Mark Byron

Internal Protectionism

There's an interesting discussion in Canadian politics on whether the oil, natural gas and lumber resources flowing out of Western Canada are bad for Canadian industry. "Dutch disease" is the buzz word; the idea is that increased exports of commodities drives up the Loonie, thus making it harder to export other Canadian goods.

Since the manufacturing sector is more unionized than the timber and energy industry and the commodities tend to flow out of the conservative parts of Canada, the labor-centric NDP is not happy. New NDP boss Thomas Mulcair has gotten into a tweet-war with Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall, who heads up a right-of-center Saskatchewan Party that goes toe-to-toe with the NDP in provincial politics.

There is some interesting economics here; the NDP is essentially trying to put up trade barriers for their own citizens to sell abroad. We're used to seeing trade barriers used to protect domestic industry, but using export barriers to protect favored industries from less-favored ones is somewhat novel.

It wouldn't be the first time; Argentina has seen their Peronist leader slap export quotas on agriculture in order to keep domestic food prices down.

Giving the Liberals a Hand

That story out of Canada that started sounding like a Bones episode got quickly morphed into a rather dark Law and Order SVU episode. Not only did a second box with a hand in it get intercepted before arriving at Liberal HQ, but things were traced to a Montreal "adult film" actor who seemed to have made his own snuff film.

The suspected perp is at large and the corpse was found in a dumpster in a state only Hodgins could love.

Edifier du Jour:Zephaniah 2:3(NIV)

³ Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,
    you who do what he commands.
Seek righteousness, seek humility;
    perhaps you will be sheltered
    on the day of the Lord’s anger.

Humility is the kicker here; lots of people are seeking God, but many of those will do so from a prideful base. A run at righteousness without humility puts in the shoes of the Pharisee who's glad he's not a low-life sinner. With the wrong focus, you can be so focused on doing all the right things that you looks sight of whom you're doing it for.

Note that God doesn't give a get-out-of-jail-free card to the faithful here; you might get some help when it hits the fan, but it's not guaranteed.

Midweek Musings

An odd news day. Here's one from Ottawa, where someone sent Tory HQ a foot. It sounds like a plotline tailor-made for Bones, who has a recurring character of a Canadian forensic pediatrist. This is one the specialist could sink his teeth into.

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Another mystery comes out of Texas, where a serial candidate came out of nowhere to get 26% of the vote in the Democratic senate primary and a spot in a runoff-

It was retired educator Grady Yarbrough of San Antonio, described by the AP as “a perennial candidate who has run as a Democrat and a Republican in previous elections.”

Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson chalked it up to the place that the late former U.S. Sen. Ralph Yarborough still holds in Democrats’ very fiber although his time in the Senate was decades ago and his name is spelled slightly differently.

That's what came to mind when I saw his name; the late senator was a liberal Democrat who happened to have held the seat up this year until Lloyd Benson primaried him in 1970. As a non-Texas, it just hit a distant cord as "wasn't there a senator by that name?" but quite a few folks seem to have taken the bait.

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The bigger story was that LG Dewhurst got held under 50%, forcing a runoff with conservative favorite Ted Cruz on the GOP side. Cruz has his work cut out for him, making up a 46-32 gap without being able to self-fund and with the Rick Perry machine out for his LG. However, runoffs will tend to lean conservative, so Cruz has a shot.

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Dennis the Menace isn't the only multi-state congressional candidate possibility; Artur Davis is switching both state and party, becoming a Republican and looking at a congressional run in Virginia; he went native and is working in DC since losing his Alabama congressional seat.

There's little chance Kucinich would change party, unless it's to become a Green.

Question Me an Answer

CNN has a couple of bad questions posing as headlines on their web site

"Is it ok to be racist outside of school?" No. Is it legal, all else being equal. Yes.

The essay dealt with MA kids whose tweets racially dissed a black Washington player after he knocked Boston out of the NHL playoffs; their school is disciplining them for their extracurricular behavior, which the essayist noted is of dubious First Amendment legality.

Lots of things are legal and even constitutionally protected,  but not OK.

Are we seeing a 'Mexican Spring'? No, you're just seeing the Mexican left using social media. The Mexican Spring came a decade ago when the PRI allowed itself to lose to the right-of-center PAN; now, the PAN has spent a decade-plus in charge and has lost its freshness and the race for president is between the establishment-left PRI and the hard-left PRD (Canadian Liberal versus NDP might be a fair comparison if you had Howard Dean off his meds heading up the NDP; letting Canada annex Vermont is always worth dreaming of).

Last go-round, the PRD candidate, Andres Lopez Obrador lost a squeaker to the PAN candidate and protested like crazy even after a recount confirmed a Calderon win. Lopez Obrador is heading up the PRD ticket again, and has Mexico's noventa y neuve por ciento hot and bothered like a 2008 version of Obama; since Lopez Obrador's party has never won the Mexican presidency, he looks like the pristine outsider.

Yeah, you have leftist youth using social media. Youth use social media unless they are totally dirt poor these days. However, Mexico in 2012 isn't a unreformed dictatorship in need of a peaceful revolution; Mexico 2018 might be if Lopez Obrador gets in.

 

Young and Restless Tigers

Here's a thought to send Jim Leyland's way; when Austin Jackson gets back from the DL, have both newcomer Quintin Berry and he in the lineup, benching Delmon Young. Andy Dirks has become your every-day outfielder and Brendan Boesch has come along as of late. Dirks, Boesch and Berry all have better OPS (on base plus slugging percentage, the modern all-around batting stat of choice) than Young.

A lineup with Jackson leading off, Berry hitting second, Dirks third and the power couple of Cabrera and Fielder batting 4 and 5 might work better than the current lineup, as long as my proposed top three keep their bats hot.

That makes Young a well-paid pinch-hitter and occasional sub. Trade bait for some infield or pitching help as July 31st approaches.

Goin' to the (Cross-Free) Chapel

Interesting story on Tokyo Disneyland accommodating a lesbian couple's wish for a Disney wedding. However, it isn't the gay rights angle (Japan's behind the US curve on the issue) that intrigued me, but this passage-

Higashi, 27, and her partner could "marry" at the park, they were told, but only if they dressed "like a man and a woman." Park officials were worried that other visitors might be offended by the sight of two women in wedding dresses or morning suits.

The park relented on dress code after a storm of protest on Twitter and other social media — it had all been a misunderstanding by an individual employee, it said — but the couple will not be allowed to exchange vows in the park's chapel due to "Christian teachings."

That is very interesting to me, since Disney parks in the US are essentially God-free zones; their Main Street is one of the few without a church on it. It's not that Disney is anti-Christian per-se, but its universe has lots of magic and supernatural stuff and no bows to speak of to any organized religion.

Here's a nice piece on Tokyo Disney weddings, including shots of a very nice chapel on-site. Note that there is no cross or other Christian iconography to be seen. It lets couples have an American-looking wedding without any direct spiritual overtones.

That fits the Japanese love of American culture if not American theology; unlike Korea, which is plurality Christian, Japan hasn't found Jesus much, but they love the Santa side of Christmas and the pomp and decor of an American church for a wedding.

Ultra-Touchy

Interesting Al Mohler piece in the WaPo on the pros and cons of the Internet, which led off with a reference to a Orthodox Jewish rally against the Net at the Mets' new stadium earlier this month. Normally, you don't get 40,000 Jews crammed into a baseball stadium unless it's a Democratic campaign event; instead, you have something akin to a Hassidic Acquire the Fire.

What was notable to me was the caption on the picture of the rally in the WaPo

Ultra-Orthodox Jews take in the view from Citi Field at a meeting to discuss the risks of using the Internet on May 20, 2012 in the Queens borough of New York City.

Note that Mohler never used the ultra modifier in any of his Orthodox references but the picture department of the WaPo did.

Ultra-Orthodox seems to be the preferred descriptor for Jews who reject mainstream culture; it takes the place of "fundamentalist" for very observant Jews, since the oxymoron of "fundamentalist Jew" will hit even a secularist funny. However, it takes on the tone of takes-their-faith-too-seriously that the f-word does.

It has political repercussions in Israel, where the Haradi (as they are called; it translates loosely to "the fearful") are a political force to be reckoned with, getting an out for their seminarians from otherwise-universal military service and financing for said seminaries. In addition, they have been known to harass less-devoutly-attired folks and have gotten buses through their areas to be sex-segregated.

Stateside, they tend to be quirky outliers in metro New York, where a large contingent live. Living kosher-to-a-fault might be a bit ultra, but it shouldn't be something the WaPo crew should be passing judgement on, since "...there is no analogue on the other end of the religious spectrum (there are no ultra-Reform Jews.)"

A Ripe Apple

Interesting news from the world's biggest company; Apple is paying out its first dividend in 17 years-

The technology giant will pay a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share from July, the first time Apple has declared a dividend since 1995.

That's the sign of a mature company, where they literally have more money than they know what to do with. It's a rather small half-percent yield given the current price of $562 as I go to press, however, if that's done quarterly going forward, that puts things in the 2% range, which is more than Uncle Sam's paying on T-bills.

Given that Apple is sitting on about $29/share in cash as of their last 10-Q filing for the end of March, that's not that big of drain on the budget. They have another 80 billion in outside long-term investments, so about $100 billion in cash is available to ether finance the US deficit for a month or two or buy back about 20% of the company's stock.

Apple is talking about buying back stock, which is one modern way to get rid of excess cash without making stockholders do double-taxation on dividends; dividends also make firms look too mature, especially when they want to put forward a hip, growing persona, so buybacks let them get rid of cash without looking like a fuddy-duddy income stock.

With Apple's size, getting up in the morning is nearly an anti-trust violation, so the takeover game is hard for them to do with excess money;  that makes buybacks more likely.

Edifier du Jour: Zephaniah 1:10-12(NIV)

¹⁰ “On that day, ” declares the Lord,
    “a cry will go up from the Fish Gate,
    wailing from the New Quarter,
    and a loud crash from the hills.
¹¹ Wail, you who live in the market district;
    all your merchants will be wiped out,
    all who trade with silver will be ruined.
¹² At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps
    and punish those who are complacent,
    who are like wine left on its dregs,
who think, ‘The Lord will do nothing,
    either good or bad.’

A lot of the minor prophets are prophesying bad things to Israel and/or their foes, so they don't get as much airplay as the more positive parts of the OT. However, some of the "God'll git ya for that" passages can be encouraging.

Verse 12 speaks to me this morning, for it hits the issue of theonomy, or "why does God allow bad to happen" or "why do good things happen to bad people and visa-versa" that can be used as an argument against a personal, hands-off God.

Zephaniah was writing during a bad era of rule in Judah, where people were often ungodly and writing off God's wrath and blessings. That has some resonance to a modern era when love songs to Judas are high on the charts.

The bad guys and girls will get theirs in due time. The faithful will get their rewards as well, even if it comes in the hereafter rather than the here and now.

Edifier du Jour:Habakkuk 3:17-19(NIV)

¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

¹⁹ The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights.

The deer crossing signs I see in Michigan have the deer starting a jump over some unseen hedge-row; I've seen plenty of deer during my half-century as a Michigander, but I've yet to see one do that.

Habakkuk seems ready to do that as he closes his lament on a positive note.  He's taking a page from Job, praising God regardless of getting any fruit from his faith in Him.

That reminds me of an old Margaret Becker song, For the Love of You, "not for what it brings." That runs counter to the prosperity-pushers who don't have a good reply to the folks who might have a solid faith but yet are "down on their luck." However, it is true nonetheless; the world does give us trouble, and Jesus has overcome the world, but that doesn't always translate into soaring over the trouble in our own Lear jet.

We shouldn't be following God because of the reward of doing so; that makes us spiritual mercenaries.

Edifier du Jour:1 Corinthians 10:13(NASB)

¹³ No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

That's one I wound up looking up for a friend the other day. There are some folks who can't quite walk this out, who will fall prey to various vices and addictions that seem too much to bear. Josh Hamilton comes to mind, who has had a couple of breeches of sobriety in his walk over the last few years. Ray Boltz's losing battle with same-sex attraction is even more sobering one to think of, one that seems to cast some doubt on this verse.

However, there is an out for most any temptation that we can think of. The out might not be easy to take and may be embarrassing, but you can find it.

There is also grace and forgiveness if you can't find your way out and slip up; Hamilton came back from a one-time off-season bender to have a super start this spring, sitting on Triple Crown numbers as we speak. No one bats 1.000 on this front; that's why Jesus came and died for us.

Breaking Radio Silence

I've been under the weather a bit over the weekend. Bloggy goodness should be returning to a normal schedule.

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Good news for space buffs-SpaceX's Falcon is in the air and headed for the ISS after a false start over the weekend; an irony is that we have a privately-owned rocket doing work for the most statist administration in recent memory.

The advantage of such privatization of space is that it's not tied up in politics; the disadvantage is that it's dependent on either (a) making money or (b) living on donations or patient investors. However, that disadvantage may well be a feature in that (c) living off tax dollars is an untenable option in a tough economy.

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Two obits for the price of one. When I saw the passing of Bill Stewart, recently run out of WVU as football coach last summer, the old BeeGees tune How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (Robin Gibb passed on as well this weekend) came to mind. Stewart was put out to pasture prematurely after he tried to kneecap his successor with bad press.

At 59, Stewart's career had run his course, and he may well have had little to live for. That brings back the old Bear Bryant quip of "croak[ing] in a week" after retirment; Bryant actually almost lasted through January of his retirement. Stewart almost made it a year, more than JoePa did after his ugly axing.

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The president's latest salvo reminds me of an old DL Moody quip, where Moody liked the way he did evangeliize better than his crittic didn't do is. I like how Romney worked in the private sector better than how Obama didn't work there.

His more prominent gig outside of a government job was as that well-documented community orginizer, who then gets government and donors to cough up funds. The funds have to be made somewhere; the organizer just gets to spend them.

Yes, people need to be laid off in some businesses, but unless you're going to have government subsidize red-ink firms, that's the nature of the beast.

Edifier du Jour:Habakkuk 2:18-19(NIV)

¹⁸ “Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman?
    Or an image that teaches lies?
For the one who makes it trusts in his own creation;
    he makes idols that cannot speak.
¹⁹ Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Come to life!’
    Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’
Can it give guidance?
    It is covered with gold and silver;
    there is no breath in it.”

We're at a point where our creations can give guidance of a limited sort. GPS systems linked to maps can create routes for us, although the shortcut the map found could have problems not seen on the map. The newest smart-phones come packing with a voice-recognition based researcher, but even she has her limitations, coming up with a pro-life persona (that's a feature, not a bug:-) and recommending smart-phones other than her home brand.

However, they have no soul or spirit. If I recall my Hebrew correrctly, the word for breath runs close to the word for spirit. They can only spit back what is in their database; even if their database is the whole Web, there is a lack of something that makes us human. Garbage in-garbage out; their inputs lack the Holy Spirit's guidence.

Greek for "Acting President Roberts"

Interesting turn of events in Greece, where their hung parliament and slated re-election has left them without a PM by normal means, since no one can command a majority. The constitutional fall-back in Greece is to make the head of their Council of State (loosely comparable to the Supreme Court and 6 appeals courts rolled into one if my quick read into Greek constitutional law is fair) the acting PM.

Thus, Panagiotis Pikrammenos, a veteran judge, is the acting prime minister until they can elect one normally. Please stop me from seeing his name and asking if it needs surgery to fix. It would be a loose analog to having Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts sit in as acting president if the Electoral College got hung up; our constitution would have either the new VP in charge (since he gets elected from the top two in the Senate) if the House deadlocked on a president or the Speaker of the House if both chambers gridlocked.

John Roberts would be an improvement over the alternatives here and PP might well be an improvement as well, but the Greek voters might not agree, especially if they want to give the middle-digit sal-oot to the bankers in Berlin and Brussels.

Meanwhile, the European Central Bank has stiffed some of the weaker banks from being able to get loans until they get their balance sheets in order.Also,  a mild run on banks has started as people are cashing out accounts and getting their money outta Dodge. Not pretty.

 

Edifier du Jour:Habakkuk 2:2-3(NIV)

² Then the Lord replied:

“Write down the revelation
    and make it plain on tablets
    so that a herald may run with it.
³ For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
    it speaks of the end
    and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
    it will certainly come
    and will not delay.

The first chapter of Habakkuk is a pair of "Don't just stand there, do something, LORD" complaints. Portnoy wasn't the first Jew with complaints.

After a chapter of kvetching, God replies. He acts on time, His time.

We're supposed to be patient here. Patience is a bit like cleanliness, it's both next to godliness and next to impossible. However, that's what's being asked, and God doesn't give us what we can't handle in some way.

Tuesday Musings

The NewsCorp phone-hacking scandal seems to have Our Ms. Brooks as its poster girl. You always see that red Kenny G mane of hair whenever Murdock's minions are on the hot seat.

Everyone outside of the Murdock empire seems to have a special level of glee at their troubles. So far, it doesn't seem to have made it over to the Fox side of things, as it is mostly the British papers in the chain, including the now-defunct News of the World, that were up to their eyeballs in naughty actions.

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Here's another one of those Britishisms; "takeaway" is British for take-out food. Thus, you had a Bengali-Brit busted renting out Spice Girls along with spicy Indian food at his takeaway.

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Snakes on a plain .... bag of mulch, man. Go easy on the ganga next time.

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That's one rich boy in the hoodie. I'm not sure what percentage Zuckerberg has in Facebook, but the whole thing is looking at a $100B market cap. When you're delivering the goods at that level, you can wear your PJs to a meet-and-greet on Wall Street. If you're a small-capper, you might need to dress up, but Zuckerberg is a 800 pound gorilla who dresses like he wants; you're going to tell him to put the tie back on?

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Interesting moves in BC, where the Liberals are the main party of the right in provincial politics. However, the Conservatives are gaining ground on the provincial Grits to a point where merger talks are being discussed. With Wildrose doing well, but not well enough, in Alberta next door, seeing BC go the other route and have a grand coalition of the center-right seems unlikely; there's just too much political ground to see a coalition that can cover 60%+ of the vote, especially when the current government is a bit squishy and on its heels.

A three-way Liberal-Conservative-NDP fight on the provincial level not unlike the voting on a federal level, might be what the next election sees.

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I gave up on the Tigers this afternoon when they fell behind 6-0 while I went to get Eileen from work; my mistake. The Tigers put up an 8-spot in the 6ths and hung on to a 10-8 win; even weak-hitting Ryan Rayburn got into the act, tripling his RBI total for the year with a homer and 4RBIs. Maybe Rayburn actually has game and didn't have a picture of Jim Leyland in flagrante delicto with a Pekinese.

Das Booted

Don't cross the baseball owners if you like your job as an arbitor. The owners were ticked with Shyam Das after he ruled for Ryan Braun in his steroid suspension appeal and opted to remove him as MLB's arbitrator.

That's not the first time we've had an arb get the left foot of disfellowship-

Many of baseball's grievance arbitrators have had brief tenures, with the list including Lewis Gill (1970-72), Gabriel Alexander (1972-74), Peter Seitz (1974-75), Alexander Porter (1977-79), Raymond Goetz (1979-83), Richard Bloch (1983-85), Thomas Roberts (1985-86), George Nicolau (1986-95), Nicholas Zumas (1995-97) and Eischen (1997-98).

Joseph Sickles heard one case in 1976, and temporary arbitrators were used between Eischen and Das.

Seitz was fired after he ruled against owners in the Andy Messersmith-Dave McNally reserve clause case that led to free agency. Roberts was fired after deciding management colluded against free agents between the 1985 and 1986 seasons.

Note that the players haven't been the ones to ditch the arbitrator. Interestingly, Das is also the NFL's lead arbitrator, who will have his hands full with Bountygate cases.

Too Generous?

Usually, when a pastor has a sermon on giving, they have their hand out for some church fundraiser. That wasn't the case on Sunday, when our pastor was doing a sermon on giving to ones fellow man in need.

An interesting case study came across the screen yesterday in the form of a Ben Stein column; he was being hit up for a loan from a friend to help repair a damaged pool.

"I just need thirty thousand," she said. "That's all."

That seemed like a lot to me but I told her I would think about it. I hate the way everyone wants money from me. I just hate it.

I do not want to wind up broke because I gave away my money to people who asked me for it. I have done way too much of that already. I never get repaid and the people who were supposedly broke and homeless show up in Mercedes at luxury restaurants.

I am scared about myself. I am way too gullible for this world.

Last I checked, Stein's Jewish, but God's plugging for generosity didn't start with the incarnate Jesus.

Stein may well be "too gullible for this world" but it is not this world that we're being primed for. It's that kind of giving without expecting a return, albeit a bit grudgingly here, that we're being called to do.

I'm not in position to cough up 30K, but doing something like paying $3 for someones tab at the dollar store might work; on Mother's day after church, the guy in front of us had a credit card the reader didn't like and no other cash or plastic on hand. By the time I remembered the sermon I just sat through and thought to have the clerk put it on my tab, the guy had moved on.

Such "random acts of kindness" shouldn't be random, but hard-wired into our system with the help of the Holy Spirit. I wouldn't be surprised if He is working on Stein's conscience as well as ours, since I don't see a rule where He can't tweak non-believers from time to time.

 

Monday Night Meanders

Here's an interesting piece on Heathrow Airport's future; the premise is that a two-runway airport isn't going to be sustainable as a hub and that they need to expand. I don't know the logistics there, but many airports have sufficient NIMBY issues where expansion is problematic, especially when the city grows up around the airport.

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One interesting aspect of reading the Telegraph piece was that I had banner ads plugging a local Michigan college. Read globally, get ads locally.

Or at least localized. Some of the cheesy ads are in [insert city here] format. The ad that was running for the Lexington mom earning beaucoup bucks only looks like a dead ringer for the Midland mom doing the same thing.

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One interesting way around visa rules; have the office space in international waters. Thus, workers can get a visitor visa and commute out to the office ship moored 12 miles off SanFran. They're not working in the US, just living there, and a tourist visa is easier to get than a green card or H1 tech-worker visa.

Getting broadband out to the ship is the big trick; a long extention cord might be an option in the form of an underwater cable out to the ship's locale.

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A canine worship service? Everybody sing- "I am a friend of Dog, I am a friend of Dog, I am a friend of Dog, he calls me friend." Great is thy faithfullness, indeed.

Edifier du Jour:Galatians 6:7-8 (NIV)

⁷ Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. ⁸ Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

While there are good ministries that don't make it and churches that succeed despite being spiritually clueless, usually form will tell. Even the ones that seem to be mocking God and thriving despite that will come back down to earth in time.

Pirates Left the Left in the Dust

Yet another interesting showing for the Pirate Party, getting 8% of the vote in North Rhine-Westphalia. The neo-Communist Left party got nudged below the 5% seat threshold.

The headline news was the Christian Democrats of Chancellor Merkel getting a 9% drop in their vote from the last election, but that's often to be expected when the economy is lousy and they take out their frustration on the ruling party. It's the turmoil at the bottom, where this new Pirate faction is showing up on radar. They've yet to be part of any coalition, but in a close race, they might be needed to put either a left-wing or right-wing coalition over the top.

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Is it too late to have Greek Pirates? Greek Pilates might be more like it, since getting a government is a big stretch.

My prediction about Syriza leading a re-vote seems to be bearing fruit-

Polls suggest that Syriza, which came second in voting last week, would come first if another round of elections is held.

It could be Jubilee time in southern Europe, as we get de-facto wipe-outs of foreign debt. Bankers won't like it, but it might be Greece's best move. It might make countries like Greece persona-non-grata in capital markets, but they can move to a more barter-based system if the drachma is not respected.

Once More, With Feeling

It looks like we've got strike three in Greece; PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos is having to punt-

Following talks with other party leaders on Friday, Mr Venizelos told reporters: "I am going to inform the president of the republic tomorrow and I hope that, during the meeting with Carolos Papoulias, each party will assume its responsibilities."

The president is expected to try to pressure parties into a government of national salvation - but the BBC's Mark Lowen in Athens says he is unlikely to succeed.

Given that they're mere mortals, saving the country might be above their pay grade.

Three things could happen in a second election, which is what will happen if they don't get a government this week-

(1) We get essentially the same result and are back to square one.

(2) Voters opt for security and give the PASOK-New Democracy quadrant a bit more help, getting them to a two-way majority; they're two votes short of that now.

(3) Rejectionists push Syriza up into first place and let them form a majority. The hard left has 97 votes at present; give them four more votes and the 50 seat bonus for the plurality party and they're at 151.

It won't be pretty, but I see the last of the three happening. The mood in Greece seems to be execrable, so I don't see the second option going down.

Miniture Mammoths and Catholic Fundamentalists

Interesting story on a Catholic school who defaulted rather than play a co-ed baseball team. This AP piece via ESPN has this description of the school's background

Our Lady of Sorrows is run by the U.S. branch of the Society of Saint Pius X. The group represents conservative, traditional priests who broke from the Catholic Church in the 1980s.

That fairly covers the reactionary folks who were more Catholic than the Vatican II era popes, rejecting some of the modernizations; if I recall correctly, the group is having a detente with Rome as of late, especially as Rome lets churches use the old-school Tridentine Latin Mass more than in the late 20th century.

On the how-not-to-do-it front, we have USA Today

But Our Lady of Sorrows, a fundamentalist Catholic school in Phoenix that lost twice to Mesa Prep during the regular season, chose to forfeit the championship game rather than play a team fielding a female player.

Well, if we can have miniature mammoths, we can have Catholic fundamentalists. However, it's poor journalistic form to use the f-word unless you're dealing with Bob Jones U types who self-adopt the term. I passed this one on to Get Religion-we'll see if they run with it.

[Update 6:15PM-they did, even using my "how-not-to-do-it" line. The post is a lengthened version of the E-mail I sent them.]

Edifier du Jour:Galatians 6:1(NIV)

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.

Church discipline is a touchy subject, especially in a church-shopping era where someone who really doesn't want to repent can go to another church where either (1) he can be a stealth congregant and not be noted for his sin or (2) they accepts his habits. At least one denomination has been founded to fill the latter.

Assuming the person wants to do a 180, the key word is gently. Bringing the person up front and saying "Joe here got caught with his pants down with his secretary. Pity the scumbag and steer clear of him until we say otherwise" isn't the way to go. In some cases, especially when it was an elder of some sort that strayed, you might need some sort of public acknowledgement of what happened and why they're stepping aside from leadership for a time.

However, the goal isn't to shame, it's to rebuild and redirect.

The last part of the verse is good to note; trying to disciple someone recovering from bad habits does run the risk of getting you dragged into their world. For instance, someone getting moved off of a p0rn habit might have the mentor having to fight off his own issues on that front as they help another guy ditch the vice.

Swiss Mistep

If the Vikings need a cornerback, invite Michelle Bachmann to training camp; she backpedals well.

"Today, I sent a letter to the Swiss Consulate requesting withdrawal of my dual Swiss citizenship, which was conferred upon me by operation of Swiss law when I married my husband in 1978," Bachmann said in a statement. 

"I took this action because I want to make it perfectly clear: I was born in America, and I am a proud American citizen. I am, and always have been, 100 percent committed to our United States Constitution and the United States of America." 

She was getting a lot of flak from the right questioning her patriotism, even though she had that status all the while as she became Mrs. Tea Party.

DOMA Arigato, Mr. President

President Obama picked an odd time, right after the NC same-sex-marriage loss, to officially come out in favor of same-sex marriage. The Obama administration had been effectively on that page, opting not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court for over a year now, making congressional Republicans step in and take on the government side of appeals of DOMA.

The issue is at a statistical dead heat (50-48 for) in a recent Gallup poll. However, that's a poll of adults rather than likely voters; likely voters tend to skew right from registered voters and registered voters skew right from adults in general. That means the sentiments of people going to the polls might be closer to 55-45 against; given that the traditionalist have won the vast majority (I want to say 100%, but I might have missed one) of the time such votes are on the ballot, it's not as much of a winner as it might look based on the raw poll numbers.

However, it does throw a bone to the libertine wing of the Democratic party, and your Hollywood crowd is strongly pro-gay-rights. This is putting them in a giving mood. In an election where enthusiasm might not be all that strong, giving your base something to smile about always helps.

That works both ways; it strengthens the conservative base for Romney. A lot of churchgoers might not be thrilled with a somewhat moderate Mormon topping the ticket, but it's a better policy match than Obama's liberal mainline take. The amoral stench wafting from DC makes them eager to hold their nose and vote GOP.

It's going to be an interesting year.

P.S.- I guess too many people grew up with Mr. Roboto-check out the hits for my DOMA arigato pun.

Life Imitating Art: Pirate Party Infosocialism

One aspect of the Transhuman Space sci-fi universe is a political movement called Infosocialism-

Infosocialism posits that information and ideas are the primary means of production. It holds that copyright laws are immoral and that all intellectual property rights should be owned by one entity, usually a government or a private organisation (such as the Free Software Foundation).

In TS's future of 2100, a good hunk of the developing world in Southeast Asia and Latin America have elected or installed infosocialist governments that ignore intellectual property rights and develop new IP by directly commissioning work from scientists, authors and other creators. That does not endear them to the rest of the world; China and the Transpacific Alliance of infosocialists fought a nasty war in the 2080s over the issue.

That mythical infosocialism doesn't see to far away from the Pirate Party's MO. We've seen the PP make strides in German state elections, making its way into two state legislatures this spring. PP affiliates in the Netherlands and the UK are creating headaches for officials in those countries who are trying to shut down the Pirate Bay site sponsored by the Swedish PP. Their North Sea brethren are setting up alternative routes to circumvent blocking Pirate Bay URLs, creating a cyber game of whack-a-mole, where new alternatives get created as old ones get blocked.

File sharing sites where you can get illicit access to movies, music, or (ironically) PDF copies of Transhuman Space game books are the current love of the Pirate Parties, but that could well morph into something resembling infosocialism, if that extends to ignoring patents as well as copyrights.

[Update 5:15PM-I Googled around and found that the Swedish PP leader is a Transhuman Space fan and one German blogger was three years ahead of me on the TS-PP link. Interesting.]

Greeks Facing an 0-2 Count

Two down, one to go. The Syriza party swung and missed at its try at building a coalition, but since there was a conservative majority in the new parliament, the hard-left party was hard pressed to coax one of them over to form a left-leaning and anti-Euro-austerity government.

Now third place PASOK, their traditional socialist party of the mainstream left, gets its stab. They want to stay in the Euro, but would need to bring their old New Democracy coalition partners on the right and at least one other party into the mix; PASOK and ND fell two votes short of a majority, so any of the opposition parties would do.

PASOK is thus in a position to (1) get someone from the rejectionist side to join them and (2) get ND to come on board as a junior partner as the larger of the two parties. The latter is an awkward spot for the plurality party to be in, but I recall the Italian Christian Democrats let a secondary party supply the PM in that long stretch where they were in every government for 40 or so years.

If PASOK boss Evangelos Venizelos can evangelize for the Euro and the budget cuts needed to keep Greece in, he'll see a collective sigh of relief from Europe's elites. If not, we see a second election and a likely default.

Edifier du Jour:Galatians 5:22-23(NASB)

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

This has long been one of my go-to verses. Steven Curtis Chapman's Heartbeat of Heaven is the earwig to go with it, having the fruits as a refrain, flipping the last two in order.

I'm going with NASB today, since the NIV opts to go with forbearance instead of patience. As a former finance prof, I associate forbearance with going easy on under-water S&Ls in the late 80s; the Keating Five were being paid to encourage such "forbearance." Since that's where forbearance entered my working vocabulary, I have a hard time treating it as a fruit of the Spirit rather than a vice.

That might sum up the Andy Stanley-versus-the-legalists fight; is he showing forbearance in the sense the NIV translators are shooting for or in the sense that I hear the term? His fans would argue for the former while I and the heresy-hunters lean towards the latter, although I can hear the counter-argument and don't discount it.

Joy, kindness and goodness is also on that list. A lack of kindness and joyfulness often marks the heresy-hunters; they aren't a happy bunch. They seem to forget that there are people on the other side of the argument who will often miss the critique due to the bile that it is often presented with.

That's why this passage is hard to do right, standing for God's truths in a graceful and loving manner is a tough balancing act, but one we're called to do.