Best line of the day.  In the comments.

Megan McCardle has written a beautiful post on why we ought to let the Big Three fail.  It is both lyrical prose and a fabulous explanation of the opportunity cost of bailing out failing industries.

But it doesn’t matter.  These vital towns, where generations of people lived happy lives and raised fat, burbling babies to a middle-class adulthood, are all dying.  Should the government save these places too?  Shall we support Eastman Kodak indefinitely, whether or not it can produce a product anyone wants to buy?  And Xerox, and Carrier, and a thousand companies you’ve never heard of?  Shall we make it illegal to make a better product than American corporations?  Why not just ban new products that make old ones unprofitable?

To do that, we’ll have to take the money from other people, in other cities.  Other businesses will not get the capital that we give to dying firms, so they won’t expand.  Some other families, not yours, will lose their homes because their business failed, or have to move away from home in order to get jobs because their area is in the doldrums.  Meanwhile, everyone in the country will be slightly worse off, because we’ve shifted limited economic resources towards products they demonstrably do not want…

…Moreover, it wouldn’t be right to save it by destroying someone else’s business, killing someone else’s town.  That’s the choice we are facing.  At its heart, economics is not about money; it is about resources.  Every dollar sent to Detroit buys a yard of steel, a reel of copper wire, an hour of labor that now cannot be consumed by a business that actually produces a profitable, desireable product.  It’s not right to strangle those businesses in order to steal some air for the dying giants of an earlier day.

Steve

Phil Johnson of Team Pyro has this excellent post on Christian political activism.

Steve

In keeping with the spirit of this post, I thought these two paragraphs in this WSJ editorial were informative:

While many voters may think they’ve voted for “change” in Mr. Obama, they also handed power to the oldest forces in the Old Democratic Party. Jimmy Carter campaigned as a moderate and outsider, but Congressional liberals quickly ran his budget director, the economic centrist Bert Lance, out of town. Then they overrode Mr. Carter’s veto of a pork-barrel water bill. Mr. Carter referred to the tax committees as “ravenous wolves” after they transformed his tax reform into a special-interest bouquet. Next came Reagan.

Bill Clinton also campaigned as a moderate, but in his first two years he was unable to govern as Congress pursued liberal priorities, including a big boost in taxes and spending. Recall Roberta Achtenberg as the scourge of the Boy Scouts and Joycelyn Elders calling for the legalization of drugs? Mr. Clinton chose — or was forced — to take up gun control and HillaryCare before welfare reform. Next came Newt Gingrich.

Obama is a great politician if nothing else.  Maybe, just maybe, his great political survival instinct will kick in and he will come out of the moderate, centrist closet.

Steve

I am not a huge fan of Fox News but I have always liked and admired Brit Hume.  JT at Between Two Worlds blog reports that Hume is changing his role at Fox News which will reduce his work to 100 days a year.  His purported reason:  “Bible Study”.

Steve

UPDATE:  With Seth’s encouragement, I changed the title of the post (from The BS of Brit Hume) because it was unfunny and confusing.

Ross Douthat channels Seth and I here, here and here on the issue of Obama and abortion.  Ross asserts:

Look, there are a variety of not-unreasonable ways for Americans who believe the unborn deserve legal protection to justify a vote for Barack Obama. But to claim that a candidate who seems primed to begin disbursing taxpayer dollars in support of abortion and embryo-destructive research as soon as he enters the White House somehow represented the better choice for anti-abortion Americans on anti-abortion grounds is an argument that deserves to met, not with engagement, but with contempt.

This is the exact same argument I made in this post.

Steve

Obama and the Democrats take the country in a sharp left direction. The recession deepens. In two years, the Republicans regain control of Congress. In response, Obama governs as a centrist. The economy improves and Obama is re-elected in 2012, his reputation restored.

It’s plausible!

From today’s USA Today:

Scholars said it was the first time any nation with a white majority had elected a non-white head of state.

LINK

Steve

The Onion Has The Story:

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

From the Onion:

Voting Machines Elect One Of Their Own As President

Steve

HT to Harrison’s Google Feed

Automatically generated message from the new created DRE 700 Ministry of Thought and Communication Compliance: “Resistance is Futile. You will be assimilated. Official message from President DRE 700. All bloggers are to report immediately to the Blogger Registration Center for immediate licensing and re-programming if necessary.”

JT over at Between Two Worlds blog answered a question that I had been pondering: How Should We Pray for Obama?

No matter who you voted for–or whether you voted at all–it’s important to remember that, as President, Barack Obama will have God-given authority to govern us, and that we should view him as a servant of God (Rom. 13:1, 4) to whom we should be subject (Rom. 13:1, 5; 1 Pet. 2:13-14).

* We are to pray for Barack Obama (1 Tim. 2:1-2).
* We are to thank God for Barack Obama (1 Tim. 2:1-2).
* We are to respect Barack Obama (Rom. 13:7).
* We are to honor Barack Obama (Rom. 13:7; 1 Pet. 2:17).

Go and read the comments too. They are interesting if a little infuriating at times.

Steve

More parody like this:

Steve

HT to Ross Douthat

I was working at a swim meet this weekend when I got a call from my wife. Jean returned from church to discover a shattered front window and blood all over the house. Apparently, our beloved dog Luke, had tried to jump through a closed window while Jean and the kids were at church. Now he is beloved but Luke has one profoundly serious flaws. He gets seriously riled with other dogs. This is especially true if Luke doesn’t know you or if he does know you but has decided that he hates you. Luke’s mortal enemy in life is our next door neighbor’s dog, a German Short Haired Pointer named Rubin.

Rubin is as dumb as a bag of hammers. Our neighbors have this odd and inappropriate habit of tying Rubin to the end of a lead for two or three hours a day in the late afternoon and leaving him, mostly unattended, to roam the yard. The lead is attached to a peg near the house and Rubin has managed to leave a half-arc of dead grass at the end of the lead from his constant pacing and running at the end of the lead. His most curious habit however, is one that is marvelous to behold. Rubin will start at one end of the arc and then run , not along the worn path of the arc, but directly towards its opposite until, with a full head of steam that must approach 25 miles per hour, he arrives abruptly at the end of his lead, yanking at his throat and flipping him once or twice in the air. Really, its marvelously fun to watch. It would be natural to assume that I just happened to stumble upon this curious incident when I happened by one day. But in fact, come by any day and you can see this marvelous feat for yourself. Rubin repeats it over and over in the space of an hour. I, therefore, have concluded that Rubin is seriously challenged in the brains department. One oar or half deck, etc. But it could also be the power of intermittent reinforcement for, occasionally, about once a month, Rubin will have so worked that peg to its limit that it will come flying out of the ground and drag along behind him as he relishes his freedom, peg clanging behind him, to wreak his peculiar brand of havoc in the neighborhood. At least he is easy to find!

Twice Rubin and Luke have engaged in mortal conflict. Before that first fight, Luke was never aggressive towards other dogs. But I think the incident gave him the bloodlust. He has had issues with other dogs ever since. But none approaches the seething, foamy hatred Luke harbors towards Rubin. Luke is slightly bigger and probably the tougher dog. But Rubin is incredibly fast, wily and tenacious. If he can find something to clamp onto with his mouth, he will not let go. I mean it. Even when both dogs are constrained by several full grown adult males humans he won’t let go. The first time we literally had to pry his mouth open. The second time a bucket of water did the trick. The first time he found Luke’s ear. I would say the fight was a draw. The second fight, Rubin found a grip on Luke’s head below his left eye and to the rear of his mouth. Rubin won that one. Luke required several stitches but fortunately didn’t lose his vision or his dignity too much. Rubin is Darth Vader to Luke’s, well, Luke but without the secret fatherhood bit. Mortal, bitter enemies they are.

So I was not surprised to discover, when our neighbors paid a visit, that the whole incident had occurred Sunday morning when they were walking Rubin around the block past our house. Luke, frantic to exact his revenge, had broken the glass while attempting to confront Rubin during his morning constitutional. My dog needs therapy. (But not group therapy. At least not with Rubin in the class. I imagine they would be disruptive.) At a minimum, Luke needs an anger management class.

Believe it or not, this story was not the beginning but the end of a strange weekend involving pets. Our beloved pet Guinea Pig, Peanut, died of pulmonary issues. It least it was not the long, drawn out affair detailed in this post about the death of Patch, another beloved Guinea Pig. We also were mousesitting three mice for friends who were traveling out of town for the weekend. One of the mice died and were gnawed on by the other mice. It really was a gory affair. They don’t know yet since we have no way to reach them.

For another Luke related post, I would like to refer you to a Fat Triplets Classic, Guilt-Free Dog Walking which also conveniently touches on the theme of death.

Steve

P.S Luke required patching at the nearest 24/7 veterinary hospital for a cost of $374. Now he is feverishly gnawing at his bandages.

As in many homes with kids, Halloween is a rather big deal in our household.  One of our annual traditions is to host a pumpkin carving party at our house every year.  As family traditions go, you could do a lot worse.  We had over 30 attend this year and lots of nice pumpkins carved.  I always try to join in the fun but wasn’t able to get to my pumpkin until yesterday and was up until midnight finishing it.  Got it in just under the wire, but not in time for trick or treaters to enjoy it.  So here it is for you to enjoy.  More Halloween pics will be up in a later post including more of the carvings and my kids costumes.

Steve