. Among Americans, believers are far more generous than secularists. Among believers, Protestants are more liberal in their giving than Catholics. Among Protestants, evangelicals are more generous than mainliners. But if you were ask a secular arbiter of all that is philanthropic for his opinion on how we were doing, he would invert the whole thing. That much said, when the standard is God’s generosity to us, most of us are not nearly as generous to others as we ought to be. We should pray for grace to overflow more liberally still. But we may be pardoned if the evangelical artesian well, producing 20 gallons a minute, while wishing it could be 40, doesn’t want to hear lectures on charity from the dry hole of secular leftism.

-Douglas Wilson
http://www.dougwils.com

(Doug is a Reformed Evangelical Christian who pastors a church in Moscow, Idaho)