Carnival Of The Libertarians, 10th Edition

Welcome to the June 22, 2008 edition of carnival of the libertarians.

Every time I host a blog carnival, I get a smattering of submissions that are too off-topic, or poorly written, or not worth sending you folks out to read. But long-time readers of this blog know that there's a special place in my heart for bizarre religious practices and beliefs. To the person raised in tradition "A", everything that goes on in traditions B,C,D,E etc through Z is a bizarre religious practice or belief.

James D. Brausch didn't reference a particular post when he gave us this one posted at FLDS View. Mr. Brausch is an insider/defender of the FLDS Church, the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints outfit that was recently in the news when the YFZ (Yearning For Zion) Ranch was raided. If you a Sociological/Anthropological interest in religion, this site is a gold mine. I suggest you start with the June 17 post about "A Communist Dictator", and wander around from there.

Obscure church elders are referenced as if they were Thomas Jefferson or James Madison. Church power struggles involving less than a few hundred people are chronicled in a manner worthy of Wagnerian heroes. Spend 30 minutes on that site, and you'll see that no matter how horrific the abuse at that ranch, it can be justified by church traditions and LDS scriptures. Amazing stuff.

Ok, let's get down to the business at hand....

Ian Bowman presents Default V: action posted at If It Feels Good Do It. Ian believes that regardless of how you feel about the concept of "No Blood For Oil", putting that particular sentiment on your Toyota's bumpersticker is a contradiction.

Archvillain presents Police State posted at A Dark and Sinister Force for Good, saying, "Does the Constitution still matter anymore?" Archvillain's post is about the idea currently floated around Washington D.C. where the entire district would be blocked off like airport security. (They're getting a bit tired of the crime rate there.) A simpler solution would be to stop electing corrupt mayors, city councils, etc., from one particular political party. Lordy, what a mess. Archvillain also uses a picture from the dustjacket of one of my favorite novels, "Jennifer Government".

Speaking of Democrats, Leslie Carbone presents Democrats' One-Half Compromise posted at Leslie Carbone. It's a post about how the Democrats are allocating the delegates in Michigan and Florida, which has become a non-issue since the Clintons decided not to take up arms against the Obama supporters. So let me pick another of Leslie's excellent postings that might be more timely. This is one about the seventeen girls, ALL UNDER THE AGE OF 16, who formed a "pregnancy pact" at Gloucester High School in Massachusetts. Not only should contraception be available without parental concent, contraception should be passed out as the free prize in McDonald's Happy Meals. (Those are my opinions, not Leslie's.)

Adam presents Net Neutrality and its Discontents posted at Sophistpundit. This is the best thing I've read on the subject. If someone provides a service through their property, whether the property if physical or online, they should be able to dictate the terms of that service.

Michael Snyder presents The Picture Of The Hindu God That Barack Obama Carries For Good Luck posted at Shattered Paradigm. Michael tries to get really upset because Barack Obama calls himself a Christian, but carries around a Hindu luck charm. I have no idea what that has to do with libertarians. But Michael, since you brought up the subject, I don't think there's any place in our political discourse for theological discussions. There's no way to "prove" who is right and who is wrong, so the electorate gets distracted and manipulated by the inquisitions of Heresy Hunters. If anyone is interested in an earlier butt-kicking that I gave another Heresy Hunter who didn't think Obama was the "right" kind of Christian, click here.

Dana presents Homeschooling without credentials leads to educational anarchy posted at Principled Discovery, saying, "It Comes with a nifty button you can use to display your educational opinions." Dana goes on to explain that the NEA is lobbying to outlaw uncredentialed Home Schooling in California. (California, of course, is the state that recently gave us school riots like this one.) The NEA hates competitors.

Praveen presents My Simple Trading System: Freedom vs. Equality posted at My Simple Trading System. He provides us with a great Will/Ariel Durant quote...."Freedom and equality," wrote Will and Ariel Durant, "are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.''

kevin colby presents Iowans more self sufficient than the people of New Orleans posted at Kevin Colby: Libertarian Political News Blogger, saying, "Somehow the people of Iowa have managed to get through this without all the bitching that came from and is still coming from the citizens of New Orleans after Katrina."

constitution

Michael Bass presents I’m Voting Republican: My Response posted at Debt Prison, saying, "The video I have posted below is a perfect example of the naive and misdirected ideology perpetuated by these obtuse liberals in their relentless pursuit of ever expanding government and micro-management of the daily affairs of each and every citizen. Below this video is my response."

free markets

Alan K Rudi presents Society, World Change, Globalization, and Business posted at Successful Business Leadership. I believe that Alan is worth reading. Regularly.

Phil B. presents Inheritance is Not Capitalism « Phil for Humanity posted at Phil for Humanity, saying, "Yesterday, I had an epiphany. Simply put, inheritance is anti-capitalism." Phil is a serial Carnival submitter who I generally agree with. On this one, though, I have to part company with him. If it's your money, house, or business, you should be able to do what you want with it, give it to whoever you please, etc. Most people work harder not for themselves, but for their children.

APH presents Rent Control Part 1: Microeconomics Lesson & Hoarding Market Urbanism posted at Market Urbanism, saying, "A four part series on the consequences of rent control, concluding with some solutions." This is one of Dr. Thomas Sowell's favorite topics. APH also does quite a number on it. If you restrict the price of an item to an artificially low level, less of that item will be brought to market. It ain't very complicated. Truly a beautiful political scam.

Libertarian Party

Holly Ord presents The Message is Simple posted at Menstrual Poetry. In this case, the message is that Mike Gravel woulda been a much better Libertarian Presidential Candidate than Bob Barr.

libertarianism

Phil B. presents A Plan to Destroy All Weapons of Mass Destruction posted at Phil for Humanity, saying, "No leader and therefore no country can be trusted enough to control weapons of mass destruction." I agree. We've also shown that no country can be trusted to control missiles, airliners, armies, handguns, slingshots, or box knives. So I think mutual assured destruction is the best way to go. Sadly, I have to disagree with Phil again.

limited government

Nick Pardini presents The Era of Bad Feelings: A Return to One Party Politics Common Sense Magazine posted at Common Sense Magazine, saying, "How the Republicans and Democrats have become a united in statism and the need for small government and trust in the individual"

Nick also gave us Teaching a Man How to Fish: The Reality of Entitlements Common Sense Magazine posted at Common Sense Magazine, saying, "It is not the government's job to give out free handouts. We need to make Americans self sufficient by eliminating entitlement benefits (besides we cannot afford them anyway)." This post runs parallel to one I did about what happens if you teach someone to fish, but never leave them alone.

Collin Williams presents Assumptions of Competence posted at RejectSociety.com. Collin gets close to the heart of the matter. It might be time to bail out on both sides of our current party system.

Kevin Colby presents Democrats want to nationalize a hurricane tax posted at Kevin Colby: Libertarian Political News Blogger. Why not? We've already nationalized hurricane insurance for all the condos up and down the Atlantic coast, and done it for rates that no sane private company would provide.

Other

Charles H. Green presents What Malpractice Suits Teach Us About Trust posted at Trusted Advisor Associates, saying, "Even when it comes to something like a doctor saying sorry for messing up, politics, and laws, are involved." I've long believed that we don't have a healthcare crisis. We have a legal and insurance industry crisis. Is there anyone who doubts that healthcare costs could be cut in half if those two groups were kicked out of the room?

Livingalmostlarge presents Same Sex Rights? LivingAlmostLarge posted at LivingAlmostLarge, saying, "Why does the government get to decide who gets married? Why not separate state and religion? Make marriage religious and civil unions just a government issue mandate?" Yeah, but LAL, you don't understand.... This is a hot-button wedge issue that really effects no one except gays and lesbians, who already vote for Democrats. Therefore, it's a useful distraction, and a handy fund-raising tool for Republicans.

U.S. Politics

Doug Ragan presents My Presidential Campaign ? Oil and the Environment posted at I'm A Pundit Too, saying, "I am putting together a series of posts regarding my Presidential Campaign Platform. I am not actually running for President of the US for a few reasons. One reason is that I am 33. Another reason is that I have no political experience. And lastly, I am a very reasonable person who does not enjoy lying, therefore no one would ever vote for me. The first part of this series will be the issue of oil and the environment." But just in case things start getting really stupid in October and November, please remember Doug as a possible write-in candidate.

Holly Ord presents John McCain Doesn’t Support the Troops posted at Menstrual Poetry. This is true, Holly. However, I link to your posts in these carnivals all the time, but you still haven't added me to your blogroll. What's up with that?

Jeffrey Stingerstein presents » Oh No! John McCain Is Trying to Lose My Vote! Disillusioned Words: atheism, art and politics posted at Disillusioned Words. I don't think that McCain had a chance at Jeffrey's vote anyway.

kevin colby presents To much government spending has killed New Jersey posted at Kevin Colby: Libertarian Political News Blogger, saying, "The state is $32 billion in debt and a revenue shortfall forecast at close to $3 billion, the third worst in the nation after California and New York." And yet, these three states have to carry the weight of more intellectuals per square foot than any others. Coincidence? I think not.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
carnival of the libertarians using our carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
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It's been real, folks.

Next time, the Carnival Of The Libertarians will be hosted in Australia by Chris and Nick at CountingCats.

The Creation According To Saint Albert

The Creation According to Saint Albert

Genesis, Chapter One

1:1 In the beginning Saint Albert, The Goracle of Music City, created The Book.

1:2 And The Book was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the Book. And the editors of the Book moved upon the pages of it, to give it form and substance.

1:3 And The New York Times said, "Let there be sales:" and there were sales of The Book.

1:4 And Saint Albert saw the sales, and that they were good: and he said "There could be profit and sustenance in this, both for me and all my descendants, and all the tribes of lobbyists." For he had grown weary of being the Junior Senator in the land of the Tennesseeans.

1:5 For Saint Albert called The Book "Earth In The Balance", and before his book there was nothing, and without it, we would all be destroyed. And this was the end of the first day.

1:6 And Saint Albert said, "Let there be a Powerpoint in the midst of my laptop, and let it terrify those who follow me and obey my commandments."

1:7 And Saint Albert made the Powerpoint, and divided the facts which were obvious from the facts which were inconvenient for his argument: and it was so.

1:8 And Saint Albert called the Powerpoint a Rough Draft For A Screenplay. And this evening and morning were the second day.

1:9 And Saint Albert said, "Let the Screenplay be filmed, and let my my visage be imposed upon the face of the Powerpoint for all who follow me to see and witness:" and it was so.

1:10 And Saint Albert called the Screenplay a Documentary; and he named his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth": and those who stood to profit thereby called it good.

1:11 And Saint Albert said, "Let the Documentary bring forth awards, the same awards which go to all Democrats, who, by being nominated, are always assured of victory:" and it was so. But those whose hearts had hardened against him declared these awards to be an everlasting stench in the nostrils of the righteous and an unholy thing in the temple of Reason.

1:12 And the Documentary brought forth profits, the creeping financial kind, and the flying political kind, and the consultant kind; and Saint Albert saw that these profits would be mandated by Congress and the rulers of this world, and that they would be very, very good.

1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. And there was fear and trembling throughout the earth, for all this time Saint Albert had merely been warming up.

1:14 And Saint Albert said, "Let there be a timeline, and a sense of urgency, and a panic; for I grow old, and wish to fully profit from my creation; so let all warming be a sign of Global Warming, and let all cooling be a sign of Global Warming also . And those who deny that cooling is warming, let them take their place with The Holocaust Deniers.

1:15 "And let us no longer speak the words 'Global Warming', for the current cooling will confuse the sheep of our pastures, causing them to look upon their thermometers for verification. Let us now speak of 'Climate Change', for by doing so, all bets will be covered:" and it was so.

1:16 And Saint Albert created for himself a house; and it was as great as any earthly habitation; and the carbon footprint of his house was compared to that of The Concorde; the carbon footprint of his house was likened to that of a Ukrainian Steel Mill, and the emissions of Interstate 35 on the Fourth of July weekend; and his house was likened unto the dwelling of a Republican who does not recycle.

1:17 And the sheep of his pastures cried out to him, saying "Albert, Albert, why do you preach salvation, but practice destruction? And Saint Albert grew weary of their moanings, and he gave his habitation solar panels, and new windows, and ductwork.

1:18 And Saint Albert declared that it was good. But his enemies declared his improvements to be a vain and foolish thing, for they had unconfessed sin in their hearts, and their deeds were evil, and they were not the sheep of his pastures. For they had looked upon his electric bills, both before and after, and they mocked him and made merriment while posting Saint Albert's electric bills on the Internet (which Saint Albert had created).

1:19 For the Tennesseeans are a stubborn and ungrateful people, and they would not vote for him in 2000, for prophets are without honor in their home country. And this evening and morning were the fourth day.

1:20 And Saint Albert said, "Let the people of the earth sing praises unto my name forever, for I am great and mighty. Am I not as heroic as Parsifal? Am I not more worthy than Don Giovanni? For Tipper and I are as Tristan and Isolde, and we shall be glorified in the heavens and in the earth, and at La Scala in Italy. Bring forth an opera, so that my works and my name shall be sung and praised throughout the nations."

1:21 And the sheep of his pastures brought forth the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal and the tenors and one soprano; and the libretto of that which began as a Book and grew to a Powerpoint which begat a screenplay which begat a documentary which begat a Nobel then begat an opera: and Saint Albert saw that it was good.

1:22 And Saint Albert blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and create more wondrous markers of remembrance to my name."

1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

1:24 And Saint Albert said, "Bring forth a musical, so that my praises may be sung on Broadway by those who love show tunes. For what profiteth a man to win a Grammy and Nobel, but have no Tony?"

1:25 And the sheep of his pastures brought forth a Musical, so that the philistine cattle who do not enjoy opera may glorify Saint Albert also, each in his own way: and Saint Albert saw that it was good, for it had productions numbers, great sets, a torch song, and some real toe-tappers.

1:26 And Saint Albert said, "Let us make more graven, written, and spoken monuments to mine own image, after my likeness: and give me dominion over the fish of your seas, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, for only I can save them. And give me dominion over your thermostats and your fuel economy, and your CO2 emissions, and your carbon footprints. Give me dominion over your congressional spending and your tax breaks. For I am a jealous God, and I want it all."

1:27 Thus man created Saint Albert in God's own image, in the image of God created we him.

1:28 And Saint Albert saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. But he had not yet brought forth the Earth In The Balance videogame, or the Climate Change lunchbox, or Carbon Footprint running shoes, or An Inconvenient Truth - the animated series. We have no Global Warming thermos, or Tipper The Iceberg beer coolers.

1:29 Because on the seventh day, he rested. I hope.

WE'RE NUMBER ONE !

My employer hires a lot of ex-cons.
Most of these parolees try incredibly hard to avoid returning to prison.
Many of them fail.

This editorial by Jason Ziedenberg ran in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about three years ago. (I was obsessively clipping excellent newspaper articles long before I began blogging.) Ziedenberg accurately predicted that Martha Stewart would have an easy transition from prison to home to successful career. Then he looked at the other 600,000 less fortunate people who are released from prison every year. Here are a couple of the vital paragraphs:

The other 600,000 people who leave prison every year are generally not so lucky. As the prison and jail system tripled over the 1980s, from 500,000 to more than 2 million, policy-makers cut education, job training and treatment programs in prison. As a result of those cuts — a direct consequence of directing corrections funds to build more prisons — people are leaving prison less prepared for life on the outside, and with less assistance from the parole system to help people get a job, get back into school and to return successfully to their lives crime-free.

No surprise, then, we are seeing a growing number of formerly incarcerated people being returned to prison for parole violations and new offenses, ensuring that the exit from prison is nothing more than a turn-style door leading right back inside.

I believe that Ziedenberg got it basically right, but missed the bulls-eye. People don't return to prison because of programs being cut. They return to prison because one particular group's programs are beautifully maintained.

Let's assume that the following statements are true:

1) Policies and systems should be evaluated in terms of the incentives they create, rather than judged by their stated goals and objectives.

2) Newly released prisoners are obligated to meet with parole officers at inconvenient locations, inconvenient times, and as often as the parole officer deems necessary. The ex-con often has to pay the parole officer a supervision fee. Failure to jump through any of these hoops often means a return to prison.

Statement number one is a distillation of Dr. Thomas Sowell's "Basic Economics", and therefore carries at least the same level of infallibility as the Book of Leviticus. Number two comes from my experience working with ex-cons. Statement number three isn't vital to my argument, and is my opinion only. Here goes....

3) The parole system is a "make work" program for unemployed sociology majors.

Ok, on with the argument. Look at the ex-cons in your workplace. If there aren't any, ask yourself why not, since the streets are full of them.
Could it be that having to leave the workplace in the middle of the day (for idiotic parole meetings) discourages employers from giving these people jobs? And requiring people to pay "supervision fees" when they're fortunate if they can find a minimum wage job, is this nothing more than a good way to encourage ex-cons to steal?

The stated goal of these programs? To help ex-cons return to society.
The hidden incentives of these programs? There are abolutely no rational incentives in place to encourage people to hire ex-cons. The parole system makes it almost impossible. The decision to do hire a parolee comes loaded with a hundred headaches.
And how would you feel about living next door to an ex-con who has to come up with extra parole officer money every few weeks?

Every ex-con I've ever hired has been required to follow a program that is virtually guaranteed to keep them flirting with unemployment, discouragement, and theft.

Our system is designed to create failure and recidivism.
Our government social workers/parole officers guarantee themselves full employment with an expanding "client base".
And now the United States has the world's highest incarceration rate.

Coincidence?

I think not.

Thomas Sowell and Tim Russert

Please stand for this month's reading from The Gospel According To Saint Thomas....

Economist Thomas Sowell, the smartest man in the world now that Milton Friedman is dead, has proclaimed that the loss of Tim Russert was the loss of a national treasure, since there is no replacement journalist of comparable objectivity, intelligence, and diligence on the horizon.

Despite being a huge fan of "Meet The Press", I had vowed not to write anything about Russert's premature departure. I thought that we spend too much energy lamenting the loss of people who happen to be on television, and not enough time enjoying the company of those who aren't.

Dr. Sowell has shown me the error of my ways in this case. Tim Russert seems to have been the real thing.

Therefore, I recant my earlier mistaken opinions about the value of Tim Russert. These opinions are now abhorrent and are an anathema to me. (I think I remember those phrases from an old movie about the Inquisition.)

The man has spoken.

Thus endeth the reading from The Gospel According To Saint Thomas.

You may be seated.

Caption This

I need a caption for this picture:

You Owe Your Soul To The Company Store

A few days ago, I watched a genuinely atrocious 1958 movie adaptation of William Faulkner's The Hamlet. It's called "The Long Hot Summer", and the filmmakers took a great Faulkner story about White Trash Meanness and ran it through the Tennessee Williams / Big Daddy / Delta Plantation mold to achieve.....well, not much.

Flem Snopes, the anti-hero of the book, is described by Faulkner as "a froglike little man with eyes the color of stagnant pond water". Hollywood, of course, put Paul Newman in the role.

Then they changed one of the great names in Southern literature (Flem Snopes) to the more generic and less repulsive "Ben Quick". Paul Newman couldn't play someone named Flem. For the sake of this post, and to eliminate confusion, I'm going to call his character "Flem".

Flem Snopes had a bad reputation. Whenever he got shafted in a job or a business deal, his employers' barns tended to burn down. Flem appears at a new town and approaches one of the landowners for a sharecropping arrangement. Jody Varner, the landowners son, tells Flem about a piece of land with a small house that Flem can farm. In exchange, the Varner family gets half the crop. This was called farming on "the halves". And Flem will have to "furnish" - i.e., purchase seed, fertilizer, groceries, and equipment - from the plantation's store.

Most of the big plantations had one of these stores. The prices were inflated on most items, but through the formal sharecropping agreement, tenants were required to purchase certain items only from "The Company Store". If you didn't have an arrangement like that of Flem Snopes, who farmed on the halves, you worked for pay in the form of company store vouchers = aka "scrip". It was a modified form of slavery. If your compensation could only be used in one place, you could never leave. And you sure couldn't make the plantation stores compete against each other, since your scrip was only good at one location.

If you're of a certain age, you probably remember Tennessee Ernie Ford's version of "I Owe My Soul To The Company Store".

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

One of my grandfathers worked as the bookkeeper on a large Mississippi plantation and my mother can remember him coming home complaining about how the sharecroppers got shafted. His job probably involved keeping track of the shafting.

Is there anyone in his right mind who would now be willing to sign up for one of these sharecropping arrangements where you are obliged to spend your money at the company store?

Well, halfway through "The Long Hot Summer", it occurred to me that we're all headed further and further down that road. Some of our political leaders want to require us to spend our money with their contributors. They've taken the idea of the company store, wrapped it in the flag, sprinkled it with patriotism, and put a banner out front that says "Protect American Jobs".

Here's a good example.

Sugar from overseas is much more reasonably priced than sugar grown in Florida. Unfortunately, Florida is a large swing state. So not only can you not buy sugar from overseas without paying a big fat tariff to bring the cost up to Florida prices, but you have to pay a subsidy to Florida's sugar producers every time you send a check to the IRS.

A lot of this money goes to Florida's Fanjul family, a group that makes Faulkner's plantation owners look like Cesar Chavez. According to one estimate, if the year 2000's total subsidy paid to sugar farmers was $560,000,000.00, the Fanjul's took home $65,000,000.00 of it. They hang out with royalty, ski in Switzerland, and they helped inspire the failed TV series "Cane".

Not a bad day's work. Or not work, depending on how you look at driving to the bank to cash a check.

By the way, what is your cost per job saved by sugar tariffs and subsidies? Per year? $826,000.00 (Here's one way to do the math.)

So as we get closer to the November elections, you're going to hear more and more politicians slamming Free Trade, NAFTA, and the idea of open markets.

Try to remember.... the Fanjul's give these politicians obscene amounts of money. So do the ethanol producers. So does every other lobbying group.

And you'll have a choice: get off the plantation, or owe your soul to the company store.

The Associated Press to Set Guidelines for Using Its Articles in Blogs

The Associated Press to Set Guidelines for Using Its Articles in Blogs

By SAUL HANSELL
Published: June 16, 2008
The Associated Press, one of the nation’s largest news organizations, said that it will, for the first time, attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.’s copyright.

The A.P.’s effort to impose some guidelines on the free-wheeling blogosphere, where extensive quoting and even copying of entire news articles is common, may offer a prominent definition of the important but vague doctrine of “fair use,” which holds that copyright owners cannot ban others from using small bits of their works under some circumstances. For example, a book reviewer is allowed to quote passages from the work without permission from the publisher.
Fair use has become an essential concept to many bloggers, who often quote portions of articles before discussing them. The A.P., a cooperative owned by 1,500 daily newspapers, including The New York Times, provides written articles and broadcast material to thousands of news organizations and Web sites that pay to use them.
Last week, The A.P. took an unusually strict position against quotation of its work, sending a letter to the Drudge Retort asking it to remove seven items that contained quotations from A.P. articles ranging from 39 to 79 words.
On Saturday, The A.P. retreated. Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director of The A.P., said in an interview that the news organization had decided that its letter to the Drudge Retort was “heavy-handed” and that The A.P. was going to rethink its policies toward bloggers.
The quick about-face came, he said, because a number of well-known bloggers started criticizing its policy, claiming it would undercut the active discussion of the news that rages on sites, big and small, across the Internet.
The Drudge Retort was initially started as a left-leaning parody of the much larger Drudge Report, run by the conservative muckraker Matt Drudge. In recent years, the Drudge Retort has become more of a social news site, similar to sites like Digg, in which members post links to news articles for others to comment on.
But Rogers Cadenhead, the owner of the Drudge Retort and several other Web sites, said the issue goes far beyond one site. “There are millions of people sharing links to news articles on blogs, message boards and sites like Digg. If The A.P. has concerns that go all the way down to one or two sentences of quoting, they need to tell people what they think is legal and where the boundaries are.”
On Friday, The A.P. issued a statement defending its action, saying it was going to challenge blog postings containing excerpts of A.P. articles “when we feel the use is more reproduction than reference, or when others are encouraged to cut and paste.” An A.P. spokesman declined Friday to further explain the association’s position.
After that, however, the news association convened a meeting of its executives at which it decided to suspend its efforts to challenge blogs until it creates a more thoughtful standard.
“We don’t want to cast a pall over the blogosphere by being heavy-handed, so we have to figure out a better and more positive way to do this,” Mr. Kennedy said.
Mr. Kennedy said the company was going to meet with representatives of the Media Bloggers Association, a trade group, and others. He said he hopes that these discussions can all occur this week so that guidelines can be released soon.
Still, Mr. Kennedy said that the organization has not withdrawn its request that Drudge Retort remove the seven items. And he said that he still believes that it is more appropriate for blogs to use short summaries of A.P. articles rather than direct quotations, even short ones.
“Cutting and pasting a lot of content into a blog is not what we want to see,” he said. “It is more consistent with the spirit of the Internet to link to content so people can read the whole thing in context.”
Even if The A.P. sets standards, bloggers could choose to use more content than its standards permit, and then The A.P. would have to decide whether to take legal action against them. One important legal test of whether an excerpt exceeds fair use is if it causes financial harm to the copyright owner.
“The principal question is whether the excerpt is a substitute for the story, or some established adaptation of the story,” said Timothy Wu, a professor at the Columbia Law School. Mr. Wu said that the case is not clear-cut, but he believes that The A.P. is likely to lose a court case to assert a claim on that issue.
“It’s hard to see how the Drudge Retort ‘first few lines’ is a substitute for the story,” Mr. Wu said.
Mr. Kennedy argued, however, that The Associated Press believes that in some cases, the essence of an article can be encapsulated in very few words.
“As content creators, we firmly believe that everything we create, from video footage all the way down to a structured headline, is creative content that has value,” he said.
But he also said that the association hopes that it will not have to test this theory in court.
“We are not trying to sue bloggers,” Mr. Kennedy said. “That would be the rough equivalent of suing grandma and the kids for stealing music. That is not what we are trying to do.”

I hope I used this properly.
For an additional usage of this article, click here.

Happy Belated Father's Day, and May The Force Be With You !

My brother in Tennesse was in the middle of Father's Day festivities, and asked his 3-year old son Dean if he wanted to be a father someday.

Dean thought about it, and said "I still think I want to be a Jedi more than anything else."

Beware The Chicago Boys, Naomi Klein, and The Guardian (UK)

Journalist Naomi Klein has written a column for The Guardian (UK) entitled "Beware The Chicago Boys".

Hmmmmm.....I'll be needing a few tools....
Scalpel - thanks.
Laptop - got it.
Righteous Indignation - I've got plenty.
Various Free Market Websites - check.
Copy of Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics (3rd edition) - got it.
Chainsaw - yep.
Metzenbaum scissors - check.
Let the Fisking begin !

Here's Naomi Klein:

Beware the Chicago boys
Obama's vow of love for free markets gives reason to fear a replay of Bill Clinton's 1993 U-turn

Where to begin with Naomi Klein. Where to begin.... It's a rare editorial that contains so many easy targets in just the headline. Is there anyone other than tenured faculty and union thugs who "fear" a replay of Bill Clinton's 1990's economy, also known as the 1990's economic boom? How can someone even type that sentence without her computer melting?

by Naomi Klein
The Guardian,
Saturday June 14 2008

One final aside, and I'll be through ripping the headline, the summary, the author, The Guardian, and the (surprisingly accurate) date.... I've been reading a lot of British and Australian bloggers for the last year, bloggers who occasionally use the term "Grolies". When I finally bothered to look it up, I learned that Grolies is a British/Australian acronym for "Guardian Reader Of Limited Intelligence in Ethnic Skirt".

That has nothing to do with the business at hand. I just thought it was funny. I don't mean to imply that Ms. Klein wears ethnic skirts.

Now, back to Naomi Klein's Guardian article about Barack Obama's association with the Economics department at The University of Chicago.

Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton pulled out of the race to declare, on CNBC: "Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market." Demonstrating that this is no mere spring fling, he has appointed the 37-year-old Jason Furman, one of Wal-Mart's most prominent defenders, to head his economic team. On the campaign trail, Obama blasted Clinton for sitting on the Wal-Mart board and pledged: "I won't shop there."

This is one of my favorite photos of all time. That's Mr. Sam Walton sitting front and center. To the left of Mr. Sam is the wife of the then-governor of Arkansas, who at the time was serving on the Wal-Mart board of directors. And here's a link to an article suggesting that Sam Walton was worthy of a Nobel. I've never understood the ravenous anti-WalMart bias. Name anyone else who has eliminated more poverty than Sam Walton.

Barack Obama's Craniofacial Duplication on the issue of Wal-Mart is to be expected now that he's defeated the Hildebeest. It was an easy target when he was catering to the Democratic base, but now, going against McCain, he's got to worry about semi-rational thought.

For Furman, however, Wal-Mart's critics are the real threat: the "efforts to get Wal-Mart to raise its wages and benefits" are creating "collateral damage" that is "way too enormous and damaging to working people and the economy ... for me to sit by idly and sing Kum Ba Ya in the interests of progressive harmony".

Could Wal-Mart pay its employees more? Of course. Could The Guardian? Yep. Could Naomi Klein pay more for rent than she has to? Could she pay more for gasoline? Could she pay double the going rate for psychiatric care? You betcha. If word gets out that Naomi Klein is willing to pay $500 an hour for lawn service, people will wait in line to take her money.

Ms. Klein could also try to charge a lot more for insane journalistic diatribes against Free Markets. She could charge more for her books. She could charge fifty bucks an hour to let people watch her spread Peanut Butter on her front porch while she sang excerpts from "Evita". But in this case, people would NOT wait in line to give her more money. People would shop around for a better deal. She would find that people are reluctant to pay more than the going rate for diatribes, books, or high protein Evita performances.

The glory of the Free Market system is that people can pay what they're willing to pay for goods and services, and they can charge whatever they want to charge for their own goods and services.
But you only get a deal done whenever the amount you're willing to pay is more than the amount someone else is willing to charge.

Obama's love of markets and his desire for "change" are not inherently incompatible. "The market has gotten out of balance," he says, and it most certainly has. Many trace this profound imbalance to the ideas of Milton Friedman, who launched a counter-revolution against the New Deal from his perch at the University of Chicago.

Allow me a brief diversion into The Chicago School of Economics. Friedrich Freakin' Hayek taught there. Milton Friedman, ditto. Gary Becker. Robert Lucas. George Stigler. Perhaps because of the school's geographic isolation (?), it produced eight Nobel prize winners. Eight of them. They dominate. They are to the discipline of economics what Michael Jordan's Bulls once were to basketball.

And here there are more problems, because Obama - who taught law at Chicago for a decade - is embedded in the mindset known as the Chicago School.

She says that like it's a bad thing.

Obama chose as his chief economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist on the left side of a spectrum that stops at the centre-right. Goolsbee, unlike his Friedmanite colleagues, sees inequality as a problem.

I don't believe that any "Friedmanite colleagues" have ever denied that inequality is a problem. Here's the problem: If you have freedom, or liberty, you're not going to have equality. Mostly because....people aren't equal. Naomi Klein makes more money than the guy who cleans your office restrooms. Bill Gates makes more than Naomi Klein. Part of it is effort, part of it is talent, and part of it is luck. The average world income is somewhere around $6,000. To achieve financial equality, all you have to do is give away your surplus until you're left with only 6K.
So let's get real.
We're not going to voluntarily do that.
The government would have to make us do so. So the mirror image of the statement above is that if you have equality, you're not going to have freedom or liberty.
It comes down to this. What do you value most? What is better for society? Freedom or Equality? How about getting government out of the way, and let everyone be "Free" to do whatever "Equals" their skills, desires, and talents?

His primary solution, however, is more education - a line you can also get from Alan Greenspan.

Only in The Guardian do writers express horror over the Clinton 1990's economic boom and Alan Greenspan. Good Lord in heaven.

Goolsbee has been eager to link Obama to the Chicago School. "The guy's got a healthy respect for markets," he told Chicago magazine. "It's in the ethos of the [University of Chicago], which is something different from saying he is laissez faire."

Not really. Goolsbee is just trying to chill out his Moonbat Party Base with that statement. Laissez faire, AKA leave it alone, expresses most of the Chicago Schools core values better than any other two word statement. (I'm qualified to comment on these things, because I work in the shipping, freight, and logistics industry.)

Another of Obama's Chicago fans is the 39-year-old billionaire Kenneth Griffin, the CEO of the hedge fund Citadel. Griffin, who gave the maximum allowable donation to Obama, is a poster boy for an unbalanced economy. He got married at Versailles, and is one of the staunchest opponents of closing the hedge-fund tax loophole.

Of course he's a staunch opponent of closing tax loopholes. Once an industry pays Congress to create a tax loophole, they expect the loophole to stay open. But that's fodder for another day.

While Obama talks about toughening trade rules with China, Griffin has been bending the few barriers that do exist. Despite sanctions prohibiting the sale of police equipment, Citadel has been pouring money into controversial China-based security companies that are putting the local population under unprecedented levels of surveillance.

Well, dang it, Naomi, which one do you want? Communist China was set up as a Marxist state, where total equality was to be the rule, the goal, and the law. As I pointed out above, the only way to achieve that goal is to take away freedom.
If Red China is purchasing Kenneth Griffin's police equipment, do you think they're using that police equipment to combat left wing Communist Party members?
I don't think so.
Does the Chinese government want to purchase truncheons to combat socialism?
No.
The Chinese government is exactly and precisely what you get when the economic philosophy of The Guardian is put in place. Naomi Klein should be grateful to Kenneth Griffin, and add him to her Christmas card list. He's helping the Red Chinese put down renegade Free Market capitalists who want to overthrow their idiotic government.

Now is the time to worry about Obama's Chicago Boys and their commitment to fending off regulation. It was in the two-and-a-half months between winning the 1992 election and being sworn into office in 1993 that Bill Clinton did a U-turn on the economy. He had promised to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement, adding labour and environmental provisions - but two weeks before his inauguration, the then Goldman Sachs chief, Robert Rubin, convinced him of the urgency of embracing liberalisation.

I cannot believe she's saying that. Heck, I can't believe anyone took it and printed it, either. Clinton's embrace of Free Trade gave us one heck of an economic run. There were years when the U.S. government actually took in more than it spent ! ! ! What is wrong with that?

Furman, a Rubin disciple, was chosen to head the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project, the thinktank Rubin helped found to argue for the free trade agenda. Add to that Goolsbee's February meeting with Canadian officials, who got the impression that they should not take Obama's anti-Nafta campaigning seriously, and there is every reason for concern about a replay of 1993.

As Brer Rabbit said in the Uncle Remus stories, "Please, please, please don't throw us back in that briar patch."

The irony is that there is absolutely no reason for this backsliding. The movement launched by Friedman, introduced by Ronald Reagan and entrenched under Clinton faces a legitimacy crisis around the world - nowhere more evident than at the University of Chicago itself.

It's almost like she's talking about a pre-Reagan/Friedman Garden of Eden. Is she fondly reminiscing about Jimmy Carter's stagflation? Nixon's absolutely disastrous experiment with wage and price controls?

In May, when the university president Robert Zimmer announced the creation of a $200m Milton Friedman Institute, more than 100 faculty members signed a letter of protest.

I just spent 20 minutes Googling in vain, trying to find the names and departments of the faculty who signed this letter. I can't find any online reference to a letter of protest, other than those based on this editorial. Does anyone fact-check Ms. Klein's typing? You can't prove it so far. Can anyone let me know which members of the French, Mythology, Womyn's Studies, Physical Education and Anthropology Departments signed this thing? Or is it another fabrication, like the Jimmy Carter Golden Age of Prosperity? Please help.

"The effects of the neoliberal global order ... strongly buttressed by the Chicago School of Economics, have by no means been unequivocally positive," the letter states. "Many would argue that they have been negative for much of the world's population."

"Many would argue?" Like, they would argue, but haven't yet? Who, in this time of post-Marxist greatness would argue it? And how much is "much" of the world's population?
There's more precision than this in the works of Nostradamus.
But they're partly correct. Nothing is "unequivocally" positive. Never has been, never will be. Markets have winners and losers. Buggy whip manufacturers go out of business. Betamax doesn't take off. Yugos go unpurchased. The musical output of Kevin Federline remains on the shelf in shrinkwrap, unwanted and unloved. And the government doesn't have to do a thing about it, thanks to Milton Friedman and The Chicago School of Economics. It's better that way.

When Friedman died in 2006, the memorials spoke only of grand achievement, with one of the more prominent appreciations, in the New York Times, written by Goolsbee. Yet now, just two years later, Friedman's name is seen as a liability even at his own alma mater. So why has Obama chosen this moment, when all illusions of a consensus have dropped away, to go Chicago retro?

I just finished Googling every phrase that Ms. Klein has provided from the letter/petition. Can't find a word about it anywhere that wasn't provided by Ms. Klein and The Guardian. I don't think we're talking about a massive groundswell of a movement here. And you can go to Friedman's Alma Mater's website, and as of June 14th 2008, Milton Friedman's name is a marketing tool, not a liability.

The news is not all bad. Furman claims he will be drawing on the expertise of two Keynesian economists: Jared Bernstein, of the Economic Policy Institute, and James Galbraith, son of Friedman's nemesis, John Kenneth Galbraith. Our "current economic crisis", Obama recently said, is "the logical conclusion of a tired and misguided philosophy that has dominated Washington for far too long".

Ah, the Keynesians. In my opinion, there are only two things you need to know about the effectiveness of Keynesians economics:
1. They generally believe that only government can quickly, efficiently and effectively pull the control levers of an economy. (Government = Keynesian economists in government jobs)
2. I still don't have my economic stimulus check.

True enough. But before Obama can purge Washington of the scourge of Friedmanism, he has some ideological house cleaning of his own to do.

The scourge of Friedmanism. It hurts my fingers to type the sentence.
If Obama gets elected, I don't think he'll be purging Washington of Friedmanism. That would be like purging Washington of Cherry blossoms, the Jefferson Memorial, and anything else decent. I bet he keeps the economic engine running right where it is. Because thanks to Milton Friedman and The Chicago Boys, that's where the tracks run.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends, Fort Worth Edition

Here are some links from my favorite Fort Worth bloggers, plus one or two from Dallas - our suburb to the east.

Steve-O at The Caravan of Dreams has a post that makes use of the terms "Heineken" and "Proustian memory rush". His office is cooler than mine.

My good friend and grandmother surrogate Dr. Liz briefly wonders how the Southern Baptist Convention can evict Broadway Baptist Church, when they kinda left it about twenty years ago. Dr. Liz's blog, Zbeth Journall, is the authoritative online document covering canine activity at Fort Woof park. I hope she'll start posting a brief review/synopsis of every mystery novel she reads.

Pete at Cowtown Chronicles is offended by the idea of Democrats For McCain. In addition to being a welcome Serial Commenter on this site, he runs something called "Drinking Liberally", a left-wing equivalent to my beloved "Libertarian Meetup".

Ken Shimamoto, The Stash Dauber, in a generous humanitarian gesture, has collected 4 different Youtube clips of The Yardbirds doing the blues classic "Train Kept A-Rollin' ". Ken also runs the I Love Fort Worth blog, where he's got a good list of stuff you can do in The Town Of The Cow for free. Or close to it.

Anton at Deliberate Industries is doing his part to fight Global Cooling. Check out the itinerary. then go forward and backward a few posts. Anton is this interesting kid who wants to be a film maker / director / producer. Somehow, he gets to roam the earth making movies. I stay home and feed weiner dogs. We both probably have the karma we deserve.

Pete Geniella is a pro photographer. Check out the image from inside the shower, which I chose more or less at random. Pete knows his stuff.

Dr. Ralph is getting busier and busier at The Journal of Post Ralphaelite Thought. He's got Bob Barr on The Colbert Report. Like Dr. Liz, he's got some interesting commentary on the Southern Baptists kicking out the Broadway Baptists for providing a welcome sanctuary for the Gay and Lesbian Baptists. The Good Doctor also takes excessive delight in the city of Dallas struggling with Cesar Chavez Boulevard.

Suzette at Morning Coffee, Evening Wine generally raises hell and rolls stumps under it. All the time. East Fort Worth is a better place with her living here. I'm not even bothering to link to a specific post. Suzette grabs an issue, writes emails, takes pictures, picks up the phone, and changes things. Hit that link a year from now, and she'll be doing the same thing about a different problem.

Durango Texas attacks one of our mutual pet peeves in this post, which is a relatively calm attack on corporations getting tax breaks and other Free Lunches. D.T. explains that Cabela's is a company that specializes in tax breaks. That is all they do. Any rumors of them being a sporting goods company are just that. Rumors.

Fort Worth Hole In The Wall likes to eat.

Francis at Food and Fort Worth has a eulogy on the untimely passing of Tim Russert.

And let's close this with a tribute to the late Steve Buckellew, who passed away this April. Steve and I were just beginning to correspond when he left us. He wrote some funny stuff.

For The Libertarian Party of Texas

This is in honor of the Texas Libertarian Party's State Convention, held this weekend in Fort Worth.
In this clip network anchorman Howard Beale, the "Mad Prophet Of The Airwaves", decides he's had enough.
I don't remember the movie well enough to describe what triggered this outburst.

Perhaps Howard has recently learned that his share of the national debt is $30,000.00
Maybe he's learned that we coulda colonized Mars for the current cost of the Iraq war.
Maybe he read a Cal Thomas article that claims Barack Obama is not a Christian.
Perhaps he's tired of watching the 2nd Amendment be dismantled as a result of various Victim Disarmament Acts.
Perhaps he figured out why our Coca-Colas have to be made with corn syrup instead of sugar. (Hint: it has nothing to do with taste.)
Regardless of the trigger, Howard Beale says "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this any more !"



That particular piece of greatness was written by Paddy Chayefsky, for the movie "Network".

Libertarians Will Not Work Hard For You. We Promise.

In one of the more delightful ironies of this decade, the Democrats are shutting down the Senate Dining Hall so they can (audible gasp!) privatize it.

This particular government-run eatery has lost $18,000,000 since 1993. Is there any other restaurant on earth that could lose one million a year and still keep cranking out chicken dinners?

Here's Jonah Goldberg on Senator Dianne Feinstein's decision to shut down the dining hall :

Feinstein, to her credit, witnessed an abject failure of government right under her nose — on her plate, in fact — and did something about it. “It’s clearly not the sort of thing that I ran for the Senate to do,” she said, according to the (Washington) Post. “But somebody has to do it.”

Let's look at one word. Why is it "clearly" not the sort of thing she ran for the Senate to do? It seems reasonably clear that the Senate Dining Hall should've been shut down and privatized about 15 years ago.

Contrast Senator Feinstein's moment of non-clarity with this act of almost total transparency from Rep. Maxine Waters (Hat Tip to Grouchy Old Cripple):

She actually utters the dreaded word "socialize", repents in sackcloth and ashes, tries to think of "nationalize", can't pull that off, and settles for "taking over".

Is there anyone out there, outside of the editorial staff of The Nation magazine, who actually thinks this makes any sense? Does anyone believe Maxine Waters could take over Exxon Mobil and lower the prices you pay at the pump? Anybody? I didn't think so, but the Comment Field below awaits your input....

Look at it this way. I've been handed a trucking company to run. Fuel prices are killing me. Absolutely killing me. I don't have Senate Dining Hall financial losses yet, but I'm not making any money, and am losing plenty. There are all sorts of incentives in place for me to make it profitable. It's just not very easy. I know beyond any doubt that I can't run at a loss for much longer.

But what would happen if I had an almost unlimited trough of money to pull from? Would I still care about making good use of any resources? I don't think so.

I have a tendency to beat this kind of thing to death.
Because someone, somewhere, is still voting for politicians who can advocate government run oil companies, government monopolies in education, and government run health care without laughing. As P.J. O'Rourke said, "If you think healthcare is expensive now, just wait until it's free."
Someone, somewhere will still vote for "Small Government" Republicans who actually voted for that obscene Farm Bill.

**************************************************************************

On a related note, The Libertarian Party Of Texas state convention is in Fort Worth this weekend. The Libertarians have plenty of candidates who are clearly running for office with the clearly stated goal of shutting down all sorts of clearly unnecessary Senate Dining Halls. They are very clear about it, and will discuss it with you for hours and hours with startling clarity. Boy howdy, are they clear.

Did you ever wonder how you got to be $30,000 in debt? (If you're an American reading this, divide a $9,000,000,000,000 national debt by 300 million Americans. 30 grand is your share, so get busy. Get a second job if you have to.) Some of this staggering amount was put on your Mastercard by Big Government Democrats who clearly hesitate to shut down a buffet line that clearly misplaces one million dollars every year. An even bigger chunk of debt was spread out on your Visa, Discover, Sears, American Express, and Target cards by Small Government Republicans who were clearly lying about their identities.

The Libertarian convention is nowhere near as big as the Republican or Democrat equivalents.

This is because they're not trying to get a bigger spot at the public hog trough for their buddies or their supporters.

The Libertarians don't want to fix anything. They want to shut it down. They want to sell it to the highest bidder, and put the profits on your Visa/Amex/Discover account.

They aren't the Candidates Of Changing anything. Why change it if you can end it?

We have no vision, no 10-point plans, no contracts with America outside of what's in the constitution. We'll try to fix the roads, provide for defense, enforce contracts, play referee on the economic externalities, and then do our best to stay out of your way. We're not going to open up any Dining Halls, take over any oil companies, or turn your food into ethanol. We're not going to make you a better person. We don't want to provide much leadership at all. We believe that government's role in the game is to be the cheerleader, not the quarterback. We're all about Life, Liberty, and the reckless goal of Leaving You Alone.

Unlike the Democrats and Republicans who ran up your credit cards, Libertarians will not work hard for you. We promise.

The Vanity Fair Blogopticon

Vanity Fair magazine, in addition to serving humanity by giving Bill Clinton a recent thorough muck-raking, has developed something called The Blogopticon.

The categories of blogs run on a North/South scale from news at the top, to opinion at the bottom.
On the East/West scale, they range from Earnest to Scurrilous.

Do NOT hit that link unless you have hours and hours to wander around in there.

Broadway Baptist Church Might Be Ousted ! ! !

My home church, Broadway Baptist, is in the news again. It's never going to end. My friend Gary alerted me to this jewel on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram website:

Resolution at Southern Baptist Convention seeks Fort Worth church's ouster

To my friend David M., Please make note of the word "ouster"....

By TERRY LEE GOODRICH

A North Carolina pastor has recommended that Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth be ousted from the Southern Baptist Convention, saying it encourages homosexuality.

Ousted. There it is again. Ousted. You start using a new word regularly for the first time, and it appears everywhere. (Inside joke....my friend David M. recently did an audio/video presentation about our former pastor, Dr. Brett Younger, and his appearances in newspaper headlines and internet posts. The word "ousted" was quite popular. Click here for recent details. )

Back to the bidness at hand. Broadway Baptist Church encourages homesexuality? Like, in experimental classes? During communion? Field trips to Pier One Imports? Let's read on.

The proposed resolution, made Tuesday at the SBC’s annual meeting in Indianapolis. was referred to an executive committee which will bring back a report at the 2009 meeting in Kentucky.

For those unfamiliar with the Southern Baptist Convention, it's the baptist group that split off from the northern baptists shortly before the Civil War, primarily because the yankees didn't want southern missionaries to carry their slaves with them on mission trips. This, of course, was intolerable interference from the yankees.

Punting awkward resolutions to a committee is a time-honored technique most often used when leadership determines that somebody is making resolutions just to get his name in the paper.

Wait a minute....??? I didn't even know Broadway was in the Southern Baptist Convention....I thought we left it years ago to join the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, or some grouping like that. Isn't this like closing the barn door after the horses have run off?

The action stemmed from a controversy at Broadway over whether gay and lesbian couples could be pictured together in the church directory. In February, to get beyond the divisive issue, the congregation voted to publish a book without individual or family portraits — and with candid snapshots instead. Several gay couples had asked earlier to have their portraits appear.

I thought it was a good compromise. Broadway is going for a very big tent. And speaking of big tents, that Southern Baptist tent? It has lots and lots and lots of gays and lesbians in it. Encouraged or not, they're in there.

The Reverend Bill Sanderson of Hephzibah Baptist Church in Wendell, N.C., declined to answer questions in a phone call from the Star-Telegram.

But Reverend Bill Sanderson of Hephzibah Baptist Church in Wendell, N.C. didn't hesitate to speak from inside the relatively small convention tent in Indianapolis.

If you want to know more about this guy, here's his website.

Here's a video of Rev. Bill. .

Officials with Broadway could not be reached immediately to comment.

Officials? Officials? Hey, we're the real baptists. We don't need no stinkin' officials. We're all about concepts like Autonomy Of The Local Church, and Priesthood Of The Believer. (Click here if you're unfamiliar with the concept. Read what the guy says, imagine strongly disagreeing with him, and you'll know where I'm coming from....)

So I'll make an un-official comment that might work until a more qualified commenter comes along:

(Ahem....) I am deeply, deeply saddened that a sister baptist church would try to gain attention and notoriety by making a resolution to remove my church from the Southern Baptist Convention, the organization that brought us The Disney Boycott, Subjugation of Women, Bailey Smith, and the Jimmy Carter presidency.

Vetting, Defined

Ok, here's my definition of "vetting".
(Because of Barack Obama's loss of a key player on his Vice Presidential Vetting Committee, and because of a quirk in Google's page rankings, people are coming to this site WANTING ANSWERS.)

Vetting - to appraise, verify, or check for accuracy, authenticity, validity, etc.: An expert vetted the manuscript before publication. –verb (used without object) That's dictionary.com speaking.

The word is now used more often to determine if there's any inappropriate stuff in someone's background that would disqualify them from getting elected. Here are some examples.

George McGovern did not do enough vetting when he selected Thomas Eagleton to be his V.P. running mate in 1972. It turns out that Eagleton had sought psychiatric help for depression. Eagleton was dropped from the ticket.

Hillary Clinton claims that she's been thoroughly vetted as a result of enduring Whitewater, CattleFuturesGate, TravelGate, Vince Foster Dying For Your Sins, MonicaGate, Gennifergate, SniperGate, Moving Out Of The White House Like White Trash Leaving A Motel Six Gate, and all the ones I've forgotten.
Lord, I hope she's vetted by now. I don't see how there's room for any more scandals to be vetted in one lifetime.

In 1988, Democratic Presidential candidate Gary Hart opened himself up for intense vetting by telling reporters who had asked about rumors of extramarital affairs "Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'll be very bored."
When the reporters got through vetting him, they had discovered an extramarital affair.

George W. Bush's drunk driving arrest was not discovered until late in the 2000 campaign. Many critics say he should've been vetted more closely.

Clarence Thomas was over-vetted, and shocking comments about pubic hairs on Coke cans were discovered.

This definition has been a public service of The Whited Sepulchre Outreach Ministry.
I'm sure that Comment Field Users can come up with others.

Caption This

I need a caption for this picture:

Sing Along With Saint Albert

Just when I think the world can't get any goofier....

For years, I've had a running joke with a co-worker about going to see a production of "Silence Of The Lambs - On Ice". It cracks me up to imagine Hannibal Lecter skating around an arena in his straitjacket and goalie mask during an Ice Capades production number.

I got a similar kick out of "Backdraft - The Musical", as parodied in Christopher Guest's movie "Waiting For Guffman".

The movie "The Producers" centers around an intentionally bad musical about the life of Adolph Hitler.

I love the idea of taking one art form and cramming it into another that just doesn't fit. It cracks me up every time.

But this? Can it be for real? And who will play Saint Albert, The Goracle of Music City Tennessee? Garth Brooks? Toby Keith? George Strait? Can they cast Placido Domingo as a Polar Bear? Are they going to have a real set and stage, or just use a PowerPoint?

It's a pity they can't give Pavarotti a small role as an iceberg.

Hat Tip to NickM at Counting Cats for alerting me to this opportunity.

On Watching Danica Patrick Not Win The Bombardier Learjet 550K Yesterday

Danica Patrick did not win the Bombardier Learjet 550K yesterday.

Lord knows we wanted her to.

I took The Future Aggie to her first race at Texas Motor Speedway yesterday. She loved it as much as I thought she would, and is already planning to come home from Aggieland for the NASCAR races in October/November. I've always wanted this girl to know that she can do whatever she wants to do.

We tailgated with the good people from Roadway for a while and then went through the minefield of racing concession stands, where I bought her enough crap to fill up the latrines at Fort Pemberton.

This was an Indy style race. For the uninitiated, the best way to distinguish between the mindset of NASCAR and IndyCar racing is via Ferrell's "Talladega Nights". NASCAR grew out of moonshiners souping up their cars to outrun police pursuit. Ferrell's character "Ricky Bobby" comes out of that tradition. The cars wouldn't necessarily turn heads on the interstate if you took the decals off, and the drivers are mostly American.

IndyCar racing features "open wheel" vehicles. The tires are outside the body of the car, and these tires wouldn't fit well on your Volvo. One of these things going down the interstate would get your attention. The drivers come from all over the world. Sacha Baron Cohen's character in Talladega Nights, Jean Girard, the despicable Gay-French-AntiAmerican, is a great sendup of Indy drivers.

We got to the track in time to see Robbie Knievel jump 21 Hummers. There was something involved with Knievel contracting to jump 20 Humvees, and then increasing it to 25, but there was a strong headwind so he lowered it to 20. And the landing ramp extended over the last 3. Or something like that.
The discussions in the stands about the ever-changing number of Hummers reminded me too much of Hillary Clinton electoral math. Here's a YouTube of the jump:

Like most male forty-somethings, I was a huge fan of Knievel's father when I was a kid. It was nice to see a Knievel land in one piece.

We wanted to see Danica Patrick win it. I wanted to watch my daughter when Danica Patrick won it.

Loyalty to sports teams and athletes is a strange thing. As Jerry Seinfeld put it, because of the players being traded, drafted, bought and sold, you can no longer be loyal to a team. You're only "a fan of their laundry". That's why I was surprised at my first NASCAR race when I heard some drivers being cheered and others booed. What offense did the unpopular ones commit? Not saluting the flag? Not wearing a flag lapel pin? Forgetting the words to "Dixie"?

The way The Whited Sepulchre Duo saw it, Danica Patrick winning the Bombardier Learjet 550K would've been a bigger achievement for women than The Hildebeest winning the Democratic Party's nomination for President.

Those are strong words, aren't they? Let me explain....

Hillary was the wife of a governor and then the wife of a President. She was given a relatively "safe" senate seat to run for, in one of the most reliably Democratic states, a state in which she had never really lived.

She's achieved a lot, but only because of her other half. If her name had been Hortense Finklebaum instead of Mrs. Bill Clinton, you would've never heard of her. If she'd won the nomination, it would've been historic, but also would've required a footnote....(spouse of former president).

Contrast that with the historic potential of Danica Patrick. Like every other driver, Patrick has a massive support team and pit crew. But no one drives that car around the track but her. Name recognition counts for nothing. The fact that she's a woman doesn't get her any sympathy laps, and The League Of Women Voters doesn't protest after her losses. Her husband is relatively unknown.

Unfortunately, Danica started in 5th and finished 11th. Scott Dixon won it.

Bummer. One day, it'll happen.

Wait a minute, I hear some of you saying. Danica Patrick has already made history by winning the IndyJapan 500. Why are you acting as if no woman has ever won an Indy race?

Well, maybe I've got a NASCAR Ricky Bobby mentality.

That stuff that happens over in them foreign places like Japan? It don't count.

You've Been Left Behind....Would You Mind Taking Care Of The Weiner Dogs?

I have found a website that makes me happy. I'm grinning like a mule eating briars. My world is a better place with these folks in it.

No, it's not meg_ryan.com or hillaryantichrist.org. It's better than that.

Every time I go off on a Liberal Theology Rant, I get emails or anonymous comment posts that either a) damn me to an eternity of torment, or b) express genuine concern for the state of my soul.
(For those of you new to this site, I believe that most of our scriptures and holy books are best understood as metaphorical and symbolic.)

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, please let me introduce You've Been Left Behind. What are they about? Here's some text from their site:

We all have family and friends who have failed to receive the Good News of the Gospel. The unsaved will be 'left behind' on earth to go through the "tribulation period" after the "Rapture". You remember how, for a short time, after (9/11/01) people were open to spiritual things and answers. (We are still singing "God Bless America" at baseballs' seventh inning stretch.) Imagine how taken back they will be by the millions of missing Christians and devastation at the rapture. They will know it was true and that they have blown it.
There will be a small window of time where they might be reached for the Kingdom of God. We have made it possible for you to send them a letter of love and a plea to receive Christ one last time. You can also send information based on scripture as to what will happen next. Each fulfilled prophecy will cause your letter and plea to be remembered and a decision to be made.
"WHY" is one last chance to bring them to Christ and snatch them from the flames!

In other words, if and when Jesus returns and takes all the believers to glory, those left behind can get an email from you explaining what has happened, asking them to repent, etc etc etc. Or maybe you just want them to feed the cat and change out the litter box. It's up to you.

How does it work? How can they release the emails if the site administrators aren't on the planet to hit "send"?

We have set up a system to send documents by email, to the addresses you provide, 6 days after the "Rapture" of the Church. This occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail to log in over a 3 day period. Another 3 days are given to fail safe any false triggering of the system.

It only costs forty dollars to send post-rapture emails to 60 of your lost friends. If you are a literalist, you really have no choice but to take advantage of this. You're only risking $40 dollars, an insignificant sum compared to the loss of just one of your friends suffering for eternity in the flames of hell.

I happen to believe that all the apocalyptic stuff at the end of the New Testament was written about 1st century issues, not the end of the world. But that's just me. Millions of people disagree.

If you truly, honestly, believe that God is going to take a few of us into the sky and leave the rest behind, you WILL immediately log onto youvebeenleftbehind.com and give them $40, won't you? And you'll send me a username and password? Because I'm going to write post-rapture letters to the online acquaintances of mine who probably won't make the cut, just in case I don't have a way to get in touch with them:

The Grouchy Old Cripple
Greta Christina
The Bacon Eating Jew
Hell's Handmaiden

and lots of others. All good people, who just can't swallow the atonement concept.

Wouldn't you spend $40 to save one person from cancer, a relatively mild, short-term earthly disease? Surely you'll spend the same sum to save up to 60 people from eternal pain.

I eagerly await your response.

The Minimum Wage Increases Are Working ! ! !

Bloomberg.com has announced that the new minimum wage increases are working !

As the arbitrary amounts that must be charged for teen-age labor are dramatically increased by congressional mandate, demand for teen-age later decreases ! Businesses are responding rationally by hiring fewer low-skilled workers.

I'm sure that the ultra-compassionate individuals who lobbied for this are pleased. I know I am. You know why? I'll tell you later....

We've got two more increases to go ! There is no telling what kind of unemployment we can achieve among low skill workers and teenagers if we just keep trying. So let's get out those hacksaws, and slice a few more of the bottom rungs off the career ladder, shall we? You know why I want Congress to slice a few more of the bottom rungs off the career ladder? I'll tell you later....

Let's do what we can to destroy the ladder for racial minorities. The Davis-Bacon act, one of our first minimum wage laws, was highly succesful in its stated goal of ensuring full white employment at the expense of African-Americans.

Let me quote the great Dr. Thomas Sowell: "Most economists have long recognized that minimum wage laws increase unemployment among the least skilled, least experienced, and minority workers. With a little experience, these workers are likely to be worth more. But they cannot move up the ladder if they can't get on the ladder."

But I don't want them on my ladder. I think it's mine by birthright.

So lobby your congressperson and your senators for more increases in the minimum wage. Hell, let's double it. It's highly effective when the government jacks around with the economy. Especially if you're an old white guy.

Heh heh heh heh....

Dear Daughter....

The Future Aggie graduated from Paschal High School in Fort Worth last night.
At the party afterwards, a friend of mine recommended this recent column by Leonard Pitts of The Orlando Sentinel. Mr. Pitts has a daughter the same age.
Good stuff.

I'm also saving it here, just in case the Sentinel takes it down.

Caption This

I need a caption for this picture.

Cal Thomas Says Barack Obama's Not A Christian

Journalist Cal Thomas has written a column entitled "Barack Obama Is Not A Christian".
Hmmmmm.....
I'll be needing a few tools....

Scalpel - thanks.

Laptop - got it.
Righteous Indignation - I've got plenty.
Various Unitarian Websites - check.
Online Concordance - there are dozens.
Chainsaw - yep.
Let the Fisking begin ! Here's Cal Thomas:

Religion is a topic that makes most journalists uncomfortable, unless they can expose hypocrisy — as in preachers who speak of virtue while carrying on an affair — or outrage such as Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the doings at Barack Obama’s now former church in Chicago.

Let's divide journalism into reporting and editorializing.
The reason for the journalistic discomfort is that journalists are supposed to deal with facts, and only facts, when doing straight reporting.
Journalists are supposed to combine logic and opinions when editorializing.
But religion is an area where many of the "facts" are debatable, and logic is secondary to emotion, feeling, and tradition. Therefore, it's difficult to do straight reporting or editorializing about religion unless the thrust of the journalism is something like exposing hypocrisy or generating outrage.
For instance, amazing things happen during Pentecostal worship services. When taken at face value, these events are credited to the movings and workings of the Holy Spirit. Many Pentecostal worshippers believe that God, in the form of the Holy Spirit, enters their bodies and allows them to speak in foreign languages, have feelings of ecstasy, etc etc etc. Anyone attempting to "report" on this would have difficulty determining what is fact. Anyone attempting to "editorialize" on this, would probably be skeptical. But the True Believers would then claim that the journalists simply don't wish to transcend themselves or take a journey of personal and spiritual discovery.

Most journalists think taking religion seriously might require them to study the claims of various faiths and too many of them have already decided this might lead them to a faith higher than themselves or politics and they don’t wish to take such a journey of personal discovery.

Yeah, that's what it would sound like.

That is too bad, because such an attitude exposes one of the main gaps between most Americans — who believe in God — and most journalists, who don’t.

At this point, Cal does a bit of equivocating. Most of the time when we say "equivocate", we mean "to use intentionally misleading language". But in the rhetorical sense, To Equivocate is to toggle back and forth between two different meanings of the same word as if they meant the same thing.
The Americans surveyed above who believe in God are referenced as if they're a unified block.
That ain't the case. Muslims, who believe in Allah, generally take offense to being lumped in with the Jewish devotees of Yahweh. Many Christians believe that God is not one, but three. Others see God as a life force, or the driving energy behind the universe, like Paul Tillich's "The Ground Of Our Being" concept.
Either way, our beliefs in God aren't all the same.

An exception is Chicago Sun-Times columnist Cathleen Falsani, who interviewed Obama in 2004 for her book, “The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People “and asked him specific questions about his religious beliefs.
“I’m rooted in the Christian tradition,” said Obama, who has declared himself a Christian. But then he adds something that most Christians will see as (gasp) universalism: “I believe there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”

Obama could've quoted some Saint Paul at this point: "Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." (Rom. 5:18-19)
Or Obama could've continued by simply stating "I refuse to believe that God is creating people by the billions, simply to torture them forever for non-belief."

Falsani correctly brings up John 14:6 (and how many journalists would know such a verse, much less ask a question based on it?) in which Jesus says of Himself, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
That sounds pretty exclusive, but Obama says it depends on how this verse is heard.

Mr. Obama is correct on this point. Not only does it depend on how the verse is heard, it depends on whether Jesus really said it. According to the near unanimous opinions of the Biblical scholars in The Jesus Seminar, Jesus didn't say it.
Americans not only have widely divergent beliefs about God, they have diverse beliefs about scriptural authority.

According to Falsani, Obama thinks that “all people of faith — Christians, Jews, Muslims, animists, everyone — know the same God.” (her words)

Cool. Does this mean we can stop killing each other?

If that is so, Jesus wasted his time coming to Earth and he certainly did not have to suffer the pain of rejection and crucifixion if there are ways to God other than through Himself.

Only if the entire universe has to conform to the belief system you grew up with, Cal. One of my favorite theologians, a guy named Culver Nelson, has hypothesized that Jesus simply taught love and compassion and stood up to authority. This got him killed. The substitutionary atonement business got projected onto Jesus after the fact. Click here for details.

Here’s Obama telling Falsani, “The difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that if people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior, they’re going to hell.” Falsani adds, “Obama doesn’t believe he, or anyone else, will go to hell. But he’s not sure he’ll be going to heaven, either.”

OK, from what I've read here and elsewhere, George W. Bush believes that other people will go to hell, and he's going to heaven. Forever. Barack Obama doesn't believe that anyone is going to hell, and Obama isn't sure he's going to heaven.
Think about that a few minutes, and let me know which person you'd trust with the nuclear football.

Here’s Obama again: “I don’t presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die."

The rarest of all commodities: A politician telling the truth for a print publication.....

"When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like I’ve been a good father to them, and I see that I am transferring values that I got from my mother and that they’re kind people and that they’re honest people, and they’re curious people, that’s a little piece of heaven.”

Tucking in your daughters, being a good father, kindness, honesty, curiosity - those attributes are worth more than every creed, dogma, and doctrine ever invented.

Any first-year seminary student could deconstruct such “works salvation” and wishful thinking.

I believe that condemning your enemies to eternal torture and rewarding yourself with eternal bliss is "wishful thinking". Wishful thinking for sadists. But that's just me.
One thing I've noticed, though....you're correct that first-year evangelical college seminary students would probably deconstruct this as "works salvation". Willingness to do so tapers off at the Doctoral level, though. It's difficult to study Church History, Biblical Origins, and Textual Criticism at that level and see these little debates the same way.

Obama either hasn’t read the Bible, or if he has, doesn’t believe it if he embraces such thin theological gruel.

I suspect that Obama has read some Bible. I suspect that Obama "believes" the Bible is worthwhile. But I suspect that Obama has read some other books, books that lead him to believe that the Bible was created by a small group in a small place by people who had no idea that God just might like other people too, and that their enemies weren't necessarily God's enemies.
These people remind me of Cal Thomas.

Obama can call himself anything he likes, but there is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian and Obama doesn’t meet that requirement.

A clear requirement? One clear requirement? Does one have to be baptized? Does one have to receive the Last Rites from a priest? Does one have to accept the doctrines given by the angel Moroni to Joseph Smith? Become a member of a Church Of Christ or some other restorationist denomination?

One cannot deny central tenets of the Christian faith, including the deity and uniqueness of Christ as the sole mediator between God and Man and be a Christian.

No, if Bob Barr can sponsor the Defense Of Marriage act and oppose all medical marijuana laws and still be called a Libertarian, then we can call Barack Obama a Christian.

Such people do have a label applied to them in Scripture. They are called a “false prophet.”

I prefer the term "Whited Sepulchres", but that's just me.
The best rebuttal I know of for this nonsense, if we're going to go Biblical, can be found in Wikipedia's "False Prophet" entry. None of these scriptures remind me of Barack Obama. But if you can read those verses without thinking of Benny Hinn, John Hagee, or Oral Roberts, then you're not watching enough religious programming.

I hope some national journalist or commentator with knowledge of such things asks Obama about this and doesn’t let him get away with re-writing Scripture to suit his political ends.

People have gotten away with re-writing scripture for 2,000 years.
I hope some readers with knowledge of such things will e-mail Cal Thomas about this, and not let him get away with spiritualizing politics to suit his political ends.

The world was our oyster

If you think our tendency toward nation-building is out of control now, check out this map. It was apparently drawn sometime in 1942 as the outgrowth of FDR's "Four Freedom's" speech - an address that I used as a jumping-off point for this post.

Looking back on it, the arrogance is astounding.

It takes a little while to download, but is worth the wait. You can click to zoom in or out.

Check out bullet-point number 26.

Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root - Non Factors?

Stuart Rothenberg, who writes The Rothenberg Report for Roll Call magazine, asks "Will Bob Barr And The Libertarians Be A Factor In The Presidential Race?"

Discouraging stuff, in need of rebuking.

Dr. Ralph, whose comments on 3rd parties can be found on almost every post I've done about Barr (click Bob Barr's name below), believes that 3rd parties can't resist the temptation to put a "sorehead" at the top of their ticket. The sorehead wants either revenge or attention; the 3rd party wants some name recognition. And attention. Because they're soreheads.

Discouraging stuff, in need of rebuking.

I'm still going to attend the Libertarian Party meetings, mostly because I've not found any other group whose beliefs about how the world should work so closely resemble mine. Plus, they're great people, interesting to talk to, and one day they just might nominate some people who can be a factor. I'm going to do what I can to support some of their candidates at the local level.

But Bob Freakin' Barr?

I Think I Can Live Without Books

Damon W. Root, of Reason magazine, has an interesting little nugget in this month's issue. It's called "I Cannot Live Without Books".

Writing from the annual publishing industry brouhaha BookExpo America, which is being held this year in Los Angeles, New York Times reporter Edward Wyatt chronicles the fear and resentment sparked by electronic reading gadgets such as Amazon's Kindle. Have e-book buyers forsaken the physical originals? "We don't see people buying both versions," one publishing executive told Wyatt. "I think there is almost a one-to-one cannibalization."For a more optimistic, or at least more idiosyncratic case for the printed word, the great urban historian Luc Sante offers this gem at the end of a long, discursive Wall Street Journal essay on the endless book collecting that has shaped and dominated his life:

I would very much miss books as material objects were they to disappear. The tactility of books assists my memory, for one thing. I can't remember the quote I'm searching for, or maybe even the title of the work that contains it, but I can remember that the book is green, that the margins are unusually wide, and that the quote lies two-thirds of the way down a right-hand page. If books all appear as nearly identical digital readouts, my memory will be impoverished.

The comment field on all of Reason's online articles are usually instructive and entertaining.
My favorite of this batch is in response to remembering that "the book is green, the margins are wide, and the quote is two-thirds down the page...."
A commenter named Austin suggested using CTRL-F.

Sometime soon I'm going to go way out on a limb and put all of my CD's on an iPod, or an MP3 player, or whatever the heck it is the kids use these days. My child hasn't bought a CD in two years, but my bedroom is covered with them. I think it's a matter of trust, since I've lost so much stuff with computer crashes.

If they ever come up with long-lasting batteries for a Kindle or its Sony equivalent, 90% of my books are going away.

Black Jack, Missouri

Black Jack, Missouri, the town that would've turned away Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus.

Click here for details.

Hat Tip to Radley Balko of Reason magazine and The Agitator Blog.

QUEERS AND DYKES ARE GONNA GET MARRIED ! ! ! so don't worry about anything else

And so it begins.....
When California recently lifted the ban on gay marriage, it gave Republicans their first ray of sunshine in a long, long time.

This discussion will take the place of Iraq, socialized medicine, ANWR, free trade, tax rates, and just about every other vital issue.
Motherhood and the flag and Americas families will be invoked. Old Testament prophets and New Testament rabbis and 21st century witch doctors will be quoted at length. Priests, preachers, Imams, and Christian Science Reading Room attendants will appear on CNN and Fox News. Their words will be solemnly analyzed for their impact on the upcoming election.

Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission will be shown uncensored on The O'Reilly Factor, strenuously digging platitudes from his nether regions.

What would happen if gay and lesbian couples were allowed to have the same kinds of multiple marriages that John McCain, Dr. Phil, Newt Gingrich, Ted Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan experienced? Would the world spin off its axis if gays and lesbians could enter a sacred and holy matrimonial state like the one recently savored by Britney Spears? Even if Britney's only lasted for two and a half days?

The libertarian concept of "no harm, no foul" should be the guiding light here.

This will become a hot-button wedge issue only if we let it become a hot-button wedge issue.

It's going to become the #1 issue in the campaign, isn't it?