America: One nation under God

Here's a video of a humbling, inspiring painting by Jon McNaughton.

Watch this, then go to your knees in prayer.

God bless America -- first with repentance, then w. renewal.

Happy 4th of July!

Selah.

Big government and the bankrupting of America

Cronyism and the re-shaping of America
The radical explosion of government at the expense of the people

Fact-based quote:

Since the beginning of the recession (roughly January 2008), some 7.9 million jobs were lost in the private sector while 590,000 jobs were gained in the public one. And since the passage of the stimulus bill (February 2009), over 2.6 million private jobs were lost, but the government workforce grew by 400,000.

I will leave it up to you to draw conclusions.

Think about it -- with real honesty, for a moment.

Alex Lightman:

After researching the issue carefully and interviewing people in a position to know, I can now reveal that the current primary purpose of the United State government is to bankrupt the United States. It comes as a relief to know this. So many things now make sense.

Occam's Razor and all that. If the current government had taken as its primary course the destruction of America, could it have done a better job? Hmmm... [Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds, here and here.]

To your prayers, friends. To your prayers.

Massive blood on the hands of self-righteous activists

Goo-goo genocidaires

Walter Russell Mead turns the spotlight on unreflective activists and moral relativists, showing a portion of the the overwhelming guilt they bear, tens of millions of innocents dead because of their so-called virtue.

Of all the mass murderers, genocidaires and enablers of the twentieth century, one group of collaborators does not get its fair share of condemnation and moral loathing. Unfortunately Americans have never really come to terms with the terrible things they did, we have never really named and shamed them, and we have never diagnosed and exposed the bad ideas that led to some of America’s most fateful and costly blunders. Until we do, our society is at risk of repeating these errors. The people I have in mind are the ‘goo-goo genocidaires,’ the willfully blind reformers, civil society activists, clergy, students and others whose foolishness and ignorance was a necessary condition for tens of millions of deaths in the last hundred years. Unreflective, self-righteous ‘activists’ thought that to espouse peace was the same thing as to create or safeguard it. As a result, tens of millions died.

Read it all here. Hat tip, Glenn Reynolds. Thanks, Glenn.

Read and consider. Be honest about what has gone on with a wide swath of peace proponents in this country -- exactly what they have enabled in history, and whom they are enabling as we speak. Be wise. Be convicted. Repent.

Save the future from repeated false destruction.

Selah.

The Jesus Map

And a little child shall lead them...

A father wanted to read a magazine but was being bothered by his little girl. She wanted to know what the United States looked like. Finally, he tore a sheet out of his new magazine on which was printed the map of the country. Tearing it into small pieces, he gave it to her and said, 'Go into the other room and see if you can put this together. This will show you our whole country today..'

After a few minutes, she returned and handed him the map, correctly fitted and taped together. The father was surprised and asked how she had finished so quickly. 'Oh,' she said, 'on the other side of the paper is a picture of Jesus. When I got all of Jesus back where He belonged, then our country just came together.'

Selah.

A right way of doing good for the poor

Benevolent thoughts to ponder, in a context of 'health care reform'

For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." 2 Thessalonians 3:10

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many alms-houses for the aged of both sexes, together with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful; and do they use their best endeavours to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burthen? On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent. The day you passed that act, you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependence on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty. Benjamin Franklin, "The Encouragement of Idleness," 1766

"He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need." Ephesians 4:28

"All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty." Proverbs 14:23

Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages!" [He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.]

"Leave her alone," Jesus replied. "It was intended that she should do this... You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me." John 12:3-8

Statistics to ponder

79 percent -- the number of absent African American fathers after four decades of supposedly kind social programs. 30 percent -- the number before such deadly 'help.'

2 out of every 5 -- the number of African American babies that will be aborted this year, targeted by social programs.

Selah.

A dead giveaway

When someone says they love our country, yet work frantically to destroy its very fabric, it's not America they love.

When someone says they care for the poor, yet mandate programs that destroy the poor, it's not the poor they care about.

When someone uses dark means, backroom deals, bribes, kickbacks, bullying and lies to pass 'health care,' is it really the poor they care about?

When someone uses moral language to create a 'benevolence program' that sets up voracious, taxpayer-funded centers of power, is it really the poor they are helping -- or themselves?

No. When you hear such people use language about helping the poor, hear the parenthetical statement of John 12:6, loud and clear: He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

They don't say these things because they love the poor. It's something else they love...

Selah.

A teacher's question

After being interviewed by the school administration, the prospective teacher said:

'Let me see if I've got this right.

'You want me to go into that room with all those kids, correct their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse, monitor their dress habits, censor their T-shirt messages, and instill in them a love for learning.

'You want me to check their backpacks for weapons, wage war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, and raise their sense of self esteem and personal pride.

'You want me to teach them patriotism and good citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play, and how to register to vote, balance a checkbook, and apply for a job.

'You want me to check their heads for lice, recognize signs of antisocial behavior, and make sure that they all pass the final exams.

'You also want me to provide them with an equal education regardless of their handicaps, and communicate regularly with their parents in English, Spanish or any other language, by letter, telephone, newsletter, and report card.

'You want me to do all this with a piece of chalk, a blackboard, a bulletin board, a few books, a big smile, and a starting salary that qualifies me for food stamps.

'You want me to do all this and then you tell me... I CAN'T PRAY?

Think about it! I received this on email and had to blog it.

European eugenics, Victor Frankl & Obamacare

Orwellian bioethics & "true believer" psychosis

W originally killed the "End of Life" counseling pamphlet/questionnaire created for the VA which apparently has just been rolled out by the Obama Administration for use against the borderline VA patient population of veterans.

What remains too often unstated is not the impact of the questions, but the damage done by the process itself which requires the target to submit obediently to the process of confessing their deepest fears and darkest self-effacing doubts to a dominating third-party who sits in judgement; a third party whose purpose and implicit goal is to accelerate the death of the human target of such questionnaires.

Admittedly, my familiarity with the invaluable work of Victor Frankl predisposes me to a deep bias against the european eugenics traditions which have infiltrated and corrupted our medical schools under this Orwellian ruse they call "Bioethics." Rudy Rummel's work on Democide speaks volumes to the morbid productiveness of such political largesse. These "enlightened" medical and political professionals pushing Obamacare are more of the same old crowd, all they way down to the true believer psychosis that's whispers in their ear how they indeed are doing the right thing.

Quoted from a thoughtful comment here.

A slow, steady takeover of our true freedoms

The path to a paralyzed nation

Jon Voight quoted at Inside the Beltway:

"We are witnessing a slow, steady takeover of our true freedoms. We are becoming a socialist nation, and whoever can't see this is probably hoping it isn't true. If we permit Mr. Obama to take over all our industries, if we permit him to raise our taxes to support unconstitutional causes, then we will be in default. This great America will become a paralyzed nation."

More here. Worth reading.

Also this related thought:

Why are people scared? The government is about to take over one-sixth of the nation’s economy, even though soaring deficits make it clear that it can’t properly handle what’s on the plate now. It just fumbled a stimulus package and a program to kill old cars, and somehow people have the notion that this competence will continue with something more vital — their health care. They don’t want the government in charge of those decisions and invading their personal lives. The only surprise here is that elected officials didn’t see this coming, although clearly the White House had an inkling — which is why they tried to rush the bill through to a vote.

From Hot Air referencing FL Congressman.

The new ruling czars of America

Answerable to one man, unelected and unaccountable to the people. A de facto destruction of representative government? Click pic for InstaCzar Glenn Reynolds' discussion.

C.S. Lewis on socialism

A prophetic voice for our time

C.S. Lewis speaks:

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Consider these words in an age when the national deficit gets tripled+ in two months, and moral language is used to force even worse fiscal abuses and future indebtedness on the nation... it's urgent, it must happen, "it's for the good of the people." Note: When politicians start talking about the good of the people meanwhile excluding themselves from the mandated 'good,' it's not good -- benevolence is not the point.

It's the worst kind of hypocrisy and the point is not benevolent. This mind-boggling dept is going somewhere... and the blatant hypocrisy of the leaders should be a neon sign, to those with eyes to see and ears to hear.



All honest Americans should be asking incisively, what is the unspoken chain behind these all these initiatives, in the forms now forced upon us:

• cap-and-trade
• government takeover of industry
• government takeover of finance
• health care 'reform'
• deficit spending
• stimulus

Selah.

The role of true men & women in the life of a nation

Will our nation perish for lack of true men & women?

See how the ancient cities fell because their men were citizens and no more. They had no heavenly citizenship. They were not kindled by the vision of the righteous city of God, growing up through all the cities of men. They did not seek first the Kingdom of God. What have we among us to make men, to make good men and discredit bad ones? What is to protect us from that nation-killing passion for sport and pleasure, for instance, which is breeding gamblers and bleeding citizenship, which throngs to football but cannot be dragged to service?

We are in more danger from the slow perdition of subtle selfishness and popular materialism than from gross and palpable wickedness. The one is the soil in which the other thrives. On what is our citizenship, our public spirit to live in future? The men, who have done most for our cities in the past, have been moved by the faith, brotherhood, and Kingdom of God.

What are we trusting to, to keep that flame alive and burning in time to come? What is the tendency of our current religious life? It is making true humans or religious consumers, citizens or sectarians, mere delegates of interests, mere self-seekers even in their Salvation, mere fugitives from Hell?

"The sheep of my pasture are men, saith the Lord." What a text! And when God would save the world, He sent it a Man to set up a Divine Kingdom out of all the cities of earth. And if our public life is not made by men who are made by Christ, we have nothing to look for but the doom of the old Empires. The men we need are men who are not only unashamed of a Christian faith but men who consult the will of God in private about every great public movement or step in which they are engaged.

Selah.

P.T. Forsyth, "The Ideal City," preached at the Congregational Church, Llandrindod Wells, on 20th July, 1913. From Revelation Old and New: Sermons and Addresses by P.T. Forsyth, edited by John Huxtable (London: Independent Press, 1962).

The state of affairs in economy

A long term reckoning on the way

Robert Samuelson comments on the current state of affairs, and the runaway welfare state of America [note: italics mine, hat tip Instapundit]:

In theory, expanding public welfare could offset eroding private welfare. President Obama’s health-care proposal reflects that logic. The trouble is that the public sector also faces enormous cost pressures, driven by an aging population and rising health costs. The Congressional Budget Office projects the federal debt will double as a share of the economy (gross domestic product) to 82 percent of GDP by 2019.

Any sober examination of figures like these suggests that the system has promised more than it can realistically deliver. We are borrowing not to finance investment in the future but to pay for today’s welfare — present consumption. Sooner or later, the huge debt will weaken the economy. Nor would paying for all promised benefits with higher taxes be desirable. Big increases in either debt or taxes risk depressing economic growth, making it harder yet to pay promised benefits.

The U.S. welfare state is weakening; insecurity is rising. The sensible thing would be to decide which forms of public welfare are needed to protect the vulnerable and to begin paring others. Our inaction poses another dreary parallel with GM. It was obvious a quarter-century ago that GM the auto company could not support GM the welfare state. But the union wouldn’t surrender benefits, and the company acquiesced. Inertia prevailed, and the reckoning came.

The same cycle, repeated on a national scale with sums many multiples higher, would be correspondingly more fearsome.

With these underlying realities, it gives new light to the congressional threats Obama used in order to pass his budget and stimulus, and the subtle way he gifted unions in the auto takeovers. Take another look at the debt proposed by this administration -- what is now appearing as a best case scenario:




The best economists are saying even this untenable offer is going to be much worse. One has to ask: Are we are witnessing a collective will to destruction in America?

Is there a way to reverse this decline?

What does revelation say?

Selah.

A Memorial Day tribute

Cross the Green Mountain

God bless all of you this Memorial Day.

May it be more than cookouts and games... may it be an actual life check, a new commitment to live along the sacrificial lines, only through which our great land will find a new birth in freedom.

Last night I watched a Memorial Day special at the mall in Washington, D.C. There, as they played the songs of the service men and women, they played the Navy song and a young man with a burned and reconstructed face stood to attention -- all his being giving witness to the sacrifice he had made in a cause far greater than himself. I snapped to attention: salute, sir!

This is the honor of which Joshua Chamberlain spoke and witnessed -- the honor that I just shared in conversation with my cousin Eric, a Memorial Day witness to honor and sacrifice and country.

Here's a song of tribute. May it touch your heart to new dedication. Thank you: thank you veterans, thank you men and women of our armed forces, thank you to all who dare to live truly in a false age.

Happy Memorial Day!

Selah.

A forever witness of a dead soldier

Chamberlain amidst death at Fredericksburg

In the preternatural cold night before Fredericksburg, sky alight with strange light, and haunting sounds of lead and shot and ball, missiles tearing through air and earth, flesh and blood and mud and bone, high-pitched whine of Minie balls and lower roar of cannon, hellish shriek of shell, Joshua Chamberlain lay on the battlefield with the torn remnants of his men from the 20th Maine. He survived only by lying among the stacked, faithful dead.

He spent the long cold night there, in horrid awe and wonder: sky dancing with Aurora Borealis so far South: what portent!

Wakened in the cold dawn by the renewed rifle fire, he made a sudden discovery. He moved his head -- pillowed on a corpse --, and from the pocket of the soldier that shielded him in death, a well-worn New Testament dropped out. Chamberlain was deeply moved. Listen to his words:

"Wakened by the sharp fire that spoke the dawn, as I lifted my head from its restful though strange pillow, there fell out from the breast pocket a much-worn little New Testament written in it the owner's name and home. I could do no less than take this to my keeping, resolved that it should be sent to that home in the sweet valley of the Susquehanna as a token that he who bore it had kept t he faith and fought the fight. I may add that sparing mercy allowed the wish to be fulfilled, and this evidence gave the stricken mother's name a place in the list of the nation's remembered benefactors."

Ah! What honor! The loyalty that kept Chamberlain at post, even with all hope gone; the last breath of this dead soldier, who even in death witnessed to life and saved a special life with his body; the enduring Word of God that sustained him to hopeless things -- shall this not echo into eternity?

Is this not what keeps my hand over my heart when I salute the flag?

Yeah, not the sins of my nation, but the destined valor of souls who gave their all that we might live -- live to be a light to the nations -- this, this captures my heart. I yet thrill when I hear the words, "America! America! God shed His grace on thee!"

And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!

The words of Chamberlain, the life of this dead soldier... they live on.

Even with America plagued by those who hate what Chamberlain stood for... yea, something yet endures! In great deeds, something abides. On great fields, something stays. Forms pass and change, bodies disappear, but spirits linger, to consecrate ground as the vision-place of souls.

Selah.

Dalai Lama: Non-violence cannot answer terror

A stunning admission

This week, the Dalai Lama frankly admitted that the principle of ahimsa [or non-violence] cannot be properly applied to terrorism. Prevention is the only way to handle terror, he said.

NEW DELHI: The Dalai Lama, a lifelong champion of non-violence on Saturday candidly stated that terrorism cannot be tackled by applying the principle of ahimsa because the minds of terrorists are closed.

"It is difficult to deal with terrorism through non-violence," the Tibetan spiritual leader said delivering the Madhavrao Scindia Memorial Lecture here.

He also termed terrorism as the worst kind of violence which is not carried by a few mad people but by those who are very brilliant and educated.

"They (terrorists) are very brilliant and educated... but a strong ill feeling is bred in them. Their minds are closed," the Dalai Lama said.

He said that the only way to tackle terrorism is through prevention. The head of the Tibetan government-in-exile left the audience stunned when he said "I love President George W Bush." He went on to add how he and the US President instantly struck a chord in their first meeting unlike politicians who take a while to develop close ties.

This surprised a lot of people, but it is very wise counsel that recognizes the nature of terrorism as well as the true nature of peace. It also begs the question: if the Dalai Lama, whose entire life is predicated on peace, fully recognizes the limits of peace in reference to terror and strongly appreciates the attempts of President Bush to deal with world terror, then why has Bush been so despised by those who use peace as their pretext of dislike?

The answer lies in metaphysics, of course. And, to lesser degree, politics.

Interesting, no?

The pretext of peace

Several powerful lessons in this presentation of the Dalai Lama:

1. Education is not the answer to terrorism. It's only the well educated who are allowing terror to continue in our world, not the unwashed masses of popular thought.
2. Non-violence is not the answer to terrorism [i.e. the limits of peace and the destructive nature of pseudo-peace].
3. President Bush was right in his general approach to terror.

These are ground-shaking claims for some people. But the logic is intense and accurate. Leaving aside claim three [which follows from claims one and two], it's easy to see that the Lama well understands the limits of education. The lesson also speaks to the limits of non-violence, the potentially counterproductive nature of peace claims. Here the Dalai Lama is very consistent with the teaching of the Hebrew prophets: they showed that peace claim can [and will] be used to destroy God's people. The Apostles later followed this out, revealing that the Antichrist comes as a man of peace -- and the spirit of Antichrist gains its power on peace claim.

Mere education does not change the heart. And it is the heart that decides the issues of life. It is the heart that causes many who currently use the word peace to make common cause with modern terror.

Selah.

Veterans: thank you

Freedom takes sacrifice and rule of law under God. Veterans embody this sacrifice, tasked with the protective task of holding the sword against evildoers: I honor the faithful veterans in this the land of the free. Thank you!

Thank a veteran today and ask questions of your life related to divine law -- thus will freedom endure!

Selah.

Search out our hearts and make us true

Before thy throne, O God, we kneel

Words: William Boyd Carpenter (1841-1918)
Music: St. Petersburg

Before thy throne, O God, we kneel:
give us a conscience quick to feel,
a ready mind to understand
the meaning of thy chastening hand;
whate'er the pain and shame may be,
bring us, O Father, nearer thee.

Search out our hearts and make us true;
help us to give to all their due.
From love of pleasure, lust of gold,
from sins which make the heart grow cold,
wean us and train us with thy rod;
teach us to know our faults, O God.

For sins of heedless word and deed,
for pride ambitions to succeed,
for crafty trade and subtle snare
to catch the simple unaware,
for lives bereft of purpose high,
forgive, forgive, O Lord, we cry.

Let the fierce fires which burn and try,
our inmost spirits purify:
consume the ill; purge out the shame;
O God, be with us in the flame;
a newborn people may we rise,
more pure, more true, more nobly wise.

Selah.

Repentance: Facing the Apocalypse

How penitence renews us in covenant protection

The rush of natural disasters, hurricanes, wind and fire, the march of terror and war, the hint of economic crash… these things we can no longer ignore. People now ask me, “Is this the beginning of the end?”

It is a serious question.

I try to answer it in biblical terms. Scripture never emphasizes the when of apocalypse, but always emphasizes the what of apocalypse, as in, “What should be our response in such a time as this?” “How then should we live?”

The Hebraic prophets called for repentance when faced with national disaster. Such teaching is totally opposite our postmodern intuitions. What? A spiritual response to physical disaster? Surely not!

We then ask, “Why?” Why would the prophets call for a moral response to material calamity? Why would Jesus finish His sermon on apocalypse by saying, “Watch, therefore…”? In other words, ‘Live a certain way.’

Is there some link between moral and physical reality? Scripture answers this, a resounding “Yes!”

Scripture asserts that our spiritual thoughts, our mental and internal status, affect physical reality. Our universe is first a spiritual universe. All that is, is held together by the Spirit of God. ‘In Him we live and move and have our being.’ ‘And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.’ ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made…’‘You send forth your Spirit and they are created…”

So when faced with physical calamity, the prophets say, “Repent.”

When humans repent, we bring our lives into line with the Spirit that holds the whole together. An actual connection with the eternal occurs – whether we realize it or not.

This is why it is no mere child’s game to say that our prayers affect even physical disasters, such as hurricanes or economic crash. The prophets emphasized this, repeatedly. And they were only applying the specific covenant promise of God. 2 Chronicles 7:14:

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

It is the same promise that God offered them in when He brought them out of Egypt:

There the LORD made for them a statute and a rule, and there He tested them, saying, ‘If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in His eyes, and give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer’ [Exodus 15:35, et al].

In covenant repentance, God acts on behalf of His children. “I am your healer; I will heal your land.” Penitence and prayer thus become the most powerful things in the universe – things that re-connect us to the One who renews us, even if silent and unseen

Physical reality is connected with spiritual actions. Sara Yoheved Rigler, a Jewish writer, puts it this way:

A person stealing $100 in Tel Aviv lowers the moral fiber in Mexico City and could encourage massive embezzlement in Melbourne. Conversely, a person [praying] in Haifa may avert an auto accident in London or prevent complications during open-heart surgery in Los Angeles. The spiritual channels of effect run far below the surface, untraceable but powerful.

Spiritual forces, like ocean waves, do not lose their power over distance.[1]

Our repentance, covenant repentance, means that the power of God comes to bear, to forgive past offenses and grant healing. God promises himself as healer and deliverer.

Covenant repentance: exactly what is it? Since it is so compelling, how does it happen?

2 Chronicles 7:14 gives the pattern: humble the self, pray, seek the face of God, and turn from personal unrighteousness. It is simply taking relation with God seriously, accepting the fact that God is a Holy God. This is biblical penitence: Humility, committed prayer, wholehearted seeking of God, and turning away from known sin: Life in light of the gracious choice of God.

It is so powerful, it could save a nation. It could save a city. It could save a family. It could save a relationship. It could save you.

C. S. Lewis frames repentance as lived remorse, “where we lay down our [weapons] and surrender, say we're sorry, realize we're on the wrong track, and move full speed astern.” Repentance, he says, is “the only way out of a hole.”

In practical terms, penitence is humbly living in the grace of God – and this to such degree that we bring God into the details of daily life, into the small things. This is the test of grace.

Francois de Fenelon says:

To do small things that are right continually…is much more important [than doing 'great things']. These small acts attack our pride, our laziness, our self-centeredness, and our oversensitive nature. It is much more appealing to make great sacrifices to God, however hard they might be, so that we might do whatever we want with the small decisions of life. Faithfulness in the little things better proves our love for God. It is the slow, plodding path [of daily obedience] that matters...

Righteousness is letting God into the small things, and then realizing that He owns all things.

Our defense against the day of apocalypse is the action of this day. This day! ‘Today, if you will hear my voice,’ says the Lord. ‘Harden not your heart as in the day of provocation…’ ‘Now is the appointed time. Today is the day of salvation…’

Today!

Hear the voice that calls for repentance, and face the Apocalypse. It could be that your prayers will avert the day of disaster. Your prayers might save a relation or save the nation.

Alleluia!

Selah.

[1] S.Y. Rigler, “A spiritual response to disaster,” Society Today, http://www.aish.com/societyWork/society/Reacting_to_the_Tsunami.asp

Attempted graft in the 700 B bailout plan

Jim Lindgren comments on the graft embedded in the proposed bailout plan:

Much of the blogosphere is up in arms because of the provision in Senator Dodd’s financial bailout bill that might funnel profits from the bailout plan to ACORN Housing (related to the disreputable activist group ACORN), and other more reputable service organizations.

I have read Dodd’s proposed statute and in some respects, it is far worse than has been reported. Senator Dodd has placed a loophole in the bill that is explicitly designed to siphon off tens or hundreds of billions of dollars to the Housing Trust Fund and the Capital Magnet Fund even if there are no net profits in the $700 billion venture.

Glenn Reynolds comments:

You know, it would be easier for me to believe this was a crisis, if the people in charge were acting like it was a crisis, instead of just an opportunity for graft. Then again, to some of these people, everything is just an opportunity for graft.

Indeed. This is just so sad -- the country is in trouble, and congressional Democrats subtly place deceptive loopholes in the bailout bill... loopholes that will enrich key constituents, even without eventual net profits for the package; in other words, siphoning off money intended to help the country survive this recent crisis, and using these millions [billions] of dollars to ensure political clout [and stuffed ballot boxes via ACORN, etc.], at direct taxpayer expense. Unbelievable. Itemized here, and here.

It's unconscionable. Full credit should go to John McCain and John Boehner for stopping this blatant attempt at robbery. Thank God McCain suspended his campaign to put country first -- he just saved billions from being skimmed off by unscrupulous politicians. Note: Financial Services ranking member Spencer Bachus said that McCain "turned the negotians around" in 48 hours. And Boehner received a standing ovation in a GOP conference meeting, this morning. You won't hear about that on evening news or newswires!

Thanks to Jim Lindgren for the scoop, and hat tip to Glenn.

Note: Further reading:

• Wall Street Journal, Re-Seeding the Housing Mess.
• And, John Boehner, Dems Want to Reward Scandal-Tarnished "Community Organizing" Group in Economic Rescue Bill.

Purple mountain majesties

Here's a shot of Mt. Rainier from my recent trip to Oregon and WA -- got some great photos and breathed deeply in the mountain air! This photo, though, brings to mind the prayer of America, America... enjoy!

And sing the song, maybe hum it quietly to yourself, as you view:

O beautiful, for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.

O beautiful, for pilgrim feet

Whose stern, impassioned stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw;

Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law!

O beautiful, for heroes proved

In liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved

And mercy more than life!

America! America! May God thy gold refine,

'Til all success be nobleness, and ev'ry gain divine!

O beautiful, for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years,

Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!

Selah.