Mark Byron

Edifier du Jour- Daniel 3:24-25(NIV)

²⁴ Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”

They replied, “Certainly, O king.”

²⁵ He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

The King James version does the hermeneutic for you and says "Son of God" at the end of verse 25. Is that a per-incarnate Jesus there in the fire saying "Well done, my good and faithful servants, well done"?

We can't answer that with the facts at hand, but Jesus would be the leader in the clubhouse for the ID of the quartet-maker. It would give new meaning to Emmanuel, God with us, for God (or at least an angel) was there in the fire.

Israel, the Insult Dog

An old joke that has made the rounds asks what the first car in the Bible was. The classic but wrong answer is a Honda, since the disciples were all in one Accord. Other folks think it was a Dodge-"I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my Fury."

Then there was David with an after-market muffler; his Triumph was heard throughout the land.

The most notable Triumph of modern days is Triumph the Insult Dog, who just went on a surprise Middle East tour and gotten a certain Twelver hot and bothered.

Israel's existence is an "insult to all humanity," Iran's president said Friday in one of his sharpest attacks yet against the Jewish state, as Israel openly debates whether to attack Iran over its nuclear program.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said confronting Israel is an effort to "protect the dignity of all human beings."

News flash, Mahmoud-ring. I read the end of the book, and our insult dog wins.

Flo Gets Slingshotted

The Army of Davids takes on Flo's handlers, and wins.

Insurance company Progressive felt the wrath of the Internet this week after the brother of a policyholder who died in a car crash posted a startling missive about how the family's claim was handled. Progressive has now reached a financial settlement with the family.

Matt Fisher detailed his family's nightmare in a Tumblr post on Monday with a shocking title: "My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court."

Three days later, Progressive said it reached a settlement with the Fishers.

My old blog buddy Willan Sulik has posted that Tumblr post on Facebook yesteday, prompting me to note-

Interestingly, Progressive's owners live up to its name in donations to liberal causes; it wants to care for people in general with other people's taxes, but not for their own clients with their own money if they can help it.

...

I guess the best answer here is "Don't go with the Flo"

The family here got their money after a fashion, but you shouldn't have to make an on-line stink to get justice. That's Regressive.

Getting Your Irish Out... of the Big TIme

Unlike most of the recent past, I actually have a soft spot for Notre Dame now that Chip Kelly, a former CMU coach, is there. As a CMU alum, having Kelly there gets the alma mater just north of Alma mentions now and then to all the Subway Alumni.

However, the Irish haven't been a national power as of late, and Rick Reilly is looking to demote them out of their hallowed perch as an at-large member at the BCS table and owner of a NBC deal-"When your NBC contract expires in 2015, do the right thing and don't renew. Lower some expectations until you can turn this thing around. And you're a Mars Rover trip from turning it around."

No, they're a 10-2 season away from turning it around. That might not come in 2012, since their schedule is rough, with road trips to MSU, USC and Oklahoma and invasions of South Bend by Michigan and Stanford, getting a BSC-caliber record will be tough. Notre Dame would be doing well to go 3-2 through that gauntlet and have non-trivial games against BYU, Miami, Wake Forest and Boston College on top of that.

They could go 7-5 and have a very solid club. However, 7-5 isn't what Touchdown Jesus is used to looking down at.

NBC could do worse than reup Norte Dame, albeit at a reduced price. If they don't have much else going in college football, a relatively lame Notre Dame bringing a solid slate of teams to South Bend is better than late-season golf or beach volleyball on a Saturday afternoon; that might be more cost-effective than trying to outbid ABC and CBS for power-conference action. At worst, a few of the games might migrate to NBC Sports (ne Versus) on cable.

Edifier du Jour- Daniel 3:16-18(NIV)

¹⁶ Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. ¹⁷ If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. ¹⁸ But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. ”

This trio is serving God; whether God serves them out of the furnace or serves them as Hebraica Flambe is up to Him.

That brings to mind the story of the Ground Zero cross that I was looking at this morning; the atheist leader that was protesting it's inclusion in a new 9/11 museum was mocking the mythical deity who failed to show up to stop things that day. That crazy theocon Jon Stewart wound up ripping him a new one over that exercise of tactlessness.

We serve God even when He doesn't step in to help. A couple of friends were Facebooking this morning over having a bad day with a chronic and oft-painful illness. God still loves them through all that; His lack of action isn't a show of disapproval.

God did wind up rescuing the three guys in this case, but there are a lot of other folks who did martyr's deaths when God didn't step in. These three were willing to be on either side of that equation, willing to be God's version of Schrödinger's cat, with God's will rather than quantum fluxuations being the decision-maker.

I'm reminding of the refrain of the Righteous Brothers' Rock and Roll Heaven-"If you believe in forever, than life is just a one night stand" (the music tour version, one hopes). SM&A were weighting that eternity with God versus seeing their short lives cut shorters and erring on not ticking off the One they'd be spending a lot more time with.

No, M Doesn't Stand for Morris Dees

Why hasn't anyone taken out their frustration at the real hate groups, your neo-Nazis, skinheads and Klansmen? Well, those guys would shoot back and be happy to kill the folks that started the fight. One only messes with groups like that with military-level firepower or a SWAT team at minimum.

A Christian conservative group? They won't be packing AK-47s in their office and will merely subdue an attacker if they can; while the security guard at Ted Haggard's old church killed a gunman in defense of her church-mates, the FRC guard tackled the shooter rather than killing him in a shootout. Turning the other cheek is the default value where possible.

Thus, the hate-group label that the SPRC put out on theocons like the FRC wasn't a secularist fatwa; well, in the sense that fatwa means decree/ruling in Arabic, yes, but not a theological hit order as we normally use the term stateside. Morris Dees isn't M giving liberal James Bonds their licence to kill.

That's why I'm not thrilled with FRC boss Tony Perkins taking the low road yesterday-

"Let me be clear that Floyd Corkins was responsible for firing the shot yesterday," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told reporters in Washington about the suspect. "But Corkins was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that have been reckless in labeling organizations hate groups because they disagree with them on public policy."

Perkins said the SPLC "should be held accountable for their reckless use of terminology that is leading to the intimidation and what the FBI here has categorized as an act of domestic terrorism."

That second paragraph should have done the job. The SPLC was guilty of term-inflation when they took the "hate group" label that they previously reserved for your Klan-Nazi-skinhead types and applied it to a wide swath of theocons. While some targets, like the AFA, do have a level of bile towards liberals that verges on hatred, merely disagreeing with the trend to normalize homosexuality in various ways isn't "hate" as the word is usually used.

However, what the SPLC did wasn't declaring open season on conservatives. Most folks in that ideological quadrant have a pacifist and anti-gun streak and wouldn't stomach putting a hit on even their arch-enemies in the political sphere. That's good, since the bile that was flowing towards the FRC and other beneficiaries of Chick-fil-A donations (only 1000 to the FRC, as it turns out) was rather thick.

I wasn't old enough to get a good handle on the protests of the 60s as they were happening, but the emotions on the left today seem roughly as high as those of that era. The classic liberal protestors of the 60s were largely peaceful, but they had a few armed radicals as outliers. One can only hope we don't get anti-theocon analogues of the Weathermen or SLA.

Until then, Mr. Perkins has returned the SPLC's hyperbole, which isn't helpful.

Unoccupied

Here's one way to deal with Occupiers courtesy of Chile-

Police in Chile have detained 139 people - most of them teenage students - who were occupying three schools in the capital, Santiago.

There were violent clashes as police moved into the buildings. The occupation is part of continuing protests against the government's education policies.

Chilean students have held months of mass protests in the past year to demand free, high-quality public education for all.

There is likely some bigger political picture at play, since the current government is the first right-of-center government since democracy was restored in 1990. However, even the left-of-center governments of the 90s and 00s kept most of the economic policies of the Chicago School-flavored Pinochet dictatorship of the 70s and 80s, which puts them well to the right of the other big South American countries.

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The less-violent but still emotional strikes by Quebec students seems to have fizzled out, as a provincial election on Labour Day (spell it their way for Quebec; it's the same day in both the US and Canada, unlike Thanksgiving) gives the activists a more fruitful outlet for their frustrations.

I haven't fully caught up on the race there, but there seems to be a three way fight between the ruling Liberals, the PQ and the new Coalition Avenir Québec (moderate ex-pequistes and what was left of the libertarian-leaning ADQ), with the PQ holding a modest lead and the Liberals and the CAQ neck-and-neck for second (34PQ-27Grits-25CAQ).

How that translates to seats remains to be seen; projecting seats when we have the CAQ in the mix for the first time is a bit of a crap-shoot. The ADQ seats in the Quebec City area might be safe to translate to the CAQ, but their showing elsewhere will be interesting to track.

[Update 12:15-At least one Canadian PoliSci wonk has taken a stab at seats; ThreeHundredEight.com (that's the number of seats in the federal House of Commons) has it at 70-37-16 with 2 going to Occupy-esque Quebec Solidaire, but that assumes a 36-31-23 split in the vote. Bring the percentage down a notch, and the PQ might not be able to get a majority.]

Dr. Strangeglove,or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Cabrera at 3B

Keith Law had this dis of Miguel Cabrera's defensive game-

Cabrera's offensive performance has been solid, but he's a major negative on defense at third base, so a player like Cano, a good defender at a position (second base) where offensive levels are lower, is more valuable overall even though Cabrera has slightly higher raw rate stats.

That was the expectation at the beginning of the year. After playing first base for a long stretch and struggling when at 3B early in his Tiger stay, we were expecting an comedy of errors at the hot corner at Comerica Park.

However, that has not been borne out by actual data.

Let's look at the stats, shall we. Six players have played third base in two-thirds of their teams games to date and thus qualify for the fielding title. Of those six, Cabrera is in a three-way tie for second at .966. That doesn't sound bad.

Does he lack range? Not really. He's third in total chances and third in range factor out of that six-pack.

If Cabrera is "a major negative on defense at third base" then American League GMs must have been signing third-basemen from a Special Olympics league, since that "major negative" is a notch above average when the stats are crunched.

Is this year's crop really sucky? Not really. It's actually a bit better. .966 would have bagged second last year and would have tied for 5th of 8 in 2010. For a reference, Evan Longoria was that .966 in fifth two years ago, and I've not heard his defensive game dissed.

As Charles Dickens once had a character say, the Law is an ass.

Envy versus Jealousy

We often use those two words interchangeably, but the first means "I want that, too" and the second means "He shouldn't have that."

Envy is a subset of greed, but it can have a productive outlet. The kid who wants a bike like the kid next door might mow lawns or babysit to get the money to buy one himself. The envy led to something positive.

Jealousy can have greed attached, but is more destructive. The jealous kid can steal the bike and hide it from his neighbor, or slash the tires.

Envying the rich can lead one to strive to get their oneself. I recall mentioning to a finance student the wealth that investment bankers ring up; the student's reply was to want to get into that line of work themselves.

Jealousy of the rich can lead to theft and political class warfare. If we can't keep up with the Joneses, we bring them down to our level, even if it doesn't help us much.

The class warfare goes both ways; I saw a piece the other day of a pastry-shop owner not wanting to take electronic food stamps, since folks on welfare didn't need stuff that nice on the public dime. Do the poor not deserve nice things from time to time? Yes, there is more than a bit of food stamp abuse, but there is a jealousy there ("they don't deserve that, not with our money") that isn't pretty.

None of us sinful critters deserve a good Boston creme pie, but some of us have enough disposable income to afford it; even a poor person on the dole might have enough above mere subsistence cash to afford a few frills and not be seen as a drain on society for it.

Jealousy isn't pretty. Envy (or covetousness, if we want to go old-school) isn't pretty, either, but it's not quite as ugly in the long haul.

 

Thursday Musings

Yoho isn't a chocolate drink or how you hail a professional in the inner city; he's a Republican nominee in Florida who upset an incumbent, Cliff Stearns, in Tuesday's primary running a Tea Party-friendly campaign. Ted Yoho is a large-animal vet, so he's used to dealing with a lot of BS. He'll feel right at home in Washington.

Ted is a great Scrabble word, a bit archaic term for spreading manure; let's hope he doesn't live up to his name like the youngest Kennedy brother did.

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Mr Wikileaks gets assylum in Ecuador but he needs to get out of London in one piece in order to take them up on the offer. He's holed up in Ecuador's embassy there, but is fair game for extradition if he leaves there. Ecuador's government is in the Hugo Chavez leftist clique and likes Assange's tweaking the Capitalist Man's nose. However, David Cameron is not part of that clique and is set to send him to face rape charges in Sweden once he leaves the protection of the embassy.

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Interesting piece of history; the ship that carried the Scott expedition to Antarctica (they got the silver medal for getting to the South Pole first and died on the way back), the Terra Nova was found off Greenland. It has been used at that other end of the world before sinking in 1942. If you follow TV, it isn't news that Terra Nova was sunk.

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Very odd path for a hurricane. Gordon is slated to head towards Basque territory in a path which is way farther south than most hurricanes take. If they hit Europe at all, it's the British Isles that get the remnants. One 2005 oddball hit Morocco, but 2005 was weird all around.

Edifier du Jour- Daniel 3:14-15(NIV)

¹⁴ and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? ¹⁵ Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?”

Nebby was making what he thought was a rhetorical question at the end of that quote. He wasn't conversant with the Great I Am (not to be confused with Michael Phelps, the great IMer) who could pull off miracles like that.

I'm seeing a bit of that in the sports media's treatment of Josh Hamiltion. "What god will be able to rescue you from your substabce abuse problem?" is the implied question on whether he is [worthy of/safe enough for] a long-term contract.

God is a God of miracles, be it big ones like calming a furnace to small ones like fighting off the urge to get wasted one day at a time. He actually works, unlike the small-g gods of legend.

Nebby's question begs this classic "Do you know Him?" video as a rebuttle, for he didn't at the time. He's about to get introduced to Him in a big way.

 

Breaking Bad or Breaking Even?

During my rounds today, I saw some Republican graphic attributing a 2 million job lost to Obama {Update 9PM-here's the source, a Brent Bozell outfit called For America that a friend liked on Facebook}. Not by the numbers we usually use.

The classic stat is for non-farm payrolls. That was at 133.561 million on 1/1/2009 and 132.837 on 2/1/2009. A quick extrapolation of 2/3rd of the 2/1 and 1/3rd of the 1/1 to represent the January 20th inaugural gives us 133.078.

The most recent figure in the St. Louis Fed's spreadsheet is July 1st, which is in at 133.245. That's up a tad from our composite figure from inauguration day.

If we go with January, we're down about 300K. If we go with our composite, we're  up 267k. Either way, it's background noise away from break-even.

The old "are you better off than you were four years ago" is a near-wash. The operative question is which of the candiates will help the country (or you, if you're self-centered) be better off four years from now.

Civil War Discourse

Drudge played up this Washington Post piece a few days ago that showed the Army war-gaming on paper a Tea Party militia take-over of a South Carolina town in 2016. Something along those lines is plausible, but would most likely take place on a smaller scale than Darlington; a small town in Idaho or Montana would be more likely be a candidate for an armed succession.

However, my bigger concern for a 2016 nightmare scenario is whole states succeeding. If we take a pessimistic economic and cultural projection out 4 years, runaway spending and higher taxes coupled with an increase in political violence both from Occupiers and renegade rightists could have some states declaring independence rather than stay a part of a downgraded, deteriorating US. A governor and state legislature could declare independence, call up the National Guard and dare Washington to invade.

What they might want to also roll-play out is what 2016 might look like under a Romney administration. If we extrapolate things like the Occupiers, Wikileaks and Anonymous, a disgruntled and emboldened anarchosocialist left could make the Web unusable and declare more liberal cities independent. A literal People's Republic of Santa Barbara (for example) might take shape, and if Jerry Brown opts to bid them adieu without a fight, Marines might have to head north from their San Diego-area bases to restore US sovereignty.

Even a second Obama term might see some of that. If Obamacare needs to be scaled-back some as it gets rolled out, the left might see that anarchic action would bring better results than democratic efforts. Couple that with Obama's less-than-leftist take on drones, Gitmo and possibly Iran and Syria if we fast forward a year or two, the hard left might see Obama as Tweetledummer and act accordingly.

Yes, I hear you in the back right-good bye and good riddance. No, they'll likely make a mess of their new republic and be begging back in a decade or two later.

Thankfully, the modern left doesn't like guns as a group; their pacifist streaks makes them bad insurgents. For instance, one has to be thankful that today's shooter at the Family Research Council wasn't a well-prepared gun nut like the Aurora Joker.

However, they can make things miserable to a point where giving in to their demands, if feasible, might be the path of least resistance; that has often been the case in France. The ongoing student protests in Quebec have the government struggling to make modest moves to increase tuition; such street action, if rewarded, can become common.

We live in interesting times. Pray that they don't get too much more interesting.

Midweek Musings

Artur Davis stumping for Romney is almost a non-story if you've been following his migration from black Blue Dog congressman to Republican beltway lawyer over the last few years. However, Davis did second Obama's nomiation four years ago, so there's a bit of news there. Interestingly, he stumping in his new home turf of Virgina rather than Alabama; Romney doesn't need the help down there and VA is a swing state.

Davis might help more with white Blue Dog voters in VA than blacks; the latter is a tough demographic to crack while the former is increasingly in play as blue-collar voters see less and less of a rationale to vote Democratic if they work in the private sector.

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This might be a vision of a less-civil political future; someone tried to shoot up the Family Research Council HQ in Washington. Thankfully, this disgruntled liberal didn't know how to do an assault well; there were no fatalities and only a security guard was shot.

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Sad meltdown for Ocho Cinco. He gets arrested for head-butting his new wife, gets fired by the Fins and gets divorce papers filed... oh, and the reality show that was to follow the happy couple got cancelled. The guy needs prayer and therapy more than he needs a new contract, although he should have some miles left in the odometer once he gets his emotions under check; despite all the NFL fines and histrionics, this is his first run-in with the law.

In Defense of Dirty Harry

Here's a National Review piece on Harry Reid that is financially ilitterate.

Try this thought experiment. Imagine that someone grows up in poverty, works his way through law school by holding the night shift as a Capitol Hill policeman, and spends all but two years of his career as a public servant. Now imagine that this person’s current salary — and he’s at the top of his game — is $193,400. You probably wouldn’t expect him to have millions in stocks, bonds, and real estate.

But, surprise, he does, if he’s our Senate majority leader, whose net worth is between 3 and 10 million dollars, according to OpenSecrets.org. When Harry Reid entered the Nevada legislature in 1982, his net worth was listed as between $1 million and $1.5 million “or more,” according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. So, since inquiring minds inquire, let’s try to figure out how Reid’s career in public service ended up being so lucrative.

Let's look at the stock market, shall we. In January, 1982, the S&P 500 was at 120.40. Today, it is at 1405.21. Had he just had his money in the stock market for the last 30 years, he'd take $1 million and turn it into $11.67 million without any insider trading or skullduggery. 

The piece mentions a few interesting deals, but he'd have had to spend some of his 1982 nest-egg to keep things in a 3-10M window.

There are reasons for not liking Harry Reid; his current stinker on Romney's taxes comes to mind. His wealth isn't one of them. Merely making market returns over a 30-year span shouldn't throw up red flags.

Edifier du Jour- Daniel 3:4-7(NIV)

⁴ Then the herald loudly proclaimed, “This is what you are commanded to do, O peoples, nations and men of every language: ⁵ As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. ⁶ Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.”

⁷ Therefore, as soon as they heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp and all kinds of music, all the peoples, nations and men of every language fell down and worshiped the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

The folks in town here had little to lose bowing before this nine-story sky-crapper; 90 feet high and golden (per verse 1) was bigger than most anything built in that era. Any deities they were praying to had no power and this new critter was rather impressive. Plus, there was that issue of the downside of not doing so.

Sadly, a lot of folks today are in that boat; given that God has been defaced, defamed and  defanged in the public square, idols galore get worshiped (mostly figuratively but sometimes literally), since there is no credible rivals for devotion.

Guess what? We're the clean-up crew taking care of the meme melange that has made that possible.

Life Imitates Art-Mayhem in CA

Here's an interesting story, where you get someone naked before the Lord in California

A mixed martial arts fighter was found naked inside a church after deputies responded to a reported break-in, authorities said. "When (deputies) asked him his name he responded, 'Mayhem,' " said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

The man was identified by deputies as Jason "Mayhem" Miller, a mixed martial arts fighter who has fought in the UFC and was the host of MTV's "Bully Beatdown." He trained at the Reign Training Center in Lake Forest.

What's interesting is that Mr. Miller looks a bit like the Allstate mayhem guy. Give Dean Winters a light beard, and we'd be not too far from a match.

Edifier du Jour- Daniel 2:26-30(NIV)

²⁶ The king asked Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), “Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?”

²⁷ Daniel replied, “No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, ²⁸ but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you lay on your bed are these:

²⁹ “As you were lying there, O king, your mind turned to things to come, and the revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen. ³⁰ As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than other living men, but so that you, O king, may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind.

Daniel was wise, but if that were the prereq for getting a vision from God, we'd see a bunch of college profs getting words of knowledge rather than Jorge Seispack, the mechanic from the 502 Building, having a prophetic word for you.

Such knowledge, if Daniel is any guide, is a gift from God to the person needing it; the prophet is just a vehicle delivering the message. Just like the guy who got shot in Aggieland yesterday didn't deserve to be killed for delivering an eviction notice, the prophet doesn't deserve much praise for being a delivery boy. God is supposed to get the glory here.

Daniel might have some interesting comments to modern-day "prophets." "Don't get cocky, kid" comes to mind, if I can have David borrowing from Han Solo.

 

Shooting the Messanger

This story hits home on a number of levels. My sister-in-law and two of her best-buddy bridesmaids are Aggies, so anything Texas A&M throws up a flag for Eileen and I. Secondly, I worked briefly for a firm who did process-serving, delivering legal paperwork to individuals; my job was to double-check on various databases the possible addresses that the folks might be and make sure we weren't missing any when they came up empty.

Well, in College Station, just off campus, someone did the inverse of Bob Marley's famous song; he did shoot the sheriff's deputy who was serving eviction papers.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund noted that the slain constable, Brian Bachmann, is the sixth law enforcement official killed so far this year in Texas.

According to his Facebook campaign page, Bachmann was a 41-year-old from College Station who had been a Brazos County sheriff's deputy since 1993. The county's website indicated that his four-year term as constable -- a position that involves, among other duties, serving court documents such as eviction notices and subpoenas to citizens -- was set to expire on December 31, 2014.

I'm surprised in the down economy that someone else hadn't taken their frustration out on a process-server delivering foreclosure documents with a gun. The shooter was killed by police, but not before Mr. Bachmann and an innocent bystander were killed.

Lies, Damn Lies and .....Spun Statistics

Here's an interesting exercise in spin. Gallop did a Paul Ryan poll for USA Today on how people rated the pick- Excelent 20; Pretty Good 19; Fair 24; Poor 18; No Opinion 19.

As I see that, twice as many people liked the pick (20+19=39) as those who panned it (18).

However, that is not what you get in either the USA Today story on the poll or the CNN story on it (I saw the news on this there first).

Per USAT

In a nationwide survey taken Sunday, 39% of registered voters call Republican contender Mitt Romney's selection of Ryan "excellent" or "pretty good" while 45% rate it as "only fair" or "poor." Sixteen percent have no opinion.

Per CNN

A USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Sunday and released Monday indicates that 39% of the public sees Romney's choice of Ryan as excellent or pretty good, with 42% saying it's a fair or poor pick, and nearly one in five not having an opinion.

The CNN link actually goes to a different Washington Post web page for a different poll on the VP short-listers of last week. Neither site gave a link to the actually Gallop page in question; I had to go to the Gallop site to get the information.

That leads you to assume that "fair" is a bad take and that the bad takes nudge ot the good takes. The 39-42 spread was what CNN was playing up this evening.

Ryan is one of the few running mates in recent memory that had already been villified by the opposition prior to being posited as a possible VP. Even so, he only had 18% hating his guts here. However, the night is still young, and the oppo teams are hard at work having him killing off Granny and other evil things lurking in his GOP budget.

 

Edifier du Jour- Acts 2:42-45(NIV)

⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³ Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.

This is the postlude to the classic Second Chapter of Acts story of Pentecost and the sermon passage from yesterday. The key word in the passage is devoted. They just got done seeing God work miracles and saw some more done even as they worshiped. It's easier to be all-in in that setting, listening attentively to what the folks who followed Jesus had to say and helping out their brothers in Christ.

Translating that to the present is hard, since we don't have that level of devotion to our church and the Church. Trying to run a Jerusalem church in Laodicea isn't going to work well. We're going to fall short of the signs, wonders and fellowship that they had here since we're barely warmed over compared to the folks here.

Also note that this is the church sharing resources. That doesn't quite translate to a communal approach to government, since the government will likely be well short of the church's level of being attuned to the Holy Spirit.