What a tangled web we weave

I got to thinking about the likely $400 billion cost of bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the Treasury, and where the money is coming from and where it is going. In a nutshell; Fannie and Freddie borrowed hundreds of billions from the Fed to purchase mortgage backed securities from banks, securities which now are largely worthless. So they have a big debt to the Fed they cannot pay.

So the Treasury issues bonds, the Fed monetizes them, and the revenue from them goes through Fannie and Freddie (with money taken out for their expenses of course) right back to....the Fed.

Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper simply to let Fannie and Freddie default on their debts and let the Fed eat this one? Maybe it would teach people there a lesson about ensuring adequate collateral for loans.

Need some help with your New Year's resolutions?

The Wall Street Journal lets us know that due in great part to government meddling, we have something of a shortage of doctors, especially those in primary care. So if you need help holding to that resolution to eat better or exercise more, there you go. H/T Cold Fusion Guy.

Want to reduce your likelihood of sickness even more? Mr. D. links to a neat AP story about how Norway greatly reduced infections; they stopped overprescribing antibiotics and (this isn't emphasized nearly as much as it should be in the article!) those who do become infected are isolated.

In other words, the old quarantine, long out of favor here, but the fact remains that you don't get illnesses from people with whom you don't make contact. Along the same lines, maybe it's time to consider the idea that if we're worried about communicable diseases, maybe encouraging people to congregate in ever larger numbers at work, school, and elsewhere might not be the right idea.

An interesting thought

Back at the end of 2008, it appeared that the investigation of Chicago corruption had Rod Blagojevich by an extremely sensitive area, and that the evidence pretty much indicated an open and shut case.

Today, the man is not only not in jail, but he's apparently appearing on a TV show with Donald Trump, and Chicago area natives are suggesting that the prosecutor doesn't have the evidence to convict him.

It makes me wonder. Who got his man into the special prosecutor's office, and how? Daley? Obama? Rezko? We may never know, but the whole deal speaks of a level of corruption in Chicago that most places never aspire to.

Interesting thoughts for the New Year

First of all, hearty congratulations to Ben and Faith, as they are already seeing results in obedience to God's command to be fruitful and multiply.

Second, here's an interesting commentary from my favorite seminary president noting the need for Bible colleges--specifically Bible colleges which teach the Trivium. In other words, Dr. Bauder is telling Bible colleges, more or less, to take the ground vacated by so-called liberal arts colleges.

A corollary thought here is to wonder why we need Bible colleges to train young people (and middle aged for that matter) when they've been under the pulpit ministry for decades already. It would seem to speak of a long delayed maturity and...sigh.....a somewhat "gelded" pulpit ministry in too many churches, including a lot of the best, I think.

Third, it appears that (H/T Anti-Strib) the Mayo Clinic is refusing new Medicare patients at a branch in Arizona because they're losing $840 million each year on the program. Given that the health insurance deform plans currently in Congress require some fairly significant cuts in Medicare, this doesn't bode well for healthcare for senior citizens. Socialism in any area always leads to shortages, and healthcare is no exception.

Finally, your prayers are coveted for the "Northern Muckraker," who is in a difficult family situation right now.

There might be carrot cake in Heaven today....

...today would have been my mother's 65th birthday.

Enforcers vs. the Geneva Convention

FratersLibertas links and comments on a Wall Street Journal piece about soldiers technically violating the Geneva Convention, but in doing so, probably preventing war from becoming even more brutal.

The author's poignant example is of his father's unit finding that 100 American POWs had been massacred by the SS, and the response was to not take prisoners for the next two weeks--in other words, to kill those who tried to surrender. It sounds brutal, and it was--until you realize that had they not done this, what would the fate of further American POWs have been?

In the same way, what message was sent to genocidal maniacs when an Army unit opened fire on SS guards at Dachau? Violation of the Geneva Convention? Absolutely. Reminder that barbaric cruelty to the defenseless will be returned to the offender? Priceless.

It's akin to the tradition of the "enforcer" in hockey. Ever hear of Claude Lemieux taking cheap shots against the Red Wings after this?

I rest my case. Free the Seals who punched the barbarian.

Crime rate to drop in Chicago,

at least for a day. Now if only we could persuade DC to do the same on Christmas Eve.....

Happiness is....

....zipping through fresh snow in the neighborhood on freshly waxed nordic (cross country) skis. I got five pairs of skis (just need a couple more for the rest of the family!) and the toboggan waxed last night. Even happier is using my old decrepit iron to melt the wax instead of my wife's Rowenta. :^) (this would have been a nice, posthumous memory if I had, I think)

A nice sad memory is....

....remembering how my late mother, not having a ton of money to spare at the time, bought me one of those pairs of skis when I shot up to six feet, along with a new winter coat (down-filled!) to make sure that those skiing outings would be fun--even at 25 below zero with 75 below windchill. (yes, I have skied in such conditions....and it was great!)

And yes, those skis are still in good shape despite a lot of use....if you doubt that parents can inculcate good lifelong habits with a simple investment in children, there you go.

Tough gal

In reading Luke 2, have you ever noticed that it appears that Mary was the one to wrap our infant Savior in swaddling clothes and put Him in the manger? And I thought that labor alone was tough enough duty--somehow Mary found the energy after all that to get up and tend to Him as well.

Tough gal. Wonderful Savior. Merry Christmas!

(Joseph obviously wasn't a sensitive new age guy.....or maybe he was interacting with the shepherds? )

Covering for the Muckraker

Evidently, one of DC's finest has been videotaped drawing his gun after being hit by a snowball or two. Ayup, they're the ones mature and responsible enough to be carrying such a weapon, and you are not, according the the gun control types.

Now this is shocking

Well, not exactly. Apparently, districts which voted Democratic got twice the spend-u-more funding from Dear Leader and his minions as those which voted Republican, and there is no correlation whatsoever between need for help and the help actually delivered. This is, of course, exactly what we would expect if we put a corrupt community organizer from Chicago into the White House. Stimulus? Hardly. Payoff for votes? You betcha. Now exactly why is this not prosecuted as bribery?

It might not turn out all bad, though. Studies of the Marshall Plan found that there is an inverse correlation between government aid and prosperity--a correlation that gets additional support from the situation in the South Side of Chicago.

Honourable mention, woman of the year.....

....goes this year to Elin Nordegren, who used a nine iron to remind adulterers everywhere that somebody was paying attention when then-Congressman Dick Armey noted that had he done what Bill Clinton had done, he'd be lying on his back in a pool of his own blood while his wife asked herself "now how do I reload this thing?". "Cheetah" Woods is very fortunate that his sport is golf and not competitive shooting, to put it mildly.

To be certain, the situation is tragic, but one silver lining in this dark cloud is that Mrs. Woods is NOT standing meekly behind her philanderer trying to cover over the damage. Well done!

And yes, Mrs. Woods only gets "honourable mention," as the Bike Bubba Woman of the Year Prize always goes to Mrs. Bike Bubba, and first runner up always goes to Bike Bubba's Mom. In that light, "honourable mention" is pretty good.

Why every bill should be read in the Senate

And, of course, the House of Representatives, too. Apparently, a recently signed law requires Amtrak passengers carrying firearms to be locked in boxes. To be sure, it would probably be more comfortable to be locked in a metal box than in one of their 30 year old seats, and it would definitely be a bonus to not use their bathrooms or canteen service. However, this sometimes Amtrak passenger still thinks that there is something a bit amiss here that maybe, just maybe, actually bothering to READ a bill might help.

Not to mention that if bills, and amendments, were read to the whole body, it would seriously cut down on the amount of infringement they could do on our rights.

Read every bill, every amendment, to the whole body.

It's a "doodlebug"

Regarding my earlier post about light rail, I learned the proper name for a self-propelled passenger rail car. "Doodlebug."

To make them competitive with buses, though, I still think you'd need to make the rail gauge 7' or so instead of the standard gauge of 4' 8.5". Again, the chief driver of the weight of a rail carriage is the need to keep the center of mass/force between the rails, so a wider gauge allows lighter weight, better stability, higher speed, less vibration, and more.

Your government at work

Apparently, those 800,000 doses of H1N1 flu vaccine were recalled not because they posed any danger, but rather because they apparently weren't quite strong enough.

So instead of providing partial protection to 800,000 people, or increasing the dosage and providing good protection to 500,000 people, the government decided that 800,000 people would go without protection at all--and their neighbors would also be more exposed.

Their neighbors, you ask? Yes. Remember that a vaccine doesn't work primarily by protecting you from a disease, but rather by reducing the chance that you'll pass the disease on to others. If each infected person infects more than one person on average, you have an epidemic. If they infect less than one person, the disease fizzles out quickly. So even a "weak" vaccine can provide substantial protection and confer a degree of "herd immunity."

"Kudos" to the "experts" in Washington for forgetting the most basic principle of vaccines. Hopefully it doesn't have catastrophic consequences, but this is definitely something you want to consider when you ask yourself "how much influence do I want government to have in medicine?" For me, the answer is rapidly approaching a perfectly round number. 0.