Must Be Global Warming

The forecast for the Tulsa area is calling for 3-6 inches of snow between now and Saturday afternoon. That would be March 27 and 28...a full week into Spring. I sometimes wonder how long the religion of global warming can continue in the face of so much evidence that it's based on a completely false premise.

Worth a Thousand Words

Remember this the next time you hear President Obama talk about how he wants to reduce the deficit. To put it bluntly, he is lying through his teeth. If I spend $10,000 more than I make this year and only $5,000 more than I make next year, I have cut the deficit in half...but have I improved my situation? Not exactly. We are in deep trouble.

Notre Dame, Mary and President Obama

The leadership of the University of Notre Dame has sparked a firestorm with their decision to invite President Obama to give the commencement address at this year's graduation ceremony and to confer on him an honorary degree. This decision is almost incomprehensible.

President Obama opposes everything that the Catholic Church believes about the value and sanctity of life. He has backtracked on many of his promises from the campaign, but the one area in which he has stuck to his commitments unwaveringly is in the area of abortion.

I am not a Catholic, but I deeply respect the commitment of the church--though sadly not most of their politician members--to defending the unborn. But now their flagship school is turning away from the truth in pursuit of what exactly? Political acceptance? Favor with the media? Government funding? What Notre Dame is doing in honoring a radically pro-abortion president goes against what the Scripture says.

And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda; And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth. And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Luke 1:39-43

Look at this carefully--before Jesus was born, just days after He was conceived of the Holy Ghost, Mary was already a mother. There can be no clearer statement of the pro-life case than that. Too bad the school named for her isn't as committed to life as President Obama is to abortion.

Not Exactly the Second Coming of FDR

Obama has frequently compared our current economic situation to the Great Depression. And he has been compared by many commentators to FDR who is often (wrongly) credited with responding quickly to end the Great Depression. (Hitler deserves much more of the credit for starting the big war that really ended it.) But comparing Obama to FDR is fatuous. Here's just one quick example.

When FDR took office with a banking crisis ongoing, he acted immediately. He declared a "bank holiday" closing all the banks in the country for a few days until emergency measures could be put in place. But look at Obama. On February 9th, he promised his Treasury Secretary would have the details of his plan to save the banks "tomorrow." On the 10th Geithner went before Congress and said instead the specifics would be coming "soon." Now Time Magazine says maybe by April 10.

Oh and while we wait for action, tonight the FDIC took over the two largest credit unions in the nation due to their massive losses in real estate. In all of 2008, 25 banks went under...today's closings bring this year's total to 19...and it's still March.

Not Ready for Prime Time

It's been a(nother) bad week for the President. In addition to floating the idea that soldiers injured in combat should have to use their own insurance to pay for care for their wounds (somehow despite all of John McCain's flaws I don't think he would disrespect our wounded warriors like that), he compared AIG to a suicide bomber that he wanted to "talk" into taking his finger off the trigger (and boy is that Freudian) and word that the thoughtless 25 DVD box set he gave British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is made up of DVDs that won't play on DVDs made in England. Brilliant. Now he's taken a slap at the Special Olympics and/or the disabled while trying to make a joke about his bowling skills.

Wow. It's this kind of self-inflicted injury that a person would expect from a callow, inexperienced man who's never held a serious full time job in his life. Oh wait...

President Obama and the Culture of Death

If you pay attention to the news, you already know that President Obama has overturned President Bush's limits on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, and expanded the scope of what is acceptable to include cloning embryos specifically to destroy in "research" (Dr. Mengele call your office). But it's much, much worse than that.

That same executive order banned all funding of research into adult stem cells. Adult stem cells have two significant differences from embryonic stem cells. First, there is no moral or ethical issue with the use of adult stem cells. Second, adult stem cells actually work! So far embryonic stem cells only cause cancer, but adult stem cells are already being used to treat a number of diseases. To recap, they work and present no moral quandary. So why would the President stop funding for adult stem cell research?

The answer is in this post from Big Lizards. Go read it. And weep for our nation.

Happy Birthday Dad

I have been privileged with an incredible father, and I wanted to mark his birthday today. Faithfulness is the hallmark of his life--to God, to his family, to his country and to his employer. Many times he has not received the honor that his work deserved, but someone I have a feeling that will all be straightened out one of these days. He is a man of honor and a man of God. I am challenged every time I think about his life. And when I need someone to pray for me, he is the first one I call. Practical wisdom, incredible Bible-teaching, powerful praying, godly example: Truly I am blessed to be his son.

The best way I know to say it is this: if he had been in the church in Jerusalem when Acts 6 was written, they would either have picked eight men, or they would have left one of the other guys out.

Random Ramblings

Mr. Obama has been President for 50 days and it feels like forever.

Spring football practice starts this week. Roll Tide.

The first two rounds of the NCAA tournament is the craziest four days in all of sports. Even for those of us who are intelligent enough to prefer football can get into four days of roundball.

Oklahoma is the "reddest" state in America--every county voted for McCain over Obama.

When your youngest child is no longer a teenager, you feel old, whether you are or not.

Best line I've heard about the new administration so far: "I expected the Obama Presidency to be a train wreck; I just thought they'd leave the station first."

The Democrats used the economic downturn in 1982 to gain 35 seats in the House. The GOP used the health care debacle and Clinton's tax hikes to take over the House in 1994. The Dems used the war in Iraq and the economy (and boy does it sound funny looking back to hear what they were saying about the economy then) to take it back in 2006. Twelve year cycles would mean we're still 10 years away from returning sanity to Washington. Hope it doesn't take that long.

Ben Franklin supposedly told a woman who asked him what kind of government the Founding Fathers had established at the Constitutional Convention "a republic--if you can keep it." I'm afraid we're seeing that question answered before our eyes.

Puppies are fun (but not at three in the morning).

The book is better than the movie.

I Guess His Pay Grade Got Raised

During the campaign, Mr. Obama famously told Rick Warren that saying when life beings was "above my pay grade."

Since taking office, he has:

Overturned the Bush, Bush and Reagan-era ban on taxpayer funded abortions overseas by repealing the "Mexico City" rule,

Overturned the "conscience exemption" that allows medical personnel to refuse to provide abortions and related "health" services,

Overturned Bush's limits on federal funding of embyronic stem cell research.


Doesn't sound like he's having too much difficulty making those life and death, or more accurately death and death decisions does it?

Remember this--every Christian who voted for the Abortionist in Chief has blood on his or her hands. We knew this was coming. You just didn't care.

Yes, It Can Get Worse...and I Think it Will

How did people feel in the fall of 1929? Things were getting shaky well before the great crash of late October that launched the Great Depression. But most people thought things would quickly straighten out.

Since it became apparent that Mr. Obama would win the White House late last September, the stock market has declined more than 4000 points. The decline has accelerated since he took office. Banks are failing at a rate of two per week, and the many of the ones that remain in operation are technically insolvent. (UPDATE: Today we found out that the FDIC has asked Congress for 500 billions dollars to cover more bank failures. That's billion with a b--half a trillion bucks!) Unemployment is rising. And the President wants to go in the red nearly two trillion dollars in the next year alone...and our freespending Congress is quite likely to oblige him.

Things are bad, but they can get a lot worse.

Just as FDR's New Deal deepened and lengthened the Depression, Obama's massive government expansion and tax increases will strangle any recovery. The open question is whether he intends to destroy the economy to force greater dependence on government or if he is just completely clueless to the way the real world works. Trillions of dollars of wealth have vanished, but trillions of dollars of debt remain. This could well prove to be a major economic collapse; and perhaps even a depression.

In evaluating the current situation, remember this historical fact. The stock market collapse of 1929 was the beginning of a long term trend. The Dow Jones Industrial Average did not regain its 1929 price level until 1954. How does 2032 work for your recovery plans?