Tag: politics

When is a recession not a recession?

The Patriot Post, 08-06 Digest:

Traditionally, however, Wall Street defines a recession as two consecutive quarters of falling Gross Domestic Product. By this definition, even the one-quarter “recession” in 2001 was hardly that. The National Bureau of Economic Research says a recession involves “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months,” and Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, which boasts a 60-year track record of successfully predicting recessions, ranked the probability that the U.S. was in a recession in December at 35.5 percent. In January, a mere six percent.
[Emphasis added. –R]

The 2008 Presidential Candidates

Muppet style.

Awesome. Just awesome.

Guess which way we’re going to go

Bruce Henderson:

One of the reasons that house prices got so high here is that people could get crazy financing for huge amounts without adequate resources to pay it back. So “dumb money” bid the price too high, and now no one can buy or sell because they can’t finance their homes.

So there are two ways to fix this – the healthy way would be to let the market forces bring the prices down to what people can reasonably pay. This is the best for everyone long term as it levels out who can live in California.

The second way would be to use the government backed entities, Fannie and Freddie, to prop up these insane prices. This is akin to providing an alcoholic with discount coupons for the corner liquor store.

All in a day’s double standard

Joel C. Rosenberg:

[T]he world seems to have all but forgotten an Israeli town situated on the border with Gaza that has been under withering and nearly non-stop attack. Sderote has actually been hit with more than 100 Palestinian terror rockets and mortars this week and with more than 1,500 rockets since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in June. Yet where is the outrage? Where is the international condemnation of the terrorists and the states who support them? How can either side — the Israeli people or the Palestinians who do want peace and security for both sides — ever make peace until these radical Islamic jihadists are stopped?

“That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

In between the yummy dinner of homemade chicken fajitas, and the Jello-provided chocolate pudding for dessert, I perused the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal. Above the fold was a puff piece on Al Franken’s senatorial run* in Minnesota, and it included this tidbit, “… the bane of conservative talk-radio” in describing Franken.
Webster’s defines “bane” as “a source of harm or ruin; curse”. Such is what I always held “bane” to mean as well. So I sat and thought, after having read those words, that while one might be able to argue that Franken has harmed conservative talk radio, I cannot imagine it has been to the extent of earning the the moniker of “bane”. He certainly hasn’t brought conservative talk radio to ruin, not now when it is stronger than ever. Therefore one might surmise that writer June Kronholz and her editors at the WSJ either, (a) don’t have a twelth-grade education, or (b) don’t know how to type “www.m-w.com” in to their web browser address bar.
A better description of Mr. Franken’s relationship to conservative talk radio might be “source of material”, or, if one were feeling generous toward Mr. Franken, “adversary”. (Mr. Franken can thank my friend, Mr. Lawson, for that one.)
One might also note Ms. Kronholz’s mention of Mr. Franken’s short-lived career at Air America: “He left that gig in February.” She fails to include words to the effect of “…due to lack of ratings and lack of revenue.”
Mr. Franken may be a lot of things to conservative talk radio, Ms. Kronholz, but “bane” is not one of them. Please choose your words more carefully next time, noting that Webster’s also has a thesaurus.**

*Subscription may be required to read.
** (A “thesaurus”, Ms. Kronholz, is a volume used to find words of similar or antithetical nature.)

Some food for thought

Mike Banta:

No political slogan or hand-held sign has ever changed someone’s convictions. Protests, shouting, and political battle will only polarize people on an issue. Regardless of which side wins or loses a political struggle, people will continue to believe what they did before. If you want to change your community, your nation and your world, the most effective action you can take is to introduce people to Jesus, and to demonstrate His love and compassion to them. Through His death and resurrection, all of us can be free from the effects of sin, and enjoy unlimited and joyful relationship with God. This is where changed lives come from.

It is a good thing to participate in politics as God leads. Vote your conscience. Respectfully voice your convictions in the political arena. But don’t expect the election of a politician or passage of a law to change people’s minds and hearts, much less their lives. Political power and law rule only through fear of consequence, not love. Let’s make our focus the same as Jesus’. People are transformed when they experience love in relationship with Him.

One of many things I love about our town

I bet you didn’t get offered homemade carrot cake by the workers at your voting precinct today.
You did vote, didn’t you?

The Patriot Post at 10

One of my favorite online publications turns ten years old this month, The Patriot Post. (Formerly known as The Federalist Patriot, and for a long time before that, simply The Federalist.)
Publisher Mark Alexander has overseen a redesign of the publication’s web site, and it’s a big improvement over the previous design. You can now get notices of each new issue via RSS, and all issues since 2003 are archived online, with prior years to come.
A subscription to The Patriot Post is free, and the publication is solely supported through reader donations.

The Anti-Semitism Story No One’s Talking About

Jeff Jacoby has a great piece on he disparity in reporting regarding Mel Gibson’s drunken racial slurs, and Naveed Haq’s murderous rampage at a Jewish center in Seattle. The latter is yet another example, as Jacoby points out, noting other such type attacks which have taken place over the past few years, of members of the “Religion of Peace” suddenly developing “Sudden Jihad Syndrome“.
A Christian, who is such a rabid anti-abortionist that he begins killing doctors who perform the operation, is news fodder for weeks. But if a Muslim walks up to the counter of the Israeli-owned airline El Al, killing two people as he sprays the ticket area with bullets, it’s quickly swept under the proverbial rug. What is the media’s reluctance to point out what we know to be true: that the so-called “Religion of Peace” shows, day in and day out by the behavior of its adherents, that it is anything but.

Shilling for Hezbollah

From the Toadpond:

It does not require much observation to understand that there is a large faction on this planet that lives only to see Israel’s destruction. But to stand up in public and declare that Hezbollah is anything but a terrorist organization demonstrates how this deep this hatred runs, and how oblivious to truth these minds have become.
I keep thinking no politician can be as looney as Howard Dean, but then George Galloway keeps popping up to snatch the title.