Change up....the game is tonight at 6:30 on ESPN2.  Last word I got was that though out with injury last week Ryan Mathews may play tonight.

Next to the last game.

THE GREAT BUSH ‘DEREGULATION’ MYTH

By Jeff Jacoby

The Boston Globe

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

http://www.boston.com/bosto...

     We’ve heard it again and again: The financial crisis was caused by the Bush administration's reckless plunge into deregulation.

     House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, blames the mess on “the Bush administration's eight long years of failed deregulation policies.” Billionaire investor George Soros declares that “excessive deregulation is at the root of the current crisis.” Nouriel Roubini, the widely-quoted New York University economist, pins it on “these Bush hypocrites, who spewed for years the glory of unfettered Wild West laissez-faire jungle capitalism.” A New York Times editorial pronounces the American financial system “the victim of decades of Republican deregulatory and anti-tax policies.”

President Jimmy Carter attributes it to the “atrocious economic policies of the Bush administration,” particularly “deregulation and . . . a withdrawal of supervision of Wall Street.”

     That's also Barack Obama's view. “The biggest problem in this whole process was the deregulation of the financial system,” Obama said last month. He called the present troubles “a final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years . . . that essentially said that we should strip away regulations, consumer protections, let the market run wild, and prosperity would rain down on all of us.”

     Deregulators run amok undoubtedly make a flamboyant culprit. But do they exist? Should we really be taking seriously the claim that the past eight years have been characterized by letting “the market run wild”?

     Granted, there has been significant recent legislation easing financial restrictions. Most often mentioned is the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which, as The New York Times described it on Monday, “removed barriers between commercial and investment banks that had been instituted to reduce the risk of economic catastrophes.” Some argue that the law, which allowed traditional banks and investment firms to be affiliated under one holding company, helped bring on the credit meltdown. Even if true, how was that George W. Bush's fault? The law was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1999, after being passed by lopsided majorities in both houses of Congress.

     Gramm-Leach-Bliley's lead sponsors were Republicans, but the 34 Democratic senators who voted for the bill surely weren't scheming to “let the market run wild.” Ditto the 151 Democrats -- among them future Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- who voted for the measure in the House. Then-Treasury Secretary (and current Obama adviser) Larry Summers didn't denounce the bill as “laissez-faire jungle capitalism” -- he praised it for “promoting financial innovation, lower capital costs, and greater international competitiveness.” Clinton himself defends the law to this day.

     Now, this is not to say that Bush hasn't also been responsible for legislation having a decided impact on the country's regulatory climate. On July 31, 2002, declaring that free markets must not be “a financial free-for-all guided only by greed,” he signed the Sarbanes-Oxley law, a sweeping overhaul of corporate fraud, securities, and accounting laws. Among its many tough provisions, the law created a new regulatory agency to oversee public accounting firms and auditors, and imposed an array of new requirements for financial reporting and corporate audits. Whatever else might be said about Sarbanes-Oxley, it was no invitation to an uninhibited capitalist bacchanal.

     Like the alligators lurking in New York City sewers, Bush's massive regulatory rollback is mostly urban legend. Far from throwing out the rulebook, the administration has expanded it: Since Bush became president, the Federal Register -- the government's annual compendium of proposed and finalized regulations -- has run to more than 74,000 pages every year but one. During the Clinton years, by contrast, the Federal Register reached that length just once.

     Similarly, the administration has broken every previous record for regulatory agency spending. According to researchers at Washington University and George Mason University, appropriations for federal regulatory functions have soared during the Bush years. Adjusting for inflation, the regulatory budget has grown from $25 billion in fiscal year 2000 to an estimated $43 billion in FY 2009 -- a 70 percent increase. “In constant dollars,” writes James Freeman in the Wall Street Journal, “the Bush regulatory budget increases vastly exceed those of predecessors Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, and, yes, Lyndon Johnson.” Staffing has skyrocketed, too. Regulatory agencies employed 175,000 people in 2000. They employ nearly 264,000 today. (Some of that reflects the Transportation Security Administration's takeover of airport security screening in 2003.)

     Amid the stress and storm of the financial crisis, “deregulation” makes a convenient villain. But the facts tell a different story: The nation's regulatory burden has grown heavier, not lighter, since Bush entered the White House. Too little government wasn’t what made the economy sick. Too much government isn't going to make it better.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

I don't know about you folks but I'm tired of fighting and I'm getting hungry.  A while back my sister and then a friend sent me a sort of pyramid recipe chain.  I won't go into the details, you may have had the same thing.  The upshot is supposed to be that you accumulate recipes from all over.  Well, it didn't happen  I don't know if the chain croke of it worked backwards or what but it just didn't work.

With that in mind, I'm sharing my cheater homemade vegetable soup recipe that's going to make my dinner tonight.

What are you folks having for dinner.?

Cheater homemade soup.  Single person portion.

1 can any Cambells Vegetable soup.

2-3 cans water

2-3 potatoes chunked up

A sprinkle of packaged stew mix

Salt to taste for the potatoes

Dump it all in a saucepan and simmer until the potatoes are done.  That's it.

Some crackers or sourdough and That's my dinner.

Did anyone else get their email telling them to file for their stimulis check on line?  I'm excited.  I've already made arrangements to pay off my car.  I'm taking a cruise.

ooops......Trouble is, when you open the email, it's blank.  Gee, I wonder why.  I guess I'll have to wait until I get something in smail mail before I can spend it.  :-(

Now I've put myself on some spam mailing list all for naught. 

Jason et al:

Several of us have commented on the 15-20 minute lag time before posts appear.  Is this situation is going to be remedied any time soon or is it going to be this way from now on?

Sitting here this morning it's obvious there are several people posting but nothing new is showing on the comment page.  Some of us would like to have a discussion but the lag time is making it impossible since most don't want to sit here and wait for new comment to show.

I can accept explanations of server problems but I've never seen it take this long for any program to get fixed.  If this is to be ongoing and a permanent part or the blogs  I, for one, would appreciate a straight answer.

Now I suppose I'll go trim some shrubs and hope the comment page will be refreshed by the time I get back. 

Palin's political potential

PLAYING THE RACE CARD ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

By Jeff Jacoby

The Boston Globe

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

http://www.boston.com/bosto...

California voters on Election Day approved Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage in the

state. News of the proposition's passage caused protests like this one in Los Angeles on

Sunday. (Associated Press photo)

     It has been widely noted that black voters put California's Proposition 8 over the top last week, with nearly 7 out of 10 voting in favor of the constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. As the magnitude of black opposition to same-sex marriage became clear on Election Day, blogger Andrew Sullivan, a prominent gay-marriage champion, reacted bitterly:

     "Every ethnic group supported marriage equality," he wrote, "except African-Americans, who voted overwhelmingly against extending to gay people the civil rights once denied them."

     Well, let's see. The civil rights once denied to black Americans included the right to register as a voter, the right to cast a ballot, the right to use numerous public facilities, the right to get a fair hearing in court, the right to send their children to an integrated public school, and the right to equal opportunity in housing and employment. Have gay people been denied any of these rights? Have they been forced to sit in the back of buses? Confined to segregated neighborhoods? Barred from serving on juries? Subjected to systematic economic exploitation?

     Plainly, declining to change the timeless definition of marriage deprives no one of "the civil rights once denied" to blacks, and it is an absurdity to claim otherwise. It is also a poisonous slur: For if opposing same-sex marriage is like opposing civil rights, then voters who backed Proposition 8 are no better than racists, the moral equivalent of those who turned the fire hoses on blacks in Birmingham in 1963.

     Which is, of course, exactly what proponents of same-sex marriage contend.

     It has become routine for the defenders of traditional wedlock to be cast as the worst sort of hateful bigots, "gladly donning the roles played by Lester Maddox and George Wallace in the civil rights era," to quote The New York Times's Frank Rich. Anyone who insists that marriage can only mean the union of male and female -- and "anyone" now includes a majority of voters in 30 of the 30 states where marriage amendments have been on the ballot -- can expect to be told that they are no better than racists, modern-day segregationists motivated by malevolence and an evil heart.

     Thus, supporters of same-sex marriage regularly referred to the California ballot measure as "Proposition Hate," while a group calling itself "Californians Against Hate" launched a website to publicize the names and addresses of donors to the Yes-on-8 campaign. Yet it was the foes of Proposition 8 whose hatred and intolerance were most vividly on display. Signs promoting the amendment were stolen or defaced, churches were vandalized, and at least one supporter of the amendment ended up in the hospital after being beaten by an assailant screaming: "What do you have against gays?"

     For sheer hatefulness and bigotry, however, nothing surpassed the anti-Proposition 8 television ad that depicted two Mormon missionaries forcing their way into the home of a married lesbian couple.

     "Hi, we're here from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," one of the Mormons says. "We're here to take away your rights," says the other.

     The missionaries pull the wedding rings from the women's fingers, then proceed to ransack the house, looking for their marriage license. When they find it, they triumphantly tear it up.

     "Hey, we have rights," one of the women protests.

     "Not if we can help it," one of the missionaries smugly replies.

     As the commercial ends, a message appears on the screen: “Say NO to a church taking over your government.”

     If black voters overwhelmingly reject the claim that marriage amendments like Proposition 8 are nothing more than bigotry-fueled assaults on civil rights, perhaps it is because they know only too well what real bigotry looks like. Perhaps it is because they resent the assertion that adhering to the ageless meaning of marriage is tantamount to supporting the pervasive humiliation and cruelty of Jim Crow. Perhaps it is because they are not impressed by strident condemnations of "intolerance" and "hate" by people who traffic in rank anti-Mormon hatemongering.

     Or perhaps it is because they understand that a fundamental gulf separates the civil rights movement from the demand for same-sex marriage. One was a fight for genuine equality, for the right of black Americans to live on the same terms, and under the same restrictions, as whites. The other is a demand to change the terms on which marriage has always been available by giving it a meaning it has never before had. That isn't civil rights -- and playing the race card doesn't change that fact.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

THE WORLD WON'T LOVE OBAMA FOREVER

By Jeff Jacoby

The Boston Globe

Sunday, November 9, 2008

http://www.boston.com/bosto...

     The storyline goes something like this: America’s one-time popularity in the world was squandered by George W. Bush, whose belligerence and unilateralism after Sept. 11, 2001 alienated allies and engendered widespread anti-Americanism. But now, with the election of Barack Obama, America can restore its good name and regain the world’s goodwill.

     One vigorous exponent of this narrative has been Obama himself. “The single most important issue that we're facing in this election,” he said during the campaign, is choosing a leader “to repair all the damage that's been done to American's reputation overseas.” On the day I become president, he often told voters, “the world will look at America differently." 

Students at Barack Obama's old primary school in Indonesia react as their teacher announced
Obama's win. (AFP/Getty images)

      Sure enough, much of the international reaction to Obama’s election has been ecstatic. “Legions of jubilant supporters set off firecrackers in El Salvador, danced in Liberia, and drank shots in Japan,” the Los Angeles Times reported. Kenya declared a national holiday, while a minister in the French government likened the occasion to “the fall of the Berlin Wall times 10.” South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu exulted: “We have a new spring in our walk and our shoulders are straighter.” BBC correspondent John Simpson pronounced Obama’s election one of those events that renders the United States “young and vibrant, the envy of the world” and The Sun, Britain’s most popular newspaper, headlined its story “One Giant Leap for Mankind.”

      For the president-elect, such worldwide jubilation must be gratifying. He should take it all with a healthy shake of salt, however. Because it isn’t going to last.

     Antagonism to the United States is as old as the United States. It didn’t begin with the current president, unpopular though he is, or in response to American military action in Iraq. Nor is it going to vanish on January 20.

     In Hating America, a survey of more than two centuries of anti-American hostility, Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin note that an upsurge of anti-Americanism was already “strong in the Middle East and well under way in Europe” before Bush took office in 2001. In the 1990s, for example, Greeks opposed US support for Kosovo’s Muslims, and vented their anger at President Bill Clinton. “Among the epithets flung at Clinton in the mainstream Greek media,” the Rubins recount, “were criminal, pervert, murderer, imposter, bloodthirsty, gangster, slayer, naïve, criminal, butcher, stupid, killer, foolish, unscrupulous, disgraceful, dishonest, and rascal.”

     A decade earlier, it was Ronald Reagan who provoked eruptions of anti-American fury. In 1983, millions of Europeans marched in protest when the Reagan administration countered the Soviet Union’s deployment of nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe by installing US ballistic and cruise missiles in West Germany.

    But it isn’t only issues of war and peace that set off America’s braying critics. In A Dangerous Place, a memoir of his tenure as ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Patrick Moynihan describes a 1974 world food conference in Rome that had been convened by the United States. “The scene grew orgiastic as speakers competed in their denunciation of the country that had called the conference, mostly to discuss giving away its own wheat,” he wrote. America is a big, rich, and powerful nation; that alone is enough to provoke global resentment, no matter who lives in the White House.

     As a presidential candidate, Obama argued that America’s standing in the world had declined because of the Iraq war and unilateral actions by the Bush administration “emphasizing military action over diplomacy.” Yet there will almost surely be times in Obama's administration when the United States will have to take action when others won't, to defend its principles or protect a threatened party. As one notable American has written: “There will be times when we must again play the role of the world’s reluctant sheriff. This will not change -- nor should it.” The author of those words? Barack Obama, in The Audacity of Hope.

     Popularity is nice, but it isn’t the goal of American foreign policy. Great nations have great interests -- interests that cannot always be secured through patient negotiation or Security Council resolutions. As the foremost military power, the United States must at times be “the world’s reluctant sheriff,” using force to maintain order or defend liberty. President Obama may speak more softly than his predecessor, but he will still be carrying a very big stick. Like other presidents, he will be loudly condemned when he uses it. As George W. Bush can tell him, the abuse goes with the job.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

SILVER LININGS, EVEN ON THE RIGHT

By Jeff Jacoby

The Boston Globe

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

http://www.boston.com/bosto.../

     To be a conservative in Massachusetts is to know disappointment, never more so than on Election Day, when candidates and causes of the right rarely stand a chance. Waiting in line at my Brookline polling place yesterday, I was under no illusion that my vote would change the outcome: Barney Frank would be re-elected to the US House, John Kerry would go back to the Senate, and Massachusetts would vote decisively for Barack Obama. To say nothing of the rest of the nation poised to elect the most lopsidedly liberal government in years.

     But why succumb to gloom? Even for a red voter in the bluest of states, Election 2008 has its consolations:

     The Clintons really won’t be going back to the White House.

     We haven’t seen the last of Sarah Palin, who demonstrated genuine star power as she withstood with aplomb and good humor a vicious assault from the left.

     Government financing of political campaigns, always a dreadful idea, is dead. Yes, Obama egregiously broke his solemn promise to accept public financing and its attendant spending limits. But having witnessed Obama’s astonishing financial blowout -- he raised well over $600 million, crushing his rival in the money war and therefore in advertising and field organization -- no future candidate will agree to be shackled by those limits.

     A turn in the wilderness will do Republicans good. During the GOP’s years in power, the one-time party of fiscal sobriety and limited government turned into a gang of reckless spenders and government aggrandizers. If a few years in exile can lead Republicans back to their conservative, Reaganite roots, yesterday’s losses will not have been in vain.

     But the most lustrous silver lining of all, even for disappointed Republicans, is the racial one. As a politician and policymaker, Obama distresses me; his extreme liberalism is decidedly not what the nation needs in its president. But as a symbol -- a son of Africa elected to lead a majority-white nation that once enslaved Africans and treated their descendants with great cruelty -- Obama’s rise makes me proud of my country. The anthem of the Civil Rights Movement was "We Shall Overcome." Impossible as it might have seemed scant decades ago, we have.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

I got this email from motopoet just a while ago.

Watch the Yes on 8 video and make up your own mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

"It's gonna happen, whether you like it or not, it's gonna happen."

http://www.foxnews.com/stor...

Game just started if anyone is interested.