Finally, another member of the 1% Club. In case you don’t recall (and why would you, frankly?), membership in the 1% Club is awarded to that very small minority of people in this world who, unlike the rest of us, aren’t full of bovine excrement when they speak and/or write.

Our newest member is CLS, of the blog Classically Liberal, who has brought some sense to the mass confusion regarding the latest government created crisis (which of course, can only be solved by, you guessed it, the government).

Here’s a snippet, but please, do go read the whole thing:

Good God, didn’t this man [Henry Paulson] take a basic Econ 101 course sometime in his life or is he intentionally ignoring market fundamentals for other reasons? First, lets get rid of the absurd idea that this crisis is one of “market failure”. Markets are doing precisely what they are supposed to do — when a good is overpriced markets correct that price and bring it down.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if George Bush ends up being a hero because the government is bailing out all these failing companies to avert a financial meltdown, and John McCain, who was implicated in the last big financial meltdown (for you young folks, it was a little thing called the Savings and Loan Crisis), winds up winning the White House as a result?

So apparently, the only person who has both sense and money in this country is Warren Buffet, because while everyone else is selling, he’s snapping up stocks and companies at a huge discount. He will then wait for the market to move back up again, and sell at a huge profit.

Sure the government is doing essentially the same thing in bailing out the AIG’s of the world, but since the government has no money (it’s OUR money), and isn’t acting out of sense but rather out of election year desparation, I don’t include them in the same category.

Thank you Don Pardo.

The category is “Current Events” . . .

And the answer is: WATERBOARDING

What is “Stuff that couldn’t persuade me to watch one second of either the Democratic or Republican National Conventions”?

A doubleheader today, both from the always excellent Positivity Blog

“The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.”

– Ram Dass.

Pain is unavoidable in life. Suffering is however optional.

– Henrik Edberg

This time on the economy, from Lew Rockwell at the Mises Institute.

Money quote:

Sometimes the bad news is the good news. So it is with the report
that retail sales are down by 0.1 percent in July, the sharpest drop in
many months.

Why good news? It means that consumers are starting to cut back.
They could be going into less debt. They might be saving more. They are
being more careful about long-term plans pending short-term trends.

These are all preconditions for recovery. It’s only bad news if one
adopts the crude theory that economies are sustained by consumer
spending.

I wouldn’t describe myself as a ‘born contrarian’, but, to be sure, life has conspired to make contrarianism (if there is such an adjective) second nature to me. So, when I started reading the accounts of the “Russian Invasion of Georgia”, I wondered what the real story was. I mean, come on now, I’m a fairly well-educated man (for an American), but I’d never heard of either South Ossetia or Abkhazia before; why are they all the sudden front and center on the world stage?

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of Vladimir Putin, nor of his puppet Medvedev. I don’t condone rolling tanks across borders and bombing foreign cities. But, since we’re only getting one side of the story, by and large, I wanted to know more. This being the Internet age, naturally, there are more sources to avoid than there are to seek out, but I think Justin Raimondo’s take on the situation is a good start.

Essentially, Mr. Raimondo names Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili as the one who has been waging war against South Ossetia and Abkhazia for years, and denying those to areas the freedom and independence Georgia was able to gain from Russia after the fall of Communism. He also points out that Mr. Saakashvili’s tactics are more in line with Soviet-era leadership than with 21st century democracy: jailing political opponents, shutting down opposition press, banning dissenting political parties . . . you know, all that good Stalinist stuff.

Keep in mind, also, that Mr. Raimondo is no reporter. He is an advocate, and makes no apologies for that. But, at least he admits he is an advocate, which is more than the Mainstream Media are willing to do (as I think the fact that the National Enquirer had to break the John Edwards story, while papers like the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times went out of their way to ignore it, illustrates quite nicely).

Anyway, as I said, don’t paint me as a Pro-Putin Russia apologist, but let’s not pretend that we’re getting the whole story from the “news”, either.

From Dawn Eden’s Blog:

“The Catholic word is ‘Cross.’”

Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.

– Albert Einstein

TOP FIVE MOVIE LINES:(Not of ‘all times’ or anything like that, but rather in my own particular and admittedly odd view of great 20th Century cee-nee-ma)

• “You keep using that word . . . I do not think it means what you think it means.”

(Mandy Patinkin in The Princess Bride)

• “You know, black and white would capture the moment so nicely”

(John Cusack in Sixteen Candles)

• “John Dillinger was killed behind that theater in a hail of FBI gunfire. You know who tipped them off? His F*****g girlfriend . . . all he wanted to do was go to the movies.

(John Cusack in High Fidelity)

• “He said to me: When you die, on your deathbed, you will receive . . . Total Consciousness. So I got that goin’ for me . . . which is nice.”

(Bill Murray in Caddy Shack)

• Rooster Cogburn: “I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned, or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker’s convenience . . . which’ll it be? Ned Pepper: “I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man” Rooster Cogburn: “Fill your hands you sonofabitch!”

(John Wayne and Robert Duvall in “True Grit”)

“Cowardice … is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination.”

– Ernest Hemingway

The losing of things is of the mercy of God; it comes to teach us to let them go.

–George MacDonald

And probably the correct one.

A Snake Eating Its Own Tail

New stuff over at my Blawg. Including a post about the horrible decision by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in the Bank Julius Baer v Wikilinks case.

Hello and Welcome, to another episode of MisconceptionBusters.

MisconceptionBusters . . . It’s not as fun as MythBusters, but just as important.

Today on MisconceptionBusters, we look at the idea that Wal-Mart is evil, through the eyes of a Canadian writer who makes a good argument that Wal-Mart deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

Money Quote:

On the basis of the evidence, it is impossible to argue that [2006 Peace Prize Winner Muhammad] Yunus or [2002 Peace Prize Winner Jimmy] Carter have done more than Wal-Mart to alleviate poverty.

“MythBusters” is a trademark of Discovery Channel LLC. MisconceptionBusters is not associated with MythBusters in any way shape or form, and is in fact a cheap ripoff. The views expressed on MisconceptionBusters are soleley those of DaveTown
Industries Inc, and do not represent the views, necessarily, of any other person, corporation, robotic android, animal, vegetable, or mineral. Unauthorized use, rebroadcast, or retransmission of MythconceptionBusters, without the express written consent of the Commissioner of Baseball, the Commissioner of the National Football League, and Commissioner Gordon of Gotham City, is strictly prohibited.

Ron Paul’s “Plan B”

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Not nearly as entertaining as MythBusters, but just as Important.

Today’s episode of MisconceptionBusters comes from the pen of Archbishop Donald Weurl of the Archdiocese of Washington DC, and speaks to one of those things we Catholics do that lots of people don’t understand properly: The Sacrament of Reconciliation (or, if you’re old school - Confession).

We know that only God has the power to forgive sins, but it was Jesus Christ, God and man, who entrusted to his Apostles the administration of that grace. We cannot presume to know God’s reasons, but perhaps he chose to use human instruments so that we would receive not only forgiveness, but also the assurance of that forgiveness by hearing it from the lips of someone acting in the person of Christ. As Jesus declared to Saint Peter: “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19).

This power to forgive sins is often referred to as “the power of the keys.” Saint Augustine pointed out that the Church “has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven so that, in her, sins may be forgiven through Christ’s blood and the Holy Spirit’s action. In this Church, the soul dead through sin comes back to life in order to live with Christ, whose grace has saved us” (Sermon 214).

Before offering absolution, the priest imposes a penance which is suited to the person and the nature of the sins committed. This penance is certainly not understood to achieve our forgiveness or to offer adequate satisfaction to God for the sins we have committed; it is a token of our sorrow and a remedy in our own soul for the disorders caused by sin (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 1459).

Also, and as a bonus, another misconception . . . This one deals with Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras.

First, there were no cheap beaded necklaces in the Bible; I think all scholars agree on this point.

Second, the point of Fat Tuesday is not to go sin as much as possible right before Lent so you can “get it all in” or “get it out of your system”, as the case may be.

Though, truth be told, I understand the sentiment.

See you next time for another exciting episode of MisconceptionBusters.

“MythBusters” is a trademark of Discovery Channel LLC. MisconceptionBusters is not associated with MythBusters in any way shape or form, and is in fact a cheap ripoff. The views expressed on MisconceptionBusters are soleley those of DaveTown Industries Inc, and do not represent the views, necessarily, of any other person, corporation, robotic android, animal, vegetable, or mineral. Unauthorized use, rebroadcast, or retransmission of MythconceptionBusters, without the express written consent of the Commissioner of Baseball, the Commissioner of the National Football League, and Commissioner Gordon of Gotham City, is strictly prohibited.

This is without a doubt the best thing I’ve ever read on the subject of anger. It’s really no surprise it comes from the pen of Mark Shea

For righteous anger is not sin if we use it as God intended: as fuel for the engine of moral action. Anger only becomes a sin when we do not put it in the gas tank of action, but instead pour it on ourselves and others and set it on fire. Then it consumes us. The use of anger, like the use of gasoline, is not to bathe in it and drink it, but to turn it toward pursuing the redemptive, active love of God.

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. . . Cyberspace, where judgment and
condemnation flow like wine.

– Mark Shea

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Christocrats?