mellow-drama

Merry Christmas!

lolcats

BTW, if you aren't already checking in on ICanHasCheezburger every day, you're missing out. Don't get it? Read this. If you're not laughing by the end of the first page, well, then this is not your sense of humor. But who can resist laughing at this?  Or this? Or this (which reminds me of something that happened in Civil Procedure once)?

That's what I thought!

And speaking of my thoughts, the ones I generally think are the funniest are "Invisible - ", as in, Invisible Frozen Pole, Invisible Hula Hoop, Invisible Movie Explosion, Invisible Revolving Door, Invisible Karaoke.

Worst. Political Ad. Ever.

Gah!

And I hate to be one of those do-it-my-way-or-I-won't-play people, but if it comes down to Hillary v. Huck, I will be staying home. Or perhaps writing in a candidate for President.

Wild and Crazy Weather

Earlier this evening it was pouring down rain, the kind where it blows in sheets across the street and up onto the porch. Now the wind is blowing fit to rattle the roof, and it's snowing! They always say, welcome to the Midwest; if you don't like the weather, give it a minute - it will change.

Oh well - maybe it'll be a white Christmas after all.

HA! I just checked the weather.com forecast for today & tomorrow: during the day today, it said 0% chance of precipitation (it drizzled all day then poured this evening) and 0% tonight (it's snowing). The radar shows snow over my town and a bit to the south. What a laugh.

For everyone who claimed they "didn't know" about conflict diamonds

Now you know about the rubies and the jade, and it's not too late to do something about it.

At last! (Updated)

It's like a dream come true.

UPDATE: Via Instapundit, the news that not all is great in Hobbit-land - PJ will not be directing OR writing on this one.

24: Back when it all began

This video of the unreleased 24 pilot from 1994 is pretty darn funny.

Via Dave Barry's 24 blog.

Fascinating

My first reaction to the Lawrence O'Donnell thing was, "I knew that guy on Big Love looked familiar!" Once I was over that, I of course rolled my eyes about the now-infamous Hugh Hewitt interview with O'Donnell, in which he (O'Donnell) notes that he would criticize Islam more openly but was afraid for his life if he did so. And then I saw this post, and found this excerpt fascinating:

First, O'Donnell points out that early church leaders said some problematic things. And of course, he's right. For instance, Brigham Young spoke publicly on a few occasions against interracial marriage. O'Donnell cites to one of these, a sermon where Brigham Young states, "Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot." Yep, that's a pretty awful thing to say.

Of course, it's not really that surprising of a statement, coming from a mid-19th-century white person. Unfortunately, these kinds of views were rather mainstream at the time. Most contemporaneous whites believed that interracial marriage was wrong. Really! Quick quiz: Which 19th-century figure said this about interracial marriage?

I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

That would be Abraham Lincoln.

I admit that my eyes glazed over for most of the post about Mormon church doctrine - sorry, just not interested, since it has nothing to do with anything that affects me. But the Lincoln stuff was fascinating and a jarring reminder that having an historical context for one's opinions makes a huge difference.

Money Talks: Correspondence with my Economist Friend (part 1)

Dear Friend,

I always think of you when I read articles like this. I know enough to be skeptically alarmed, but not enough to understand the implications (or extent) of the problem.

He responds (excerpts):

Thanks for sharing.  The real problem is that people think "it's different this time".   No it's not, and it never was.  This housing mess shouldn't be a surprise to anyone because a lot of people (myself included) saw this coming as early as 2002.   There is no, none, zero, zilch economic rationale for general housing prices to outpace inflation by more than 2% on a national level.

True, he has been talking about this since as early as 2002, because I remember having several conversations along these lines (the phrase "housing bubble" comes strongly to mind) wherein my eyes glazed over a bit because they were so far over my head. But points to him for "getting" it then, even if I didn't…

Actually, housing units themselves are depreciating from the moment they are built, much like a car.   It's the land that is appreciating, because they aren't making any more of it.

Never thought of it that way; I always assumed houses appreciated too. But why would they? They are deteriorating with use, the materials with which they were built are becoming outdated…why hadn't I thought of that before?

What is being created is legions of fools and naïve people who think that it really must be different now.    A drastic warning sign was the belief that baby-boomers could use their homes, which appreciated at 10%+ per year, as a vehicle for retirement.  Just what kind of young person is going to be able to purchase those outlandish, expensive houses on entry-level wages?

I think this means that people were expecting to sell their homes and use the realized income to finance their retirement? I guess that's not an unreasonable expectation unless you think about who the buyers are going to be…other upwardly-mobile families, or …who, exactly? Good point there, friend.

In short, Citibank will be toast.  SIVs and CDOs [what the…? – ed.] are not worth the paper they are printed on.  Housing isn't like stock prices, right?  Right?   

Er, right! I guess. (But why? Because you don't take out a mortgage to buy stocks, so you're only investing money you already had?)

Correct.  With a stock, you can liquidate it and be done with it.   Remember Pets.com?   Those people who bought in a $100 a share and rode it to worthless lost their money (for the example consider 1000 shares).    They lost $100,000 + trading fees + opportunity costs of their investment. What  about the guy who bought a $500,000 McMansion?   Assuming (a tall assumption) that he can sell it for $300,000, he's lost $200,000K off the top.  Many people can't stomach that kind of loss, so they will ride it all the way to foreclosure and bankruptcy.   By then, the house might (MIGHT) be able to sell for $200,000.  The bank eats $300,000 (Citibank), and cuts a 1099 form to Mr. Broke Previous Homeowner for forgiven debt.   Now, that guy (making $110,000/yr joint-income) has 2008 income of $410,000, raising him to a much higher tax bracket and AMT hell.  Mr. BPH expected a tax refund of maybe $1500 this year, instead he will owe $100,000 in taxes.   To add insult to injury, he cannot buy a new house because his credit is shot and IRS debts are not forgiven in bankruptcy.  Mr. BPH, who does not qualify for federal assistance, then becomes an apartment renter, raising his family in crowded confines, sells the BMW for a 1998 Ford Taurus, and basically drops out of society (for the purpose of spending $$) just because he believed that "it was different this time".   Multiply this scenario by about 2 million (by my best guess).

Don't think my friend is down on renters – he's a renter himself. But tell me this, Wes, why does owning a home make you a society participant for economic purposes? The money's in the house, not out buying Hummers and Barbie dolls…right?

A recession is baked into the cake.  Every stat I follow (leading indicators) shows trouble.   Freight shipments down.  Delta announced a profit reduction today due to reduced flight bookings.  Major automakers will sell 14-14.5 million vehicles in 2008, down from 16.5 in 2007.  This will cause a massive writedown in the valuation of cars, making SUVs and gas guzzlers even more worthless, and reducing used car values as new companies slash prices to move product.   Housing down 10% so far, with a further 20% to go.  Hate to sound pessimistic, but that's the way it's looking.   Mortgage bailouts just lengthen the pain.

That all sounds very dramatic, so I wrote back with a few questions about the implications. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion.

Church and State

I enjoyed E.J Dionne's piece in the Washington Post about Romney's religion speech (text here).  I enjoyed the speech and thought that it had some nice ideas, but I too was put off by the pandering to the Religious Right and by Romney bowing to the notion that you have to declare open support for Jesus Christ to be able to serve as President.

But what I want to address is this bit here:

But then Romney had to go further. "Freedom," he said, "requires religion, just as religion requires freedom." And to those who see religion as "merely a private affair with no place in public life," he said this: "It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America -- the religion of secularism. They are wrong."

Well. Religion can certainly be conducive to freedom. But does freedom require religion? Is religion always conducive to freedom? Does freedom not also thrive in far more secular societies than our own? Isn't the better course for our nation to seek solidarity among lovers of liberty, secular as well as religious?

Well, yes, the best course is to "seek solidarity among lovers of liberty" no matter if they are religious or not. But the rhetorical question that got me is the one bolded above: "Does freedom not also thrive in far more secular societies than our own?" Does it?

Let's consider Western Europe. It's getting far more secular every year, but liberty is being slowly eroded by socialist concerns about the "greater good" – the individual is getting left behind out of concern for the bigger picture. I'm not about to argue that religion is the cause for our greater liberty here. We all know that I rail as much as anyone against fundamentalists and there endless moralizing law-passing, and wish that the Republican Party weren't so captured by the Religious Right. But Dionne, who did phrase the question rhetorically, seems to believe that other more secular societies are just as free as ours, and I just don't think that's the case, regardless of cause.

Another take on Romney's speech: John Dickerson, This I Believe.

I'd like to take a minute to address the incredibly harsh and unfair criticism of the Romney speech, and of Romney himself, by Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens writes:

A long time ago, Romney took the decision to be a fool for Joseph Smith, a convicted fraud and serial practitioner of statutory rape who at times made war on the United States and whose cult has been made to amend itself several times in order to be considered American at all. We do not require pious lectures on the American founding from such a man, and we are still waiting for some straight answers from him.

Let's get this straight: It is not legitimate to require George W. Bush to explain whether Jesus really sent demons into a herd of swine, or how he survived 40 days and 40 nights in the desert without sustenance. It is not legitimate to require John Kerry to justify or answer for the Crusades. And it's not okay to make Mitt Romney justify the historical actions of his church or its leaders. Period. It's not okay.

What Mitt Romney should answer for is Mitt Romney's actions and Mitt Romney's political principles. Somewhat legitimate is the question of Mitt Romney's beliefs or actions regarding the racism issues.  Even with that issue, however, no answer will satisfy the critics.  If Romney says he did not agree with the racist policies of his church, the critics will insist that he must be lying because he didn't leave the church. Never mind the millions of Catholics who believed in the use of birth control or who think women should be able to become priests – no, if they don't renounce their Catholic faith, then they must be sexist.

A comparison is repeatedly drawn between the LDS race issue and Robert Byrd's stint in the KKK, but I think it is a facile comparison. What's more, the mindset which draws the comparison goes to the heart of the problem here. The reason we don't take someone's religious beliefs into consideration when deciding if they are rationally capable of holding office is because faith is a highly complex, individual, and emotional matter. One's faith is often implanted at childhood, and is influenced by those around us. Very little about our religious beliefs can be empirically proven.

Atheists like Hitchens want us to reach the conclusion that no faith would survive relentless rational scrutiny; therefore, all faiths must be discarded. And that those who cling to faith are illogical or self-delusional. And I think atheists also have a bit of an ego-stroking belief that only they, the few who have wised up, seen the light, let go of childish fantasies about omnipotent beings or eternal rewards, are truly fit to rule. History and common sense show otherwise. There is no room for religion in the mind of Christopher Hitchens, so he will never be satisfied by any answering Romney does for his religion until the moment Romney renounces his faith. The end result of his attacks on Romney is this: Only atheists are fit to hold public office, because only atheists truly embrace logic and reason.

Unless you agree with the desirability of that outcome, piling on Romney to answer for polygamy or theology or sacred underwear in the guise of concern for his fitness to serve as President, while letting George W. Bush or John Kerry pass by unquestioned, is anti-Mormon bigotry, pure and simple.

READ ALSO: Mark Steyn's column about religion and the housing market.