Right Mind

Total Credit Market Debt

HT: Doug F.

Yes, There Are Conservatives in Hollywood

Here are 70 that are willing to admit it.

Maher vs. God: 'Religulous' flays organized faith

This is the first I heard of this coming down the pike.

From the Associated Press:

Bill Maher has taken his crusade against religion to the big screen.

Maher, who has been picking on organized religion for years on his TV shows "Politically Incorrect" and "Real Time," zealously traveled the world for "Religulous," his documentary challenging the validity and value of Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths.

Raised in a Roman Catholic household by a Catholic father and Jewish mother, Maher decided at an early age that the trappings and mythology of the world's religions were preposterous, outdated and even dangerous.

"Religulous," directed by fellow doubter Larry Charles ("Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan"), is intended to inspire similar skepticism in others — and perhaps get nonbelievers to talk more openly about their lack of faith.

"I'm not looking to form an anti-religion religion. That would defeat the purpose," Maher said in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, where "Religulous" played in advance of its theatrical release Friday. "It's the nature of the people who are not believers that they're individuals, they're individualistic. They don't join and all lock arms and say, `We all believe this and so it must be true because we have strength in numbers.'"

The numbers Maher and Charles really hope to grab are general audiences simply looking for a fun night at the movies.

Maher, 52, who started mocking religion back in his early standup comedy days, has no misconceptions that "Religulous" will shake people's lifelong convictions to the core. He's mainly looking for laughs such as those the film elicited from the enthusiastic crowd at its Toronto premiere.

HT: Jeff M.

Bush: Free Market Experiment a Success, Done

From Scott Ott over at Scrapple Face:

President George Bush this morning, in calling for rapid Congressional approval of a $700 billion takeover of mismanaged sectors of the financial industry, declared American free market capitalism “a successful experiment which is now over.”

“The Founders’ instincts were correct,” said President Bush, “The invisible hand of free markets has succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations, lasting more than 225 years. Like all experiments, however, once the data is in, you write your paper and then you shut down the laboratory. That’s what this legislation is designed to do.”

In a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House this morning, President Bush handed the symbolic keys of the U.S. economy to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, whom he called “the man I’ve picked to make the invisible hand of capitalism visible at last…to put a human face on the formerly-intangible U.S. economy.” 

Obama Steps Up to Solve Financial Crisis

From Scott Ott over at Scrapple Face:

Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL, in an effort to demonstrate the leadership qualities which will make him a great president, today offered his own proposal to defuse the current financial crisis in the wake of yesterday’s failure of the Bush-Pelosi financial-sector bailout plan.

“The House rejected the bailout because folks don’t trust [Treasury Secretary] Hank Paulson — a complete stranger — to manage the distribution of $700 billion in taxpayer money,” said Sen. Obama. “My plan calls for putting in charge of that cash pile someone the people of the world can trust — namely me, Barack Obama.”

The Barack Obama Modified Bailout plan would place the same virtually-untrammeled powers in the hands of a man who has already earned the peoples’ trust by distributing tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to consultants, caterers and charter airlines.

Sen. Obama said that once given the authority, he would start to stabilize markets by ensuring the election of Democrats who have received large campaign contributions from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other financial giants.

“Those investments are at risk if Democrats lose in November,” said Sen. Obama. “Uncertainty is the enemy of free markets. By using part of the $700 billion to guarantee that Democrats own Congress and the White House, credit markets will loosen up and money will flow freely again. Then we can return to the days when the news wasn’t dominated by bad mortgages, imprudent investments, and irresponsible CEOs escaping accountability. People don’t want to hear that stuff. My plan will help them recapture their bliss.” 

Eating A Crap Sandwich

Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

Moscow's Liberal Bigots: Bigotry Is As Bigotry Does

A religious bigot is one who persecutes someone for their religious affiliation.

The left love to accuse conservatives of being bigots.

But my experience since moving to The People’s Republic of Moscow has been just the opposite. I never saw the religious bigotry in central California that I’ve seen here in Moscow. Moscow is way over the top, even by the bluest of blue state standards.

Here are some examples.

Bill London and his progressive buddies started the Moscow Civic Association to take over the City Council, rescuing it from “a politically-active minority with a religious-right agenda”. We saw where that got us under the Chaney/Ament reign of terror — businesses running across the state line and a tremendous loss in revenue for the City of Moscow.

Recall when Nick Gier referred to a local evangelical congregations as “neo-Nazis”?

Recall when the lefties put out a “black list” of Christ Church businesses to boycott?  

Jim Fisher (editor, Lewiston Tribune) noted of Moscow’s liberals that ”You hear some talk about how certain people are "buying up everything" and trying to "take over town," and it isn't long before the word "Jews" starts echoing in your head.” Check out his article Moscow's religious bigots now have a little list.

That was the same sentiment that boycotted business owner Francis Foucachon made — only bigots boycott a business because of someone’s religion.

Fisher’s and Foucachon’s letters made such a stink with Moscow’s progressives that they immediately floated to the surface to defend their bigotry:

• Keely Mix came out in defense of bigotry.
• Rose Huskey bemoaned French Whine.
• Joan Opyr defended boycotting Christ Church businesses simply because of the owner’s religious affiliation.
• Melynda Huskey’s defense of bigotry.  

And of course, you have Rose Huskey making a list of which Christ Church members have lived with whom for the last eight years.

And Aaron Ament’s famous comments of referring to New Saint Andrews College students as androids.

And Bill London defending the writing of “Hitler Youth” in front of New Saint Andrews as “legitimate” speech (his word).

I could go on and on, but that is enough to bring me full circle to today.

Keely immediately jumped on a UI student’s question at an open forum hosted by NSA, assuming that the student was from NSA because she asked a question Keely thought was stupid.

The point here -- at the Nuart yesterday -- is that it says very little, while saying a lot, about what NSA students are learning when this poorly phrased, inane, and inflammatory question was put to local women and men running for local offices.  I don't intend to humiliate the young woman; I consider her part of a failing culture and a faulty curricula, and I imagine she knows no other.

And Keely tries to rationalize this as a factual error, not a moral one.

Good luck with that. Re-read that quote above. It’s laden with moral overtones, presuppositions, and religious bigotry.

• It would be like living in a highly Hispanic area of town, and when Keely reads of a car being stolen she were to jump to the assumption that it was done by a Mexican. When proven wrong, she says “oh, I was factually wrong; but that’s not a moral error. That’s the way Mexicans are”.
• Or if she were to live in a highly black area of town, and when Keely reads of a stabbing or a murder she were to jump to the assumption that it was done by an African-American. When proven wrong, she says “oh, I was factually wrong; but that’s not a moral error. That’s the way blacks are.”
• Or if she were to live in Moscow, and when Keely hears a question asked that is “poorly phrased, inane, and inflammatory”, she jumps to the assumption that it was asked by a New Saint Andrews student. When proven wrong, she says “oh, I was factually wrong; but that’s not a moral error. That’s the way NSA students are.”

Priceless.

Which goes back to the original sentence: a religious bigot is one who persecutes someone for their religious affiliation. Defending boycotts because of someone’s church affiliation; saying that someone asks stupid questions because of the college they are attending (“I consider her part of a failing culture and a faulty curricula, and I imagine she knows no other”) — yes, that’s the ugly face of religious bigotry in Moscow, Idaho.

Bigotry is as bigotry does. And it is plain to me that bigots are blinded to their bigotry and can justify and rationalize anything.

Ah, Remember the Day

Four years ago, when gas was at $2.90, Democrat Nancy Pelosi said electing the Democrats we would get gas back to $2.49 a gallon.

—Howard Miller

Pirates die strangely after taking Iranian ship

Makes you wonder what the cargo really was.

Chemical? Biological? Nuclear?

From the South African Times.

A tense standoff has developed in waters off Somalia over an Iranian merchant ship laden with a mysterious cargo that was hijacked by pirates.

Somali pirates suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill “within days” of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died.

Andrew Mwangura, the director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, told the Sunday Times: “We don’t know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died. There is something very wrong about that ship.”

The vessel’s declared cargo consists of “minerals” and “industrial products”. But officials involved in negotiations over the ship are convinced that it was sailing for Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia’s Islamist rebels.

US Congress passes 25 bln loan guarantees to automakers

Why is the US government involved in bailing out failing companies?

The Dems always complain that the US government is in bed with corporations. It sure appears that’s the case since we’re willing to throw 25 billion here and 700 billion there.

By the time all of this corporate give-away is done, it’ll be over a trillion dollars.

Why not let economic Darwinism have its way, and allow failing companies (even if it is General Motors) go the way of the dodo bird?

And why is this $25 billion tied to war spending?

From Breitbart:

The US Senate Saturday approved 25 billion dollars in loan guarantees for the financially strapped US auto industry, intended to spark a wave of automotive innovation.

The loan guarantees were included in a continuing resolution that included funding for the US government and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President George W. Bush has indicated that he intends to sign the bill.

"We're very pleased Congress has chosen to act at this critical time," said Greg Martin, director of communications for General Motors Corp's Washington office.

GM had been subject of much speculation that it could be forced into bankruptcy.

The bill, which was approved by the House of Representatives on Wednesday, are the first loan guarantees for US carmakers since Congress approved a similar 675 million dollar measure for Chrysler Corp. in 1980.  

Jihad declared against Mickey Mouse

Dedicated to Nick Gier, who still cannot tell the difference.

From the U.K. Telegraph:

Sheikh Muhammad Munajid claimed the mouse is "one of Satan's soldiers" and makes everything it touches impure.

But he warned that depictions of the creature in cartoons such as Tom and Jerry, and Disney's Mickey Mouse, had taught children that it was in fact loveable.

The cleric, a former diplomat at the Saudi embassy in Washington DC, said that under Sharia, both household mice and their cartoon counterparts must be killed.

Mr Munajid was asked to give Islam's teaching on mice during a religious affairs programme broadcast on al-Majd TV, an Arab television network.

According to a translation prepared by the Middle East Media Research Institute, an American press monitoring service, he said: "The mouse is one of Satan's soldiers and is steered by him.

"If a mouse falls into a pot of food – if the food is solid, you should chuck out the mouse and the food touching it, and if it is liquid – you should chuck out the whole thing, because the mouse is impure.

"According to Islamic law, the mouse is a repulsive, corrupting creature. How do you think children view mice today – after Tom and Jerry?

"Even creatures that are repulsive by nature, by logic, and according to Islamic law have become wonderful and are loved by children. Even mice.

"Mickey Mouse has become an awesome character, even though according to Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed in all cases."

Last month Mr Munajid condemned the Beijing Olympics as the "bikini Olympics", claiming that nothing made Satan happier than seeing females athletes dressed in skimpy outfits.

Voddie Baucham on Sarah Palin, Evangelicals, and Women's Roles

It starts at the 1:00 point.

HT: Doug F.

33 Pastors Flout Tax Law With Political Sermons

Recall my previous post: Ban on Political Endorsements by Pastors Targeted.

It looks like some pastors are going to cause a 1^st Amendment review by the SCOTUS.

At question: can the government regulate free speech by blackmailing with taxes?

And what’s the difference between churches being tax-exempt and being tax-free?

And how does this figure in historically with the practice of “election day sermons” done during the first 150+ years of this country?

From the Washington Post:

Defying a federal law that prohibits U.S. clergy from endorsing political candidates from the pulpit, an evangelical Christian minister told his congregation Sunday that voting for Sen. Barack Obama would be evidence of "severe moral schizophrenia."

The Rev. Ron Johnson Jr. told worshipers that the Democratic presidential nominee's positions on abortion and gay partnerships exist "in direct opposition to God's truth as He has revealed it in the Scriptures." Johnson showed slides contrasting the candidates' views but stopped short of endorsing Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain.

Johnson and 32 other pastors across the country set out Sunday to break the rules, hoping to generate a legal battle that will prompt federal courts to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.

The ministers contend they have a constitutional right to advise their worshipers how to vote. As Johnson put it during a break between sermons, "The point that the IRS says you can't do it, I'm saying you're wrong."

The campaign, organized by the Alliance Defense Fund, a socially conservative legal consortium based in Arizona, has gotten the attention of the Internal Revenue Service. The agency, alerted by opponents, pledged to "monitor the situation and take action as appropriate."

Each campaign season brings allegations that a member of the clergy has crossed a line set out in a 1954 amendment to the tax code that says nonprofit, tax-exempt entities may not "participate in, or intervene in . . . any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office."

This time, the church action is concerted. Yet while the ministers say the rules stifle religious expression, their opponents contend that the tax laws are essential to protect the separation of church and state. They say political speech should not be supported by a tax break for the churches or the worshipers who are contributing to a political cause.

So the government violates the first amendment because these churches are calling abortion and infanticide murder, and pointing out the established platform of the Party of Death.

I will love to see this one go to the SCOTUS. The 1954 IRS tax amendment is long-due to be overturned.

You're Going to Have to Trust Us...

"Plan For Change" Translated

DHS Fights Thought Crime

According to New Scientist, The Department of Homeland Security’s Directorate of Science and Technology is

“developing a system designed to detect ‘hostile thoughts’ in people walking through border posts, airports and public places.”

Sounds like a Minority Report to me.

I feel safer already…

Mises is Vindicated

Neil Cavuto admits that Ron Paul was right about the financial mess we are in.

But Ron Paul is simply the political face to the Austrian economic system that's finally seeing the light of day.

Obama Wants NRA Ads Banned

Via Newsmax:

The Obama camp has been threatening television and radio stations to keep them from airing anti-Obama ads.

The latest target is the NRA and stations in Pennsylvania.

Earlier this week, the National Rifle Association's Political Victory Fund released a series of radio and television spots to educate gun owners and sportsmen about Barack Obama's longstanding anti-gun record. In response to the NRA-PVF ads, a clearly panicked Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) are doing everything they can to hide Obama's real record by mounting a coordinated assault on the First Amendment.

They have gone to desperate and outrageous lengths to try to silence your NRA by bullying media outlets with threats of lawsuits if they run NRA-PVF's ads.

The Obama camp is particularly angry with an NRA ad entitled "Hunter" which lays out Obama's record on gun control.

You can see the "Hunter" ad -- Go Here Now.

Other NRA ads include "Way of Life" and another focusing on Joe Biden's record, "Defend Freedom, Defeat Obama."

This week, Obama's campaign general counsel Bob Bauer wrote seeking to censor the ads at stations in Pennsylvania.

HT: Dave S.

Brisingr

For many years, #1 son and I have made it a point to read aloud to each other.

We’ve done this with Harry Potter from the beginning as well as Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings.

In fact, we were at my brother’s on the back-side of Yosemite when Order of the Phoenix was released. We drove down the mountain to Fresno to buy the book at a midnight release party. And we stayed up all night reading it to each other. We were under the gun because we were coming back to Moscow the following day, and the rush was on to finish the book before I had to start driving.

Just this afternoon we finished reading the third book in Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Series: Brisingr.

This is an excellent series, and I highly recommend it to you. We didn’t like Eldest as much as we liked Eragon, but we thought that Brisingr was the best of the three. Paolini has a Rowling-like way of returning to what appears to be inconsequential incidents and making them significant.

Paolini is an excellent writer. I’m amazed at how well he writes for one so young. He wrote Eragon when he was 15 years old. And it was good enough to be turned into a movie.

And the books are even more fun to read aloud because of the alliterations and twist of phrases that he uses — many which would be completely missed by reading it silently to yourself.

We Are Under Martial Law! As Declared By The Speaker Last Night!

From Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas).

Idaho's Most Influential Political Blog for 12 Weeks Running

I just happened to check the stats over at Blog Net News.

Right-Mind continues to be the #1 Most Influential Political Blog in the State of Idaho for 12 weeks running.

Many thanks to all of my readers.

And a special thanks to Tom Hansen, Keely Mix, Bill London, Nick Gier, and the rest of the Venom2020 crowd, who do more to drive readers to this site and increase my rankings than any other group of readers.

You guys say things that I could never make-up on my own.

• Like Tom Hansen, referring to the Wal-Mart Greeters: “Why doesn’t the Co-Op have a psycho welcome guy?”
• Like Keely Mix defending Obama’s “temperate and reasonable” view of abortion and infanticide.
• Like Bill London, defending hate speech because it’s directed against New Saint Andrews College.
• Like Nick Gier, who cannot see a difference between Evangelical Christians and Islamic jihadists.

Keep those great quotes coming, gang!

Keely: Wrong Again, but Perhaps Unintentionally Right?

Tom Hansen posted a video from the NSA Candidate’s Forum on Friday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvkg42Aw9c8

In that video, a young lady asks a question about Islam to those seeking public office.

Here are a few tidbits for the background context:

• This was a public forum, open to the entire public. Anyone could attend. Anyone could ask a question.
• The young lady asking the question is not an NSA student.
• The young lady asking the question has zero ties with NSA, Christ Church, Trinity Reformed Church, or any other associated ministry.
• The young lady who attended the public forum is a UI student.

Now take all of those facts and run it through Keely’s bigoted framework:

The point here -- at the Nuart yesterday -- is that it says very little, while saying a lot, about what NSA students are learning when  this poorly phrased, inane, and inflammatory question was put to local women and men running for local offices.  I don't intend to humiliate the young woman; I consider her part of a failing culture and a faulty curricula, and I imagine she knows no other.

Knowing that she’s a UI student with zero ties to NSA, should we agree with Keely that this young lady is “part of a failing culture and a faulty curricula, and I imagine she knows no other”?

I wouldn’t say such things about the University of Idaho’s culture and faculty. But it cracks me up that Keely would.

Yes, this is a typical bigoted response that Moscow has become accustomed to from Keely Mix.

William F. Buckley Quote of the Day

“I’d rather be ruled by the first 500 people in the Boston phonebook than the faculty at Harvard University.”

—William F. Buckley

Congress Pushed Fannie, Freddie In Wrong Direction During 1990s

From the front page of Thursday’s Investors Business Daily:

It was October 1992, nearly 15 years before the housing meltdown and subprime crisis. Republican Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa was on the floor of the House, talking about something that no one at the time seemed to care about: the potential danger that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac posed to the economy.

In remarks later reported by the Washington Post, Leach warned that Fannie and Freddie were changing "from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the stockholding few."

Leach's prescient comments went unheeded — indeed, Congress spent the next decade and a half avoiding the alarms going off around Fannie and Freddie. Until, that is, it was too late.

Led by top Democrats, including Rep. Barney Frank in the House and Sen. Chris Dodd in the Senate, Congress not only did nothing about the growing risks at Fannie and Freddie, it in essence doubled down on their risks.

The Democrat-led Congress of the early 1990s eased capital limits on the two mortgage lending giants, letting them use enormous leverage — 2.5% of assets at Fannie and Freddie, vs. 10% for banks — to expand lending to low-income, minority communities.

You can finish reading the entire saga here.

There’s plenty of blame to go around. But the IBD lays is squarely in the laps of the Dems.

And I would blame the Republicans for not undoing what the Dems did when in power. But it’s hard to rein-in when everything looks like it’s working great.

The Diversity Recession, or How Affirmative Action Helped Cause the Housing Crisis

Rightfully laying the blame on the bipartisan social reengineering crusade done in the name of the god of multiculturalism.

From Taki’s Magazine:

Uncovering the roots of the disastrous home mortgage bubble that popped last year will keep economic historians busy for decades. Yet, one factor has so far been largely overlooked: the bipartisan social engineering crusade to drive up the rate of homeownership by handing out more mortgages to minorities.

More than a negligible amount of the blame for the mortgage meltdown can be traced back to multiculturalism: government-mandated affirmative-action lending, demographic change, illegal immigration, and the mind-numbing effects of political correctness.

The chickens have finally come home to roost.

About half of all mortgages for blacks and Hispanics are subprime, versus roughly one-sixth for whites. Not surprisingly, the biggest home price collapses have occurred in heavily Hispanic cities such as Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.

The mortgage bubble was essentially a bet on the purportedly increased creditworthiness of the bottom half of the American population. After three decades of the home ownership rate stalling at around 64%, a series of federal initiatives to increase minority and low-income ownership helped push the rate up to just below 70%.

Time to go back to that 20% down expectation.

And if you can’t afford a house now, save up until you can.

HT: Carpe Diem

Obama's 15-Point Lead on InTrade

InTrade currently gives Obama a 15–point lead.

Obama took a bump after last night’s debate.

InTrade is normally pretty good for getting the odds right, though they totally missed the Palin pick.

Guess again who's to blame for U.S. mortgage meltdown: Analysts point not to greed, but to social activist politics

Let politicians meddle with social reengineering, and they will screw everything up.

Stan J. Liebowitz is an economics professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. In Housing America: Building out of a Crisis, his take is "not consistent with the nasty-subprime-lender hypothesis currently considered to be the cause of the mortgage meltdown."

Now this from World Net Daily:

"In an attempt to increase homeownership, particularly by minorities and the less affluent, an attack on underwriting standards was undertaken by virtually every branch of the government since the early 1990s," Liebowitz writes. "The decline in mortgage underwriting standards was universally praised as 'innovation' in mortgage lending by regulators, academic specialists, GSEs and housing activists."

"Although a seemingly noble goal, the tool chosen to achieve this goal was one that endangered the entire mortgage enterprise. As homeownership rates increased there was self-congratulation all around. The community of regulators, academic specialists, and housing activists all reveled in the increase in homeownership."

This on top of Daniel Henninger’s quote in the WSJ:

Politicians will bend to any new wind that blows through, but this past week of financial turmoil has shown there's a strong whiff in the air for the values of the greatest generation. This was the 20% generation. In the post-war years, young couples knew they'd somehow have to save 20% of the down payment on a home mortgage. That's thrift, an archaic word I think is still in most dictionaries.

It used to be that people got rich the old fashioned way — slowly and working hard for it.

Congress thinks that they can make people wealthy by passing laws that supersede the Law of Supply and Demand.

Again, no big surprise here. Leave the “invisible hand” alone, and it will do its thing.

HT: Mark Perry

Krauthammer: Turning Good Renters into Bad Homeowners

This is from Charles Krauthammer over at TownHall:

For decades, starting with Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, there has been bipartisan agreement to use government power to expand homeownership to people who had been shut out for economic reasons or, sometimes, because of racial and ethnic discrimination. What could be a more worthy cause? But it led to tremendous pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- who in turn pressured banks and other lenders -- to extend mortgages to people who were borrowing over their heads. That's called subprime lending. It lies at the root of our current calamity.

More examples of government meddling leading to calamities.

If the feds would just leave their hands off of the market, these things would take care of themselves.

Kissinger: McCain is Right, Obama is Wrong

In The Weekly Standard, Henry Kissinger reacts to what Barack Obama and John McCain had to say in tonight's debate about dealing with adversaries:

“Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality.”

Does any swing voter care what Kissinger thinks?

Credit Default Swaps: The Next Crisis?

Time Magazine, among many others, are discussing Credit Default Swaps.

If you haven’t heard of these (and you probably haven’t), check it out.

This appears to be the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

HT: Bill J.