Read my friggin' lips

Since the Presidential race is all about the economy now, might as well make a comparison between the two proposed tax plans. To be fair, I'll provide two links, one from a more conservative site and another from a more liberal site.

Do you prefer an uncontrollable, growth-oriented economy or do you prefer a controlled and secure, slow-moving economy? Do you prefer government's hands off the money (or as little as it should) or do you prefer government to control the money?

Research fast! You only have 4 days left!

A Supersession discussion on CNBC?

Ann Coulter discussed theological issues on TV that isn't easily understood by the masses. I don't want to make an indictment on people's intelligence, but not too many are educated in theology with its different terminology and its definitions. In an interview with Donny Deutsch on CNBC, she did not do well in defending the Biblical position on the Jewish-Christian relationship. She sounded so ill-informed about Christianity and it was clear to me that she was also influenced by more liberal theologians. I'm a fan of Coulter so to hear her fumble like this is disappointing. Here are some parts:

(Emphases by Foxnews.com. Parentheses mine.)

COULTER: Well, OK, take the Republican National Convention. People were happy. They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America, they —

DEUTSCH: Christian — so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: We should all be Christian?

COULTER: Yes. Would you like to come to church with me, Donny?

DEUTSCH: So I should not be a Jew, I should be a Christian, and this would be a better place?

(And that is one example of how NOT to invite someone to church!)
...
COULTER: No, we think — we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.

DEUTSCH: That isn't what I said, but you said I should not — we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or —

COULTER: Yeah.

(I admire people who are direct and I'm glad she answered succinctly, but she should have been more specific. She should have said, "No, we don't throw Judaism away, Jesus came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it. And besides, Judaism and Jewishness is cultural and does not have anything to do with how a person becomes a Christian."

...

DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn't really say that, did you?

COULTER: Yes. That is what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws. We know we're all sinners —

DEUTSCH: In my old days, I would have argued — when you say something absurd like that, there's no —

COULTER: What's absurd?

DEUTSCH: Jews are going to be perfected. I'm going to go off and try to perfect myself —

COULTER: Well, that's what the New Testament says.

(Ooh, ouch, never say "Jews need to be perfected" in a post-Holocaust world. The exact theological term is "fulfilled" or "completed." And even then, she had to make a huge qualifying explanation of what fulfilled means or else it would also be misunderstood. And she had to say that the NT talks about all mankind, including Jews, needing the perfection of Christ because we can't be perfect on our own. And then she would've had to say that Christ is the perfect one, not us.)
...

COULTER: No. I'm sorry. It is not intended to be. I don't think you should take it that way, but that is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews. We believe the Old Testament. As you know from the Old Testament, God was constantly getting fed up with humans for not being able to, you know, live up to all the laws. What Christians believe — this is just a statement of what the New Testament is — is that that's why Christ came and died for our sins. Christians believe the Old Testament. You don't believe our testament.

DEUTSCH: You said — your exact words were, "Jews need to be perfected." Those are the words out of your mouth.

COULTER: No, I'm saying that's what a Christian is.

DEUTSCH: But that's what you said — don't you see how hateful, how anti-Semitic —

COULTER: No!

DEUTSCH: How do you not see? You're an educated woman. How do you not see that?

COULTER: That isn't hateful at all.

DEUTSCH: But that's even a scarier thought. OK —

COULTER: No, no, no, no, no. I don't want you being offended by this. This is what Christians consider themselves, because our testament is the continuation of your testament. You know that. So we think Jews go to heaven. I mean (Jerry) Falwell himself said that, but you have to follow laws. Ours is "Christ died for our sins." We consider ourselves perfected Christians. For me to say that for you to become a Christian is to become a perfected Christian is not offensive at all.

(Ugh, once again she should have made the distinction between Judaism as being a culture and Christianity as being a decision regardless of culture. No, I'm not a perfected Jew. I have the inheritance of Abraham, the promise of Jesus, given to both the Jews and Gentiles, but the majority of Christians are Gentiles, not Jews. Fulfilled in Christ, yes, but Jewish, no. Jews who believe in Christ, now those are the fulfilled Jews. And following the Law isn't what God asks from anyone in order to get into heaven. As far as I can tell, Falwell wouldn't make the boneheaded error of saying that Jew or Gentile would go to heaven by following the Law. I'm sure he was a better theologian than that. If Coulter was so upfront about her Christianity, she should have said that it is only through faith in Jesus, His atoning sacrifice and victorious resurrection, that God sees as acceptable, nothing else. She seriously needs better training.)

...

As Christians, we have a message that is already a stumblingblock to the Jews. We have to communicate it well enough so that we don't give them a reason to reject our message. What we do, who we are, our attitude, our behavior, our bad misunderstanding of Biblical principles should take a backseat. If they are to reject at all, they should reject only Jesus Christ, not Jesus plus newbie Christian with a bad attitude. The Christian should be loving and truthful, that's it. Coulter did not represent Christ nor the Christian perspective well in the interview. We've all made the mistake of not representing Christ well, I know I have on several occasions. But because she's a public figure, she bears a greater responsibility for her words. I can only hope she makes up for it in some way in the future.

Sneaky Usurpations

"Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last."
- Ronald Reagan, October 27, 1964

I'll let Ronald "The Great Communicator" answer the question on Healthcare. This was done in 1961, supported by the American Medical Association.



A few quotes from the recording:

"Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program..."

"One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project..."

"All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man's working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it's a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay. And pretty soon your son won't decide, when he's in school, where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him where he will go to work and what he will do."

A few of his specific examples were old school, but the principles are still sound. Now compare those principles with the healthcare plans of McCain and Obama and see whose is less sneaky. Research quickly! There're only 11 days left.

PMABM Newsletter #9

Weigh in on this:
Fight Club for Geeks
The video is just below the article.

Some things to think about: Where do you draw the line between realistic training and animalistic brawling? Is there a line? How do you train for reality as safely as possible without taking away the "reality"? And it's good to train with improvised weapons, but is there a line to that as well, as in, when does it get just plain silly? Magazines are understandable, but toilet seats? Baking pans? Keyboards even?

Compare their group to the Dog Brothers. Here's the video from PMABM Newsletter #2. Which group do you prefer? Is one better than the other? What are some aspects that both share? This is a little harder: what are their differences? And is this truly reality training? When two (or more) fighters face each other for planned, ritualistic combat, does it prepare them for the surprise attack, which is what happens in real-life? Is it possible to blend the two in some kind of training exercise? Will self-defense training and sport training always be on two totally different worlds? Can you even consider their training as sport? And as I already stated: is it even self-defense?

Here are more videos from the Silicon Valley fight club.

12 Days till the Election!

This takes some time to watch, but I'll list it all down. Also, comments in parentheses by kathy of Conservative Thoughts.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, the liberals gave to me:

* Twelve senators failing (12 Democrats up for re-election in 2008)
* Eleven percent approval (Lowest rating ever)
* Ten paychecks burning (Because of Democrat record tax hike)
* Ninety thousand freezing (Amount of money found in Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-La.) freezer)
* No more secret ballots (Big Labor payback for union bosses)
* $700 billion in new spending (Paid for with the largest tax hike in history)
* Six troop funding cuts (Playing political theater with the safety and security of our nation and our troops)
* Hillary’s Woodstock Museum! (What better way to spend a million dollars?)
* Four bucks a gallon (Not a single energy bill passed to help lower gas prices)
* Al Franken ranting (Angry Hollywood liberal)
* Two liberal Udalls (Mark in Colorado and Tom in New Mexico)
* And a tax hike for every family! (Thanks Democrats)

I'll have a few of my own 12 Days as well.

And in the darkness, bind them

I have now crowned The History channel as the new Discredit the Bible channel. Earlier this week I saw a documentary on the Lost Books of the Bible. The main book in question was the Testament of Solomon. In it, the narrator referred to the account of Jesus casting out a demon from a man.

A few scholars interviewed attested that, while in the middle of an exorcism, Jesus said, "One greater than Solomon is now here," talking about himself. The narrator asked, "Why did Jesus say this while in the middle of an excorcism?" Both scholar and theologian then began to answer the question. They believed that Jesus was referencing the Testament of Solomon, a rejected book of the Bible. Even though the Testament was a Christian era book, its story was accepted in Jewish culture in Jesus' time. The Testament told the story of King Solomon when he fashioned a spiritually empowered ring and forced Beelzebub and his demons to build the Temple in Jerusalem. In the documentary, there was this cheesy scene with a Middle-eastern looking king commanding these demons with a bright ring on his finger. One of the scholars recited the Elvish poem from Lord of the Rings, so that it sounded like the Testament story was some proto-Tolkien Jewish myth. Scholar and narrator proceeded to say that Jesus was referring to this story about Solomon and that Jesus himself believed it to be true. "So why was it taken out of the Bible?" they asked. At that point, I turned off the TV because it was just that dumb.

I read the passage in question found in Matthew12:22 - 42 and Luke 11:14 -32 and I chuckled. There was a whole documentary, including a book, that was based on a misreading of Scripture? I guess that's typical of what the world has to offer. In the passage, Jesus exorcised a demon and the Pharisees condemned him for it, saying Jesus was using Beelzebub to cast out demons. Guess what? The Pharisees were the ones who believed the Testament of Solomon was true, not Jesus! Jesus responds with the "house divided against itself cannot stand" answer. And even after Jesus performs the exorcism miracle and gives an intellectual answer, they had the audacity to ask him to perform more miracles for them. It's at that point when Jesus spoke of Solomon (and Jonah), but in context he was talking about the Pharisees' lack of belief that he was the prophesied Messiah. He said "the queen of Sheba herself will condemn this generation for not believing." But he said this in the same conversation after the exorcism, so when Jesus said that he was "greater than Solomon," he was most likely playing on the Pharisees' stronger belief in cultural folklore than in the Messianic prophecies found in the Tanakh.

Nobody *Messes* with John McCain!

Hi, I'm Hayden Panettiere and I'm hot enough to say anything and have dumb-schmucks believe me. In all my 19 years on this Earth, I know all that there is to know about American politics. My home-schooling has trained me for the intellectual rigors of commenting on the Presidential race. I'm well-versed in international politics also, having fought those evil Japanese fishermen and their dolphin hunting. I was even awarded by those wonderful animal freaks from PETA.

Now that we've established my credibility, I'd like to say that I will only vote for a Presidential candidate who will treat his position as on-the-job training, so he could develop to his full potential. I hope you would vote for a man who has a questionable U.S. citizenship status because that only means he'll do well in international relations. I mean, I would be very diplomatic with foreign world leaders as well who want to destroy whole countries! I'd pander to their needs any day!

I want a leader who allows me to suck on the teats of government as it carries me from the cradle to the grave. Since I am a citizen, it is my right to be told by the government what I can or can't do and I want my new President to afford me more of those rights. Change is what we truly need in this country. Over time, I can only hope that this change would take as much money from me as possible so that there will be no more rich people and everyone will be middle-class. As citizens, we should be entitled to the best that the rich have to offer and give it to anyone making less than $50,000, including dead-beat dads who don't like to work because they get too much unemployment.

I know my choice for President will do his best to change America. And we will be there to unite with him as he runs it into the ground!

A Nice Proposal

Here's a common-sense approach to taking care of this whole bail-out debacle.

I don't usually like posting e-mail forwards, especially when the math is wrong, but I thought this was quite an interesting proposal for the bail-out. I wish it was this much. Hey, if the gov is going socialist, why not go for broke (like every other socialist country)? Really, if the entire $700 billion was used, it would come out to about $5,900 per fed tax payer. May not be half a mil, but it's better than a grand that a certain Presidential candidate is proposing:

A Better Bail-out Plan
by Troy LaMana

I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG.

Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a 'We Deserve It Dividend'. To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bon-a-fide U.S. Citizens 18+. Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up. So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon that equals $425,000.00...

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your
family?...

(Or $3,000 to $6,000 out of the $700 billion if the math was done correctly. Or, assuming they give to those who pay their taxes, which is about 59% of the entire population, then it would be about $5,900 for a single person, $11,800 for married.)

Interesting thought, but I know it wouldn't happen.

King and Crisis

Who caused this mortgage mess?

People like to play the blame game, especially in a crisis. I'm not into playing blame games, I'm into investigating the truth. Several factors come into effect in incidents like these. No one side, no one person, is the cause. To think that any one person (or Administration in many people's minds) caused this mess is to betray petty, narrow-minded thinking. There were a number of significant nudges and pushes that inevitably brought down the house.

Someone recently noted that "the single biggest piece of legislation that has led to the financial collapse we're seeing now is the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. It was rushed onto Bush's desk a few days after the Supreme Court appointed that clown to the Oval office." Once again, petty, narrow-minded thinking. The person who said this has such hatred for Bush that he can't even see past his psychosis. A little fact check goes a long way in not sounding like a wild-eyed liberal doofus: President Clinton was the one who signed CFMA 2000 into law, not Bush. And even then, CFMA 2000 was merely icing, not the cause of the problem. We can go all the way back to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, but that was only the nudge. We'll have to find something recent and more directly connected to the crisis.

An article by Steven A. Holmes from September 1999 entitled "Fannie Mae Eases Credit to Aid Mortgage Lending" mentioned several key ideas to the origins of this crisis. The New York Times is not the most conservative newspaper, so for it to have mentioned a Democrat party connection to the mess is at least being truthful and fair to the issue.

Some of the more interesting parts (emphases mine):

"In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits...

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry...

The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants."

(Side note: the economic boom of the 1990s was the result of Reaganomics. Politics 101 - Each Presidential administration receives the blessings or the curses of a previous administration's actions. The Clinton admin boom years were merely the result of Reagan admin's actions.)

So, really, the question is: What caused this mortgage mess? The cause was the culture of the time, an overcorrection if you will, of people's behavior, otherwise known as political correctness. Because of the strong desire for racial equality, especially after Rodney King and the L.A. riots, there seemed to be this nationwide need to be respectful to your fellow man. Racial discrimination is evil and being disrespectful to others is never good, but the response going the opposite direction was so extreme that the nation fell off the other side of the horse. Too much kumbaya, not enough common sense. In ignorance, government followed suit and equated risky lending with racial equality. Note to government: It's good to work on racial equality, bad to be stupid with money. Too little too late, unfortunately.

Now about the bailout: Do I agree with it? No. Is it necessary? Maybe. I absolutely hate it when government meddles with private sector business, even quasi-private like the FMs. But both parties took the chance nearly ten years ago and now we're all paying for it. As McCain said, this is only a tourniquet. Who would've known that government wasn't sure what would happen if it pointed a loaded gun at its foot then pulled the trigger. We'll see if Adam Smith's principles work even with massive government intervention like this. Can the invisible hand of a free market be led by the folly of statesmen? Ready to roll-over, Mr. Smith?

I guess it's time to sit back and see how another invisible hand will guide this process along.

Palin for President!

At first, I thought, What? An Alaskan governor? A virtual unknown? John really blew it this time! And who's he trying to pick up, Hillary voters? That will definitely make me not want to vote this time around.

I was disappointed enough that McCain was chosen as the GOP pick, I lost hope when I heard the announcement for his VP pick. I even told my wife how disappointed I was in how this was all turning out. Just before Palin got up for her acceptance speech, I was really skeptical and was ready to critique every line. A brunette Hillary the way McCain is a wannabe Democrat, wonderful!

After a ho-hum introduction about her life, she started to give a number of zingers against Obama. That got my attention! And then she kept going! This is definitely not Hillary! Instead of criticizing her, I found myself cheering her on! Not only that, but I started to see why McCain chose her. Hm, open-mouth-insert-foot time. Talk about a good first impression! I've always been for people who do what's right and go against the world's culture, or in this case, who go against power-hungry, money-grubbing politicians. I'm glad she didn't make many promises. What I got from her speech was an attitude of defiance against the status quo, who would take back America from those who think that greater government involvement is the answer.

Forget McCain! I'm voting for Palin.

Now with my new found energy for the election, I've been following it more closely. What got me was when Katie Couric interviewed Palin a few days ago. Couric asked Palin which Supreme Court decisions she disagreed with besides Roe vs. Wade. Palin began to work her way through an answer, but she started to fumble and then regained her composure by focusing on those decisions that supported the power of the States rather than the Federal government. She didn't bring up an example, which I can understand. Who keeps a list of Supreme Court decisions in their mind anyway? And even then, the only one I could think of off the top of my head was Brown vs. Board of Education, and that's one I agree with! (Given a little time, I recalled a couple more, but I was hazy on what they specifically talked about.) When I looked at Couric's face, I knew she wanted to make a fool out of Palin. This was most likely Couric's way to get back at Republicans after the whole Biden fiasco when he said that people saw Roosevelt on TV during the Great Depression. Now that was an actual mistake on his part, he volunteered to look like an idiot! Couric simply had it in for Palin and got her back. Cheap shot!

If I was in Palin's position, I would've responded like this:
"Hm, at this moment, I can't recall any, although I do remember studying many cases in high school and college. I've been busy as a mother and as a governor, I haven't had time to refresh my memory. Since I'm not one to play trivia games especially in interviews, I'll just have to get back to you on those. What I do know is that I disagreed with those decisions, like Roe vs. Wade, that gave more power to the Federal government and took away the power of the States and the people, a clear violation of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments..."

I can only hope Palin keeps up that tough yet classy attitude.