Religious liberty
Overlooked issues of 2008

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
December 31, 2008

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/1...

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SAME-SEX MARRIAGE made plenty of news in 2008, from court decisions legalizing it to the adoption of amendments banning it to the ongoing battle over Proposition 8 in the one state -- California -- where both occurred.

But one front in the marriage wars rarely gets the coverage it deserves: the drive by gay activists to punish religious believers whose faith forbids homosexual relationships. Consider three (of many) recent cases:

• In April, photographers Jon and Elaine Huguenin were fined $6,637 by the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission for declining to shoot a lesbian commitment ceremony. The Huguenins didn'tt want to take a job that would have required them to disregard their Christian values. But the civil rights commission ruled that in turning down the work, they had illegally discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation.

• Marcia Walden, a licensed counselor in Georgia, was fired for referring a lesbian client to a counselor better suited to help her. Jane Doe had approached Walden for help with her same-sex relationship -- a request with which Walden recognized her own religious beliefs were in conflict. Rather than provide insincere counseling, Walden referred Jane to a colleague. That colleague commended her for doing the right thing by making the referral, but Jane later filed a complaint, and Walden ended up losing her job.

• Just last month, the dating site eHarmony agreed to begin providing gay and lesbian matchmaking services in order to settle a lawsuit accusing it of discrimination. eHarmony was founded by evangelical psychologist Neil Clark Warren in 2000 and had never provided a same-sex option. ("I don't know what the dynamics are there," Warren once explained.) But rather than choose a dating service that catered to gays, a New Jersey man decided to sue eHarmony for not doing so. It was hurtful, he said, that the site required members to register as either man seeking a woman or woman seeking a man. New Jerseys attorney general jumped into the case -- and eHarmony caved under pressure.

For many gay marriage supporters, it is not enough that same-sex relationships be normalized: Any private reluctance to accept that normalization must also be penalized. Freedom of religion is the first of our liberties, the guarantee that opens the First Amendment. But religious liberty is under assault by gay activists, and the First Amendment is getting battered. It ought to be a bigger story.

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

I got a call from the grandkids tonight telling me Noggin was being taken off Brighthouse lineup due to a dispute.  Among the others taken off are Nickelodian, Comedy Channel and MTV.  Don't know which others but I'll be checking it out.  If they don't get it settled it just might be dish time.  I'm already mad at Hallmark.

Don't believe everything you read

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
December 28, 2008

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/8...

Like weather forecasters and economists, those of us in the commentariat get paid even when we're wrong. If we didn't -- well, just think of the political sages who would have been pounding the pavement after asserting confidently that Mitt Romney was sitting pretty in Iowa and New Hampshire, or that Barack Obama had no chance of defeating the Clinton machine. Fortunately, error -- even egregious error -- isn't usually a hanging offense in this business. Just ask Dick Morris, the Fox News/New York Post commentator, who wrote a book in 2005 called Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race. Or Shelby Steele, the Hoover Institution scholar and frequent op-ed essayist whose latest book, on the Obama phenomenon, was titled A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win.

BusinessWeek was chortling recently over a list of what it labeled “truly spectacular” wrong calls about 2008, such as President Bush's soothing analysis of the economy last March (“The market is in the process of correcting itself”) and Jim Cramer's response on CNBC's “Mad Money” to a viewer who was thinking of dumping his Bear Stearns stock (“No! No! No! Bear Stearns is fine! Do not take your money out . . . Bear Stearns is not in trouble!”).

But not every howler made the BusinessWeek list. For example, it didn't include this elaborate forecast, which proved to be mistaken in every detail:

“New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will enter the presidential race in February, after it becomes clear which nominees will get the nod from the major parties. His multiple billions and organization will impress voters -- and stun rivals. He'll look like the most viable third-party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt. But Bloomberg will come up short, as he comes in for withering attacks from both Democrats and Republicans. He and Clinton will split more than 50 percent of the votes, but Arizona's maverick senator, John McCain, will end up the country's next President.”

That impressive string of blunders was one of “Ten Likely Events in 2008” foretold by -- yes -- BusinessWeek back on Jan. 2. Anyone can make a bad call, of course, but it generally takes a professional -- a paid journalist or expert analyst -- to be wrong about something so comprehensively (and publicly).

Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, nicely illustrates the point in the November issue of Commentary magazine. He rounds up the reaction of much of the punditocracy to the 2007 change of strategy in Iraq -- the “surge” that led to such remarkable progress in the war. As Wehner shows, one commentator after another expressed not just doubt about the surge, but utter contempt for it.

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post assured readers that the surge “could only make sense in some parallel universe where pigs fly and fish commute on bicycles.” Time's Joe Klein derided it as “Bush’s futile pipe dream.” Former ambassador Peter Galbraith explained in the New York Review of Books that the surge “has no chance of actually working.” And Jonathan Chait announced in the Los Angeles Times that there was “something genuinely bizarre” about anyone who would support the new strategy. “It is not just that they are wrong -- being wrong happens to all of us from time to time. It's that they are completely detached from reality.”

Do tell.

(I was wrong, too. A month before Bush announced the surge, I wrote that his sagging approval ratings would surely revive if only he would “make it clear that he is serious about victory” in Iraq and “will do whatever it takes to achieve it.” Two years later, Iraq is in vastly better shape, but Bush's approval numbers are even worse.)

“Think it possible you may be mistaken.” My resolution for 2009 is to keep Cromwell's reproach in mind with every column I write. I'm not planning to get anything wrong, but it's been known to happen. Caveat lector.

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

This is one for the books.  A must see video.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1...

I was asked to share two recipes on another blog so here they are.

Velveeta Fudge.

I like to make people try to guess the secret ingredient.

• 4 pounds powdered sugar
• 1 cup Cocoa (Hersheys)
• 1 pound Velveeta cheese
• 2 cups margarine
• 1 tablespoon vanilla

Melt the cheese in a double boiler then add the margarine.  Stir until well mixed then add vanilla.

While cheese and margarine are melting pour powdered sugar into a very large bowl and add the cocoa.  Mix well to distribute the cocoa.

Add the cheese mixture and beat until completely mixed.  Pour onto a parchment paper or wax paper line cookie sheet and smooth out.  Refrigerate then cut into squares and seal in a container.  Keep refrigerated for best texture.

Warning:  This makes a large cookie sheet full of fudge but can be cut in half if you don't need this much.

Chocolate Surprise Cookies 

Very moist and really good.

• 2/3 cup butter or margarine at room temp
• 1-2/3 cups small curd cottage cheese
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1- 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup Hersheys cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• Optional - 1/2 cup chopped almonds or walnuts
• About a cup of powdered sugar set aside (not for use in the recipe)

Mix margarine, sugar, cottage cheese, eggs and vanilla in a mixer or food processor until smoothly blended.

Stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and nuts.  Add to cottage cheese mixture and stir to blend.  Chill in refrigerator for about an hour to make dough easier to handle.  Form dough into  1 inch balls and roll in powdered sugar to coat.  Place balls about 2 inches apart on buttered cookie sheets and bake at 350 for about 10-12 minutes.  Cookies should feel firm but not hard when touched.  Cool on racks and store airtight for up to 4 days.  Freeze to store longer.

This is my favorite Christmas song and a  lovely video to go with it.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Thank you Roy......

http://www.youtube.com/swf/...

God bless all of you . . . on the good Earth

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
December 21, 2008

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/7...

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It had been a wretched and demoralizing year.

In April, Martin Luther King had been murdered in Memphis; in Los Angeles two months later, Bobby Kennedy was struck down. The fighting in Vietnam ground bloodily on, pushing the American death toll past 30,000 and fueling massive antiwar demonstrations at home. The United States was humiliated when North Korea captured the USS Pueblo and imprisoned its crew for 11 months. Racial tensions worsened, as segregationist George Wallace launched a third-party campaign for president. Outside the Democratic convention in Chicago, TV cameras broadcast appalling scenes of chaos and police brutality. "Seldom," Time magazine observed, "had the nation been confronted with such a congeries of doubts and discontents."

But in its final days, the annus horribilis of 1968 was unexpectedly redeemed by a dazzling display of intrepidity and ambition and nerve: Apollo 8's flight around the moon -- the first human voyage to another world.

Afterward, the decision to send Apollo 8 to the moon would be called the greatest gamble in the history of the space program. The mission had originally been scheduled to test the new lunar landing vehicle while orbiting the Earth; the first moon-orbit mission wasn't planned until 1969. But the lunar lander wasn't ready. And the CIA was reporting that the Soviets were on the verge of upstaging the United States by sending a manned Soyuz spacecraft around the moon.

So NASA decided not to wait. Apollo 8 would go all the way to the moon. It was a gutsy, dangerous decision, and not just because flying without a lunar lander meant that Apollo 8's crew -- Commander Frank Borman, James Lovell, and Bill Anders -- would be stranded without a lifeboat if anything went wrong. Houston still didn't have the software Apollo would need to navigate to the moon. And the huge Saturn V rocket required to launch a spacecraft beyond the Earth's gravitational grasp was still being perfected, and had never been used on a manned flight. By today's standards, the risks were unthinkable. Apollo's program director, Chris Kraft, figured the odds of getting the crew home safely were no better than 50-50.

Yet in the end, it was a triumph. Apollo 8 lifted off on the morning of Dec. 21. The massive rocket, as tall as a 35-story building and burning 20 tons of fuel per second, performed flawlessly. Two years earlier, Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon had flown Gemini 11 to a record-breaking 850 miles above the Earth. Now Borman, Lovell, and Anders were on their way to beating that record by more than 230,000 miles.

They reached their target on Dec. 24, easing into orbit around the moon 69 hours after leaving home. As an Earthbound audience of hundreds of millions tuned in, the astronauts of Apollo 8 -- the first men to view the lunar surface up close -- described what they were seeing.

"The moon is essentially gray, no color," Lovell reported. "Looks like plaster of Paris, or sort of a grayish deep sand." Borman described it as "vast, lonely, forbidding," a "great expanse of nothing that looks rather like clouds and clouds of pumice stone."

But it was only when they turned their camera away from the moon and back to the heavens that the full emotional impact of their achievement began to sink in.

"Oh, my God," Anders gasped, "Look at that picture over there!"

"What is it?" asked Borman.

"The Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty."

Rising above the horizon, over a bleak and barren lunar surface, was the world they had come from, a delicate marble of blue and white, floating alone in the darkness, home to everyone and everything they or anyone had ever known -- "the most beautiful, heart-catching sight of my life," Borman later said, "one that sent a torrent of nostalgia, of sheer homesickness, surging through me." It was like a glimpse of Creation -- like seeing the Earth as God Himself might see it.

For their Christmas Eve broadcast from lunar orbit, which would be seen by more viewers than had ever watched any broadcast, NASA had instructed the astronauts simply: "Say something appropriate." And so, as half a billion people watched and listened 40 years ago this week, they did. Anders began:

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth; and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,' and there was light. . .

Lovell took up the reading after Anders:

And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. . .

Then Borman brought the broadcast to an end:

And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering-together of the waters called He seas. And God saw that it was good.

"And from the crew of Apollo 8," Borman finished, "we close with, Good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you -- all of you on the good Earth."

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

(To those who cannot see the pictures I apologize.  The don't always come through with copying so please use the links to see them.)

Remember when that was a buzz phrase and even had a recording?  Last Saturday Mark and I attended Jennifer's graduation as a dental asst at the Fox Theater.  It was pretty crowded as the graduation was for the entire Kaplan School and people were saving big blocks of seats for families.  There were a lot of children as you'd expect at an adult graduation.  The aisles were busy with people scrambling for places to sit when along came a woman pushing a stroller.  I commented to Mark what  total lack of common sense would prompt someone to bring a stroller into a place crowded with limited seating.  He just grinned and said "Here's your sign."

I had to laugh since I hadn't hear that in ages but there's more.

A couple right behind up had a daughter graduating and they had their grandson who appeared to be about three.  He refused to sit still and the woman was frantically trying to calm him down.  Finally, at her wits end she said "if you don't sit down I'm going to blister you and I don't care what your mother says."  I had to laugh and turned to her and said "my kinda gal."  It was obviously an empty threat but funny to hear another  saying I hadn't heard in ages.  (it was me and my seat he was banging into so I sort of had a vested interest.)

And there's more.  The husband of the frustrated grandmother kept getting cell phone calls....and answering them in a booming voice.  After he'd hang up, the lady would lean over and ask "who was it?" so he'd have to explain.  At one point he said something to the effect of "where am I?" and Mark said "you're at a graduation."  I don't know if the guy heard him or not but the temptation to turn and say "here's your sign" was almost overwhelming.

Luckily the dental school went first and as soon as Jen crossed the stage Mark and I beat a hasty retreat to the lobby to get out of the crush of people.

What about you folks?  With the holidays and the out and about shopping going on you're bound to have some funny stories.

People (even on the blog) have been saying "give US the money, THAT will stimulate the economy.

BETTER THAN A BAILOUT

By Jeff Jacoby

The Boston Globe

Sunday, December 14, 2008

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

     During last week's battle over a federal rescue for Detroit's automakers -- after a deal had passed the House but before it collapsed in the Senate -- the Gallup Organization summarized its latest findings: “Bailouts Aren't Increasing Consumer Confidence.”

     To put it mildly. More than 60 percent of Americans now rate the economy “poor”; a whopping 82 percent expect economic conditions to get even worse. “Americans seem to be suffering from so-called ‘bailout fatigue,’” Gallup observed, “opposing not only the auto bailout, but also the original $700 billion financial-institutions bailout. . . .What has been happening in Washington, D.C., has seemed to do little to boost consumer confidence and may be doing just the opposite.”

     It’s no wonder Americans are dispirited. For months they’ve watched the Bush administration, congressional Democrats, and the Federal Reserve fling hundreds of billions of dollars at this economic crisis. Yet the more Washington has spent, the worse the crisis has grown.

     Unemployment is at a 26-year high. Stocks are in the dumper. Sales are tumbling. Retirement funds are bleeding. The deepest recession since World War II is underway, and Washington seems to think that the way to make things better is to keep pumping out staggering amounts of money it doesn’t have for the relief of powerful corporations like Citicorp, AIG, JP Morgan Chase, and Fannie Mae.

     No one actually knows how much all these “bailouts” will eventually add up to, but Bloomberg calculated recently that Americans are on the hook for as much as $7.7 trillion. Other estimates go even higher. The investment website Fool.com puts the total amount pledged -- “the combined total of existing and announced outlays from the Federal Reserve and from US government agencies that are directly attributable to the financial crisis” -- at nearly $8.6 trillion.

     This is spending on a gargantuan scale, far and away the largest outlay in US history. Granted, some of it is for loan guarantees that may never be needed. But there is also no guarantee that these mammoth commitments will do anything to revivify the financial markets. They haven’t yet and show no sign of doing so anytime soon. So, yes, Americans should be dismayed. The government’s bailout-and-stimulus frenzy is driving the national debt to stratospheric levels -- remember, this is all borrowed money -- while doing little to invigorate the economy.

     US Representative Louie Gohmert has a better idea. The third-term Texas Republican proposes to strip Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson of his authority to spend the $350 billion remaining in the $700 billion bailout fund Congress created in October. Instead of being doled out to well-connected banks and Wall Street investment firms, the money would be used to finance a two-month federal tax holiday for every American taxpayer.

US Rep. Louie Gohmert

     Each month, Americans pay about $101 billion in personal income taxes, plus $66 billion in Social Security and Medicare withholding. So a two-month reprieve from these taxes would actually cost less than the $350 billion left in Paulson’s bailout pot, Gohmert points out, “but it would provide significantly more relief to taxpayers as well as a greater economic boost.” Giving Americans two months off from paying federal income and payroll taxes would prove a far more potent “stimulus” than any plan dreamed up by Treasury aides and Capitol Hill bureaucrats. Anything a few hundred Washington operatives can do with that bailout money, 150 million American workers and entrepreneurs can do better, faster, and smarter.

     “Imagine,” says former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who backs the Gohmert proposal, “how many people could pay down some of their debt, how many will be able to rebuild some of their retirement funds, how many . . . might start a new business or expand their existing business.” And all without the need for bureaucratic oversight or centralized control.

     Granted, a two-month tax holiday isn’t ideal. The best economic medicine right now -- the best way to stimulate new spending, investment, and saving -- would be a permanent reduction in marginal tax rates. Once upon a time, this would have been the natural Democratic prescription; as President Kennedy explained in 1962, “the most direct and significant kind of federal action aiding economic growth” is to “reduce the burden on private income and the deterrents to private initiative which are imposed by our present tax system.”

        & nbsp;   Alas, the politics of the Democratic party have changed since then. Gohmert understands that a Democratic-controlled Congress isn’t going to enact long-term tax relief, so he isn’t pushing for it. But those bailout funds have already been legislated; the only question now is how they should be spent. Would we be better off plowing the money into new corporate welfare for mortgage lenders and insurance giants? Or leaving it in the hands of the men and women who earned it, to be used as they deem best?

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

Thought I'd use CNN instead of Fox because we all know Fox just makes these things up.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POL...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POL...

Merry Christmas EVERYONE.  Share with your friends.

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

It's sad when a dog tries to save it's friend when no human would even stop to see is they were ok.

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

Not saying they should have run out on the freeway but could have stopped when they were at the side of the highway.

All I've heard on here is how legalizing (or turning a blind eye) to open marijuna use will eliminate organized crime and get rid of the drug lords.  The Netherlands are frequently touted as an example.  I found it interesting that when they decided to clean up "areas" they closed part of the pot shops.

That in itself didn't catch my eye as much as the admittance that drug use, prostitution, peep shows, contibute to the crime rate.  I've been saying that all along.  You've got to have rocks for brains if you think legalizing it will halt crime.

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

OBAMA CAN FIX EDUCATION

By Jeff Jacoby

The Boston Globe

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

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

     If money were the key to great education, Sasha and Malia Obama might be getting ready to transfer next month to the Francis-Stevens Education Center, the Washington, D.C., public school assigned to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., which will be the girls' new address as of Jan. 20.

     The District of Columbia, after all, boasts one of the most amply funded school systems in America. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the DC public schools spend roughly $13,700 per pupil. That is a level of funding more lavish than in 48 states -- only New Jersey and New York spend more -- and half again as generous as the national per-pupil expenditure of $9,150. And even that may be understating it: When all sources of funding for K-12 education are accounted for, notes Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute’s Center for Education Freedom, the real per-pupil costs of the D.C. public schools is $24,600.

     But bigger budgets, alas, don't guarantee educational excellence. Its abundant spending notwithstanding, D.C.'s public school system ranks among the worst in the nation.

     “In reading and math, the District's public school students score at the bottom among 11 major city school systems, even when poor children are compared only with other poor children,” The Washington Post reported last year. According to the authoritative National Assessment of Education Progress, only one in seven fourth-graders is ranked at grade-level (“proficient”) or better in reading and math. Among eighth-graders, only one in eight is proficient in reading; only one in 12 can handle eighth-grade math.

     So to no one's surprise, the Obama girls will not be attending public school in Washington. Barack and Michelle Obama have decided to enroll their daughters in Sidwell Friends School, the same private academy that Chelsea Clinton attended when she was First Daughter in the 1990s.

     The president-elect has taken a bit of heat for rejecting public education for Sasha and Malia. Critics point out that Obama cast himself as a staunch supporter of public schools during the presidential campaign. “We need to fix and improve our public schools,” he told the NAACP convention in July, “not throw our hands up and walk away from them.” When Time magazine asked the candidates whether parents should be given vouchers to enable them to send their children to better schools, Obama’s reply was adamant: “No. I believe that public education in America should foster innovation and provide students with varied, high-quality learning opportunities.”

     Now in fairness to the Obamas, an ideological commitment to public schools hardly obliges them to send their kids to one -- especially when the local school system is as wretched as Washington, D.C.'s. The Obamas' first and deepest responsibility is to their daughters; to have enrolled the girls in the District's failing public system just to make a political point would have been appallingly irresponsible.       ;

     But in fairness to the critics, why doesn't Obama want other parents -- poorer parents -- to be able to do better by their children too? Candidates have been promising to “fix and improve our public schools” for decades, and for decades the schools have remained stubbornly mediocre, hefty spending increases notwithstanding. More promises won't do anything for the parents whose kids are stuck in the public schools Sasha and Malia will be spared. Vouchers, on the other hand, would.

 Artist's rendering of the Sidwell Friends middle school

campus in Washington, D.C.

    Not every school can be a Sidwell Friends, but every school ought to have something Sidwell Friends benefits from every day. Money isn't the root of Sidwell Friends' success. Neither is the size of its classes, or its well-appointed facilities, or its loyal alumni. Sidwell Friends thrives because it has competition -- and DC's public schools stagnate because they don't. Public education is essentially a monopoly, and monopolies tend to be expensive, unimaginative, and largely indifferent to their customers' satisfaction. Private and parochial schools, by contrast, cannot succeed if they lose the goodwill and confidence of the parents who choose them to educate their children.

     The DC school system spends $13,700 per student, and most of those students can't even read or do simple math. Imagine what would happen if that money were channeled to parents instead, through vouchers that would let them freely choose their kids' schools. Imagine the energy and innovation and diversity such competition would beget. Imagine the accountability and excellence it could lead to. Imagine the improvement in the lives of Washington's children. Imagine -- 54 years after Brown v. Board of Education -- achieving educational equality at last.

     Public education doesn't have to be a lethargic and mediocre monopoly. Let vouchers stimulate competition, and American education would be revolutionized. If that isn't change worth believing in, Mr. Obama, what is?

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

Cute story and video.

http://onthescene.blogs.fox...