Happy Reformation Day!

I'd guess most of my readers know this already, but today's the day that Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the Wittenberg church door. If you wonder why the Pope got so angry, take a look at them. The very form of Luther's theses leads anyone familiar with the Scriptures to a position harshly antagonistic to that of Rome at the time.

You can celebrate with a good German supper, preferably followed by a copious release of anti-hypertension drugs. Luther is said to have joked that he kept evil spirits at bay by breaking wind. Now how that would work, seeing that those spirits have their home in a sulfurous Hell, is beyond me, but he said it.

Salvation and 120/80, man. It's time to celebrate!

Obama's friends

Here is a nice Wall Street Journal article about the friends of Barack Hussein Ayers Rezko Daley Wright Pfleger Khalidi Obama. If he's elected, he'll bring about change in Washington--specifically doing his best to bring corrupt Chicago politics to the nation as a whole.

You're welcome

Listing to the radio yesterday morning, I learned that gasoline prices here--about $2.10 to $2.20 per gallon--are a full 70 cents lower than they were a year ago. Looks like my (and Pentadad's, and Mitch's) bike riding has been having its desired effect. You're welcome. :^)

How much of an effect? Well, the EIA notes that in July, gasoline deliveries declined by 17.6 million barrels vs. a year before, a 5.7% decrease in overall usage. I would guess that August deliveries will be down in a similar manner.

Notice also that the previous big drop in consumption didn't start with the imposition of CAFE standards in 1975, but rather with the 1979 oil crisis. The next one occurred during the first war with Iraq, when obviously those supplies were not in production. Those who think that government regulations are the key to managing our energy supplies would be well counseled to take a close look at this graph.

Also in good news, I noticed a lot of "deals" at the grocery store while shopping last night. Try as I might, I don't think that I can take any credit for THAT--my appetite while riding is pretty hearty! Maybe people are using this time of short credit, low levels of free cash, and more to start their diets?

Pray for Gino

He's apparently in a very significant surgery right now.

More liberal "logic"

Took a look at Barack Hussein Rezko Daley Ayers Wright Pfleger Khalidi Obama's tax plan, and there are two very interesting things in it that you might want to note to your socialism-minded friends:

1. Apparently, BHRDAWPKO doesn't think that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire amounts to a tax hike. As one who stands to lose $400/child in child tax credits and $1000/family or so in a reinstated "marriage penalty," I beg to differ. This would be a massive tax hike for my family.

2. Apparently, BHRDAWPKO thinks that adding new tax credits to the tax code is the best way to simplify it and make it possible to file your taxes "in five minutes." Of course, anyone who has ever done his own taxes knows that five minutes is about the time it takes to simply fill out the first line or two of the 1040EZ form, and that every tax credit has its own form requiring about 15 minutes to figure out.

It's also instructive to parse out what is, and what is not, "blessed" by the BHRDAWPKO tax plan. Parents lose part of the child tax credit, but get some of it back if they put their kids into daycare. Parents get slammed with a reinstated marriage penalty, but get some of it back if Mom leaves her kids in daycare and goes back to work. Parents get slammed if they buy a vehicle capable of going on a family vacation (and say, towing the family boat or camper), but get a credit if they buy a hybrid.

See a pattern here? They won't admit it, but the BHRDAWPKO campaign is waging war on the traditional family with their tax plan.

Also, astute observers will notice I've added a new middle name to Barack Hussein Rezko Daley Ayers Wright Pfleger Khalidi Obama: Obama is evidently a good friend of Rashid Khalidi, even allowing this former PR man for the PLO and Yasser Arafat to babysit his children. If you think the public deserves to know about this (akin to a Republican kibbitzing with someone from Aryan Nations, really), send a note to the LA Times and see if they'll release the tape of Obama toasting him.

Change?

In all of Senator Daley Ayers Rezko Wright Pfleger Obama's rhetoric about people desiring "change," one thing is forgotten; economic calculation proceeds best not in an atmosphere of uncertainty, but rather consistency. Even beyond the socialistic nature of the changes Senator Daley Ayers Rezko Wright Pfleger Obama is desiring, the very fact that he seems to desire change for change's sake poses a great hazard to economic security for a lot of people not lucky enough to have rich and powerful people paying their bills, as Obama has.

Let me get this straight....

....government sets up Social Security, and despite a fourfold increase in the tax to support this Ponzi scheme since it was started, it finds itself with a ten trillion dollar debt (GAAP standards).

....government sets up Medicare and Medicaid, and it's got a forty trillion dollar debt by proper accounting standards only forty years into its existence.

....government sets up prescription drug coverage for Medicare, and it's already well over budget.

....and Democrats are telling us that the CURE to all of these problems is to trust the same actuarial models that grossly underestimated the costs of government involvement, and put effectively ALL medical care and ALL of our retirement into the hands of the government?

Apparently Democrats are learning logic from the same people who trained global warming "scientists," and believe that it doesn't matter that their models don't work, as long as they haven't been persuaded that there is a better one.

Compassion for the Wolverines

As someone who was born a Buckeye (Circleville), grew up a Hoosier, and became a Spartan by the Grace of God, sympathy for fans of the University of Michigan doesn't come easy. Yet this year, it seems to be coming to me--they've beaten their last years' performance of losing to Appalachian State by losing to a number of teams they're not used to losing to--Penn State, Michigan State, Utah, Notre Dame, and others. It looks like they've probably got a good flogging coming up in the horseshoe come November, too, and they may have compounded their woes by giving their head coach a contract extension (now if we can only get Gerry Faust back in South Bend!). So a little bit of compassion for our (least) favorite weasels might be in order.

So if you're a Michigan fan reading this (Go Blue, and take the Lions with you!), keep in mind that your favorite team is doing a great favor to its fans by stinking up the Big House; they're helping hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, control their blood pressure. Moreover, there is some more good news; American Standard has apparently just issued the weasels a bowl invitation!

Finally, a huge blessing; if you're a Michigan fan who has always wanted to invite your favorite player to a Christmas or New Year's party, this year the Wolverines will be available. Contrary to ordinary opinion, you don't need to double your order at the caterers, 'cause this year, they obviously ain't hungry.

The real shame...

...about Sarah Palin's $150,000 wardrobe is not that apparently she's wearing $5000 outfits. People who NEED to look good every day have been doing that for decades--start with a pair of Alden shoes ($500), add a tailored shirt ($300-500) and a custom made suit ($2000 or more), hold it together with a great tie ($200) and belt ($100) and cover it with a tailored overcoat and hat ($1000 +), and you're pretty much there. Lawyers, politicians, executives, and others have been doing this for a long time--and if that's a scandal, let's send Barack, Joe, and John out in their Wranglers.

Eww....let's not. As others have said, there comes a time when most men really look best in a suit. Biden and McCain have clearly reached that point, so suits it is.

The same link tells us what the real shame is about Gov. Palin's new wardrobe. It's not that each outfit costs $5000; it's that the RNC evidently bought her 30 or more of them. Reality is, though, that a man really only needs a few good suits to look his best every day. A woman, maybe five to ten. Just enough to mix and match for virtually infinite unique looks, really.

In other words, the RNC should be ashamed for knowing clothes (each outfit looks great), but not wardrobes. It's a lack of the "big perspective" that...shows all too clearly in both political parties.

A hearty thank you to some atheists in England

By putting this ad campaign together, they've brilliantly demonstrated a philosophical point that Christians and others have been making for centuries; where there is no knowledge of God, men cast off restraint. The results, as prominent atheists like Mao, Lenin, and Stalin demonstrated well, are often horrific.

So a hearty thank you to this campaign, and remember--there are only 159 shopping days until International Atheism Day!

Expletive deleted, it's true

When I read Ann Coulter's column this morning, I thought that it couldn't possibly be true that Angela Davis was a professor of "History of Consciousness". No way a university could be that stupid.

I was wrong. She is listed here. If we doubt that our educational institutions are losing their contact with reality, this is exhibit A to the contrary.

Or probably exhibit CYJ, given the number of goofball things done in ivory towers these days.

I use environmentally sound diapers for my son

Pampers disposables, of course. A British government study has revealed that in terms of energy use, wastewater generation, and so on, that old fashioned cloth diapers actually do more damage to the environment than disposables.

Now to those of you who were lugging a pail of stinkbombs to the laundromat every few days in a misguided effort to save the environment, I have just one thing to say.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!

OK, I'll be fair; it is a GOVERNMENT study, so we need to treat the results with a grain of salt. But still:

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

Environmentalism. The world's best way to destroy the planet we live on.

God is so good!

Research indicates that if you want a long, healthy life, you'll do well to eat a lot of chocolate and drink a fair amount of coffee. And eat the delicious fruits of the land. It is as if He knew what He was talking about when He told Adam and Eve that they could eat of the trees of the Garden, save one.

Carbon sequestration and organic farming

A while back, I suggested that one of the big reasons for losing topsoil--and also the key to retaining and increasing it--is to simply allow the land to grow the plants that are suitable for it instead of plowing it every year to grow grain for chickens, turkeys, and pigs. Let animals graze it directly instead of harvesting it with a tractor, and you'll soon find that you get both healthier meat, as well as healthier land.

Well, I may be insane, and this may prove it, but I can at least argue I'm not alone. In this article, Joel Salatin argues about the same thing; that if we abandoned the feedlot, we could re-sequester all of the carbon that has been emitted by human sources in the past century within a matter of years.

For fun, let's check his math. My family probably eats about half a ton of meat and dairy per year, meaning probably about ten tons of feed was used to grow it. Do it with forage, and we would conclude that about twice that amount would be used, and that an equivalent amount of roots (new organic matter) would be put into the soil. So if we changed to pasture fed meats and dairy products, we'd be sequestering something around 20 tons of carbon annually. We also could reduce the farmer's fuel usage by a few tons of diesel fuel.

In contrast, our family burns about 1400 gallons, or ~4 tons, of gasoline per year, and probably an equivalent amount of fuel for heat and electricity. So if indeed pasture based agriculture does put organic matter into the soil, and if indeed plow based agriculture destroys it, one great way of reducing atmospheric carbon would be to let grazing animals, you know, "graze."

It also might do wonders for water quality, seafood availability, and flood dangers. It is as if God wants us to know something about His Creation.

From the mouths of babes

Or, rather, 10 year olds. Three of my daughters are joining our church, and one of the subjects that our church has been forced to deal with in its constitution and other documents is how various forms of perverted sexuality violate Scripture. Hence, I've had to give explanations of what those big words mean--not in graphic detail, of course, but a basic explanation, say, that bestiality is treating an animal as if it were your spouse.

My oldest daughter's reaction; laughter at the absurdity of claiming to love a cow as if it were one's wife or husband. And so I wonder; if the people who are pushing these perversions are simply in need, as Andersen's emperor in the story, of a little boy (or girl) to say

The emperor has no clothes!

I don't think it would hurt.