What's wrong with politics today.

OK, a LOT, but what I was thinking of at the moment is something that Mona Charen pointed out in her column about Barack Hussein Obama's book:

Once you get past the happy surprise of finding a politician who can actually write, the book contains some disquieting elements.

Now let that sink in; Charen is saying that legislators, whose very job is to write the laws we all live under, generally cannot write their way out of a cardboard box.

If you wonder why, say, the IRS code is so difficult to understand, Mrs. Charen has your answer.

Scary

Evidently, homeowner's equity has decreased below 50% for the first time on record--since the Fed started tracking it in 1945. Part of this is falling markets, but I'd suspect another part is that the old ethic of "pay off your debts" is going by the wayside.

And our economy is paying for it in a big way, sad to say.

You've been at the Hofbrauhaus too long...

....when you start talking about German Neo-Nazi rappers converting to Islam and carrying out rap feuds with their "Muslim" brothers.

Oh, wait. That's real, evidently.

I'm wondering if their "fly girls" are heavy-set, pasty-white German girls in burqas with SS & crescent insignia.

H/T Veith.

Yet another environmental disaster....

....masquerading as an environmentally sensitive project is this (H/T Roosh).

Why a disaster? Well, a chief problem of central California farmland is a lack of organic material, along with a lack of stable fertilizer. (remember; topsoil is clay or sand + organic matter) Without this organic material to hold water and fertilizer, the amount of water and fertilizer needed (and thus pollution created) goes up exponentially.

So more or less, what we have here a nasty tradeoff. Yes, PG&E gets "renewable" methane, but on the flip side, the draining of the Colorado (and lakes in the Sierras) continues, and the pollution of aquifers of the central valley is worsened. It also ought to be remembered that large lagoons like this can do wonders to poison entire aquifers and even rivers if the levee breaks.

Try buying one of these instead.

Six things

Guess I got tagged by Roosh. Six random things about me that others might not know. We'll call it "what living in ultraliberal Boulder, CO did to me."

1. It made me a Nebraska fan. Go Big Red! (Ralphie; it's what's for dinner)

2. It taught me to enjoy shooting sports and reject gun control. (take that, Brady Bunch)

3. It's where I bought my V8 powered, four wheel drive pickup. (take that, Sierra Club)

4. It's where I learned to butcher deer and antelope, and tan their hides. (take that, PETA!)

5. It's where I learned to age and devour large cuts of rare beef. And venison.

6. It drove me to take an active part in crisis pregnancy centers.

Living among the "loony left" wasn't all bad, now that I think of it. It made me, in part, the conservative I am. Now tagging:

Mark

Ben

KingDavid

Gino

Larry Kudlow gets it

Incessant increases in the money supply are a chief cause of recession. I fault Kudlow in only one aspect; he stops short of advocating a return to real money.

I wish I could say

...."I knew it," but I can't. A new study has come out about the "energy savings" of Daylight Savings Time, and the conclusion is....

...it actually costs energy because it gets people home in the heat of the day, and thus increases air conditioning costs.

So let's skip it this year, and I'll get to church on time this Sunday, and we'll all be happy. OK?

A bit on welfare

As the "Great Society" started its "War on the Poor," one of the architects of our welfare state, Pat Moynihan, warned of something very dangerous; "Aid to Families with Dependent Children" contained a provision he called "father out of the home." To receive benefits, a mother could not be married to the father, or even living in the same house.

Predictably, mayhem broke out as fathers were pushed out of the lives of their children, and the number of people on assistance exploded as people figured out it was "easier than working." Part of this was helped with the 1996 welfare reform act that required work, but it appears that the "father out of the home" rule still applies.

Here's a look at the program today. It appears that somewhere between three and four hundred million dollars is being spent to support about 100,000 families.

That's about 10% of the million families with children in our state, and given limited eligibility (5 year limit), that means that something like 20-30% of kids in our state spend time supported by this--at a cost of something like $35000 per family--yes, that's a middle class income for a mother and a child.

Seems to me like it's about time that we got rid of the "father out of the house" rule. Two minimum wage jobs lift a family of four above the poverty line, after all. It might not hurt, either, if administrators required recipients to name the father of their children to allow child support to be collected.

Some interesting things

First, Dennis Prager puts out a list that isn't exactly making my alma mater look good. The way I see it, even though MSU isn't among the most liberal of schools, it's pretty easy to graduate from there with no understanding whatsoever of western civilization.

And then there's the place I got my master's, "Ski U."

Here's a little bit more on things going on in California, by Cal Thomas. Sounds like time for some California families to vote with their feet.

Want to make the government schools look even worse? I dare suggest that a basic acquaintance with the roots of western civilization and the liberal arts--provided in grade school--might be just what the doctor ordered.

Another bit on schools of "education"

....from Linda Schrock Taylor of Lewrockwell.com. The antipathy between actual education and schools of education, in her opinion, is noteworthy.

Four, or five, or one great reason to homeschool.

Check this out. Vox Day reports on reasons for existence cited by the College of Education at Cal State-Sacramento:

There are four main goals that we have and will continue to focus on in the college, which are expressed in the acronym TEACH:

Transformative Leadership
Equity and Social Justice
Action
Collaboration
Human Differences and Diversity

Apparently, "counting to five" does not appear to be one of the strengths of the college, and it's also apparently not terribly important that students learn to read or think for themselves. However, it looks like their graduates will have political correctness down pat when they enter the kindergarten classroom to read Heather Has Two Mommies to their charges.

I visited the website of the college. For some reason, they don't have their newer newsletters online. If this is representative of their work, I can't blame them.

What's going on here?

H/T Anti-Strib and Cold Fusion Guy. The New York Times reports that a trend in foreclosure is for people to simply pay about $1000 to a company called "You Walk Away", stay there a few more months without paying, and then simply walk away to their next abode, perhaps even without a stain on the credit report.

Now part of me wants to scream out something about Romans' admonition to "let no debt remain unpaid," and another part of me thinks "the guy's got a decent (but shameful) business proposition." Let me explain.

What's likely going on is that an enterprising group of lawyers licensed in many states (California's bar exam is recognized a lot of places) have gotten together a set of form letters that they can slightly modify (or their paralegals or even office assistance can modify) to send out to banks to handle the foreclosure arrangements. OK, but why should someone pay for this?

Well, most mortgages have provisions providing for remedy for the lendor to recover costs incurred due to foreclosure. Ordinarily, in a steady or rising market, that's taken care of by selling the home. In this market, they would most likely be taken care of via loss litigation.

Homeowners generally don't do well in these actions, but "You Walk Away" does something very simple; they promise to fight the action tooth and nail. By concentrating on this small area of the law, they end up intimidating lenders into settling a foreclosure without recovering their costs.

Scummy, but very clever. Hopefully Jim's employer squashes them like a bug. :^)

Something else cool about LA

No, I'm not going weak on y'all. Just fair is fair. A friend I met online, Steve Sanchez, sends me periodic updates of his Evangie Tales adventures. Steve is a pastor at Hope Chapel in Hermosa Beach, California, and has dedicated a great portion of his ministry to encourage evangelism and train evangelists, including people as far away as Minnesota and even Canada. (eh)

Delightful stuff. Now take a close look at his website, and read Matthew 28: 19 carefully. Many people talk a lot about making sure their churches are integrated, both racially and ethnically. Steve's walking the walk, and doesn't bother talking the talk.

His technique, for what it's worth, is incredibly complex, and it reminds me of how a Confederate general worked to build a school for blacks in antebellum Virginia. Like Jackson, Steve gets out there and lets people know about a great opportunity.

Imitate the good, no?

Some seriously good news

There are some things in life that bring tears to my eyes. Handel's Messiah. Getting married. The birth of my children. Ronald Reagan saying "tear down this wall".

One more: Hayleigh Poutre is talking to investigators. Pray for this little girl, and put some Handel on the stereo. Shed a tear, and celebrate!

Want to get life right?

Get family right. Thanks, Dr. Crouse. From poverty to prenatal infanticide, the answer is a Biblical sense of family. (the rewards can fill a minivan, and to a degree, Heaven)