So THAT'S how it works....

Found this little blurb on Bloomberg.com. What struck me was how a government's policies can drive away business, and how government ownership of major industries play a part. Government A, which owns the utility company says it's tripling rates to cover a budget that has nothing to do with providing electricity. Company B that's wanting to build a facility there shakes the dust off its corporate raiment, and hits the road.

Any lessons to be learned?

Government run businesses(like healthcare) can mess things up.

Or, as I would say, "What are ya, nuts?"

Who'da thought I'd be gettin this kind of reaction?

Y'know...with all that's been going on since the election, I've just had this 'thing' roiling around in me that needed to come out, and so here is the result. The reaction to Ol' Bob here and his new lyrics for a song nearly as old as I am has been universally positive, so thanks to all that have commented and encouraged me in the effort. I'm not done though. I plan to make it to Washington DC on September 12, guitar in hand, and hopefully in better voice than brother Bob. Let our voices be heard. Let us not let each other, or our progeny, down.

Thanks.

Its written on their faces...

"Bank execs vow to work with Obama on recovery plan", says the AP.

I've seen happier guys on their way to the gas chamber.

I can imagine that Ken Lewis, far right, is trying to calculate how many days it will take to pay all that fed money back so he can go back from being a mere serf to CEO, if he can

Don't laugh, kiddies. We may be next.

The People of No and why we're that way...

That's why they've switched to 'climate change' instead of 'global warming'

So, I'm not a scientist, but can we just rely on our common sense to see the snowdrifts for the flakes, to coin a phrase? Its snowing in Vegas fer' cryin' out loud! Speaking of seeing things, I'm sure everyone's noticed by now that 'global warming' is no longer the term in vogue. It has since morphed into 'climate change'. Why? Well when all your climate models predicting all these dire circumstances from CO2 overload don't jive, you change the terminology to allow your climate theory to still be valid. Kind of like shaving the corners off that square peg before attempting to force into that round hole. As my old boss used to say, "If it don't fit, force it. If it still don't fit, get a bigger hammer. And if it breaks, it needed fixin' anyway."

So, no matter if it snows in Vegas and Malibu or if we get record cold temperatures nationally or globally, its still due to our carbon footprint, somehow.

Excessive Carbon Dioxide = White Christmas. Okey dokey.

No matter if the climate data actually shows our record high temperatures during the Depression rather than 1999, its all about climate 'change'. I suppose we can load up all this snow and ice here and pile it up at the North Pole, as Al Gore says its all melting in 5 years.

Argh.

The Bush Legacy in 2 pictures ( and a few words)

From this:

to this:

In the midst of Mumbai, Big 3 bailouts, a governor nabbed by the Feds, and all the rest, a big thank you to Charles Krauthammer for reminding us about Iraq. With a strategic and defense agreement in hand, Mr. Bush has replaced a cruel, regionally destabilizing dictatorship willing to play patty-cake with any (well, maybe not Iran) anti-American entity, to a potentially major ally in a critical part of the world. Now, it ain't over till' its over, but no one else has attacked this country since 9/11. The government in Iraq is still somewhat wobbly, but taking steps. Its defense and police forces are standing strong. Iran and its Iraqi client the Sadrists, have been marginalized by a ballot box (backed by our outstanding military). They're good enough, they're smart enough, and doggone it, the kids in that picture like our folks in uniform, and by extention, us. Who would have expected any of this two years ago? Who could have imagined it 7 years ago?

As with any strategic undertaking that requires military action, the process is fraught with peril and is often painted with the blood and sacrifice of many of our men and women, and innocents as well. Consequently, bad intelligence, bad strategy, and bad people can tip the balance toward failure. We've come dangerously close due to all three factors, but here we are, on the cusp of success. As much as we can rightfully blame Mr. Bush for all the bad things that have happened in the prosecution of this war, we must place credit where it is due. I hope Mr. Obama realizes what kind of gift he's getting from Mr. Bush. Its way more than the keys to the Whitehouse, although the disapproval ratings for what Mr. Bush had to do pretty much handed them to the Agent of Change. Its the heavy lifting Mr. Bush did to leave his successor with a huge, tough, gristled hunk of meat taken off the President Elect's plate.

You want proof? You shoulda' asked Tavie

From time to time, I've gotten into discussions with atheists and agnostics alike about Christianity, and typically they demand proof about what they often call the 'Sky-daddy' that we follow. Oh, there's tons of evidence...cosmological, historical, archeological, and my personal fave, Bible prophecy that's currently batting a 1000. All that is great for taking my faith out into the marketplace of ideas and making my case for Jesus, but the ultimate proof of the Christian faith is in the lives of those who believe.

I can find no better example than in the life of Tavie. She was one of the senior members of our church. She passed away this past weekend at age 71. For all the time that Tavie was with us, she was a tireless servant for the Lord in everything she did for our church. If there was anything that needed doing, from bringing me a cup of coffee just they way I liked it as I was running the A/V for our children's church, to getting down and dirty with a major renovation of our fellowship hall, Tavie was there. She truly had a servant's heart. It will probably take 4 or 5 other people to cover all the things she did at the church. She had that much impact there.

As my agnostic and atheist acquaintences might ask, "For what?" What, indeed. Other than a little mention in an obituary and the appreciation from those who knew her, what was in it for Tavie? What drove her to be all the things she was to our church and everyone in it? Fame? Fortune? Power? Status? She certainly didn't attain any of those things while she was here. When you look at our world today, Tavie was going about it all wrong. Putting others first is a one-way ticket to Loserville in this day and age. No, people like Tavie aren't driven by those things at all. The only rational explanation for this failed effort to achieve any worldly success was her love for the Lord. It was He that set the world-changing example of washing feet as how we should act if we believe, and she followed that example everyday.

Oh, I suppose some would say she was misguided, or delusional. Maybe she was burdened with some guilt complex that drove her to deny self for others. Tell that to her husband John, who accepted Jesus just some three years ago. Tell that to the rest of her family. Tell it to those people that came by the church with no clothes to wear or food to eat and found Tavie there with her hand outstretched, day after day. Tell it to her Pastor, and while you're at it, just try telling that to me. No, the best proof we have that Christianity is real in the person of Jesus, is Tavie.

A right to protest, just not a right to gay marriage

How in the world did an Obama victory not squash Proposition 8 in California? Well, maybe the country where we're required to accept whoever got the most votes as our President is the same one that requires that we accept a change to California's Constitution.

The notion of gay marriage as a 'civil right' just doesn't hold water. A marriage license is like a drivers license, you don't automatically get one just because you're a citizen.

Driving is a privilege afforded to you if you jump through the right hoops to qualify. The state has the right to keep public highways and streets safe for the general populace, hence not issueing licenses to people that can't pass the test, or not qualified due to age or physical condition. You can't have kindergartners and blind people driving. Its just 'common' sense.

Likewise, a marriage license is issued to those that meet the qualifications. Age, for one. Can't have a middle age guy marrying a 10 year-old or Sam Aardvark marrying his sister, now can we? Its not open to everyone as a civil right. Its open to those who qualify for it as a privilege.

Now, some would argue that since marriage as a spiritual union originated from some religious beliefs before governments existed, it shouldn't be licensed by the state with its unique legal status. Everyone should have access to a state authorized civil union, but marriage should restricted to whatever religious entity associated with it. If we take that line of reasoning, then anything else originating in the form of a moral/religious stricture that has since been adopted by the state shouldn't have the force of law either. Should exclude laws against murder or theft in our justice system simply because it was originally part of a religiously based set of rules? Should this 'separation of church and state' idea be taken to this logical end? Of course not.

No matter the origin, laws against murder and robbery are good laws to have. Keeps society safe. Just as the state has recognized the necessity and efficacy of having a society that doesn't murder or steal, so it recognizes the benefits to society concerning marriage that legally married couples and their children in a nuclear family provides. The benefit to society is unique. Therefore, the state provides the legal framework for that uniquely beneficial structure to exist and thrive. Marriage between a man and a woman is a good thing for our society. Why then, mess it up by turning it into something else?

Even with all that, we still have people protesting Prop 8. Its all about an wanting an equal level of acceptance by way of marriage, isn't it? In effect, they're wanting the same consideration for what their relationship brings to society as the traditional man/woman/progeny relationship does. The state, and the people voting in it, have the right to refuse granting that privilege.

The Perfect Storm...hold on to your pocketbook!

We get an announcement from Treasury Secretary Paulson that says he's scrapping the bad debt buyout and going strictly with buying up preferred equity in 'financials'.

Who knows how many firms of what stripe will be included? He dunno.
Awesome.

Trying to figure out the actual market value and so forth will take too long, he says.
Peachy.

He knew the TARP program as he'd laid out wasn't workable as it was being signed into law.
Well, duh!

So, is the guy flying by the seat of his pants? I'm thinking so, with potentially trillions in his back pocket.

I'm comforted...but are those clouds building in the distance?

He's buying time to see what type of fecal matter has the best adhesive qualities on a solid vertical surface upon horizontal impact.

Great plan...did you feel the wind pick up?

Combine that with car companies and a whole host of others clamoring for their bailout.

Storm's a comin'...I can feeeelllll it.

Add in a Democratically controlled government that is way better at bigger government, more spending, more taxes, and more unintended consequences...

hey, this boat ain't big enough for this.

As a proponent of government only big enough to handle the jobs its supposed to do, this is looking more and more like a perfect storm, with the taxpayers ill equipped to withstand the onslaught.

I think former Treasury Secretary O'Neill had it right on Cavuto's show about making Uncle Sam the guarantor of last resort, the back-up for whatever bad debt actually collapses. In terms of what has worked best, I think back to the Chrylser 'bail out' as it was called back in the Lee Iacocca "K" car days. The government never actually spent a dime, they just co-signed the note. A car company under good leadership worked its way out of it, all the better for the experience. Taxpayers off the hook. Good.

We're at a point of no return in this storm, folks. Either we're going to head for:

• A solution that eliminates amorphodite entities like Fannie and Freddie.



• A solution that removes the onerous tax and regulatory environment that strangles business.



• A solution that replaces all that with required transactional tranparency, regulation that seeks to keep all the players in-bounds and on-sides, and serious, serious punishment for those that cover-up what they're up to and repeatedly go over the line. Hang 'em if you have to.

Or: More of the same re-arranging of deck chairs...

Be Careful What You Wish For...

The more I ponder the elections, the more it feels like 1976. That's just far back enough for many to forget, and for many more too far back to have even been born. The country had been through Vietnam, Watergate, and was yearning for a change to something new. As a young man in the same demographic as those now putting in Obama and a Democratic majority in Congress, I remember that I was tired of politics as usual. I was tired of the corruption and a bad war in which the government lied to us about. We needed a fresh start, and Jimmy Carter was it. Hey, he was new, an outsider not connected to Vietnam or Watergate or a Nixon pardon. Looking back, its easy to see the mistake I made in voting for him. In his inauguration speech he said,

"We have learned that more is not necessarily better, that even our great nation has its recognized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems."

I should have know then what we were in for. Yeah, more is not necessarily better, but our nation has its 'recognized limits'? And, we can only do so much, so don't even try. What I got was a guy wearing sweaters on TV to lead us out of an energy crisis. What I got was a guy that the Iranians toyed with because they could. What I got was 12% inflation and home mortgage rates in the high teens. In short, a disaster in policies foreign and domestic. Not every thing Carter did was bad. True to his Christian roots, there was a lot of good along the humantarian front. Its never all or none when assessing a president's effectiveness considering the complexity of the office. However, he was ineffective enough, and he lasted only one term. Seeing what's happened with Mr. Carter, and the things he's done and said since then makes me wonder...

"What was I thinking?"

Maybe we had to experience the wrong kind of president to understand what to look for in the right kind, the 'can't appreciate the light until you've experienced pitch black' type of thing. I don't know. What I do know is this election looks alot like the same thing. Change and Hope was the mantra and enough people embraced it to bring Mr. Obama to office, just like Carter.

Now we've got big big problems in this country. Its not the Civil War, and its not the Great Depression. There's no comparison there, in spite of what the media (oh yeah, no understanding, much less sense of history) might put out or parrot from the coming administration. Its bad enough though. At this juncture, we now owe more in debt (if you include the estimated cost of Social Security and Medicare going forward) than we're worth as a country. Its not about bailing out or rescuing banks or Wall Street, or the Big 3. Who's going to bail out the United States?
We're also engaged in a 21st century struggle between Good and Evil that rivals Fascism and Communism of the 20th Century. As a society that embraces Relativism and Moral Equivalency, we're ill equipped to fight it. Unlike our past struggles, Islamism isn't something that's going to die out with victory in war or economic collapse of a socialistic empire. We don't have the Thatchers or Churchills of times past to stand firm. We can only hope others with that unwavering sense of right and wrong to come along side us in a meaningful way.

So, where does that leave us and President Elect Obama? He got what he wished for. A majority of voters, just like me in 1976, got what they wished for. From what I can see, he's not Jimmy Carter in many respects. He's certainly not a Christian if he actually embraces the kind of theology 'reverend' Wright has expoused some 20 years. I think him more pragmatic and calculating than Carter in that the street is littered with victims he's thrown under the bus when they no longer provided him cover or a political advantage. Being brilliant intellectually, eloquent in controlled settings, and politically astute in getting elected to the office are all attributes that will serve him well.

But...

We have yet to see the measure of this man in a real crisis where things will have to be done and not just talked about. My concern is that there is no 'there' there and we're dealing with a pure pragmatist not concerned with core values, or when those values are revealed, we'll be suffering from buyer's remorse. Pure Pragmatism deals only with expediency and creating advantage for oneself. Core values that run counter to what this country was built on are dangerous to our freedoms, our prosperity, and our progeny.

Pray.

Alot.