Cal Thomas thinks 70% of you are heretics

A few weeks ago I dissected a Cal Thomas editorial where he stated that Barack Obama is not a Christian.

The comment field now has 47 entries. That's not a lot for Salon.com, but for this site? It's like a Russian novel. My friend Dr. Ralph has requested that a bound, gold-leaf copy be printed for each contributor. Go there. Read. Marvel. We are an opinionated tribe, aren't we?

Thomas's argument was that there is only one way to interpret Christianity: His way.

As best I can tell, Obama's religious beliefs about religious inclusiveness can be summarized as follows: If there is such a thing as a just and loving Creator, this Creator didn't restrict his revelation to a small tribe in the Middle East, and then damn everyone else to eternal torture.

There was a brief internet flare-up about Cal Thomas's editorial, and that was the end of it. (I can promise you that as we approached November the Republicans were planning to trot out every theological statement Obama's ever made.)

But not so fast..... The Times, They Are A' Changing. Look at the latest finding that Thomas has unearthed. This is from the Fox News website.

June 24th, 2008 12:44 PM Eastern
Do They Think Jesus Was a Liar?

By Cal ThomasSyndicated Columnist/FOX News Contributor
I am shocked and appalled over a newly published survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. It finds most Americans believe there are many ways to salvation besides their own faith. Most disturbing of all is the majority of self-identified evangelical Christians who believe this.

I was shocked also. Much like I was shocked the first time I got a winning lottery ticket.
But appalled? Nope. Not even close. Downright giddy would describe me after I read it.

Here's how the survey worked, according Jonathan Morris, another Fox contributor : Americans of assorted religious affiliation were asked to choose one of the following two sentences as coming closer to representing their views:

1) My religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life,
2) OR: many religions can lead to eternal life.

Seventy percent of all responders chose answer #2, including fifty-seven percent of Evangelicals, Eighty-five percent of Mainline Protestants, and Seventy-five percent of Catholics.

Granted, there's a lot of "slop" in a survey like this one. Are Baptists and Methodists two different religions? How about Roman Catholicism vs. Eastern Orthodox?
Here's Cal again:

Apparently they must think Jesus was a liar, or mistaken, when he said: “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but by me.” Look it up. This theological ignorance is a product of several things. It is surely a product of biblical illiteracy by people who don’t read, or selectively read scripture. It is also fallout from the political correctness vice that says you are intolerant if you believe anything to be true, because people who have another truth, or no truth, might feel bad and experience rejection.

It's not that they don't read, or selectively read scripture. It's that they take it seriously enough to read some things besides scripture. They read about the origins of scripture. They read about the old battles regarding what is and what isn't scripture. Some of them get downright obsessed with it, and discover that scripture changed and evolved over the years.

And they might have a few friends who grew up in a different place with different traditions, yet know them to be pretty good people all the same. Perhaps they're even better people than Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker and Ted Haggard and unhhh me.

People aren't as geographically isolated as they once were. This makes it harder to eternally condemn those who were born elsewhere.

If they feel rejection now, wait until they hear “away from me, I never knew you.”
Tolerance is a good thing. People should tolerate and respect people of different faiths, or no faith. But watering down your own set of professed doctrines in order to appeal to the lowest spiritual common denominator is akin to Peter denying Christ three times.

But Cal, sometimes you learn a few things.

The Presbyterian church used to be identified with the loathsome concept of Infant Damnation. Mark Twain once quipped that a Presbyterian without that particular doctrine would be like "a dog on the train that couldn't be identified because it had lost its tag." There were some in the fundamentalist camp who opposed this "watering down of professed doctrines" but Twain sarcastically suggested "that they give up the comforts of Infant Damnation, and try to bear it as best they can."

(BTW, you could still hear the doctrine professed and taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary as recently as 1984. Dr. Boyd Hunt. Systematic Theology.)

If there are many paths to heaven, Jesus suffered and died for nothing.

I believe that Jesus suffered and died because he stood up to the government. Read more about that opinion by clicking here.

He could have stayed in heaven, sent down a book of sayings and avoided crucifixion.

And if God/Jesus wanted to "save" the world the way that Cal Thomas believes he wants it saved? That's probably what he would've done.

Orthodox Christians have always believed – and their Bible teaches them — there is only one path to heaven and it is through Jesus Christ and him alone.

But orthodoxy, whether it's in theology, military strategy, computer code, or piano technique, is something that develops over a long, long culling process. Things are tried. Things fail. Votes are taken. Motions are defeated. And whether Cal Thomas knows about it or not, that's exactly how his "orthodox" Christian views were developed.

One can believe whatever one wishes, but you can’t be considered a Christian without believing in this fundamental doctrine.

I've got to disagree with that. So does 70% of the religiously affiliated United States.

Christian churches have a lot of work to do in addressing biblical illiteracy, ignorance and, yes, heresy, in their midst.

I agree. A good starting point would be to read the best book ever on Biblical literacy, Biblical origins, and Biblical reliability: The Five Gospels, written by the infamous Jesus Seminar.

They might want to pay more attention to fixing what’s gone wrong among their members before expending too much energy on politics and politicians.

Yeah. The members aren't as easy to manipulate as they used to be. Wonder why?

It's because 70% of us are now Biblically literate.

From The Jihadist Safety Consultant

To: All Employees
Fr: Rickle Abu-Noir, Jihadist Safety Consultant
Re: Recent Accidents

As many of you know, we have had a series of preventable accidents in the last few days. Both situations were due to employees failing to follow established procedure.
We have security video of the first mishap.
In this accident, a group of employees are attempting to bury an IED near a well-travelled highway.
Note that the employees are not wearing their safety glasses. The camels in the background are not properly equipped with seat belts, nor are there any chocks nearby to keep the camels from sliding forward. And is anyone in this video wearing his back brace? I don't think so.
All of these regulations were covered during orientation, and the training records are part of each employee's personnel file.

Accidents like this one are the primary cause of skyrocketing insurance premiums. And turbans. (That's what passes for humor in the Safety Consultant field.)
If any employees believe that Allah will reward these accident victims with 72 virgins, they are mistaken.
Touching the red wire to the red wire is not martyrdom, but suicide.
Folks, it's not martyrdom unless you take an Infidel with you.

Please reset your "This Shop Has Worked ____ Days Without A Lost Time Accident" calendars back to zero.

The next accident was clearly caused by using the wrong tool for the job.
No matter how many photographers are nearby, no matter how patiently you've waited for CNN to get the lighting right, you should always wear your protective heat shields when burning an American flag. And policy 35-3-C-057-(b) specifically states that American flags should not be lit by using table matches, cigarette lighters, or any other improvised ignition systems.
The policy clearly states that only blowtorches are to be used.

People, the point of the exercise is to burn the flag, not to look good doing it. Get the job done, and move on to the next project.

Many of our employees apparently believe that the point of flag burning is to be seen and admired by co-workers. In the photo below, try to calculate the number of man-hours lost to this one operation:

Then ask yourself, where are everyone's I.D. badges? Where is Mahmoud's safety helmet? And who said it was ok to have that kid in the workplace?

In this picture, taken a few seconds later, the flames have spread to Mahmoud's shoulder. This led to yet another disappointment. None of the factory inspections were up-to-date; therefore the only fire extinguisher was in the nearest village, eight miles away. My subsequent investigation revealed that it was last serviced and recharged in 1987.

In the final photograph, the flames are engulfing Mahmoud's face.

His co-workers eventually put out the fire with a combination of dirt, sand, camel manure, and blankets. When I visited the hospital to complete the Accident Reports (which, BTW, were turned in before noon the next day), he was resting comfortably.

Please allow me to be blunt here. Mahmoud has been horribly disfigured, and unless he can figure out a way to die while killing infidels, he's had his last virgin. The man needs to wear a burkha.

The last few days have been a disappointment. Please remember the primary goal of our organization: Martyrdom, Martyrdom, Martyrdom.

But how will we ever succesfully kill ourselves if we keep having all of these preventable accidents?

Let's hope July is a better month.

Sincerely,

Rickle Abu-Noir

Jihadist Safety Consultant

I Can't Believe People Still Fall For This, Part 2

Don't bother reading these unless you're here as the result of a key word search you got from an email. Seriously. Don't read any further. You're wasting your time.

I post these because they're good for a couple of hundred key word search hits per week.

These are the scam letters I've received since the last time I posted the scam letters I had received.

I see you're still reading. Go away, unless you're here from a key word search. Leave. You're going to be disappointed.

They're variations on a con artist stunt called "The Spanish Prisoner". (Playwright David Mamet once worked it into the plot of a good Steve Martin movie.) Wikipedia has the most concise explanation of how the scam works.
In most of these, they want access to your checking account, so they can transfer the money into the U.S.
First, a dribble of cash will enter your account. Then all of your money will disappear.

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

Here's the first one. Note that she's at risk, and doesn't want to go against the Bible by "having a child outside her matrimonial home". Everything is done for the widows and orphans....

From Mrs Jenifer BruceN[38 Rue Des Martyrs Cocody Abidjan,Cote d'Ivoire
ATTN:DEAREST ONE OF GOD

I am the above named person from Kuwait. I am married to Mr.Abram Bruce, who worked with Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast for nine years before he died in the year 2004. We were married for eleven years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days.
Before his death we were both born again Christian. Since his death I decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $2. 5 Million (Two Million Five Hundred U.S. Dollars) in the bank here in Abidjan in suspense account.
Presently, the fund is still with the bank. Recently, my Doctor told me that i have serious sickness which is cancer problem. The one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Having known my condition I decided to donate this fund to a church or individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein. I want a church that will use this fund for orphanages, widows, propagating the word of God and to endeavour that the house of God is maintained.
The Bible made us to understand that blessed is the hand that giveth. I took this decision because I don’t have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians and I don’t want my husband’s efforts to be used by unbelievers. I don’t want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way. This is why I am taking this decision. I am not afraid of death hence i know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says that the Lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace.
I don’t need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health hence the presence of my husband’s relatives is around me always I don't want them to know about this development. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the bank here in Abidjan. I want you and the church to always pray for me because the Lord is my shepherd. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Whoever that wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and Truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life.
Contact me on the above e-mail address for more information’s, any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another church or individual for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I Stated herein.
Hoping to receive your reply.
Remain blessed in the Lord. Yours in Christ,
Mrs Jenifer Bruce

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Here's the same thing, but different name, different place, different Bible verses, and different grammar....

From Mrs Susan Morgan

N�[38 Rue Des Martyrs Cocody Abidjan,Cote d'Ivoire

ATTNDEAREST ONE OF GOD I am the above named person from Kuwait. I am married to Mr.Abram Morgan, who worked with Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast for nine years before he died in the year 2004. We were married for eleven years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days. Before his death we were both born again Christian. Since his death I decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $2. 5 Million (Two Million Five Hundred U.S. Dollars) in the bank here in Abidjan in suspense account. Presently, the fund is still with the bank. Recently, my Doctor told me that i have serious sickness which is cancer problem. The one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Having known my condition I decided to donate this fund to a church or individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein. I want a church that will use this fund for orphanages, widows, propagating the word of God and to endeavour that the house of God is maintained. The Bible made us to understand that blessed is the hand that giveth. I took this decision because I don’t have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians and I don’t want my husband’s efforts to be used by unbelievers. I don’t want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way. This is why I am taking this decision. I am not afraid of death hence i know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says that the Lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace. I don’t need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health hence the presence of my husband’s relatives is around me always I don't want them to know about this development. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the bank here in Abidjan. I want you and the church to always pray for me because the Lord is my shepherd. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Whoever that wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and Truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life. Contact me on the above e-mail address for more information’s, any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another church or individual for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I Stated herein.

Hoping to receive yourreply.

Remain blessed in the Lord.

Yours in Christ,

Mrs susan morgan

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This one wants you to get worked up over the gross sexism and unfairness of life in the 3rd world.

With Due respect Dear,
I humbly write to solicit for your partnership and assistance in the transfer and investment of my inheritance fund USD$17.5M from my late father who died mysteriously last Dec. It was very evident that he was poisoned to death. In my culture, when a man dies, if he does not have a male child, the brothers shares his property leaving both the wife and the daughters empty handed including the house they live in. This is the exact case with me as I am the only daughter of my father. I lost my mother when I was barely a year old and my father refused to re-marry another wife because he felt solely responsible for my mother's death. This is so because he concentrated much on his businesses that he rarely pays attention to domestic affairs. He was always travelling taking care of his businesses that he did not notice when my mother took ill. He thought it was a minor illness and was ignorant of this. My mother on her own resorted to self-medication. It was not until the illness degenerated that my father took my mother to hospital where she was diagnosed to find out that hypatitis had eaten deep into her blood stream. She didn't last long before she died. This happened when I was barely a year old. Based on this, my father could not forgive himself easily because of it and said he was responsible for her death as he could have saved her if only he had paid attention to the things at home rather than concentrating much on his businesses. Despite all entreaties by friends and relatives, he refused to remarry but ensured that I had everything that I wanted. It was as a result of this that he made me the next of kin to his fund deposit with the bank and stated that in the event of any eventuality, I should have a direct access to the fund only when I am 24 years of age otherwise, I should have a guardian/partner intercede on my behalf for the release of the funds to me. Unfortunately, he died late last year and I am 21 years of age currently. This is why I have contacted you to serve as a guardian to me and as my foreign partner for the transfer and investment of the fund overseas My uncles does not know about the fund because they had already taken my father's houses and other properties because I am a girl and they said I do not have rights for any property. They have requested to have my father's bank papers but I simply told them that I do not know where he kept them. The younger brother took the house in the village while the houses in the town were sold out they shared the proceed they got from the sale. Right now, I am with a friend of mine and do sincerely want to travel out of my country. This can only happen when I have secured the release and transfer of the funds in the bank. This why it is important that we have a plan on the type of lucrative business that we can invest the funds on. I had at various times had discussions with the director of international remittance unit of the bank where my father deposited the funds and I was assured that once, I have someone who would be willing to receive the funds on my behalf, they shall commence all proceedings to effect the release and transfer of the funds into the person's designated account. Now, that you have signified your interest to partner with me, it would only be very necessary if you contact the bank and request for the release and transfer of my inheritance fund into your nominated account for the purpose of investment and to further have me come over to your country to continue with my studies. I shall be giving you the bank's contact details as soon as I hear back from you so that you will go ahead and contact the bank.
Your urgent response will be appreciated,
Pls contact me with my yahoo email address for security reason(m.abdullah88@yahoo.fr)
Talk to you the more.
Sincerely,
Mariam abdullah

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And I received this one after this email was published.....

COMMONWEALTH OFFICE
DEBT REDEMPTION VETTING DEPARTMENT
SW1A 2AH LONDON , UNITED KINGDOM .
PHONE: 44-792-402-3825
FAX: 44-700-609-6491
EMAIL: cwealthlon@hotmail.com
FROM: MR. FREDDIE JOHN
RE: SUCCESSFUL RELEASE OF YOUR APPROVED FUNDS
The Commonwealth Office is particularly surprised by constant petitions from
many beneficiaries in various countries complaining long-delays on their
payments. And, that they wasted much money in the pursuit of their
entitlement/Fund. Also, there are cases whereby two or three people are applying
for the same Funds.
Therefore, we have resolved and instructed that all Funds shall be released
through maximum supervision of the Commonwealth Audits and Financial Management
Authority (CAFMA). We will forward the required information to you a soon as
your reply is received by this office.
Congratulations in Advance.
Yours faithfully,
MR.FREDDIE JOHN

I caught this one in my spambox on 7-14-08.

THIS IS FOR YOUR ATTENTION.
We wish to notify you again that you were listed as a beneficiary to the total
sum of(Ten Million Six Hundred Thousand British Pounds) in the codicil and last
testament of the deceased.(Name now withheld since this is our second letter to
you). We contacted you because you bear the surname identity and therefore can
present you as the beneficiary to the inheritance.
We therefore reckoned that you could receive these funds as you are qualified by
your name identity. All the legal papers will be processed in your acceptance.
In your acceptance of this deal, we request that you kindly forward to us your
letter of acceptance; your current telephone and fax numbers and a forwarding
address to enable us file necessary documents at our high court probate division
for the release of this sum of money.
Please contact me via my private email: so that we can get this done
immediately.
Please send the details and call me to discuss more.
Yours Faithfully,
John Maxwell.
Telephone +447 0319 52662.
Cowley Road,
Cambridge, CB4 0WS
United Kingdom.

Ok, here's one from July 18th, 2008:


Dearest One, With Due Respect And Humanity, I was compelled to write to you under a humanitarian ground. My name is Mrs Lizy Joseph. I was born in Hawall?Kuwait. I am married to Mr Jerry Joseph who worked with Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast for nine years before he died in the year 2003.We were married for eleven years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days Before his death we were both born again Christian. Since his death I decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $3.6 Million in a Bank here in Abidjan. And Recently, My Doctor told me that I would not last for the next six months due to my cancer problem (cancer of the lever and stroke). Presently this money is still in the Bank. Having known my condition I am in need of a HONEST Hearted Individual Christian or Church that i will utilize this fund the way I am going to instruct herein. I want somebody that will use this fund according to the desire of my late.husband to help Lessprivilaged people, orphanages,widows and propagating the word of God. I took this decision because I don抰 have any child that will inherit this fund, And I don抰 want in away where this money will be used in an unGodly way. This is why I am taking this decision to hand you over this Fund. I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going.I want you to always remember me in your daily prayers because of my up coming Cancer Surgery. Write back to me as soon as possible because any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another person for this same purpose, Hoping to read from you soon. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the Bank in Abidjan. I will also issue you an authorisation letter that will prove you the present beneficiary of this fund.

God bless you as you listing to the voice of reasoning, May God Bless You,Mrs Lizy Joseph.

From July 26, 2008
Good Day. With the hope that you are okay and doing fine, this message could be strange but is real if you pay some attention to it. My name is Mr.John kwame Ivory coast national. I inherited the sum of $9,000,000.00 USD (Nine Million us dollar) from my late parents.But l am faced with a problem.on the banks documents for the next of kin, my late father appended a clause stating that:I the next of kin, must attain the age of 35 years, before taking full control of the bank account; But, in the event of war and natural disasters in Ivory Coast, the bank should honour a transfer request from me which must be for the safety of the funds; And in this case, I must have an investment manager outside Africa, and the money should not be transferred to any African country. I am not yet 35 years, but Ivory Coast is not a safe country at this time because of the war.We have since relocated to Ghana a neighbouring country.I want the bank to transfer my money out of Ivory Coast, but the bank is insisting that l fulfill the conditions put down by my late father. Since I have established ownership of the fund, the bank has transfered the fund to Ghana upon my request and insistence, but still refused to released the money to me.This is actually the main reason why l am looking for an investment manager. I would like you to be my investment manager. When you become my investment manager, l would instruct the bank to transfer my money to the country of my investment manager, so that you would be able to help me invest the money wisely. If you would be my investment manager or you receive the deposit on my behalf and help me to providing a reliable genuine trade or company in your country where I can invest this fund immediately to save for the future of my family. please write me as soon as possible. percentage is negotiable upon your reply.Please be mindful that the fund is of no criminal origin. The transfer and investment is necessitated due to war and natural disasters in Ivory Coast, Please let me know by returned phone number/fax if we could be of some help in financing this project. My regards, Mr.John kwame

Here's one from August 4th,

Mrs Esther PrakashP.O.Box: 20581, Safat 13066 Safat Kuwait
Dearest in Christ, Greetings in the Name above all names, Jesus Christ our Lord and saviour, I am Mrs Esther Prakash. I am married to Mr.Prakash Anderson who worked with Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast for many years before he died in the year 2005.We were married without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days. Before his death we were both born again Christian. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of (($2.600.000.00) Two million six hundred thousand dollar in a Bank in Ivory Coast . Presently, this money is still in bank. Recently, my Doctor told me that I would not last for the next Eight months due to cancer problem. The one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Having known my condition I decided to donate this fund to a charity organization or individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein. I want an organization/person that will use this fund for orphanages, school and church, widows, propagating the word of God and to endeavour that the house of God is maintained, Isaiah 56:7 For my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. I took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians and I don't want my husband's efforts to be used by unbelievers. I don't want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way. This is why I am taking this decision. I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says that "the lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace". I don't need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health hence and the presence of my husband's relatives are around me always. I don't want them to know about this development. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the Bank. I await your soonest response with your full information, example.Your full name.......................Address.....................................Age...........................................A copy of your int'l passport or ID card............. I will use the above information to obtain an authority letter that will prove you the new beneficiary of this fund from the Royal Court of Kuwait.I want you to always pray for me because the lord is my shepherd. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Any delay in your reply will give me room searching another church or individual for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I Stated herein. Hoping to receive your reply with the above information. Remain blessed in the Lord Take care,
Yours Sister in Christ
Mrs Esther Prakash

And a slightly more sophisticated one from August 13, 2008

James Thomson & Associates.
14 Queens Drive South West London
England
United Kigdom.
Dear Sir/Madam
We have our presence in all major cities in London.
However, we are writing you on the strength of a directive from one of
our clients, a 56-year-old widow,who desires to invest twenty eight
million united states dollars (US$28,000,000.00) overseas preferably
in asia or america.
She has dircted us to look fo a viable investment portfolio
(opportunity), partnership or an individual who can be trusted to
invest or oversee the investment of her twenty eight million united
states dollars(US$28,000,000.00) in america or asia. it is important
you note the source of this fund legitimate as our client has provided
sufficient evidnce to support this claim.
Since our operations are limited to europe and our experience in the
investment portfolios(opportunity) in america and asia is shallow, as
we are not conversant with the law in america and asia concerning such
a huge investment.
in our quest to find a valid and viable investment portfolio in
america and asia inlinewith our client's directive, we decided to
contact you, we got your companies contact information from the
internet, however you will be expected to provide us with a background
information concerning your self and your companies to enable us make
an evaluation and advice our client on which line of action to take.
Our client has proposed a commission/percentage of the
investment(US$28,000,000,00) for your services, however the said
percentage is negotiable.
We look forward to your immediate response,
Yours Faithfully
For:- James Thomson & Associate
James Thomson

What's In Your Anti-Library?

My friends that I've never met, Soob and Munzenberg over at Soobdujour, did an interesting post a few months back. It was called "What's In Your Anti-Library?"

I have waaaay too many books in my house. Mrs. Whited Sepulchre occasionally insists on a periodic weeding and pruning of them, both for aesthetic reasons and to avoid potential problems with the foundation shifting. I have some valuable stuff. There are some first edition Twains and Faulkners, lots of other signed copies from my previous career in Literary Retail, and I've got a loaner Geneva Bible that's probably worth upwards of $50,000.00

But those aren't the most valuable books that I own. The true value lies in the books that I haven't read. These are called the Anti-Library.

Here's the point of an Anti-Library, according to Soob and Munzenberg:

Zenpundit mentions in his comments section a great passage from 'The Black Swan':

"The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates vistors into two categories: those who react with ‘Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?’ and others - a very small minority- who get the point that a private library is not an ego boosting appendage but a research tool.

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as (you can possibly afford to) put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly.

Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call the collection of unread books an antilibrary."

So, dear faithful readers, my question for you is this.... What are the unread books in your library? Why are they unread? And what do you hope to one day learn from them? Here are some of the books in my Anti-Library.

1) The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories. Edited by Robert B. Strassler, translated by Andrea L. Purvis.
This thing is so densely mapped, illustrated, cross-referenced and footnoted that it's not really meant to be read straight through. I'll never finish it, and I love it as much as anything I own. There are hundreds of incidents in this book that are just waiting to be given the same cinematic treatment given to Battle of Thermopylae in the recent animated film "The 300". Despite being written 1700 years ago, you can still hear a distinct voice coming through the years and the translation. Amazing. Reading it straight through would be like too much candy.

2) Mark Twain's "The Gilded Age" and "The American Claimant". These two are about a larger than life, get-rich-quick Twain character named Colonel Sellers. I'm a Twain fanatic and own several 1st editions, as stated above, plus I have all the reference works, biographies, etc. I've probably read every book the man wrote at least twice. But I'm saving these two for my old age, especially if I come down with a severe illness - the idea being that I won't let go of life without finishing all of Twain's books.
Here's one of the reviews from Amazon, by someone named Kerry Walters: "I recently went back to reread "The Gilded Age". The more things change, the more they stay the same! Twain's dissection of unscrupulous tycoons wanting to get richer, corrupt senators jumping in bed with the tycoons by cutting them sweet political deals, and get-rich crazy middle class types who kiss up for their cut of the pie could've all been taken from last night's news."
On second thought, I might start reading these tonight.

3) "Pylon" by William Faulkner. About 20 years ago, I purchased a copy of Joseph Blotner's two-volume Faulkner biography. While reading the biography, every time I got to a Faulkner letter, short story, novel, or screenplay in the biography, I read the letter, short story, novel, or screenplay in question all the way through before continuing any further with the biography. It was a two-year project. But I didn't read Pylon, and I can't remember why. Perhaps it's because I hate closure. (When I finished reading all that Faulkner, it took me almsot two years to re-learn how to speak English.)

4) The "Left Behind" series, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Just joking.

5) HTML 4 for Dummies. Not joking. Any time you see something on this site besides straight unpunctuated typing, it's because of this book. You can't imagine the pride I felt when, for the first time, I was able to post a YouTube video. I've actually changed the size of some pictures. And that Blockquote thing I did for the Black Swan quote up there?.... pretty impressive, huh?
This isn't the kind of book you finish. It's the kind of book you throw across the room when you forget to properly close off a set of H2 parameters, and you realize that you've posted an entire Blog Carnival in headline sized type. Scares the crap out of the weiner dogs.

So I'd like to ask the following people for their favorite volumes in their Anti-Libraries. Some of you don't have a blog, so please respond in the comment field below. (For a good sampling, look at the comment field in Soobdujour.) If you have your own site, and feel that this idea is worth a post, please do so and link back to this site. Or you can blow the thing off.

I'd really like to hear from:

Dr. Liz at Zbeth Journall Dr. Liz is in a class with me at our church. She finishes one mystery novel per day, and reviews it at her blog.

Pete at Cowtown Chronicles Pete, you're expected to be memorable, please don't disappoint.

I must include Dr. Ralph. BTW, Dr. Ralph, I saw your spousal companion at a meeting tonight, and she says you look at this site before you even speak to her in the mornings. I...don't...really know....what to say....to that.

How about DG at TCU. DG doesn't have a site, but is now formally invited to type away in the comment field below. Ditto for JG from BBC.

GW at Wolf Howling should be interesting.

Whatever Her Name is at GrEaT sAtAn'S gIrLfRiEnD. When you get a chance, look at the "Favorite Books" section of her user profile. I just want to see if there's anything she hasn't read.

TomG, wherever and whoever you are, please comment below.

Durango Texas, you're invited. Haven't heard from you in a while, but I'm sure that will change during football season.

"Literal Anonymous", "Angry Anonymous", and "Hospital Anonymous", please write something to act as a counterbalance to Pete.

Francis at Food & Fort Worth, Suzette at Morning Coffee, Evening Wine, and all the other Eastsiders.... the world would like to hear from you.

Everyone else, what books have you bought but not opened? And why?

Caption This

I need a caption for this picture.

James Dobson, Barack Obama, and the latest heresy hunt

Dr. James Dobson, of "Focus On The Family", has grown weary of living outside the political limelight, so he's going to be attacking Barack Obama sometime Tuesday. He'll be claiming that Barack Obama has distorted the Bible, and if elected, will distort the Constitution.

The basis of this attack will be a speech that Obama made in 2006 to a liberal Christian group named "Call To Renewal".

According to the link above, Dr. Dobson will claim that Obama, a former constitutional law professor, has a "fruitcake" view of the constitution.

For anyone interested, I've posted Obama's entire speech here. It's a good one.

If the Dobson response to it goes online in a timely manner, I'll link it also.

Just for grins and giggles, here's a link to a previous Dobson jihad against Spongebob Squarepants, who Dr. Dobson thought favored a pro-homosexual, pro - gay and lesbian, pro -diversity worldview. (After all, Spongebob is often seen holding hands with Patrick the starfish.)

Many people will give Obama's religious views as much (if not more) scrutiny than his views on the economy, healthcare, Iraq, or Social Security.
Talk Radio junkies will hear and read about this all day Tuesday. I promise.
Just wanted to get ahead of the curve on this one.

Update from Tuesday, June 24th 7:00 p.m. Here is a link to the audio broadcast. I sat down with good intentions. I was going to type out the Internet's first transcript of this discussion between Dr. James Dobson and his right hand man, Tom Minnery.

My fingers wouldn't do it. They went on strike. They refused to type some of those sentences. And I don't think it'll ever be done. You couldn't outsource this horrific task to Burmese typhoon orphans. They'd turn up their noses and walk away, since they still have their pride. Lord have mercy, what a mess.

First, Dobson tries to get offended by Obama's statement about " if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's?"

They try to infer that Obama was equating Dr. James Dobson and Rev. Al Sharpton.

Well, he wasn't equating them, you dogmatic twits...

He was contrasting the two, portraying them as being on opposite ends of a very wide continuum.

Then they attack his percentages, and his statement that 70% of Americans identify with an organized religion. Their point is that Obama coulda said "Christian religion" instead of "organized religion". That was enough to send them running for the Smelling Salts.

It goes on from there. Mostly downhill. They get into why the Hebrew scriptures (also known as The Holy Word of God that is without error) don't apply in certain times and situations like....here and now. They talk constitutional law. They talk about religion vs. morality.

These guys are done. Finished. They and their ilk have had a shot at fixing things in government since the Reagan era, and they've been weighed in the balance and found wanting (to pull a quote from the Book of Daniel). The glory has departed (to yank a verse out of 2nd Samuel).

If anyone can email me a link to a transcript of this thing for future reference, I'll send $10 to the charity of your choice.

I don't think Barack Obama is ready to be President of The United States. If he were to enforce his stated economic policies, it would be disastrous. I think he's lived in an academic/government bubble for too long (read the article about Mr. Obama's Neighborhood in The Weekly Standard).

But on Church and State issues? General religion issues? Obama's my man. That speech he gave to the Call To Renewal group is borderline brilliant, and he probably had no idea it would eventually be broadcast all over the world.

The Republicans really need to think twice before they send out any more Witch Doctors of James Dobson's ilk to attack Obama.

That era is over.

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.
Technorati tags: carnival of the libertarians, blog carnival.

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.