$33,000.00

What a liberal “grass roots” activist gets paid per year.

Wedding Is Days Away

Well everyone… I got engaged last Christmas, and the big day is finally arriving… Saturday night Beth and I will tie the knot.

Then, we are off to Hawaii for 8 days… You’ll have to pardon my extended absence from the blog, during that time… but with wedding plans and such, it has been a bit harder to blog as often as I would like.

Anyway, yes, the wedding… I am very excited and very lucky. Maybe, if you’re lucky, I’ll post a photo or two when I get back from the honeymoon.

What Keeps Racism Alive?

Well, as usual, it is white people. But not the white people you’re thinking of:

The myth of white racism serves a number of valuable psychological purposes for high-status white progressives:

* It gives them a great feeling of moral superiority. “Most white Americans are racist, but not us.”

* It justifies their high levels of wealth and income. “We are good, and so we deserve to be rich. It’s almost enough to make one believe in the existence of God.”

* It justifies their desire to keep political power out of the hands of the lower orders and as much as possible in the hands of judges and bureaucrats. “We believe in democracy, certainly; but we can’t let unlimited political power fall into the hands of racists.”

Of course, there are also people like the “civil rights” leaders and such to assist the rich, white elite to keep the myth alive – but its not there, any more. To be sure, there are racist white people in America – perhaps even many millions of them. They are just as deluded as people who believe in horoscopes – and the people who scam them are just as knowing in their scams as the psychics who take the suckers. In a population of 300,000,000 people there will be a percentage which believes the position of the stars determines their fate – and just as many people who will buy the moonshine that black people are inferior to white people. As a practical matter, however, racism plays no role in America – except as a prop in the leftwing morality play.

It is getting harder, to be sure, to make this sell – what with a black man in the White House, and all. But con artists know nothing other than how to con – and so now that things are rocky for Obama, they’re trying to paint the opposition as racist-based. And this makes our liberals feel so good. Never forget that – it was wonderful for them that Obama was elected, but they still need a world in which they, the elite, know better than the majority. The majority was ok – for a day; the day they elected Obama. Now the majority is in the way – in the way of Obama. And this means that some how, some way, the latent and inherent racism of Americans has come back to the surface. And the con is back.

This is why the inside job was done in Denver – and why, very likely, the swastika on the black Congressman’s job was also an inside job: the racists must appear. The con artists have made it appear – and rank and file lefties will eat it up (remember, it makes them feel good to be the wise minority opposed to the dimwitted majority). Pretty much as long as we have a liberal elite, we’ll have racism as an issue in this nation – because they need it.

But peace must come, at last – King’s dream will become a reality. It shall be that, “we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” We just have to get rid of those who are conning us – people who, for base purposes, wish to see the world divided in to hate-filled groups. Groups which, of course, need an elite referee to keep the peace.

Our De-Leveraging Economy

People don’t want to borrow and banks are holding on to their money because the supposed capitalization provided by Uncle Sam is really just being held for the losses coming in 2010 – and, so:

‘Problem’ Banks Rise to 15-Year High on Bad Loans, FDIC Says

The U.S. added 111 lenders to its list of “problem banks” in the second quarter, a 36 percent increase that pushed the group to a 15-year high.

A total of 416 banks with combined assets of $299.8 billion failed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s grading system for asset quality, liquidity and earnings, the most since June 1994, the Washington-based FDIC said in a report today. Regulators didn’t identify companies deemed “problem” banks.

“For now, the difficult and necessary process of recognizing loan losses and cleaning up balance sheets continues to be reflected in the industry’s bottom line,” FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said in a statement.

Regulators have taken over 81 banks this year, including Guaranty Financial Group Inc. in Texas and Colonial BancGroup Inc. in Alabama. Twenty-four banks collapsed in the second quarter as the pace of failures accelerated amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

It isn’t over, people; not by a long shot.

In the end, though, its all good – we were stupid to borrow so much money. Total US debt in relation to GDP is 375% – we’re so far in the hole we can’t even see the light of day. To be sure, Bernanke lit up a flashlight and is telling us that is the light at the end of the tunnel, but what he’s really done just just put another pile of debt out there for us to pay off. We’re in for a long, slow period of getting out of debt – the people are already on it, Obama and his Democrats are a bit slow on the uptake. Seriously, are any of you out there contemplating a major increase in personal debt? Looking forward to maxing out the credit cards this Christmas?

Why this means we’re in for a pretty bad economy is that our economy has been built on debt – easy credit allowing for massive over consumption. This, in itself, wouldn’t have been particularly hideous if we had also retained productive capacity – but, we didn’t. We outsourced our productive capacity to China and elsewhere – and we did this because we’re just plain and simple getting lazy. We’re unwilling to get our own hands dirty. We’re unwilling to allow hard working people to open up factories, plant crops, dig mines – a bunch of dirty-necked hippies show up and we shut down the jobs of the hardest working among us. Makes me sick, when I think about it. Liberals want green jobs – hey, idiots, we could be getting 90% of our electric power from nuclear plants by now if you hadn’t watched The China Syndrome and thought it real.

We need an economy restructured for earning money, first, and then spending it. Making, mining and growing things – it really is the only thing which can lift us out of this. We can earn the money to get out of debt, and then save up money so that when things get tight we’re not firing up the printing presses or begging Chinese tyrants for a loan. We can do this – but not while Obama and his Democrats are running the show.

2,300,000

The reduction expected in the number of people working in calendar year, 2010:

Based on CBO’s forecast for the average unemployment rate in calendar year 2010, 2.3 million fewer people will be employed on average next year than they projected in January.

For comparison, in July there were about 140 million people employed in the U.S.

Next year’s reality will depend heavily on when the economy turns up and how quickly growth returns. A new projection of fewer people employed next year should not surprise anyone. But 2.3 million is a big bad number.

And this is, actually, the “other shoe” – the first shoe is the fact that by the end of the year more than a million Americans will exhaust their unemployment benefits. This latest CBO estimate shows that their chances of gaining new jobs is going to be a lot smaller next year.

It piles up – one thing on top of another. What does it come out to? That we’re in a serious economic mess – and, right now, we’re doing nothing to change the course of events. We will get an official recovery from the recession – likely with the third quarter, 2009 GDP results. But it will all be smoke and mirrors and it won’t be enough, even in fantasy, to compensate for what we’ve lost in terms of wealth. And the worst part of this is yet to come – and I expect it by March of 2010: a collapse of the current global stock market bubble, dragged down by renewed bank failures resulting from the commercial real estate collapse and a new surge in home foreclosures as people walk from their “upside down” houses.

The most hopeful estimates I’ve been able to find are for our economy to cease collapsing and then meander along with high unemployment for years – and, friends, that is the hopeful estimate: that it won’t get any worse! If our hope is for lousy, then we’re in a lot of trouble. We need policies which will put America back to work – all we’re getting is bail outs for the banks which caused the problem, cover ups for the politicians who allowed it to happen, and hand-outs for politically favored corporations. Its like being slowly dragged in to a nightmare – we can see the horror, we don’t want to go there, but those driving the train refuse to stop, and are telling us to ignore Frankenstein, we’re sure that bright days are right behind himi.

Phrase of the Day

Who would benefit from all of Obama’s grand plans?

When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating. – Frederic Bastiat

It takes one lousy SOB to try and profit off the backs of others – unfortunately, having a pile of taxpayer money around brings out the lousy SOB’s in droves. These are the people who would knock granny down in order to get their fill – and they will be the prime beneficiaries of Obamunism…just as they have been the prime beneficiaries of all these socialist, tax-and-spend schemes since FDR.

Warning: Liberals Will Go Insane Over This Post

And the countdown…5….4….3….2….1….

Repairing Same-Sex Attraction

Experts Question APA Report

Mental-health professionals should avoid telling same-sex-attracted clients that therapy can change their sexual orientation, the American Psychological Association advises.

The organization, which represents 150,000 psychologists nationwide, also issued a report during its annual meeting in early August saying the latest research on “change” or “reparative” therapy was inconclusive and therefore the APA could not recommend it.

No therapist should “promise outcomes they can’t deliver,” Judith Glassgold, the task force’s chairwoman, said. “We were concerned clients were being misled by promises of change. We don’t want clients’ expectations to be so high that they can’t reach their goals.”…

…According to the APA, the one thing recent research does show is that “sexual orientation identity” — versus sexual orientation — can “shift and evolve in some individuals’ lives.”

“Sexual orientation is underlying attractions and desires. You can’t choose who you fall in love with,” Glassgold said. “Sexual orientation identity — who you identify with publicly and in groups — can be controlled.”

NARTH disagrees that change is limited: “Some people can and do change, not just in terms of behavior and identity, but in core features of sexual orientation such as fantasy and attractions,” according to a press release.

Angelo S., a spokesman for Courage, agreed change in both sexual orientation and identity is possible. He cited programs such as “Journey into Manhood” retreats that have “helped men reduce feelings so that they’re not in the homosexual lifestyle anymore. Some say they don’t experience same-sex attraction at all anymore,” he said.

Persons with same-sex attraction are invited to unite “whatever sufferings and difficulties they experience in virtue of their condition to the sacrifice of the Lord’s cross,” according to “On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,” a 1986 pastoral letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In the letter, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger pointed out that “homosexual activity prevents one’s own fulfillment and happiness by acting contrary to the creative wisdom of God.”

I believe the Courage people are on the right track here. We are human beings – we are not slaves to the flesh unless we choose to be so. Just as some men – with the normal inclination towards attraction to females – can eschew sex completely so other men can choose to change from attraction to men to attraction to women. There are plenty of men out there who will testify that they were once completely gay in attraction and lifestyle and are now completely straight – attempts to shove this under the rug, as the APA does with this recent report, doesn’t change the facts.

We Catholics hold that those with a deep-seated attraction to the same sex are not negligible in number and must be treated with respect and love – but because we are to tolerate doesn’t mean we are to support. Just because some gay people have chosen to do what they do it does not follow that we have to congratulate them on it, nor pretend there’s no way for them to change their mind, and their lives, at a later point.

If we are to be genuinely reasonable, we must keep our mind open to the full truth. Homosexuality, as a field of scientific study, is fairly new, and our knowledge of psychology is still limited, even under the best of circumstances. It is absurd to say there is no way to alter one’s way of living – there may, indeed, be ways whereby gay men and women can decide to change. If one does in any way believe that human beings should have a choice, then the only way to go with this is with a willingness to discard propaganda points and see what is really out there. No one is going to force gays in to religion camps where they are to be brainwashed in to being straight – but if going from gay to straight can be done (and it looks as though it can) then gay people have a right to know the facts about it.

Finis Kennedy

From the Anchoress – one Catholic to another:

Some will focus on his personal sins -the assumed repentance or lack of same (of which they will likely have no real knowledge, just hunches) and some will presume to know the state of his soul, but those will be the inveterates, working from long-habit. Most Christians will, I think, understand that “the favors of the Lord are not exhausted, his mercies not over and done” and will simply pray in hopes that Kennedy had made a contrite and humble confession of his failings and sins.

Others, of course, will suggest that Kennedy’s pro-abortion positions, in and of themselves, should damn him forever in the eyes of God.

Thankfully, God knows more, and sees more, than the rest of us, because eventually we’ll all need to count on his mercy, as we face his justice…

…So, upon hearing of his passing, I say “ah, he’s gone, then,” make a Sign of the Cross, and think of what C.S. Lewis wrote of Purgatory:

Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, ‘It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy’? Should we not reply, ‘With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.’ ‘It may hurt, you know’ – ‘Even so, sir.’

I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering. Partly from tradition; partly because most real good that has been done me in this life has involved it. But I don’t think the suffering is the purpose of the purgation. I can well believe that people neither much worse nor much better than I will suffer less than I or more. . . . The treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts little or much.

My favorite image on this matter comes from the dentist’s chair. I hope that when the tooth of life is drawn and I am ‘coming round’,’ a voice will say, ‘Rinse your mouth out with this.’ This will be Purgatory. The rinsing may take longer than I can now imagine. The taste of this may be more fiery and astringent than my present sensibility could endure. But . . . it will [not] be disgusting and unhallowed.”

What can one do when one is likely unfit for heaven, but possesses just enough charity and love to stave off hell? Let us suffer the purgation, then. I am certain that someday I, in all my sins, will end up there, too.

I should like to get clean, too. And it won’t bother me in the least if, one day, Ted Kennedy and I are laughing at the disagreements we shared here.

Leftists Agent Provocateur Captured

And the only thing lower than the agent provocateur is the group which sent him:

The young vandal who smashed windows at the DNC headquarters in Denver on Tuesday worked for a democratic politician, was paid by a SEIU-related front group, and was arrested at the RNC convention last year in St. Paul.

Maurice Schwenkler and his accomplice caused $11,000 in damage at the DNC headquarters.

A poster protesting health care reform was plastered on the window during the attack!

What is the left trying to do here? It is trying to slander the right – to make it seem like we’re a bunch of violent crazies – and then use the powers of the United States government to suppress us. Its like this: “we can’t allow things like this to go on, right? I mean, these crazed right wingers are painting swastikas on Congressional offices and smashing DNC windows. What’s next? Well, don’t you know – they are going to try to get the President…and we must prevent that.”

Never has liberal fascism been painted in more stark terms. And the liberals better stop this nonsense. We won’t be suppressed. That isn’t a threat, liberals; its a promise.

Obama's Hidden "Clunker" Tax

Gee, what a nasty surprise:

The Cash For Clunkers program is adding to the activity at treasurers’ offices all around South Dakota. First, people were asking for proof of ownership, so they could show they owned their vehicle for a full year, allowing them to cash it in. Now, they’ll be returning to register their new vehicle. And when they do, new owners need to bring every bit of paperwork provided to them by their dealer.

“That means they need their title, their damage disclosure, their bill of sale and the dealers have 30 days to get that to them,” Minnehaha County Treasurer Pam Nelson said.

But many of those cashing in on the clunkers program are surprised when they get to the treasurer’s office windows. That’s because the government’s rebate of up to $4500 dollars for every clunker is taxable.

“They didn’t realize that would be taxable. A lot of people don’t realize that. So they’re not happy and kind of surprised when they find that out,” Nelson said.

Its all a shell game – it has made it appear there’s been an increase in car sales; an increase in economic activity…it has allowed Obama and the money men to say that they’ve got green shoots popping up all over the place. But, its all BS – and now its taxable BS.

It just moved money around, and the people who got some of transferred money will now have to pay a tax on it. Geesh.