Mark Byron

Pollen Nation

I don't think AAA has "pollen-covered and slippery" in their traffic-report jargon, but it would work today. The trees are in bloom in early May and that means pollen getting washed onto the pavement during a good soaking rain like we're having today.

I just got back from giving Eileen a ride to work and the road was frequently covered in yellow pollen that looked like someone had a truck full of Indian rice (heavy on the turmeric) and was shoveling it out onto the street sporadically. A few pieces of that good naan bread would have been nice, but it wasn't on the agenda.

Wheeler Road looked like it was ready to call itself Pollen Nation.

Facepalming Detroit's Problems

Here's a shot of Detroit's emergency manager Kevyn Orr that speaks a thousand words;

Well, let's add a few more words to flesh it out-

Detroit’s emergency manager says the city is bleeding much more red ink than originally thought. That’s what Kevyn Orr told WWJ City Beat Reporter Vickie Thomas in an exclusive one-on-one interview. “The situation is severe,” Orr said. “It’s worse that we originally thought. It ain’t good.”

No kiddin', Sherlock.

Edifier du Jour: Galatians 3:15-18(NIV)

¹⁵ Brothers and sisters, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. ¹⁶ The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ. ¹⁷ What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. ¹⁸ For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

This might be one where Greek and English differ. "He went and bought seed at the grain elevator" isn't referring to a single seed, but likely bags-full of thousands of seeds.

Genesis 12:7 is what the footnote sites here, "The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” The offspring here is footnooted as "seed"; offspring leans towards the plural, so the translator may be disagreeing with Paul.

So does the NASB, which is usually deemed a better word-for-word translation than the NIV; which leans for thought-for-thought ("dynamic equivilence" is the $5 term there). The NASB has God down as saying “To your descendants I will give this land.” Plural, calling question to Paul's exegesis.

However, which of the three had a direct conversation with the speaker: the NIV crew, the NASB crew or Paul?

Semantics aside, Paul's main point is that later contracts can't cancel out earlier ones unless both parties agree. God has a covenant with Abraham to bless the world through his seed, and that predates the deal God made with Israel in Sinai.

So, when we look at the New Testament replacing the Old in releasing us from the sacrificial minutia of the Mosaic law, God's merely going back to the original deal where Isaac had a very close shave on the mountaintop.

Edifier du jour: Mark 2:15-17(NIV)

¹⁵ While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. ¹⁶ When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

¹⁷ On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Nobody's perfect. Some are less perfect than others, but all are imperfect.

Some of the neediest folks are "sinners" in the cultural sense, where bad habits and bad choices have put them into tough spots. However, it's those folks that need Jesus the most.

The modern-day analogues of the Pharisees will strive to live holy lives and not to appear to be a part of "the world." That can have them turning down opportunities for ministry that might have them looking a little bit worldly. Shooting some pool at the local watering hole might be a good way to minister to a co-worker, getting some spiritual conversation started in a more comfortable place for an average joe than a Sunday School class, but that would be a double no-no for the legalist. A ..... bar.... and .... pool... (Cue Ya Got Trouble from The Music Man); the next thing you know, the backslider might go dancing.

That might not be a good suggestion for someone with drinking issues, for it might drag them down rather than lift the workmate up, but since the sinners aren't all that likely to wander into a church, we need to go where they are. Easier said than done, since we still need to steer clear of things that are sinful rather than things that are merely associated with sin.

Passing on a Fin Tax

We might see one of the East Florida teams head west. Both Jacksonville and Miami are looking for newer digs, but state-level help got shot down. Stadium funding is an issue that crosses political lines, where deficit hawks on the right and liberals preferring something more virtious to spend money on than a sports stadium combine to fight jock-sniffers on both-sides of the aisle.

Neither the Jags or the Dolphins have a foot out the door, but LA has been laying the groundwork for getting a team back. It will be interesting to see if the Florida legislature has a change of heart not unlike Minnesota did a bit ago and shell out some taxpayer cash to help or say that they'd rather have the cash rather than another football teams; for X million a year, folks can root for the Bucs.

Speaking of dolphins, Minnesota's opinionated punter Chris Kluwe went Douglas Adams on us as he got released, citing a different sort of dolphin-

"So long, Minnesota, and thanks for all the fish!" Kluwe wrote. He added: "Thank you to all the fans, my teammates, and the Wilf family for the past 8.5 years. I wouldn't have traded it for anything."

In left-leaning Minnesota, Kluwe's pro-same-sex-marriage stand would be a feature rather than a bug, but his veteran contract and mediocre stats made him Turk-bait.

It's a Small Half-a-World

This picture points out an interesting statistic. It highlights a circle loosely bounded by Japan, China, India and Indonesia, and notes that there are more people inside the circle than out.

Let's check that out, using the numbers from this Wikipedia country populations page. We'll have to subtract off Papua from Indonesia, since New Guinea isn't in the circle.

China	1,354,040,000
India	1,210,193,422
Indonesia	237,641,326
Bangladesh	152,518,015
Japan	127,340,000
Philippines	92,337,852
Vietnam	88,780,000
Thailand	65,926,261
South Korea	50,004,441
Burma	49,120,000
Malaysia	29,659,000
North Korea	24,052,231
Taiwan	23,332,705
Cambodia	13,395,682
Hong Kong	7,173,900
Laos	6,580,800
Singapore	5,312,400
Mongolia	2,736,800
Macao	582,000
Brunei	393,162
Papua	-2,833,381
Total	3,538,286,616

7.082 billion is what the US Census folks peg the world total at, so we squeak just over the half-the-world bar, wiggling it a bit but seeing it stay up for a good jump.

Most of that range is in what missiologists deem the 10-40 window, the area between 40 degrees and 10 degrees north that have the majority of the world's unsaved population. In that list above, only the Philippines and South Korea of the major countries are plurality Christian.

Hat tip to the blogger formerly known as the Blithering Idiot, William Sulik, for finding the picture. A lot of bloggers are doing their "blogging" on Facebook these days; I toggle between the two, putting some of the short takes on FB and the essays over here.

You Might be a Presbyterian Jedi if....

You reply to "May the 4th be with you" with "And also with you."

This is also the 43th anniversary of the Kent State shootings; what the rest of the world calls "Kent State" KSU folks call "May 4th." Strangly, I spent six years as a grad student at KSU in the 90s and had my first office a stone's throw away, but didn't get to the memorial site until seven years after I graduated and Eileen and I were back in the area for a job interview.

Give Plan B for Her Quinceañera

The early pregnancy terminator Plan B (somewhat similar to RU-486 ["no, I'm Pentium"] back in the day) got green-lighted for over-the-counter sales for gals 15 and over.

Interesting question-what kind of ID does a 15-year-old girl have? If Democrats don't want adults giving IDs in order to vote, what kind of ruckus will result when a poor ninth-grader doesn't have a photo ID and wants to wipe out the side effects of that last hookup. A 16-year-old would likely have a drivers' licence in states where that's the legal minimum, but a 15-year-old might not have anything that would serve as a official ID, since they aren't going to get "carded" for anything.

Even stranger is a court order that would let my pre-school age niece buy it, no questions asked. She's a half-decade away from needing it at least (much later, one would hope), but one district court judge has ordered it to be over-the-counter with no restrictions; that's probably what the administration wants, but wants to tow an awkward line between the devotees of the Church of Planned Parenthood and moderate voters who might not think that letting middle-schoolers get their own pregnancy-preventer is a great idea.

[update 930AM-Plan B is different from RU-486, but does stop an early-stage pregnancy from taking root in the womb. Thanks to my natural family planning ace Kathryn for the correction.]

No Anarchy at the UK

Interesting story on May Day in Seattle, where immigration reform was the theme of the organized protest during the day. Given Washington state's recent decriminalization of wacky tobaccy, this was cute-

Another [sign] said to heck with weed, “ ... legalize my mom.”

Later, a black-shirted goon squad took the streets; the police had to stop them from taking five-finger discounts at a mall.

The crowd stalled out at Fourth Avenue and Pine Street while people tried to decide which direction to go. One woman said jokingly, “This is the downside of anarchy. We need a leader.” A few men started talking about going over to “mess with the cops.”

Three great oxymorons: jumbo shrimp, veteran suicide bomber and anarchist leader.

I wonder if May Day went peacefully in Lexington. It didn't even make news in the Herald Leader, so there was no anarchy at the University of Kentucky yesterday; at least not at a level worth noting.

Who Wrote the Book of Love? Part I- A God of Boundries

Interesting theological discussions coming out of Jason's Collins' coming out. One discussion flowing from a Facebook post on this Chris Stevens essay in the Midland Daily News had the house liberal of our "Overbidders Anonymous" bridge circle chimed in with

Did Confucius say "he who lives in glass house should not throw stones"? Well one who uses the Bible to condemn others is doing that - The religion becomes a glass house, because the Bible is not meant to be used to throw stones. It is a book of love.

That rings true; "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." is right out of Jesus' mouth. However, He added shortly thereafter-"Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."

God is love, but a loving God does guide His flock away from danger. A good parent won't let their toddler fall down the stairs or get into the cleaning fluids under the sink. The rug-rat might not like it, shaking the baby gate to be see what's being hidden down the stairs, but those boundaries are for their own good.

We don't always like those boundaries, but they are for our own good. The problem with that is "it's for your own good" is what the parent says after the teen has slammed the bedroom door after hollering "You don't love me" after not getting their way on a questionable activity.

Almost a Conservative Dream

Mozambique may become a conservative vacation spot-it's a RINO-free zone.

The 15 threatened animals were shot dead for their horns last month in the Mozambican part of Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which also covers South Africa and Zimbabwe.

They were thought to be the last of an estimated 300 that roamed through the special conservation area when it was established as "the world's greatest animal kingdom" in a treaty signed by the three countries' then presidents in 2002.

Oops; make that a rhino-free zone. It still might be a nice place to visit.

The Crusty, Crusty Month of May

Eileen and one of her seminary pals have a May Day tradition of one of them calling and singing "It's May, It's May, the lusty, lusty, month of May" from Camelot.

However, the title is more fitting for my in-laws living in metro Denver-

It's May 1, but it doesn't look like spring in Denver. Snow moved into the metro area Wednesday morning, after dumping several inches on Larimer County overnight.

Shades of the Yooper joke where the four seasons in the UP are June, July, August and Winter.

He's Not Christian, He's Bigger than That

Lawrence Okoye... I was talking about Christian Okoye a bit ago in a discussion on non-North-Americans who picked up "American football" in college like Lion first-rounder Ezekiel Ansah. The younger Okoye is a British discus champ who's 6'6" 304; the 49ers are taking a look at him as a defensive lineman; while he's played rugby as a kid, he's a newbie to our version of football.

Coach Jim Harbaugh is impresssed-

"An Adonis, a great physical specimen of a man. ... Our creator created a beautiful man," Harbaugh said of Okoye on Saturday, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Whoa, Jim. One outing per week will do.

This isn't the first time the Niners have taken a shot at a non-football-playing track star; Renaldo Nehemiah was a champion hurdler who play a servicable backup wide reciever for them in the 80.

 

Edifier du Jour: Galatians 3:5-6(NIV)

⁵ So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? ⁶ So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

I'm reminded of the phrase "gifts of the Spirit"; note that that isn't rewards of the Spirit that you get after 10,000 prayer miles. Other than a basic faith, there is no divine quid pro quo, as Paul was lectering the Galatians here.

Edifier du Jour:Galatians 2:19-21(NIV)

19 “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

Our self-centered nature wants to pay back gifts; that goes for salvation as well. Many folks and churches wind up with some sort of grace-plus package, but this is too big a gift to ever repay. All we can do is say "Thank you" and try our best to expand His kingdom and be good ambassadors for him.

Here's a little theme music for the passage via Phillips Craig and Dean

Legends of the Fail

When a serious sports fan can't keep the names of their native college football division straight, it's not good. I think the batch with Michigan and MSU that makes a northwest arc save Wisconsin is the Legends, and the Illinios-to-PSU run is the Leaders.

Once Maryland and Rutgers get here, we go a simple east-west, with Indiana and the two Michigan schools joining OSU, PSU and the two newestbies in the East, and Purdue and all points west being the West. Indiana-Purdue get to contest the Old Oaken Bucket each year, but no other yearly crossovers.

One moan-inducer is a 9-game conference schedule starting in 2016; that leaves some poor boobie with a home-and-home out conference series with the prospect of only half their games at home in years that they're in a 4 home-5 away conference split. Life's tough all over, Bucky.

Related articles

A Generic Playoff

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

The media's been all but begging for someone in pro team sports to declare their gayness, and Jason Collins did the honors today. It might actually help him get a job as a journeyman big man, for he'll bring some media goodwill along with some middlin' numbers as of late. Those numbers point to a possible quiet retirement or a stint in Europe after 12 years in the league, but he's all but got a job next year, since the league wouldn't want to be seen as blackballing him for coming out.

[Update 515Pm- Over on TrueHoop, Mark Stein runs Collins' prospects through some GMs; he got 6 yeas and 8 nays-

Although one Eastern Conference executive acknowledged that it's inevitable that Collins' newfound status as the first active player in North American team sports to come out as gay "would have to be discussed" by any team considering him, those eight teams skeptical about Collins' hopes of finding future employment were unanimous in saying the decision would be overwhelmingly tied to his playing ability.

"The reality," said one Western Conference executive, "is that he's been an end-of-the-roster kind of player for the last couple years."]

He'll likely have far more problems with secular teammates than the churchgoers; gay-bashing is part of hip-hop culture, while the churchy guys will hopefully accept Collins as a fellow child of God.

Edifier du Jour:Galatians 2:15-16(NIV)

¹⁵ “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles ¹⁶ know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

Sisyphus comes to mind here; the cursed guy of Greek legend who kept rolling a big stone uphill, only to have it roll back down every time.

The pre-incarnation Jews were in a comparable boat, rolling the law and its sacrifices uphill towards justification with God, only to have it repeat the processes over and over and over ad nauseum.

Come AD... Paul and his completed comrades ditched the boulder for the Rock of Ages. The Law never quite got the job done, but Jesus manages to take the boulder and plunks it down to stay on Golgotha.

It's Time to Raze the Minimum Wage

Some group on the left is putting up Facebook ads "Stand with President Obama: It's Time to Raise the Minimum Wage." Just what we need when a fifth of the workforce is either unemployed or underemployed and job market participation is at a generational low.

It does help the folks who are getting by at that wage, but raising the minimum cuts off the lower rungs off of entry-level jobs. Marginal jobs will be eliminated and any remaining jobs just above minimum will have a larger pool of workers competing for it, making it harder for new workers or workers who fall through the cracks to find a niche.

When you combine a move to $9/hr as the president proposed with the beginnings of the ACA come January, you might have a effective minimum wage of about 11 dollars an hour, taking out a whole swath of lower-wage positions with it. Not bad if you're selling robotics or are in a union that has its folks well above minimum and just took out some scabby competition, but not good if you're looking to get into the workforce.

If you insist on all wages being able to support a family, folks may never get to that point if they never get a job in the first place to learn how to work and be useful. You'll wind up creating an unemployed pool of folks who never get a career going.

Doing something along the line of an earned-income tax credit to fill the gaps would be more helpful for those folks on the bubble than another minimum wage hike; however, the former comes out of the taxpayers' hides rather than employers, so it's easier to do for politicos.

 

Will Traveler Travel to the Meadowlands?

Having an overnight pause between the first and second rounds lets teams burn up the phones during the day trying to get nice pieces still on the board. One interesting story is the Jets looking to move up from their #7 in the round spot to get a QB.

West Virginia's Geno Smith is the likely target for the Jets, but Philadelphia picks third in the round and might see Smith as a good backup for Michael Vick in a Chip Kelly offence that can use a mobile QB. If Smith is off the board by the time the Jets pick, Matt Barkley from USC and Syracuse's Ryan Nassib are the big QB names left.

Barkley would seem to make more sense.... except... he's essentially Mark Sanchez 2.0 as a cool-headed USC alum, and that would be an awkward situation, drafting a fellow alum as your heir apparant, especially when you're only in your mid 20s and not ready to go gently into the night.

If they draft Barkley, they'll need to bring the USC band and whatever version Traveler the mascot horse is up to (VII, as it turns out).

Here's to You, Mrs. Robertson

Duck Dynasty is doing well for itself; its season finale was the highest rated show on TV that night, cable or broadcast, even beating out a somewhat limping American Idol. That's not the first time that a cable show has owned the evening, which is a very odd concept for a kid who grew up on three networks and PBS.

However, it is a DD-related story that had the chatty-ring locked and loaded; it was an ad I saw in the Detroit Free Press earlier in the week, where one of the DD clan is slated to be in-state next week at a "Michigan Internationa Women's Show."

Faith, family and ducks are at the center of A&E’s most watched series, Duck Dynasty. Duck Dynasty is the story of the Robertson family who launched Duck Commander, a homegrown mom-and-pop operation that has become a sporting empire of top-of-the-line duck calls and decoys made out of salvaged swamp wood.

Meet Jessica Robertson Saturday at 2pm at the Fashion & Entertainment Stage. Jessica is the wife of the youngest Robertson son, Jep, a busy mother to their four kids (Lily, Merritt, Priscilla, and River) and involved in expanding the family business. She’ll be sharing stories about life in Louisiana and the importance of family, and answering all your Duck Dynasty questions.

The near-ultimate red-state gal heads into the blue-state territory of Novi, a northwestern edge city of Detroit. A "Woman's show" done in a feminist vein would go into Palin Derangement Syndrome over an evangelical mom of four who helps run a duck-hunting supply company; the other guests won't trigger PDS nearly as much with Lifetime and Huffington Post pedigrees.

Upscale gals might not like her, but blue-collar Michiganders would dig her. Hunting is a blue-collar pastime in Michigan; the first day of firearm deer hunting season, November 15, is all but a state holiday. Lest we forget, even Michael Moore from Flint, just a half-hour commute (if traffic cooperates) from Novi, is a NRA guy, since shoprats often are hunters up here.

Rochester Hills and Farmington Hills might not get it, but closer-in Royal Oak will.

 

Edifier du Jour:Galatians 2:11-13 (NIV)

¹¹ When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹² For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. ¹³ The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

We learn racism; we don't start with it. Kids will play with other kids regardless of skin tone or ethnicity until they're taught to distance themselves.

After having a vision of getting presented a feast of unclean critters, Peter (a.k.a. Cephas) did a 180 and ministered to the Gentiles that a good Jew avoided. However, send a few Jewish believers up his way, and he starts cliquing with them and turning his back on the local Antioch believers.

There was still an open debate of whether you had to be Jewish in order to be Christian, making converts follow Jewish law, including the unkindest cut of all. So, just as modern believers distance themselves from folks who don't fully agree with their theological fine points, Peter fell into the trap of shunning the lesser-believers.

A good hunk of Paul's writings were focused on trying to head off such ethnocentrism and factionalism. Sadly, that's nothing new and won't go away on its own.

KC's Fisher Effect

Alex Smith, John Matusak, Terry Bradshaw, Chuck Benardik and Eric Fisher? Those are the five mid-major players picked #1 overall in the history of the draft.

Benardik didn't make the HoF, but got the college defensive player of the year trophy named after him; he was the last to play both ways in a championship game, Bradshaw is in the HoF as well as the Steeler leader in the 70s, while "Tooz" was an interesting character on the Raiders in the Madden era and went on to play the clan chief in Caveman (OK, Zug-zug).

Alex Smith is the under-achiever of the existing quartet, having seen Colin Kaepernick Wally Pipp him last year and sent him packing to KC, where he will now have his six covered by the big guy from my first alma mater, CMU.

Lots of interesting story for the 2nd round today. The Lions have the option of taking a running back to complement Reggie Bush or taking a flyer on a dropping Manti Te'o or even getting the Honey Badger a Josh Hamiliton-style chaperone and taking him to help out their leaky secondary.

Forthrightly Dealing With the 4th Amendment

The Constitution bans "unreasonable searches and seizures" in the 4th Amendment. It doesn't mandate a warrant for police to check things in an emergency situation; it's vague enough to have the Supreme Court lay down guidelines of what they see as reasonable and when one can skip a warrant. Not all of the legal nicities like Miranda rights and warrants kick in during a quick-reaction spot.

Yeah, Watertown's door-to-door search is a dicey precedent, but the Boston bombing is a once-a-decade case. Doing that to catch a garden-variety drug dealer would be overkill, but I don't see what went down in metro Boston as unreasonable.

I recall one old cop drama (Picket Fences, if memory serves) where a couple of cops have an iffy search move; one of them says "Rehnquist court...I'll take my chances." Rehnquist has past on and we have the Roberts court, but I'd be hard press to see Anthony Kennedy shooting down what happened last Friday and joining a 5-4 center-left coalition shooting it down. 9-0 for the searches wouldn't be surprising.

Edifier du Jour:Galatians 2:9:10(NIV)

⁹ James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. ¹⁰ All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

Two things jump out here; one is the division of labor. Paul, a Pharisee's Pharisee, winds up ministering to the outsiders while some fishermen-preachers stay at home to minister to the Jewish population. That mix doesn't quite work in the modern church, but there is a mission field to the unchurched/underchurched majority in most nominally Christian countries. Folks who answer "Do weddings count?" when they're asked the last time they were in church are often a tougher and more needy field than a remote village in Unga-Bunga; they'd be the modern day "circumcised", likely baptized as a kid but with little or no faith life.

The other part was looking after the poor. James majored in the needy-"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress." Paul wasn't that far behind, helping move money to the needy as far back as Acts. Churches often forget that; more than one church spends more on Sunday school materials than they spend on ministry to the poor.

Warded Off With a Samurai Night Special

We noted that the disciples were instructed to carry swords in my well-received Would Jesus Pack Heat post. Someone out Utah way (note that since almost all Mormon guys are priests, the church pastor gets the inflated title bishop) took an East Asian spin on that West Asian custom.

A Samurai-wielding Latter Day Saints bishop and others in Millcreek, Utah, came to the aid of a woman who was being attacked and chased by a former co-worker, authorities say.

[Kent] Hendrix was in the shower at approximately 7 a.m. on Tuesday when his teenage son alerted him about a woman's screams for help, ABC 4 in Utah reported. Hendrix, a fourth-degree black belt, put on some clothes — and grabbed the 29-inch steel samurai sword he has owned since he was 17.

Don't tease this guy about his undies. We're lucky Utah didn't pull a page from the UK and think about banning such Samurai Night Specials.

He's Not Just a Closer, He's an Adventure

Drew Sharp of the Free Press is often a bit too curmudgeonly for my taste, but he nails it here on the return of Jose Valverde.

Got that case of Rolaids? Check.

Blindfold? Check.

Where’s the protective case for the television remote for when it’s thrown against the wall in disgust? It’s right here.

Take a deep breath … and welcome back Papa Grande.

What was the old Navy ad tagline?-"It's not just a job, it's an adventure." That's Papa Grande view of closing. Even in his good times when he went all of 2011 without blowing a save, there were quite a few nail-biters where he got no style points but added one to the SV column.

Let Them Eat HSAs

We're likely stuck with "Obamacare" until at least 2017, or at least 2015 if the Republicans can somehow conjure up a two-thirds majority in both houses in the 2014 election and override a presidential veto. Short of that, they're counting on the president blinking in a game of chicken if they try to hold something hostage while passing a repeal.

That being said, should Republicans make it work better in the meantime or fire BBs off the armor-plated Leviathan?

For America President Brent Bozell said that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who supports the bill and pushing it behind the scenes although he is not listed as a sponsor or a cosponsor, is to blame.

“Rather than sticking to his promise to repeal the massive government takeover of healthcare that is Obamacare, which led to Republicans taking the House majority in 2010, [Cantor] is actually advocating shoring up a portion of the law that does nothing to use free market-based reforms to cut healthcare costs,” Bozell said.

Asked about the comments, Cantor’s office pointed to support the legislation has received, including a Wall Street Journal editorial and from Freedom Works.

“The President’s health care law failed to adequately protect sick patients with pre-existing conditions, like those battling cancer, but House Republicans are determined to do so by taking funding from Obamacare’s slush fund and moving it where it is critically needed,” Cantor spokeswoman Megan Whittemore said.

The Club for Growth is also urging members to vote against the measure.

I can see where your usual suspects on the economic right are reflexively against it; they want it to crash and burn badly so that they can get it repealed sooner rather than later and lay the whole mess on the Democrats' lap.

However, the goal here isn't to "use free market-based reforms to cut healthcare costs." It's to help folks who fall through the cracks of our insurance system. The status quo gives us some very efficient fatalities of folks who can't afford to pay for big-ticket care themselves, are too well off for Medicaid, too young for Medicare and are ignored by insurance companies who are willing to cover future problems but want to opt out of paying current ones.

"Let them eat Health Savings Accounts" doesn't do much here.

 

The Drone Arranger

Rand Paul made an interesting statement in support of drones, picturing them in something of a para-SWAT role-

I've never argued against any technology being used when you have an imminent threat, an active crime going on," Paul said. "If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and fifty dollars in cash. I don't care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him."

Of course, his libertarian buddies are up in arms, especially after his half-day one-man filibuster over drone policy earlier in the year. If you think the difference between government officials and criminals is merely that of job titles, any government force is excessive. Drones both let you snoop better than if you had to send a person out with it and let you lower the cost of warfare by allowing a cheaper plane to do the work while the pilot stays out of harms way; both are features to a security maven but are bugs to a paleo-libertarian.

Rand Paul seems to be staking out more of a neolibertarian stance, one that is less isolationist and less pacifist than his dad. Politics... nudging towards the Republican mainstream? Possibly, but it could also be his working out his own ideology rather than merely being Mini-Ron.

Edifier du Jour:Galatians 1:21-24(NIV)

21 Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they praised God because of me.

In the middle of a discussion that led to this post on defining enemy combatants, Eileen brought up the hope that our young Boston bomber might come to the Lord while in prison. Odder things have happened; folks like Jeffrey Dahlmer, Ted Bundy, Son of Sam (David Berkowitz) and Manuel Noriega all got "saved" while in prison. It's going to be a slightly tougher nut to convert a Muslim than someone from a nominally-Christian country, but Berkowitz was raised Jewish before heading to the slammer.

That gives us the "Wow, even he can get turned around" effect, which applies to Paul here. I think Paul was trying to serve God all along, but was so conditioned to assume that every guy who said he was the Messiah was crazy and needed to be stopped. When you assume you're dealing with a false messiah, you're only going to be wrong at most once.

Thankfully, Jesus gave him a mulligan on the road to Damascus. Had he not, we'd have a much shorter New Testament.