Mark Byron

Tiger, Tiger

Gotta check my eyesight-does this say the Tigers are 11-10? Yep.

Speaking of Tigers, the new Tiger version of Mac OS 10 looks interesting. My new partner is a Apple geek (he worked as a graphics deisgner for years, so that's understandable, since Apple owns the graphics universe), so I need to keep up with the non-PC part of the computer world.  We may be getting a Dell for my desktop, but any shop computers will likely be Apples.

SS Musings

I haven't had a chance to get around the new Social Security proposals; the plan seems to be to shave the benefit growth rate of middle-class-and-up folks and keep it as-is for <$20K/year folks. Given that the fund was going to be about 30% short once the trust fund was bled dry, something has to be done.

Look for Democrats to try and make it more means-tested, to raise that $20K level a bit higher; the problem becomes finding the money to pay for it.

The good side is that he's sticking to his guns on the private accounts. Given that the well-off are taking it in the neck on the guaranteed benefit side, the private accounts should be a good trade-off.

One idea that's being floated is to remove the cap on SS taxes. Currently, only wage income below $90K is taxed. However, that would mean about a ~12% increase in marginal taxes for those folks, which seems a bit counter-productive. It sounds good on paper, but should lead to a lot of non-wage compensation gamesmanship.

As a younger person (<55) with decent earnings, this isn't a great decision. However, if it can give us a stable system that we all can live with, it might be worth doing

Edifier du Jour-Psalm 71:1-3(NASB)

1:  In You, O LORD, I have taken refuge; Let me never be ashamed.
2:  In Your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; Incline Your ear to me and save me.
3: Be to me a rock of habitation to which I may continually come; You have given commandment to save me, For You are my rock and my fortress.

The door's always open to lean upon the Lord. We may continually come, and we should continually come, but we don't. Too often, we try to do things in our own strength.

Edifier du Jour-Proverbs 15:1 (ESV)

¹A soft answer turns away wrath,    but a harsh word stirs up anger.

There are times to play the in-your-face prophet, but it's shouldn't be our normal position. More often than not, the "prophetic" mode will stem from our own hurts and opintions and not the moving of the Holy Spirit in us.

Rhetoric seems to become more in your face each year, even from people who should know better. It's the rhetorical bomb-throwers that get attention, which leads to more harshness.

There's little in our culture that rewards gentleness. That's why we have to work at it.

 

Afternoon Musings

Just 3.1% GDP growth? It's the slowest quarter since 1Q 2003, but still solidly positive despite high oil prices. Democrats will have to wait to have their Stagflation Party.

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I'm still trying to figure out this move up north. PM Martin scraps a corporate income tax cut in order to please the NDP.  Problem is, the NDP doesn't give him a majority; he'd need all three independents to bail him out, given that the Conservatives and the BQ have half the seats.

The three independents include one hard-left ex-Liberal, Carolyn Parrish, who was shown the door for being too abrasively anti-Bush, one centrist ex-Liberal named David Kilgour, who had it with the Liberal "NDP Lite" style of late and one conservative, Chuck Cadman, who won after getting upset in the Conservative primary.

Could Martin be asking the Conservatives to throw him into the early election briar patch? If the Conservatives and BQ bring down the government, he can blame it on big business Conservatives and the separatist BQ's Vast Anti-Liberal Conspiracy and get populist points for not cutting fat-cats taxes. If he plays that VALC card well, he'll pick up NDP and BQ swing voters and limit the losses of Conservative swing voters.

Kilgour's an interesting piece of work. He's gone from Conservative to Independent to Liberal to Independent. Sounds crazy, but it reminds me of Winston Churchill's history; he mad a round-trip across the aisle before becoming PM.

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Frist is hanging the Democrats out to dry here. He offered a plan that would include 100 hours of debate on each appeals court nominee in return for no filibusters on appeals courts nominees; district court picks would still be fair game. Dirty Harry is giving the proposal the middle-digit sal-oot-"...it's a big, wet kiss to the far right."

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Check out Ken Salazar's big, wet stream of #1 to the far right. Cut to the chase, Ken, and call Focus on the Family the Devil incarnate. Howard Dean would probably agree with you.

Salazar had been harassed by FotF for flip-flopping on judicial filibusters and he got a little heavy with the rhetoric. I don't think Dobson will return the favor in calling Salazar the Antichrist, for he'd be far slicker than Salazar when he shows up.

Edifier du Jour-Proverbs 15:31-33(ESV)

³¹The ear that listens to life-giving reproof
   will dwell among the wise.
³²Whoever ignores instruction despises himself,
   but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence.
³³The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom,
   and humility comes before honor.

Check out that last one. That's not how the world thinks, for it seems to be the cocky and arrogant that get most of the props. Nice guys finish last, right?

Not according to Proverbs.

If we rewind the tape to verses 31 and 32, listening to advice. Reproof isn't a word we use often; it's listed here as "criticism for a fault." Who likes being criticised?

Someone who is seeking after God, that's who. The truth will often sting, but as the gym rats say, "no pain, no gain." In order to grow, we'll need to correct our mistakes. That takes being open to the possibility that you're wrong, which is a form of humility.

Humility will lead to taking criticism and acting upon it, growing more godly and eventually getting more props. It's a long-term solution to getting honor, but as Christians, we're supposed to be looking to the ultimate long haul.

Shopping Cart Bleg

It's time to tell a bit more of what I'm up to. I'm working for/with a man from our church that's a woodworking genius; Darryl's nickname at his previous woodworking gig was "the patron saint of the impossible." He has some unique ways to shape wood and has a few patentable-licenceable woodworking gizmos that we'll be looking to market in the near future. Call him a mere carpenter and you'll get a look that will kill.

I'm the business manager while Darryl runs herd over the shop.

The first of the endeavors we're working on is called Reflective Paws. Yes, what I have right now is some "Hello, World" HTML, with just a title, a little text and some sky-blue background. It'll get better.

What Reflective Paws will be selling is pet memorial supplies; tombstones, cremation urns, caskets, etc. As strange as it sounds, there is a big market there; the owner of a local pet cemetery that Darryl knows can't get enough memorial plaques, and a church-mate that works at a craft store has a couple people a day coming in looking for pet urns. We can take Darryl's woodworking skills and apply them to the Corian plastic that would work well as a tough stone-looking memorials, or with various stones. We also have the technology to laser-engrave the memorials.

The second venture will be Scandinavian Specialties, the art furniture division; we have Scandie.com as the URL, but I don't have even a rudimentary page up yet. It's the parent company name. We'll be marketing some really uniquely shaped and crafted custom furniture to "folks with more money than brains." We'll be getting some pictures of his past work up and posted.

The third, yet unnamed, division will be a custom archery bow business. Darryl is an avid outdoorsman who's combined his love of woodworking and of hunting into making some really neat bows.

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On to the bleg. While the custom nature of Scandinavian Specialties precludes the need for an on-line ordering system, some of the Reflective Paws products are non-custom enough to lend themselves to a "shopping cart."

The hosting bleg was fruitful; I went with Jason's suggestion of Globalcon. Can the Peanut Gallery point me to a good shopping cart?

There are truckloads of shopping cart systems available, and I don't have a clue as to what gives a good bang for the buck. We're not exactly rolling in dough, so we'd like to know which system will be best for us. Right now, we're probably looking at only a relative handful of products, maybe five basic products that have different size options.

If I have any E-Commerce geeks in the Peanut Gallery, I could use some advice on shopping cart options. I know enough SQL to be dangerous, but I'm nowhere near enough of a geek to write a system myself.

Edifier du Jour-Psalm 94:12-15(ESV)

   

¹²Blessed is the man whom you discipline, O LORD,
   and whom you teach out of your law,
¹³to give him rest from days of trouble,
   until a pit is dug for the wicked.
¹⁴For the LORD will not forsake his people;
   he will not abandon his heritage;
¹⁵for justice will return to the righteous,
   and all the upright in heart will follow it.

Learning is hard work; my head is spinning learning the insides of web design this week.

Discipline's even harder; we don't like being corrected. But we need to remember that if God didn't care, he wouldn't be trying to correct us or encouraging us to learn.

 

Holding the Bag

There's this one soda ad where a graying African-American gentleman is bringing home a sack of groceries; he's walking past a pick-up basketball game when the ball hops over his way. He does a "you want it, come and get it" thing.

He then schools the young 'en, posting up on of them, dribbling one handed while still holding the bag, until he spins, leaves the other guy holding the bag, and dunks. He then retreves his bag from the posterized youth, hands him a sody-pop from out of the bag, and heads home.

The question du jour during the Pistons game tonight was "Who is the oldster?"

It's Nigel Miguel, the former UCLA standout from 1982-85 turned actor. We know because we asked him. Mystery solved.

Mister old-school is younger than I am. I was '79-'82. Oooh, feeling old.

Afternoon Musings

The new business has begun. We now have an Employer ID Number for Scandianavian Specialties and DBA for SS and Reflective Paws. Next stops-a bank account and URLs.

Maybe Duyba should have Abdullah over more often.

Syria, don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.

I'll be looking forward to game two of the Piston-Sixers series; the story line seems to be a parallel of last year's Lakers series. You know (Shaq and Kobe/Iverson and Webber) are going to get their points, so focus on shutting down the other three. Prince was all over Korver like a cheap suit Sunday.

Edifier du Jour-Psalm 92:12-15(ESV)

¹²The righteous flourish like the palm tree    and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
¹³They are planted in the house of the LORD;    they flourish in the courts of our God.
¹⁴They still bear fruit in old age;    they are ever full of sap and green,
¹⁵to declare that the LORD is upright;    he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him

I was looking at verse 14 and thought of the seniors in the church. Righteousness doesn't give you a get-out-of-aging-free card, but it does give spiritual and emotional fruit in their old age.

The church elders seem to face old age with a joy that your more secular folks don't. They have less to fear from death, have a mental and spirital life that can help replace their old physical abilities and are in a place where wisdom is more respected than in the broader culture.

 

Midday Musings

My most recent Spero piece is up, looking at three black Republicans (Ken Blackwell in Ohio, Michael Steele in Maryland and Keith Butler in Michigan) that have a good chance of being the first modern black GOPers to win either a Senate or governor's race.

Does Edward Brooke in the 70s count as modern? He's the only black Republican elected to a top statewide office since Reconstruction. [Update 9:25PM-I'm calling governor and senator "top statewide"; there have been a number of black LGs and other statewide officials; in Michigan, we had a black Sec. of State, Richard Austin, for 24 years.]

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They bring friends to Crawford. Are the Saudis our friends? Here's one interesting little part of the piece-

The president surprised reporters when he came out with Vice President Dick Cheney; aides had said neither he nor Prince Abdullah were going to speak to the media. The two were awaiting the Crown Prince's arrival.

President Bush used the opportunity to urge the Senate to act on an energy bill that was previously knocked down over possible exploratory drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The House passed a version of the bill last week.

"One thing's for certain — I need to sign an energy bill," Bush said. "Now's the time for something to happen."

Moments later, SUVs carrying the Crown Prince and his aides arrived.

Ain't that rich; coming out to Crawford in gas hawgs.

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This doesn't sound promising

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century.
...
He said the break-up of the USSR in 1991 was "a real drama" which left tens of millions of Russians outside the Russian Federation.

How come I hear echos of the Sudetenland?

That Russifing of the old USSR was a deliberate strategy to tamp down nationalist sentiments. IIRC, Kazakhstan is more Russian than Kazakh, and many of the other republics were at least double-diget Russian. Now, it lends an possible excuse for retaking the "near abroad."

Web Hosting Bleg

We're hours from launching a new business and starting work on a web site. It's been a couple of years since I looked into web hosting sites; at the time, Jatol seemed to be the consensus choice. A start-up business with a significant Web presence might not be the same as blog hosting, but I could use some suggestions.

Edifier du Jour-1 Corinthians 15:5-056 (ESV)

   ⁵⁰I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ⁵¹Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, ⁵²in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. ⁵³For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. ⁵⁴When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:    

"Death is swallowed up in victory."
⁵⁵"O death, where is your victory?    
O death, where is your sting?"        

⁵⁶The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 52 is the church nursery verse-"We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed..."

For some reason, the image of the Devil as a middle-aged banker, kicking himself as he's lost another one to Jesus, is appealing. The other image comes out of The Screwtape Letters as Wormwood reports in after failing to pry his "patient" away from Christ before a German bomb does him in.

Did you mark how naturally- as if he's been born for it- the earth-born vermin entered the new life? How all his doubts became, in the twinkling of an eye, ridiculous.

Wormwood gets the Aztec basketball loser's treatment, while we get life eternal with God. Our ugly sacks of mostly water get revamped into something more suited for Heaven; what exactly, I don't know, but we'll find out in time.

 

Evening Musings

Is this the first big campaign stop of the 2008 GOP presidential primary? This "Constitutional Option" rally has Sen. Frist, who's not the biggest theocon, going full bore with the Family Research Council. That's his play for the right flank of the party, folks that might not have liked some of his less-than-conservative stands in the past.

While going through a Christian bookstore yesterday, I spotted a Frist bio. Isn't the first step for a wannabe presidential candidate these days to write a book?

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Hell hath no fury like a rock star scorned. Bono backed Paul Martin in 2003 for his Third World-friendly platform, stating that he'd be "the biggest pain in the ass." He's being just that, going after Martin for not increasing foreign aid as much as hoped. That's not helpfull, as Martin's minority government is hanging by a few threads.

Will the NDP be doing some pro-Bono work?

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They installed Benedict XVI today. Installed? Did the Catholic Church need new shocks or an after-market muffler? Maybe the latter; Benedict will make some noise.

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Josh's cousin didn't get drafted. My favorite name in the draft was Nebraska center Richie Incognito, who went to the Saints in the third round. I remember a comment from Jerry Kramer's Instant Replay (a diary of the 1966 Packers) where someone said that if they'd needed to be on the lam from the law, they'd be an offensive lineman; no one notices you. We now have an Incognito offensive lineman.

Edifier du Jour-Mark 9:2-8(ESV)

²And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, ³and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. ⁴And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. ⁵And Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah." ⁶For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified. ⁷And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, "This is my beloved Son, listen to him." ⁸And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.

Peter's response to the Transfiguration was very human; let's put them up for the night. That's a very natural reaction, for the Church will try to institutionalize miracles. This isn't just a Catholic shrine thing; modern Pentecostal hot spots like Toronto and Brownsville have gotten institutionalized as well, becoming de-facto pilgrimage sites.

However, most of the works of the Holy Spirit are one-offs, not to be repeated or institutionalized. You don't need to go to Lourdes to get healed or to Toronto to get slain in the Spirit; those things can and will happen just as well back home, if God's in the mood. The Holy Spirit's home on this earth is in the hearts of the faithful, not in big church buildings.

Evening Musings

This might prove rather interesting. The BBC pre-planted hecklers with microphones at a Conservative rally.

Since being married, I haven't had the free time to be a draftnik. However, I did catch snippets of the NFL draft. A few random thoughts

(1) Mr. Smith goes to San Francisco. He might be a very good choice; given that a BYU guy did darn well with the Niners, a Ute might, too.

(2) Are the Lions loaded at WR or what? Somehow, Mike Williams drifted down to #10. If Rogers can stay healthy, he and the Williams "brothers" can give opposing defensive coordinators sleepless nights. Now, can they find someone to get them the ball?

(3) Aaron Rodgers was listed as a possible #1 at the beginning of the day, yet floated all the way down to Green Bay at 24, where he'll be Favre's understudy.

(4) The Jets went with Buckeye kicker Mike Nugent in the middle of the 2nd round. I remember him being good, but not second-round good.

(5) The Cavs had good furtune with an Akron kid running the show; the Browns picked up Akron QB Charlie Frye in the third round. You always want a QB who can put a little Zip on the ball. Will we see AFC cornerbacks getting Fryed with a Braylon Edwards run to the house?

(6) It's the middle of the third round, and Maurice (the Joker) Clarett is still on the board. Not what he was counting on a year ago, was it?

[Update 4/24 7:45AM-Clarett went to Denver with the last pick in the third round. Just what I wanted to grow up to be, a supplemental third round pick.]

Afternoon Musings

It is April 23rd. We have a winter storm warning up; 6-12 inches is due. They have a blizzard warning in the northern part of the Thumb; 'cause this is one Bad Axe storm. I was singing this while driving through some light early snow this morning.

I'm dreaming of a white Pentecost
Just like the ones in Ishpeming.

We did get a Darko sighting this afternoon; it didn't look like it would happen when I first tuned in, as I napped while Philly pulled out to a 16-point lead early. The Pistons kicked out the defensive jams thereafter and won 106-85.

Edifier du Jour-Ruth 1:19-22(ESV)

¹⁹So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, "Is this Naomi?" ²⁰She said to them, "Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. ²¹I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the LORD has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?"      

²²So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

The easy passage to pick out of Ruth 1 is Ruth's "where you will go, I will go" speech in verses 16 & 17. However, the next passage caught my eye this morning.

I've always looked down upon Naomi's attitude here. Today, however, I respect her honesty. There's some Hebrew word-play going on here that you only catch in the footnotes; Naomi means pleasant, so the greeting from the Bethlehemites was "Is this pleasant?"

Naomi response was "Hell, no, it isn't pleasant; it sucks. I just lost my husband and two sons and have a foreign daughter-in-law in tow; the poor fool insisted on coming back with me. You call that pleasant? Call it bitter," which is what Mara¹ translates to.

That's not a great attitude, but I'm respecting her transparency. It's too trite to say "the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away;" we're usually more hurt and more POed than that when we're in the middle of bad times. We're not supposed to be ticked at God for letting things happen, but we often are.

Are we to give the stiff upper lip and give the rote answer "Fine" to "How'ya doin'?" That's not an honest answer. It's often better to express what you're feeling, warts and all, so that your friends and church-mates can minister to you.

Naomi didn't have the patience of Job. Neither do most of us. We need to give people a bit more slack when tragedy and bad times hit, for God knows we're not the happiest campers at times ourselves.

¹ Bible-literate news hounds could make a crack the next time Mara Liason has some sour grapes on an issue.

Tricky Dick Revisionism

I was too busy to post on the Henry Hyde non-story on impeachment this morning; John Hindraker does the job nicely. He merely refused to refute the allegation that Clinton's impeachment was payback for Nixon's being forced from office-"I can't say it wasn't..."

A few quick thoughts from my vantage point. Here's some points that would dismiss the quid-pro-quo thought.

(1) Nixon deserved worse than being run out of office. The Democrats were doing the right thing in '73-'74 as they pressed the issue.

(2) Quite a few Republicans agreed with them; Nixon waited until he got word that most Republicans on the Hill were prepared to oust him to resign.

(3) A lot of the activists that were on Clinton's heels had little love for Nixon, who would be looked at as a RINO were he politically active today. He expanded the welfare state, started much of the environmental and consumer-protection programs and was almost the antithesis of Bush's idealistic foreign policy.

(4) Anyone under the age of 35 during the late 90s would have known Nixon more from history books. I was just turning 13 when Nixon resigned, and my memories are a 50/50 blend of what I remember from the news of the time and what I've read and heard since then.

For someone to make it out to be a quid-pro-quo, you'd have to like Nixon and be willing to overlook all the crap he did and be old enough to hold a grudge from the early 70s. That's a single-digit percent breed at best.

At best, there might be a bit of residual dislike of the anti-Nixon crowd from that era who had an anti-establishment dislike for him before the dirty laundry came out. Some of the people came at Nixon's malfeasance with a bit too much glee. For instance, Hilary worked on the House committee looking into Nixon's impeachment.

It wouldn't be pro-Nixon sentiment that goaded conservatives, but possibly a little anti-anti-Nixon sentiment, looking down their noses at the 60s-hippies turned 90s-leaders on the left. A little "Who's in the hot seat now, flower child?" schadenfreude.

Edifier du Jour-1 Corinthians 14:37-40(ESV)

³⁷If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. ³⁸If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. ³⁹So, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. ⁴⁰But all things should be done decently and in order.

Here's two verses that seem to be in mortal combat. "Decently and in order" is a phrase that will resonate with a Presbyterian, but the comments on prophesy and tongues in the verse before probably wouldn't.

Has the definition of "decent and in order" have changed over the years? Paul gives instructions earlier in the chapter on how to manage prophetic tongues, so that you didn't have prophets talking over each other. Back in his day, those were OK.

"So was shutting up women," I hear from the back of the Peanut Gallery. Yep, there are things that would be considered in order today that Paul'd be pulling his hair out over. I'm not up to exegeting verses 33-35 today, and I'll leave it there.

Why is the prophetic indecent today and women speaking decent when it was the other way around with Paul?

Evening Musings

Canadian PM Martin went on national TV this evening and did something of a mea culpa on the sponsorship scandal, pledging to hold an election within a month of the completion of the Gomery inquiry this fall. That'll lead to some interesting politics; the oppostion seems to be looking for a late-spring election.

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Interesting little CNN piece-the title is interesting in itself-"House Resources chairman disses key provision of energy bill." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's the first time I've ever seen "dissed" or a derivitive of "dis" in a MSM article title.

Meanwhile, the chairman is getting his renewable fuels mixed up-

House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-California, a key proponent of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, whispered, "This is bulls--t," to House Majority Whip Roy Blunt as the two men stood listening to Rep. John Doolittle, R-California, talk about the benefits of hydrogen fuel at a crowded Capitol Hill news conference.

No, that cow manure would be a source of methane, not hydrogen. I'm not usually a fan of industrial policy, but fuel cells seem to a good long-term alternative, and it might be worth plowing some government R&D to speed it along some in order to get some gasoline alternatives out there.

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The Bolton nomination gets messier and messier; the current spin is that Colin Powell's giving him a left-handed complement, that he's smart but prickly. Voinovich is Wallace the Waffle-Whiffer, holding up a vote to get a second look. Hey, you just got elected, so the 527 ads won't be getting you until 2010.

Edifier du Jour-Mark 8:22-26(ESV)

   

²²And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. ²³And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, "Do you see anything?" ²⁴And he looked up and said, "I see men, but they look like trees, walking." ²⁵Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. ²⁶And he sent him to his home, saying, "Do not even enter the village."

Change sometimes takes time, even supernatural ones. It took two passes for the blind man to fully regain his sight.

You might have heard testimonies about God breaking them of this or that bad habit overnight; "Why do I still have an uphill struggle to break mine?" Not every miracle is an overnight one.

So, hang in there if the changes God's doing in your life don't happen now. They're coming.

 

Morning Musings

Here's one that I'd like my legal buddies to back me up on; I think DeLay is out to lunch on one fine point here. He's rightly ripping Anthony Kennedy a new one for looking to international legal precedent to trump American common law, but he's off base here-

"...We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous," DeLay told Fox News Radio. "And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous."

Last I checked, most of those dusty old legal journals are available on-line these days, so that "doing his own research on the Internet" would be a proper thing to be doing, all else being equal. Researching Luxembourg's capital punishment laws online might not be the highest and best use of his time, but the mere fact that he's on the Net isn't outrageous.

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Benedict isn't going to be Captain Condom, and Tutu's unhappy. He'd be well-served to give Uganda's program a look-see, and see if that might not shake you loose from the CW for a moment.

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Bene's not going to be happy; June 27 is the likely Canadian election day.

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You can't stop Darko, you can only hope to contain him. He got to start and delivered 16 points, 7/11 from the field, five boards and three blocks. Yes, it was against the lowly Hawks, but that should keep some people quiet for a bit. He was out-producing Eldon Campbell on a minute-by-minute basis, so he might start to get into the rotation, either in the playoffs or next year.

Edifier du Jour-Mark 8:11-13(ESV)

¹¹The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. ¹²And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, "Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation." ¹³And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side.

More often than not, God speaks softly and internally, not in some cosmic light show. In other settings, Jesus said that the one sign He'd give 'em was the sign of Jonah, arising from the dead after three days in the "fish." That wasn't likely the kind of show that the Pharisees were asking for.

The sign that we often get is that still, small voice speaking to our spirit; some people are spiritually deaf or have other signals drowning it out. The Phasisees may well have had a tin ear to the Holy Spirit.

Papal Musings

Now that I got the bad jokes out of my system, let's take a second look at what the Catholic Church just did.

They kept the papacy in Europe. One can only hope that Benedict can start to revive the Church in Europe, where there seems to be more people in mosques than in churches on any given weekend.

They voted for a no-nonsense conservative. The conventional wisdom is that he was too conservative to get elected. Well, if the MSM newsrooms got to vote, that would be the case. If the American laity got to vote, that would be the case.

However, it was the College of Cardinals who got to vote, and they felt that "God's Rottweiler" (the Telegraph's take) was the guy for the job. I know at least one very well mannered Rottweiler who has the soul of a lap dog, but you wouldn't want to mess with his owners if he was around; he's only nasty when he needs to be. Benedict 16 will defend the faith in that way.

[Update 11PM-Chris Burgwald has him down as "a warm, humble person, not a doctrinaire, harsh figure as some would make him out to be." A lapdog Rottweiler, just like my four-legged friend.]

The MSM would have you believe that becoming moderate and scrapping all that archaic morality would be the way to bring people back to the church. If that were the case, why are the mainliners bleeding members? The left stay home and the right go to places where the Gospel's still being preached. One Catholic family I know here in Midland is going to a Eastern Rite church in Bay County to get away from the liberalism that has creeped into most of the Latin Rite churches in the area.

Others are walking with their feet to evangelical churches. Pentecostals are eating into Catholic market share in Latin America. The answer isn't to become more theologically liberal, but to present the Gospel and meet people's needs. The Catholic church majors in helping the poor; Mother Teresa was the gold standard on that front, and there are plenty of others that got far less press. Doing both spiritual and physical ministry will help.

In addition, they can keep from losing market share to the Pentecostals if they make the Holy Spirit something other than a bit player in the Trinity. I was moved this afternoon to hear how the Ave Maria radio crew and their callers were invoking the Holy Spirit with an ease that I normally only see in charismatic circles; if they keep that up, they might start to get a busier ferry service across the Tiber. John Paul gave the Catholic charismatic movement a long leash; one can only hope that Benedict doesn't reel them in, lest they lose even more ground.

____

The first non-happy post I read was from from Richard Hall-" I wish him well, but I can’t say I’m thrilled." A bit to Richard's right on a number of issues, methinks.

I can picture the smoke coming out of Sully's ears. He's more steamed that I thought he'd be. "When I read the Gospels, they speak the truth to me." Unfortunately, the Bible doesn't begin and end there, Andrew, so some of the things that Jesus didn't talk about in the Gospels are still no-nos.

Sullivan's right. There isn't a dialog to be had; not at least with this crew of cardinals. Both Moses and Paul said that homosexuality is sinful and God hasn't updated that factoid, unless you're reading the Gospel of Gene.

Speaking of Gene, the Episcopal church is that-away, Andrew; just steer clear of the people getting off the ferry coming from the other direction.

With a Little Hollandaise, Please

So, we have Bene Diction on Benedict. When will we have Benedict on Bene Diction? Only if Bene eggs Benedict on.

Update 9:45PM- Here are some other attempts at papal name humor.

For the geeks in the crowd, he's Bene20 in octal and a perfect Benedict 10 in hexadecimal; too many COBOL core dumps in my youth, although one is too many.

Beware the Rat Zinger!

Yes, I'm not quiting my day job to pursue a graphic art career.

Another random thought-Cardinal Ratzenberg-Cliff really gets to pontificate.

Last but not least, Drudge has up the Sun's take-Papa Ratzi

Ratzinger's Dirty Laundry?

Someone just Googled in for that; I just happened to have "Dirty Laundry" as my MSN linkage subset. Here's the grungiest stuff in a fairly empty hamper.

In a book of memoirs, Cardinal Ratzinger recalled that while a seminarian, he was enrolled by school officials in the Hitler Youth program; he soon stopped going to meetings. After being drafted in 1943 he served for a year on an anti-aircraft unit that tracked Allied bombardments. At the end of the war he spent time in a U.S. prisoner-of-war camp before being released.

Yes, it might have been a more heroic bio for him to have gone underground, but I don't think it's a cardinal sin to have been drafted into the Germany Army and not go AWOL. You'd bar just about every adult able-bodied German male of that generation if you did.

It's not a thrilling idea to think that he might of helped shoot down US planes [Update 4/20-he never fired a shot], but we wouldn't drag an octogenarian Japanese over the coals for being in their army as a teen. However, even a tangential association with the Nazis gets folks in trouble, especially if they are people of the right. Ahnold had to apologize for his dad, even though he himself didn't have any Nazi sympathies. Practically everyone got dragged into some Nazi organization by the end of the war, so it's very hard to castigate a teen for not being anti-social, even if it was Nazi society.

There ain't nothing there, folks. Move along.

[Update 4/20-The early reactions from the Jewish quarter are positive. If they went after every old fogey who served in the German army during WWII, they'd be dissing just about every retired male in German.]

 

Benedict XVI, not Benedict Arnold

"Ratzinger's (6-1) probably too conservative and a bit too old (78) to be chosen." Well, I stand corrected.

The name Benedict carries some extra baggage for an American, since one of the villains of the Revolutionary War was a general named Benedict Arnold, who handed the fortress of West Point (later to become the Army's officer academy) over to the British in return for goodies; since then, the name has become synonymous with traitor.

Benedict XVI isn't going to be orthodoxy's Benedict Arnold, since they've just promoted John Paul the Great's "theological enforcer." I'll put the quotes around the last rather than "the Great" since I kinda agree with that honorific that EWTN Radio was using this afternoon as I was driving around (it isn't often that I hang out on the Catholic radio station, but where better to get coverage that didn't have the "What's the new pope going to do about women, condoms, yadda, yadda" that NPR was throw out).

What we've got in Ratzinger/Benedict 16 is a solid conservative on theology. I'd have hoped for Arinze to give a younger, more vocal and more southern face to the Catholic church, but Ratzinger would have been my easy second pick. Unless he hits triple-digits, he'll have a shorter reign than John Paul the Great, but he'll have a fruitful one.

Why does this matter to a Bapticostal? Like it or not, the Pope is the first face of Christianity, more so than Billy Graham, the Archbishop of Canterbury or any televangelist du jour. If the Pope starts going squishy on the moral issues of the day, that puts more pressure on evangelicals and other Christians to conform to the culture. That ain't gonna happen with Bene16.

In addition, on those basic areas of faith that Christians of all orthodox stripes can agree on, it's important to have some orthodoxy flowing from Rome. If the Pope starts taking the Bible on an a-la-carte basis, that's going to harm the rest of Christian witness.

He's not going to be John Paul; no one that showed up in Rome was going to fully fill those shoes. However, we'll have a staunch defender of the faith for the next decade or so.

Liberals won't like it, but I will.

A Constitutional Option

It looks like the right has rechristened "The Nuclear Option" as "the Constitutional Option." I heard that being used repeatedly on a Family News in Focus piece this morning, prompting some bedroom conversation this morning.

On one hand, it's good PR, not unlike nicknaming the estate tax the "death tax." However, it is rather disingenuous and misleading.

Repeat after me-Democratic filibusters of conservative judicial nominees are constitutional. They may well be wrong, but they're constitutional. Article I, section 5, clause 2 of the United States Constitution says that "Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceeding...."

Currently, the Senate has a rule that allows for unlimited debate unless 60 senators vote for cloture. That number isn't in the Constitution and has been shifted downward over the years. The rule has gone from no cloture to needing two-thirds to needing 60 votes, the last change being made to shut up segregationists wanting to stall civil rights legislation.

It's within the Senate's purview to change that rule. I don't see Sandra O'Connor or Anthony Kennedy saying that the 60-vote rule has now been written in stone; Teddy might, but Anthony wouldn't. Thus, what the Republicans are proposing to invoke cloture with a simple majority is a constitutional option.

Keeping the 60-vote status-quo is also a constitutional option. The status-quo isn't unconstitutional. Anti-majoritarian, yes, but not unconstitutional. Thus, I don't like the marketing of the change in cloture; it isn't the one-and-only constitutional option.

That doesn't mean it's a bad idea, even though its marketing leaves a bit to be desired.

The problem lies with a change in tactics in modern politics, to be more willing to be confrontational and go to the mat. That change isn't just on the liberal side of the aisle, it just seems to be more pronounced there. Let's look at this paragraph on the Bolton nomination with a little added italics

Chafee isn't likely to bury Bolton. The senator believes presidents deserve to pick their advisors, absent some overwhelming reason to the contrary. Chafee was appointed to the Senate in 1999 after the death of his father, John Chafee, and elected in 2000. In that brief Senate career, the younger Chafee has voted to confirm every executive branch nominee he's considered for both Presidents Clinton and Bush.

That used to be the norm in the Senate. You'd usually get some yahoo wingers from the opposition voting against the president, but judicial nominees and cabinet nominees would usually slide through 90-10, or if someone was a staunch winger of the President's party, maybe 80-20. Only when the guy had a conflict of interest or was really off in left or right field would there be a real nomination fight.

There's been an escalation of what would qualify one for being a wingnut. One could trace the modern trench warfare on nominations back to Robert Bork, someone who'd have been a 80-20 nominee in a more genteel era, but got shot down by a more ideological Senate. With Bork being the "Remember the Alamo" of the right, the Republicans ratcheted the machine-gun fire a bit more in the Clinton era, stopping some of Clinton's more liberal nominations, sometimes by majority vote but often by holing up the nominations in committee.

The Democrats have now started adding the mustard gas of the filibuster to the judicial trench warfare. No, the Republicans aren't lily-white on filibusters, but they seem to be trotted out much more routinely than in the past. Rather than a fire-breathing conservative like Bork being the demarcation of a all-out nomination fight, a garden-variety conservative that opposes liberal doctrine on affirmative action, abortion or church-state boundaries will be given a borking.

The end of the filibuster isn't the constitutional option, but it's a constitutional option. Forcing a 60-vote majority to get routine things done isn't written into the constitution; there are super-majorities for passing a constitutional amendment, for approving a treaty and for convicting an impeached office-holder, but the 60-vote cloture rule isn't written in stone, and given the change in tactics on the left, it's time to ditch it.

Will that mean that a future liberal legislature can ram through Justice Larry Tribe? Yep, but they could "go nuclear" in 2013 even if we don't in 2005.