Historical Reliability of the Bible

- a Visual Sermon by Dr David Instone-Brewer

WSJ: Fiat Models to Drive Chrysler

Over at the WSJ a slide-show of Chrysler's fate. The Fiats look like props from a Federico Fellini movie. So what happens when you merge a crappy American car company with an Italian one? Wasn't there a reason Fiat left the American market back in the 1970's?

The best comment from the WSJ:

"We would have been better off liquidating Chrysler and at then flying a fleet of B-52's to Italy in order to drop a few hundred billion USD out of their holds. That would have been cheaper and more effective."

Samuelson on socialized medicine and the coming Medicare/Social Security Crisis

Robert Samuelson has two columns that do a good job of the insanity of Obama's and the voter's choices.

Obama's Unhealthy Choices:

"What really drives health spending, the study finds, is that Americans
receive more costly medical services than other peoples do, and pay more for
them. On a population-adjusted basis, the number of CT scans in 2005 was 72
percent higher in the United States than in Germany; U.S. reimbursement rates
were four times higher. Knee replacements were 90 percent more frequent than in
the average wealthy country and are growing rapidly. In 2005, there were 750,000 knee and hip replacements, up 70 percent in five years, reports the journal Health Affairs."

In an October 22, 2008 WaPo column he has this:

Young Voters Get Mad

"You're being played for chumps. Barack Obama and John McCain want your votes, but they're ignoring your interests. You face a heavily mortgaged future. You'll pay Social Security and Medicare for aging baby boomers. The needed federal tax increase might total 50 percent over the next 25 years. Pension and health costs for state and local workers have doubtlessly been underestimated. There's the expense of decaying infrastructure -- roads, bridges, water pipes. All this will squeeze other crucial government services: education, defense, police. "

"Obama's your favorite candidate (by 64 percent to 33 percent among 18- to
29-year-olds, according to the latest Post-ABC News poll)."

"Click on the Obama video. You'll see some world-class pandering. There are
three basic ways of reducing the costs of Social Security and Medicare: increase
eligibility ages; trim benefits; and require recipients to pay more for their
Medicare benefits (higher premiums, co-payments or deductibles). In his talk,
Obama effectively rejected all three. "

Why would young voters go against their own interests? Perhaps it's form of generational altruism, knowing in the end they'll take the lumps (huge). I think the answer is simpler than that - they're woefully ignorant of finances and purpose of state-hood. They believe they're voting for security (theirs) when actually they're voting for the financial equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. We'll see in the future that the purpose of state-hood is to provide for an orderly society and not guaranteed financial security.

30 reasons for Great Depression 2 by 2011

Paul Farrell over at Martketwatch lists his 30 reasons why we'll be in a depression by 2011. He Cites greed several times, that's obvious but what about envy? It seems to me that envy drove the subprime mess. The feeling of wanting that house despite the lack of fiscal discipline and the politicians that fed that envy drove all of this. I've blogged before on the lack of fiscal discipline among groups of people (link 1, 2). It seems to me that we can't face up to the fact that we have equal oppurtunity but that doesn't give equal outcomes. And what if everyone couldn't be a homeowner? Renting, is that inhumane?

On that list of 30 items, here's the largest:

25. The 800-pound gorillas: Social Security, Medicare with $60 trillion in unfunded liabilities

We just voted in the political party least likely to fix this mess.

The American Voter

Over at Verum Serum:

Zogby Poll from http://www.howobamagotelected.com/

57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)

82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)

88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)

56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).

And yet…..

Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes

Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter

And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!

Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.

Uncle Sam's Credit Line Running Out?

Over at Baron's.

Derbyshire on his Obama-ness

Over at the NRO Corner Blog.

The sputtering-Left component of my email bag took particular exception to my calling Obama "shallow, ignorant, and self-obsessed." How dare I? Well, let's unpack it.

Shallow: Have you ever heard Obama say anything interesting? Me neither. I saw him on the telly the other day fielding a question about illegal immigrants. He said something like: "We can't deport ten million people. We need to find a way to bring them out of the shadows. Thet should have to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for citizenship." Now, here is an issue that's of major concern to millions of Americans, who feel they are losing the nation they grew up in. It's been argued for years at high levels of discourse, with many fine books written. (Most recently, one by our own Mark Krikorian.) Yet Obama can address it only with the tiredest, most threadbare clichés of the open-borders Left. It's plain he has never given a moment's real thought to the issue. Shallow.

Ignorant: Obama strikes me as a very intelligent person, but with that intelligence narrowly focused. He has spent his adult life among the tiny sub-class of black Americans who have grown wealthy, or hope to, via the affirmative-action rackets. He has never ventured outside that milieu, and I seriously doubt he knows much about life outside it. I doubt, for example, that he knows anything much at all about business, the military, science, work (other than paper-shuffling), or high culture. I'll be glad to be proved wrong, but nothing I've heard him say, nor my (admittedly incomplete) acquaintance with what he's written, refutes that.

Self-obsessed: A guy who publishes a 464-page autobiography at age 34 is self-obsessed, what can I tell ya? If he publishes a second autobiography at age 45, you can print "self-obsessed" in capital letters. (Yeah, I know, it's a "campaign book." The content is mainly autobiographical, though.)

2004 Generosity Index and the Red States Gone Blue

In my search for charity data in the last post I came across this piece of data from the non-partisan Catalogue For Philanthropy at Michelle Malkin's Blog:Notice that the '04 Red States that went Blue in 2008 (i.e. Iowa, Ohio, Virginia, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, & Colorado) were the lowest givers for the Reds in 2004. Only and North Carolina and Florida stand out as exceptions.

Note added 1:40 pm: It often gets Blue State people upset that it appears that Red Staters give more. They always focus on the church and the tithe. How does that excuse Blue Staters from giving to non-church entities?

The Didache on Abortion and Charity - Possible Modern Implications

I blogged on the Didache last year. It is an instruction manual for new Christians (primarily conversions of gentiles) and may be the earliest writings of the Apostles, dating as early as 49 AD. It's too bad that it's not better known by Christians. It has implications for the modern Christian. Specifically, on abortion and the modern welfare state.

First on abortion:

Didache 2:2 - You shall not murder a child by abortion or commit infanticide.

Pretty clear isn't it? Why is abortion not discussed in the gospels? My guess is that Jesus preached primarily to the 1st century Jews where such practice was not widespread. The Greco-Romans practiced abortion and exposure. Jews believed in the primacy of the fetus in that era. The Jewish historian, Philo of Alexandria discusses Ex. 21:22-23 in context of the LXX. From Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture:

“The LXX transformed these Biblical verses into laws protecting the fetus.”

Now on the modern welfare state where everyone receives (bold emphasis added):

Didache 1.5c - Woe to the one who receives. For if he receives because he has need, he is guiltless, but if he does not have need, he shall stand trial as to why he received and for what, and being put in prison he will be examined about what he has done, and he will not come out of it until he pays the last penny.

Many would disagree, but I believe that so much of the profligate ways of the modern welfare state goes to those not in need. The senior prescription drug plan is just one such example.

Also note that Didache strongly advises Christians to be charitable and defend the poor but adds this:

1.6 But of this it was also said, 'Let your charitable gift sweat in your hands until you know to whom you give'.

Christians must be discerning to who is in need. However, the modern welfare state completely abrogates this aspect of giving. It’s interesting to note the amount of charitable giving between the prosperous blue (and secular) states versus the red states.

Much of the Didache is what I would assume to be a common sense approach to ethics, not just Christian ethics.

Peter Schiff on Obama

Schiff was one of the few hedge fund managers to predict this crisis a few years back. He doesn’t like Obama. Found at Housing Doom blog.

Policy Predictions for After an Obama Victory

Over at Rasmussen' blog, a comprehensive list. Sounds like a to do list for the left.

Obama Accepting Untraceable Donations

From WaPo:

Contributions Reviewed After Deposits

By Matthew MoskWashington Post
Staff WriterWednesday, October 29, 2008; A02

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is allowing donors to
use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to
evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a
contributor's identity, campaign officials confirmed.

Obama, Barney Frank, Bush and Fannie/Freddie

Over at Verum Serum.

OBAMA TRIED TO STALL GIS' IRAQ WITHDRAWAL

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.......[more]

SNL's take on the media's love affair with Obama

Obama as Messiah, the Trance-Inducer Part V

Over at Besty's blog she highlights Joe Klein (Primary Colors) observations in Time:

• And yet there was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism--"We are the ones we've been waiting for"--of the Super Tuesday speech and the recent turn of the Obama campaign. "This time can be different because this campaign for the presidency of the United States of America is different. It's different not because of me. It's different because of you." That is not just maddeningly vague but also disingenuous: the campaign is entirely about Obama and his ability to inspire. Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause--other than an amorphous desire for change--the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is.

Obama as Messiah, the Trance-Inducer Part IV

Loves me like Barack

Obama as Messiah, the Trance-Inducer Part III

From The Wall Street Journal Web Site

Best of the Web Today - February 7, 2008
By JAMES TARANTO

By contrast, Barack Obama is nothing but inspiring--so inspiring that it is becoming deeply creepy. The Boston Globe reports on a new music video touting Obama:

• Inspired by the speech Barack Obama delivered in Nashua the night of the state primary, will.i.am [of the Black Eyed Peas] set Obama's text to simple guitar and a soulful melody, recruited 36 artists to appear in a music video that was conceived, shot, and edited over three days last week, and posted "Yes We Can" online over the weekend. . . .
  The split-screen video features clips of the candidate speaking alongside shots of R&B singer John Legend, actress Scarlett Johansson, rapper Common, jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, actor-singer Nick Cannon, rocker Ed Kowalczyk, and others echoing Obama's spoken words in song. Will.i.am set the song's tempo to synch up with the New Hampshire audience, which supplies the song's rhythm with chants of "We want change, we want change!" . . .
  "I do think it allows people an accessible way into politics," Jesse Dylan said. "Rallies can be dry, but Will has taken the words and dramatized them with these wonderful artists and it gives people an easy way to become passionate."

The video, which you can watch here, depicts people who appear to be in some sort of trance as they mouth along with Obama's various rhetorical flourishes from his speeches, then repeat the mantra "Yes, we can." The whole thing has the feel of a cult of personality.
We aren't the first to make that observation. The other day one Kathleen Geier, who says she voted for Obama and considers him "a good progressive," took to the liberal TPMCafe site to declare that she is "increasingly weirded out by some of Obama's supporters":
She quotes from a Sacramento Bee article that she (and we) found "unsettling":

• "He looked at me, and the look in his eyes was worth 1,000 words," said [Kim] Mack, now a regional field organizer. Obama hugged her and whispered something in her ear--she was so thrilled she doesn't remember what it was. . . .
  She urged volunteers to hone their own stories of how they came to Obama--something they could compress into 30 seconds on the phone.

As Geier notes, "this sounds more like a cult than a political campaign":

• The language used here is the language of evangelical Christianity--the Obama volunteers speak of "coming to Obama" in the same way born-again Christians talk about "coming to Jesus."
  But he's not Jesus! He's not going to magically enable us to transcend the bitter partisanship that is tearing this country apart.

ABC's Jake Tapper notes other enthusiasts and detractors from the enthusiasm, all on the Democratic left. "I've been following politics since I was about 5," Chris Matthews tells the New York Observer. "I've never seen anything like this. This is bigger than Kennedy. [Obama] comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament."
On the other side, Times Joe Klein writes that there is "something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism" of the Obama campaign, which "all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is." Adds the dyspeptic leftist James Wolcott:

• Perhaps it's my atheism at work but I found myself increasingly wary of and resistant to the salvational fervor of the Obama campaign, the idealistic zeal divorced from any particular policy or cause and chariot-driven by pure euphoria. . . . I don't look to politics for transcendence and self-certification.

What are we to make of Obama himself in the midst of all this adulation? A cynic would say that he is a manipulator if not a demagogue, exploiting the gullible to further his own ambitions. A more charitable view is that his intentions are all to the good, that he has simply figured out how to tap into a genuine desire for inspiration in politics, and that if elected he will use his political powers to do good for the country.
Each view seems plausible, but which is correct? Does anyone know Barack Obama well enough to say? And if not, isn't he the candidate who has a problem with authenticity?

Obama as Messiah, the Trance-Inducer Part II

From the American Thinker Obama as Liberal Messiah
By J.R. Dunn

When liberals refer to "leaders", they're not talking about the same thing as everybody else....

...To a convinced liberal, a leader is in no way limited to anything as mundane as running a country. A leader is a transcendent being, someone more than human, someone with a touch of the divine.....

.....Barack Obama is our new liberal messiah, offering redemption for our country's original sin......

...Republicans simply don't need that kind of emotional crutch....

Obama as Messiah, the Trance-Inducer Part I

Is Barack Obama the Messiah?
"... a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany ... and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama" - Barack Obama in South Carolina. January 2008....

Slate.com

Timothy Noah will periodically feature tidbits from the press:

Is Barack Obama—junior U.S. senator from Illinois, best-selling author, Harvard Law Review editor, Men's Vogue cover model, and "exploratory" presidential candidate—the second coming of our Savior and our Redeemer, Prince of Peace and King of Kings, Jesus Christ? His press coverage suggests we can't dismiss this possibility out of hand. I therefore inaugurate the Obama Messiah Watch, which will periodically highlight gratuitously adoring biographical details that appear in newspaper, television, and magazine profiles of this otherworldly presence in our midst............
....Readers are invited to submit similar details—Obama walking on water, Obama sating the hunger of 5,000 with five loaves and two fishes—from other Obama profiles. And also, of course, to repent, just in case the hour approacheth nigh.....



The Obama Trance

From World Magazine

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” With heads cocked, many onlookers seemed to glaze over with trance-like admiration for the man they believe will reinvent American politics.

Montgomery Advertiser

......Obama's charismatic approach to politics had the Sunday afternoon crowd in a virtual trance with constant give and take between him and his audience.........

Global Politician

....Everyone is telling me he’ll tickle my fancy. I’m supposed to be endeared. Apparently he does all sorts of amazing trance-like things to you: he’ll “look into your eyes,” “inspire” your political senses, and when he speaks to his audiences, he bestows upon you feelings you “haven’t felt in ages.......

...........So there’s some obvious style… and style… and then more style. It’s with this pseudo-performance that Sen. Obama speaks of change (“change” is the substance, by the way). His victories have been impressive and his base in undeniably excited. When pressed, however, his followers cannot specifically name why they have granted him their proud support, other than vague allusions to “change” (a theme Ward Cleaver, ahem, Mitt Romney has also tried to run with).Change is fine, I suppose, but its proponents in the Obama campaign do not seem to recognize its politically neutral nature. High taxes, socialized medicine, and submission abroad would all constitute “change,” would they not? Some of the boldest changes to ever transpire were regressive and reactionary. None of that is good. (Food for thought: we’re the most affluent and leisured democracy in human history. We must be doing something right. Maybe we shouldn’t change all that much?).......

Canada.com on the Trance

...This has nothing to do with Barack Obama's race, creed, or ideology. I do not doubt for a moment that Mr. Obama is a sincere Christian and patriotic American, and that he truly believes himself the New Man for the New Age.
I fear him rather on two accounts. The first is that he has no policies. He offers vague "feel good" on every domestic issue, and magic in foreign policy. Simply by his being Obama, and not Bush, the conflicts will go away. He will withdraw from Iraq. He will ignore Iran. And he will invade Pakistan (to get at Osama). People who say things like this, whether or not in a dream-like trance, are not eligible to be commander-in-chief. Or rather, should not be.
For the second problem with Mr. Obama is that he is eminently electable. Republicans do not seem to realize just how electable. For while Barack Hussein Obama does not entirely resemble the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau (who had his policy wonk side, and more native malice), he has that mystical androgynous quality that comes across hypnotically on TV.
It was the women who put Trudeau in power, and kept him there: the women's vote in English Canada, plus the Liberal fiefdom in Quebec. It is the ditzier range of women in the borderline Red States that could elect President Obama: lonely women, and to some extent, their weak, "sensitive" men.