Saving money

Well, here at la casa del bosque we are starting to work on preparing a trimmer budget for the coming year. Part of this has been inspired by listening to Dave Ramsey on the radio and to reading some internet commentary on the effectiveness of his program. Commentary like this story from Megan McArdle.

Part of what is inspiring this push towards explicit budgeting on our part is the simple fact that it feels really good to have control over one's money.  The idea of actually knowing what we are spending and then being able to account for those expenses at the end of the month is remarkably empowering.  We also want to start being more aggressive about saving money.  The idea of economizing and budgeting takes on particular salience in light of the fact that the economy doesn't look like it is going to be getting any better anytime in the near future.  Or as this op-ed puts it, we need to get ready to "hunker down."

I would like for us to be a position in a few years to be able to retire our mortgage.  We don't really carry all that much debt right now outside of the mortgage and a car payment (recently acquired).   It will be a challenge to submit to the discipline of a budget, but I am looking at this as an adventure in more deliberate and conscious spending and saving.

Who knows?  Maybe this summer I will be inspired to plant crops in my yard! 

Sarah Palin poll numbers versus President Obama's

Wow. Not good news for the Democrats. (Hat tip to Instapundit.)

Question:  if Palin's poll numbers render her unelectable, what do Obama's poll numbers say about his political viability from this point forward? 

Lindsey Graham's cross-examination of Eric Holder

Absolutely devastating:

Blog posting schedule

Given that my work-load is increasing for the next few weeks, I'm going to be posting less frequently but with more detailed post.  Less news-aggregation and more commentary.  I'm going to be posting at least twice a week, probably on Sundays and Thursdays.  So, keep checking back -- I'll be posting less in terms of raw numbers of posts, but the quality should be higher.

Two stories with commentary for Sunday

Ok, work went pretty well with weekend, and I had a little time tonight to surf the web and think about posting here at the blog.  Here are two stories that I ran across today and thought were well worth writing about a bit:

First story: is Darwinism unconstitutional? Atheist philosopher Michael Ruse -- an ardent critic of intelligent deign, by the way -- has published a strong critique of his fellow atheists.  It's well worth a read, and demonstrates a helpful point that the kind of nihilistic fundamentalism that has gripped the "new atheists" isn't synonymous with atheism as a whole. 

Ruse also makes a very interesting legal point in his argument, one that is worth taking a good look at:

If, as the new atheists think, Darwinian evolutionary biology is incompatible with Christianity, then will they give me a good argument as to why the science should be taught in schools if it implies the falsity of religion? The first amendment to the constitution of the United States of America separates church and state. Why are their beliefs exempt?

Ruse's point here is very insightful. If Darwinian evolutionary theory really is anti-religion, then including it in the public school curriculum is, it could be argued, constitutionally problematic. Supreme Court precedent precludes the state from showing either favor or hostility to religion. If Darwinism really is hostile to religion, then including it in state school curricula raises a major problem, as Ruse so insightfully points out.

Second story:  is America running out of steam?  This op-ed over at Newsweek argues that America needs to take the rising challenges from the developing world seriously.  Not much to argue with here.  The world is becoming a more competitive place, and there are systemic problems within the United States that make our continuing economic dominance less than guaranteed. 

The general culture has problems, particularly when it comes to encouraging hard work and the kind of thrifty virtues that help develop robust economies.  Our political class has not addressed critical problems like the national debt and our illegal immigration problem.  And our public schools are a disaster.  Add to this the rise of the developing world and the shift towards more market-friendly policies in places like Canada, and the trend for a decline in American economic power looks pretty clear. 

America has tremendous reserves and possibilities for renewal.  But for our country to remain the world-leader in technology and business innovation, we have to develop a range of policies that will put American development first and which will increase our global competitiveness. 

How likely is that to happen, though, given our current political leadership?  Victor Davis Hanson has some very interesting reflections on the kinds of corruption we are facing as a society regarding our public square.  As with almost everything he writes, it is well worth reading.  His conclusion is less than hopeful:

These are the most interesting of times: we are witnessing nothing less than an attempt in just 10 months to reinvent the United States at home and abroad into something it never was, led by someone who, the more soothing, comforting, and melodic his speech-making, the more bruising, cut-throat, and ruthless the act that follows.

So it’s like we’re living in the late Roman Republic…

That's not reassuring.  Ultimately, I'm an optomist when it comes to America.  But I have little confidence in the current leadership of our country. 

Blog break

Well, work is heating up and I have a major publishing project that I need to crank out in the next 6 weeks, so posting will be light for the next week or so, and maybe even longer.  I'm not going on hiatus or anything like that, but other things are requiring my attention right now.  Life keeps interrupting my blogging!  Oh well...

Is a major shift coming in legal education?

Sure looks that way.

Is China the rising economic power of the century?

The Western Confucian thinks not.   Well worth a read -- demographics is incredibly important when it comes to economic growth, and China is facing a major demographic problem thanks to its one-child policy. 

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below...


We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields...


Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields...

- Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918), Canadian Army.

Veterans Day

[Picture:  icon of St. Martin of Tours, patron saint of soldiers.]

Today is Veterans Day in the United States.  A brief overview of this civic holiday may be found over at Wikipedia.  Originally known as Armistice Day, the holiday began as a commemoration of the end of World War I.  After the Korean War, the holiday's title shifted to Veterans Day in order to honor all those who have served in the United States Armed Forces.

My own father was a veteran, having served in the Navy in both World War II and Korea.  Whenever he referred to "the war," he was talking about World War II.  His experiences in combat -- at Omaha Beach, Iwo Jima and Okinawa -- and in the post-war occupation of Japan (where he had seen the rubble at Hiroshima and Nagasaki) shaped him enormously.  Although he went through the war without so much as a scratch, his suffered greatly from his memories of battle.  From what I understand, that is not an uncommon thing for veterans who have seen combat, of which we have had an increasing number in the days since 9/11.

During this day of remembrance and gratitude, in addition to thanking any veterans we might know for their honorable service to our country, it might do well to offer up a prayer for all those who served, both the living and the dead, and those who have offered their lives and their well-being for the defense of our country.  One good prayer for this purpose is set forth in the Book of Common Prayer:

O Judge of the nations we remember before you with grateful hearts the men and women of our country who in the day of decision ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy.  Grant that we may not rest until all the people of this land share the benefits of true freedom and gladly accept its disciplines.  This we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.  

Today is also, interestingly enough, the feast day of St. Martin of Tours in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar.   Martin was a Roman solider who gave up his career in the Roman military two years after his conversion to the Christian faith.   Martin is the patron saint of soldiers, making his feast day a particularly fitting day upon which to celebrate Veterans Day.

St. Martin of Tours, pray for us and for all who have served honorably in the United States Armed Forces.

Quote of the day: America as a Christian nation

An interesting observation, built upon the expression of the idea that while America is a secular polity, that polity is built upon the bedrock of an essentially Christian culture:

America is a Christian nation; this is a matter of fact, not of opinion. Whether America will remain a Christian nation is matter for argument, perhaps: the creation of special rights for pathics, for instance, indicates that Christian morals are going by the board; and the prevalence of abortion, the deliberate destruction of one's offspring, is another suggestion that both Christian belief and Christian morals have begun to succumb to total religious indifference, if not yet to atheism. But if Christian faith and morals will be generally rejected by the coming of the twenty-first century, then probably the whole culture will disintegrate, the material culture as well as the intellectual and moral culture; and human existence here will become poor, nasty, brutish, and short: unless some quite new culture, which as yet nobody can imagine, should rise up. Any such unnameable innovative culture, to endure, would require some transcendent sanction, perhaps some theophanic event -- something more enduring than mere Marxist ideology, which was a violent attempt at a new faith and a new culture.

 - Russell Kirk, Renewing a Shaken Culture (1992).

Is China headed towards economic collapse?

I don't have a clue, but this story certainly raises the question. 

9th Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear case against San Francisco

Here's some welcome news, courtesy of the Religion Clause law blog. The entire 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to rehear a case regarding the City of San Francisco officially condemning the Roman Catholic Church's teaching regarding homosexuals adopting children. Here's the story: Religion Clause: 9th Circuit Will Rehear Catholic League's Suit Againt San Francisco En Banc.

Here's another story on the same case, courtesy of Citzenlink.

Two stories on the storm ahead for health care reform

Two key stories on trends that have the potential to undermine the Democrats' push for government-mandated health care reform:

• First, will the Left's commitment to government-funded abortion scuttle health care reform? Mark Shea thinks so.  (Hat tip to the Western Confucian.)

And:

• Second, is the middle of the middle class -- a family of four that makes $89,000 a year -- about to get slammed with a massive tax increase to pay for health care reform?  Terrence Jeffrey thinks so. 

Beltway Sniper scheduled for execution tomorrow

The Supreme Court has turned down his appeal, so the execution of the Beltway Sniper, John Allen Muhammad, is scheduled to be carried out tomorrow.  Michelle Malkin has the story. 

Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

Ilya Somin has a great reflection on the meaning of the fall of the Berlin Wall posted over at the Volokh Conspiracy law blog. As Somin points out, we shouldn't simply focus on the Berlin Wall when talking about the crimes of the communists -- the reds committed plenty of other, even worse attrocities:

I am somewhat conflicted about the status of the Berlin Wall as the symbol of communist oppression in the popular imagination. My reservations have to do with the underappreciated fact that the Wall was actually one of communism’s smaller crimes. Between 1961 and 1989, about 100 East Germans were killed trying to escape to the West through Wall. The Wall also trapped several million more Germans in a repressive totalitarian society. These are grave atrocities. But they pale in comparison to the millions slaughtered in gulags, deliberately created famines in the USSR, China, and Ethiopia, and mass executions of kulaks and “class enemies.” The Berlin Wall wasn’t even the worst communist atrocity in East Germany. As historian Norman Naimark has documented, Soviet occupation troops in East Germany raped some 2 million German women, executed thousands of political prisoners (only a minority of whom were Nazis or guilty of war crimes), and imposed extensive forced labor on much of the population.It is true, of course, that German troops committed comparable, and sometimes even greater, atrocities in the USSR. But the one set of wrongs in no way justifies the other. Forced labor and concentration camps continued on a substantial scale even after the Soviets established an “independent” East German state in 1949. Terrible as the Berlin Wall was, focusing on it as the main example of communist injustice may actually lead people to underestimate how awful that system truly was. It is a bit like portraying Kristallnacht or the Night of the Long Knives (both atrocities had death tolls comparable that of the Berlin Wall) as the main example of Nazi oppression, rather than the Holocaust.

It is important to remember the Berlin Wall and the lessons it teaches. But doing so is only one small part of the task of rectifying the longstanding neglect of communist crimes.

Obama opposes Stupak amendment, Democrats in a catch-22

The president has announced his opposition to the Stupak amendment to the House health care bill.  The Stupak amendment limits government-funding of abortion under the guise of health care.  Some reaction and additional news:

• This is sad news but not unexpected.  The abortion-industry has a strong grip on the Democratic Party, and unfortunately Obama seems all too willing to embrace the culture of death.  There is a small but significant portion of the Democratic Party which is pro-life but they are just barely tolerated within the Democratic Party by that party's leadership.  

• Some additional sad but not unexpected news:  according to this story a group of 41 Democratic lawmakers has announced that it will oppose the health care bill so long as it includes the Stupak amendment. 

• Megan McArdle thinks that the health care bill with the Stupak amendment is the best deal that the Democrats could get through the House.  Her reflections on the political realities of the situation is particularly insightful, I think.  
  

• Meanwhile, Adrienne over at Adrienne's Catholic Corner has a bunch of useful links posted on the Left's hysterical reaction to the Stupak amendment.  Well worth a read. 

• Over at the Legal Insurrection blog there's a very insightful post on the bind that the Democrats are in now.  It doesn't appear that they can pass health care reform because of the fight over government funding of abortion.  If they include government funding, they lose necessary votes.  If they exclude it, they lose necessary votes.  A classic catch-22.  
  

Sunday culture moment

U.S. Catholic bishops conference embraces Democrats' health care reform proposal

Here's the story.  This is disappointing beyond words.  The bishops, for some reason, simply seem unable to conceive of public policy solutions that aren't wedded to statism and coercive government power. 

This isn't a new problem with the bishops - Michael Novak once famously quipped that the bishops began with a preferential option for the poor and ended up with a preferential option for the state.

Update:   in the comments Adrienne from Adrienne's Catholic Corner points out that the story claiming that the bishops have endorsed the full health care bill is mistaken.  As she puts it:

That's not true, but in their usually convoluted way the USCCB has allowed people to get the wrong impression. Some bishop (can't remember which one) has already stated that they have not endorsed this bill.

All they have supported is the Stupak thingy and said they want some kind of health reform. Not once have they directly endorsed this bill.

 Adrienne has a post on this over at her own blog, available here.  

Same blog, new look

I've changed the look of the blog.  I hope you enjoy it!  I was looking for something a bit more simple, and I was inspired by Ann Althouse's blog...

Also, my major projects at work are done and things will quiet down now until the end of the month when the madness begins again.  Never a dull moment.  Anyway, now that things are kind of back to normal, I hope to post some more involved posts than what I've been doing.  I've been posting a lot of news posts, linking to stuff on other blogs, etc.  I'd like to do some more thoughtful commentary-style pieces of my own in the near term.  I've got a bunch of stuff I'd like to write about, so material isn't a problem.  The problem is finding the time to post!