Monthly Archives: March 2009
lunes linkage, March 9, 2009
Campaign for Liberty...(Ron Paul)
The U.S. Constitution is at the heart of what the Campaign for Liberty stands for, since the very least we can demand of our government is fidelity to its own governing document. Claims that our Constitution was meant to be a "living document" that judges may interpret as they please are fraudulent, incompatible with republican government, and without foundation in the constitutional text or the thinking of the Framers. Thomas Jefferson spoke of binding our rulers down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution, and we are proud to follow in his distinguished lineage.
It makes sense that I'd like this site...back in 2007 I posted a quiz that put Paul as my best match.
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5 ways that you'll know the recession is over...
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If you like fantasy books, but don't like the sex that goes along with a lot of them...
here's a Mormon mom who took up writing...
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"Theology" but Steve Timmis (Resurgence Blogs)
Theology Is for Life
We’ve compounded the problem by seeing theology as the articulation of abstract and often difficult intellectual concepts. But the only theology worthy of the name is applied theology: theology that is worked out at street level in the messiness of life. Election is not a doctrine to be discussed only by professionals in the comfort of a study, but by a group of believers so that they are humbled and thrilled by God’s choice. Total depravity isn’t just something to be argued over in a lecture room, but faced up to by a group of saved sinners as they cry out to the Holy Spirit to open blind eyes. Calvin was right in a number of things, not least when he said, “Doctrine is an affair, not of the tongue, but of life.”
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From Steve at Triablogue
It’s striking to observe that, by his very own reckoning, Dawkins’ religious doubts coincide with the exact time in life when he encountered a pedophile priest. Inside the body of an aging Oxford Don is an angry 9-year-old who’s still lashing out at Christianity in the person of a long-dead Latin teacher.
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From the “Campaign for Liberty” – an open letter
I read an article today that makes a few political predictions that I found interesting and makes a commitment to rethink her political views if the predictions are wrong.
The author's predictions:
So, here are my foreign policy predictions:
At the end of Obama's first four-year term:
1. The US will still have an active military presence in Iraq.
2. The US will have attacked at least one more country that poses no direct threat to us. (I'm not even going to count his early air strikes on Pakistan.)
3. Military spending will have increased.
4. US citizens will be no safer from terrorist attacks. I say this because I believe the (sadly all-too-accurate) perception of the US as an imperialist warmongering nation will persist. I realize this one is open to interpretation. I would just ask you to honestly ask yourselves at the end of these four years whether this is the case.
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What I do predict is the following. By the end of Obama's first term in office:
1. More than 1% of US adults will still be in prison. This number will very likely be even higher than it is today, and the black and Hispanic portion of that population will not have decreased by any significant amount.
2. We will still suffer from the kind of police abuse that is becoming more and more common: military-style raids on unarmed civilians in their homes; the shooting and tasering of unarmed citizens; and police and judicial corruption leading to the jailing of many more innocent people than can be acceptable under any system. The militarization and aggressive behavior of police forces will probably become worse before they get any better. This is another one that is somewhat open to interpretation. I would ask you to rely on your own honest judgement regarding whether you believe things have really changed in this area.
3. "No-Fly" lists will still be in place, and there may even be more restrictions on travel.
4. There will be more restrictions on gun ownership and the right to self-defense.
5. The police tactics and suppression of dissent at the 2012 RNC and DNC conventions will be just as brutal as they were in 2008.
6. Government surveillance of US citizens will continue (remember that bill Obama voted for that gave immunity to the telecoms companies that assisted with this in the past?),
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My prediction: By the end of Obama's first four years in office, the US economy will be in much, much worse shape than it is now. Specifically:
1. The US will have massive inflation. The dollar will lose at least 50% of its value against most goods and services, and certainly against the goods and services most people use every day. This is a very conservative estimate. It will probably be much worse.
2. Unemployment in the US will be worse than it is now. It will be at least in the double digits.
I'm going to post the article in its entirety in June of 2012 and look at the predictions and see how they play out (assuming that the inflation thing doesn't rule out my blogging.) (first unplanned difficulty...wordpress won't let me publish that far ahead...so I'm setting it to publish in Decempber of this year and will edit the date stamp accordingly.)
Works of My Hands update – March 7, 2009
Sock of the Week - check. Next week's "official" sock is nearly done (you'll see it next week)
On the spining front...
I bought a bag of alpaca fiber - the animal's name is "Juan" and the color pathway is called "blue sheen".
Here's Henry spending quality time with Juan's long, silky hair...
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.(the fiber spun onto a drop spindle - it's counter intuitive, but the lighter the spindle, the finer the thread; I think because it spins faster.
This is how fine it's spinning up. This is a single ply thread - when all the fiber is spun, two balls will be spun together with the spindle going in the opposite direction of the single ply - this is called "worsting", making worsted yard.
My first experience with spinning was with sheep's wool
after worsting and washing
Close up
wound into a ball
and being knit into a scarf with a cable twist
He Who Asserts Must Prove…
Okay...so we have a few hundrend billion dollars (this time around) on the basis that it might stimulate the economy, but nobody can really say for sure.
But conservatives are supposed to prove that borrowing from future generations won't work before opposing the spending package.
Shouldn't it be the job of those who want to spend the money to prove that it will work - before committing to trillions in national debt?
My son's car blew its clutch. It will cost $600.00 to fix it...and it might work and it might not - it's a 22 year old ford that he paid $400 for.
It's his job to convince me that fixing the clutch will make the car drivable.
It's not my job to convince him that it won't work.
A Sock a Week…
will have me on track to make 26 pairs of socks in a year. So far, I'm on track (4 pairs finished so far). Handmade socks seem like a very nice gifts to give "somebody who has everything".
Meanwhile, spinning is challenging, but fun...so I think I want:
SILK FIBER FUN KIT: treat yourself to 9 types of silk and silk blend fibers: Tussah silk roving, dyed Tussah silk, cultivated silk cocoons, Bombyx silk slivers, 100% mixed silk fibers, throwsters waste, cultivated silk hankies, Tussah silk noil, and Bombyx silk caps. 100g total. Each kit is presented in a beautiful 7"x9"x2" handmade box produced by a family cottage industry in India. A great gitf!
lunes linkage – 3/2/2009
Q. How does President Obama avoid the accusation of putting earmarks into the budget?
A. Have his name edited off the earmark.
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Factcheck.org on Obama's speech
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John Samson (Reformation Theology) visits Mars Hill Church (Seattle)
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MommyLife: Conservatives seeking divorce and settlement
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A review of "The Shack"
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Where religion meets politics
The Obama administration may rescind the "conscience rule"
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The Wall Street Journal on the Obama/Ayers connection (from 2008).
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Andrew Bolt on "the most sweeping ethics reform in history . . ."
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Who Is John Galt…
It occurred to me, as I was reading the first chapter of "Atlas Shrugged", that there is a similarity between the "John Galt" question and the current issue of people leaving the organized church.
I read about the railroad worker in chapter one, who was whistling "Halley's Fifth Concerto".
He didn't stop doing what he had been doing. He was still writing, he had only left the system.
Many of the people leaving the church...they don't stop loving God. They don't stop serving Him.
Many of them feel that it is the church that doesn't want them. They might be too single, too divorced, too strong, too weak. Too egalitarian, too complementarian.
They are not stopping doing what they are doing...they are only leaving the system.
I'm not saying that it's a good thing...it's not.
But I understand.