Mark Byron

Wednesday Musings

One of the funnier ads from the last Super Bowl was from a nut company who encouraged you to eat their product mid-afternoon to keep you alert, keeping Robert Goulet from messing with your stuff.

Well, it will have to be keeping the ghost of Goulet away from here on out, since he passed on yesterday. He had an interesting pedigree; born in the US to Canadian-rooted parents, his family moved back to Canada during his teens, where he made a name as a radio announcer, singer and actor before getting recruited back stateside to play Lancelot in Camelot on Broadway.

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Speaking of ghosts, it's Halloween, and the costumes are out in force on campus. One of my colleagues brought in an Optimus Prime voice-changing helmet and asked if she should do her lecture with it on.

"At least a part" was my reply. However, I'm not above lecturing in character, like I did a few weeks ago as a robot flight attendant as we covered a Managerial Econ question regarding an airline; the cost per flight were the same for a freight flight as a passenger flight, so I wondered if they had robot flight attendants.

"Would..you..like... coffee..tea..soda..or..pop..or what.. the.. rednecks down.. south... call ...'Coke'."....

I wound up staying in character for the remainder of the problem-

"With .. the freight.. run..., we make 26 thousand.. with a fifth ...passenger run..., we make 25 thousand... even ignorant... humans ...can see...that 26.. is greater.. than 25."

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Interesting political gamesmanship up north. The Canadians are running a budget surplus, so the Conservative government is proposing a 1% cut in the federal GST sales tax effective January 1, along with bigger zero bracket on income taxes, a 0.5% cut in the bottom tax bracket and a corporate income tax rate cut.

Just about everything but the corporate tax cut will sell well with swing voters, so the Liberals aren't going to be the Grinch who Stole the Tax Cut and bring the government down over the issue. They're planing on abstaining, allowing the Tories to pass the bill; the Conservatives have more seats than the BQ and the NDP combined, so they command a majority if the Liberals opt out of a vote.

The Liberals are in the position the Chinese are often in on the Security Council, abstaining from a vote where they don't like the issue but don't want to create a stink by vetoing it. A winter election over a GST cut wouldn't go over well.

Here's an interesting economic question. If you knew sales taxes were going down by 1% after the first of the year, might you opt for more gift cards for Christmas that can be redeemed after New Years with 1% more bang for the buck?

That might tend to depress Christmas sales a bit this year. Maybe not that much, but enough to make a dent with Canadian retailers.

Mere Christian Politics

Here's an interesting Erick Erickson piece that gives a nice left-handed complement to Mike Huckabee after trashing a Huckabee statement over excessive CEO wages.

I'll actually agree with Erick about the CEO wage issue; if a CEO is making 500 times what the shop rat makes, it's OK if he's making good decisions that bring in 2000 times what the shop rate makes in extra profits. The shop rat is paid to make widgets, while the CEO is paid to make big decisions, which have a far greater impact than the shop rat's work on the factory floor. It's when the company is doing poorly that CEO pay is often excessive.

Meanwhile, on to the left-handed complement-

The irony here is that I've started calling Mike Huckabee the "C. S. Lewis candidate."  In Mere Christianity, Lewis writes

If there were such a [Christian] society in existence and you or I visited it, I think we should come away with a curious impression. We should feel that its economic life were very socialistic and, in that sense, 'advanced', but that its family life and its code of manners were rather old fashioned — perhaps even ceremonious and aristocratic. Each of us would like some bits of it, but I am afraid very few of us would like the whole thing.

Couple Huckabee's economic populist rhetoric with his socially conservative values and that's what you'd get. Of course, with so few real Christians running the show with him, I suspect we'd get economically unsound policies, not just charity and fairness to all mankind, as Lewis is describing.

And that's my problem with Mike Huckabee.

That's true, since what Lewis is envisioning is some sort of postmillennial universe where Christian values reign. We're far from that, and Huckabee knows that. What we might get with a Huckabee administration is a few tweaks of the safety net in the direction of bigger government, but likely coupled with other tweaks that dynamists might like.

The Jim Wallis crowd likes to go by Red Letter Christians, focusing on what Jesus said (which leans to the left on economics, being big on helping the poor and critical of the rich) and leaving the problematic-to-liberals parts of the Old Testament and Paul's epistles out of the equation. However, if we're to take the Bible at face value, we need to take the black letters into account as well.

What would an all-letter Christian politics look like? Possibly like the conservative Southern Democrats that Erick compares Huckabee to. Hey, we could do worse than a President Zell Miller.

I don't see such Mere Christianity politics being one of economic conservatism. It is entrepreneurial; the Proverbs 31 woman is a shrewed manager of money and the lazy servant in the Parable of the Talents is scolded for not at least putting the money in the bank to earn interest.

However, the soulless nature of the modern corporation is something that is problematic to a Christian political economy; it's more comfortable with farmers and craftsman than multi-billion dollar megaliths. Support for such critters needs to flow more from pragmatism than directly applying parables; a large, inventive economy needs the economies of scale of large corporations. Big companies are soulless, but they are efficient and add to the commonweal in most cases.

Most thinking Evangelicals would take being a C.S. Lewis politician as a complement. It might not be a supply-side economic stance, but Jesus isn't on record as being a supply-sider. He's not on record as being a socialist, either.

Huckabee and the Binding Constraints

Let's fast forward to 2009. The Republican candidate has just won the White House, and Republicans pick up a few seats in the House but not enough to demote Nancy Pelosi to Minority Leader. The Senate either remains in Democratic hands or gets to a 50-50 tie where the new Vice President gets to break the tie for the GOP.

What kind of fiscal policy will get signed by the president? Probably not a massive cut in spending and a big tax cut. It will likely be roughly the status quo, with possibly some modest tax cuts or phasing out of tax breaks, with spending being about what 2007 is when adjusted for inflation.

OK, let's rerun the scenario with a better result in the Congressional elections; the Republicans get a +3 in the Senate, hanging on to all their incumbents and retirements and knocking off Tim Johnson, Mary Landrieu and Tom Harkin. That gets them to 52 seats. In addition, they manage to pick off the seats they narrowly lost in 2006 and get back a majority in the House.

What kind of fiscal policy will get signed by the president then? About the same as the one that got passed in the first scenario. You'll be looking at a few of the more moderate Republicans as the 218th vote in the House rather than a Blue Dog and looking at winning the RINO sisters of Maine or Arlen Specter as your 50th vote in the Senate rather than Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman.

A Republican president would not be the binding liberal constraint. Whoever he will be, he'll be to the right of the leftmost Republican or rightmost Democrat who'd likely be the swing vote in getting something passed. It will be Congress, not the president, that keeps fiscal policy from going to the right.

Thus, the difference between a President Huckabee and a President Romney (or Thompson or Guiliani) wouldn't be all that much on economic policy. They'll be working with moderates from both parties to patch together a center-right coalition that everyone in the majority can live with.

If we had a majority of rabid supply-siders in both the House and Senate fixin' to pass a flat tax or national sales tax, the NPV wing of the party would have more to worry about from Huckabee or McCain. However, that's not likely to be the case after the 2008 or 2010 elections, so the next Republican president won't be a binding constraint.

Thus, the NPV wing might want to focus on making sure Hillary stays out of the White House except for a courtesy visit as a Senator or a former First Lady confab. Who better that the guy who beat the Clinton machine four times?

People look at the center-libertarian swing voter who likes Rudy; however, he's likely to bring about a 2-5% theocon protest vote and scare off blue-collar social conservatives who might vote their pocketbooks for Hillary if faced with two social liberals heading up the tickets.

It's unlikely that Huckabee will prompt any more than the customary 1% Libertarian and Constitution Party protest vote; maybe 2% if Tom Tancredo goes Constitution. He may lose a few soccer moms, but win over a lot the children of Reagan Democrats for whom a populist, green-friendly message and down-home persona will resonate.

The center-libertarians are far more vocal that the blue-collar social conservatives, having a large voice in the media and in the Blogosphere. However, if we want to get the Heath Shuler voter that made the difference in 2006, it's more likely to be with a populist Baptist preacher than with a hubristic big-city mayor or the son of an auto executive.

What's the 2009 budget look like with President Clinton 2.0? Much less to the NPV voter's liking than whatever a President Huckabee would sign.

So why not run with the MSM's new favorite Republican? Maybe because he is getting such good press as of late, with friendly interviews on some of the morning talk shows and cable news shows; if the MSM likes him, he has to be a sell-out, right?

Maybe not. He's rock-solid on the social issues, good (if former governor raw) on foreign policy and not that bad on economics. Check out Joe Carter critique of the Cudgel for Growth's take on Huckabee; it takes a lot of the sting out of what his critics have been saying.

The main goal for the NPV voter is to keep Hillary out of the White House. If you want a future with a more dynamist government, get about ten more supply-siders elected to the Senate and about 50 more to the House; then you can start taking about getting one of your own in the White House.

Who is best equipped to keep Hillary as Senator from New York? I don't think it's Rudy or Romney, neither of whom will have a large appeal to Joe Sixpack come this time next year, once the Soros Brigades have gone over them with hundreds of millions of dollars of attack ads. There's less in Huckabee's portfolio to bork/swiftboat him over, plus he's going to go over smoother with swing voters.

So, libertarian conservatives might want to take a second look at Huckabee. Romney has RINO family roots much like Dubya has and Guiliani isn't a reliable conservative on economics, either. If keeping Hillary at bay is your goal, the guy born in the Big He's birthplace of Hope, but who stayed there (Bill was raised in the more worldly Hot Springs), might just be the ticket.

The Evangelical Tapestry

One of the talking-point pieces of the week is a NYT magazine piece on "The Evangelical Crackup." No crack-up, just that not every theologically conservative Christian is politically conservative as well. Most church folks are generally apolitical, and those that aren't can vary on how they stand on economics, the environment and foreign policy.

One of the talking points among the chattering classes this week is Mike Huckabee's relative economic centrism (at least among the leaders in the GOP race). The WSJ let him say his piece in response to the John Fund skewering of last Friday. He even echoed my commentary on sulfur dioxide cap-and-trade-

As part of our overall effort, I also support a cap and trade system, which has worked well for reduction of sulfur dioxide emissions.

My line from the weekend was

...a similar sulfur dioxide cap-and-trade system has worked well, and if you're going to want to do something about CO2 emissions, that would be a good way to do it.

One line from the Fund piece that I didn't comment on was a Blant Hurt statement that "He has zero intellectual underpinnings in the conservative movement." That's OK, neither do I. My old joke on such critters is

The definition of an intellectual is one who hears the William Tell Overture and doesn't think of the Lone Ranger. The definition of a conservative intellectual is someone who here's the name Kirk and thinks of Russell rather than Captain.

My hunch is that if you played word-association with Huckabee, he's more likely to say "Beam me up, Scotty!" than "The Conservative Mind."

However, the Bible is a fairly good grounding in conservative thought, although it may not be the economic conservative variety that Hurt would like; Dubya prompted chuckles from the coastal pundits eight years ago when he sited Jesus as his favorite philosopher.

A 2005 Edifier came to mind here-

When the Messiah shows up, even today, political orthodoxy doesn't like it. I can remember an Art Buchwald column of the early Reagan era, where a grumbly conservative caricature complained about Jesus being such a Jewish liberal. We can debate whether Jesus is a modern liberal, but He's sure to be at least a classic liberal, disrupting any status-quo that isn't of God.

We should be trying to move our society in a more godly direction. Whether that requires a bit more government help or a bit less government interference is open to debate from a Christian context. For instance, I never read about Jesus' adoption of the Laffer Curve in the Gospels, nor did I hear Him campaigning for a single-payer health care system; He leaned more towards a single-pray-er system.

Not everyone's going to agree with a libertarian economic take if such a system would be seem to be less godly that one with a significant role for government. For instance, one can make a Christian appeal for expanded SCHIP on the basis of caring for the needy; yes, I hear the right flank of the Peanut Gallery rightly note that the income lines are too high, but I'll politely ignore the folks talking about starving Leviathan.

The Net Present Value wing of the GOP is so focused on keeping the macro economy thriving that you'd think the acronym was GDP. Anything that gets in the way of maxing out economic growth is to be trampled under, even if it means letting various folks fall through the cracks that could use a bit more help.

Evangelicals and devout Catholics can disagree on economics while still being faithful to the Gospel. There is no crack-up, just differences in economic opinion.

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One interesting item of this month was some flak heading Donnie McClurkin's way; McClurkin's a black gospel star (I remember his rendition of We Fall Down got some CCM airplay a while back) who's an Obama supporter. He embodies the song's lyric that "the saints are just the sinners who fall down and get up," for he pointedly talks about getting cured by God of the "curse" of homosexual urges.

Of course, the gay lobby had a hissy-fit, looking to get him pulled from a South Carolina Obama gospel-fest, but Obama opted to keep McClurkin on the bill. Most of the people there would have sided with McClurkin on the merits of homosexual behavior, since blacks tend to be more conservative than whites on that front.

I find it difficult to back Obama since I disagree with him on most issues of contention. However, if you minister to a poor congregation like McClurkin does, one might be more in line with with a liberal economic take and be willing to swallow hard on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage in your preferred candidate; stopping Patrick Fitzgerald and Gerald Fitzpatrick from getting married in Boston doesn't help your parishioners get to see a doctor or get a decent place to live.

Might McClirkin, or some of the black churchfolks at that Obama concert like a Huckabee over a Hillary? Methinks so, and the NPV wing of the party might want to keep that in mind.

Tuesday Musings

I would be in my FIN 324 class teaching ratio analysis if I had a voice right now; I'm out with bronchitis. I got in to see a doctor yesterday and am on antibiotics and a strong decongestant.

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They're getting a new president in Argentina, but no moving vans will be needed; Senator and First Lady Christina Kirchner is replacing husband Nestor after winning the first round with a big enough margin to avoid a run-off.

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Here's an interesting development in the cell-phone business; Google is developing a cell-phone operating system that would let you tap into WiFi and work with more freedom than proprietary systems like the iPhone. Some folks at Apple are probably rather nervous.

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Here's an interesting conversation starter, the UK's Telegraph is running a 100 most influential US conservatives and liberals; they're rolling them out 20 at a time from the bottom and did 61-80 today. A few observations-

Chuck Norris at 71? I can expect to see a new Norrisism about that level of disrespect. I didn't know that he had any influence to speak of.

Bloggers are getting their due. Red State's Erick Erickson is in at 69, while Michelle Malkin is in at 93.

Michael Barone only being in at 87 is a bit low. He's got more impact than Red State or Chuck Norris, although as a journalist rather than an activist, he has a different type of impact.

Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft are conservatives?

Fund Accounting

This John Fund Wall Street Journal piece on Mike Huckabee has made the rounds. It's essentially the first shot across the bow from the Net Present Value Voter wing of the GOP at the Value Voter wing of the party.

Here's some of the gashes from Fund's hatchet job.

The Eagle Forum folks have Huck pegged as "pro-life and pro-gun, but otherwise a liberal." By their standards, at least, which is Constitution Party-level paleocon right.

The Cudgel for Growth noted that "only a handful of the 33 current GOP state legislators back their former governor." I'd like to see a firmer number than "a handful", but until recently, Huckabee was a long-shot, and people tend to back winners who can reward them with appointments or help on policies. Few sitting politicians are going to back a single-digit midget.

Here's an interesting paragraph-

Governors who served with him praise Mr. Huckabee for his ability to work with others, but say he was clearly a moderate. "He fought my efforts to reform the National Governors Association and always took fiscal positions to my left," former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, a supporter of Mitt Romney, told me.

That will sell well in a general election, but not in a primary. Here's an interesting part that may make some theocons nervous-

Rick Scarborough, a pastor who heads Vision America, attended seminary with Mr. Huckabee and is a strong backer. But, he acknowledges, "Mike has always sought the validation of elites." When conservatives took over the Southern Baptist Convention after a bitter fight in the 1980s, Mr. Huckabee sided with the ruling moderates. Paul Pressler, a former Texas judge who led the conservative Southern Baptist revolt, told me, "I know of no conservative he appointed while he headed the Arkansas Baptist Convention."

There are some Southern Baptist liberals, but there were also plenty of theological conservatives in the moderate camp; a SB moderate is often well right of center by most people's standards. That will make him an easier sell to swing voters while not scaring off your Dobsons.

I'm not sure if I know enough to comment on Fund's ripping of a "discredited cap-and-trade system to limit global-warming emissions." However, a similar sulfur dioxide cap-and-trade system has worked well, and if you're going to want to do something about CO2 emissions, that would be a good way to do it. Big if, and one I'm not quite on Huckabee's corner at present.

OK. He's fiscally center-right rather than conservative while saying the right things about foreign policy and the moral issues of the day. Essentially, he's Dubya with a seminary degree rather than an MBA. I'm cool with that, but not everyone in the Peanut Gallery will be.

Sunday Musings

A few interesting developments over the latter part of last week while I was busy getting midterm grades posted, keeping up with my classes and losing a battle with some upper respiratory crud; I went from bed to church to bed today and will be calling a doctor tomorrow if things don't improve.

One interesting development in the political front was the polling data that saw Mike Huckabee nudge past Mitt Romney for fourth in Rasmussen's national polling; Huck had been doing well in Iowa but has just now cracked double digits nationally-

Rudy Giuliani remains precariously atop the pack with support from 20% of Likely Republican Primary Voters nationwide. Fred Thompson is close behind at 19% while John McCain enjoys a second straight day in third place with 14% of the vote. Huckabee continues to gain ground and is just two points behind McCain at 12%. This is the first time all year that Huckabee has surpassed Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts Governor slipped another point and he is now at just 11% nationally. No other Republican attracts more than 3% support while 18% are undecided. (see recent daily numbers).

Given Huckabee’s progress in the polls, Rasmussen Reports will add his results to the daily tracking history table starting on Monday.

Shucks, we're going to have to make you redo your HTML and SQL reports, guys.

Hugh Hewitt has it down to a two horse race already; Rudy and his guy Mitt. What part of "fifth place" doesn't he get? A close fifth nonetheless, where there's only 10% between 1 and 5, but still fifth.

Hugh must have gotten Calvin Borel as his campaign jockey who can put the whip to Stormin' Mormon and slide him along the rail down the stretch through traffic. Even then, even Mr. Bo-rail can't deliver if he's up against a better horse.

Derby winner Street Sense tried to catch Curlin with one of jockey Calvin Borel's patented rail-skimming rides, but was unable to make up ground Saturday in the stretch over a sloppy track at Monmouth Park. Curlin defeated Derby runner-up Hard Spun by 4 1/2 lengths.

"Curlin is the genuine article," Borel said after Street Sense finished fourth in the final race of his career. "I just couldn't go with him."

That makes horse racing hard to watch; the good horses get retired after their three-year-old season to be put out to stud, which is Street Sense's fate. 

The other hard part is the occasional life-ending injury, which happened to George Washington yesterday; the horse snapped an ankle so bad, he was put down on the spot. It had some interesting echoes of Ruffian, who ESPN ran a docudrama on last week that Eileen and I watched; as it turns out per Ruffian's Wikipedia, sister network ABC first ran the movie this summer.

Monmouth Park might now have a sign-"George Washington put to sleep here."

Horsing Around With Stem Cells

I'm still getting used to being in Lexington. One of the things that is interesting about our local paper is that the sport section is that they love horses almost as much as UK; they have a daily full page on horse racing, which is not that surprising, given the large horse industry in the area.

However, this piece from their Breeder's Cup coverage (that's this weekend on ESPN if you want to slide some racing in between college football on Saturday) has some implications far beyond the Keeneland crowd.

The silver-colored gelding named Greg's Gold gives new meaning to the words "self-healing."

He will race Saturday as third betting choice in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Sprint.

But he is racing only as a result of successful treatment for a ruptured tendon by means of stem cells taken from his own body.

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[Greg's Gold trainer David] Hofmans recalled some of the former treatments for bowed tendons: sending a horse off to Montana to tighten its legs by letting it run in the snow all winter; treating the site with thermocautery, called "firing"; and slicing the tendon during surgery.

It's much easier now. The horse's attending veterinarian removes a few tablespoons of fat from beneath his tail, then sends the fat off to a lab called Vet-Stem, near San Diego.

About 8,000 stem cells -- the horse's own -- are harvested from the fat, then returned overnight in syringes to the veterinarian, who injects them at the site of the injury.

The stem cells "go in there and imitate the (local) cells, then become those cells," said Hofmans. He said the treatment costs about $2,000. That's a small price to pay to return a horse like Greg's Gold to racing.

"I did it with another horse, Hofmans said. This was a 2-year-old who bowed both front legs. "He came back and won three races."

"What the stem cell does," Hofmans added, "is it allows the tendon to still have elasticity so it can stretch and not tear. That's just coming from me, from my observations."

Please note that this is using adult stem cells. No horse embryos needed to be pureed in order to make these, just some fat cells from his own behind.

The stem cells from the horse's rear started acting like muscle. Meanwhile, your fans of embryonic stem cell research often act like a horse's .... rear.

The Huckabee Express

It's been a busy few days and I've been fighting off a bit of a cold, so down-time for blogging has been minimal this week.

As promised in the comments here on Tuesday, Joe Carter dumped Fred Thompson yesterday and came out with an endorsement of Mike Huckabee today in a good piece co-authored by Matthew Anderson and Justin Taylor.

I think Huckabee has broken out of the peloton and made the lead pack. This cartoon from Steve Benson was in the Lexington paper today; it pictures Huckabee and the other four GOP leaders with halos and hands folded as in prayer at tie level, giving their best choir-boy pose for a couple labeled "Evangelicals." Caption-"Throwing their rings in the ring."

At least in one cartoon, Huckabee is in the lead pack.

One of the biggest blocks for conservatives with Huckabee is that he has occasionally signed off on a tax increase, earning him the ire of the Cudgel for Growth; it's more of a cudgel than a club, since their M.O. is to beat any Republican who says a nice thing about raising taxes (or not cutting them) to a pulp. Here's the Hope Trio's take-

Some of us were initially duped by the white paper on Huckabee that was released by the Club for Growth. Even though CFG is slightly outside of the mainstream on conservative fiscal policies (CFG is to fiscal conservatism what the Christian Coalition is to social conservatism), we respect the organization and appreciate their valuable work. Nevertheless, we were dismayed by their report that was at times misleading, if not outright dishonest.

We acknowledge that the Club for Growth believes that state sales taxes should never be increased to pay for such entitlements as education, Medicare, highways, and economic development. We understand that this is the reason that they oppose Gov. Huckabee’s record. But we believe that most Americans—and most conservatives—are not minarchists. We do not think the fiscal conservative bona fides of a man who cut taxes and fees almost 100 times, saving the taxpayers almost $380 million, and left a surplus of nearly $850 million should be denigrated because he took such actions as implementing a 1/8-cent sales tax hike. Although we respect the CFC, we are dismayed at the disingenuous means that the group has used to smear the Governor’s character. (We plan to issue a point-by-point response to the white paper in a future post.)

If you look at Huckabee in contrast of the other four leading candidates, he has the package to be the most electable and most conservative person in the race.

The Chuck Primary

Value voters are nice, but Mike Huckabee just won the only primary that matters.

Chuck Norris does not vote for president of the United States. He gives the voting machine a swift roundhouse kick and Mike Huckabee wins.

So the joke would read after the martial arts star announced his endorsement Sunday for the former Arkansas governor.

How long until we get a mash-up of his Dew ad with him knocking the stuffing out of Hillary and Rudy? "You're messing with the wrong guy."

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The Politician's Prayer is "Lord, may my words be sweet and tender, for someday, I may have to eat them."

Joe Carter July 9th-

I really wish I could have started "Blogs for Mike" but this just ain't Huckabee's year.

Joe Carter earlier today-

3. Since June I've publicly supported the candidacy of Fred Thompson. I'm about a week away from changing my mind.
...

4. It's now obvious that Huckabee can be a contender. If he had the name recognition provided by reruns of Law and Order he would certainly be trouncing Thompson in the polls and having an easier time raising funds. I'm not sure if I sour on Thompson that I can fully embrace Huckabee, though. His economic populism concerns me, though it would appeal to a large portion of American voters. Ironically, I think he will have a tougher time winning the GOP nomination than he would in winning the general election. Huckabee could regain the "Reagan Democrats", a group that is now wondering why they are still voting for Republicans now that the Gipper is gone.

If it makes it any easier, Joe, Steffans and I will chip in for the wine, so that you can down them with style.

Edifier du Jour-Judges 7:1-8(NIV)

¹ Early in the morning, Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) and all his men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. ² The LORD said to Gideon, "You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her, ³ announce now to the people, 'Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.' " So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.

⁴ But the LORD said to Gideon, "There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will sift them for you there. If I say, 'This one shall go with you,' he shall go; but if I say, 'This one shall not go with you,' he shall not go."

⁵ So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the LORD told him, "Separate those who lap the water with their tongues like a dog from those who kneel down to drink." ⁶ Three hundred men lapped with their hands to their mouths. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.

⁷ The LORD said to Gideon, "With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the other men go, each to his own place." ⁸ So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites to their tents but kept the three hundred, who took over the provisions and trumpets of the others.

This was the verse that we got yesterday's sermon out of. I'm not sure if it's the best exegesis of this passage, but the pastor's take was that we sometimes need to go backward to go forward; like pulling back a bow or a slingshot or winding up with a pitch, you need to pull it back and get some elastic potential energy built up before sending it forward. God wanted to subtract from the army in order to add His power, which looked like going backwards when faced with the massive Midianite army.

His hermeneutic was that the tough times we go through serve as a spiritual potential energy, getting ready to launch once we're released from our rough patch. After the three years we just experienced, we've got Luis Tiant looking subdued with the windup we have.

 

Monkey on Your Back

"Monkeys kill Delhi deputy mayor." Dis I'm a Believer as being anti-Hindu, and we'll give Davey Jones' Locker a new meaning :-).

Seriously, the most malicious monkey that I can think of was the critter in Raiders of the Lost Ark who narced on Indy, only to meet his demise with the baddest date in movie history outside of Fatal Attraction.

One doesn't think of monkeys as being potentially fatal. I recall hearing a story of an in-law who was visiting Africa and had a monkey sneak into their hotel room and snitch a candy bar. I wouldn't expect them to do a simian remake of The Birds with some Indian politico, but the piece mentioned that they've become quite the nuisance as of late.

Tusk!

Every time I deal with modern Polish politics, I keep getting a Fleetwood Mac earwig, for the libertarian-leaning Civic Platform party is headed by one Donald Tusk.

Cue the USC band for Prime Minister Tusk, as they got the plurality of votes in today's election, replacing (once Tusk gets coalition talks with the Peasant Party done) the theocon-ish Jaroslaw Kaczynski, whose Law and Justice Party dropped back to second place.

You have to like Poland, for when you get the moral equivalent of Sam Brownback getting ousted by Steve Forbes as PM with Steve Brownback (Kaczynski's twin brother Lech is president) in the White House, you're well ahead of the game.

Morning Musings

The end of this classic beer ad from the last Super Bowl came to mind with Ms. Rowling's latest statement.

"Didn't need to see that."
"Nope. The next thing she'll tell us is that Hogwarts is a STD."

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Here's an interesting result from this weekend.

Two former governors, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, shared the limelight on Saturday, handily winning the top two spots in a straw poll of "values voters" conducted by the conservative Family Research Council in Washington.

In the straw poll Romney came in first with 1,595 votes, followed closely by Huckabee with 1,565.

Significantly, however, Huckabee won more than half of the 953 voters who voted at the conference; Romney received 99 votes among conference attendees, with the overwhelming majority of his support coming from voters online.

However, the kicker comes towards the end.

People who paid a nominal $1 fee to join the council were eligible to vote in the online poll, which began in August.

Romney largely "bought" his Iowa straw poll win, getting supporters tickets and busing them to Ames. Might his forces gamed the poll by getting their people to sign up just for the vote?

When Internet darling Ron Paul comes in third, methinks that the vote may be more about the netroots than about real evangelical grassroots, given that Paul came in dead last among Republicans, behind recent-dropout Sam Brownback, in the in-person voting. Huckabee had a majority of the in-person crowd, polling 51% to Romney's 10% and Thompson's 8%.

Weekend Voting

On the national news, we get notice of Bobby Jindal winning the LA governor's race; he managed to get 53% in yesterday's election and avoided a run-off. He had a plurality four years ago, only to lose to now-Gov. Kathleen Blanco in the runoff.

Question to the Peanut Gallery-was that 2003 loss a blessing in disguise for Jindal? Had some of the good-ol'-boys been a bit more comfortable with a son of Hindu Indian immigrants (Bobby became Catholic as a teen) four years ago, Jindal might have been stuck having to manage Katrina. He'd have likely have done a better job, but evacuating NOLA properly without getting egg on your face would come close to being a political Kobayashi Maru.

Look for Jindal on a GOP presidential ticket in the not-too-distant future, possibly heading it up in 2016.

________

Another item on the docket is the Swiss election today. The campaign has had a bit of Tancredoesque immigrant bashing from the People's Party, including an ad that has white sheep running off a black sheep. You think of the Swiss as the home of chocolate, clocks and neutrality, but they're not immune to the lesser angels of our political nature, including nativism.

Proportional representation tends to allow parties with a ideological kick to get seats; first-past-the-post systems tend to produce blander, more centrist parties, since swing voters will go for the medium salsa rather than the three-l-lllama sauce.

_______

After seeing Louisiana's Saturday vote and the Swiss' Sunday vote, I wondered why we stick with Tuesday voting? Other than the fact that it's written into the Constitution for Congressional voting, there isn't much that would keep us to a weekday vote for local elections and primary elections.

A Saturday vote would be less disruptive, since the schools and churches that generally host polling places are free on Saturday. You'd have better opportunities to get to the polls, rather than try to squeeze it in before or after work. You could get people other than retirees manning the polls, since folks with day jobs would be able to work the polls on a Saturday.

Edifier du Jour-John 6:26-27(NIV)

²⁶Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. ²⁷Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."

This fits in nicely with my Jooky Gospel post of yesterday. This passage comes after the feeding of the 5000, and folks were coming for another miraculous handout.

There's a even better pantry that Jesus has the keys to; it has stuff without a freshness date on it, since it is timeless. The Fruit of the Spirit never spoils.

The Jooky Gospel

Over at Connexions, Kim turned the snark knob up to 11 and gave Joel Osteen both barrels.

And his God is such a Nice Guy, not like the Big Bad Dude of the Religious Right preparing a barbecue for liberals, rather preordaining folk to possess good things like higher-paid jobs and bigger houses and better health than most menial, homeless, and sick Americans needlessly settle for. And as a sign for the skeptical - behold! - Reverend Joel has just made a cool $12 million - in advance - on his new book, which Sixty Minutes showed him signing, though I reckon that shows a lack of ambition - he ought to be autographing Bibles.

Talk about evangelism! Shoot, the Wizard of Os makes the Halo youth workers look like those lifeless chaplains at Swansea University.

I don't enjoy Kim's snark when it's goring one of my oxen, but it's enjoyable when I agree with the lion share of his take. For a more earnest dressing down of Norman Vincent Peale 3.0 (Robert Schuller would be 2.0), here's a 2006 Ben Witherington post that Michael Spencer and Andy Jackson linked to recently.

Joel Osteen reminds me of a Sprite ad of a few years ago, where they ran an ad for the mythical Jooky soda ("It's a party in a can!") with buff youth having fun on the beach. The ad then pans to a couple of, ahem, about -1σ on the IQ distribution college-aged guys on the sofa with cans of Jooky; "Man, mine's busted."

That's the main problem with Osteen; people may think that his Jooky Gospel is the real one and sour on God altogether. If you're not prospering, your can of Jooky (a.k.a. your faith) must be busted. That attitude has caused a lot of casualties and ruined a lot of lives.

The faux Jooky ad is promising far more than a good pop can deliver; it won't give you washboard abs or hook you up with the star of the Swedish Bikini Team. Likewise, Osteen is promising far more than God generally delivers. God's far more potent than Jooky, but He picks his spots on how to bless and how much to bless folks with material wealth; He's not an ATM that can be opened up with Osteen's PIN number.

I've got my share of Rick Warren bashers in the Peanut Gallery, but even they will agree with the first words of The Purpose-Driven Life-"It's not about you." They will disagree with what follows, but they'll agree that our faith and life should be about God, not us.

However, it is all about you with the Jooky Gospel. If you hit Osteen's Lakewood Church website, the tag on the top of the browser proclaims "Lakewood Church: Discover the Champion in You." His two big books- Your Best Life Now and Become a Better You.

Ask Osteen to recite the alphabet and he'll only get through 21 letters; he keeps getting stuck on "u." ;-)

James 1 (NIV) came to mind as a counterpoint to Osteen

2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

It is perseverance and maturity that marked the believer, not the number of digits in the bank account.

9The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. 10But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower.

Jooky, that ain't. If Martin Luther didn't like James, Osteen must really be POed. No Prosperity Gospel here.

However, you can't cherry-pick your verses. The God of blessings and abundant life is also the God who esteems the poor and tests the faithful. The Gospel includes both, and it's about God, not us.

Black Monday +20

I can remember this day 20 years ago. I was coming back from Saginaw Valley State after a 3PM Financial Management class that Monday afternoon. As I was pulling into Midland and channel surfing on the radio, I caught the tail end of the stock report on the local radio station; all the stocks were tanking 20% or so.

I was no financial expert, being in the process of taking my first finance classes, but I knew enough to know that something had hit the fan. I was living with my parents at the time, and my dad was already back from teaching at Midland High. The first thing out of my mouth when I hit the door was "what the heck happened today?"

What happened was the worst day in market history, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked from 2,246.73 on the previous Friday's close to 1,738.74, a 22.6% hit. It wasn't just the Dow; the S&P 500 took a 20.5% belly-flop as well.

Today, the stock market went down almost as much today in nominal terms, 367 as opposed to the 508 of Black Monday. However, that was only a 2.62% drop, since the Dow is well above 13,000, even after its tumble today.

Many things have changed in 20 years, including how we did stock research. Rather than thumb through Value Line at the library, who updated stocks on a quarterly basis, you can hop onto finance sites like MSN Money or Yahoo Finance and get up-to-the-minute information and a slew of financial data; Yahoo even lets you download daily stock price results in spreadsheet form.

However, even though things have changed, what hasn't changed is that stocks are still a great long-term investment. The DJIA has gone up almost eight-fold since Black Monday, a steady 10.8% annual clip, a good return even despite the index not counting dividends.

Don't Know Much about History...

Here's an interesting WaPo piece on the evangelical vote in the 2008 GOP race, although this line struck me as very ahistoric-

Kristin Maguire, a leading social conservative and GOP activist, said she received a personal call from former senator James M. Talent (Mo.) on behalf of Romney, the first Mormon candidate to have a serious shot at the presidency.

Well, there was another Mormon who was heading up the GOP race 40 years ago this summer; George Romney, Mitt's dad. George's Wikipedia mentioned that

Polls in 1967 showed him the leader among rank and file Republicans, especially among the "moderates."

By this time 40 years ago, his campaigned had imploded after a late August comment about having been "brainwashed" about Vietnam. However, I would argue that the George Romney of 1967 had a more "serious shot" at the White House than Mitt has right now. Had he used a better set of words with Lou Gordon, we might have been spared Watergate.

Godspeed, Sam

I like Sam Brownback, but the news of his dropping out of the race is good. He made a very solid and very able effort to become the champion of the social conservative wing of the party, but couldn't get much traction, losing the de-facto theocon sub-primary to Mike Huckabee.

This is good news for Huckabee, who will likely inherit a good chunk of Brownback voters. Some may opt for Romney and some for Thompson, but my guess is that Huckabee will get the plurality of the Brownback vote.

One less conservative in the race means one less division of the pie. Duncan Hunter should be the next to get the message; Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo are in it for the bully pulpit and will be in for the duration.

Brownback still has his senate seat and is eying a run for governor of Kansas in 2010. He's still young enough to make a run in 2012 or 2016; if he can add some executive experience to his Senate record, he might be an even stronger prospective nominee in the future.

Well-Suited for Each Other

Here's one of the classic politics-makes-strange-bedfellows pieces; Bob Jones 3.0 is endorsing Mitt Romney.

"This is all about beating Hillary," Jones said. "And I just believe that this man has the credentials both personally and ideologically in terms of his view about what American government should be to best represent the rank and file of conservative Americans.

"If it turns out to be Guiliani and Hillary we've got two pro-choice candidates, and that would be a disaster."

Asked whether Romney's religion was a stumbling block for him, Jones replied, "What is the alternative, Hillary's lack of religion or an erroneous religion?"

For those of you not up on your conservative Christians, Bob Jones U is about as hard core as they get, where Fundamentalist is taken as a complement, Catholics aren't Christians and Mormons are even worse. If Mitt can play there, he can play almost everywhere. Not quite everywhere; the pastor of First Baptist in Dallas wants a pro-Christian, anti-Mormon vote.

However, that's not the most encouraging endorsement; it seems to be more anti-Hillary than pro-Mitt or pro-Gospel. That's one of the reasons I can't stomach conservative talk radio; the venom that flows towards the junior senator from New York is hard to take even if I agree with the two-legged snakes on most issues.

The one thing that struck me about Mitt today before writing this post is that he seems to be what you would pejoratively call "a suit;" a bit too buttoned-down and a bit too corporate. Mormon's tend to lean that way, with the missionaries in white shirts, dark slacks and in pairs.

Romney's the son of an auto executive (George ran American Motors before becoming governor of Michigan) and was a successful manager of a venture capital firm, so he has the business side of suitdom down cold. Combine the two, and you'd think he came out of the womb in a three-piece, with the tie properly straightened.

That's not going to sit well with the swing voter, who might struggle to see Mitt as someone you want to have on the patio with a cold beverage of choice in hand. However, it might sit well with the buttoned-down Bob Jones crowd. They may be on opposite pages on theology, but are culturally rather similar, as Mormons and old-school Baptists are equally stoic and traditional.

A Lifeline or a Tethering Line?

It looks like the Liberals think that discretion is the better part of valor-

Canada's opposition Liberal party has thrown a lifeline to the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, saying it will not force early snap elections.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion said his party would not reject the minority Conservative government's policy agenda ahead of a series of confidence votes.

It looks like there'll be a minority government for the foreseeable future, and the Liberals would like that future to be for quite a while longer. An election wouldn't change things; the Liberals are too beat up in Quebec to gain ground there and are unlikely to make the Conservatives look bad enough in their home turf out west to get a majority. The Tories might dream of a majority, but that would require a bit more time to the country to warm to them.

The Liberals and Conservatives might have to learn to live with one another and actually do things like ... compromise. In the US, we have to do that between elections, since we have fixed terms and budgets have to get passed; eventually, conference committees hammer out something everything can live with. If the warring parties could take their ball, go home and call an election, we'd get less done.

The status quo in Canada makes stable center-right or center-left governments untenable, as the BQ makes it hard for either the Conservatives or the Liberals to anchor a stable majority government, especially now that the Conservatives are a national party once again. Until the BQ runs its course, we may be stuck with those butt-ugly grand coalition governments like we currently have in Germany and the Netherlands, where the main center-right and center-left parties hold their noses and work together.

In part, the Liberals are doing so to save their scalp. In other part, they may actually be statesmanlike and look to make the government work rather than be part of a permanent election cycle.

We'll see how the Tories respond to this new statesmanship, whether they'll see the "lifeline" as a tethering line and set sail into the Election Sea rather than be tied down into a de-facto grand coalition.

 

Edifier du Jour-Jeremiah 49:1-3(NIV)

¹ Concerning the Ammonites:
      This is what the LORD says:
       "Has Israel no sons?
       Has she no heirs?
       Why then has Molech taken possession of Gad?
       Why do his people live in its towns?
² But the days are coming,"
       declares the LORD,
       "when I will sound the battle cry
       against Rabbah of the Ammonites;
       it will become a mound of ruins,
       and its surrounding villages will be set on fire.
       Then Israel will drive out
       those who drove her out,"
       says the LORD.
³ "Wail, O Heshbon, for Ai is destroyed!
       Cry out, O inhabitants of Rabbah!
       Put on sackcloth and mourn;
       rush here and there inside the walls,
       for Molech will go into exile,
       together with his priests and officials.

Jeremiah isn't the most fun reading, since he disses the countries that come against Israel and disses Israel and Judah even more for their turning their backs on God. Everyone's a big turd.

However, this passage struck me. Don McLean sung of God taking "the last train for the coast" in American Pie, but Jeremiah is telling the false god Molech to get the heck out of Dodge  Rabbah and to take his priestly class with him.

Were it so easy to send some of the false gods of today packing.

 

Inferior Gods

I'm working up my Managerial Econ quiz for Friday night as I proctor a FIN 324 quiz. One of the tentative questions had this interesting typo

________2 (T/F) An item with an income elasticity of 0.4 would be an inferior god.

Of course, the question was supposed to read "inferior good," which are items like mac-and-cheese and Raman noodles that you buy less of the richer you get; the term inferior isn't a slam on the product, but just indicates that it's a downscale item.

Just in case one of my Econ students wanders in here, I'll refrain from giving the answer to the corrected question.

However, the answer to the question as originally written is true; an item with an income elasticity of 0.4 would be an inferior god, as would one with a -3 or a +1.5. Anything you can buy in the store is inferior god, even the fish decals and "no Jesus, no peace; know Jesus, know peace" bumper stickers.

The new church mission statement at Victory Baptist, where we've been attending since we got down to Lexington this summer states that "Our mission is to lead all people to know and treasure Jesus above all things." I'd have swapped Jesus out for God to be a tad more inclusive of the Godhead, but that definitely comes to play with these inferior gods of the megamart.

We need to treasure Jesus above all material things, regardless of their income elasticities.

Edifier du Jour-John 5:36-40(NIV)

³⁶"I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me. ³⁷And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, ³⁸nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. ³⁹You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, ⁴⁰yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

That's a hard passage, but one that fits with Christian doctrine. Are non-believers totally tone-deaf towards God? That's what Jesus appears to be saying.

This passage brings to mind Ann Coulter's recent rhubarb; she's not a graceful apologist to be sure, but Jews would be better off as Christians. It's not a PC thing to say (that never stopped her before) and could have been said a bit more politely, but she happened to be right for a change on her quarterly foray into the media spotlight for an over-the-top statement.

Jesus was equally over-the-top here (probably the only time you'll ever see me positively comparing Jesus with Ms. Open-Mouth-Change-Feet), ripping the Pharisees a new one, stating that these religious scholars were clueless about God. You can know about God without knowing God; head knowledge needs to be paired with a spiritual-level heart knowledge. That's not to dis head knowledge, as some corners of evangelicaldom tend to do, since a good knowledge of Scripture and doctrine can keep you from heterodox thoughts.

The thought comes to mind as to whom this missive might apply to today. The classic reply would be pointed towards your Jesus Seminar-style folks on the left whose head knowledge seems to have tamped down any change that a living God might actually impact their lives.

However, there are other folks on the right who have such a tight view of doctrine that only folks who agree with them 100.000000000000% are real Christians. Pastor David goes after some Baptists of that school here, but every doctrinal brand has its exclusionists. There theological head knowledge winds up coupling with the hubris that assumes that we've got it right, thus, everyone one else is sinning because they aren't doing it our way.

We need to keep our spirits open to correction, for we can get cocky in a hurry if we don't.

Tuesday Musings

We may be in for a new election up north; the Canadian analog to the State of the Union address, the Throne Speech, was given by Governor General Jean this evening. However, like its British analog delivered by the Queen, it's written by the current government, a minority Conservative government that needs at least one of the opposition parties to prop it up.

What's interesting is that the parliament has to OK the speech, and the Liberals have the swing vote; the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democrats, both parties of the left, announced their opposition in advance. If all three band together, they can force new elections.

The Liberals' #2 guy, Michael Ignatieff, didn't see enough to force a no-confidence vote, but Liberal leader Stephane Dion was not as pleased. They'll have a formal reply tomorrow.

______________

We're seeing a little bit of fade for Fred, as Thompson has dropped down to 19% nationally in CNN's latest poll, a good 8% behind Rudy; that's roughly consistent with other polls.

It's still looking like a brokered convention. Romney continues to lead in Iowa, with Huckabee within striking distance of a second-place showing. Romney also leads in New Hampshire with Guiliani and McCain in hot pursuit. South Carolina is a no-holds-barred brawl between the big four, with a low-20s total bagging a plurality.

Rudy has a lead in the national polls, but he's struggling to translate that into leads in the early states.

______________

Cleveland 7-Boston 3. First, the Indians send the Yankees packing; now, they can finish off the Red Sox tomorrow night. If that happens, we'll have a Colorado-Cleveland Fly-Over series. I'd prefer it to be the Tigers doing that, but if it has to be someone else, let it be the Tribe.

Edifier du Jour- 1 Peter 1:1-2(NIV)

¹Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

      To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, ²who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood:

      Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

I'll admit to blowing past the salutations in the epistles far too often, but (a) this is about the only part of 1 Peter 1 that I haven't done an Edifier on and (b) it hit me today.

The second paragraph has a decidedly Reformed feel to it, where the Father and Holy Spirit are on the case, choosing and transforming us into more godly critters, far more godly than if we were left to our own devices. As much as the do-it-yourself American side of me wants a more Arminian take on things, knowing that we have a hands-on God overriding our selfish nature is very comforting.

I can also use a good dose of grace and peace in the early part of my week, where I have back-to-back night classes along with my MTW day class. Part of the peace came from seeing my winter schedule yesterday; getting the schedule for the next term with my name on it is always a comfort, since that means I'll be back for sure. It's even more comforting that I don't have any weekday classes; traditional students have been more of a struggle for me than night students to relate to and get feedback from.

I'm still working to get a regular order to my weekdays, but now that Eileen has settled into a regular job and I'm starting to fit in here at my teaching job, I can see some form of shalom on the horizon.

 

Monday Moanin'

A London Super Bowl? The one problem that I could see is that you'd be starting the game at close to midnight GMT if you wanted to keep the 6:30-ish Eastern start time. A 8PM London start would translate to a 3PM EST start; that would make more sense to me, but would be a tight fit for the West Coast. 9PM London gives us 4PM Eastern, 1PM Pacific.

________

I'm getting campaign fatigue for 2008. Wake me up when the voting starts. I'm tired of the back-and-forth of who's more conservative. Yes, Rudy's more liberal on social issues, but no conservative seems to be able to get past him in a national poll.

_________

An interesting manifestation of the hemorrhaging of UK blue blood here in Lexington. The beloved basketball team has its opener on Tuesday, November 6th against Central Arkansas; unless Scotty Pippin has an extra year of eligibility up his sleeve, it wouldn't seem to be much of a game.

There's another mismatch going down here that day; the gubernatorial election, where Gov. Fletcher is down double digits (56-40 in the latest poll) to former LG and AG Steve Beshear. A patronage scandal that had Fletcher under indictment for a time has weighed him down and made it hard for him to get traction.

Some of my KY friends have noted that similar ignoring of merit-hiring rules had happened under previous Democratic administrations, but "the other guys were doing it too" isn't the strongest defense. Fletcher's tried to change the subject to being anti-casino gambling (the horse tracks would like to have that as a revenue-booster), but the combination of Democratic 527 ads blasting away on the patronage scandal and Beshear's high-road son-of-a-preacher-man TV ads have kept Fletcher from gaining ground.

The article went behind the archive fire wall at the Herald-Leader, but they had an interesting piece a week ago on the faith backgrounds of Fletcher and Beshear. Both have Primitive Baptist backgrounds, with Fletcher serving as a lay PB minister in his younger days before settling in as a Southern Baptist, going to old school Porter Memorial when he's back home in Lexington. Beshear grew up as the son and grandson of PB pastors, but met and married a Disciples-of-Christ young lady while at UK and moved over to that center-left denomination.

I overhear one of my colleagues at Sullivan talking about getting an invite to the election night party at Beshear campaign HQ here in Lexington, but colleague and spouse will only get there after the UK game. You have to have your priorities straight here in the Bluegrass.

Edifier du Jour-Ecclesiastes 12:11-12(NIV)

¹¹ The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one Shepherd. ¹² Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them.

Living up to God's standards is hard work in an of itself. Adding extra steps only makes things more difficult.

Saturday Musings

I wound up staying busy today, taking in my first Sullivan graduation this morning at the massive Southeast Christian church in Louisville; one of my colleagues nicknamed it "Six Flags over Jesus", which is a title of this Kos piece and others as well, so it seems to be a nickname of long-standing.

The place seats 9000 and we probably used about half of that for the 500 or so people who "walked" and a few thousand family and friends. It was the first time I've been at a graduation with students earning associate degrees; they had silver robes that looked like something Guinan might wear while running 10 Forward; the bachelor and master's grads had black robes.

On our way back to Lexington about 11:30AM, we ran into some heavy traffic; a lot of folks were heading our way for the UK-LSU game, as quite a few UK-hardware-infested cars were passing the Sullivan van heading towards Lexington.

They got quite a show, with Kentucky beating #1 LSU in triple overtime, 43-37. With #2 Cal falling this evening, we'll now have Ohio State inheriting the #1 spot.

That's not too strange; they won a title not that long ago. However, they'll have Boston College and South Florida at 2 and 3 in all likelihood, as #4BC went into Notre Dame and assured the Irish of a non-winning season and #5 USF mopped the floor with Central Florida; that's a UCF team that gave Texas all they wanted a few weeks ago.

We're now an upset away from a BC-USF championship game; a South Florida-Kentucky championship game is not unfeasible, if BC and OSU lose along the way and UK and USF both run the table. That would be one weird football year, one where Michigan loses to Appy State and yet is still on track to make the Rose Bowl.